Category: I-phone

As expected, Apple has sent out a quick reminder that the annual discount offer for college students — buy a new Mac, get a free iPod touch — is expiring September 7. While this date was expected to coincide with the rock & roll introduction event, we now know that the big shindig will be taking place next Tuesday Wednesday, September 1.

Got some money burning a hole in your pocket? Are you, or do you know a college student? Time for that new Mac, but it’s running out.

TUAWIn brief: Free iPod with Mac purchase offer ends 9/7 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s some great news for Netflix subscribers. The free Netflix app has finally made it to the iPhone and iPod touch. Netflix members on plans as low as US$8.99 a month can instantly watch movies and TV shows streamed from the Netflix servers.

This has been an eagerly-awaited app (the iPad version was available at launch), and I downloaded it this morning to give it a test. It works fine on both 3G and WiFi, and the 3G feature is a bit of a surprise given AT&T’s position of holding back on some streaming apps. Slingbox, for example, found dealing with AT&T tough sledding, but the company finally did get the app approved for 3G.

My TUAW colleague Richard Gaywood points out that with many AT&T users no longer on unlimited data plans, the company may see apps like this as a profit center. The new Hulu Plus app also works over 3G.

The new iPhone version has excellent image quality, supports fast forwarding and rewinding of the video stream, and like other incarnations of Netflix, allows you to pick up where you left off if you stop a movie and restart it. As Netflix members will appreciate, you can pause a movie you are watching on a Netflix device at home, and start the movie on the iPhone app and it will resume at the same place.

TUAWNetflix app hits the iPhone and iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is one of the cooler things I’ve seen done with the iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen. (i)Pawn is a game of sorts that works with a series of little figures on tokens that actually interact with the touchscreen itself. Most of the time, you need actual flesh to interact with the iPhone’s screen, but these figures are also capacitive, so the app running on the device not only knows when and where you’ve placed these figures down but also which figures are touching, and so on.

Unfortunately, it’s all in French, so I’m not completely sure what the “game” is. It appears to be a relationship game that has something to do with various personalities passing messages and interacting. And it could just be a demo of some kind, with a video running underneath those figures rather than actually interacting with the pieces themselves.

But it’s not hard to think of other applications of a system like this (D&D on a touchscreen, anyone?), and a bigger screen like the iPad would come in handy, too. (i)Pawn is scheduled to be for sale in November of this year, so we’ll keep an eye out for it and try to find out more about what it is and exactly how it works. Meanwhile, you can watch the videos of the figures in action and dream of all the various ways to use accessories like this.

[via TDW]

TUAW(i)Pawn is an iPhone game with screen-reactive pieces originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MobileMe customers who use the web apps will experience some down time later today as Apple performs some scheduled maintenance.

Expect the web services to be offline between 10:00 PM and 12:30 AM Pacific Time. Apple doesn’t mention if other services will be affected, so we assume you’ll still be able to send and receive email via Mail for the Mac and iOS, as well as manage events with iCal. If you’re restricted to using the web apps, get your work done early and enjoy a little forced down time later tonight.

For the latest MobileMe news and status updates, you can look here (the closest Apple has come to maintaining a blog). You’ll find a history of recent status updates here.

TUAWMobileMe to go down for scheduled maintenance originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The image above was shot by Jason Mullins with his iPhone 4 on a flight from London to Guernsey. The weird black lines you can see are actually distorted, disconnected copies of the propeller blades, but this isn’t a Photoshop hack; this was how the image came out of the phone.

Virtually all consumer grade digital cameras, including cell phones, do not take the picture instantly when you push the shutter button. Instead, they quickly scan over the CCD CMOS sensor from the top left to the bottom right, like the electron beam in an old CRT television. This is called rolling shutter capture. This scanning process is fast, but sometimes it’s not fast enough. If you angle the device just right and take pictures of fast moving or rotating objects, you can create all sorts of weird and funky distortion effects. You can see more like this in the rolling shutter Flickr group.

(Thanks to Jason for letting us reproduce his shot; he’s put a few more pictures on Flickr from the same flight.)

[Post updated to correct CCD vs. CMOS sensor used in the iPhone.]

TUAWRolling shutter effect can make stunning iPhone photos originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chapters (US$3.99 on the iPad) looks like a terrific app for your various notetaking enterprises. I haven’t yet been completely sold on the iPad as a blogging or writing device; so far, I’ve stuck with my MacBook rather than an iPad when I need to be out remotely somewhere keeping notes or writing things down. But Chapters is exactly the kind of app that could change that. With a simple and powerful interface and a set of features that steps aside and lets you write in whatever fashion you want, it could easily help your iPad replace a more powerful notebook computer.

The ability to add photos, edit text formatting, and quickly find and export text you’ve written into the app is all icing on the cake. Whatever your implementation would be (the reviews in iTunes have a teacher keeping notes, a photographer tracking trips, and a journal writer just documenting random thoughts), Chapters seems like a great app to keep notes, large or small, on the iPad. And that introductory price of $3.99 makes it pretty easy to check out, too.

TUAWTUAW’s Daily App: Chapters originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

Here’s a great tip from Mac OS X Hints about an old, old Mac utility. Stickies has been around since the System 7 days, and it provides a super-simple way to store quick bits of information. Did you know that, with Snow Leopard, you can also use it to store screenshots? Well, you can, and it’s simple to do.

With a sticky note open, right-click or control-click on the note to bring up the contextual menu. You’ll see “Capture Selection from Screen.” Select it to bring up the screen capture tool, drag the cursor around the area you want to snap, and you’re done! The screenshot will be inserted into that note. This only works with the Stickies app, not the Dashboard widget.

We love finding little tips like this, and we hope you find it useful.

TUAWMac 101: Adding screenshots to Stickies originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As a software developer myself, I know how hard it is to see your product being ripped off. We have recently reported on how even $2 iPhone games (like Stardunk) or iPad games (like Aqua Globs HD) are not immune despite their low cost and closed platforms. Their developers have reported piracy rates as high as 38% and 50%, respectively.

Mac developer Dmitry Chestnykh of Coding Robots recently came across a crack on The Pirate Bay for his journal keeping application Mémoires and decided to use different tactics. Out of curiosity, he downloaded the crack to see how it worked, and he did not like what he found one bit, … but it’s not for the reasons you might think.

Reproduced below is a portion of the official complaint he has filed with the Pirate Bay, under the heading of “Notice of Ridiculous Activity” (keep in mind English isn’t Dmitry’s first language).

It has come to my attention that the torrent located at [URL] is ridiculous.

Not only it requires installing APE plugin, and generating keyfiles using some scary tool, it contains an [expletive] *WINDOWS* program to verify the validity of this release. The “How-to” section in the description is just incomprehensible, and won’t be understood by anyone other than the writer of this description.

Clearly, the “cracker” Minamoto did a lazy job and don’t know how to crack software. It’s an [expletive] SINGLE BOOLEAN SWITCH that validates the licence, it doesn’t require any Application Enhancer tricks or whatever.

I demand that you don’t remove this torrent, so that people can laugh at Minamoto and CORE skills. However, I also demand the better crack to be made, so that it doesn’t cripple the user experience of my beautiful program.

Dmitry: for your vigorous defense of Quality, TUAW salutes you.

[via torrentfreak.com]

TUAWMac indie dev asks The Pirate Bay to keep a torrent of his software originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First of all, we’re giving away four Vapor cases in your choice of colors to four lucky readers. Second, the Vapor case is awesome. The Vapor bolts onto the edge of your iPhone 4 and cradles it in aircraft aluminum, complete with little rubbery grips on the inside to isolate the antenna and provide some shock absorption. It adds just enough width to the phone on the edges to make it a little easier to grip, especially if your hands are larger. The indentation allows for added grip, plus the larger edge makes it slightly more stable if you want to sit your iPhone on its edge.

True, at $79.95 the Vapor is not for everyone. It is a premium case. If you like finely-crafted accessories, you will love it. Apple’s case provides similar protection, so if you’re on a budget, you can afford to buy a cheaper case. Still, the machined power button and the cutouts for volume, SIM, cable connector and headphones are meticulously cut. There’s clearly a lot of thought in the design of this case. If you appreciate great design and want a case that stands out from the rest, the Vapor is for you. You can even get custom engraving and several colors. The downside is that ElementCase, makers of the Vapor, are busy taking pre-orders and aren’t currently shipping.**

(**Note: Since this writing, TUAW has learned that ElementCase is, in fact, shipping both current and back orders. Expected order processing time is currently less than two weeks.)

To put your iPhone in the Vapor, you’ll need a little hex wrench that comes with the case. There’s an optional carbon fiber back plate you can add, but I didn’t feel it was necessary. Once the four screws are in place, the case cannot easily be removed. That could be a minus if you tend to use a dock, because you’ll have to keep the wrench with you and unscrew those screws every time you want to dock the phone. Still, in my road testing I never felt I needed to remove the case. It made the iPhone feel sturdier, fit better in my hand and provided insulation from my antenna woes.

Details on the giveaway on the next page.

TUAWVapor iPhone case review and giveaway originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steam has released its latest hardware survey results, and there’s both good and bad news for us Mac gamers. The bad news first: Mac usage of the gaming service has apparently leveled off since the big debut a few months ago, and while the Mac share was originally around 8%, it appears the novelty has worn off a bit, and Mac usage has fallen down to about 5% of the total Steam audience. That’s not too surprising (don’t forget that the service kicked off with a free Portal game and a good amount of publicity), and it’s important to remember that 5% of Steam’s 25 million users is still a significant audience. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple ever takes advantage of that — we haven’t heard a single official word from them yet about Steam coming to our platform, although the Snow Leopard Graphics Update was tuned to clear up issues that Valve reported.

The good news, however, is that Valve has separated out Windows and Mac stats in the hardware survey, so even though there are a few less percentage points of people to look at, we have a lot of interesting information about those Mac users. As you can see in the graphic above, the majority of them are actually playing on a MacBook Pro — iMacs are the next biggest model on the list, but represent 25% of Mac users as opposed to the MBP’s 49%.

Steam is also promising a list of most commonly installed Mac applications, but as of this writing, that information isn’t posted quite yet. Unfortunately, while Steam is installed on a wide variety of Windows computers, I’ll bet that it hasn’t quite reached widespread adoption on the Mac side, so these stats will be specifically for Mac gamers rather than the Mac audience as a whole. But it’s always interesting to see what stats come out of the Steam Hardware Survey, as a snapshot of just what our technology profile looks like.

[via Joystiq]

TUAWSteam releases Mac stats, share drops to 5% originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to another episode of TUAW TV Live, the weekly livestreaming video show where you can join in on the conversation.

Today, I’ll be presenting another all-Mac episode, where I try to avoid using the i-words (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) and showcase the venerable Apple computer line. Some of today’s topics include:

• Upgrading older Macs to bring back some of that new-Mac speed
• Ideas for regular maintenance of your favorite Mac
• Backups
• Boot Camp
• How to prepare an old Mac for “repurposing” (i.e., sale or donation)
• Places to sell an old Mac

I’ll also give you a peek at a few Mac apps that I’ve been playing with lately.

Now it’s time to get on with the show! To join in from your Mac or PC, just go to the next page by clicking the link at the bottom of this post, and you’ll find a live stream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to join in on the fun by asking questions or making comments.

If you’re driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you’re stuck in traffic, please don’t — keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone by downloading the free Ustream Viewing Application.

iPad users haven’t been forgotten, either, as you can tune in to TUAW TV Live on your iPad! That link will send yo to a non-Flash page, although you won’t have access to our chat tool.

TUAWThe extra special TUAW TV Live all-Mac episode, version 2.0 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nominations have been announced for the Game Developers Choice Online Awards (to be announced at the upcoming GDC Online conference in Austin), and iPhone developer Ngmoco has secured a few spots in among the rest of the big PC game developers. We Rule picked up nominations for Best Online Game Design, Best Online Audio, and Best New Online Game, and Godfinger was recognized in the Best Online Visual Arts category. iPhone developers Booyah and Digital Chocolate also got nominated, but both of those companies were chosen for their Facebook titles, not their iPhone creations.

So congrats to Ngmoco — the company has certainly made a splash on the App Store with its freemium model, but these nominations show that former EA exec Neil Young’s company is competing on quality with much larger PC titles like League of Legends, Aion and Dungeon Fighter Online. The awards will be given out at GDC Online, taking place October 5-8 in Austin, Texas.

TUAWNgmoco’s iPhone titles nominated for a few GDC Online awards originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well now. The previous rumor about 99 cent rentals for TV episodes on iTunes was just your average, but now that we know there’s an Apple event just around the corner, it’s time to start making hay out of all the chaff floating around. A source now tells the Wall Street Journal that Apple is pushing hard for a deal with Disney to nail down cheaper 48-hour rentals, presumably to come through iTunes and the revamped iTV service. Resistance to the deal is coming from TV companies (surprise, surprise), who are leery about putting too much content out through online services, fearing that people will leave their monthly cable bills behind if another service arises.

What’s funny about that, of course, is that Apple sees that’s already happening. Services like Hulu Plus and Netflix are already making cable customers rethink their monthly fees, and so Apple is finding itself with a limited amount of time to get in on the action. The Wall Street Journal says the company is pushing for agreements “before the new television season starts,” but now that we know there’s an event planned for September 1st, it’s more likely Apple is trying to get agreements set up before the announcement. Of course, as Philip Elmer-DeWitt points out, the real economic tradeoff isn’t between the $0.99 rentals and a more lucrative plan the studios come up with — it’s between Apple’s proven iTunes-based economy and the free-range TV programming on BitTorrent.

And with its ties to Disney, odds are that Apple will definitely have enough to go forward, even if it doesn’t have every channel signing on the dotted line just yet. So here’s the question: if Apple does announce a new iTV, and a way to watch new television on demand right away, will you choose a system like that over whatever cable bill you’re currently paying?

TUAWMore murmuring about 99 cent iTunes TV rentals originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After a few fits and false starts, the image above shows the iControlPad in what’s purported to be its final production form, according to inventor Craig Rothwell’s Twitter account. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, and sales are supposed to start sometime in September, but Rothwell says the unit above is the first off the line, and there will be a production run of just 3000 to start. The unit has two sidebar pieces that wrap around the iPhone or iPod touch, and in addition to the extra control buttons on the bottom, the ‘pad also has a battery that “doubles the iPhone battery life for gaming.” There are shoulder buttons on the back as well.

Rothwell says he doesn’t ever expect to get Apple’s support on the project, but by just switching out the two side pieces, the pad could be adapted for any number of phones, so if the concept takes off, you can probably expect to see an Android version as well. We’ll keep an eye out for pricing and other information. It’s been a long (long) time coming, but for iPhone gamers who could use a few more buttons in their games, looks like the wait might almost be over.

[via Engadget]

TUAWiControlPad going into production (again), 3000 units in first run originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kaplan Publishing is offering quite a few free eBooks through the iTunes store, but you can only access them on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. It’s a great deal if you’re heading back to school or just want to stock up on some quality reference material.

The books are in the categories of college prep, graduate studies, law, medicine, nursing and education. The book are free from now until August 30.

Kaplan first became well known to students preparing for SAT and other exams such as the GRE, GMAT, LSAT and many others. The company then expanded into publishing on many education topics.

TUAWA barrel of free books from Kaplan makes a great back-to-school haul originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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