Category: I-phone

The Webby Awards are being voted on this week, and along with the usual website and advertising divisions, there’s now a “Mobile and Apps” category. As you might expect, there are plenty of iOS games and apps represented on the ballots. iPhone favorites Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja are nominated for Handheld Games, and lots of our other favorite apps show up as well, including MLB At Bat 2011 and the Marvel Comics App under Tablet Entertainment apps, Flipboard under Tablet News, and Dropbox under Services.

In short, if you’re an iPhone user, there’s lots of good choices for you to make over there right now. Voting runs through April 28, and then the award winners will be announced on June 13. We’ll keep an eye out for them and let you know who walks away with the Webbys.

Webby Awards nominate iOS games and apps originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wondering what the guts of the new iPad 2 dock look like? iLounge dove in to the nitty gritty, and it turns out that there were a few surprises, actually. While the docks may look like pieces of plastic (and indeed, at just around $30, they could be about that), iLounge figures that Apple puts the same amount of thought into its accessories as it does into what they’re supporting. In each stand is a solid piece of metal that makes it so weighty, not only holding it down on the bottom, but actually curved up to support the iPad as it stands. And iLounge says it was “harder to get these Docks apart than any of the first three or four iPods,” which means Apple built these things sturdy and to last.

In terms of actual computer hardware, as you might guess, there’s not a lot — just a few chips for functionality like authentication and of course iPad synching. In fact, the iPad 2 dock, says iLounge, has more empty space than the first dock, even though the actual design is a little more compact than before. That likely means that Apple has been thinking about the dock not just as a computer add-on, but as an actual stand for the iPad — a bigger dock base makes it sturdier while holding the iPad up.

Very interesting stuff. Bonus: With that big metal block inside of it, the iPad 2 dock might come in handy if you ever need to face down a home intruder!

The iPad dock disassembled by iLounge originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To me, there’s nothing more fun than hearing the doorbell ring as a box is delivered by my friendly FedEx, UPS, or USPS driver. More often than not, they’re delivering a piece of hardware or an accessory for me to test, and that makes a lot of days seem like Christmas morning. The rest of the time, the TUAW staff is braving a flood of app announcements, many of which are for really incredible apps.

That’s why today’s TUAW TV Live will feature some live app demos and I’ll also be showing you some of the hardware that’s in the studio awaiting review. From your Mac or PC, go to the next page by clicking the Read More link at the bottom of this post, and you’ll find a livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments.

If you’re driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you’re stuck in traffic, please don’t — keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream Viewing Application. If you’re on an iPad, you should be able to use the Skyfire Browser to watch the stream, although you will not be able to participate in the chat.

We’ll start at about 5 PM ET, so if you’re seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you’ll be able to view it later this evening on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the new TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.

Continue reading TUAW TV Live: Big hardware, cool apps

TUAW TV Live: Big hardware, cool apps originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A job posted by Apple last week suggests the company plans to expand its portfolio of “cloud-based” products and services, AppleInsider reports. According to the job description, the “Cloud Systems Software Engineer” will join a “small team” to “explore the far reaches of the possible,” build “the future of cloud services at Apple,” and form the foundation for the company’s “exciting new products and services.”

The job listing reveals nothing about Apple’s specific plans for future web applications or services. The ideal candidate will likely be deeply involved with building internal systems for sharing data across Apple’s family of cloud products. By asking for applicants that can collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams and have experience constructing highly scalable software powered by a variety of data management systems, it looks like the Cupertino-based company wishes to add muscle to the core APIs that power its online products and services.

Apple currently offers a suite of web products and services called MobileMe for US$99.00 per year. Many, including The Wall Street Journal, speculate the company plans to dramatically enhance these services later this year. There’s also the beta iWork.com, which has been in beta since 2009.

[via AppleInsider]

Apple publishes job posting for “Cloud Systems Software Engineer” originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A couple of videos from the announcement of Final Cut Pro X last night have leaked out online, and you can watch them on the next page for as long as they stick around, though I’m not sure who would have the claim on these. As you would expect, the announcement shows off all the new features of the software, including the spiffy Content Analysis features, the audio track analysis, and just how fast and smooth this thing is. It really is very impressive.

Part one is mostly a presentation, while part two gets more into a demo of the (very iMovie-like, actually) software. If you’ve been intrigued by what you’ve heard of Final Cut Pro X so far, these two videos are definitely a must-watch.

Continue reading Unofficial videos of Final Cut Pro X arrive online

Unofficial videos of Final Cut Pro X arrive online originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many years ago when my wife and I were looking for the perfect house, I used to pore over the floor plans that home builders would create. While it was often difficult to translate the lines that designated the walls and doors of the house into a three-dimensional representation of what the interior actually looked like, the floor plans were helpful in at least getting an idea of how foot traffic would flow and where we could place furniture when we could afford it.

A French-Canadian development company, Sensopia, has just released an app that takes the work out of creating floor plans. Sensopia’s MagicPlan works with on iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch. To build a floor plan, you go into each room and take a picture of each corner of the room. By doing that, MagicPlan measures the walls and doors in the room, and creates a floor plan of each room. You then slide the rooms into their proper location by dragging them on the screen, and MagicPlan aligns the rooms and manages the thickness of the walls. Finally, furniture and photos can be added to show what the actual house or apartment looks like, and geotagging information is attached.

The app is free for download, and the free version provides you with a watermarked non-commercial use JPEG, PDF, or a version that is uploaded to a website for viewing. For US$4.99, the watermark is removed and the floor plan is available for commercial use. For US$9.99, Sensopia throws in six months of web hosting — the latter is useful for real estate agents who want to show off floor plans and photographs to potential home buyers.

There’s a video on the next page showing how this innovative app works.

Continue reading MagicPlan app magically creates interactive floor plans

MagicPlan app magically creates interactive floor plans originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Ask TUAW, your favorite weekly question-and-answer column. Now, we can never have too many questions, so please, go to the comments of this post and ask away. To get fabulous answers, we need your fabulous questions. You can also email your questions directly to ask [at] tuaw.com, or ping us on Twitter.

Now, off to the questions!

Mandojustin is frustrated by Safari on his iPad:

On my iPad, pages sometimes auto-refresh when returning to them, either during page-switching or when opening Safari. What’s up with that? Can it be turned off?

When using Google Reader, I’ll often check out a link and then decide I want to keep that item unread until later. However, when I go back to the page with reader open, the refresh makes the item disappear. I know I can go back and find it, but this is rather annoying.

Continue reading Ask TUAW: iPad browser refreshing, iPhone headphones, laptop upgrades and more

Ask TUAW: iPad browser refreshing, iPhone headphones, laptop upgrades and more originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today on TUAW TV Live, I’ll be demonstrating some apps, showing off a big (6 TB) external drive, and talking about the Blue Yeti Pro microphone. I also have some new and unique products to show off that I’m not going to tell you about until this afternoon. Why? Because one of them is under embargo and I also want to keep viewers in suspense.

The show will begin at 5 PM ET / 2 PM PT / 10 PM BST and run about one hour. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you’re unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure.

TUAW TV Live at 5 PM EDT: Apps, big drives, and monster mics originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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App designers love to sketch out designs of possible UI layouts. Over the years, we’ve seen stacks of iPhone and iPad templates printed out in book form to be used for drawing dream user interfaces, and now a company called UI Stencils has come out with a great way to do brainstorming of iPad displays.

They’ve developed an iPad Dry Erase Board (US$24.95) with the dimensions of an iPad, complete with a 20-pixel grid for helping you align UI elements in their appropriate places. It comes with black and red dry erase markers, although if you’re really artistic you might want to head on over to your nearest office supply store and pick up a spectrum of colors.

The back of the iPad Dry Erase Board has a handy guide to standard icons, device interactions, physical gestures, navigation icons, and more. While some app designers might turn away from the concept of using a dry erase board to capture app layouts because they can’t use it to make a permanent record of their design brainstorming, I can personally see using this along with the camera on an iPhone or, dare we say, and iPad 2 to keep track of revisions along the way.

[via Swissmiss]

iPad dry erase board for sketching app designs originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The venerable Volkswagen Bus has been remade for the next millennia and the updated version of the hippie bus is now earth-friendly and technologically savvy. A concept version of the van, now called the Bulli, was showcased by Volkswagen at the Geneva International Motor Show held in March. The van is smaller than its microbus predecessor and seats six within an interior that includes two full-length bench seats. The van also includes an electric motor capable of 90 miles of run-time with a 4-cylinder gas backup and an integrated interface made specifically for the iPad. All you Apple-loving, Birkenstock-wearing, sustainable living folk may want to keep a watchful eye to see if this concept makes it from drawing board to showroom floor.

[Via Dvice]

New VW Bus concept comes with iPad interface originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to IDG News, Intel announced yesterday that Thunderbolt developer kits would be making their way out to manufacturers within this quarter, opening up development for the fledgling standard. The technology, previously known by its code name ‘Light Peak,’ began shipping on the 2011 MacBook Pro line, replacing the mini DisplayPort socket of the previous iteration.

The fully backwards compatible specification, which was announced on the 24th of February this year, encompasses both DisplayPort and PCI Express in a dual-channel, high-speed interconnect. Promising speeds of up to 10Gbps along copper cables, there’s a lot of potential for products that require high-speed connections but a minimum amount of cables.

Companies including Canon, Matrox, AJA, LaCie and Western Digital have shown off products already, but none have made it to market as yet. Intel is hoping that by distributing developer kits, they can get a plethora of Thunderbolt-connected products hitting the shelves quickly, not just external hard drives, which is great news for MacBook Pro users.

The holy grail of the one connector to rule them all maybe a little ways off just yet, but with a bit of luck we’ll start to see some decent uses for Thunderbolt, short of the standard DisplayPort connection, in the very near future.

Intel distributing Thunderbolt developer kits this quarter, more peripherals on the way originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the FCPUG SuperMeet at NAB yesterday, Apple unveiled Final Cut Pro X, the latest iteration of its non-linear video editing application. The new version includes such features as color management, background rendering, improved keyword and metadata support, and a magnetic timeline that lets you move clips around without trim collisions with other clips. Apple confirmed the application would launch in June for a rock bottom price of US$299.

Talking to The Loop, Apple also confirmed that this NAB presentation was just a sneak peek of Final Cut Pro. The Cupertino company promised there was more to come for the other applications in the Final Cut Pro Studio Suite which include Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro. Speaking of sneak peek, The Loop was able to get its hands on some official screenshots of the application in action. We embedded one above and you can point your browser to The Loop’s website get a closer look at the UI of this upcoming version of Final Cut Pro. Anyone looking forward to June so they can get their hands on FCP X?

Apple says “stay tuned” for other Final Cut Studio apps, shows The Loop screenshots originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One area that Apple needs to address is the iOS home screen, which uses icons and badges to display information instead of the more informative widgets used by its competitor, Android. While many apps resign themselves to this limitation, a weather app by International Travel Weather Calculator pushes what is possible with a clever use of the iOS notification system.

We are all familar with the red iOS badge that displays the number of missed calls or unread emails on your home screen. The Fahrenheit – Weather and Temperature on your Home Screen app takes advantage of this notification system to display the temperature on your home screen. It’s a clever use of Apple’s built-in system that does not run afoul of the App Store guidelines.

The rest of the weather application is feature-rich and includes location-based weather forecasts, support for multiple cities, astronomical data, like sunrise and sunset times, and extra weather information, like rainfall amounts, humidity and wind direction. An in-app upgrade lets you add rain radar, satellite maps and wind charts to the application. The Fahrenheit – Weather and Temperature on your Home Screen app is available for US$0.99 from the App Store. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Weather app uses notifications to display info on home screen originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are any number of online file storage and backup options these days — Amazon’s new Cloud Drive, perennial favorite Dropbox and Mozy, which I’ve been using for simple backups. So it’s good to hear that Mozy has now released an iOS client that will allow you to view your files stored on its servers.

The app has some limitations, unfortunately. Most notably that it’s restricted to the US and Canada, although a worldwide version has been promised. Also, it only works with MozyHome accounts (a version for MozyPro is on the way), and can’t decrypt any backups you’ve encrypted with your own private key.

If you use Mozy in North America, give the free iPhone or iPad app a try and let us know how you get on with it in comments.

Mozy releases iOS client originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many games on the App Store seem to emphasize gaming expertise more than anything else. Either you need to know the genre of the game you’re playing, or your fingers just need to be fast enough to win. Look Again! is an interesting contrast to either of those scenarios because it challenges your brain’s pattern recognition skills more than anything else. You’re given a graphic consisting of two design elements, and it’s up to you to figure out which two elements make up the graphic. Like all good puzzlers, things start simple but get increasingly more complicated, even as your brain trains itself to better recognize what’s going on.

The presentation’s not incredible (the colors are a little weird), but it serves its purpose. There are over 250 levels, full Game Center integration, and the app was recently updated to work on both the iPhone and the iPad. Look Again! is currently available for US$1.99 on the App Store. If you want an iPhone game that runs at a different speed, check it out.

TUAW’s Daily App: Look Again! originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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