Category: I-phone

When it comes to the iOS experience, many purists insist that the finger is the only proper interface device on the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, eschewing styluses as an anachronistic journey back to the days of the original PalmPilot. But for those who need to sign documents or draw detailed diagrams on iOS devices, a stylus might provide a much more natural writing experience than using a finger.

Up to this point, most styluses have been thin, stick-like probes like the Pogo Stylus. Now comes a nice lightweight and easily held stylus from Just Mobile: the AluPen. In some testing over the past couple of days, I’ve come to really like the way the AluPen works with an iPad or iPhone. The dimensions of the AluPen are much more like those of a real pen — it’s about 4.7″ long x 0.5″ wide and made with a hexagonal exterior that’s very comfortable to hold.

I like the Pogo Stylus; in fact, I own two of them. However, I can easily see myself becoming unfaithful to the Pogo. The AluPen just feels and acts a lot more like a real writing implement. The tip of the AluPen is a rounded rubberized material that is much more rigid than the capacitive foam material used on the Pogo. The Pogo’s tip seems to flop around, and I’ve felt like it’s going to tear off, although it never has. You don’t feel that with the AluPen; the feeling is much more like writing with a real pen. Click the Read More link for additional details and info about a giveaway.

Continue reading TUAW review and giveaway: Just Mobile AluPen stylus

TUAW review and giveaway: Just Mobile AluPen stylus originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh that Shift key. So normal, so overlooked, so simple … and yet so magical. TUAW reader Karan recently dropped us a note, reminding us about its slow-speed enchantment. “I don’t think a lot of Mac users know this,” she wrote, “but the Shift key has a very cool (although obviously just for extra eye-candy) feature on the Mac.”

When depressed, the Shift key will slow down certain on-screen animations, giving an extra long visual boost to window transitions. For example, you can shift in the following scenarios:

• while minimizing an application window to the Dock
• while clicking the Full Screen button in QuickTime X (or while using a pinch to zoom to full screen)
• while sliding four fingers down to invoke Exposé
• while sliding those same four fingers up to “Show the Desktop”
• while selecting a minimized Dock or Exposé window

Karan adds, “The above are the main areas I’ve found that I can use this neat little Shift trick, and I think it would be fitting of the ‘Mac 101‘ title since I’ve encountered veteran Mac-users who are unaware of this.”

TUAW agrees, and here you are.

Thanks, Karan

Mac 101: The wonderful magical Shift key originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scrambleface is a simple app that does one thing pretty darn well. All it does is take live feed from an iPhone or latest-gen iPod touch’s camera (and it does require iOS 4.0 or higher), then it turns that into a sliding puzzle for you to unscramble. It’s not flashy or crazy, but it is kind of fun, and the fact that it uses the live camera feed gives it a nice twist that will appeal to kids or anyone you happen to be demonstrating the iPhone to. There are 21 randomly generated levels that can be done as time challenges if you so choose, and there’s an update coming soon with Game Center integration and leaderboards.

As part of the Appvent promotion going on right now, Scrambleface is completely free today, December 8th. At that price, it’s definitely worth playing with. Think of it as an early holiday bonus!

TUAW’s Daily App: Scrambleface originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new report on the digital media industry from a firm named Interpret says that mobile phone gaming is rising at an incredible rate, even while traditional handheld gaming (such as games on handheld consoles like Nintendo’s DS or Sony’s PSP) is falling off. 43.8 percent of the gaming market plays games on phones like the iPhone according to the report, a sizable total that represents a jump of more than double the total last year. During the same period, DS and PSP gaming has dropped by 13 percent, and 27.2 percent of users say they own a DS or PSP, but only play games on their phones.

From an anecdotal standpoint, I fall into that last group. I have a DS and have really enjoyed some games on it, but 99 percent of my gaming lately has been on my iPhone. It’s mostly because that’s the device I have available, and the games are often just as good from a technical standpoint. That’s generally the conclusion of Interpret’s report; devices that have more than one function (like phones and especially the iPhone) are being used instead of devices specifically designed for a single function like gaming.

That said, I don’t think the handheld gaming market is dead at all. I think that both Nintendo and Sony have tricks up their sleeves that will attract a specific gamer audience back to their devices and away from the iPhone for certain experiences. But there’s no question that mobile phones have captured the attention of the casual gaming audience, and those are people that traditional gaming seems unlikely to ever really woo with more targeted hardware.

[via IndustryGamers]

Handheld gamers leaving DS and PSP for their phones originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to The Mac Observer, Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet isn’t too happy with Apple’s App Store policies regarding nudity. In a series of recently published editorials, the newspaper takes issue with Apple banning the Ekstra Bladet iPhone and iPad app because of their Page 9 Girl, a nude photograph of a woman they have been publishing for 34 years. Accusing Apple of double standards and acting like “an American nanny,” the paper’s Heine Jørgensen writes that he can’t understand why they would ban something seen by Danes as “an innocent Danish institution on par with The Little Mermaid.”

Whether seen as an innocent institution or not, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that Apple has rejected an app from the App Store for nudity. As mentioned here on TUAW before, Apple has not only been banning sexual content in the App Store for quite some time now, but they have also started banning anything seen as controversial, such as the Manhattan Declaration, which we wrote about just last week.

While what offends me may not offend you, Apple has to draw the line somewhere — and they have decided to start with the idea that even “innocent” nudity is sexual content. I can’t blame the folks at Ekstra Bladet for being upset at the removal of their app, but them’s the rules as they stand right now.

Danish newspaper protests App Store censorship originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MacRumors is reporting on an email, which it believes to be authentic, that one of its readers received from Steve Jobs. The reader sent an email to Jobs after the frustrations over his MobileMe experiences mounted. The reader told Jobs that while he’s a huge fan of Apple and “wants to stay inside the Apple ecosystem,” MobileMe is making it hard to do so.

The reader goes on to tell Jobs that MobileMe is almost “unusable” and cites “unreliable/unpredictable syncing” and “creating duplicate entries” as two examples of the shortcomings of MobileMe. He then asks Jobs to tell him that it will get better soon. Jobs’ reply:

Yes, it will get a lot better in 2011.

If the email is from Steve Jobs, it’s nice to hear that Apple is apparently taking steps to constantly increase the value of MobileMe. However, Jobs’ answer doesn’t specify just how MobileMe will get better. It’s possible the sync services will become more reliable, or perhaps that Apple will add new features to MobileMe to make it more attractive to users as an annual paid service. To some, Apple recently degraded the appeal of MobileMe by making its Find My iPhone feature a free service to owners of current-generation iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.

Alleged Steve Jobs email: MobileMe to get a lot better originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you agree with Consumer Reports’ take on AT&T’s terrible wireless service, the good news is that you might not have that much longer to wait. “Exclusive arrangements end,” AT&T’s CFO Richard Lindner told the UBS Media and Communications Conference earlier this week.

If you think that sounds like he was trying to pad the landing on an upcoming split between AT&T and Apple, then we agree. As Electronista reports, Lindner also made the point that AT&T has plenty of phones to sell that aren’t the iPhone. Interesting — of course that’s not confirmation that AT&T’s deal is ending soon, but if that’s what Lindner is thinking about lately, it certainly supports some of the other rumors we’ve heard about Verizon possibly getting an iPhone next year.

Lindner also talked about AT&T’s data capping plans, and said that the 2GB limit on bandwidth per month was a tough decision to make, but that customers have responded to it pretty well. The company lost some revenue on the high end as people dropped their plan costs, but Lindner also says the $15 option has done well, and perhaps even enticed some users to data plans when they weren’t on one before (of course, iPhone purchases require a data plan, so he wasn’t talking about us).

Finally, Lindner said that the iPad was closer to a smartphone in terms of network usage than a netbook or a more traditional computer. He said that the caps on iPad did possibly push users to use Wi-Fi a little more than they would have if unlimited bandwidth was available — though that’s not very surprising at all.

AT&T’s Richard Lindner: “Exclusive arrangements end.” originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Carcassone, the iOS version of the European board game, has quickly become an App Store favorite after its release, and now iPad owners can get in on the fun. The app is going universal, so it will not only run on both devices natively, but it will also have a completely enhanced UI for the bigger machine, letting you explore all of the colorful roads and meeples in full scale.

Because the app will now work on both devices, the price is being raised, from US$4.99 to $9.99. But as I understand it, if you’ve already purchased the app, you’ll get it for the other device anyway — if you’ve already paid, you shouldn’t have to pay again. The update is supposed to be out on the App Store soon, but the price has already been raised. Still, given the feedback on this one so far, $9.99 is a great price for this version of the game, especially if you have both devices.

And now that the universal release is out, Coding Monkeys apparently says it can get to work on the planned expansions for the game, set to be released as in-app purchases. Our friends at Touch Arcade say they want Inns and Cathedrals, but I was always partial to Hunters and Gatherers. Maybe that’s more of a mod than an expansion — either way, there’s a lot of fun left to be had in this one.

Carcassone app going universal, gets higher price to match originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac OS X has buckets of really neat features, many of which aren’t always obvious. One of the things I use frequently in OS X is the “Recent Items” menu, which is invoked from the Apple menu. It shows recently used apps and documents.

Blast (US$9.95 for a single user) is kind of Recent Items on steroids. It resides on the menu bar, and keeps track of every item that was recently used or changed. Take an incoming download, for example. Sure, I can go to my download folder, but I often have more than a hundred items in there. Yes, I can then search by date and come up with it, but with Blast, it’s instantly found with a click. That’s something the Apple Recent Items menu doesn’t do.

Even better, I can then drag the item somewhere else, like to an email, or to a program icon to launch it. Of course, I can double click on the item, too. All your recent saves are there, along with a list, for example, of what documents you read yesterday. If you have a favorite place you go, like a folder of images, that folder can be pinned to a sidebar so it is always there.

Continue reading Blast is a great way to keep track of what you use and where it is on your Mac

Blast is a great way to keep track of what you use and where it is on your Mac originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has updated QuickTime to version 7.6.9, bringing out a whole slew of security fixes protecting against various “maliciously crafted” file formats. Apple has been working closely with security experts to hammer these out, and as a result, the software is much better protected against opening files designed to cause problems.

You can find the update in the usual places, including a Software Update client near you, or directly from the QuickTime download website. Enjoy and be safe!

Update: This fix is for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows users only, so if you’re wondering why you don’t see it in Software Update, that’s probably why.

QuickTime 7.6.9 out now, fixes a number of security issues originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since it debuted in beta form at Macworld Expo in 2007, Skitch has become a favorite Mac utility for many, many people. It’s great at grabbing screenshots, adding annotations and notes, and sharing them on Skitch.com, Flickr, Mobile.me or even your own server.

We’ve waited three years for a 1.0 release while the beta kinks got worked out, and now the wait is over. Skitch has burst out of beta with a ton of new features and an entirely revamped web app geared toward social image sharing. It’s aiming to be the Flickr of screenshots, with a full-featured desktop app to back that up.

Most of the features that have made Skitch so popular are still free, including screen capture, image editing and annotation, and online sharing of images. If you want to go “Plus,” you’ll pay a yearly subscription fee of $14.95 (that’s a discount right now; it will go up to $19.95 soon). The Plus subscription adds a range of new features, from the ability to grab full-length web page captures to additional editing capabilities. It will also remove ads from the online experience and provide more storage and options.

One of the best features in the Plus package, in my opinion, is automatic copy of direct image links after upload. Yes, you can get that for free using something like Droplr or CloudApp, but when combined with all of the other features, it adds some value to the subscription price.

Continue reading Skitch leaps out of beta, 1.0 available now

Skitch leaps out of beta, 1.0 available now originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OnLive has finally released an iPad app called OnLive Viewer — but it probably doesn’t do what you want it to quite yet. The cloud gaming service OnLive has been making a name for itself since it went online recently, by streaming live gameplay out to Macs, PCs and the company’s official console box. A full iPad app from OnLive would be pretty amazing — presumably, it would allow you to control and play any PC game directly on your iPad.

Unfortunately, the OnLive viewer app isn’t that app just yet — it doesn’t support actual gameplay. What it does support is OnLive’s social networking features, so you can make and contact your friends on the service from the app, and see what they’re up to while online. You can also watch “Brag Clips,” which are uploaded videos of other people’s gameplay, and you can even stream straight from certain live games on the service. That’s pretty cool — it at least shows that the iPad is capable of receiving OnLive’s gameplay streams.

But it’s too bad we can’t yet play games on the iPad. It’s possible this is more of a test release, to see what demand is like on Apple’s tablet and how it all runs. At least it is free. And eventually, we will hopefully get OnLive’s core functionality running on iOS devices. When that finally comes around, it’ll definitely be something to see.

OnLive iPad app now available, but doesn’t support gameplay streaming yet originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FiOS TV is coming to a Mac/iOS device near you. Sometime. In the future. We’re not sure when.

From the More of the Same Department comes a tease from Verizon’s director of consumer product development, Joe Ambeault. In a brief video (after the break; apologies for Flash), Joe notes that his company is working on a FiOS app for the iPad, iPhone and Mac with a probable release date in early 2011. It’s believed that the iPad app, at least, will require a Verizon internet connection, and that Verizon is working on a video-on-demand service.

In August, we saw a brief teaser of an iPad interacting with FiOS, though not much more information has been released since then. There are currently two official FiOS apps on the App Store, including Verizon FiOS Mobile Remote for iPhone and iPod touch (free), which works as a remote for FiOS TV set-top boxes, and Verizon FiOS DVR Manager (free), which lets customers program FiOS DVRs remotely. Neither is universal, so expect pixel-doubling on the iPad.

In the meantime, hurry up and wait.

Continue reading FiOS TV coming to Mac, iOS in 2011

FiOS TV coming to Mac, iOS in 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve long written about the travails of the App Store, specifically about the hardships some developers have endured (particularly in the early days) trying to get their apps approved. Apple has, in the past year, made great strides in improving this process for developers, going so far as to publish a clear set of guidelines of what will fly. Apple has also been careful to shut down “content farms,” which produce a raft of junk or merely promotional apps, and one vector for these happens to be ebook apps. One developer, Alex Brie, believes he has stumbled upon one particularly egregious junk app purveyor and possibly more.

Ebook apps are somewhat of an anomaly. Apple must walk a fine line here, as most of these apps really are promotional and/or of limited use. Why not just publish via iBooks, for example, if your ebook contains no more than text and images? One answer is backwards compatibility, yes. Another is money — the App Store is more of a shopping haven than iBooks. Money seems to be the motivation in this “app farm” mentality, as developers can churn out dozens of titles in a day and game the system for exposure. Alex discovered AppStudio2010 has stocked the store full of ebook apps. In fact, “on November 30, 2010 alone, AppStudio2010 got 28 apps approved.” Alex goes on to claim that AppStudio2010 already has over 200 “apps” on the store! More curious is their title “Chronicles of Narnia,” with a description matching that of the Amazon boxed set for the C.S. Lewis series. There are others mentioned as well, including an outfit called Libro Movil with over 360 apps, and Mobido LLC with almost 300. Yesterday Alex wrote another post revealing even more of these guys, possibly based in Vietnam and certainly beyond prolific.

The point Alex makes is that submitting that many apps within a small time frame is unlikely to yield quality apps. Also, many of these apps wind up climbing the charts, nudging out higher-quality apps. How? They are being purchased, Alex claims, by the developers — inflating the numbers in varying degrees. If Apple wants to maintain a curated store of the best quality, he suggests that it constrict the number of apps submitted per day. I think this is a fair compromise. Of course, there are many other issues with the store and developers — critical updates and patches can go unapproved for days, as the recent store description for Sketch Fighter will show. There’s also the issue of buying one’s own apps in large numbers to get placement on a top 10 list. I don’t see an easy solution there.

For now, it is up to the consumer to wade through what is becoming a wasteland of shoddy ebooks being cranked out from these content factories. Just this past May we wrote about spammers and app clones junking up the store. One has to wonder how the Mac App Store will fare.

Are bulk app generators junking up the App Store again? originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For the 26th consecutive year, Macworld has announced the winners of the Editors’ Choice Awards. While the online article announcing the winners makes it sound like the awards are for Mac hardware and software only, it’s open to just about any product that works with Macs or other Apple devices.

While we won’t list all of the winners here, some of the standout items on the list are very popular with TUAW bloggers. The only Mac to win an Eddy was the new 11-inch MacBook Air. Macworld gave the diminutive MacBook Air a 4.5 rating out of 5 possible points, and touted the design as proving that “Apple is still dedicated to the Mac.”

The iPad and fourth-generation iPod touch both received awards, which isn’t surprising given that both devices are top sellers for Apple and that the iPad is quickly defining a new genre of tablets. In the software awards, 1Password 3, Evernote 1.11, Excel for Mac 2011, iMovie ’11, Instapaper, Scrivener, Steam and TextExpander 3 all won top honors.

Although you may not agree with all of the picks — the third-generation Amazon Kindle baffled me, for example — it’s a fascinating read and points out some of the shining stars of the Apple ecosystem for well-deserved praise.

Macworld reveals Editors’ Choice Award winners originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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