Iphone Updates

Apple’s newest laptop should handle anything thrown at it,” decides Ken Mingis (computerworld.com) in his glowing review of the new 17-inch MacBook Pro. Mingis praises its performance (“I haven’t yet found a way to tax this setup to the max”), its “simply stunning high-resolution, 1920-by-1200 pixel screen,” and a battery that delivered just under 6.5 hours in normal use: “the longest I’ve ever gotten from one charge.”

“The new entry-level 24-inch iMac is a smart buy,” concludes Wilson Rothman (gizmodo.com). By dropping the price while, at the same time, “spiking the performance,” Apple has made the 24-inch iMac “a great deal,” and he maintains that “$1500 will get you a system that would have cost well over $2000 not long ago.”

With all of his practice’s medical records scanned into Practice Solutions, Dr. Mel Cescon and his staff enjoy a nearly paperless office and unprecedented access to patient data. From any iMac in the office, they can quickly track medical histories, check for drug interactions, forward cases to specialists, plot graphs, store photos, review X-ray reports, or fax prescriptions. And that’s a prognosis for better patient care.

Calling it a “nettop-sized desktop that’s a better alternative for many users” and “a compelling choice for the Windows-to-Mac switcher,” Joel Santo Domingo (pcmag.com) awards the new Mac mini a 3.5- (out of 4) circle rating. The performance of the “green and compact” Mac mini, he says, “sets it apart from other small PCs.” And attaching two 24-inch displays “gives you almost unheard-of screen real estate.”

Starting today, you can purchase box office blockbusters for download from iTunes in HD for $19.99, and films will be available as iTunes Movie Rentals in HD for $4.99 within 30 days after release. Pre-order Twilight or Quantum of Solace today, and you’ll be able to download them when they become available on March 21 and March 24, respectively. Transporter 3, Punisher: War Zone, and other select titles are available in HD today.

Did you know that Mac OS X Mail can help you organize the email you receive? In fact, setting up “Rules” in Mail is easy, a simple matter of selecting menu options, adding selection criteria, and choosing folders in which to file your email. By setting up rules, you can have Mail automatically file email by project, sender, priority, or other criterion. Find out how by watching the latest Quick Tip of the Week.

Filed under: Switchers, Features

Yesterday, Robert talked about setting up a new Mac Pro for his switcher Dad. Today, setting up Windows proves to be a bit of a headache.

When I mentioned to my best buddy Cameron that Dad was getting a Mac Pro to replace his just-months-old Mac mini, he said “Wow. He sure moves quickly when it comes to toys!”

That he does. Just three or four months ago, he had bought his Mac mini. Now here we were, installing Windows on his tricked-out refurb Mac Pro.

This was proving to be a problem. For me, mostly.

He wanted to install Windows XP Service Pack 2, which, as far as we knew, would work fine. We started Boot Camp Assistant, and printed out the instructions. We had a whole 750GB hard disk to give to Windows, so we chose it and were restarting into that purgatory of Windows Setup in DOSville.

After loading its various components (“Human Interface Parser” was our favorite), Windows Setup displayed the volumes available to install Windows, but our newly-created Boot Camp partition wasn’t listed. Uh oh.

Continue reading My Dad, the Switcher: Day 140

TUAWMy Dad, the Switcher: Day 140 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

First they wowed us with Handshake for iPhone, now the same developers are back at it again with Transactions [iTunes link] for iPhone. Transactions gives you the ability to charge a credit card from anywhere! This application is excellent for small business owners who need to process credit cards away from an office.

Transactions interfaces with PayPal and Authorize.net and allows you to easily type in a credit card number, expiration date, CCV2 code, amount, and zip code. Once you have that information, you can select a contact to automatically auto-fill the purchaser’s address and phone number. You can also enter in the name, email address, and additional notes about the transaction. When all of these fields are completed, return to the main screen and tap “charge” — the information is whisked away using 128-bit SSL encryption to the appropriate service (either PayPal or Authorize.net). If the information was correctly entered you receive a message telling you the transaction went through.

Transactions gives you the ability to easily import your PayPal and Authorize.net account information using a useful tool on their site. They send an email to your device with a special URL that inputs your account information when opened. The application allows you to view all of the transactions completed, and allows you to export them as a a CSV file that opens in Excel, Numbers, and other applications that can read comma separated files. All of the information stored within Transactions is kept safe inside of Apple’s Keychain, and you can password-protect the application to enable even more security.

Transactions is now available on the iTunes App Store, and comes in two flavors: paid and free. The free version is limited to 2 credit card transactions per 12-hours, while the paid version removes this limit. If you use the free version and plan to upgrade to the paid version, you have the ability to transfer all of your settings from the free version to the paid version — a first on the iPhone. You can visit the Transactions website for more details about this iPhone application. You may also want to note that Authorize.net or PayPal Website Payments Pro account is required, and that some fees may apply.

TUAWFirst Look: Transactions for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whether your opponents are across town or clear across the country, Chess with Friends lets you enjoy a great game of Chess whenever you want to play. In fact, you can have games in progress against multiple friends at the same time. Chess with Friends keeps track of everyone’s moves, tells you when it’s your turn, lets you chat while you play, even finds you random opponents to challenge. Care to play a game?

I’ve just discovered this nice Blog talking about the french island: Corsica situated in the Mediterranean Sea. The nice thing is you can see it on your iPhone, with redimensioned images while you visit the island. There is an interesting post about the Wifi you can get for free or nearly free with Fon in Corsica here.

Web version:

iPhone version:

Tags:blog corsica france francecorsica iphoneblog, corsica, france, francecorsica, iphone

Yesterday, Apple announced details of its latest version of the iPhone operating system. Here’s a potted guide to some of the new features to be included in iPhone 3.0 and why you should care.

It’s about developers

It’s worth noting right from the start that the whole presentation was aimed at developers, not the end consumer. That doesn’t mean that the features won’t be extremely useful / fun once they’ve been built in to new applications, but the iPhone won’t necessarily get a ton of new functionality straight out of the box. It’s all about the applications — and, in part, how much you’re willing to spend to enjoy those new features. Right, here we go. Scroll down to read the whole lot or click on a title below to jump there:

• In App Purchasing
• Apple Push Notifications
• Peer to Peer Connectivity
• Maps
• Meebo Native app
• Greater accessory support
• Audio Recorder
• MMS
• Spotlight
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Cut, Copy and Paste
• Notes Sync
• Shake to Shuffle
• Wi-Fi auto login
• Safari anti-phishing and auto fill
• Landscape mode

Filed under: Software, Productivity

Potion Factory‘s The Hit List introduces repeating tasks to the GTD-style client, but in a pretty neat way. Instead of the traditional method of indicating how often a task should repeat, users can type directly into the “repeating” field, using natural language to describe when and how many times it should reoccur. For example, if I wanted a reminder to return my library books, I simply would type in “every 3 weeks on Wednesday.” Then a short menu appears indicating how often I’d like for that particular task to repeat itself. Once I complete that chore, it’ll jump ahead to the next date it’s due.

Repeating tasks is something that’s been requested since the program debuted, and I really like how you can dig into the specifics of creating them. Potion Factory’s Andy Kim acknowledges in his blog entry that the one huge drawback to this feature right now is localization. It’s just not there at the moment, but that issue will be resolved once the code itself has been hammered out.

Other features in this update, as seen on the release notes, include:

• AppleScript support.
• Different way to tweak tasks including smart-folder-like capabilities and disabling the auto-completion of parent tasks when sub-tasks are finished.
• Duplicate any list, folder, or smart folder by right clicking in the source list.
• When emails are dragged and dropped into a task, it adds the sender’s name and email address in addition to the subject.
• Various keyboard shortcut tweaks.
• Many more bug fixes and small features than we have room to list here.

TUAWThe Hit List 0.9.3 introduces repeating tasks originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iTunes, iPhone, iPod touch

Over at Wired’s Gadget Lab they’ve got a rundown of a neat new feature of iTunes 8.1: iPhone / iPod touch voting for songs in DJ mode. Basically, Apple also released an update to their Remote application to go with iTunes 8.1 and it is now possible to set up iTunes so that anybody with an iPhone or touch connected to the same network can actually request songs from your library into the DJ list (formerly Party Shuffle playlist). Once songs are queued up, other guests can even vote on the songs (presumably to move them up the queue, though that’s not confirmed). You can still control all playback features via Remote on your own, authorized iPod touch or iPhone.

This is a brilliant piece of integration from Apple. Invite your friends over (though only if they have an iPhone or touch, naturally) and let the guests choose the songs. There are apparently some annoyances and quirks to the system in the way the queuing actually works, but one imagines those will be worked out in the future.

[via Gizmodo]

TUAWiTunes 8.1 DJ gives another excuse to party originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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During this morning’s keynote, attendees got a good look at some of the new features coming this summer in iPhone OS 3.0. They learned about the new tools developers can use to create next-generation mobile apps for iPhone and iPod touch. And they watched ESPN, Oracle, Ngmoco, Smule, Electronic Arts, and other developers demo apps created in just two weeks using the new SDK.

The show was really good, a lot of very good new features in that OS 3.0 for our preferred phone. Copy/Paste and MMS are nearly ready for us and a lot of APIs for the developers to build new very cool applications.

Also, Bluetooth will be better used by the iPhone, so it was not a hardware issue but a software problem to use stereo headset, and communicate with other devices via Bluetooth.

The only problem, we need to wait until this summer to test it.

Tags:API APIs apple bluetooth copy/paste iphone MMSAPI, APIs, apple, bluetooth, copy/paste, iphone, MMS

Apple today announced that iPhone OS 3.0 software, coming this summer, will deliver 100 new features, including cut, copy and paste; MMS; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; Notes syncing; shake to shuffle; parental controls for TV shows, movies and App Store apps; and a new Voice Memo app. Apple also released an updated SDK, with more than 1,000 new Application Programming Interfaces, to registered developers.

Weather applications aren’t a new thing on the iPhone by any stretch of the imagination, but Visuamobile thinks it’s spiced up the genre just a touch with the introduction of Pin Up Weather. Instead of focusing on detailed weather information, it provides just the basic forecast. What’s appealing is that it features a range of attractive models posing provocatively (well, as provocatively as any sanctioned app in the iTunes Store is going to get) in front of the weather outlook…

First Episode, The Attack:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Second Episode, The Response:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Tags:advert apple blackberry videoadvert, apple, blackberry, video

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools

In a recent blog entry, Adium developer Zac West discusses the progress of integrating Twitter into the multi-service instant messaging client’s already abundant offerings.

“The current base of Twitter clients often leave something to be desired, behave in a weird way, or just add an additional application you need to keep open,” West explains before detailing how Matt Gemmell’s MGTwitterEngine is being used to provide Twitter for Adium.

The concept is quite different from existing clients, but makes perfect sense for Adium. Twitter feeds can be followed or unfollowed by adding and removing them from your contact list. If you IM them, it’ll send them a direct message. Your Twitter feed comes displayed in a group chat that you can keep open or closed as you need it. It’s also very easy to reply to random Twitter links that you can find online.

West hopes to build in additional features such as autouploading an image to TwitPic when it’s dragged into an IM window. I would love for some of the additional features that are found in TweetDeck, such as TweetShrink and translation at the click of a button, to be added as well.

Read the full details, complete with screenshots, on the official Adium blog.

TUAWTwitter integration for Adium in process originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Humor, Video, Odds and ends, The Woz

Remember the horrible SCOTTEVEST ads featuring Woz that were going around back in October? A lot of people thought they could do better, so many that SCOTTEVEST is hosting the “Woz Green Screen Contest“.

The rules are simple. All you need to do is download some of the green screen footage featuring Woz, and use your video editing skills to create an ad that is funnier than the SCOTTEVEST attempts (it shouldn’t be hard…). Post your ad on YouTube, and then promote the heck out of it. If it makes Woz and the folks at SCOTTEVEST laugh, and you’re getting thousands of hits on YouTube, you may be a winner.

$4000 in prizes (cash and SCOTTEVEST gear) await your entry. Make sure you get your entry in before April Fools Day.

TUAWSCOTTEVEST: Think you can make a better Woz ad? Prove it! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to Kevin Rose, we might finally have copy/cut and paste finally on the iPhone. It looks like we might have as well the MMS with this new firmware. All good news, but I hope to have video recording, background applications and Flash inside Safari in this release.

Let’s cross fingers and wait 5,5 hours…

Tags:3.0 apple copy/paste firmware iphone kevin rose MMS3.0, apple, copy/paste, firmware, iphone, kevin rose, MMS

With a rather misleading headline stating “O2 drops price on 3G iPhone ahead of new Apple device this summer“, MobileToday.co.uk has published a rumour that O2 will make the 8GB iPhone 3G available for free on its lower (£35, £45pm) tariffs. The thinking behind this is that O2 wants to shift existing stock ahead of a new iPhone handset from Apple, which the author has decided Apple will launch in June or July, building on existing speculation…

Here’s a brilliant concept for those who find themselves easily distracted by outside noises — me definitely included. SoundCurtain is an iPhone application from Royal College of Art graduate and founder of FutureAcoustic, Andreas Raptopoulos. He developed it from personal need, trying to drown out distracting noises of other students when he had to finish assignments…

Filed under: Audio, iLife, iTunes, Software Update, Apple

Look for an update to iTunes sometime today or very soon. The Apple web site even talks about it (check the bottom of the page).

Version 8.1 is said to have significant speed improvements for dealing with large libraries, and also a faster iTunes Store and zippier syncing of devices. Yay!

The Genius sidebar now includes suggestions for movies and TV shows, and the new version will also allow you to import your CD’s as 256 kbps iTunes Plus format.

That all adds up to a nice update. So keep your eye on ‘software update’ under your Apple menu, or ask iTunes to ‘check for updates’.

TUAWApple to update iTunes any time now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store

A new app for the iPhone has made its way to the App Store. VoiceMail, $0.99, lets you record a message and send it to a friend on a PC or Mac, or even on an iPhone.

I tried the app several times and found it a frustrating experience. First, you click on ‘send mail’ and the app brings up a list of your contacts. You are still within the VoiceMail app, and if you have a long contact list, all you can do is scroll up or down. No shortcuts. You select the contact, and are instructed to add a short line of text. I entered 16 words, and got an error telling me the limit is 25 words. Grrrrrrr. I shortened my message, then proceeded to record a voice message. After hitting the’ send’ button I waited for it to go out. Then I waited some more. I noticed my network signal was dipping below 2 bars, so decided to quit. Unfortunately, there was no option to cancel. I forced quit the application and went back in. No sign of that message, so I had to start from scratch.

By this time, I was in a better signal area (4 bars, solid 3G) so I sent another message. This one succeeded, but it took 24 seconds to send a 4 second message. I don’t think this app is designed for long, detailed voicemails. Maybe on Wi-Fi.

For further testing, I sent myself a message. It arrived in my mailbox, and it said if I wasn’t on an iPhone to click on a URL to retrieve it. Well, I WAS on an iPhone, and saw no indication that there was an attachment to click on or listen to. There is an in box on the app, so I checked there, and hit the refresh button. No message there either. In desperation, I clicked on the URL and got a web page with no way to listen to a message. Grrrrr.

Continue reading A different kind of Voicemail

TUAWA different kind of Voicemail originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPod Family, ipod shuffle

The store is back, and the rapid rumor ramp-up is vindicated: Apple introduced a new iPod shuffle this morning, billed as ‘the first music player that talks to you’ — it features a VoiceOver interface that announces artists, songs and playlists on demand (the iPod nano features spoken menus as well, so that tagline may need some work).

Interestingly, the VoiceOver UI concept was mused upon by John Gruber last month. The shuffle now supports multiple playlists, which would have been difficult to manage without some sort of UI for controlling which one is playing.

The new shuffle expands to 4 GB of storage for the same $79US, but in the course of shrinking the overall size of the microscopic MP3 maven down to 1.8″ high, 0.7″ wide and 0.3″ deep (45mm x 17mm x 7.8mm), the player controls were moved onto the headphone cord. This may not sit well with buyers who prefer other earbuds.

The shuffle is available in black and silver and is shipping in 3-5 days.

TUAWNew iPod shuffle features VoiceOver originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple

Yes, the Apple Store is currently down — which either means new gear on the way or nothing at all. We’ll keep you posted. Engadget is suggesting (via MacRumors) it’ll be a 4GB iPod shuffle. Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

TUAWApple Store is down, maybe a new shuffle? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

It hasn’t been a week since Amazon released the Kindle for iPhone app [App Store link] but the aftermath has been almost seismic. Kindle for iPhone has remained in the top ten free apps list since it was released. For a few days, it was number one. It looks like it was a good gamble for Amazon, and probably for Apple as no other smart phones (so far) have this app available. The Kindle for iPhone app also runs on the iPod touch.

How is it to use? Actually, pretty darned good. Readability is high, and you can change the font size to your liking. Turning pages is just a matter of swiping your finger across the screen. A single touch gives you access to the table of contents of any book, and you can bookmark pages.

I liked the idea of the Kindle app so much, I actually broke down and bought the Kindle 2. The two devices interact, and you can have all your books on both devices. In fact, the iPhone Kindle app will come up on the same page you left off on the Kindle 2, or vice versa. I thought that would be an automatic function, but you have to tell each device to sync when you leave. Your mileage may vary, but that’s what I am seeing.

Of course, even that rather cool function is a bit tricky with the iPhone, because its smaller screen can’t display as many words as the Kindle 2 screen. Even though you are synced, you won’t get a page that looks exactly the same. No big deal, though.

Read on for more…

Continue reading Further thoughts on the Kindle iPhone experience

TUAWFurther thoughts on the Kindle iPhone experience originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone

A set of iPhone prototypes from 2006 briefly made the eBay rounds this morning, with bids running more than $2,000 for the two phones (one non-working) before Apple managed to get the listing yanked sometime during the day [although we now have reports that a sale was completed before the listing went down -Ed.]. The seller also made a YouTube video documenting the features on the phone — while that too was pulled down due to Apple exerting its copyright, Engadget managed to salvage it and now has it up on its site.

The prototype hints at several features that did not make it to the final version of the iPhone, including a possible option for video phone calls and games. The video is well worth watching. Even though the auction was pulled, we still manage to get a peek at the process that led to the phone unveiled in early 2007. We also have a glimpse of the iPhone at its most basic levels, something that will be an asset to developers.

Update: A similar prototype is shown in this Flickr set as noted below.

TUAWiPhone prototype yanked down from eBay originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next big craze? It’s certainly a bizarre little application — hold it up in front of your mouth, start speaking or singing, and a cartoon mouth starts moving in sync with your voice. Here’s the web site where you can check out the videos that have been uploaded so far. Download the application from iTunes (it’s 59p) and have some fun.

Apple has been sending out invitations to journalists in the US inviting them to Apple HQ in Cupertino to hear about the next incarnation of iPhone software. It’s not clear whether an actual release of software will be ready at this time, or if it’s just to get developers up to speed with new features that may be added to the software development kit. Given that this is a complete version jump, you’d expect some fairly significant changes in functionality even for the existing hardware…

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Internet, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Jonathan Zdziarski, who has appeared on this pages before for other iPhone-related hijinx, has written an open letter to Apple about the AMBER Alert iPhone app he’s written. Apparently he’s worked in conjunction with government agencies to set up an iPhone app that can easily and quickly send sighting reports of children gone missing in the United States. And he’s unhappy with Apple, because they haven’t yet approved it.

His letter, which you can read in full over here, complains that we’ve got tons of fart apps already approved on the store, but his app still sits in approval purgatory. He actually sounds kind of selfish in the letter to me — he says he doesn’t care about how the App Store works, and that he just wants someone to “pick up the phone” and push his app, which could save children’s lives, through.

We’ve got nothing against the AMBER Alert system, of course, and if it’s true that this app can get more reports in and possibly help kids who are in danger, then great. But do we really want Apple picking and choosing which apps get kicked to the front of the line?

Update: looks like the app has been approved. The question remains: what was the holdup?

Continue reading AMBER Alert appmaker not happy with submission process

TUAWAMBER Alert appmaker not happy with submission process originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Reviews, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

The wizards at Mariner Software have been around the Apple world for a long time. Their first product, a HyperCard stack that charted stock prices, came out in 1989 as a shareware product. After twenty years of developing cool Mac apps, Mariner has just released a useful product for the iPhone: MarinerCalc, a feature-packed spreadsheet application.

During the past few days, I’ve been putting MarinerCalc for iPhone (US$9.99, click opens iTunes) through a series of tests on my iPhone 3G. My assessment is that MarinerCalc is an excellent spreadsheet app. If you have any need to manipulate, create, or even just view spreadsheets on your iPhone, this is the app to get.

Read more about MarinerCalc by clicking the (you guessed it!) Read More link below, and be sure to visit the gallery for plenty of MarinerCalc screenshots.

Continue reading MarinerCalc for iPhone: A spreadsheet in the palm of your hand

TUAWMarinerCalc for iPhone: A spreadsheet in the palm of your hand originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Internet, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Jonathan Zdziarski, who has appeared on this pages before for other iPhone-related hijinx, has written an open letter to Apple about the AMBER Alert iPhone app he’s written. Apparently he’s worked in conjunction with government agencies to set up an iPhone app that can easily and quickly send sighting reports of children gone missing in the United States. And he’s unhappy with Apple, because they haven’t yet approved it.

His letter, which you can read in full over here, complains that we’ve got tons of fart apps already approved on the store, but his app still sits in approval purgatory. He actually sounds kind of selfish in the letter to me — he says he doesn’t care about how the App Store works, and that he just wants someone to “pick up the phone” and push his app, which could save children’s lives, through.

We’ve got nothing against the AMBER Alert system, of course, and if it’s true that this app can get more reports in and possibly help kids who are in danger, then great. But do we really want Apple picking and choosing which apps get kicked to the front of the line?

Update: looks like the app has been approved. The question remains: what was the holdup?

Continue reading AMBER Alert appmaker not happy with submission process

TUAWAMBER Alert appmaker not happy with submission process originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Software, Education

It’s no secret that the American economy is suffering, and many of us are experiencing the cold-water shock of abrupt career shifts and planned or unexpected part-timer-ification. Want to spark up your value to an employer, or gain some new skills to improve your freelance mojo? Adobe’s free video tutorials may be right up your alley.

The library of CS3-centric tutorials is extensive, and covers most of the content that was delivered on DVD with the products. The CS4 section is a little thinner, and most of the demos are performed with the Windows versions of the apps, but the videos are still valuable for new feature info. Adobe’s full training site covers paid and e-learning options for all the company’s technologies, and of course there are many respected third parties offering training on the CS4 suite.

If you’ve got a favorite training resource, free or fee, let us know below.

TUAWSkill up on Adobe products with free video tutorials originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You love misleading titles, right? Believe me, you wouldn’t want to see me naked with my iPhone anyway. What I mean is, I’ve stripped away all the cases that trapped my iPhone in a (supposedly) protective environment, and by doing so fallen in love with it all over again. My iPhone 3G has been sitting around inside its Griffin Elan Form for over six months now, and it’s had enough…

Another case for the iPhone turns up. This time it’s the Jet Shell from QDOS. Main features are that it’s slim, it’s rigid, it has a mirror-effect screen protector, and it’s made from a unique lightweight anti-slip material…

mBrain Software has announced its new application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Pdf+ is a PDF reader offering a variety of features including searching, zooming, bookmarks, links, and handling of encrypted and password-protected files, all using the iPhone’s interface and on-screen buttons…

Another case for the iPhone turns up. This time it’s the Jet Shell from QDOS. Main features are that it’s slim, it’s rigid, it has a mirror-effect screen protector, and it’s made from a unique lightweight anti-slip material…

mBrain Software has announced its new application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Pdf+ is a PDF reader offering a variety of features including searching, zooming, bookmarks, links, and handling of encrypted and password-protected files, all using the iPhone’s interface and on-screen buttons…

Magnetic Joe from HD Publishing is a platform-style arcade game that’s probably simple enough for kids to get the hang of but equally at home with casual gamers of any age. It has a very simple goal: guide Magnetic Joe (think blue Pac-Man style creature) around a series of caverns while avoiding spikes. As his name suggests, Joe is magnetic. By touching the screen, he is drawn towards one of the blue magnets. There are 40 levels to unlock, and you get one star for completing a level and a second star for equalling or matching the developer’s time…

Thanks to the oft-reproduced engravng that appeared in the first folio edition of his work, just about anyone who reads one of his plays knows what William Shakespeare looked like. But now a new portrait has emerged that puts a younger, more comely face, on the mighty bard. Listen as Professor Stanley Wells of the University of Warwick explains who may have commissioned the only portrait painted while the poet lived.

Directed and written by Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, The Bourne Ultimatum), Duplicity reunites stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owens, who last appeared together in Closer. The two play former CIA and MI6 agents now enmeshed in the world of industrial espionage. The film, which also stars Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti, opens in theaters on Friday, March 20.

This new application from Simon & Schuster offers a year’s worth of crosswords in a single package. Edited by John M Samson, who created the Simon & Schuster Mega Crossword Puzzle Book, this is a self-contained app that doesn’t require additional downloads to work…

SHOOTER! has arrived in the iPhone app store courtesy of Paramount Digital Entertainment. The movie has been in the iTunes top 100 download chart for over a year, and now it’s available as a game…

So the excitement continues to mount as a demo video emerges of a Spotify application for the iPhone. There’s little doubt that Spotify would be an awesome addition to the iPhone’s repertoire, but some commentators think that Apple will block it because it competes with iTunes. Let’s pit Spotify against iTunes and see if, once the fighting’s over, they can’t coexist on the iPhone. Round 1: Audio Quality Both services offer high quality audio. Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis q5 codec at around 160Kbps while iTunes uses up to 256kbps LC-AAC. I may be shot down by those who say the Ogg Vorbis codec is superior, but I’d say that iTunes wins on what can be purchased and downloaded from the iTunes store. In addition, of course, anyone buying CDs can rip them in a far superior lossless format. Round 1 winner: iTunes

Bubble Shuffle, from Handmark Games, is a cute word puzzle game that’s simple enough for children to play but advanced enough to provide a decent challenge to adults too. The premise is simple: find as many words as you can from a set of letters (enclosed in bubbles, naturally) to advance to the next round. There are four different games. Shuffle Rush requires you to find at least one word using all the letters before you can advance. There’s a time limit, but finding other words adds a few seconds to the clock. Shuffle Puzzle is much the same but there’s no timer…

Filed under: Bad Apple, iPhone, App Store

Last November, as visions of cranberries and turkey danced in our heads, the first tidbits about a forthcoming Sirius/XM app for the iPhone began to emerge on the Howard Stern fan forums. In January, the satellite radio player’s name and details were confirmed — StarPlayr was on the way from NiceMac.

Two weeks ago, word arrived from NiceMac that the app was neither approved nor rejected by Apple… perhaps keeping it out of the way of an official Sirius app rumored last week. No independent developer wants to be in this no-app’s-land between approval on the store and a branded app around the corner, so you can probably guess what happens next.

Early this morning, a blog post on the starplayr.com site confirmed what many of us expected: NiceMac is abandoning development of the StarPlayr app, not only on the iPhone but on Windows Mobile as well. Refunds for WinMo licensees will be available on a first-come, first-served basis until NiceMac runs out of cash.

It’s a sad and frustrating outcome, not only for the hardworking team behind StarPlayr but also for the eager fans who were ready to lay down their cash for the app. Without some sort of advance roadmap for internal/partner projects from Apple, or a published list of ‘no-go zones’ for third party developers to stay clear of the official-app juggernaut, this is going to happen again. I understand that competitive pressures may force Apple to keep licensing and development deals under wraps — chances are, the team answering emails in Developer Relations has no idea what’s in the works up in the executive offices — but there’s got to be a way to avoid this deep chill on innovation and investment from third-party devs.

Update: As some commenters have pointed out, the back-end infrastructure of StarPlayr is being shut down, which will disable the WinMo version of the app. This points strongly towards Sirius/XM, and not Apple, as the Big Bad in this scenario.

Thanks Jim

TUAWFacing App Store limbo, StarPlayr developers give up and go home originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, Jailbreak/pwnage

While we’re pondering the consequences of RIM announcing that programs in the Blackberry “App World” must be at least $2.99US, there are alternatives to the iTunes App Store emerging from the jailbreak side of the iPhone world. The Wall Street Journal reports that Cydia is making the transition from package repository to a full app store. There are also plans for an adult-only app store and a new jailbreak service.

The big question at the moment is how will Apple take this? Apple filed a complaint with the US Copyright Office last month claiming that jailbreaking is illegal. They’re not going to take firing a direct salvo at the App Store itself lightly. There is competition for the iTunes Music Store, but Apple could argue that the homegrown app stores infringe on its copyright by using modified versions of its software.

It’s not a huge shock that App Store competition is popping up; the only surprise is that it took this long to happen. After all, developers are frustrated that excellent programs such as Podcaster are passed up in favor of the latest, greatest novelty app — then to make matters worse, those same features turned up in an official iPhone update.

While there are a lot of really terrible apps out there that have no place on the App Store — I won’t even begin to tell you about one adult app pitched to TUAW, we do want to remain a mostly family-friendly site — there are a lot of good software that get turned down because of Apple’s stringent developer’s agreement. These developers want an avenue to distribute their programs, and homegrown app stores are one answer.

Cydia’s Jay Freeman told the WSJ that he has lined up a lawyer in case Apple comes knocking at the door. He may also want to get in touch with the team that represents Psystar … just in case.

[via Engadget]

TUAWApp Store facing competition from jailbreak app sales? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has announced a public event on the 17th to announce something big apparently for the iPhone… Is it the Firmware 3.0? A new iPhone? I doubt for the new device, it might be in June-July like the 3G announcement.

Let’s see on Tuesday, I can’t wait…

Tags:17th apple firmware 3.0 iphone17th, apple, firmware 3.0, iphone