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- Become the master of many monitors with NewerTech's USB 2.0 Display Adapter
Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals, Developer, Graphic Design
Some Mac users just don't want to be limited to one monitor, but would like two... or three... or more.
Having only one display port on your Mac can put a real crimp in your plans to be the master of the monitor universe, so NewerTech has launched the USB 2.0 Display Adapter. The adapter, with a suggested retail price of US$96.00, lets users add an extra HDMI, DVI, or VGA display to their Mac. Up to four of the bus-powered adapters can be hosted on each Mac, and each adapter can support a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1152. The device also supports Windows, and can be used with Boot Camp.
Cloning and extended desktop modes are supported by the USB 2.0 Display Adapter. A secondary adapter (VGA and HDMI adapters are supplied) must be attached to connect VGA or HDMI displays. Unfortunately, the adapter doesn't allow OpenGL acceleration, so applications that use Quartz Extreme, Quartz Composer, and other related frameworks are not full supported. This means that Keynote, iPhoto, and iMovie will not see the benefit of OpenGL acceleration.
To use the adapter, your Mac must have an Intel processor and be running Mac OS X 10.4.11 or better.TUAWBecome the master of many monitors with NewerTech's USB 2.0 Display Adapter originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mac OS X - Apple - Digital Visual Interface - IPhoto - Universal Serial Bus
Переслать - Not too late to send some free holiday cards from Mail.app
Filed under: Odds and ends, Freeware, Deals, Holidays
Ah, the virtues of email. Quick, convenient and free -- but most email greetings don't really look all that spiffy. Jumsoft comes to the rescue with some free email templates you can easily customize and get to your friends in plenty of time for the holidays.
Jumsoft makes all sorts of apps and and adds on to Keynote, Aperture, Numbers and web templates. They've offered a nice sampling of goodies for free, and I like their holiday card mail templates designed as Apple Mail stationery.
I think most users never check the stationery feature, either because they don't know it exists, or because they find the templates tacky or not relevant.
If you've never seen the templates at all, open Apple Mail, create a new message, then click on stationery in the upper right of the message window and you'll see the default catalog.
Jumsoft provides some tasteful and graphically dynamic holiday cards that are certainly worth exploring. They also offer a paid set of mail stationery that covers just about anything, and are the best I've seen offered.
It might be worthwhile to explore the Jumsoft goodies page. There are free downloads for Keynote objects, iWeb, Freeway and RapidWeaver themes, and some polished themes for Keynote. They are all samples of larger sets that Jumsoft sells, and a great introduction to the quality of their work.
And do get those greeting cards out before the 26th!
Thanks to Dick for the tip on the freebies.
TUAWNot too late to send some free holiday cards from Mail.app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better
Filed under: iTunes, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review, Music
Moodagent [iTunes Link] (free for now) puts a new spin on the iTunes Genius Playlist system. Instead of leaving it up to Apple to give you category based Genius Playlists, Moodagent, gives you some control over what songs will appear in a 25 song customizable playlist of your music.
You are given 5 colored bars, each with an icon representing an aspect of music. The symbols didn't make much sense to me, but by hitting an info button, I found that the icons represented, in order: Sensual, Tender, Joy, Aggressive and Tempo. I could have used a full explanation of what they meant by Aggressive and Tempo, but trial and error gave me a rough idea. By increasing or decreasing the size of each of the bars, a 25 song Playlist is created, complete with cover art icons, that can be played or saved for later recall. Increase or decrease one or more of the bars and the playlist instantly changes, so if you like a playlist, it's a good idea to save it before changing anything. Once saved, a tap will play your chosen playlist. When saving, you are also given the opportunity to title the playlist any way you like, with the first song being the default title.
Another way of making a playlist, again similar to the iTunes Genius playlist, is to select a seed song to base the list upon. Choose one song and then adjust the bars to tailor the list to your liking.
When first loading the app, you run a sync that indexes all the music on your iPhone/iPod touch running OS 3.0 or better, with their server. My iPhone has about 2100 songs on it and syncing took about 10 minutes. When done, I was told that it couldn't sync about 750 songs. This wasn't surprising since my tastes tend toward the arcane, but there's a solution for that. You are asked to download a Moodagent Profiler application that, as does iTunes Genius playlists, upload anonymous information from the iTunes library on your computer, which is assumed to have more music on it than does your mobile device. This information is used to expand the Moodagent database. After running the Moodagent Profiler on my roughly 6100 song Macbook Pro iTunes library, which took over an hour, I re-synced Moodagent and this time the number of songs that couldn't be synced reduced to 149.
So why didn't it find 149 songs?
One reason is that Moodagent doesn't handle anything encoded with DRM. I haven't yet discovered other reasons, since I only had about 60 songs in my iTunes Purchased folder. At its introduction the Moodagent database was reported to contain over 7 million songs, which is a start, but as more people use the Moodagent Profiler and increase the database, similar to the Genius Playlist system, results should get better.
Moodagent has only been out for a few days and as expected, some results are a bit odd. For no good reason, I turned Sensuality all the way up and everything else all the way down. Many of the results made sense, but Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel? Pretty weird. My guess is that if Moodagent sells well, and the database gets dramatically expanded, results will get more predictable.
I like this app quite a lot, but I like its potential even better. The more people that upload library data using the Moodagent Profiler, the better Moodagent will become over time. On the downside: I'd like to see the 25 song restriction taken off letting the user determine the size of the playlist. I also have a few other nits to pick, like the Save and Open Playlist button positioning. As it stands, those options are always in a space just above the first song, so if you're scrolling around your list, you won't find a way to save it. This I consider minor since I was able to figure it out in under a minute, but it would be nice to have these buttons be persistent.
Download it and check it out. The price is certainly right, and I've already created a number of very enjoyable playlists that the sledgehammer (can't get that song out of my mind) approach of the iTunes Genius system, couldn't touch. Like Bookmark, for audio books, Moodagent takes an Apple system and fine tunes it, giving you something you didn't know you needed until you start playing with it and find it invaluable.
Check out this video to see Moodagent put through its paces.
TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.TUAWMoodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Dozen Daily Deals for December 19, 2009
Filed under: Deals
'Tis the season shop until your brains melt (or skip it all entirely, depending on your interpretation of the term holiday). In that spirit, for the next few weeks we'll be rounding up a dozen daily deals courtesy our friends at DealNews.com. Each afternoon tune in to TUAW for this handy summary. Keep in mind that while our posts will live on, the deals won't. Each is lovingly generated by the deal-bot every day, so get 'em while they're hot. Enjoy!
- iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] App Store Freebies: File Ninja, Target WEIGHT, TomatoRoll, HyperBowl Classic, more
- iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] Classical Music Master Collection for iPhone downloads for $1
- Apple Store: [iMac] Refurbished current-generation Apple iMac 22" Desktops from $999 + free shipping, more
- Moosejaw: [Notebook Carrying Cases] Mountain Hardwear Agenda 15" Laptop Backpack for $40 + free shipping
- SuperBiiz.com: [Serial ATA Hard Drives] Western Digital 500GB SATA HDD + USB2.0 HDD Docking Station, for $60 + free shipping
- LA Computer Company: [iPod Accessories] AppleCare for iPod nano or shuffle for $10 + $5 s&h
- Walmart: [15" And Smaller LCD TVs] Curtis 7" Under-Cabinet LCD TV for $88 + $1 s&h
- eBay: [Printer Supplies] Hewlett Packard Brand HP 60 Black and Color Ink Cartridges for $20 + free shipping
- Buy.com: [Media Receivers] CiragoTV Mini USB Media Player from $54 after rebate + free shipping via 2-day
- Buy.com: [22-Inch LCD] AOC 22" 1080p Widescreen LCD Display for $100 + free shipping
- CompUSA: [] Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote for $140 + free shipping
- PC Connection: [24" - 26" LCD TVs] Refurbished Westinghouse 26" 720p LCD HDTV for $180 after rebate + free shipping
TUAWDozen Daily Deals for December 19, 2009 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Gamefly updates GameCenter iPhone app
Filed under: Gaming, Software, Freeware, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
GameFly (which is sort of a Netflix for video games) sent along word that they have updated their free iPhone app called Gamecenter [iTunes link]. Not only does it work as an official app -- you can update and add to your queue straight from the app, which is definitely nice, as you can go carry it around a game store an add titles at will -- but the new update adds lots and lots of game information that's even useful away from GameFly. You can browse games on all of the major systems, and check out user ratings and screenshots along with video of nearly all of them. It's pretty well done, especially for a free app.
The app also includes game news from Shacknews as well, which is a nice bonus, but hopefully by now you've got your own way to get any news you need on the iPhone. If you're a GameFly member, this one's a no-brainer, and even if you're not, there's enough per-game content (and quick access information) in the app that it's definitely worth a look.TUAWGamefly updates GameCenter iPhone app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Hitting the road with iPhone GPS apps: A holiday buyers' guide
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, iPhone, Holidays, iPod touch, App Review
We're about to hit the big holiday travel peak, and it's a great time to survey what we've seen this year for iPhone GPS apps. GPS navigation by satellite has been around a long time, but it's never been this inexpensive or desirable. There's an explosion of choices, with competitive features and falling prices. For many of our readers, facing long trips to see family and friends, getting the right GPS app is a priority.
A few words about this guide: I haven't seen or tested everything on the market, and the choices are constantly changing and updating. I've done my best to keep up and get some time on the road with each of the apps listed here. If I haven't talked about your favorite app, it's not because I don't like it, but because I can't vouch for it.
Like all of you, I have some criteria by which I judge a GPS app. My list contains the things I think are really, really, important. Your list could be different. Such is life.
Read on for my (long) list of must-haves, and for the rundown of the GPS apps themselves.Here's my criteria:- Good graphics and a clear GUI. I want to be able to figure out how things work without a lot of effort. I don't expect to spend a lot of time looking at the screen, but when I do I don't want it to be littered with useless information.
- Good sound. I don't want to have to struggle to hear what is being said, and I don't want to guess what directions I just got.
- GPS accuracy. Of course. I want the GPS to know where I am. On a highway, I don't want to be depicted on a side road. Most of the GPS accuracy comes down to the electronics on the iPhone, but smart software can enhance the accuracy of my position.
- Updated Maps. In my testing, I found several units that didn't have streets I was driving on, or could not find addresses in neighborhoods that were a decade old. There isn't any good way to find out how new the map data is, but there are plenty of reviews on the iTunes store that will help you gauge this. Steer clear of any app that has a lot of people complaining about out-of-date data.
- Updated Points of Interest. Same as above. How current are the locations and phone numbers of restaurants, hospitals, shops? Is the POI list static or is there a web component that keeps it up to date? I prefer a frequently updated POI list. If it's on the phone only, and something you downloaded as part of the app, it is both smaller and less up-to-date than the online options.
- Where are the maps? Maps may be stored on your phone, or delivered on-demand via the 3G network. I prefer them to be on the phone, because cellular reception may not be perfect. In the U.S., that means AT&T. For the rest of the world there are providers with great coverage, and some with poor coverage. If you opt for a GPS app that depends on the network for maps, you'd better have good cellular service or you'll be looking at a blank map.
- Text-to-speech. I really don't want to spend time looking at the display. I want the GPS to tell me to turn left on Elm Street, not 'turn left ahead'. That could be very confusing.
- Traffic information. It's no good following a route that is backed up three hours because of an accident. I want my GPS to alert me, and re-route me if at all possible.
- Choices about route calculation. I want options for fastest, shortest, and less congested routes. I want to be able to avoid toll roads, freeways or ferries. I want to be driving with this app, not having the app drive me.
- Useful on-screen information. I want to know how long till I get there, based on my speed, not a guess. I want to know what time I will arrive, and I'd like to know the distance to my destination and to my next turn.
- Address Book integration. I really don't want to type in destinations if they are already sitting on my phone.
- iPod integration. Not a big deal for me, but it is for many. Can you access your iTunes library without leaving the app?
- More than just a driving mode. The iPhone is small and portable. Pedestrian directions are really nice to have.
- Less important but nice: auto night display, meaning the display dims or changes colors so it is easier to see at night and less distracting. Speed limit information; can the app warn you if your are speeding? To know that, its database has to know the posted speed for major roads. I also like landscape mode, which is, I think, a nicer way to view the maps.
One of the first out of the gate was the AT&T Navigator app [iTunes link]. It's a monthly subscription at $9.99, with discounts for
multi-month agreements. The maps are clear, the POI database is up to date. This app is cloud based, and that means if you lose AT&T signal, you're hosed. The app has recently had an update with improved iTunes integration. The app does text to speech, has an attractive GUI, and has a nice feature to help you find cheap gas. It includes real-time traffic, and warns you of congestion ahead. The downsides are the already mentioned dependence on a cellular signal. It also is way too chatty for my taste, and over warns you of upcoming turns. I did not find the voice pleasant, as it seemed distorted on the iPhone speaker. I'd blame that on the iPhone, except several other products don't have the problem. As this is subscription based, it just keeps costing. At $70 a year, you could buy the Navigon, Magellan or TomTom app and be ahead of the game. Purchasers who rated this app at the iTunes store generally are not happy.
Ndrive United States. This is a low cost $32.99 app [iTunes link] with built in maps, and a pretty fair POI database. The developers promised text to speech, but as of this writing, it's a no-show. In my review i said that voice instructions came a bit late. I liked the 3D rendering of downtown buildings. As prices of the more popular GPS apps drop, Ndrive is not as compelling as it was, but I think it is worth a look.
Another low cost option is CoPilot Live North America. At $20 (on sale now) [iTunes Link] It includes text to speech, and works well. In my review I noted that the maps were not particularly attractive, and were often out of date. You can add live traffic for another $20, which starts getting app up there in price. I'd consider this an entry level purchase for someone who isn't sure they want to spend a lot of GPS navigation. At $20 without traffic, it's a pretty low risk proposition.
TomTom. This app is offered in the U.S. and several other countries. It was an eagerly awaited app because of the reputation
of the company. For US drivers there is a US/Canada version at $69.99 [iTunes link] and a $49.99 version [iTunes link] that deletes Canada (no offense, Canadians). It's on sale at this price until December 28. Out of the gate, this app was missing some desired features, like text to speech, but a recent update added that function. The graphics are clear and easy to understand. The GUI is responsive. All the data is on-board. There have been complaints the maps are not as up to date as some of its competitors. All in all, the TomTom app is full featured, and very competitive, especially at the $50 sale price.
Magellan Roadmate. Full featured, very nice GUI and easy to read screens. Has text to speech, 3D landmarks, lane assist, pedestrian mode, and a one-touch menu for getting to favorites. In my review I found the app easy to use and responsive. At $79.99 (on sale) [iTunes link] it's a bit pricey and I expect they will have to get a bit more aggressive because of the competition. I like everything about this app except the price and lack of real time traffic.
G-Map U.S. and Canada. At a sale price of $49.99 [iTunes link] it is in the middle of the pack in terms of cost, but in my experience it was buggy and a bit slow to react to turns. In my review I noted that the app had in fact been pulled from the app store for bugs. Several users, including me, have had trouble installing it. The developers have been quick to try and fix the issues that pop up, and they have added text to speech. If you don't need Canadian maps, the TomTom sale price is a better deal.
iGo Navigation. At $64.99 on sale, this is a bit high for an app with no text to speech. It does have lane assist, 3D landmarks, and details at intersections. In my review I noted that app froze up, which is a no-no. Without text to speech, it's a high price and not very competitive with the big names.
Navigon Mobile Navigator North America. In my view, this is the current top drawer app that I have used and extensively tested. It's on sale to January 11 for $59.99 [iTunes link], and it includes Canada, text to speech, and now Google live search to compliment the built-in POI data base. That's the best of both worlds in my view: the maps on board, plus the ability to find, call, and easily navigate to a destination. If you are out of cell tower range, the built in POI data is reasonably complete.
You can get up to date traffic data for larger cities for an additional one-time purchase of $24.99. I think the on screen graphics are best in class, and Navigon was the first to add text to speech. They have been very prompt at getting frequent updates released and have added valuable features. If you look at the iTunes ratings, it seems to have satisfied the most people. If I had to choose one GPS app for the iPhone, it would be the Navigon, no question. The company released the Google integration yesterday, and it had some server issues, but they got right on it and fixed it very quickly.
Against my list of desired features, the Navigon app hits them all. Google may or may not offer a free nav app for the iPhone at some point, but if you're planning a long holiday trip, you probably can't wait. The Navigon is not the most expensive, nor the cheapest of the apps that are out there. But I do think it is the best, with the Magellan and TomTom in a tie for second place.
So there you have it. I know there are some other apps I haven't tried, so they are absent here. Many of these apps run fine on an iPod touch, although you won't be able to use them for live navigation without a hardware assist (like the auxiliary GPS provided by the TomTom cradle). Check the iTunes links I've provided to get specifics on each model. I've tried to cover a variety of options and prices, and hopefully you'll find something that fits your needs and your budget. Happy Holidays and safe driving!TUAWHitting the road with iPhone GPS apps: A holiday buyers' guide originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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