Iphone Updates

A new version of the Facebook application for iPhone has been released today, offering far greater functionality than was available in the first version. The slicker interface opens up access to a range of new functions, making it much more like its desktop equivalent, minus the third-party applications. New and updated features include a more advanced notification system, full news feed and comments, people search, friend requests, photo tagging and captioning, full mini-feed, entire inbox, search, and message attachments…

iBlueSky

iBlueSky, a mind-mapping and brainstorming application for the iPhone, is available in the App Store for £4.99. Features include capture, cut, copy, and paste of ideas and topics, dragging, arranging, and editing items on the page, full scrolling, zooming, and rotation of the page, and the ability to email the finished project in PDF and PNG formats. Here’s a nice little demo video of the application. Look out for a review coming soon on iPhonic.tv…

Blend in or stand out from the crowd! SeeThru hard shell cases are the ultimate in minimalist design – so thin they blend into your iPhone 3G sleek lines, creating a custom-finished look.

The Mobi Products protector case will give your iPhone 3G protection from everyday wear and tear with some added flair.

Combines the redesigned PowerBlock AC charger and PowerJolt auto charger in one convenient bundle.

The SILICRYLIC by Incipio is an innovative 2 part carrying case; a high quality Polycarbonate plastic exterior embedded in a shock absorbing silicone core. The SILICRYLIC offers optimal protection, unparalleled comfort as well as easy access to all features and the iPhone’s 3G wide-screen display.

Filed under: Gaming, Software

Encore Software apparently has a time machine, and it’s not the one built into Leopard. They have just introduced three new entries in their Hoyle series of Mac games — Hoyle Puzzle & Board 2009, Hoyle Cards 2009, and Hoyle Casino 2009.

Hoyle Puzzle & Board 2009 features puzzle games, including Sudoku, Anagrams, Hangman, Mahjongg, and over 1,200 crossword puzzles. The “Board” part of the game is actually Freeverse’s Big Bang Board Games, which includes Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, and four more classic games. You can play against virtual or real opponents, and you gain Hoyle Bucks to purchase new music and backgrounds.

Hoyle Cards 2009 has hundreds of card games, and you can now play online against other card sharks in the Royle (sic) Suite. Hoyle Casino gives you slots, roulette, and all of the other casino favorites, now with access to the Royle Suite and online tournaments.

The games are available for $19.99 each and require Mac OS X 10.4.10 or later. Be sure to check out the system requirements before you buy, since some of the games require Intel processors, and then party like it’s 2009!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Rumors

There’s a substantial amount of whispering about an anticipated “October Surprise” around the corner, but it’s not the usual sort — multiple sources have suggested that there is an Apple product introduction due on or about October 14. This hinting, combined with the refresh clock ticking away on the laptop line, leads us to suspect that new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are coming up soon — but what of The Brick?

If another Apple product announcement is coming on the heels of a mid-October laptop refresh, and if it’s the “product transition” mentioned in the earnings call last quarter, where Apple’s margins will be squeezed enough to merit a warning to analysts, it’s going to have to be something different. A TUAW source has passed along the following (unconfirmed) details on a possible new product — and several of our commenters may be on the right track.

Continue reading Rumor: Is ‘The Brick’ a wireless hybrid handheld-slash-Mac?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

These new, fun and trendy pouches from Golla Finland are a great way to protect your phone and look cool at the same time! These are no ordinary, boring carrying cases and if you are looking for something different and funky to carry your device in, these pouches are IT!

All ports remain easily accessible as you protect and carry your iPhone 3G with the Belkin Leather Sleeve Case. This handy case is made from easy-care microfiber and leather. It features a clear cover that protects your screen from scratches and cosmetic damage.

Spreadsheet

Simply titled, Spreadsheet from Softalk features 50 functions plus the ability to email spreadsheets created on the iPhone to a PC or Mac for opening on Microsoft’s Excel 2003 or later. Softalk CEO Simon Bates said: “The iPhone’s popularity is growing rapidly as a business tool, particularly since iPhone 2.0 introduced Exchange compatibility, but up until now it has desperately lacked a spreadsheet application. We are glad to have been the first to have filled that gap.” Currently, it only allows exporting and not importing of sheets, which may prove to be irritating depending on how you use spreadsheets on the move. Reviews also suggest that the interface isn’t at its best yet. These are all issues that could be fixed in subsequent updates. $7.99 (£4.99)…

Using Spaces — one of the great features in Mac OS X Leopard — you can stay organized and avoid desktop clutter by putting applications in their own Spaces: Pages and Numbers in one; iTunes in another; Mail, iChat, and Safari in a third Space. But what if you want to use Mail and iChat regardless of the Space your working in? Find out how by watching the latest Quick Tip of the Week.

Filed under: Education, Developer, App Store, SDK

Dear Auntie TUAW,

I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at development for the iPhone (I’ve got some good app ideas already), and I was wondering where a good place to start might be. Should I mess around with learning some Objective-C first, or just spend the $99 and dive in with the dev kit? I know some PHP, Javascript, and a smattering of C++, but have never tried developing in Objective-C or Cocoa.

I have some free time this weekend to try messing around with development and see if it’s something I might be able to do. Where’s a good place to stick my toe in and see if the water’s good for swimming? Should I buy an Objective-C book and spend the whole weekend with that, or is it worth it to put down the money on a dev kit and see what I can make my iPhone do?

Let me know! Just thinking of you, there’s this scent in the air… like a mixture of 4711, hard candies and Aqua Net.

Your devoted nephew,

Mikey

Continue reading Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I get started programming for the iPhone?

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Gaming, Software

Mac games publisher Aspyr has thrown the switch on their online game store GameAgent. Somewhat similar to Valve’s Steam, GameAgent allows buying and downloading games for your Mac. They seem to be starting slow with only Call of Duty 4 ($54.99) and a trivia / SAT prep game called futureU ($39.99) available at this time. But other classic Mac games like Stubbs the Zombie appear to be coming soon at $19.99.

GameAgent also offers an Extended Download Service for an additional fee of $4.99. Basically, what this does is give you the right to re-download the game anytime within two years. So, if you have a hard drive crash and no back-up, you can download again.

One downside is that the game is locked to your computer, so you can only play them on the machine they were downloaded on. If you want to re-download the games on a new computer, you must purchase the EDS service when you buy the game. Even then, a given serial number can only be activated three times.

[via Macworld]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Turkey is already on the list of iPhone “coming soon” countries, so a deal between Apple and an operator must have already been in the pipeline. Leading mobile telco Turkcell has announced that it will bring the iPhone to Turkey later this year. No specific dates or prices have been given for the launch, but that’s not particularly surprising as consumers in other countries were also left in the dark until very close to launch date…

Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store

One of my Denver-area buddies, fellow Apple consultant J. Charles Holt of PEBMAC, was checking the Bloomberg Mobile iPhone application (click opens iTunes) this morning to see how the market was doing. What he found in the app is something downright weird — Bozo the Clown. Charles originally posted this find on MacRumors.

Being the skeptic that I am, I followed his instructions, took a screenshot of the app’s opening screen. As you can see from the image below, there doesn’t appear to be anything odd with the picture:

At certain angles it does appear that there is something in the leftmost monitor. Charles sensed this, brought the photo into Photoshop, and did a bit of work with the Brightness / Contrast feature. (see the results on the next page)

Continue reading Fear the Bloomberg Bozo

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Rumors, iPhone

China Mobile has asked Apple to remove Wi-Fi and 3G networking from the iPhone for its launch in China, according to Apple’s Taiwanese manufacturing partner, Foxconn.

China Mobile is asking for the changes to make the phone less appealing to those who would unlock the phone and use it on its major rival’s network: China Unicom.

China Mobile has been in sporadic talks with Apple since the original handset was launched last year. Apple agreed to potential revenue sharing, which got talks moving again in July.

Research companies don’t doubt that the changes, along with robust Chinese language support, will help Apple’s sales in the country. They estimate that there are 28 million potential customers in China.

[Via cellular-news.]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

There’s a lot of buzz on the Internet at present about an open source bit of software called OpenClip, which is effectively cut-and-paste functionality that other developers can build into their applications to bring users closer to the feature many have been crying out for since the iPhone launched last year. The trouble is, the system is flawed. Leave aside the fact that it hasn’t been sanctioned by Apple, and focus on the issue that it’s only going to work with third party applications, and from developers who choose to implement it at that…

It’s time to vote on what you’d like to see more of on iPhonic.tv. Is it the latest iPhone-related news, more reviews of applications, analysis and opinion, or interviews? Vote below, and we’ll see what we can do…

eBay is the latest web site to announce an optimised web site for the iPhone. In fact, it’s created two mobile versions — one for “the rest” and one for the iPhone. That’s great in theory, but what I don’t like is being forced to use the mobile version of the site when I want to use the full version. Granted, I may be taking my life in my hands using the “grown up” version of a web site, but given that I can’t run Flash or Java on my iPhone anyway, I’m not likely to come to a grinding halt…

iPhone-friendly instant messaging application Palringo has just gained “Push to Talk” functionality which effectively allows users to send voice instant messages. The advantages of Palringo are fairly clear. Unlike phone operators that may offer these kinds of services, but with tie-ins or only on specific handsets, iPhone users can use the same service that countless others use on a huge variety of handsets and with any operator…

It’s hard to trust Apple rumours, but one iPhone 3G user claims to have received a one-line email from Steve Jobs suggesting that two per cent of iPhone 3G users are experiencing some kind of hardware problem preventing them from getting a reliable network connection. Today’s software update, taking the iPhone firmware from 2.0.1 to 2.0.2, has supposedly improved network connectivity and speed for some users, while others claim no improvement. One in fifty users with problems: some may say that’s a relatively small number, but one in fifty is fairly sizeable in my opinion…

Air Hockey

At the risk of yanking the iPhone out of your opponent’s hands, Air Hockey is a neat application which simulates those great little tables in the arcades. Of course, you’re using the relatively small screen of the iPhone, but the game features large mallets, realistic sounds, and subsequent versions should feature a “Pro” 1 player mode and improved responses. £0.59.

Gesture

Create digital paintings from your photos with Gesture, which translates the iPhone’s movements into paint strokes using sampled colours from the photo. £2.99…

Filed under: Mac 101

Have you forgotten a password to a website, email account, or other password? If you use Mac OS X’s Keychain, chances are that your password can be easily retrieved.

First off, open Keychain Access.app (located in /Applications/Utilities/). Once there, scroll through the list of keys until you find the one that you’re looking for. Double click on it and check the box that says, “Show Password.” Once you authenticate with your user credentials, your forgotten password will be displayed in the text box.

Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW’s Mac 101 section.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Multimedia, Software, Cool tools

We’ve praised Pixelmator here before (and we’ve even shared our love with the devs directly) — I am by no means an image-editing professional (Photoshop and Aperture are way, way beyond my ken), but Pixelmator lands exactly where I want it to: it’s a relatively lightweight application with just enough features to do the complicated stuff when I need it done.

One of the big drawbacks of the software, though, is that performance-wise, it’s never quite been up to par. Especially when pulling down big jobs like editing a lot of pictures at once or opening or closing really large pictures, Pixelmator has always lagged a bit behind. The team, however, wants to fix all that with their latest release, appropriately called “Tempo” — they’ve made huge changes on the back end to try and bring performance up to where it needs to be for a solid image editor.

They’ve made a number of other nice changes, too, including finally creating a “Magic Eraser” with some nice click-and-drag functionality for selecting and editing specific color areas. TUAW recently got our hands on a preview version of Tempo — our in-depth preview starts after the break, and you can click through the gallery below to see the new features in action.

Gallery: Pixelmator 1.3 “Tempo” beta preview

Continue reading TUAW preview: Pixelmator 1.3 “Tempo”

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Steve Jobs has just announced that a new model of the iPod Touch will be available in time for Christmas, sporting the same screen size but a thinner body, and made with contoured stainless steel. It will feature a built-in…

Flutter

The Flutter application allows the iPhone to be used to send picture messages and geo-tagged locations to any mobile phone. In other words, it’s MMS - a feature which Apple still hasn’t made available natively. Sounds like a promising app from JuiceCaster that has had a few teething problems over launch weekend.

iQualizer

iQualizer is an interesting little app which visually represents whatever the iPhone’s microphone picks up. The application claims that you can’t play music at the same time, though with most apps you just have to start the music first, then launch the app. In any case, unless you play music through the internal speakers or via a sound system, it’s not going to be much use to this app. Could provide a bit of fun. It’s £1.19.

Apple has announced that iPod touch and iPhone users have downloaded over 100 million applications from the App Store in the two months since its launch on 11th July. There are now over 3,000 applications available in the App Store, with nine in ten priced at $10 or less, and over 600 available for free. Apple has marked the event by getting soundbites from several application developers. “iPhone’s unique capabilities, easy SDK and the ability to reach an audience of millions via the App Store made this an easy development choice for us,” said John Pollard, Jott CEO. “To date, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of downloads of Jott for iPhone, which has been a major win for our company.”…

Apple has now released firmware version 2.1 via iTunes software update. It’s a hefty 237MB download, but of course you’re on a fast broadband connection anyway, right? Download screen says that iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including:..

Spore Origins Electronic Arts has released Spore Origins for the iPhone and iPod Touch, so you can finally get some evolutionary goodness going on. The official blurb lists the following exclusive features: Tilt, turn and twist your way through the…

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

Merriam-Webster has made its Collegiate Dictionary available to iPhone and iPod Touch users. It will cost $24.99, which makes it a fairly expensive application. However, it is certainly quicker than searching online for definitions. It has been developed by Paragon Software, and contains over 200,000 entries, 10,000 new words, and complete definitions. The software has also been compressed to reduce storage requirements. (Via iPhones Talk)

Asphalt 4: Elite Racing

The range of racing games available for the iPhone has expanded with the launch of Gameloft’s Ashphalt 4: Elite Racing, featuring a multiplayer mode over Wi-Fi, 28 licensed cars from the likes of Ferrari, Bugatti, Aston Martin, and Chevrolet Corvette, full accelerometer control, full 3D graphics, and five racing modes across nine cities. Available for £5.99…

Latest iPhone News: Friday 26th September 2008

More App Store woes

I’ve already had my say about what’s wrong with the iPhone App Store, and it seems the woes continue for rejected developers. Firstly, the developer of Podcaster, rejected by Apple because it duplicated some functionality of iTunes, has had some of his developer privileges removed by the company because he tried to sell it to individual users using the “Ad Hoc” method…

Latest iPhone News: Tuesday 16th September 2008

3 claims Apple was wrong to pick O2

3, the mobile operator that never has any complaints about the quality of its network (!) has suggested that Apple was wrong to select O2 as the iPhone’s exclusive network. “The iPhone is not on the right network, a handset is only as good as its operator,” said Bernie O’Beirne at 3’s recent summer ball. The network claims that O2 has the UK’s least developed 3G network, and has also questioned its pricing policy…

Filed under: Mac 101

Have you forgotten a password to a website, email account, or other password? If you use Mac OS X’s Keychain, chances are that your password can be easily retrieved.

First off, open Keychain Access.app (located in /Applications/Utilities/). Once there, scroll through the list of keys until you find the one that you’re looking for. Double click on it and check the box that says, “Show Password.” Once you authenticate with your user credentials, your forgotten password will be displayed in the text box.

Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW’s Mac 101 section.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Multimedia, Software, Cool tools

We’ve praised Pixelmator here before (and we’ve even shared our love with the devs directly) — I am by no means an image-editing professional (Photoshop and Aperture are way, way beyond my ken), but Pixelmator lands exactly where I want it to: it’s a relatively lightweight application with just enough features to do the complicated stuff when I need it done.

One of the big drawbacks of the software, though, is that performance-wise, it’s never quite been up to par. Especially when pulling down big jobs like editing a lot of pictures at once or opening or closing really large pictures, Pixelmator has always lagged a bit behind. The team, however, wants to fix all that with their latest release, appropriately called “Tempo” — they’ve made huge changes on the back end to try and bring performance up to where it needs to be for a solid image editor.

They’ve made a number of other nice changes, too, including finally creating a “Magic Eraser” with some nice click-and-drag functionality for selecting and editing specific color areas. TUAW recently got our hands on a preview version of Tempo — our in-depth preview starts after the break, and you can click through the gallery below to see the new features in action.

Gallery: Pixelmator 1.3 “Tempo” beta preview

Continue reading TUAW preview: Pixelmator 1.3 “Tempo”

Permalink | Email this | Comments

You don’t have to be a magician to make your Mac speak. In fact, the ability to speak text in email messages, Pages documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, and other text-based files is built in to every Mac. You turn it on in System Preferences, where you’ll find all the Text to Speech options made available to you in Mac OS X Leopard. You can read about them in the latest Pro Tip.

The “latest iPod nano continues to hold the edge over competitors,” observes Tom Rose (bostonherald.com), “thanks to two main factors: ease of use and third-party accessories.” Rose points out that the iTunes Store “remains the best. The store’s navigation is brilliantly simple. Likewise, the syncing between iTunes and iPod could not be easier.”

They were teenagers, New Yorkers, members of “the greatest generation,” when the world suffered through the economic and geo-political upheaval of World War II. Many years later, thanks to the PBS station WNET, they sat across from six high school filmmakers to tell the story of what it was like to live during those tumultuous times. Enoy Over Here on iTunes U.

Opening October 3, Rachel Getting Married stars Anne Hathaway as Kym, a troubled ex-model who returns home to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). Written by first-time screenwriter Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married is the most recent film from the Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme. Watch the trailer and an exclusive film clip on our Movie Trailers site.

Filed under: Gaming, Podcasts

By now, most of you have already made it to the Civilization Stage in Spore (or maybe you are enjoying the beginning stages on Spore for iPhone). Either way, you might like to know more about the universe simulation game that you’re spending so much time with.

The SporeTV podcast (now available in iTunes) hopes to satisfy your tastes as the creator, Will Wright, explains the basis of the game and a little history behind it. You can subscribe to the podcast by visiting the iTunes podcast page. We hope there’s more videos to come!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments