Category: Tutorials

Whenever I travel for business or pleasure, I usually dread packing my chargers and cables because I have so many of them. I’ve actually considered packing a separate suitcase with nothing but recharging and sync cables, AC adapters, USB hubs, and extension cords. Fortunately, accessory manufacturer AViiQ has just come out with a way for me to keep everything organized and charged up — the AViiQ Portable Charging Station (US$79.99).

Design

Let’s say you’re going on a trip and need to keep two iPads and two iPhones fully charged and ready to go. In the past, you’d grab your four AC adapters and four cables, then try to stash them in computer bag. The cables invariably get tangled up, and if you don’t use the correct AC adapter with the iPads, they won’t get charged.

Enter the AViiQ Portable Charging Station. It’s one compact zippered bag with an AC power pack and USB 2.0 hub. Unfold the US power plug on the power adapter and plug it into an AC outlet, and you can send enough power through a thin, wind-up DC cord to four USB 2.0 ports to charge those two iPads and two iPhones. If you decide that you need to do a little bit of syncing to a Mac or PC, there’s also a retractable USB cord and one of the USB ports is set up for USB pass-through.

Functionality

How did the AViiQ Portable Charging Station work in reality? Very nicely.

As you can see in the gallery below, the pack had no problems charging up two iPads, an iPhone (in a Mophie Juice Pack Air battery case), and a set of IPEVO Bluetooth speakers all at the same time. When charging was finished, I rolled up the power cable, put the AC adapter back into the little black bag, and tucked the assorted USB cables into the spots that AViiQ thoughtfully provided for them. There’s room for even more cables in the case, as well as a handy hint card for any questions you might have about the Charging Station.

Updated: Somehow I left the power info out of the initial post. The product information notes that the Charging Station delivers 15 W maximum power. (5 Volts DC at a maximum of 3 Amps current). If an iPad is turned on and being charged, it can draw 1.5 Amps of current, so you would theoretically be able to use two and charge iPads simultaneously — but nothing else. I was able to charge both iPads, the iPhone, and speakers, which makes me wonder if the devices were all being charged at a slower pace.

The hub also worked as advertised. I plugged the included USB cord into my MacBook Air and a USB – Dock Connector cable between the Data Port and my iPad, and life was good. Not that I plan on syncing my iPad to anything while I’m on vacation, but business travelers definitely have a need for that capability.

Conclusion

If you do any traveling or just happen to be a person who likes to be organized, grab an AViiQ Portable Charging Station now. Just by keeping all of your charging cables and a powerful AC adapter in one place, it can keep you from going into a cable and AC adapter frenzy while packing. It’s another well-designed product from AViiQ.

For views of the Portable Charging Station in action, be sure to check out the video below.

AViiQ Portable Charging Station keeps your devices organized, charged (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Terminal is a Mac power-user’s best friend. When you need to get something specific done, access the underlying system, modify files or change some settings, command line is often the best and only way to get it done. Instead of having to go to it, DTerm brings the command line to you.

Working in the command line normally means stepping out of your current workflow and stepping into Terminal. Although it can affect anything on the system, and helps you get the job done, it’s a very separate process. DTerm, which we covered back in 2008, makes Terminal access context-sensitive.

From anywhere in any program you can invoke DTerm using a user-configurable global hotkey, from there you can run commands on the files you’re currently working with. No need to manually go through and navigate to the correct file directory, DTerm takes your command line session right there, already set to your current working directory. You can even insert the currently selected documents directly into the command line making it quick and easy.

You can run your commands as you normally would, right from the floating DTerm window and even copy them straight out of the prompt. Once you’re done you can just hit escape, use the hotkey combo again or simply ignore DTerm and it’ll automatically fade out.

DTerm brings the command line to you, integrating it more effectively and quickly into your work flow. It’s a free download from the Mac App Store and is compatible with Lion. If you ever find yourself in Terminal as part of your workflow, give DTerm a whirl and see whether it speeds up your command line sessions.

TUAW’s Daily Mac App: DTerm originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Target and Radio Shack are dropping the price on the iPhone 4, in a move many believe is a stock clearing measure to make room for the iPhone 5.

Radio Shack is currently running a week-long promotion that drops the price of the 16 GB iPhone 4 to US$169 and the 32 GB iPhone 4 to $269. You can cut these prices by an extra $100 if you bring in an older iPhone model as a trade.

Target is also slashing the price on the 16 GB and 32 GB iPhone 4 to $149 and $249, respectively. All the quoted sale prices include a two-year customer agreement.

Big box retailers may be ready to move existing inventory of the iPhone 4, but checks with Verizon and AT&T suggest the wireless carriers are not quite ready for a fire sale on Apple’s popular smartphone. Prices at both carriers remain steady at $199 and $299 for an iPhone 4 with a new wireless agreement.

Radio Shack, Target cut iPhone 4 prices originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Mac owners with a Verizon Wireless mobile broadband device can finally update their system to Lion. Verizon’s VZ Access Manager software, which is required to connect to the carrier’s mobile broadband network, is now compatible with the latest version of Apple’s OS X software. The following devices are now supported in this much needed update:

• LG VL600
• LTE Novatel USB551L
• Pantech UML190
• Pantech UML290

Additional broadband devices will be added in August, with the exception of devices that do not work in 64-bit mode. Verizon provides a list of these legacy devices on its software update page. You can also keep an eye on this page to find out when the updated version of VZ Access Manager is released.

Verizon updates VZAccess Manager software for Lion originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

iOS developers who create successful products for Apple’s mobile platforms are often faced with feedback from potential users asking “When are you going to move XYZ over to the Android platform?” Developer Nick Farina is the co-founder of Meridian Apps, a company that develops a platform for creating location-based apps. Yesterday Farina published a long, detailed treatise on the differences between iOS and Android development, both good and bad.

Some of his findings?

• Apple has made it easy to start writing iOS Apps — you download the free Xcode installer from the Mac App Store and go. For Android, you need to download the SDK, set up Eclipse (a Java IDE), and then install the Google ADT plugin.
• Eclipse is slow and bloated, but once you become familiar with it, “it’ll basically write your code for you.”
• The Objective C code for iOS and the Java code for Android ended up “looking strikingly similar.”
• The Android Emulator is horribly slow. He suggests buying several Android devices for debugging instead, since it’s actually quicker to deploy and test the app on a device, and you’ll want to test against fragmentation caused by different devices and OS versions.
• It’s very easy to make Android UI layouts that automatically resize for different device screen sizes and orientations.
• Animation on iOS devices, dependent on OpenGL, is “hopelessly fast.” Android didn’t place a requirement for a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) on device manufacturers, so animation is limited by the software-based compositing system.

Farina notes that Android is actually the third platform they’ve created Meridian for. The first was Windows Mobile, with iOS being the second. All in all, Farina takes a pragmatic point of view about developing for different platforms — “There will always be new platforms and new paradigms to learn. The best we can do is to understand where each one came from, and to embrace the positives and overcome the negatives as quickly as possible so we can ship some awesome features before everything changes again.”

[via DaringFireball]

An iOS developer’s take on Android development originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

According to a survey [PDF] of over 4,000 customers, satisfaction with Apple’s phone-based support is slipping, while other computer manufacturers like HP are gaining. Apple is still the undisputed leader with 58% of Apple customers saying they were “Very Satisfied” with their experience. Though higher than the 53% rate for HP and 47% for Dell, Apple’s satisfaction rating has dropped 15 points since last year.

It appears as if the automated part of the tech support process has people stymied. According to the survey, only 24 percent of Apple customers are “Very Satisfied” with automated support calls. In this category, Apple trails both Dell and HP whose customers are 30% and 46% satisfied with the experience, respectively.

[Via TechCrunch]

Survey: Apple’s lead in tech support satisfaction is slipping originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Samsung issued a statement to Ausdroid that claims it will launch an Australian version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, despite Apple’s infringement complaint. The statement says the following:

Apple Inc. filed a complaint with the Federal Court of Australia involving a Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 variant that Samsung Electronics had no plans of selling in Australia. No injunction was issued by the court and the parties in the case reached a mutual agreement which stipulates that the variant in question will not be sold in Australia.

A Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 for the Australian market will be released in the near future.

This undertaking does not affect any other Samsung smartphone or tablet available in the Australian market or other countries.

Samsung will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communication business.

Samsung denied the existence of an injunction and suggests the two companies reached an agreement that will bring a version of the 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab to Australian consumers. We don’t know what’s different about this Australian version, nor when it will arrive, but it is good news for Aussies looking to grab this Android tablet. Arriving soon is better than not arriving at all.

Samsung: Galaxy Tab 10.1 will launch in Australia, despite Apple’s complaint originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Kodak may sell the image previewing patent that is the subject of a US$1 billion infringement lawsuit filed against Apple and RIM. This patent is one of 1,100 patents that Kodak is looking to sell as it tries to raise cash. Analysts estimate these patents may be worth more than $650 million, the market value of the company.

In the past, Kodak has used patents to fund its struggling imaging and printing business. It has licensing agreements with 32 companies including Samsung and LG which have collectively paid Kodak $950 million to use the technology in Kodak’s image-preview patents. Kodak was hoping to cash in on the RIM and Apple lawsuit, but this potential influx of cash has stalled. Kodak was handed a setback earlier this year when the ITC delayed its ruling on the Apple/RIM lawsuit until August 31.

Kodak may sell image patent in Apple lawsuit originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

For the first time since the iPad 2 began selling on March 11, 2011, the shipping time for the iconic tablet is 24 hours. That’s right — you can order an iPad 2 right now with the assurance that it be shipped from the factory within one day. It will take a few days longer for it to actually arrive at your doorstep, but at least there are no delays in production now.

This is a sure sign that Apple’s production of the iPad 2 has finally reached an equilibrium with demand. During the Apple Q3 2011 Results Call last month, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook noted that the company was nearing that critical balance of supply and demand, and it appears that early production issues have been resolved.

Shortly after the iPad 2 release, TUAW reported that shipping times had slipped out to 4 – 5 weeks. By the end of April, those times had decreased to the 1 – 2 week level. Since then, improvements in the yield of critical components have helped the situation.

If the future iPad 3 proves to be as popular as its predecessors, I’m sure we’ll see similar shortages for 4 to 5 months, so be sure to order early and often.

iPad 2 shipping time hits 24 hours for the first time originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

OS X Lion’s new Multi-Touch gestures have switched things up more than any previous version of OS X, and they’re brought a lot of confusion with them. While “natural” scrolling is the most obvious change and the one that takes the most getting used to (unless you disable it), other inconsistencies in the way Lion handles Multi-Touch gestures are both more subtle and potentially more baffling. The one that’s been tripping me up even after almost two weeks of using Lion is the gestures for going forward and back in Safari and other applications.

In Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard, a three-finger swipe would take you backward and forward in any app that supported that gesture, like Apple’s Safari, Finder, Preview, iPhoto, Aperture, and even the iTunes Store. Eventually, third-party browsers like Firefox baked in support for these three-finger gestures, and the whole system worked pretty well.

OS X Lion introduced a new gesture for forward/back navigation: a two-finger swipe. I actually like this gesture better, because when you’re using Safari you get a preview of the next/previous page as you swipe, something that three-finger swiping doesn’t provide. It’s a very neat trick, but there’s a problem: the gesture only works in Safari. No other programs react to this gesture at all. So if you have “Swipe between pages” set to “Scroll left or right with two fingers” in System Preferences, you lose the ability to use gestures to go back and forward in Finder, iPhoto, Aperture, and other apps.

Things get even more confusing if you enable “Swipe with two or three fingers” and have natural scrolling enabled. I’ll try to explain why with the outline below:

Two-finger swipe: natural scrolling disabled

• Swipe from left to right: Go forward
• Swipe from right to left: Go back

Two-finger swipe: natural scrolling enabled

• Swipe from left to right: Go back
• Swipe from right to left: Go forward

Three-finger swipe: natural scrolling enabled/disabled makes no difference

• Swipe from left to right: Go forward
• Swipe from right to left: Go back

You might have already caught on to the inconsistency, but I’ll spell it out anyway: If you have natural scrolling enabled and have also enabled swiping with either two or three fingers, the gesture direction is completely reversed depending on the number of fingers you use. The result: brain meltdown.

Right now, the only ways around this inconsistency are:

1. Disable natural scrolling
2. Leave three-finger gestures disabled and lose the ability to swipe forward/back in any app other than Safari
3. Set swiping to three fingers only and lose Safari’s ability to preview pages as you swipe
4. Reverse the three-finger swipe gesture directions with a third-party app like BetterTouchTool (my personal choice)
5. Live with it, while your muscle memory quietly rebels and plots to overthrow you

I’d like to think this inconsistency is something that Apple will address in a future update to Lion, but as it’s likely Apple considers three-finger swiping a “legacy” gesture from earlier versions of OS X and only kept it around to placate users who upgraded from Snow Leopard, the company may not bother. A better solution might be to expand the new two-finger gestures to apps other than Safari. In the meantime, using BetterTouchTool to work around the problem has at least stopped my muscle memory from cursing Apple’s UI design team fifty times a day.

Baffling inconsistencies in OS X Lion Multi-Touch originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Dear Aunt TUAW,

Is there a way in LION to conduct a search for all those incompatible apps that have the ø thru them?

Your loving nephew,

Paul

Dear Paul,

Uncle Steve tells Auntie that Lion automatically searches for incompatible apps during installation. You can do a Spotlight search for “Incompatible Software” and it will find a folder containing all of those apps, plus a text file explaining which apps are “bad”.

Here’s what he found on his iMac just after installation:

A quick look into that folder revealed a couple of kernel extensions that weren’t playing well with Lion. The “Read Me” file showed exactly what those files were:

A simple Finder search also helps you locate incompatible software on an external drive or software that you added after the Lion installation. In Finder, start a search for “Kind is Application” and sort by Kind. Your “Classic Application” files will appear at the top of the list, each one representing a now-unsupported app. This allows you to detect those apps on demand, even after you’ve already installed Lion.

Hope these pointers help you.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me locate incompatible software originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Lootiful has a line of snap-on iPWN cases that protect your iPhone in style by making it look like a Nintendo Gameboy. The business, run by a single graphics designer, has now extended its retro gaming cases to the iPad 2.

The iPad 2 version is identical to the iPhone 4 and 3G/3GS version. All cases snap onto the back of the smartphone or tablet and provide protection from bumps and scratches. On the front, you have full access to your touchscreen and buttons, while on the back, you have a Gameboy replica that gives your iOS device a look like no other case on the market.

No word on availability for the iPad 2 case, but Lootiful’s website promises that pre-orders will be starting soon. Pricing is also an unknown, but the iPhone 4 version retails for a very reasonable US$18.

[Via Akihabara News]

Make your iPad 2 look like a Gameboy with this retro gaming case originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Iomega has just introduced the new Mac Companion Hard Drive, a 2 or 3 TB external drive that not only offers a lot of storage in a nice-looking container, but also provides a high-powered USB port to charge up your iPad.

The Mac Companion is priced a bit higher than high-capacity USB external drives, with the 2 TB model weighing in at US$195.00 and the 3 TB model at $295.00. However, the manufacturer’s suggested retail price is right in line with many other FireWire 800 drives, and the Mac Companion can connect through FireWire 800 as well as USB 2.0.

The Mac Companion also fills the job of a hub. It not only has a 2.1 Amp USB charging port for your iPad, but two more USB ports in a built-in hub and two FireWire 800 ports. Iomega provides cables to get your Mac and the Mac Companion working together off the bat — one FireWire 800 cable, one conversion FireWire 400-800 cable, and one USB 2.0 cable.

When placed near just about any modern Mac, the Mac Companion fits right in. The aluminum case has four LEDs on the front to let you know how much free space you have left on the drive. Iomega provides software to enable scheduled file-level backups, although most Mac users will want to use the Mac Companion with Time Machine. Iomega also provides a free 2 GB online backup through MozyHome for extra assurance.

TUAW is hoping to get one of the Mac Companion Hard Drives for a full review, so stay tuned for more details.

Iomega Mac Companion Hard Drive: Big storage, high-powered charging ports originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Continuity 2 is another fun puzzle/platformer that the iPhone has inherited from Flash — the original title also had you sliding various parts of puzzles around in order to get a little stick figure from one side of the level to the other. But Continuity 2 ups the ante, introducing new mechanics like switches, power sources that need to be hooked up to work, and even gravity flipping, sending your little guy caroming around the level while trying to reach the exit.

This game is everything a great puzzle game should be — it offers up a number of simple mechanics, and then slowly tweaks up the complexity over time, asking you to constantly use the various mechanics in new and surprising ways. There are over 50 levels to play through, and full Game Center integration means if you want to, you’ll be playing this one for a while.

Continuity 2: The Continuation is available on the iPhone as a universal app for just US 99 cents, or you can grab the lite version to check out the gameplay first if you’d rather do that. It is, however, an excellent puzzle game with lots of great ideas, so if that sounds like your thing, look it up.

TUAW’s Daily iPhone App: Continuity 2 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Forbes has identified the hacker behind the popular jail breaking site JailBreakMe.com as 19-year-old Brown University student, Nicholas Allegra.

Yet Allegra has managed to find a path around those locks. In JailbreakMe 3, Allegra used a bug in how Apple’s mobile operating system iOS handles PDFs fonts that allows him to both locate and repurpose hidden commands. That critical flaw allowed a series of exploits that not only gains total control of the machine but leaves behind code that jailbreaks it again every time the device reboots –all without ever even crashing the operating system. “I spent a lot of time on the polish,” Allegra says with a hint of pride.

Source: Meet Comex, The 19-Year-Old iPhone Uber-Hacker Who Keeps Outsmarting Apple