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- Quicker tweets with qTweeter
Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, Jailbreak/pwnage, App Review
There's no shortage of Twitter apps in the App Store. Even more surprising is the number of GOOD apps that connect to the popular microblogging platform. I like each for a different reason: Tweetie has a clean user interface, TweetDeck offers multiple columns that sync with its desktop counterpart, and TwitterFon has ReadItLater integration. There are countless others that have unique features, and many of us end up with at least a couple on our iDevices.
But I have a new favorite, qTweeter, developed by the folks at Efiko Software. You won't find it in the App Store, though, because this app requires a jailbroken device. Multitasking isn't officially allowed (yet?) on the iPhone OS, yet qTweeter relies on this capability to perform its best trick.
Say you're checking the weather and want to tell everyone of the approaching hurricane. Normally, you would close your weather application, swipe through pages of apps, tap on and wait for your favorite Twitter client to open and load all of the tweets that you really don't care about right now, and finally type your warning to get the heck out of town. By the time you do all of that, the highway is going to be grid-locked with fleeing residents and you'll be stuck boarding up windows and sweeping up the debris!
Instead, you could have just "pulled" qTweeter down from the status bar, typed your tweet, and went back to the app still running in the background.
In fact, per the recent trend, you could have also posted that same message to your Facebook status with just a tap of a checkbox. It's a much quicker way to get your message out of your head and onto the Net, a fact that you'll appreciate as you get older and those thoughts become more fleeting.
Continue reading Quicker tweets with qTweeter
TUAWQuicker tweets with qTweeter originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - AppStore - Twitter - Facebook - AppleПереслать - Notify keeps an eye on your Gmail inbox
Filed under: Software, Freeware, First Look
I, like many people, am constantly checking my email. No matter where I am, I'm either getting messages pushed to my iPhone or Mail is checking for new ones every minute. A new app is promising to make using Gmail and checking for messages much, much easier.
Notify, a new free application by Vibealicious Apps, puts a small button in your menubar of your Mac that keeps track of unread messages. The app, which was released less than 24 hours ago has already received over 3200 downloads and is quickly making a name for itself. Notify's developers consider it "like a menubar app, but better" explaining that the application boasts a much better user interface and much more functionality than traditionally found in menubar apps and buttons.
The application has a lot of cool features including:- Support for multiple accounts
- Tabbed interface
- Growl integration
- Sleek, simple UI
The app is also promised to be "freeware forever", according to the developer's twitter.
Some shots of Notify in action:
TUAWNotify keeps an eye on your Gmail inbox originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - Gmail - E-mail client - Internet Message Access Protocol - Google AppsПереслать - C-Mac shuts down: You may now switch off your Macintosh safely
Filed under: TUAW Business
After nearly two years of blogging (see my first post), tweeting and talkcasting for TUAW and Download Squad, I'm moving on to other things. Writing for TUAW has been a true privilege and I will be forever grateful for the experience, the opportunities, and most importantly the people that have come my way as a result of this job.
I was going to try to be funny with this post, drawing allusions to Brenda leaving Beverly Hills or Catherine leaving WNYX, but in the end, schmaltz and sappiness won out.
I want to thank every member of the TUAW team (past and present) for being such awesome colleagues and always offering up fantastic insights, suggestions, humor and love. Your commitment and dedication is what makes TUAW TUAW. Thank you for letting me join your world. To Michael Rose and Dave Caolo -- thank you for being such awesome lead bloggers for being so supportive. Victor Agreda -- thank you for being such a fantastic producer and for fighting to hire me in the first place.
To the TUAW readers (and Talkcast listeners), thank you for reading and chatting with me over the years. As Steve Sande has often commented, the TUAW readers and commenters are some of the best around. You guys are sharp, witty and knowledgeable about so much more than just the Apple-sphere. When we get something wrong or miss something cool, you let us know and I sincerely thank you for that.
Two years ago (today -- freaky), Scott Mcnulty posted a "we're hiring" notice for TUAW. As a longtime reader (even before I went Mac full-time), I applied, thinking that it might be something cool I could do while finishing school. This opportunity has been so much more than that.
If you want to keep up with what I'm doing, you can check out my personal site, follow me on Twitter or listen to me talk movies. I might be leaving TUAW, but the rest of the Internet won't get off that easily!Thank you.
TUAWC-Mac shuts down: You may now switch off your Macintosh safely originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: Macintosh - Twitter - Apple - Download Squad - TUAWПереслать - Nav with turn by turn, text to speech and only $1.99
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review
Yes, all true. I'm talking about Roadee [iTunes link], an iPhone nav app that depends on the open sourced openstreetmap.com. That eliminates the high fees paid to license map data, and allows a nav app for under 2 bucks.
So what do you get? Well, sadly, not too much. The maps are OK, and reasonably complete. Direction of travel is supported, but when driving any direction but North, the labels are the wrong way round. Driving South, all the street labels are upside down. Nice.
Most, but not all of the addresses I navigated to worked OK. In some cases, I was given weird, very out of the way directions, but I still got to my destination. Routing info comes from cloudmade.com. If their server is down, no routing
The map shows your route, the speed you are going, and what should be the time to your destination, but in my tests it always read 0. The app is a bit sluggish, and a few times it told me to turn after I'd gone through the intersection, but in most cases it was fast enough.
Now, about those points of interest. Sitting next to 3 fast food joints, I asked Roadee if there was any fast food around. Nope. Zip. I tried hospitals. Nothing. Shopping? Nil. Gas stations? Negative. In fact, I could not get a single POI to appear in a city of more than a million people. You may have a different experience in your town. Your reports are encouraged. One time I got an error message that the service was down. Another server outage perhaps?
When traveling down the road sometimes the map would blank out every few seconds while more data was being ingested. Sometimes the map downloaded but there were large blank spots where the map should have been. The maps are streamed over your data connection, not sitting on your iPhone. Unfortunately, each time the screen refreshed, the computerized voice felt obliged to announce my next turn. With the turn about 3 miles away, the constant refreshing of the screen gave me the announcement 25 times. Not good. You can turn the voice off, but then you are forced to look at the map, which isn't so safe.
You can navigate to addresses in your contact list, but that sometimes fails and the little spinning gear goes on for ever. The only way out is exit the app.
Well, the app is only US$1.99, and it will generally give you directions to most addresses. Don't count on it for POI searches, direct routing, or navigating to your contact list. The computerized voice is OK, but not on a par with the higher priced nav apps. On the other hand, none of the other apps have text to speech, although that feature is coming.
I think this open source effort should be applauded and encouraged. If you just don't want to pony up 80 or a hundred dollars for some of the better nav solutions, this is for you, but keep in mind that despite having niceties like text to speech, it just doesn't work very well. This latest release of Roadee is said to be much better than the original release, so there is hope. Keep an eye on user comments and hopefully an update will improve things. Roadee maintains an FAQ and it is honest about the limitations the app has.
Here are some screen grabs to give you an idea what Roadee looks like.
TUAWNav with turn by turn, text to speech and only $1.99 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - AppStore - Apple - TUAW - Speech synthesisПереслать - (Re)locating your Mac mini's or iMac's headphone jack for easy access
Filed under: Accessories, Audio, Desktops, Mac mini
Are you wishing for an easier way to plug in and unplug headphones from your Mac mini or iMac? There are a few ways to make it easier. You should be able to reroute the jack, allowing you to speed up your plug-in process.
The first solution, which only works on Mac minis, is to use two right-angle audio adapters. This will relocate access to the headphone jack to the front or side of your mini, allowing for much easier access. You can buy these for less than $4 each (you'll need two) at Radio Shack (or whatever it's called these days). You'll need to plug one into the back of your mini, while you'll want to plug the other one in to the other right-angle adapter. Once you've done this, you should be able to have an easy way to access your headphone jack.
The next solution, which works with both minis and iMacs, is to use a headphone extension cable to provide easier access to plug in your headphones. This offers a more flexible solution to this issue, allowing you to route access where you want it. These cables can be purchased for about $10, and can be found in many places. You can choose a shorter cable or longer one, depending on how you want to manage your cords and where you want access to the headphone jack.
Please note if you use one of these solutions, it will override the internal speaker in your Mac, so you might want to unplug the extension if you're not frequently using headphones. These solutions will also work for microphones, so if you frequently use microphones with your iMac or Mac mini, you can also access the port more quickly.
Yet a third approach is to use a USB audio adapter, which will give you a separate set of headphone and/or mic jacks plugging into your keyboard or USB hub, or at the end of a USB extension cable. These adapters are available from lots of manufacturers and range in price from $8 on up; Plantronics also ships one with many of its audio headsets.
Check out the gallery below to see an example of an extension cable in use:
How do you handle this inconvenience? Leave a comment and let us know!TUAW(Re)locating your Mac mini's or iMac's headphone jack for easy access originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iMac - MacMini - Headphones - RadioShack - Universal Serial BusПереслать - Apple's Address Book app getting social in 10.6?
Filed under: Rumors, Software Update, Apple, Snow Leopard
We're all still waiting to see if the rumors of an earlier-than-expected release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard are going to come true. There's been no shortage of news regarding Snow Leopard going to golden master, but 9to5Mac has received a tip that the build everyone has expected to be final (10A432) might actually not be. Some shots of built 10A435 have surfaced and while there's not much information to go by, the new build features an updated Address Book app.
A screenshot from the new build has been floating around featuring an updated version of the Address Book application with one big addition. A "social networking" menu is added showing both Twitter and Facebook icons. This could mean that Apple will allow you to keep (and possibly edit) your contacts pulled from social networks.
There's no word yet if the screenshot is credible or not, but it does look pretty convincing and would make sense given recent news that Apple is likely to incorporate social media into other applications such as iTunes.TUAWApple's Address Book app getting social in 10.6? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: Apple - Snow Leopard - Unofficial Apple Weblog - Address Book - Mac OS X v10.6Переслать - Distinctions without differences: Apple's inconsistent app store rejection policies
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, App Store
I admit, I was one of those to pile on ol' Ma Bell as the culprit for keeping the Google Voice app (don't I wish that was a real iTunes link) off the App Store. Restrictions on Skype and the SlingPlayer app on the iPhone had conditioned me to believe that the "game changing" iPhone had, well, a completely different set of rules applied to it by AT&T. While many in the tech community continued to jump atop the dog pile, in which AT&T was at the very bottom, Apple ran the ball back the other way without anybody noticing.
Apple's response to the FCC's questions covers several areas -- including the fact that it acted alone without AT&T's consultation -- in rejecting not yet allowing the Google Voice app. Almost as striking as Apple's admitted culpability, however, is its rationale for it, which smacks of odd logic and damages the spirit of the App Store.
In short, Apple states that it rejected "continues to study" Google Voice because, in its current form, the app "replaces the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface for telephone calls, text messages and voicemail."
While the iPhone is more than the sum of its parts, the phone portion of it is arguably the least compelling when compared to other features. Out of the box, the iPhone comes with several apps pre-installed. And, based on their placement at the foot of the home screen (as well as Steve Jobs' Macworld proclamation), Apple views the iPhone as "an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator (Safari and Mail)." But the advent of the App Store and the third party apps that arrived with it further reinvented a device that had already reinvented the entire tech market. If the iPhone wasn't already viewed as a computer-first, phone-a-distant-second device, it certainly took this form after the App Store.
Taken at face value, Apple's rationale for rejecting Google Voice also means that YouMail [iTunes link], TextFree [iTunes link], and Skype [iTunes link] should be rejected as well. As Mike noted yesterday, YouMail could serve as a replacement for Visual Voicemail, TextFree could supplant the iPhone's SMS client, and Skype could do both, albeit in a different and slightly limited capacity.
Continue reading Distinctions without differences: Apple's inconsistent app store rejection policies
TUAWDistinctions without differences: Apple's inconsistent app store rejection policies originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: iPhone - App Store - Apple - Unofficial Apple Weblog - Steve JobsПереслать - Want a 1st generation iPod? They're still available from the Apple Store
Filed under: Humor, iPod Family, Cult of Mac, Odds and ends
In 2001, the same year the Game Boy Advance was introduced, Apple brought the iPod to us (and not to universal enthusiasm, either). When I was doing some Google searching last night on Apple model numbers, I found something quite strange.
Who knew that there were first-generation iPods still for sale on store.apple.com! This is the very first iPod model, introduced in 2001. I don't know how they ended up there, or why they're selling them, but they're shipping "within 24 hours" and are available for $129.00. Remember, this is the model with the "scroll wheel," it's not touch sensitive, and you have to physically turn it with your thumb or finger. Note that the image Apple is using on the store is actually for a third-generation iPod, but the product description and model number are for the first-gen. Also, these iPods are refurbished, they're not brand new.
It includes a 5GB iPod (for Mac only, the Windows-compatible versions came later) w/rechargeable lithium battery, original scroll wheel, headphones, an Apple iPod Power Adapter, an Apple FireWire Cable (2 meters), a Manual (iPod Getting Started), CD-ROM Disc w/iTunes (version unknown, but let's take a guess and say "old"), and a One Year Limited Warranty that by rights should have expired eight years ago.
Are you going to take the plunge? Will it look good next to your G3 iMac? If you do or don't, feel free to leave a comment below!
Update: Before this post was written, I did order the 5GB iPod linked on this page, but it looks like they will now send me a 10GB 2nd generation iPod instead for some reason.
We are also getting reports of confusion as people try to order over the phone.
Plus, there's a brand new 1GB iPod shuffle available.
Update 2: It must be random nostalgia day in Cupertino, because tipster Will V. sent us a list of more old iPods supposedly for sale. Check them out on the next page.
Update 3: I just got an email from Apple stating that this iPod is no longer available.Continue reading Want a 1st generation iPod? They're still available from the Apple Store
TUAWWant a 1st generation iPod? They're still available from the Apple Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sponsored Topics: Apple - Cult of Mac - IPod - Google - Unofficial Apple WeblogПереслать
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