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1) Macworld 2010: Telltale Games live in our booth
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/20/macworld-2010-telltale-games-live-in-our-booth/
Filed under: Gaming, Hardware, Software
We're cleaning out the video files from the chaos of Macworld last week, and while we've already shared with you an interview that we did with Dan Connors of Telltale Games (who just recently announced that they're bringing their whole catalog over to the Mac), his co-founder Kevin Bruner also stopped by our booth live on the show floor to chat about gaming on the Mac and why Telltale has made the leap to our side.
You can watch the interview in two parts after the link below. In addition to telling us about his company and their big Mac Revolution, Bruner also shared with us his own passion for Apple's machines, including how he went into hock to buy a Newton on day one, and what he thinks of the iPad as a gaming device. Click on to see our chat, won't you?TUAWMacworld 2010: Telltale Games live in our booth originally appeared on The Unofficial [...]
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2) Get a TUAW discount on Mac theft recovery service from hidden
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/get-a-tuaw-discount-on-mac-theft-recovery-service-from-hidden/
Filed under: Software, iMac, Reviews, MacBookApple's laptops and iMacs are attractive targets for thieves, since they're easy to move and have a good resale value. We've seen several Mac applications or services that work to help you retrieve your favorite Apple product if it is ever stolen; LoJack for Laptops (US$39.95 per year), Undercover ($49.00 per year), and MacTrak ($24.95 per year) are all perfect examples of these programs.
Most of these apps have two things in common; they will attempt to locate the whereabouts of the computer and also send a picture of the thief using the built-in iSight camera. Now a new name has appeared in the field; hidden. The name is apt, since there's no visible sign on the computer that the software has been installed. There's no app in the applications folder, and no preference pane. To use the application, you simply download and install it, then [...]
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3) Win a limited edition set of Beatles MusicSkins from TUAW
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/win-a-limited-edition-set-of-beatles-musicskins-from-tuaw/
Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, iPhone
Although you still can't get your Beatles fix through the iTunes Store, Apple Corps has made a license agreement with MusicSkins, the maker of music-related vinyl skin products for electronic devices. As a result, you can now purchase Beatles personal device skins featuring the Beatles logo and cover art from "Abbey Road," "Yellow Submarine," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Rubber Soul," "Let It Be," "With the Beatles," and "Hard Day's Night."
We have something completely different we'd like to give away to one lucky TUAW reader -- a limited edition (one of only 250) Beatles Album Jacket set with MusicSkins for the iPhone (2G, 3G, 3GS), iPod touch (1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation), iPod nano (5th Generation), and iPod Classic (80GB, 160GB). This features the full set of album cover art from the Beatles, and there are two MusicSkins [...]
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4) TeleNav: GPS helped guys get out of the Valentine's Day doghouse
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/telenav-gps-helped-guys-get-out-of-the-valentines-day-doghouse/
Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone
TeleNav is known for its phone-based GPS navigation products, particular the AT&T Navigator app for iPhone. The company has over 11 million subscribers to its services, so it has a lot of data to sift through to find interesting location search trends.
That data showed that GPS location searches helped a lot of guys keep from getting in deep trouble with their significant others in the period surrounding Valentine's Day. Mark Burfeind of TeleNav tells us that they put together all the florist and flower-related GPS searches in their products around Valentine's Day, over 11 million users total, and "found that GPS may have come to the rescue for last minute shoppers." Among the interesting finds:
During Valentine's Week (Feb. 8 - 14), searches for flowers increased more than 5.5 times over the previous, non-holiday week of Feb. 1 - 7.
In [...]
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5) Dear Aunt TUAW: Should I buy the 3G iPad?
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/dear-aunt-tuaw-should-i-buy-the-3g-ipad/
Filed under: AppleDear Auntie T,
I was hoping you could help me decide something since I think many people will be trying to figure out the same thing. Namely, is the 3G on the iPad worth it for my purposes?
I live in NYC, which has lots of available Wi-Fi. I have a laptop and I also have a Sprint mobile broadband for those rare occasions when I can't pick up Wi-Fi somewhere. I noticed in the last few months that I haven't used it at all. The places I use my laptop (library, cafes, graduate school classes) all have Wi-Fi. These are the same types of places I'm planning on using my iPad (with one exception: Beth Israel hospital doesn't have Wi-Fi, although I've yet to need my computer there)
Is the 3G price tag, coupled with the AT&T price tag, worth it? Should I get the Wi-Fi only version now and wait for the price drop and hardware bump sure to come in version two?
I would greatly [...]
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6) Australian Broadcasting Corporation wants to be on the iPad
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/australian-broadcasting-corporation-wants-to-be-on-the-ipad/
Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Apple, Developer, iPadABC is making moves to bring their content to the iPad, but before you get all excited about seeing the Lost conclusion on Apple's tablet, let us point out that we're talking about the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not the guys who write Jimmy Kimmel's checks. The down-under version has told Adobe that they want to build content for the iPad as soon as possible, and while Flash is tied up in a lot of back-and-forth lately, ABC confirms that they're excited to bring some kind of content to the iPad, even though they're not sure exactly what content yet.
Why? They're convinced the iPad is a whole new outlet for content consumption. They aim to use the iPad to "bring about a very different relationship with our readers than other platforms," and their head of strategic development says the iPad could create a whole new [...]
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7) Review: Reiner Knizia's Poison a fun way to kill (a few minutes)
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/review-reiner-knizias-poison-a-fun-way-to-kill-a-few-minutes/
Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, App ReviewOne of the criticisms launched against prolific game designer Reiner Knizia is that his games get their the theme pasted on. This means that whatever the players are trying to accomplish through the game's mechanics really doesn't have much to do with the graphics and the box description. He has at least 200 published games - and might have another one thought up by the time you're done reading this review - so we understand that they can't all be perfect matches.
Knizia's card game Poison, first released for the table top in 2005, is a perfect example of this. The game could almost be played with standard cards - the deck includes three colors/suits (each with three 1s, two fours and one each of 2, 5 and 7) and eight "poison" cards worth 4 each - but the company that released the game, Playroom Entertainment, printed it with a [...]
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8) Macworld 2010: A few more video tidbits
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/macworld-2010-a-few-more-video-tidbits/
Filed under: Macworld, Video, Interviews
It's hard to believe that it's been a week since I left Macworld Expo 2010 to head home. Last night, I finally went through the last snippets of video from the Expo and put together this short compendium of three interviews.
The first company I talked to was Telnic.org, a group which champions the use of the .tel top level domain as a type of global address book. There's a free iPhone app available for updating your .tel domain information from anywhere.
Next, I visited shortly with John from Agile Partners, the developers behind GuitarToolkit. TUAW's resident musician, Mat Tinsley, reported on this app last September and it's quite impressive.
Finally, I talked with the folks from myRete, who have created an interesting social networking app called WhosHere. There are over one million users of WhosHere, and with the free texting and VoIP [...]
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9) Find My iPhone now works in Mobile Safari
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/find-my-iphone-now-works-in-mobile-safari/
Filed under: iPhone, MobileMe, iPod touch
Apple's MobileMe site at me.com used to be completely useless on the iPhone or iPod touch in Mobile Safari -- you'd get a splash page telling you to set up your contacts, calendars, and mail accounts, but that was about it. No webmail access, no direct access to galleries, iDisk, or even Find My iPhone. Apple introduced standalone apps that addressed some of these shortcomings (iDisk and Gallery), but there was still no way to access Find My iPhone unless you resorted to workarounds.
Things have improved somewhat with the new MobileMe page. Instead of simply admonishing you to set everything up on your Mac or PC, MobileMe now provides you with a link to instructions for setting up mail, contacts, and calendars. There's also links to download the iDisk and Gallery apps from the App Store. What's most useful about the change is you now have the [...]
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10) iPhone accessories from Toy Fair 2010
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/iphone-accessories-from-toy-fair/
Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone
Woot.com is one of my favorite sites on the entire Internet -- not only do they offer some great deals, and not only are they witty folks, but they're from my original hometown of St. Louis, MO. They recently went to the Toy Fair 2010, and in their roundup of the best stuff they saw are a few fun iPhone-related toys and goodies. First up is this monster-style iPhone skin that you can see above -- obviously, it's not the most practical way to protect your iPhone, but it does look cool. Apparently it's not in production yet, and there's no word on price, but we'll keep an eye out.
And then there's the My Ami Entertainment Holder, which is a bear with a place to put your iPhone so your kids can watch movies on it. Um, yeah. Not quite as cool as the robot iPhone skin, but a little more functional. Still, if your kids can't be troubled to hold their [...]
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11) Ask TUAW: Key remapping in Boot Camp, iPad tethering, file-sharing with a media extender, and more
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/ask-tuaw-key-remapping-in-boot-camp-ipad-tethering-file-shari/
Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAWWelcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we deal with some technical issues on our production Mac before turning to questions about Windows key remapping in Boot Camp, sharing files with a LaCie media extender, downloading images in Safari, recovering from a hard drive failure, and more.
As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify), or if it's an iPhone-related question, which iPhone version and OS version you have.
As you may have noticed, Ask TUAW is running a bit late this week. Perhaps somewhat ironically in a [...]
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12) Notational Velocity, Simplenote, and Dropbox bring child-like wonder
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/notational-velocity-simplenote-and-dropbox-bring-child-like-wo/
Filed under: Software, Open Source, Friday FavoriteThe phrase "game changer" is no doubt cliché and overused, but every now and again it just fits.
I had heard about Notational Velocity when Merlin Mann posted about it on 43Folders. It changed how I use my iMac, MacBookPro, and iPhone, bringing them all together in a very cool way.
The app has been around for awhile (we talked about it five years ago!) but some new features and new technologies make it well worth another look. It took me a minute to understand why I'd want Notational Velocity, it because it sounded like yet another "everything box" like Yojimbo, which I was already using.
Notational Velocity does save notes, either in ASCII, RTF, or HTML, but with the latest version, Notational Velocity syncs with Simplenote or WriteRoom for iPhone. It also easily syncs via Dropbox if you follow the important configuration notes [...]
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13) Foxconn: Apple supplier in China roughs up reporter
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/foxconn-apple-supplier-in-china-roughs-up-reporter/
Filed under: Apple Corporate"A Reuters employee who was investigating Apple's legendary secrecy visited Foxconn's walled city-like facility in Guanlan, China, and was reportedly roughed up by security."
The reporter took a taxi to the facility and left the taxi to take photographs of the front gate and security checkpoint. When a guard shouted, the reporter hopped back in the taxi. The guard then blocked the taxi from leaving.
This is where it gets hairy. The reporter stepped out of the cab and insisted that he was within his rights to take photographs because he was standing on a main road. The guard grabbed his arm as a second guard arrived and both attempted to drag the reporter into the facility. The reporter asked to be released and when the guards refused the reporter jerked free and began walking off. That's when one guard pursued and kicked the reporter in the leg. The other [...]
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14) Macworld 2010: Hangman RSS from Fingerarts
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/macworld-2010-hangman-rss-from-fingerarts/
Filed under: Macworld, Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
We met many developers and tried many apps while at Macworld Expo last week. Among the more entertaining was Hangman RSS from Fingerarts.
Developer Luigi, a self-professed "news junkie," visited the booth to tell us about his company's latest app. It starts with the classic game of hangman that we all played as kids. Here's the twist: Instead of presenting the user with a random word to guess, it pulls a timely news headline and leaves a key word out. It's your job to guess that word. If it's too difficult, you can get a hint in the form of the article's abstract. If you win, you get to read the full article.
It was surprisingly fun and looked great. Watch the video above for a demo and our conversation with Luigi. Then check out the game in iTunes (there's a free version as well).TUAWMacworld 2010: Hangman RSS [...]
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15) App Store rules changed to allow sweepstakes and contests
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/app-store-rules-changed-to-allow-sweepstakes-and-contests/
Filed under: iPhone, App StoreThe prospect of an always-on, portable and discreet e-lottery ticket in your pocket may thrill some and horrify others, but as far as Apple is concerned it looks like it's A-OK for the App Store. We were first tipped to a change in the iPhone developer agreement this past Monday by Joel Comm, the originator of iFart Mobile; the particular adjustment is in section 3.3.17 of the agreement:
3.3.17 Your Application may include promotional sweepstake or contest functionality provided that You are the sole sponsor of the promotion and that You and Your Application comply with any applicable laws.
This opens the door to all sorts of games, prizes and payoffs -- not to mention the possibility of intriguing legal battles, as games of chance and contests are subject to all sorts of differing rules in different jurisdictions. Comm's company's latest app, KaChing [...]
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16) Apple banning sexual content in the App Store?
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/apple-banning-sexual-content-in-the-app-store/
Filed under: Apple Corporate, App StoreJon Atherton, the developer behind Wobble iBoobs, has just told TechCrunch that he received an email from Apple stating his application was being removed from the App Store because of a new policy change: "We [Apple] have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store."
The full email:
The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.
We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you [...]
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17) Apple: What iPad freight records?
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/apple-what-ipad-freight-records/
Filed under: iPad
Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Apple 2.0 is reporting that Apple has taken steps to hide ocean shipping data for its iPad. Several business intelligence companies exist that collect, analyze, and resell data of a company's shipping records. This data is sold to the company's competitors in hope that they can glean information on how well a certain product is doing by extrapolating potential sales data from the shipping records.
Companies like Trade Privacy also exist to protect trade data. Trade Privacy has stated that in anticipation of the March iPad launch, Apple has blocked its bills of lading and other import records from public access. "Apple is the only major electronics company so far to have protected their import data," Trade Privacy CEO Andrew Park told DeWitt. "Similar companies like Microsoft, Sony and Google continue to import with their product data [...]
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18) Steve Jobs visits Wall Street Journal, trashes Flash again
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/steve-jobs-visits-wall-street-journal-trashes-flash-again/
Filed under: Internet Tools, Steve Jobs, iPadValleywag reports that during a recent iPad-promoting visit to the offices of the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs spent a significant amount of time trash-talking Adobe Flash yet again, and doing his best to get the Journal to move away from what he called "old technology." Just like Jobs's comments during the recent Apple Town Hall meeting, these comments are unconfirmed, but Valleywag claims to have heard from people who were present at the meeting.
Click the "read more" link to see some more tidbits from the meeting and some analysis of the remarks.
It bears noting once again that none of these quotes are confirmed, direct quotes from Jobs, but rather hearsay from others purportedly present at the meeting. That having been said, Jobs allegedly:
1. Continues to call Flash a buggy Mac crasher.
2. Called the platform a "CPU hog," a source [...]
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19) iPhone devsugar: Create shiny buttons easily
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/iphone-devsugar-create-shiny-buttons-easily/
iPhone developer Jonathan "Schwa" Wight offers a great little trick for creating pixel perfect glassy buttons: using the unofficial UIGlassButton class in the simulator to build your art. In his code paste, he shows how to build a button and render it to a PNG, which you can then save to your desktop.
It's a great little trick, and one worth adding to your development arsenal. Be aware that UIGlassButton is a private class, and one that has long since been relegated away from the official SDK development path. Although it continues to work on the Simulator, it's not for use on the iPhone itself or in App Store projects.
Continue reading on to find the code. Don't forget to substitute your own user folder into the code (in my case, "ericasadun") for Jonathan's ("schwa").
// Code to create a "Glass" button and render it to a png on your desktop.
// Run this from the SIMULATOR and [...]
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20) App Store categories get browser pages
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/02/19/app-store-categories-get-browser-pages/
Filed under: iTS, Software, Internet Tools, iTunes, Apple, App Store
Apple has apparently taken another step towards bringing iTunes to the browser, as you can now browse actual categories of the iTunes store right in regular HTML rather than having to click over into iTunes. There's still no support for television or movies, but you can dive in from categories to artists and then even explore and preview songs, right in your browser of choice. Assuming, of course, that your browser of choice is Firefox or Safari -- while Chrome or IE will probably work, we haven't tested them extensively yet.
All we need now is for iTunes to cut it out with the automatic jump into iTunes -- even though your browser will load up a real page in the background, the browser store still tries to throw an external link request out to iTunes. Our own Brett Terpstra found that when you copy or type a browser [...]
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