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- Snapture Goes Legit and Gets Cheaper
The iPhone’s camera app is OK, but it really leaves much to be desired. That was why Snapture came to exist in the first place. Snapture is a jailbreak app that many users on that side of the fence have sworn by for quite a while now.
Now owners of legitimate, non-jailbroken devices can take advantage of the nice little suite of usability enhancements and feature additions that Snapture brings to your iPhone’s static media capture capabilities. The app has been approved by Apple and is available via the App Store.
This isn’t a pale, feature-reduced version of its former self. According to Just Another iPhone Blog, who received word directly from Snapture’s developers about the release, the app is making the switch from renegade to law-abiding citizen feature-intact.
For those of you unfamiliar with Snapture, those features include:
- Patent-pending Picture-in-Picture Technology (allows users to view and delete recent photos directly on the viewfinder)
- Multi-Touch Pinch and Pan Zoom (5X max)
- High Speed Multishot: 3 rapid-fire snaps to capture every moment of action.
- Easy Snap: Tap anywhere on screen to take a photo.
Those who’ve already been shopping around for a solid camera app alternative may rightly point out that these features aren’t really anything new (aside from that PIP thing) and can be found in other apps, but can they be found altogether in one program? Snapture is meant to be a true replacement, so that you never have to open another camera app again.
By default, your view is unobstructed in Snapture, thanks to the tap-anywhere shutter controls. Tapping an unobtrusive arrow icon at the bottom of the stream brings up your detailed controls, which allow you to turn on or off the auto level aid, and change your image resolution, along with accessing the zoom and burst fire modes. You can also email photos directly from the app, so you shouldn’t even have much cause to open up Photos.
If you’ve purchased Snapture via Cydia, you’ll be disappointed to learn that legitimate App Store customers get a special launch pricing deal on the app. For a limited time, Snapture will sell for $1.99, making it 75 percent cheaper than its jailbreak predecessor.
Kudos to Apple for being open to the advances of developers who are willing to come in from the cold. It’s one of the few reasons I still have some hope for the future of the App Store as a fair and well-run software distribution platform.
Read our latest analysis piece, "Will Apps.gov Raise the Bar for Cloud Providers?" Only on GigaOM Pro.
Переслать - New Pioneer In-Dash Nav Units Get Hardware Specific iPhone App
At least one company is taking the hardware integration features of iPhone OS 3.0 seriously. Pioneer, which announced A/V home theater receivers with some serious iPhone connectivity in June, has just revealed an iPhone app (iTunes link) designed to integrate with two of its brand new in-dash navigation units.
While the iPhone app doesn’t provide iPod control without a hardware cable connection, it does allow you to search for points of interest or trip destinations on the iPhone, which then communicates said information to the navigation unit. Basically, it’s like having an advanced, user-friendly remote for your GPS unit instead of having to fumble with clumsy on-device controls.
You can also access any POI information on the nav system over Bluetooth via your iPhone, so it’s a two-way conversation. Also, the app automatically searches your device for geotagged photos taken with the iPhone’s camera and uses those as custom POI entries. I can see this becoming annoying, since every photo I take with my iPhone has geographic information associated with it. The neat spider I saw when we stopped at that roadside diner isn’t a POI, cool though it might have been.
If you’re in the market for an in-dash nav system, and you already own an iPhone, then there’s really not much of a downside to going with these Pioneer models. The entry-level AVIC-U310BT will set you back $699, while the much snazzier AVIC-Z110BT has a $1,799 price tag. The more expensive model will get you a motorized screen, rear cam readiness, voice control, and A2DP stereo Bluetooth support. Forgive me for also wanting it to drive the car for me at that price.
Переслать - Apple's HD Cinema Display: Or, How I Overcame Monitor Envy
In 1999 I was building websites with UltraDev and Drumbeat. I was playing with DHTML and a cool new thing called CSS. I was dropping the word "recordset" into conversations with other geek friends via the just-released MSN Messenger Service. I considered myself pretty technologically accomplished. But then one day a friend visited and used my computer to check his email. As he took his seat before my beige plastic 15 inch CRT he mumbled "Ugh! It's so small."
I was crushed. My monitor was smaller than his monitor. How embarrassing!
Since that day I have always strived to use the largest monitor possible, and usually two of 'em side by side. And while dual monitor setups are not so common in most homes, at least we've come a long way since the primitive days of 15 inch CRTs. The first flat panels ordinary people could afford were tiny, low resolution, low color saturation, low-light things. The contrast (pun intended) to today's cheap, bright and capable LCD screens is remarkable, but it has been a very short journey from one to the other.
I always knew that Apple made amazing displays. Perhaps they haven't always been the first choice of graphics professionals, but at least they've been consistently better than the cheap monitors offered by PC manufacturers. So early this year, as I switched completely from PC to Mac, I made sure I bought the biggest and best displays Apple could offer. And that meant the gargantuan, beautiful, breathtaking 30 inch Cinema HD Widescreen Displays. Two of them, as it happens.
And they are amazing. Positioned side by side before me, I practically swim in Cinema Display goodness. To clarify; when I work on my 15 inch Macbook Pro, despite the beauty of that glossy screen, I'm acutely aware that it provides a limited, narrow view of the digital world, a little like peering through the mail slot in my front door. With these enormous cinema displays, I don't need to peer through the mail slot because the door has been thrown wide open. Sometimes, it feels like the door has been taken off its hinges. And sometimes, I feel a little silly having all this display. In fact, unless I'm doing some graphics/video work, I don't maximize windows. Doing so feels… I don't know… over the top, somehow.
So why does anyone need more than one monitor? The answer falls conveniently down to a single word: productivity. Quite simply, people who (properly) use multiple monitors work more efficiently and productively. Don't take my word for it — look at this report (PDF) from Pfeiffer, which goes into extraordinary depth examining the virtues of extensive screen-space.
There's Always a Down Side
The Cinema HD Display isn't perfect. Sure, Apple generously endowed it with two USB ports and two Firewire 400 ports within easy-reach, and if you're using a Mac Pro, those ports are fantastically useful, saving you from making trips to the mysterious, cable-strewn world Beneath the Desk. But FW400 is old now, and since these displays were launched they haven't been refreshed. Newer standards, such as HDMI, are unsupported. Even Apple's own Mini-DV standard isn't supported without an adapter.
But by far the biggest problem with the 30 incher is its price. At $1,799 it's a fantastically expensive monitor. Our own James Dempsey compared Apple's behemoth with Dell's 30 inch UltraSharp Widescreen and concluded he preferred the Dell. Read the article to see his reasons why, but I'll tell you now that price was an important factor.
But I have no regrets — and a good job, too, considering how expensive these things still are. Whether you buy from Apple or elsewhere, they'll set you back a painful $1,799 each! Personally, however, these displays are by far the most impressive non-television panels I've had the pleasure of using. Call me insane, but I enjoy needing to slide my chair a little to the left to more comfortably see what's going on on my other screen.
The Future
As with all things Apple, there's the knowledge that what's top-of-the-line today will be old-hat tomorrow. Buy a brand new MacBook Pro and enjoy the pleasure of being at the cutting-edge while it lasts — because new models will be out before you know it. Well, the 30 inch Cinema HD Displays have yet to be surpassed. But Apple does have some very nice new LED screens on the market. It makes me wonder what might be happening with the ageing 30 inch line.
A quick visit to both the American and UK versions of the Apple website revealed that, at some point since April this year, Apple quietly removed the dedicated microsite for the 30 inch display. The only link you'll find now is to its product page in the online store. My old bookmarks no longer work. So — what's happening? Is Apple discontinuing the 30 inch Cinema HD Display, perhaps planning to replace it with a refreshed new line based on their LED monitors? I emailed no fewer than four of my contacts at Apple who, two weeks later, have remained utterly silent on the matter.
But I've never quite gotten over that brief period of monitor envy in 1999. I've always hated it when I've walked into a room and discovered, to my silent horror, bigger and better monitors than my own. So I'm going to enjoy my beautiful cinema displays while I still can, because I know it's only a matter of time before Apple makes them feel like that old, beige 15 incher that started it all.
Переслать - Google Sync Gets Push Gmail Support on the iPhone
Oh, MobileMe, how will you deal with this latest threat to your iPhone feature dominance? First it was improved Exchange support, and now it’s push Gmail using Google Sync.
Remember Google Sync? It’s the service from Google which allows you to synchronize your contacts and calendar with your iPhone or iPod touch, in much the same way that MobileMe users can, only using a free service instead of a paid one. With Gmail push support, the trifecta of basic services is now complete.
True, MobileMe users still get some questionable value-add services like photo and video media-sharing via their MobileMe gallery, online disk storage space, cloud data backup, and Find My iPhone and other remote anti-theft and security features, but will those be enough to stop people from switching over to Google’s free, just-the-basics service? Time will tell. I know I’m thinking seriously about not renewing my MobileMe subscription at this point.
Google Sync allows you to mix and match, so you don’t have to enable all three of the syncing services. That’s a good thing for people like me whose Google Contacts is in a state of utter disarray, but who often uses Google Calendar and Gmail.
You can get set up with Google Sync by following the instructions posted here, if you haven’t already been using it. If you have, check out these instructions to get Gmail’s push features working for you. Gmail push also works on Windows Mobile devices, which no one in their right mind should be using anymore, unless forced to by the company they work for. Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to thumb my nose at BlackBerry users.
Переслать - Here Are More Apps for That: Three New iPhone Commercials From Apple
It’s fall premiere season, and that means new shows. But it also means sparkly new ads to fill all those commercial breaks. New Apple ads for the iPhone provided pleasant relief for me yesterday from the tedium of the two-hour Heroes premiere. On a side note, the Castle premiere was pretty good.
But back to those commercials. All three highlight popular and unique iPhone apps, some of which have already been featured in previous commercials. Let’s take a look at the apps featured in each commercial.
Dine
The first ad is called Dine and features a smattering of apps covering a range of different topics, including travel, dining, working and shopping. Here’s a breakdown of the apps featured.
TripCase (Free) — Flight tracking, info and travel itinerary management app. Quite a few not so great reviews on this one, but it is free.
New York Subway 09 ($4.99) — Navigate the labyrinth of the New York City subway system with painstakingly hand drawn maps. Also not very favorably reviewed.
Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List (Free) — Access Epicurious.com’s database of great recipes. I actually use and love this app, since it lets me indulge the amateur chef in me.
Zagat To Go ‘09 ($9.99) — You like restaurants? Zagat ratings will help you know what you’re getting in to. Is it worth $10? It may depend on how much you value your meals out.
Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite ($9.99) — Check out my thoughts and impressions here.
Gap StyleMixer (Free) — Coordinate Gap clothes. Could be useful if you want to outfit yourself entirely in Gap.
Nature
Money, learning, nature and pizza predilections are at the core of this ad. I’m starting to see the pattern here. Weird pairs tied together by linguistic or thematic similarity.
iXpenseIt ($4.99) — Watch what you spend by tracking expenses and preparing a monthly budget. There’s also a free Lite version available.
DailyFinance (Free) — AOL helps stock market junkies stay up to date with quotes, portfolio tracking and business news.
GuitarToolkit ($9.99) — Before I traded my acoustic guitar for a 12-inch PowerBook G4, this was one of my staples. Now it’s a cool $10 home screen icon.
Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook ($9.99) — A globetrotter’s best friend. Or maybe just if you order a lot of Mandarin food.
iBird Explorer Plus ($19.99) — I’m not a particularly avid birder, but I’ve still been tempted to pick this up. Just think of how many birds you could randomly identify. Now that’s an app.
Pizza Hut (Free) — Order pizza without using your vocal chords or a computer! Truly, the future is upon us.
Pass
Use your iPhone to help you find things, pass things (that sounds bad), read things and learn how to read to begin with. They don’t mention it here, but it can also teach you math and science. Kids, don’t worry about going to school anymore.
Fandango (Free) — The online ticketing service has created this app to help you find info about movies and buy tickets to see them.
G-Park ($0.99) — Find your car in that ridiculous infinite field of concrete outside the local Costco. Those colored, numbered pillars do nothing.
VocabWiz College Vocabulary ($4.99) — Use this app to show up snooty college guys in bars, just like Matt Damon.
365 Crosswords ($4.99) — Fight off boredom with word games. That’s what I do. Or else Sudoku, which is like this but with less hard brain thinking.
Classics ($2.99) — Public domain books made to look very, very pretty on the iPhone. One reviewer faulted it for not including Twilight. That’s the primary reason to buy, in my opinion.
ABC Animals ($1.99) — Amuse and educate the kids, or help eliminate the secret shame of your illiteracy. Not that you’d be reading this if you were illiterate, I suppose.
Oh, and in case you weren’t aware, Apple makes sure to mention in each of these adds that there are now over 75,000 apps available in the App Store. Nothing like sheer volume to outshine the competition without mentioning them directly.
Переслать - Nine iPhone Apps for Cricket Lovers
This round-up of Cricket apps is dedicated to all of the Cricket lovers around the world. With the ICC Champions Trophy beginning today, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to cover and review the Cricket apps that are available on the App store.
Despite the worldwide popularity of cricket, the market for cricket applications on the iPhone is nowhere near the saturation point of some of the other popular sports. While this is most likely due to cricket's limited appeal to the American market, there is still a fair amount of competition abroad — and some interesting innovations being put forward by iPhone developers.
As more and more people get their hands on these devices, cricket fans from around the world have a choice between nine applications, most of which can be downloaded for less than US$1 for both the iPhone and iPod touch.
Cricket (99 cents)
Now in version 1.2, when the application is loaded, the news screen displays a list of headlines from articles published on ESPN's Cricinfo website. Clicking on a headline opens a new screen which shows a summary of the article and a link to open the full story on the Cricinfo's website. The same news stories can be filtered on a per-country basis via the Countries screen, which arguably makes the default news screen redundant. The Live screen shows at-a-glace summaries of all current and some recent matches. Clicking through on an individual match opens the match details on the Cricinfo website — which is not easily viewable on the iPhone screen.
Overall, the application doesn't provide much more than what a visit to the Cricinfo website would provide and may make some people wonder if paying for the application is justified, especially seeing that there are free applications that offer similar functionality.
Cricket Live (iCricket) (99 cents)
A relatively new cricket application for the iPhone (released in February 2009), it's primary feature is a simple, yet functional news aggregator and viewer which pulls articles from several major news sources. The titles of stories, along with the first few lines of the text as well as the date and time, are listed on the main application screen. Clicking on a story launches a new screen with a summary and an ability to open the full story on the relevant website (similar to Cricket, reviewed above). The settings screen provides end users with some control over which news sources are polled.While the application is elegant in its simplicity, the same functionality is also offered in other free cricket applications. Alternatively, spending a couple of dollars on a good quality, commercial RSS reader would provide the ability to keep up to date with more than just cricket news and provide additional control over the display of the news.
Cricket Live-007 (99 cents)
Another application recently developed (launched in February 2009), provides ICC rankings in addition to the live scores and news. Live scores and recent scores are both accessible via different main menu options, which can make it awkward to find details on a particular match if it finishes earlier than expected. However, a full scorecard for each match is provided within the application, which is commendable despite the tad-unpolished design. The ICC rankings section shows the current standings of teams and players in tabular format — however, no additional player or team statistics are available. Still yet, this is a nice addition that isn't provided by other applications, but as with the scores section, the design is somewhat mediocre.
Overall, the application has a comprehensive set of features for the small price. Although it was developed by a company that develops a range of other iPhone applications, one would have thought that more effort would have gone into the interface design. Apple's products in general are renowned for having intuitive user interfaces, however, this application contradicts that, resulting in a less than impressive interface that detracts from the usability.
Cricket Trivia (99 cents)
Released in April 2009, the Cricket Trivia quiz is a relatively simple application with a few added features to tailor it more towards today's gamers. After launching the application, the user selects the number of random questions that will be included in the test. Each question is then answered, one by one with the final score presented at the end. Navigation through each question is a bit rigid, with the user unable to skip a question or go back to it. Upon the completion of each test, the score is then added to a table that allows you to keep track of your performance. While this provides an element of game play to the applications, there's no ability to enter your name next to a score or to compare scores online, although both features are available in many similar games offered today.
This applications seems to be more suitable to an iPod than to iPhone since quitting the application (e.g. to answer a phone call) results in the quiz being interrupted. The application would benefit from a free-flow mode where the user is able to answer, skip or revisit questions as they are asked. There is also room for the interface design features to be improved. Unlike other trivia quizzes where answers remain relatively unchanged, the cricket statistics are in constant flux and one presumes that the app would need to be regularly updated to keep up with these changes.
CricketRSS (99 cents)
While its name is more accurate in regards to what to expect when you come across it, CricketRSS is functionally similar to the Cricket Live (iCricket) application reviewed above. The main screen shows a list of news headlines and truncated descriptions, conveniently grouped by date. Clicking on any one of the news items opens up the details page which shows the full description and the ability to open the full source website.
The features of the application are relatively basic and, apart from some minor design inconsistencies between different screens, is reasonably functional. Though not feature-rich, there are no flaws in the application, though for a dedicated news application, it would have been better if it had a wider range of news sources, apart from the usual suspects.
ECB Cricket (Free)
The official application of the English & Wales Cricket Board was released in time for the 2009 English summer. The application opens on the main scores screen and lists the current England international and English County Cricket (ECC) matches. Clicking on a match displays the score summary. Rotating the device horizontally displays the full scorecard for the match, with each innings on a separate screen — a novel approach which maximizes the amount of data that can be shown on a single screen. The interface of the main news screen is reminiscent of the album selection screens on iPods and displays headlines, photos and the truncated descriptions for each news item. Clicking on an item reveals the full article inside the application itself with the photo section working in a similar way. The ECBtv section is a list of video podcasts from YouTube streaming the external YouTube player.
The major, though understandable, limitation of the app is that it only shows the scores for the ECC and the England international matches. As such, the market is somewhat limited to the UK and international ECC fans only. The other notable absence is the running commentary for the matches or the ability to see the past match scores or team standings. Overall, the application is extremely well polished, even though some of the elements may appear a bit gimmicky at times.
iCricket (Free)
When this application was first released in October 2008, it started out as just a free RSS reader for Cricinfo’s news feeds. Since then it has grown to also include links to match scores. The main screen lists various categories of news and scores in a standard scrollable view, though there's no grouping of sections, which often makes it confusing to determine where to go to access the information you're after. This is particularly awkward in relation to the match scores and commentary — links to scorecards on the Cricinfo website appears in one section of the application while the running commentary (for selected matches only) appears in a completely different section. The news part of the application is relatively standard, broken down into per-country categories. Clicking on a category takes the user to the list of headlines with truncated descriptions. Clicking on the article opens the Cricinfo website for the full article, skipping the news detail page common to the other applications.
The application is functional, though it generally takes a lot of clicking around to find the information you want to access. The logic behind the layout of the sections leaves a lot to be desired. However, for a free app and an amateur fan effort, it is cute and a better effort than some of the commercial cricket applications reviewed.
MobiCast (Free)
This anticipated app was released in October 2008. The opening screen of the application lists the current, upcoming and recent matches. Clicking on a match displays Cricinfo's famous ball-by-ball commentary and gives access to the full scorecard for the match. Clicking on a news item displays the full story on the iPhone itself, without opening the external website. The photos section shows photos that do not appear to be linked to any current matches nor do they behave like standard iPhone photos — they cannot be zoomed or scrolled through using the standard gestures. The podcast section is a useful bookmark of the podcasts by Cricinfo's commentators.
There's no question that the quality and the comprehensiveness of Cricinfo's data is top rate, however the resulting application is both confusing and extremely frustrating to use. For example, throughout the match detail screens, notification icons for "4," "6" etc popping constantly, regardless if matches being played or not. Even more confusingly, the "Matches" tab shows the same type of information as the main screen — only presented in a different format. One certainly expects more from professional developers backed by ESPN and it is hard not to dismiss this as a token effort in the also-ran category of the App Store.
Virtual Cricket ($1.99)
While the final application, Virtual Cricket, was only recently released, it's clear that the developer has addressed the shortcomings that have been identified with the other applications. The matches screen displays a list of current, upcoming and recently completed matches, with single-line match status and the time of the last update. Clicking on a match shows the match summary with current score and the most recent commentary highlights (4s, 6s, wickets, etc). The news section follows the familiar pattern of listing headlines and truncated descriptions. Clicking through shows a summary of the news item, with a link to open the full article. The main difference here is that the headlines are aggregated from around 20 different news sources, grouped by source and country and catering to each user's local preferences. The feeds also include leading cricket blogs as an alternative to the traditional news sources, as well as several video channels.
Clearly, this seems to be the most comprehensive application currently available. It takes many of the best features of every other application reviewed and presents these features in a professionally polished package. In a quest for features, it doesn't forget the details and implements niceties.
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