Category: I-phone

Blog reader Steven Burgess dropped me a line yesterday letting me know he had seen Sir Lamorak’s Quest on the Staff Favourites list on the App store in the UK. I couldn’t resist jumping onto the App Store and taking a look. Sure enough, Sir Lamorak’s Quest has made it onto the Staff Favourites. This […]

CineTap for Netflix (US $0.99) is the newest and nicest Netflix management app I’ve seen so far. It won’t replace the Netflix
app, since you still need to have that installed to instantly watch movies. But CineTap adds some great features to the experience that the Netflix app doesn’t include. The app is amazingly fast and absolutely gorgeous, taking full advantage of the iPad‘s screen real estate. Instead of lists, it uses posters to represent movies that can be scrolled left or right, or if you tap the Show All button, the line expands to fill the screen with posters that can then be scrolled up or down. In Show All mode, you’ll see 20 posters plus a navigation bar in landscape mode, or 25 poster in portrait mode with an optional navigation bar that covers up some of the posters, which is no big deal since it’s easily dismissed.

TUAWCineTap brings a great Netflix frontend to the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Canadian Broadcasting Company is reporting that 18 Canadian cabinet ministers and five senior staff members in the province of Saskatchewan are receiving iPads in an attempt to get a handle on the costly consumption of paper. With the cost of the 64GB 3G iPad running about CDN$879 plus fees and taxes, the initial cost of the iPads will run about CDN$23,000. However, the government expects that double that amount will be saved in the first year alone, since paper and printing costs will be cut drastically, and fewer courier runs will be required to deliver physical documents.

One senior official in the premier’s office noted that he’ll save 68 boxes of paper in his office alone in the first year. He noted that a single cabinet minister can often be loaded down with six to 10 kilograms of paper in a typical week. The government officials believe that the security provided by the iPad is sufficient for their needs. Unfortunately, there’s no information available on just how much money will be wasted by all of the ministers playing Angry Birds HD during cabinet meetings (we kid!).

Thanks to John for the tip (and sorry about the blatant display of Canadian stereotypes in the picture at the right).

TUAWCabinet members in Saskatchewan getting iPads to reduce paper use originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patently Apple has a few new patent illustrations from China that may hint at future iPad hardware features. The first is a second dock on the side of the tablet. As you can see above, the connector would come in handy if you wanted to view the iPad in landscape form, but didn’t want to have a cable sticking out of the side. Personally, I can’t really see Apple duplicating functionality in this way, though — while a second port would be handy, it seems a waste to have a completely separate port used only half the time. Like most patents, this is only an idea at this point — Apple isn’t required to actually use it in a future release.

The second idea is more interesting, in my mind: the images show what seems to be a touch-sensitive area on the corner of the front of the iPad. PA presumes that this would be a button-less button, an area you could tap or press to do things like return to the iPad’s homepage or flip pages in iBooks. Now that’s a really interesting idea — the front glass section of the iPhone and iPad is pretty much unused at this point, and if Apple could work it out so that even part of it could become functional (even in a limited way), that would be exciting.

And finally, it’s worth noting that quite a few of these pictures have what’s presumably a small camera sitting at the top of the iPad’s screen. Yes, by now it’s pretty much a given that the iPad will come with a camera in the next iteration, but there’s another slice of evidence to stick in the growing proof sandwich.

TUAWPatent illustrations hint at double-dock iPad, touch-based corner button originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The other day while I was attempting to clean up my office, I came across a bunch of old MiniDV tapes from various vacations that my wife and I had taken over the years. That got me thinking about the 8mm videotapes from the pre-MiniDV age, and the even older VHS vacation tapes from the Pleistocene Era. Since I have done a pretty good job of going to a paperless office, I figured it was about time to make my other media go digital as well.

I don’t necessarily want to edit the movies right now — at this point, all I want to do is get the raw video transferred to my iMac and then at some future date when I have the time (like 20 years from now), I’ll transform them into mini-documentaries. The big concern I had was getting the video into my Mac, and since I no longer shoot video with tapes, I needed something that would just get the job done with a minimum of fuss and cost.

A quick Amazon search brought up a device from MyGica (yeah, I’ve never heard of them, either) called the Geniatech iGrabber (US$34.99 at Amazon). It had surprisingly good reviews compared to more expensive devices like the Elgato Video Capture Device ($74.99 at Amazon). I found several other adapters that were even cheaper, but they either had poor reviews or weren’t listed as being Mac-compatible. Here’s a quick review of the iGrabber, a fairly inexpensive and easy way to digitize old videos.

TUAWTUAW Review: iGrabber, a cheap way to digitize old videos originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s iAd service is a relative newcomer to the mobile ads industry, which is probably why it’s completely falling apart. No, sorry Carol, we’re kidding — Apple’s service is doing extremely well, and is already threatening established mobile advertising services like Google and Yahoo!. IDC claims that Apple will end the year with 21 percent of the market, which means that in less than a year’s time, the company will have picked up almost a quarter of a rapidly growing and expanding industry. Google’s share is dropping, and that’s in addition to the AdMob purchase it made a while back as well. That is a phenomenal start for the iAd platform.

And in fact, IDC is convinced that Apple’s gigantic entry into the ads market has actually buoyed all ships — even smaller advertisers like JumpTap and Millenial Media are growing, and even they cite Apple’s entry into the industry as a marker for their popularity. Other cellphone and mobile platform creators are looking into their own advertising as well now, when before they would have just depended on a third-party service to run things for them.

And yet despite the incredible growth, Steve Jobs is probably disappointed — he said earlier this year that he wanted Apple to oversee half of all mobile advertising by the time 2011 started. That’s unlikely to happen, but still, a quarter of a market that Apple entered less than a year ago is nothing to sniff at at all.

TUAWApple taking mobile ad share from Google, Yahoo, should have 21% by year end originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Two highly-anticipated iPad app releases have finally hit the App Store, and they’re both magazines: The New Yorker and Gourmet Live.

The New Yorker (free for the app, US$4.99 per issue) joins Gourmet Live as the latest magazine apps from publisher Condé Nast. The navigation is simple: Tap anywhere on the screen to bring up the controls. You can quickly move between sections and articles with the scrubber or table of contents. For more leisurely reading, swipe between pages.

One unique feature is how the magazine’s famous cartoons are handled. Tap anyone to bring up a scrollable cartoon gallery. Plus, you can enter the regular caption contest right from within the app. It looks great and we’re eager to try it out.

Meanwhile, ill-fated Gourmet Magazine has been reborn as the iPad app Gourmet Live (the current issue is free; there’s no word of future pricing). As John Gruber points out, Gourmet is now in the unique position of existing as an iPad app only. Its content is organized by topic and theme, and features recipes, slideshows, video and a lot more.

For now, there’s no subscription option for either, but rumors suggest that could change soon. WIRED has come down in price since its introduction, but it remains to be seen if customers will embrace the per-issue pricing model. Other Condé Nast properties have transitioned to the iPad well, like WIRED, Epicurious and GQ.

Finally, Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola have produced a hilarious short film introducing The New Yorker’s app. Check it out on the next page (Flash, sorry).

TUAWNew Yorker, Gourmet iPad apps debut originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I saw the new iPad nano for the first time this weekend, and though I knew it was small, of course, I was surprised by just how small it was. Despite the tiny little touchscreen, it really is about the size of the old shuffle. Small enough, in fact, to fit inside one of the old Visual Memory Units from the Sega Dreamcast. Unfortunately, the original controls don’t work, and because the nano doesn’t actually run any apps, you can’t play anything even resembling the old VMU games that the extra controller units used to play in conjunction with the old console. But it is a nice little case for the new nano, and of course it’s just dripping with nostalgia.

You can find more information and pictures on the maker’s website, which is in Japanese. Don’t be fooled by the Sega or Sonic pictures, either — that’s the just the nano’s photos app showing off. Very cool, though — I look forward to seeing even more places to install the nano’s tiny little touchscreen.

TUAWiPod nano built into Dreamcast VMU originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s advertising for the FaceTime video chat feature on the iPhone 4 is emotional and effective, and now the ads are making it to the European market. All of the ads are backed with the universally-known voice of Louis Armstrong singing “When You’re Smiling,” and there is no audible dialog, so these ads can be used in just about any European market. So far, they’ve made it to the U.K., Italy, and Spain.

The ads are sponsored by carriers 3Italia, Vodafone, and Orange. Click the Read More link to view the videos.

[via Macstories.net]

TUAWFound Footage: A look at European FaceTime ads originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a bit of news that’s no shock to us. According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Apple receives more coverage from the press than any other tech company.

The research center recently concluded a year-long study which found that a full 15.1 percent of all tech articles were about Apple. Google commanded 11.4 percent of articles while 3 percent were primarily about Microsoft. The study used data from 52 newspapers, broadcast and Web sites from June 2009 through June 2010.

What’s powering Apple’s popularity? Its computers represent only a fraction of those in use. However, the iPhone and the iPod’s meteoric rise to stardom, and infiltration of popular culture, has caught the attention of journalists across the globe.

But there’s more to it than that. Amy S. Mitchell, the deputy director of the Project, notes the hype that precedes a new release, as well as Apple’s “very public way of releasing products,” is powerful. As I said on a recent podcast, even the local news station in my little Podunk town covered the recent iPod updates.

As I said, telling us that Apple gets a lot of press coverage is like telling bees that honey is popular. But anecdotal evidence is one thing; empirical research is another.

TUAWApple is the most-covered tech company originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the addition of the Safari Extensions Gallery to Apple’s website, TUAW will be highlighting extensions that we think are special, useful, or just plain fun.

gleeBox will certainly delight keyboard jockeys, as it replaces many browser-based tasks you’d typically complete by mousing around with super-easy hotkey commands. For example, you can call on URLs by hitting the proper command and typing the name of the URL in the resulting overlay. In fact, it’ll recognize what you’re typing so you needn’t type the whole thing.

gleeBox also executes bookmarklets in the same way, so you can add a long article to Instapaper, for example, without ever touching the mouse.

It’s not for everyone, but those who like keeping their hands on the keyboard at all times should find it useful.

TUAWSafari Extension highlight: gleeBox originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How many times have you thought, “It’s a beautiful day. If only I could capture it using my iPod and my head?” If you’re anything like us, the answer is hundreds of times. Now, our yearning has come to fruition thanks to Rampant View.

The Rampant View Headcam now accommodates the 5th generation iPod nano. Just pop the nano inside, adjust it for your head (or helmet if you’re safety conscious) and start shooting. It looks like a super way to enhance your skate videos. It doesn’t look waterproof, so forget the rad kayaking videos, but there are many other fun and hands-free applications we could think of.

The Rampant View costs US$34.95 and is shipping now. There’s another demo video on the next page; click Read More to view it.

[Via Engadget]

TUAWLook Ma! No hands! The Rampant View iPod nano headcam originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wow.

No sooner had we published the post about Apple TVs being queued for shipping than our TUAW mailboxes were filled with a steady stream of shipping notices.

The new Apple TVs are now being shipped from Shenzhen, China to a variety of destinations, and most people are seeing either Thursday, September 30 or Friday, October 1 as the delivery date.

I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl about the shipment – a middle-aged, slightly overweight schoolgirl with a beard, but you get the idea.

Thanks to the many tipsters who let us know about the packages that shipped while we were sleeping.

TUAWApple TVs are on the way from Shenzhen originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Business Insider is reporting that Apple and Google have extended the deal that brought Google search to the iOS. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Google CEO Eric Schmidt mentioned that his company’s arrangement with Apple has been “recently extended.”

TUAWApple, Google extend deal for iOS originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We received a lot of tips today from people who ordered the new $99 Apple TV on September 1st and have, like me, been anxiously checking the order status in the online Apple Store. As of today, many orders are showing the message you see above — that the device has been “prepared for shipment” sometime in September.

Well, today is September 27th, which doesn’t leave all that much time for Apple or the OEM to ship these devices. My guess is that the 747 freighters are lining up on the tarmac in Shanghai or Hong Kong, waiting to be loaded with the first half-million or so Apple TVs.

Fellow TUAW blogger Mike Rose and I both ordered our Apple TVs shortly after the announcement on September 1st, so whoever gets the first one will probably take dibs on doing a full review of the new iOS-powered streaming video box. Be sure to visit TUAW regularly this week for all of your Apple TV news.

Thanks to all of the TUAW readers who wrote in to tell us that you saw the “prepared for shipment” status.

TUAWNew Apple TVs prepared for shipment originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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