Category: I-phone

I’ve tried and reviewed a ton of productivity apps for both Mac and iPhone. Some I love, some I hate, but the dividing line between these two usually comes down to a few simple features as they all pretty much work the same way. A truly unique day planner or GTD app is quite the rarity. In fact, it’s more of an empty promise put forth by every app in this category and fulfilled by very few.

Diacarta is that one app that finally said “enough.” Enough of the same old productivity app reproduced in one hundred different variations, enough taking more time to enter tasks into your schedule than it actually takes to do them, and enough scrolling through a boring lists of tasks not designed for visual thinkers.

Below we’ll take a look at what Diacarta is and how it uses a simple and brilliant interface to change the way you plan your life.

Meet Diacarta

When you first open Diacarta, you are taken to a simple but attractive retro themed clock with the date and time and the top of the screen and a few buttons along the bottom. You can already tell that this isn’t going to be your typical planner.

AM/PM Clock Screens

The default screen is an AM clock. Swipe your finger left to access the PM clock. These are the two main screens that you will use to view your tasks and appointments. If you continue to swipe left you can access the AM and PM clocks for future dates. Tap the home button to immediately be taken back to the current date and time.

Calendar View

Tapping the calendar button will allow you to directly access any date you wish. Simply navigate the calendar with the arrows and tap on a date to see the clocks for that date.

Calendar View

Notice that the dates with tasks planned contain a dot under the number. Hitting the “back” button at the top of the screen brings you back to the clock view where you can add tasks to the current day.

Adding Tasks

Back at the clock screen, tap the “+” button to add a task to your day. This will bring up a list of icons to choose from to represent the task. There are nearly sixty icons to choose from that adequately represent an impressively diverse range of activities.

Adding a Task

When you select an icon it will appear on your clock screen. As you drag the icon around, a block of one hour will be highlighted on your clock and a line will be drawn that connects your icon to that time segment.

To schedule your task, simply drag it to the appropriate section on the clock. In the image above I’ve created a music-related task that goes from six to seven PM.

As you continue to add tasks, a visual picture of your day begins to take shape. Though it may not be appropriate for everyone, I love the visual representation of my daily tasks and think the icons make for an awesome and quick read.

A Typical Day

Notice that you can have tasks that overlap either partially or completely in addition to tasks that aren’t tied to a specific time slot. The latter of these is great for adding items that you need to accomplish on a given day but don’t require a specific timeframe.

When you complete a task, tap the star button then tap the task to bring up the option to mark the task as completed. Completed tasks will then appear as a star on the clock screen.

Completing Tasks

It took me a while to discover this functionality (it’s not completely intuitive) but it really makes cluttered days a lot easier to sort through as you begin to complete tasks.

Tweaking Tasks

Double tapping a task from the clock view will bring up a screen where you can customize the specific details of the task. You can add a name, location, start time, finish time and additional notes as well as delete the task or change its icon.

Adding Details

Though the default task length is one hour, you can schedule tasks in increments of 15 minutes. If a task crosses over from AM to PM (or vice versa), it will appear on both clocks with the appropriate portions of time highlighted.

Custom Tasks

One feature that I found particularly handy was the ability to create custom task icons in the event that you don’t like those offered. To accomplish this, simply choose the very first icon in the list (the blank one). A task with a blank icon will show the name of the task once one has been entered.

Custom Icons

As you can see in the screenshot above, I created two tasks featuring custom icons: one for lunch with my wife and one simply titled AppStorm. If this method better fits your personal preferences, you can give all of your tasks custom labels and skip the pre-made icons completely.

My Thoughts

As I’ve already indicated, I think Diacarta is a breath of fresh air in this category. The interface is beautiful, easy to use, efficient and quite innovative. I really enjoy using the app and have almost no problems with it. However, as always, I do have a few feature requests that I think the developers should consider for future releases.

First of all, it would be nice to be able to schedule tasks in five or ten minute increments instead of fifteen. It’s often the case that a movie or a meeting will start at some arbitrary time such as 6:40pm and it would be great to have a little more control in this area.

More importantly, I think there should be a way to create a list of favorite icons that you want to access regularly. This would save you from scrolling through the list over and over to find the same three or four icons that you access repeatedly. It would also be great to be able to save the custom text icons that you create so you can reuse them either without naming the task or in addition to applying a separate name to the task.

The two items above are minor personal tweaks that I’d like to see implemented. There are however two missing features that prevent this app from nailing a perfect score because they represent basic functionality that really should be present.

As with many of the other planning apps I’ve reviewed, Diacarta doesn’t support automatically reoccurring tasks. This is a huge feature for many people with set weekly schedules and it can be a huge time saver. Additionally, the lack of reminders/alerts is quite disappointing. Above all else I recommend finding a way to implement these two features. Both are present in the iPhone’s default free calendar app and are therefore expected in any paid app that claims to be an improvement.

Conclusion

Despite the grievances listed above, Diacarta is an awesome app well worth $1.99. If you’re a visual thinker sick of traditional planning apps, give Diacarta a shot and let us know what you think.

Leave a comment below and tell us about any other apps you’ve come across with truly unique interfaces that accomplish an old idea in a new way.

It has been quite some time since our last iPhone video game series and now we are ready to start a new one.  Given the success of our iTennis tutorial series, we will be following along the same line and create a game without using OpenGL ES.  If you are interested in OpenGL ES programming, check out Jeff Lamarche’s blog, he’s super rad. In this series we will be creating a simple Blackjack game with the following features/functionality:

• Deck of cards
• Basic Blackjack rules/logic
• Dealer
• Basic Dealer AI
• Player
• Controls for hit/stand
• Audio
• User Interface

In this first part of the series we are going to introduce the core of the game; the deck.  We will be building a very generic deck of cards that could be used in any type of card game.  The deck will be portable enough to just drag and drop into any project that requires a deck of cards. So, let’s begin by creating a view based application and calling it ICBBlackjack.

Creating A Card Object

Before we can create the deck, we need to create a card. Before we dig into the code, let me explain how a card object will work.  A card has 2 properties that we care about.  They are suit and value.  Suit is pretty obvious (Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs), but the value might not be what you’d expect.  For the cases of the numeric cards, the value is simply their value, however it changes a bit for the face cards and ace.

The Ace gets assigned a value of 1 (pretty obvious), while the face cards get values based on their ordering from the 10 card.  So a Jack = 11, Queen = 12, and King = 13.  Obviously this isn’t the case when playing a game like Blackjack, but we will let another class figure that out. For now, we will use the value as and identifier for the card. Add a new class file to your project called Card.m.  Make sure you check the box to include the .h file. Open up Card.h and add the following code:

Card.h

typedef enum {
	Hearts,
	Diamonds,
	Spades,
	Clubs
} Suit;
 
#define Ace   1
#define Jack  11
#define Queen 12
#define King  13
 
@interface Card : NSObject {
	NSInteger value;
	Suit suit;
}
 
@property (nonatomic) NSInteger value;
@property (nonatomic) Suit suit;
 
- (id) initWithValue:(NSInteger) aValue suit:(Suit) aSuit;
 
@end

Ok, so a few things here to point out.  The first thing we see at the top is an enum.  The enum allows us to declare our own type called Suit.  We could have just as easily used constants, but the enum makes things a little more clear.  This allows us to do things like myCard.suit = Clubs.

Now, we define the “Special” values which will be assigned to the Ace and face cards. Finally, we declare our value and suit properties and declare and init method to build a card with these values set. Now, it’s time to implement our Card class.  Open Card.m and add the following code.

Card.m

#import "Card.h"
 
@interface Card(Private)
 
- (NSString *) valueAsString;
- (NSString *) suitAsString;
 
@end
 
@implementation Card
 
@synthesize value,suit;
 
- (id) initWithValue:(NSInteger) aValue suit:(Suit) aSuit {
	if(self = [super init]) {
		self.value = aValue;
		self.suit = aSuit;
	}
	return self;
}
 
- (NSString *) valueAsString {
	switch (self.value) {
		case Ace:
			return @"Ace";
			break;
		case Jack:
			return @"Jack";
			break;
		case Queen:
			return @"Queen";
			break;
		case King:
			return @"King";
			break;
		default:
			return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d",self.value];
			break;
	}
}
 
- (NSString *) suitAsString {
	switch (self.suit) {
		case Hearts:
			return @"Hearts";
			break;
		case Diamonds:
			return @"Diamonds";
			break;
		case Spades:
			return @"Spades";
			break;
		case Clubs:
			return @"Clubs";
			break;
		default:
			return nil;
			break;
	}
}
 
- (NSString *) description {
	return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ of %@",
			[self valueAsString],
			[self suitAsString]];
}
@end

Wow, so this looks like a lot of overkill.  The truth is, you only need the init method that I created.  The description method allows us to overwrite the printing method for a card and gives us pretty output.  The other 2 methods are simply help methods for it (we have declared them as private at the top).  You can choose to omit them if you like, but make debugging a lot easier.  When you do something like NSLog(@”%@”,myCard), it will print “Ace of Spades”. Great, now you have a Card object to work with.  Now we just need to create 52 of these puppies and we are on our way to hundreds of card games.

Creating The Deck

The deck of cards is fairly straight forward.  First off, we need an array of cards.  The card needs to have 3 methods implemented for correct functionality.  They are draw, shuffle, and cardsRemaining.  The reason the cardsRemaining method is needed is to prevent users from trying to draw cards from an empty deck (we will discuss this in a bit). Add a new class file to your project called Deck.m and add the following code to Deck.h:

Deck.h

#import "Card.h"
 
@interface Deck : NSObject {
 
@private
	NSMutableArray *cards;
}
 
- (void) shuffle;
- (Card *) draw;
- (NSInteger) cardsRemaining;
 
@end

A few things I want to point out.  First, we import Card.h.  Normally we would import the models in the .m file if they are not needed in the header.  However, we need to declare the draw method which returns a Card object.  So, we include the import statement here.

The next thing I want to point out is we have marked the cards array as private.  We don’t want anyone mucking around in our deck without going through our methods.  The reason for this is to prevent synchronization issues where someone modifies the deck without notifying the class.  Kinda trivial, but good practice non the less. Now for the implementation.  Add the following code to Deck.m.

Deck.m

#import "Deck.h"
 
@implementation Deck
 
- (id) init {
	if(self = [super init]) {
		cards = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
		for(int suit = 0; suit <= 3; suit++) {
			for(int value = 1; value <= 13; value++) {
				Card *card = [[Card alloc] initWithValue:value suit:suit];
				[cards addObject:card];
				[card release];
			}
		}
	}
	return self;
}
 
/*
 * Random sort used from this blog post
 * http://zaldzbugz.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/randomly-sort-nsarray/
 */
int randomSort(id obj1, id obj2, void *context ) {
	// returns random number -1 0 1
	return (arc4random()%3 - 1);
}
 
- (void) shuffle {
	for(int x = 0; x < 500; x++) {
		[cards sortUsingFunction:randomSort context:nil];
	}
} 
 
- (Card *) draw {
 	if([self cardsRemaining] > 0) {
		Card *card = [[cards lastObject] retain];
		[cards removeLastObject];
		return [card autorelease];
	}
 
	NSException* myException = [NSException
		exceptionWithName:@"OutOfCardsException"
		reason:@"Tried to draw a card from a deck with 0 cards."
		userInfo:nil];
	@throw myException;
}
 
- (NSInteger) cardsRemaining {
	return [cards count];
}
 
- (NSString *) description {
	NSString *desc = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"Deck with %d cards\n",[self cardsRemaining]];
	for(int x = 0; x < [self cardsRemaining]; x++) {
		desc = [desc stringByAppendingFormat:@"%@\n",[[cards objectAtIndex:x] description]];
	}
	return desc;
}
 
- (void) dealloc {
	[cards release];
	[super dealloc];
}
 
@end

Ok, this file needs a little more explanation.  First, we see the init method has been implemented.  There are 2 for loops.  The outer loop is from 0 to 3 representing the suit of each card.  Basically, we want to create 13 cards for each of the 4 suits.  The inner loop is from 1 to 13 representing the card’s value.  We simply instantiate a Card object with the suit and value and add it to the cards array. Let’s chat about each of the methods.

Shuffle

The shuffle method simply sorts the array based on a random number.  If we do it once, the deck will barely be shuffled, which makes sense.  So, I have randomly sorted the array 500 times to ensure that it has been effectively shuffled.  Note: I stole the randomSort method from http://zaldzbugz.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/randomly-sort-nsarray/ based on a quick/lazy Google search, but it’s a pretty common way of accomplishing this task.

Draw

We first check to see if the deck is empty. If it’s not, we retain the last object, remove it from the array and return an auto release of it.  It will be up to the caller to retain the Card.  Here is something you don’t see everyday, we are throwing an exception if the user tries to draw from an empty deck.  Kind of a jerk move, but it will ensure that they check the cardsRemaining before performing a draw.  Again, not totally necessary, but good practice.

cardsRemaining

Returns the length of the cards array I override the description method in this class to print out the deck in its entirety.  Again, this is very useful for debugging. Finally, we rock the memory management and release our card deck array when our deck gets cleaned up.

Sample Run/Output

Here is a simple example of how to create a deck, shuffle, and draw.

        Deck *d = [[Deck alloc] init];
	NSLog(@"%@",d);
 
	[d shuffle];
	NSLog(@"%@",d);
 
	NSLog(@"Drew Card: %@",[d draw]);
	NSLog(@"Drew Card: %@",[d draw]);
	NSLog(@"Drew Card: %@",[d draw]);
	NSLog(@"Drew Card: %@",[d draw]);
 
	NSLog(@"%@",d);
 
	[d release];

The output is a little long, so I’ll just past some snippets of it.  You can run this for yourself to see the full output.

Deck with 52 cards
Ace of Hearts
2 of Hearts
3 of Hearts
4 of Hearts
5 of Hearts
6 of Hearts
7 of Hearts
8 of Hearts
9 of Hearts
10 of Hearts
Jack of Hearts
Queen of Hearts
King of Hearts
Ace of Diamonds
2 of Diamonds
3 of Diamonds
...
(After shuffle)
Deck with 52 cards
King of Diamonds
6 of Hearts
5 of Spades
9 of Clubs
2 of Diamonds
8 of Clubs
7 of Hearts
Ace of Clubs
10 of Diamonds
Jack of Diamonds
8 of Spades
6 of Diamonds
Ace of Spades
3 of Spades
...
2010-09-07 14:56:37.953 ICBBlackJack[5465:207] Drew Card: Queen of Spades
2010-09-07 14:56:37.953 ICBBlackJack[5465:207] Drew Card: 9 of Spades
2010-09-07 14:56:37.954 ICBBlackJack[5465:207] Drew Card: 9 of Hearts
2010-09-07 14:56:37.955 ICBBlackJack[5465:207] Drew Card: Queen of Clubs

Deck with 48 cards
King of Diamonds
6 of Hearts
5 of Spades
9 of Clubs
2 of Diamonds
8 of Clubs
7 of Hearts
Ace of Clubs
10 of Diamonds
Jack of Diamonds
8 of Spades
6 of Diamonds
Ace of Spades

Note that drawing a card pulls from the end of the array. It doesn’t matter if you pull from the front or the back, just make sure it’s consistent.

Conclusion

Click Here To Download The Code For This Tutorial

And there you have it! A fully functional deck of cards.  Please be sure to join me next time when we will start implementing the dealer and some basic Blackjack logic. Click Here To Download The Code For This Tutorial Feel free to post questions in the comments section or @reply them to me on Twitter.

Sega America hosted an iPhone gaming event earlier this week, and the lineup of titles they’ve got coming to the App Store this fall is a gamer’s dream: Chu Chu Rocket (my favorite Dreamcast game!) is coming to iOS, along with classic side scrollers Gunstar Heroes and Altered Beast, Sonic the Hedgehog Episode 1 (the brand new 2D version of Sonic), and a free-to-play strategy/RPG MMO called Kingdom Conquest. TouchArcade was there at the event, and they say that Chu Chu Rocket is all you hope it will be, the new Sonic looks excellent, and Kingdom Conquest sounds like an intriguing mix of genres. Card battling, empire building, and RPG questing all built into one Sega-published free-to-play title? Chu Chu and Sonic already have their pedigrees, but it doesn’t sound like you can go wrong with that last one.

What a lineup from Sega for this year — I’m actually more excited about their iPhone releases than I am about anything they’re bringing out on consoles or any other platform. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of Game Center in any of these previews, but all of the games seem to have multiplayer of some sort, from 1-4 players over both Bluetooth and wifi. So it’s probably a pretty good presumption that they’ll be Game Center-enabled in some way.

So lots to look forward to in the next few months. Should be fun.

TUAWSega bringing Chu Chu Rocket, others to iPhone soon originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ever since the FaceTime announcement as an ‘open platform,’ the question’s been hanging over us: when do we expect desktop support for the new videoconferencing approach? “Soon,” is what French website Mac4ever is reporting today. They have a pretty good track record, so the prediction is worth noting.

The article says Apple will soon release a version of iChat that will allow Apple desktop and laptop owners to video chat to iOS devices with FaceTime. Further, the speculation is that Apple will do the same thing for Windows users wanting to talk to FaceTime users either on Macs or iPhones.

Apple has stated that it expects to see FaceTime protocols widely used. If the rumor is correct, that goal should be well on the way to being fulfilled. I can’t wait.

[via 9to5Mac]

TUAWRumor: FaceTime on the way for iChat and Windows originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chillingo invited us out to the headquarters of surfwear manufacturer Billabong yesterday for a look at a new iPhone and iPad game called Billabong Surf Trip. The game is designed by a Portugese developer named Biodroid Entertainment (who told me that they’ve done some work on other consoles, but this is their first title for Apple’s iOS). As you may have guessed from the name, the title is sponsored by Billabong, and features the ability to create a surfer and then send him or her around the world to take on the waves.

Before I sat down to play the game, I asked Billabong’s PR Director Jim Kempton about why they’d gotten involved in an iPhone game, and he said the goal of the game was to “introduce people to what surfing is about, on the level that we’re hoping to cast an interest anyway.” You don’t have to be a surfer to enjoy the game, but enjoying the game might get you interested in surfing, and thus the Billabong brand. “Just like the professional football or professional golf circuit, most people,” said Kempton,” are never going to be playing any more than messing around at the local golf club, but they can understand how it works, or what it means to go to Augusta, or Scotland, or these places.”

TUAWTUAW preview: Billabong Surf Trip originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This video celebrates the “release to manufacturing” of Office for Mac 2011, but with a few humorous “unreleased” features they weren’t able to squeeze into the new version. Frankly I think Keynote will include Auto-Tune in the next version, so that may be Microsoft’s mistake!

TUAWFound Footage: MacBU celebrates Office for Mac 2011 with funny video originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As you go into this weekend looking for things to do, you might be thinking about how to organize your iOS 4.x iPhone and use the Apple symbol in the process.

The first tip, courtesy of Macenstein, deals with labeling of apps and folders. Back in the iPhone OS 2.x days, you could use the Japanese keyboard to type the Apple symbol. That feature disappeared, but now there’s a way to bring back that Apple symbol.

The solution is to create a folder in iOS 4, which is done by dragging one app onto another. Give the folder a name, like “Rename me,” then sync with your computer. With your iPhone selected in iTunes 10, click on the Apps tab. There you’ll see all of your apps and folders, and you can double-click on the folder you just created to rename it. Use the Mac keyboard shortcut Option-Shift-K to type in the Apple symbol (?) and whatever else you want in the folder title, press Return to enter the change, and then click the Apply button to rename the folder on your iPhone. If you ever need to type an Apple symbol into another app, you can simply copy and paste it from the folder name.

Our second tip, from TUAW reader Adam, uses the obvious (but little-used) fact that you can put folders into the “dock” row of icons on your iPhone home screen. Why is that important? With one touch, you can have access to up to 12 of your favorite apps in the always-available dock row. Join the two tips together, and you can have an ? Apps folder in your iPhone dock containing all of those Apple apps that you can’t get rid of.

TUAWTUAW iPhone Tips: Typing the Apple symbol, iOS 4 folders in the dock originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For the iPhone 3G, the biggest new feature for many users under iOS 4.1 is the phone now actually works. Making the iPhone 3G usable under iOS 4 came with some trade-offs before the new OS was even released — app multitasking and wallpapers didn’t make the cut on the older iPhone — but it looks like a couple more features have been pruned from the iPhone 3G after iOS 4.1.

One missing feature we noticed right away: Spotlight no longer searches through MMS messages on the iPhone 3G after the iOS 4.1 update. Given that disabling Spotlight searching was the most common suggested remedy for poor iPhone 3G performance on earlier builds of iOS 4, this omission is somewhat understandable.

More puzzling, however, is another omission the folks at geek.com noticed: over-the-air Notes syncing is now missing in action on the iPhone 3G, too. Up until now, the iPhone 3G, like its newer siblings, has been able to sync Notes between the iPhone and a Mac/PC via Gmail or MobileMe rather than through iTunes, allowing for near-instant Notes updates between devices. According to Apple’s support document on Notes syncing, both the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch have lost this feature. You can still sync Notes with the iPhone 3G via iTunes, but you’ll no longer enjoy device-to-device updates without syncing your iPhone first.

Given the plethora of alternate apps on the App Store that offer far more flexibility and features than Apple’s built-in Notes app, though, this omission is something we might never have noticed if one of our readers hadn’t brought it up. We’re not sure why Apple removed this feature in 4.1; it’s possible that, like Spotlight searching of MMS, it was one of the things dragging down performance on the older devices. Either way, losing over-the-air Notes syncing in IOS 4.1 is a small price to pay for an iPhone 3G that actually functions properly in iOS 4.
Thanks to Jeff for bringing this to our attention.

TUAWOver-the-air notes syncing option disappears from iPhone 3G in iOS 4.1 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A clone of the award-winning game Gobblet (which was given the Neighbourhood Toy Stores of Canada Gold Star Award –don’t tell me you haven’t heard of that prize), Shawn Grimes’ StackEm is a colorful, simple twist on Connect Four that is well worth looking into as a two-person endeavor on your iDevice. The app as it is today (version 1.8) doesn’t offer much to the single player — the AI makes ridiculously stupid plays — but for just $0.99 on the App Store, you can get a very good abstract strategy game for two that you can play in just a few minutes anywhere on your iPad or iPhone.

Read on to see if StackEm might be something worth investigating for you.

TUAWApp review: Abstract strategy game StackEm plunks down some fun originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There are certainly advantages to having your morning newspaper in iPad format: dynamic media, rapid updating, search and more… but not every aspect of the new digital age is an improvement over the old ink-on-dead-trees approach to the news.

We wouldn’t want to spoil the fun of Newsday’s ad for its new iPad app, so we’ll simply give you the video with No Comment.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

TUAWNo Comment: Newsday’s iPad TV ad is awfully buggy originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After a saga that’s lasted more than a year, it looks like Google Voice-enabled app GV Mobile may finally be approved for the App Store. Following recent announcements that gave developers far more transparency into the actual rules of Apple’s App Store approval process, Google Voice developer Sean Kovacs mused on Twitter, “Since GV Mobile complies with all 110+ guidelines newly posted by Apple, it should get approved.”

Kovacs tweeted a followup soon afterward: “Good news: I did get confirmation back from Apple that it will most likely get back in once I resubmit.”

Following GV Mobile’s rejection from the App Store, Kovacs posted the app for sale on Cydia, the App Store alternative for jailbroken iPhones. Over a year later, it appears that Apple’s reforms of the App Store approval process will finally allow the app to be sold to non-jailbroken handsets. Once approved, Kovacs says he will sell GV Mobile for either US$1.99 or $2.99 and may also offer the app for free on a single day as a promotional method to get more users.

While not a VoIP service like Skype, Google Voice does allow US and Canadian users unlimited free calls and SMS, plus several more features that probably made carriers like AT&T unhappy the first time GV Mobile made its way onto the App Store. Now that GV Mobile seems to have finally jumped through the last hoop needed to get onto the App Store, iPhone users will have a powerful alternative to the carriers’ “this many minutes and this many texts per month” plans — and presumably, so will iPad 3G owners.

[Via AppleInsider]

TUAWGoogle Voice may finally be approved for the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Computerworld points to an October 26 ship date for Microsoft Office 2011, based on Amazon’s page updates indicating the 10/26 availability — the products have since been switched back to “sign up to be notified” pre-release mode.

Gregg Keizler’s piece also reiterates the discount options for buying Office 2008 and saving on Office 2011; by purchasing the 2008 versions now, buyers can get $25 or $50 off versus the purchase price of the next version.

We expect to hear more about Office 2011 features and fancy bits over the next few weeks.

[9to5mac rang us up to say they actually posted this at 11:58pm on Sept. 9, 2010. Thanks!]

TUAWIn Brief: Amazon tips hand on Microsoft Office release date originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One of the more surprising app omissions from the iPad was the iPhone’s Clock app. It’s an extremely useful iPhone app, featuring a world clock, alarm, timer, and stopwatch. Why Apple didn’t choose to add this app to the iPad is a mystery for the ages, but at least it’s opened up the market for some incredible clock apps for the platform. Let’s take a look at some of the better clock apps on the App Store:

Night Stand HD (US$4.99, also available in free Lite version) — This good looking universal app not only gives you a choice of clocks, but you also have a world clock, multiple alarms, and a stopwatch. You can also see limited weather information right on the clock face. Unfortunately, the current lack of background capabilities on the iPad means you’ll have to keep this app running in order for those alarms to ring on time, but that will be resolved with iOS 4.2 in November.

Clock Pro HD ($5.99) — Obsessed with time? This might be the iPad app for you. It features an alarm clock in 18 different styles, iPod music alarms, an analog clock full screen support, a chess clock, a world clock, a stop watch with lap control, nature times (sunrise, sunset, midday, high and low tide) for any location, a sleep timer, an egg timer, a metronome, a countdown clock, and a project clock. Whew! As with Night Stand HD, the app must be open for alarms to work due to the background limitations of iOS 3.2 on the iPad.

TUAWA roundup of clock apps for the iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the news that Apple has eased restrictions on third-party development tools, a very excited-sounding Adobe has announced it will resume working on its Flash-to-iPhone compiler, Packager for iPhone.

Soon after the news leaked in April that Apple was restricting third-party tools, a very publicly angry Adobe announced that its fledgling Packager app, part of Flash Professional CS5, wouldn’t be receiving future support after Apple’s restrictions effectively rendered the program useless.

Times have certainly changed now. “We’re hearing from our developer community that Packager apps are already being approved for the App Store,” Adobe says. Support for Adobe’s Flash Player plug-in, however, is still excluded from iOS.

Adobe has every reason to be excited about this, as do Flash developers, who will now have a relatively easy way to recompile their Flash apps for sale on the App Store. Whether that will also translate into high-quality apps is something we users will learn for ourselves as they show up on the App Store over the coming days and weeks.

[Via Mac Rumors]

TUAWAdobe resumes efforts on Packager for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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