Category: I-phone

Flying Meat introduced version 3 of its popular Acorn image editor today, adding a number of featuring including layer styles, text and live multistop gradients, rotating text and shapes, quick mask, instant alpha channels, new filters, improvements to PSD importing as well as adding PSD exporting and more. Full release notes can be found on Acorn’s website.

Acorn 3 requires OS X 10.6 or later and is available for trial/purchase through its website or on the Mac App Store for $29.99 for the next week, then will return to $49.95. Users upgrading from Acorn 2 can do so for $19.99.

We’re planning an in-depth review of Acorn 3 for later this week to take a look at all the new features. So stay tuned for that!

Acorn 3 released, adds quick masks, layer styles and more originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Pieceable has introduced an online tool that lets iPhone developers offer a preview of their application to prospective customers. The tool, called Viewer, uses Flash to display a version of the application that can previewed using a web browser. Developers can easily implement this service by adding a line of Pieceable-specific code to their iPhone app compiling the app for the Xcode iOS Simulator (rather than an actual device) and uploading their application file to Pieceable’s website. Pieceable will generate a web link to your app that you can share with others. The tool only supports iPhone apps; a future version will add support for the iPad.

Pieceable is a premium service, but a free trial is available that lets you share one application for one hour with one person at a time. A Pro version costs $60 per month and lets you share an unlimited number of applications for an unlimited amount of time with ten simultaneous viewers. If you need something in between, Pieceable offers a Basic plan that lets you upload five applications for an unlimited amount of time with three simultaneous viewers.

Similar tools already exist for Android. Bluestacks recently launched a Windows-based viewer for Android applications and Amazon’s new Android Appstore lets users demo select applications from within their web browser. While Android developers have options to offer online and desktop demos of their applications, Pieceable’s Viewer is the first such web service for iOS devices.

[Via GigaOM]

Pieceable lets iPhone developers demo apps in a browser originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Flickr image by tpholland

I’m pretty convinced every time an analyst opens his or her mouth about Apple and we post it, a kitten is eaten by a bear somewhere*. This week’s “Wacky Analyst Random Rumormongering” comes from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek who claims that Apple is about to launch “a new far reaching cloud-based service” based on video. Oh, really? Let’s examine the reasons why we are visiting fantasyland, shall we?

At least Business Insider was so bold as to say this is “informed speculation,” although that’s pretty much what these analysts do, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the speculation appears to have happened in a brushed-aluminum vacuum chamber, where Apple is capable of setting terms with media companies and ISPs at-will and everyone works in a completely ego-free marketplace — but none of those things are true in reality. Besides, the “streaming media” speculation has been around ever since this data center had a concrete foundation.

Misek claims the data center is going live soon and that Apple will build others around the world. Plus, he says this data center is “too big” for mere music. Well, we knew the data center would go online this Spring, since Apple told us all this in a quarterly earnings call. The part about building more around the world is pure speculation. Apple uses Akamai for caching, so why bother with more data centers so soon? It’s possible, but I see no evidence considering how long it took them to build this data center. Then again, Apple Retail has had a meteoric rise… As for the thing being “too big” for video, what about software services? This isn’t just about storing petabytes of data, this is also about uptime, scaling and keeping monstrous amounts of data intact. You know, like email and calendars and possibly office documents.

Continue reading Don’t hold your breath for an Apple video streaming service

Don’t hold your breath for an Apple video streaming service originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Aqua interface has been a staple of Mac OS X since version 10.0, but now it appears that Apple is toning down the aqua appearance of its operating system in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. As you can see from the screen shot above, Apple has removed a lot of the aqua trimmings from drop-down menus, they’ve also taken the pill-shaped aqua buttons and given them a more flat, rectangular appearance.

In addition to the changes above, Lion has also stripped out OS X’s aqua scroll bars and replaced them with iOS-like scroll bars which fade away when not in use. The white pill button found in the upper-right corner of a Finder or app’s window, which shows or hides a window’s toolbar, has also now been replace with a full screen button.

I’m a fan of the new look myself. I’m glad Apple hasn’t totally abandoned the aqua interface, but it’s nice that they’ve toned it down. If you want to see more of the subtle changes listed above, click on over to AppleInsider, which posted the above images.

Mac OS X Lion to tone down the Aqua originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

A recent survey by Google-owned AdMob found many consumers are spending more time on their tablets and less time sitting at their personal computers, using their smartphones, watching television, listening to the radio, or reading paper books. The survey highlights the rapidly shifting habits of customers in a tablet market AdMob expects will reach 165 million devices over the next two years.

Among the 1,430 tablet owners who participated in the survey, 77% admitted to spending less time with their personal computers after buying a tablet, 43% said they now use their tablets more than their personal computers, and 28% claimed to use a tablet as their primary computer. Most tablet users, 68%, spent at least 1 hour each day with the device, primarily for playing games (84%), searching for information (78%), or email correspondence (74%).

The survey results didn’t reveal any future buying decisions, but these new usage patterns may suggest a near future in which consumers spend less time and money on notebook and desktop computers. Are you spending less time at your personal computer since getting an iPad or other tablet device? Will it make you less likely to buy a notebook or desktop machine in the future? Let us know in the comments.

[via BGR]

Survey illustrates iPad’s effect on PC market originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

If you’ve ever laid eyes on a Palm Pre smartphone, you know that one of the features that makes its owners excited is how the phone is charged; it’s simply put on top of a charger called a TouchStone and the battery is topped off via inductive charging. There’s no need to plug a charging cable into the device itself.

Mobee Technology’s Magic Bar is designed to perform a similar inductive charging task, except not with a phone. Instead, it’s designed to keep your Magic Trackpad and Apple Wireless Keyboard topped off with power.

The US$59.99 Magic Bar won’t be available until late June, and works by replacing the batteries in the wireless keyboard or trackpad with a rechargeable battery cylinder. When your Mac begins squawking about your keyboard or trackpad needing new batteries, you slide the interface device into a dock that looks similar to the TwelveSouth MagicWand. Through induction, the battery cylinder is recharged, after which time you can pull the trackpad or keyboard out of the dock.

The Magic Bar is powered through a standard USB connection, so it doesn’t require a separate power brick. I’m frankly perplexed by the product, since it adds yet another USB cable to the back of a Mac and would take up space on a desktop. It’s also twice the price of the $29 Apple Battery Charger, which takes the minimalist approach to “green power” by providing six rechargeable batteries and a tiny plug-in recharger.

Still, the Magic Bar will likely get the attention of those who are impressed with the concept of inductive charging. Pre-orders begin on May 15, 2011.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

Mobee Magic Bar offers wireless charging for Magic Trackpad, Apple keyboard originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

It was 50 years ago today that the son of a Russian farmer rocketed into space and became the first man to orbit the earth. Yuri Gagarin’s 108 minute trip in his Vostok spacecraft ushered in the era of manned space flight, as the US followed up with the Mercury, Gemini, and later the Apollo missions to the moon. In 1975 the US and Russia stopped competing and began the Apollo-Soyuz missions. Joint missions continue today on the International Space Station.

To celebrate the event, Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and iPod touch is free today only. The app is a pretty complete star map, with 130,000 stars, 88 constellations and the Messier catalog of galaxies, nebula and star clusters. I’ve reviewed the app in the past and found it a worthwhile purchase. It’s even better for free. Author Mike Smithwick produced one of the first computerized star map programs way back in 1985 for the Amiga 1000. Mike also produced Distant Suns 3 for the iPhone and iPad which is even more sophisticated and is designed for the iPhone and iPad. It’s on sale for US $4.99 today only.

A couple other astronomy app notes of interest. Star Walk, the award winning astronomy guide has been updated to include augmented reality. It activates the camera, and superimposes accurate star positions over the portion of sky you are pointing too. It’s very cool to use during the day too, because it will show you where the planets and other objects are that are made invisible by the sun. The iPhone version of Star Walk is on sale for $0.99 and that sale ends today. The app also now supports TV out on the iPhone 4.

Continue reading Distant Suns celebrates 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s epic ride with a free app

Distant Suns celebrates 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s epic ride with a free app originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office 2011 version 14.1 (Service Pack 1) is now available from Microsoft’s website. As announced on April 6, the update includes a variety of improvements to the new Outlook for Mac, including built in support for Apple’s Sync Services that allows users to more easily synchronize Outlook data with other Mac OS X software like iCal and BusyCal and devices like the iPhone and iPad through iTunes.

The update also includes the usual fixes for “critical issues” and patches a security vulnerability that could allow an attacker “to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code.”

Microsoft offers more details about the software update on its official Office for Mac blog. Even if the update isn’t showing in Office’s AutoUpdate utility yet, you can download the 246MB package here.

[via MacUpdate]

Microsoft releases Office 2011 Service Pack 1 originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Douglas asks how to upgrade his hard drive and clone his Mac and Bootcamp data to the new one. We discuss new hard drives, enclosures, and cloning processes.

Some resources for everyone:

• Carbon Copy Clone – More Info
• SuperDuper – More Info
• WinClone – Download
• Norton Ghost – More Info
• OWC – HD/Enclosure Upgrades

Any questions, please leave them in the comments or email us! Read on for the video.

Continue reading Ask TUAW Video Edition: Cloning Data

Ask TUAW Video Edition: Cloning Data originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The makers of the Eye-Fi Wi-Fi enabled SDHC memory cards have announced a new feature today — the ability to use Wi-Fi Direct Mode and special Eye-Fi mobile apps to transfer pictures from a digital camera to a mobile device when there’s no wireless network available. This was first announced back in January, and is finally about to drop.

A new 8 GB Mobile X2 card with the Direct Mode enabled will be available starting on April 17 for US$79.99, and a free firmware upgrade will be available to owners of existing X2 Eye-Fi cards to add the capability one week later.

Direct Mode makes it possible, with the aid of new Eye-Fi apps for iOS and Android, to simply take photos with a digital camera and have them uploaded to the mobile devices in seconds without the need for cables. I’m personally happy about that, since I find the Apple Camera Connection Kit dongles extremely easy to lose (and they’re not exactly inexpensive).

With an iPhone (or Android phone) in your pocket and an Eye-Fi Mobile X2 card in your camera, you can also make instant backups of your photos, even when you’re nowhere near a Wi-Fi network.

There’s a short marketing video on the next page courtesy of Eye-Fi.

Continue reading Eye-Fi Mobile X2 card and mobile apps enable Direct Mode transfer of pics

Eye-Fi Mobile X2 card and mobile apps enable Direct Mode transfer of pics originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Backing up is one of the most important things you can do on a Mac, and thankfully, it’s a pretty trivial affair with Time Machine built right in. Of course, when you’re looking at what needs backing up, people often overlook what doesn’t need backing up (or isn’t, but should be).

A good example of this would be a rented media file, like a TV show rented from iTunes. It’s only valid for 48 hours, so even if you do back it up, by the time you’ve restored your machine after a system failure, it’s unlikely to play anyway. In essence, it’s wasted space.

Thankfully, OS X has a built-in system of defining what should and shouldn’t be backed up using metadata, and for the most part, it happens under your nose without you even noticing. There are times when it would be useful to see what’s marked for backup and what’s not, however, and that’s where we turn to Terminal.

Continue reading Terminal Tip: Find out which files won’t be backed up

Terminal Tip: Find out which files won’t be backed up originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Just in time for the anniversary of the Civil War, History 3D for iPad brings the past to life. If you have a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses (the red and blue kind) handy, it gets even better.

There are two dozen pictures to view in black and white and anaglyph 3D. The 3D images were taken using cameras with two or four lenses for a stereoscopic effect. These 3D photos amazed me, and I consider US$.99 for the app well worth it for this bit of history.

The interface is great; it’s basically a storybook you can page through. Flip through the photos, and tap to bring up the story behind the photos. The 3D images created in the making of this app are being donated copyright-free to the Library of Congress.

You have to find your own 3D glasses at this point, but there will be links to stores which carry them on the support website soon. I definitely recommend commemorating this period in our history with a fresh look at the actual events of the Civil War. Check out a YouTube trailer, and pop over to the App Store to get your copy of History 3D.

History 3D brings the Civil War to life originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

We’ve looked at a few good note-taking applications for the iPad before, but I don’t think we’ve mentioned Notability yet. Notability is a simple yet powerful note-taking app for iPad that allows you to jot down notes in lectures or meetings, outline certain ideas and plans, or just collect your thoughts in an organized format. It’s a piece of cake to punch in text in a certain font or layout, then add all kinds of media, from web clips to diagrams. You can link up audio to your notes, even connecting text to sound with a clickable link. When your notes are saved, you can sync them off to Dropbox or iDisk, or you can email them off to another computer to work on elsewhere.

We’ve recommended Simplenote in the past (and its free price tag is probably one reason for its popularity), but I like the look of Notability as well. At its current iPad 2 launch sale price of just US$0.99, it’s definitely worth a download if you’re looking for another option for note-taking on Apple’s tablet.

TUAW’s Daily App: Notability originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Remember back in February when the iPad 2 hadn’t even launched yet, but there were already rumors of an iPad 3 set to hit the market this fall? Well, according to Digitimes, those rumors aren’t likely to amount to anything this year. When iPad 3 rumors originally surfaced, the idea was thrown around that the iPad 2 may be a kind of transitional product, and the “real” iPad upgrade would appear in the fall as a kind of iPad 2.5 model. Now Digitimes’ sources are stating that iPad component makers have “not yet received any notice for next generation iPad products and do not believe iPad 2 is a transitional product.”

Another big rumor for the iPad 3 was that it will sport a Retina Display. While it’s likely it will, it’s not likely an iPad with a Retina Display will appear this year. Sources told Digitimes that while Apple has been asking touchscreen panel makers to provide screens that can provide higher resolutions than the current iPad 2 screen, the project is still in the “initial planning stage” and thus unlikely to appear in 2011. In short, if you’re holding off getting an iPad 2 because you expect Apple to launch an iPad 3 in the fall, don’t hold your breath.

Digitimes: No iPad 3 this year originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

ifoAppleStore has discovered the locations of Apple’s first and second Hong Kong stores. The first location is in the International Finance Centre on Hong Kong Island. The IFC comprises two towers that include office buildings, a mall and a cinema. The Apple Store will be located in Tower 2 and span 6,300 square feet. The IFC store will be open by year’s end.

The second Apple Store to open in Hong Kong will also be on Hong Kong Island in the area known as Causeway Bay. The Apple Store will be located in Hysan Place, an environmentally friendly block-sized building. The Apple Store there will span 20,000 square feet. According to the developers, Hysan Place is expected to be finished in the second quarter of 2012, which is likely when the Apple Store will open.

Hong Kong Apple Store locations revealed originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments