Category: I-phone

As noted by Laura at Engadget this morning, we had a FaceTime sighting on CBS’s so-old-it’s-brand-new reboot of the classic cop drama Hawaii Five-0.

You can see in the screenshot here that a somewhat puffy-looking Scott Cohen (low camera angle from iPhone = not all that flattering) is engaging in a video chat with another character; for the rendition in motion, CBS is streaming full episodes of the show here (of course it’s also available on iTunes, along with the original Jack Lord series).

We’re always on the lookout for the uses and misuses of Apple products on TV and in the movies, so be sure to send us a note if you see something engaging or amusing.

TUAWHawaii Five-0 goes FaceTime on the small screen originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s one we’ve heard before, and we’re not talking about Troll Touch. This time around, DigiTimes is reporting that Sintek Photonics is shipping touch panels to Apple for testing in iMacs. The panels are supposedly about 20″ in size, and the same projected capacitance type currently used on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

As Engadget notes, the image shown here was extracted from an unrelated Apple patent, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with this rumor, other than providing an idea of how it could be used. Of course, Apple and most large companies patent all sorts of things that are never produced.

Would you want to hover your arm above that thing all day long? I’m not sure I would.

[Via Engadget]

TUAWRumor: The touchscreen iMac may be in testing originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is an interesting app that could come in handy. Battery Go! is an app that’s all about your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad’s battery. It’ll give you all kinds of information about how long your battery will last, given either the charge it currently has or the charge percentage that you set it at. If you want to see just how long your phone will last on standby, how much talk time you have left, or how much longer your video will play before the phone dies, Battery Go! will tell you.

Of course, these are all just guidelines based on the battery specs. Actual battery usage has lots of other factors involved, but as a rough estimate, Battery Go! can help. If you spend a lot of time away from a way to charge your iDevice and need some help budgeting out your power, Battery Go! can do it.

Plus, the app is currently free to download, so even if you don’t plan on using it, there’s no charge to have it just in case.

TUAWTUAW’s Daily App: Battery Go! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Personally, I’d like to have an FM tuner in my iPhone, but then again, I’m a radio geek, so I guess I’m in the minority. According to a survey from the Consumer Electronics Association, more than half of Americans polled say they don’t want an FM tuner in their cell phone. That seems strange to me — why would you not want that extra functionality? The new iPod nano still has an FM tuner on board, so it must be pretty easy to get one in there. Of course, if there’s no demand for it, Apple’s not likely to eventually include one in a future version of the iPhone. If this survey is any indication, you’ll have to try and get American Top 40 in podcast form.

Then again, there are some political machinations going on here, too — the CEA also reports that over 80% of Americans would be opposed to a government mandate on including FM tuners in mobile phones. As big a fan of radio as I am, even I wouldn’t support that one. It’s not the government’s business to determine what features are in my cell phone. But sure enough, that’s what the NAB is pushing for, trying to require FM tuners in cell phones for emergency usage and information.

At any rate, politics aside (and commenters, please be civil), I’m surprised that so few people are interested in having an FM tuner. Sure, it’s not cutting-edge technology, but certainly there are still times that you just want to tune into the radio, right?

TUAWCEA survey: Americans don’t want FM in cell phones originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WordPress for iOS has updated to version 2.6, which adds the ability to record video from within the app and upload it to a blog.

Other improvements include an overhaul of locally saved drafts, which brings it more in line with the web version — including the ability to autosave while the post is being written. Also, version 2.6 implements a full media library within the app.

WordPress for iOS 2.6 is a free download from the App Store and available now.

[Via Macworld]

TUAWWordPress app now includes video recording originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s one submitted in the spirit of George Mallory with no comment. Inventive soul Hexxeh has gotten the Chromium OS up and running on an iPad. Chromium is the open source version of Google’s Chrome OS. After some effort and a bit of magic, Hexxeh has got it mucking about inside an iPad.

Don’t expect lightning speed from this quick demo, and note the bonus tapping that the spiffy cursor provides. We’re not going to run out and try it, but we’re glad enough to watch someone else do it. Good work, Hexxeh.

[Via Engadget]

TUAWNo comment: Chromium OS running on iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAWReminder: Woz on Big Bang Theory tonight originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Once again we are making a few changes based on reader input. We have decided to switch to a weekly roundup of news, which will be posted on Fridays.

Application Development Trends interviewed Wallace McClure of Scalable Development Inc. about Mono-based application development.

App developers share their experience with the iTune App Store in a survey from Open-First. Looks like 78% of developers are happy with their experience overall.

Here is an infographic doing a great job of showing how popular the iPhone really is. I think Steve needs a bigger wheel barrow.

Could the white iPhone finally be on it’s way? Does anyone really care?

Apple is lining up their suppliers for the fifth generation iPhone and second generation iPad.

Finally, it is being reported that the official Google Voice app has been approved.

Please continue to provide feedback, we are listening and greatly appreciate it. Have a good weekend.

The other day I was browsing at a friends site and I saw this fantastic post where he teaches you how to make a Tetris like clone game in HTML5 that will work on iPhone and other popular phones with HTML5 compliant browsers. I thought the post and code he provided was a fantastic resource for anyone looking to create a browser game from start to finish.

The Apple Web Apps page will show you many browser based games listed. If you look at the right column on the page, Apple shows you how to get started and gives you info on how to create your own Web based Apps.

HTML5 provides the canvas element which is a great tool for drawing graphics. If you want to learn how to make an offline HTML5 iPhone Tetris clone game, read on. By offline, I mean you need to connect once to the site in your phone browser and then you can play thegame without any data transfer or connection to the Internet.

This is a tutorial specifically for iPhones but most of these techniques apply to all phones that have HTML5-capable browsers.

You are going to need access to a server where you can change the HTTP Headers on your files. This is because we need to take advantage of HTML5’s offline caching (more on this later down the page).

The other thing you need to do is to enable the debug bar in Safari’s web browser on your iPhone unit.

Some tips before you start…  Stay small, sparse and simple.

Small: This is mobile app development so even though you are caching your stuff, it’s still a smart idea to keep your file sizes lean.

Sparse: You should try to keep the amount of files you deal with as low as possible.

Simple: Start with a few simple ideas and execute it. By keeping your scope small, you can get things done faster.

If you want to read more click here – How to make Tetris clone game as a mobile browser based game in HTML5 from start to finish.

I just wanted to remind people to send me information about the games they have created that have been assisted by the information and code on this blog, or “Learning iOS Game Programming”. I love to see the games people are creating and I especially enjoy letting others know about them and have a chance […]

Veni vidi hacki. Just picked up an Apple TV this afternoon at the Cherry Creek Apple Store (shout out to the guys there!) and while I haven’t had a long time to play around with it — hence the brevity of this post — I have had a few moments of hands-on testing to share with you. Here are the basic highlights.

TUAWApple TV hacking update: PhoneView, ping, VNC support originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Despite the iPhone’s official release in China, a grey market continues to thrive. So much so that shoppers are buying units from Apple for private resale in such large quantity, that Apple had to temporarily down the Beijing Apple Store.

According to M.I.C Gadget, the trouble started when Apple lifted the 2-per-customer restriction at the Beijing store. People were buying up to 30 iPhones at a time, which they would privately resell for a profit. In fact, many were selling right outside the store. Things got out of hand as the crowd quickly swelled and scuffles broke out between the mass-quantity buyers and individuals looking for a single phone. Security eventually shut the store down.

Within hours, the store re-opened with a new policy. Customers must show ID when making a purchase. They may purchase only 1 iPhone at a time, which will be unboxed and activated in the store by an employee before the customer is allowed to leave. This policy has now been extended to all four of China’s Apple Stores.

Considering the high demand and extreme shortage of iPhones in China, it’s understandable how a grey market develops. This was an unfortunate circumstance. Good on Apple Store security and management for addressing it in a timely fashion.

TUAWApple closes Beijing store temporarily to thwart iPhone 4 resellers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those waiting on an update to Final Cut Studio may have to continue to do so, as a new rumor suggests it won’t be released this year. Quoting a “source,” Hardmac reports that the development of the next major update to Final Cut Studio has suffered “significant setbacks” and won’t be available until 2011.

Hardmac notes that the scope of the project has been reduced as well, and the unified interface is a casualty of that reduction. The source says that differences between the team responsible for Shake and the team working on Motion are partly responsible, and representative of the overall difficulty in uniting all of the suite’s applications.

Keep in mind that it’s a rumor and not written in stone. If it turns out to be true, it’s bad news for FCS users who are jonesing for something new.

[Via MacDailyNews]

TUAWRumor: Final Cut Studio update delayed until 2011 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you thought yesterday’s App Store sales were nice, you haven’t seen anything yet. For some reason, a whole bunch of terrific apps are dropping their prices this weekend, and Touch Arcade has put together a nice roundup. TUAW Daily App choices Osmos, Archetype, Civilization Revolution, Secret of Monkey Island (and its sequel) and Hybrid 2 are all on sale for as cheap as 99 cents, as is Telltale’s Puzzle Agent, Popcap’s Bookworm and Peggle, and a host of other high-profile titles. Pretty crazy — some of the App Store’s most popular titles, including EA’s Need for Speed series and Activision’s Call of Duty Zombies games, are seeing the biggest drops in their lifetimes.

My best guess for the big drops is that the financial year 2010 ends today, and these companies are trying to pad out their mobile app sale numbers before (or while) the quarter turns over. But whatever the reason, we consumers benefit — if you’ve been waiting to pick some of these games up, now’s your chance. And I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this. Companies, especially companies that have been premiering their apps as high as $9.99, are learning that dropping the price like this moves copies quickly, so as we move into the frenzied holiday season for gaming, we’ll probably see more than a few big sales come down the pike. Stay tuned.

TUAWDevelopers drop prices on super popular App Store apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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