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- Talkcast reminder: 10 pm ET, live tonight
Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts
During last week's show, we talked about Austin's South by Southwest conference with Christina, Nik and a few other regulars. This week, Christina takes over the hosting duties to lead the discussion on the iPhone 3.0 preview and a few other goodies.
To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, or you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!TUAWTalkcast reminder: 10 pm ET, live tonight originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Sully's Flight on the iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
The flight simulator X-Plane is generally acknowledged to be among the best on either a Mac or a PC. Surprisingly, X-Plane [App Store link] made it to the iPhone as one of the first apps available.
That was quite an accomplishment, and while the iPhone version is not as sophisticated as its big brother, it has a lot of the accurate flight physics bundled in to give you a pretty compelling flight simulator experience on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Now, Laminar Research has done it again, bringing a simulation of Chesley Sullenberger's January 15th USAirways landing in the Hudson River saving all the passengers and crews from what could have been a very deadly accident.
You can relive the experience with Sully's Flight [App Store link, U.S. $0.99] and you don't have to even have X-Plane installed to run it.
You start out on Runway 4 at LaGuardia Airport, in similar weather conditions to the real event. You take off, and to follow the original flight path, there are rectangular hoops displayed for you to fly through. To make the sim even more realistic, you get the actual air traffic communication with the stricken airliner. It gives you an appreciation for just how cool Sullenberger was that day, matter-of-factly telling air traffic control he wouldn't be trying to make a landing at another airport, but was going to land in the Hudson River instead.
I've tried the sim a few times, and pretty consistently I land too fast... I need more work on flaps and the aircraft speed when I get closer to the water.
Normally, I might say a game like this is in questionable taste, but it is more a simulation than a game, and, of course, no one was seriously hurt in real life. It would be good to know something about flying before trying this app, because with no engines the plane goes down pretty rapidly. The average person trying it won't be able to escape the physics of the simulation, so if you're looking for a full flight sim, this is not for you.
Like all X-Plane products, there will likely be some updates, but I did not see any bugs when running the sim. And remember, Sully's Flight is not a standard flying game. No matter what you do, you will hit the birds, and your engine will fail, so don't plan on just flying around Manhattan.
TUAWSully's Flight on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Rumors about a future iPhone
Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, iPhone
There are a few rumors floating around today about the next generation iPhone. The first comes from AppleInsider, who are reporting that a video camera will be a part of that design.
Referencing a historically reliable source, AppleInsider claims that a future camera will take higher resolution stills in addition to video. The lack of a video camera has been a glaring omission since the beginning, and many users (including yours truly) have been waiting for its introduction.
Another rumor we're tracking is a boast of "faster internet speeds." Just what could that mean? AT&T's 4G network won't be ready for at least a year. It could refer to WiFi connectivity, as the current model has 802.11b/g (vs. n).
It's all conjecture, of course, so we'll have to wait and see. The iPhone 3G was announced on June 9th of 2008, and iPhone OS 3.0 is scheduled to be released this June. It wouldn't be a surprise to see the 3G phone drop in price while a new model takes the top slot at the same time.TUAWRumors about a future iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Q&A with Transactions app developers: Kyle Richter and Ian Baird
Filed under: Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
I recently had the opportunity to sit down (virtually) and have a chat with Kyle Richter and Ian Baird, two iPhone developers who have come up with the game-changing Handshake app for contact sharing on the iPhone (TUAW review), then released the credit card and payments app Transactions (TUAW review) which can transform any iPhone or iPod touch into a basic point-of-sale device. We talked about how they came up with the idea of their Transactions application, and they shared their experience of developing for the iPhone.
Cory: What was your vision behind creating Transactions, and why did you pursue this idea and turn it into an iPhone application?
Kyle: When working with a platform that is as new as the iPhone the goal is to try and find niches that haven't yet be filled or not properly filled. While I was out jogging with Ian one evening it hit me that a lot of businesses have a need to accept credit cards anywhere. It felt like a perfect solution for the iPhone so we started to research the feasibility.
Ian: One of the driving influences for us has been to take advantage of the "democratizing force" of the platform. We have Authorize.net for the higher end, more professional users who will use this app on a day to day basis. We also felt we needed to make this application accessible to the farmer who's selling his or her produce at the farmer's market. Or the craftsperson selling his or her wares at a trade show. That was the motivation for including the Paypal option. It doesn't require a merchant account. That's a *big deal*.
Continue reading to hear more from Kyle and Ian about their iPhone programming experience, and advice for prospective iPhone developers.Continue reading Q&A with Transactions app developers: Kyle Richter and Ian Baird
TUAWQ&A with Transactions app developers: Kyle Richter and Ian Baird originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Another way to get to the movies: Moviefone for iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
Hot on the heels of Fandango, AOL has released Moviefone [App Store link], a free application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Moviefone can find your nearest theaters, movie times, trailers, and in some cases you can buy tickets.
The app is fast, and the trailers are nicely encoded for the iPhone. It has links to your address book, and you can invite friends to join you at the theater easily. It's a clever idea. You can touch a link and call the theater (good luck getting past voice mail) and there is some info on the stars of the movies. Like Fandango, it can display a map to your nearest theater, and that links out to MapQuest to get you directions.
Here in Southern Arizona, the app worked quickly and efficiently. The only caveats I have are the 'buy tickets' function was not available on many of the theaters I tried, and the closest theater to me was listed about the 5th nearest. It also did not understand my zip code (it's a fairly new one) but made an appropriate substitution.
Moviefone also contains a search function so you can search by movie title, and a favorites option so you can save your favorite movie palace to a list.
The app also has a feedback option, so I sent some along with my email address. It will be interesting to see if I get a response. Update: They did respond. I'm impressed. They said the 'buy' feature only works where Movietickets.com is supported. Moviefone is a nice app, and other than my inability to buy a ticket at some theaters, it looks pretty solid. The price is right, and competition is a good thing. It's certainly worth a download and a tryout. If it lets you buy tickets, you're ahead of the game. While you're at it, be sure to get a look at Now Playing, i.TV (which includes TV and DVDs), and Hot Popcorn. See you at the movies.TUAWAnother way to get to the movies: Moviefone for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 20 Mar 2009 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - First Look: Video Monkey swings in to save the day
Filed under: Software, Video, Open Source
When Techspansion closed its doors in October of last year, there were hordes of individuals clamoring for a slice of easy video-conversion pie to fill the void in their now-empty hearts. Many did not find consolation in the fact that Handbrake supported universal input within a scant two months.
An application that offers every configuration option available is all well and good for many fine folks; but there are some of us that want this type of thing to be simple. What I and others desired so greatly was a video-conversion app for the rest of us -- and that application was VisualHub.
Enter Video Monkey. Following the release of Tyler's source code for VisualHub as the TranscoderRedux project, one lone soul, named Chris, decided to brave the trepid waters and save all of us from drowning in a sea of videos awaiting conversion for our iPhones and AppleTVs.
Chris makes it perfectly clear that Video Monkey's mission is inspired by, and borrowed from, Visual Hub. However, while Visual Hub relied heavily on AppleScript, Video Monkey is written exclusively in Cocoa. After Chris got in touch with TUAW, I got right to work checking out this holy grail of simple video-conversion applications. Read on for my first impressions and initial thoughts or just check out the gallery.Continue reading First Look: Video Monkey swings in to save the day
TUAWFirst Look: Video Monkey swings in to save the day originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsПереслать - Six fun and useful iPhone apps
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Some iPhone apps are fun, some are useful (and some are neither). In this set of iPhone app reviews, we've got a mixture of each. In this batch of mini-reviews: iShred, Quik, Pro Basketball, Silly Songz, Wordology, and Silver Revolver.
iShred ($4.99US)If you like playing the guitar or other musical instruments, then you might want to consider this app -- it could be one of the most full-featured guitar apps on the iPhone. From the ability to create and record your own songs, to the ability to listen to others play songs around the world -- iShred [iTunes link] has it all. There are over 2,000 built-in chords, scales, and fret positions that get assigned to the two fret rows at the top of the screen. When you tap a fret and strum the strings, a sound will be played.
When you set up the frets for a certain song, you have the ability to save this setup for later. You can also save your songs or transfer them to another iPhone anytime you have a wireless connection. The application includes other effects including several virtual stomp boxes, like:
- Adrenaline: A treble booster
- HK-2000 Delay: Echo
- Hot Fuzz: Distortion
- Kömpressör: Power chords
- Sybil: Dual chorus pedal
- Trembler: Tremolo
- Wahsabi: Tilt control for wah pedal
Quik Search (free, pro version available)Searching different sites on the iPhone can be a kludge, especially if you don't like having only two search engines available natively with Mobile Safari. Quik Search [iTunes link] hopes to solve this by adding different sites and engines. Quik allows you to customize your search experience by adding a list of sites that you wish to search to the main screen of the application. You can choose from over 50 pre-designed search engines/sites (including Google, Amazon, Twitter, and of course, TUAW). Just enter your search term in the application and press the blue arrow ... your search query will be sent away to the site of your choice and you can view your results in the Safari-like browser built into Quik Search.
You might ask "What if they don't have my favorite site/search engine?" Well in that case, you can create your own "search plugin" by entering the name, adding an icon, and entering the template search string. The application helps you to understand what a template search string is, and how to format it for Quik. You can also enable/disable "Launch Safari" when searching (if you don't like the built-in browser).
If you are looking for a better search solution on the iPhone, then this application could definitely save you some time and energy. You can get Quik search for free on the App Store, although it is ad supported. If you wish to get rid of the ads, you can purchase a pro version [iTunes link] for $1.99US.Continue reading Six fun and useful iPhone apps
TUAWSix fun and useful iPhone apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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