Iphone Updates

With the inclusion of “Inspector” windows in most Mac OS X applications, you’re constantly jumping around between the different tabs in the window. This little tip will save you time as you’ll no longer need to jump around from tab-to-tab! Here it goes:

All you have to do is hold down the option key whilst clicking on the tab you want.

And there you have it … the simplest Mac 101 we’ve done yet. When you click on the tab you want, a new inspector window will appear with the tab you just clicked. You can open as many as you want! This works well in Pages, Keynote, and pretty much any application that supports inspector windows.

Image editors are for the Mac are suddenly popping up everywhere. There’s Pixelmator and Acorn, and this month Nolobe has released the public beta of Iris…only three months overdue.

So what happened? It’s a terrible story, actually, as a fire put everything on hold for the developers. The good news is they’re back at it and you can test Iris out for yourself. One of the things that makes Iris unique is its single-window interface (Image editors typically display palettes).

When you’ve got several images open, they’re displayed in a row at the bottom of the window (see image above). It take some adjustment if you’re used to a palatte-driven application, but nice and snappy.

Remember, this is a beta, so expect bugs and don’t use it for mission-critical files. Iris will retail for $79 when it is released but can be pre-ordered for $39.

Do you make documentation? Do you constantly find yourself having to explain step-by-step procedures to do things on the Mac? BlueMango Learning Systems has been doing this stuff for a while, and the tedium eventually drove them to create their own tool to make things faster. That’s innovation for you– if you can’t find a tool, build one (that’s how Plasq wound up creating Skitch). Screensteps is truly handy for anyone needing to illustrate steps, like bloggers doing how-to’s, all the way up to professional manual-makers. Scott got a quick demo on an excursion to Moscone West. Video after the jump.

Continue reading Show floor video: Screensteps makes documenting easier

A physicist by trade, Robert J. Lang also has a quite unique claim to fame as one of the world’s foremost origami artists. In fact, he has a Pteranodon with a 14-foot wing span at permanent display at the Redpath Museum of Natural History and a long list of commissions and commercial projects waiting in the wings. And he uses his MacBook Pro, two software programs he authored, and Wolfram’s Mathematica to help him conceptualize and map out each new creation.

It’s fair to say that, however lovely the iPhone, its 2-megapixel camera is yet to blow anybody away with the visual splendour of the images it produces.  Brando are looking to, if not improve them as such, then at least let you take mediocre shots closer to your subject, thanks to a 6x optical zoom accessory.

 

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“It’s easy to ride, it’s exciting, and it’s dynamic.” That’s Frank Aguilar, waxing enthusiastic about Snowcycle, the snow-shredding board bike his company designed on a Mac. In fact, the Mac performs a pivotal role at the company. Slopecycle depends on virtually every phase of its business, including accounting, marketing, scheduling graphic design, and both audio and video production using Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro. “Most of us have never had any formal video training, but Final Cut Pro is so straightforward and powerful that we didn’t really need it,” says Aguilar.

We’ve been hearing reports/rumors from other sources that a 1.1.3 jailbreak is being worked on for release either today or tomorrow. Truth is, these rumors are false. There is no v1.1.3 jailbreak being released soon. There really is no projected date on when a 1.1.3 jailbreak will be available, but the dev team is working hard on it. With v1.1.3’s new security, the firmware is a lot harder to unlock and get working with 3rd party apps. Hopefully we’ll see a jailbreak, but the SDK is just around the corner in February.

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With “Valentine’s Day around the corner” Marc Saltzman (usatoday.com) tells us that “it pulled on my heart strings enough to report that Apple has added a pink iPod nano to its line-up, just in time for you to buy it for your sweetie.” The new 8GB iPod nano “costs $199 and includes free engraving on the back and free shipping when purchased at Apple.com’s web store.”

“This week,” reports Katerine Boehret (allthingsd.com), “I’ve been using an iPhone and iPod touch with” the recent Apple updates installed, “and I must say that both devices are much more useful and fun with these improvements.” In particular, Boehret likes Web clip: they “give these gadgets a new sense of instant gratification because they direct users to specific Web pages seconds after the device turns on.” And the iPod touch “now has the same stellar Mail program that is found in the iPhone, a real plus,” she says.

Announcing financial results for its fiscal 2008 first quarter, which ended December 29, 2007, Apple today posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. In attaining its highest revenue and earnings in company history, Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macs, a 44% unit growth and 47% revenue growth over the year ago quarter; sold 22,121,000 iPods, representing five percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter; and sold 2,315,000 iPhones in the quarter.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a gorgeous new pink iPod nano joins the lineup of the world’s most popular music player. The much-requested pink iPod nano features a stunning two-inch display for watching music videos, TV shows, or movies rented using the brand new iTunes Movie Rentals. Available immediately in an 8GB model for $199, the pink iPod nano can play up to 24 hours of audio or 5 hours of video on a single charge. In addition to pink, 8GB iPod nano models also come in silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition.

The biggest challenge I encountered when lobbying for an iPhone at work wasn’t the price, or the fact that is only kinda sorta supports Exchange (IMAP, I love you, but you are no ActiveSync) but rather it was bureaucratic in nature. There was simply no way to buy an iPhone using a corporate account. I got around this by buying the iPhone myself, and paying the monthly bill myself (aren’t I clever?).

Luckily for well heeled corporate drones everywhere AT&T has announced Enterprise plans for the iPhone. The rates are pretty much the same, but the beauty is that some faceless, soulless corporation will be footing the bill for you (ain’t capitalism grand?).

Thanks, Chris.

I nabbed Pixelmator last week as part of the Macheist bundle, and I have to say that it’s quickly become my photo editor of choice for blogging– it’s quick, beautiful, simple, and perfect for what I need. Of course, what I need is mostly just resizing and cropping (with the occasional color fills or quick brushes), so I’m not a pro photo editor by any means, but as the creators said in our interview, it gets the job done.

And with the new patch 1.1.2, just released today, it gets the job done even better. The patch offers quite a few bug fixes, and a short list of interface tweaks and improvements. Selection tools have been beefed up, as have those color fills (they work in real-time, unlike before, you know, when they worked in fake-time). The update is now available for download over on the site, or should show up in the application as well.

After the ongoing China Mobile madness, dealing with Thai carrier Advanced Info Service (AIS) must seem like a breath of fresh air for Apple. 

“We are negotiating on details, including a revenue sharing standard. Apple needs a local operator to promote iPhone” Prattana Leelapanang, assistant vice president for AIS wireless business marketing

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HD is the next best thing to being there, and if you weren’t fortunate enough to be in the audience of Steve Job’s Macworld 2008 keynote, than this is for you. Apple has just made available a HD stream for your viewing pleasure. The stream is 720p (that’s 1280×720, just what the Apple TV supports) and requires a fairly fast machine to watch (Apple says you need a 1.8 GHz or faster G5 at the very least to watch the stream, and at least 256 MB of RAM).

I just watched the first few minutes and it looks great.

Thanks, Adam.

Having yanked their content from iTunes after arguing with Apple over the prices charged for video – and accusing the company of slashing the cost of shows such as The Office and Scrubs so as to promote iPod sales – NBC are now apparently close to making up.  In a Financial Times report about network CEO Jeff Zucker, the NBC head-honcho suggests working relationships are beginning to be patched up:

Mr Zucker appears to have patched up relations with Apple after a pricing dispute last year led NBC to pull its shows from the iTunes digital media store. “We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple,” he said. “We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.” Financial Times

 

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Apple will be reporting its 2008 Q1 financial results today at 5 PM EST. After yesterday’s worldwide market plunge (U.S. exchanges were closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), Apple shares dropped as much as 8% as the markets opened this morning. Though the stock has largely rebounded (thanks to the Federal Reserve’s surprise emergency cuts in lending rates), this will certainly make for an interesting backdrop for today’s earnings call.

We’ll be live-blogging the call (it is streaming live via QuickTime here) and trying out the CoverItLive service to see how it performs.

Join us back here at 5 PM EST for all the action.

As we reported last week, Apple is now offering the iPhone to corporate users.  The chief difference appears to be a separation of the voice and data – or, more accurately SMS messaging – elements of the standard consumer plans: the former can be selected from AT&T’s usual business range, while the latter are broken down by the number of SMS messages subscribers can send, with 200 messages for $45, 1,500 at $55 and unlimited priced at $65 per month.  Unlimited internet browsing and Visual Voicemail access is included in those messaging bundles.

 

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When your corporate IT department says “Sure, we like the Mac, but we can’t manage it through Group Policy, so it’s inherently evil,” you can offer several alternatives: Centrify, ADmit Mac, and Likewise (formerly Centeris) — all will provide smooth integration of your Macs into AD and give the central command and control guys the feeling of power they crave. We caught up with Steve from Likewise on the show floor and got a quick walkthrough.

Sometimes the most interesting ideas are ones that fall out of favor and come back again years later. Witness Tilestack, a technology preview on the floor at Macworld that allows importing and instant web-enabling of vintage HyperCard stacks, as well as advanced interactive web applications with minimal coding. Check out the video and the Tilestack site for more info.

The gentlemen at ecamm networks have a slew of products already in production: iGlasses, Call Recorder, and plenty more. Watch the video for demos of iLidz, iPhone Disk, and an unreleased video hack that’s got to be seen to be believed. Video moved into the continuation for faster home page loading.

Continue reading Show floor video: ecamm networks with iLidz and more

Wandering the floor of Macworld you’re bound to run into all sorts of folks. As we were taping behind the Apple booth we saw Merlin Mann talking to the Panic guys. He was kind enough to take a moment from his busy (but organized) schedule and talk to us.

It takes a pretty strong constitution to exhibit native apps for the iPhone on the Macworld show floor (and probably a fairly hefty bankroll — booths ain’t free), but the Polar Bear Farm guys are up to the challenge. We caught a demo of the Search tool for iPhone, available only for jailbroken phones at the moment but expected to ship for unmodified devices shortly after the SDK becomes public. Check out the video for the details.

Continue reading Show floor video: Polar Bear Farm demos iPhone search utility

This time in Ask TUAW we’ll look at a kernel panic problem, how to change what appears in iTunes audiobooks sidebar, hot to change the Apple boot icon, how to monitor network traffic, how to automatically file downloads and more.

As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. And now, to the questions!

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Kernel panics, automatic filing of downloads, changing the boot icon and more

Leave it to Scoble to livestream us taping him an hour or so after the keynote. Will he be buying a MacBook Air?

Christopher Breen knows a thing or two about iPods, iTunes and the Apple digital media ecosystem. We asked him about the limits of the newly-enabled Apple TV purchases, HD content and the fragile-yet-sexy Macbook Air.

A TUAW reader from a company with an Enterprise license from Microsoft wrote in to ask if we had any solid information on when Office for Mac 2008 was being released to licensees. Well, our man on the floor managed to get a comment from a Microsoft rep to the effect that the English, Spanish, and French localizations will be released on February 1, with more languages coming on March 1.

Interestingly, the campus computer folks at my university report the same February 1st date for the universities, but that is apparently for IT deployment on university computers. My campus bookstore is saying that the student and faculty site licensed version will not be available until April. However, I suspect your mileage may vary at other universities.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I love Safari. Unfortunately, not all web developers are hip to it, especially when it comes to Ajax-based web apps. In fact, I’d have trouble naming very many web-based, “WYSIWYG” editors, let alone full collaboration suites, that work well with Safari. That’s why I was pleased to hear that the Leopard-loving folks at Zimbra, the open source messaging and collaboration suite, have announced expanded support for Mac users, including Safari compatibility. To the best of my knowledge (and according to their press release), this makes them the first major collaboration suite to support Safari.

And the support, especially in the document editor, is good. It uses valid XHTML tags and CSS to create cross-browser compatibility. I think the feature I love the most right now is the full support for rich text pasting (and no font tags). If you’re using Firefox, you get page previews, monetary conversions and more when hovering over different bits of information. These seem to be missing on Safari, but that could be on account of an odd setting in my configuration.

In addition to Safari support, Zimbra has also added support for CalDav, allowing iCal 3 to sync and share calendars through its server. And for the mobile set, they’ve added a mobile HTML client that makes the suite iPhone compatible. With the preexisting Zimbra Connector for iSync, Zimbra users can sync their email, address books and calendars to their iPhone.

You can catch Zimbra at Macworld in booth W-4348. Zimbra is available for free as the ZCS 5.0 Open Source Edition. They also offer a Network Edition with commercial support, educational discounts available. And for the curious, you can demo the suite online at their website.

All iPhones that were bricked after attempting a firmware upgrade from an unlocked iPhone can now get their iPhones back by upgrading to Apple’s latest v1.1.3 firmware. Put the iPhone in recovery mode, and hook your brick up to your computer to start iTunes. After restoring and upgrading, iTunes will not automatically activate your iPhone so you will have to restart your iPhone (Top + Home) to get signal and data connections. The downside is that you won’t be able to jailbreak again and will have to settle with checking your stocks, finding where you’re located, and watching icons wobble as you move them as a jailbreak looks unlikely for v1.1.3.

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According to Information Week, sources “with knowledge of IBM’s plans” have confirmed that IBM will be releasing a version of its email client, Lotus Notes, for the iPhone (and iPod touch) at the Lotusphere conference next week. Plans for this were announced in October last year after Steve Jobs announced an iPhone SDK coming in February. Notes has been previously available on your Mac, but this release would give iPhone users mobile access to all of the Notes tools, including e-mail, calendars and databases.

The Notes news, along with IBM’s Wednesday announcement that it will be porting its Informix 11 ‘Cheetah’ database server to Leopard, and reports that Symphony (the productivity suite based on the OpenOffice.org project) is headed for OS X give rise to speculation that IBM may be gearing up to take a bite out of Microsoft via some strategic partnering with Apple. And for Apple, support from IBM could lead to gaining ground in the enterprise arena. Would more IBM software on the Mac (and iPhone) cause a stir in the Microsoft-dominated business world? I guess we’re about to find out.

With firmware 1.1.3 and the advent of turn-by-turn navigation on the iPhone – albeit using assisted-GPS, which could prove to be too slow or inaccurate to give you timely directions – there’s now a legitimate market for in-car holders of your precious Apple phone and good reason to keep it in your eye-line (because that old “glovebox pixies might steal it” excuse didn’t fool anyone).  Griffin Technology will be launching their own in March; called the WindowSeat, it’s pretty much as you’d expect: a suction cup and a cradle.

 

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Macworld has announced the Best of Show awards for Macworld San Francisco 2008. Besides the obligatory MacBook Air, they’ve acknowledged a variety of interesting products from Photoshop Elements 6 to Guitar Hero III. For the full list, check out the announcement over at Macworld. In addition, they have a video of the presentations up as well.

Now that iTunes rentals have launched, it has become kind of tricky deciphering what movies are available to rent, what movies are available to purchase, and what movies are available and what movies can be rented or purchased.

While Apple promises that more than 1000 movies will be available to rent by the end of February (including over 100 in HD with Dolby 5.1 sound), the current rental total (as of today) is about 375. And although Apple doesn’t have a clear “rental” section at this point in time, finding out what films are available to rent is pretty easy. Just do a blank power search for movies and check the box that says, “Search movies that are available for rental.” That will then give you a list of 150 titles at a time of all the films available to rent. Click, more results to get the next page of results.

What is trickier, however, is trying to decipher exactly which movies are available for what type of purchase. Looking at the list of available titles, I could not find any clear pattern that explained why certain films are available only to buy or only to rent. I’m sure that this was all decided by the studios, based on their own internal sales trends and valuations. For instance, the majority of the “new releases,” that is, the $3.99 rentals, are only available to rent. Meaning you can’t buy a download of “The Simpsons Movie” or “300.” This makes sense, as I’m sure the studios (Fox and Warner Bros., respectively) would prefer customers buy those films on DVD rather than an iTunes download. This is not universal, however, as some of Disney’s new releases, like “Ratatouille” and “Pirates of the Carribean 3″ are available for both download and rental. It should be noted these films were available for purchase before Tuesday’s announcement.

Speaking of new releases, it is important to keep in mind the caveat that was mentioned during the keynote – right now studios will wait 30 days after a film comes out on DVD before making it available on iTunes rentals.

If you’re both an iPhone and GMail user then you might have another reason to eschew any illicit unlocking and go straight for the 1.1.3 firmware upgrade: it quietly changes the connection between the Google email service and the Apple handset from POP to IMAP.  Basically, that means that any changes performed on the iPhone – such as marking emails as read – are mirrored on the desktop GMail interface, and vice-versa.

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Enterprise users have long been begging for an iPhone of their own – meanwhile, their IT departments have been flatly refusing, quoting not only the difficulties in securely hooking up a consumer handset to a business network, but also AT&T’s general reluctance to offer non-consumer tariffs.  Well, according to a tip-off to The Boy Genius Report, AT&T are planning to announce business and corporate accounts for the iPhone on January 21st, requiring special data plans starting from $25.

 

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DJ cum live music producer, Paul van Dyk weaves his own music on stage in real-time on a pair of 17-inch MacBook Pro computers running Logic Studio and Ableton Live. “Ever since I basically began making music, I’ve worked with Macs,” he says. “They’re in the studio as well as on the road. I’ve always had my Macs with me. They’re an essential part of my music.”

Apple today introduced the world’s thinnest notebook: MacBook Air. It measures an unprecedented 0.16 inches at its thinnest point while its maximum height of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. In addition to a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, MacBook Air offers a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support, letting users pinch, rotate and swipe. The new notebook is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and it includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. Starting at just $1,799, MacBook Air begins shipping in two weeks.

Talk about mixed messages: while China Mobile seemed pretty clear in announcing that they’d rejected the iPhone and broken off talks with Apple regarding sole-carrier status in the customer-rich Chinese market, Steve Jobs has revealed that discussions are still underway and that the manufacturer is still interested in reaching a deal with the operator.

 

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A backup appliance that works seamlessly with Time Machine to automatically and wirelessly back up everything on one or more Macs running Mac OS X Leopard, Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. “Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voilà—all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. When it ships in February, Time Capsule will be available in models featuring 500GB and 1TB hard drives for $299 and $499, respectively.

Despite all of the commotion around the Macbook Air at Macworld, our guys James, Vincent, and Ewdison still managed to get a video of the Macbook Air’s first advertisement up on YouTube in a fashionable manner. Hopefully this isn’t the 56% reduced packaging Steve was talking about!

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iPhone Software Update 1.1.3, a free software update available today via iTunes 7.5 or later, brings significant new features to iPhone. After installing the update, iPhone customers will be able to automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application; text message multiple people in one message; create Web Clips for their favorite websites; customize their home screen; and watch movies rented from the new iTunes Movie Rentals right on their iPhone.

All the Rumors were true, the Macbook Air has been released today at Macworld. Boasting a weight of 3 pounds, .76 -.16 inches in size from front to rear, a full size backlit keyboard, 13.3-inch display, mult-touch gestures for the trackpad, iSight built in, 1.6GHz (1.8Ghz optional) Core 2 Duo , 2GB RAM, 80GB HDD (64GB SSD Optional), 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, USB 2.0. Mini-DVI, and a 5+ hour battery life. The Macbook Air has no internal optical drive, but can “borrow” optical drives from other devices, or Apple has an optional USB optical drive for a respectable $99.

Apple also went more environmentally friendly by cutting packaging size down 56%, making circuit boards Bromide and PVC free, and taking mercury out of the displays.

The Macbook air can be pre-ordered now in Black or White, and can be seen in stores in 2 weeks at a respectable $1799. Hit the cut for more images of the MacBook air.

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With the installation of this major software upgrade, the best iPod becomes even more: the world’s best Wi-Fi mobile device. The upgrade—available from iTunes for just $19.99—adds five more great mobile applications to iPod touch: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, and Notes. It also includes such new features as Web Clips, a customizable home screen, and the ability to watch iTunes Movie Rentals on iPod touch.

09:37 PST: Steve announces a long awaited iTunes Movie Rental service.

Apple has come a long way in movie and song downloads via iTunes, but Steve explains that their current numbers certainly aren’t enough. Apple has sold 7 million movies, 125 million TV shows, and last week Apple sold their 4 billionth song. Today Apple will be releasing iTunes movie rentals for use on all of their video playing devices. Movie rentals will cost $3.99 for new titles, and $2.99 for older titles. Movie rentals are available for 30 days after buying, but the catch is once started, the movie only has 24 hours to be watched.

All major studio’s are involved in iTunes movie rentals which will make pretty much all movies in theaters available for rental. iTunes will have movies for rental today, and will have over 1000 movies for rental by the end of February.

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Available today with the free download of iTunes 7.6, iTunes Movie Rentals allows customers to rent movies for as little as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV. Featuring movies from all the major movie studios—20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema—iTunes Movie Rentals is expected to offer more than 1,000 movie titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles featuring stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Movies can be rented directly from a widescreen TV using Apple TV.

09:24am PST: Steve Jobs announces new features for the iPhone along with an already known iPhone SDK release in February.

iPhone v1.1.3 features include Google Maps cell tower triangulation called Skyhook Wireless for virtual GPS to pinpoint your general location and give directions to where ever. Skyhook Wireless has driven all around the USA in their vehicles and collected physical location data for triangulation. Google Maps also allows you to drop a pin on any location you’d like to add to memory. SMS now works like email, allowing one SMS to be sent to multiple individuals. You can now add bookmark icons called Webclips to websites on your home screen. You can add up to 9 pages of these Webclips on Springboard. Icons can now be moved around the screen and placed anywhere within the 9 pages of springboard. Lyrics can also now be obtained and placed transparently over album art.

All of the updates are available as a software update for free today.

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Available as a free automatic download later this month, the new software announced today lets movie fans rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from their widescreen TV. With iTunes Movie Rentals and Apple TV—and with no computer required—customers can effortlessly rent movies just by clicking a button on their remote. By the end of February, they’ll be able to choose from a catalog of more than 1,000 titles, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. DVD-quality iTunes Movie Rentals cost just $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases. High-definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.

Less than half an hour until Steve Jobs’ Macworld Keynote, and over at SlashGear Vincent & James are waiting to go in to livecast the whole event. 

 

Will we see an ultraportable MacBook Air?  What about a 3G iPhone?  Check out the Livecast and find out!

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Twentieth Century Fox and Apple today announced iTunes Digital Copy for iTunes, which provides customers who purchase a DVD of a Fox movie title with an additional Digital Copy of the movie. The iTunes Digital Copy can be transferred effortlessly to iTunes and then viewed on a PC or Mac, iPod with video, iPhone or on Apple TV—just like a movie purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store. In fact, the first DVD to debut with iTunes Digital Copy is being released in stores today. It’s the Special Edition DVD premiere of the Family Guy “Star Wars” parody, “Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest,” and the first of many more to come.

TUAW reader Alex Cahiz pointed us to this New Creatives page showing a design for Van’s Finger Fracture for iPhone and iPod touch. It’s hard to tell how close this design is to being a reality — whether it’s just a concept design or whether there will be a real product. I couldn’t find any further details at the Vans website but if it is for reals, it looks like it would rock.

According to the writeup, the game uses the touch screen to steer your skateboard and allow you to pick various equipment to perform tricks and earn points. It’s unclear whether the accelerometer would be used as well.

To read more as well as to see other screen designs, pop over to the New Creatives website.

Readers suggest that these are lifted screen shots–so we’re going to go with either “Concept Design” or “Internet Hoax” for now.