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- Macworld 2010: Get an education with the DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator
Filed under: Hardware, Interviews, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review
DriveSavers has been the go-to company for data recovery since 1985, when I used to read about them in Apple ][ magazines. They have saved the bacon (and jobs) of many people over the ensuing years. When all else fails, DriveSavers can be counted on to retrieve your data -- whether it's on a hard drive, memory card, iPod, iPhone, or just about any type of storage media.
It seems that their heart is in the right place; although seemingly not great for their business, they created the wonderful free DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator app for the iPhone or iPod touch. The app teaches, in interactive fashion, how a hard disk works, and all the things that can crash a drive. It shows the inside of a hard disk where you can tap around to read descriptions of all the components.
Next, using interactive animation, sound and vibration, you'll learn all the things that can crash a drive. You'll learn what happens during a clicker failure, seized motor, problems with spinning up and down, solid state drive failures (yes, they can fail too), contamination and head crashes. It's both entertaining and educational. There is also a section relating to protection strategies, which covers best practices, backup strategies, securing your data, and how serious a problem must be before you call DriveSavers. Knowledge is power, and I consider this critical information for any computer user.
Another section shows you pictures of the clean room where all the data recovery gets done. DriveSavers employs the most advanced certified IS 5 (class 100) clean rooms in the industry and is authorized by all hard drive manufacturers to work on hard drives without voiding a warranty. If you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can still learn everything in the app via a web-based Flash video.
We conducted an interview with Chris Bross from DriveSavers from the show floor. Chris talks about the philosophy behind DriveSavers. I found it interesting that there is a suicide prevention professional on staff to take call from clients on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- which is not an uncommon occurrence. Click on the Read More link to see the interview.TUAWMacworld 2010: Get an education with the DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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iPhone - Drivesavers - Apple - Data recovery - Solid-state drive
Переслать - Pinger's Textfree delivers billionth free text message
Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Among the many methods available for getting around AT&T's stronghold on text messaging and the exorbitant rates associated therein stands a giant in the form of an iPhone application. Pinger's wildly popular app "Textfree" puts the power back in the hands of users by creating a simple and elegant way to text message your contacts without running up the wireless bill.
Today, Pinger announced that they have reached a significant milestone. In the short 10 months that Textfree has been available on the App Store, over one billion messages have been delivered. This huge amount of messages represents a staggering savings to Textfree's users and shines a spotlight on the innovation that Pinger has brought to the iPhone ecosystem.
I had a chance to talk with Greg Woock, one of the co-founders of Pinger Inc., about the success of Textfree as an individual app as well as Pinger's strategy for App Store success. Hit the read link to check out Pinger's success story.
Pinger was founded in 2005, long before the release of the iPhone or the App Store, and though Pinger was involved in mobile messaging it wasn't until Apple announced the App Store and the SDK that the lights came on. The iPhone as a platform sparked a revolution in mobile development that gave power to developers and wrenched it away from mobile carriers.
Pinger's first app was Pinger Phone which Greg called "an educational process" that taught his team simplicity. Pinger took the most compelling feature from Pinger Phone -- free text messaging -- and created a single, stand-alone app: Textfree.
Textfree made it easy, enjoyable and (importantly) cheap to send and receive text messages on the iPhone and iPod touch. Their next app, Picfree, further enhanced the mobile experience of the iPhone by providing a way for people to send and receive picture messages. At the time that Picfree was released, the iPhone didn't support MMS, so Pinger stepped in and filled a gap that Apple wouldn't.
Leveraging the success of Textfree, Pinger used their first app as a medium for marketing Picfree. And thus a legacy was born. It was natural that Textfree users would be interested in what Picfree offered, so Pinger notified their users about Picfree and from there the app really took off.
Pinger discovered that by using great apps to promote other great apps they could create a dynasty of excellence with the Pinger franchise. Pinger has over 15 million downloads across its lineup of 16 applications. In December 2009, 10 of their applications were listed in the App Store "Top 100" list. Additionally, both Textfree and Picfree were listed in the iTunes Rewind as top sellers for 2009.
Pinger's experience in the App Store is unusual because of the multiple apps that have done well. Pinger's unique publication strategy puts them into position to launch apps and then they are able to push the right buttons to get their apps in front of users. This is evident by the number of apps Pinger has that have made it into the upper echelon of the App Store Top 100. Pinger uses their successful apps as a platform for marketing new apps and in turn makes them successful.
Moving through 2010, Greg is positive that Pinger will remain at the top of its game, continuing to publish world-class software for the iPhone, iPod touch, and eventually the iPad. If the passed year is any indication of what's to come from Pinger, then hold on tight because it's going to be a wild ride.TUAWPinger's Textfree delivers billionth free text message originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Macworld 2010: Flook app brings urban exploration to your pocket
Among the unusual and innovative iPhone apps we saw at Macworld Expo was Flook, a location-based search tool for urban discovery that turns your walk through town into a multimedia adventure, complete with audio and image annotation and growing popularity for the most intriguing spots.
The idea is to create "serendipitous discovery" of the interesting and novel places around your neighborhood -- "a bit like StumbleUpon for the world around you," as the Flook site says.
We got a chance to chat with Ambient Industries co-founder Tristan Brotherton, who provided a quick demo of the app and a few words about the Flook approach and philosophy. Catch the video below.
TUAWMacworld 2010: Flook app brings urban exploration to your pocket originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Macworld 2010: David Chartier talks 1Password
Filed under: Macworld
You never know who's going to turn up at the TUAW booth; could be a former blogger coming to say hello, could be a representative of the company that makes a much-loved Mac & iPhone utility... but the odds of both of those things happening at the same exact time? That can only mean one thing: our old friend David Chartier in the hot seat to tell us about all the 1Password news.
TUAWMacworld 2010: David Chartier talks 1Password originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Street Fighter IV coming to iPhone
Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store
I've wondered before just how a fighting game on the iPhone would work, and now I'm going to find out: Capcom has announced that they're releasing the latest Street Fighter game (they're up to IV now) on the iPhone. You can see how it works over at IGN -- there's a virtual joystiq on one side, and four virtual buttons on the other. I have no idea how it will actually work in practice; it certainly seems like your thumbs would cover up both your character and the enemy while fighting, and that's assuming that your thumb has the dexterity to know which buttons you're pushing without tactile feedback. But we'll see -- Capcom says the game will have a large number of fighters to choose from (though probably not as much as the full retail game), and the ability to play multiplayer via Bluetooth.
One other interesting note on this one: Street Fighter IV has only been released on the major consoles, and the iPhone will be the game's first handheld relase (that we know of so far). This could be Capcom's experiment -- if they can release it on the iPhone before putting a port out on the DS or PSP, and see some success, we could see other larger developers releasing ports earlier (or maybe even exclusively) on the iPhone in the future. But let's not count our hadouken before it's completed -- first we have to see if a game like this will even work on Apple's little handheld touchscreen.TUAWStreet Fighter IV coming to iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Macworld 2010: Telltale Games and their Mac revolution
Filed under: Macworld, Gaming, Software, Interviews, Developer
Well, there you go. After consistent rumors that the whole catalog would be coming over to the Mac, Telltale Games announced at Macworld last week that that's exactly what was going to happen. Starting with the Tales of Monkey Island series (based on the Lucasarts games, where many Telltale developers formerly hung their hats), the company will co-release Mac and PC versions, giving customers versions for both platforms at the same time. Telltale is hosting a vote on its website right now as to the next game set to be released, but as we learned directly from co-founders Dan Connors and Kevin Bruner, eventually the whole platform, including Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Wallace and Gromit, and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, is coming over. And it's probably not long until the iPhone and the iPad follow suit.
Kevin Bruner spoke with us on the livestream during the show, and Dan Connors sat down for a longer interview about Telltale's past, the decision to join the Mac gaming community, and what both founders think of Apple's newest platforms and the Mac community at large. Read on to see the full text of the interview.
TUAW: You guys here at the show are announcing your Mac revolution -- you're bringing everything over to the Mac. First question is: Why? Why are you jumping into the Mac in this way?
Dan Connors, CEO Telltale Games: We've always wanted to be on as many platforms as we could, and the Mac platform has continued to get more and more attractive to us, from how well it performs, and how slick it is and what it's capable of doing. And I think our content is differentiated in a way that the audience of people that are on Macs and that use Macs as a platform are a good target audience to build our products for. The fact that they're story-based and they're problem solving, they're a little different than what typical gaming is about.
I was going to say yes, people who play your games, and fans of your games, it's very clear to spot. You can look at a game and know that Telltale probably worked on it because it's kind of got that old retro 2D LucasArts aesthetic. How do you describe your company and the games your company makes to someone who may not know about them?
I think the things that are critical for Telltale is that we're really interested in interactive storytelling, and we're really interested in doing that around with existing story and characters that have a proven quality and characters that last and have audiences that are devoted because the storytelling and the character creation has been so strong. All of our characters across all of our franchises are very iconic within their audiences, and that's what attracted us to them. It's funny you call us "retro," because we believe that we're taking something that was a way of playing games that was very easy to play from a physical standpoint, and trying to figure out the right way to expose that to people that aren't necessarily games, but want to enjoy franchises and be part of an interactive experience for them to try.
So it's an interesting line to walk as we kind of continue to create gaming experiences that really resonate for a certain group of people that have an expectation for them, but at the same time try to evolve it in a way that anybody can just pick up and play it and get it. If they're a fan of Wallace and Gromit, and they come into a Telltale world, they feel like they're playing Wallace and Gromit. That's really always our goal. And figuring out the right gameplay mechanics in which to make that happen, that's really where the innovation lies in our company, especially at this stage.
Yeah, I call you retro, but in terms of a developer, you're actually very new because you have multiple tracks going in terms of what you're doing. You're taking old licenses like Monkey Island, loved licenses, and moving forward with those, and you've got newer licenses and newer worlds that you're kind of building, and you've dipped into episodic gaming. How do you balance all of the balls that you're juggling in the air?
It's ironic because everything has been planned out to some degree in steps. The first part of the business was doing these episodic monthly releases, which were kind of holy grail-ish for a while, and investing in the production ability to do that. How do you make it happen?
Then there was building the business around it to support it, and be a self publisher, and go out and do licensing. So the one thing that was rock solid was we had a demand for the games that we were building. So from that demand, that audience, they knew we weren't going to come to retail with it, we knew we weren't going to bring it to retail, so we said we're going to do this completely new, this revolutionary thing with the way this game is distributed, and they said, "Whatever!"
As they usually do. What else would gamers say?
"Just get it to us, we'll figure it out, we'll work together," and we've had a tight feedback loop with them for five years, handling a whole ton of processes that, for now, with us, we're really robust, and we can focus on, ok, how do we take this and make it happen for a mainstream franchise, where it's not all gamers, but it's a huge audience. And we'll always be doing the gamer stuff as well -- there are multiple tracks, like you said, and there are different levels to our business. We've been able to grow with this audience that was really savvy, adventure gamers have always been smart. (Laughs) They can figure it out, they almost don't want to have their hands held.
So when something like Monkey Island comes along, four years in, that's in our wheelhouse. We've been built to do that. And then we looked at it and said, it has this soap opera element to it, and this is the missing piece that we've been missing from Sam and Max and Strongbad, let's tie it all together, like a real season of it. And we were focused on nailing that in Monkey and I really think that was the biggest success of the whole season for us.
I did want to talk a little more technically about process. When the rumors were going around that you were headed to the Mac, one of the things that we heard was that it would be easy to port the games over. How did you find the development on the Mac? How did that work out for you?
It was harder than we expected. Probably because we didn't expect it to be difficult. We wanted to move our whole core technology over. We weren't going to just do a one-off of it -- we wanted to enable the Mac as a platform for us for everything going forward. Monkey was the closest in the library to being released, so it made a lot of sense to do the transition with that, but it was still built for different groups under different rules of development, different platforms. But now that we're over, everything should be pretty straightforward. Not a port -- the platform supports it. It's pretty similar to Playstation, in terms of the different things you need to solve. So just from the lifecycle of the company, it made sense at this point to address the GL issues and making it run on that type of rendering system.
If we were a huge company, it probably would have been easier for us, but it was still relatively painless.
So once you've made that transition, then I guess everything going forward that we see from you all, we can expect day and date on both platforms?
Yeah, that's our intent. The only real hangup is the QA and what bugs are going to exist, going to be unique to the Mac. But that didn't seem like the issue. Now that the renderer is solved, that doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue going forward.
Great. I want to talk also about the iPhone -- it's been a successful outlet for sure, and as you said, the casual basis of the point-and-click is perfect for the iPhone. What do you think of the App Store in terms of development as opposed to these other platforms?
We don't have anything over yet (ED: The Secret of Monkey Island on iPhone was produced by Lucasarts, not Telltale.) From what we've heard, it's a very democratic process, but there's a lot of product that needs to be processed and needs to go through the queue. That's the issue. And kudos to them because that's a sign of success. But obviously we want to get over there and be on the iPhone because so many people are using it as an entertainment device. It's just, what's the right product experience, how do our games translate over there? The point and click stuff is pretty forward, Monkey Island Special Edition did really well.
Are you interested in releasing within a certain time frame on the iPhone, then? Seems like it would be easier with Mac development under your belt.
Exactly. It's the next target from a new platform standpoint for sure. We're a little surprised that it's been the gaming device that it has, but we're certainly interested in getting there. Understanding the marketing, and how to stand out amongst all of the other apps, I think, is something that we're interested in watching other people do, because it's a crowded marketspace and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of different levers you can pull on the deck itself. But if it's something where our platform supports it, and we can have a game and have an iPhone app along with a Mac product all at the same time, then it just makes sense to always be developing with that in mind.
And this is hypothetical at this point, considering that we haven't touched one, but since we're at Macworld 2010 and you're a developer, I have to ask you about the iPad. One thing we've heard from developers here is that the iPad is a very different platform from the iPhone. They run the same apps, and you can upscale, but a lot of developers are looking at making completely different apps. You're still thinking about the iPhone, but in terms of what you've seen about the iPad, what do you think about that platform?
I think the ten inch screen is closer to what we do now than going all the way down to a handheld device, especially since we're really focused on being a cinematic company, and having character development and a cinematic presentation. So a larger screen is definitely of interest to us. I don't know about the nuts and bolts of how different the iPad is from the iPhone or the Mac processor in general, but certainly from a way to interact with the product, a large touch device has a ton of possibility.
"He says, smiling..." (Laughs)
The question is, what's the install base going to end up being? How many people are going to use it to have interactive experiences on? My feeling is, and the reason I'm in this business, is I believe everything's going to be interactive at some point. Maybe not now, maybe not five years from now, but I think this generation's coming up and they're going to expect to be able to interact with every product there is. So it feels like a first step, well not a first step, at this point it's probably a fourth or fifth step, but it's another step on the road, and it kind of feels like it's bridging notebooks and handheld devices.
I guess the thing that's still kind of unclear to me is: who's the iPad targeted at? Is it an entertainment device, or is it a note-taking device, or is it a personal data assistant? Because I've got all of those things in different devices -- is it going to try to be an all in one?
I don't know. I can't answer because I don't know yet.
Are you going to get one?
Well, not on day one. I'll probably wait for another revision. Because you're right, I've got a laptop, I've got an iPhone, I don't see room for me in there. I think there is room, and I think it'll be popular, but not for me personally. But welcome to the Mac! You're a newcomer here, what do you think of the community that you've seen here?
Oh it's great. One of the reasons that brought us over to it is the creative focus of it. We're a little different in the things that we're focused on, storytelling and presentation, and those things really resonate here. And innovation as well -- the thing that fascinates me about the iPhone thing is the way that you can I can stand here together and say gee, there should be an app for that, and then someone goes and makes one. It's so fluid like that. It's fascinating, and it's a good crowd to be around. I've been to a lot of different shows, and this has its own unique character, so we're happy to be here.
And frankly, 2/3 of the staff are all Mac heads, so they're all excited to be here. Kevin Bruner is a big Mac guy. So they've been around the community and been part of the community. There's always one wing of development that's like, "I'm doing it on my Mac." And we're like c'mon, and he's like, "No, I'm doing it on my Mac!"
Great. Thanks so much.
Thank you.TUAWMacworld 2010: Telltale Games and their Mac revolution originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - TUAW Smackdown: iPhone time management games
Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, App Review
Time Management games challenge you to run some kind of business operation while balancing your resources against the demands of customers. In the following write-up, I tested five popular time management App Store games to see how well they delivered the fun and strategy of challenging yourself against time. As you'll see, not every game delivered the same level of fun and overall gameplay. Here's how they stacked up.
At $2.99, Sally's Spa is our absolute favorite of the time management games we tested for this write-up. In this game, you run a virtual spa, providing steam baths, massages, manicures, pedicures, and more. You aim to keep your customers happy and radiant (literally) by dragging them from one station to the next, applying spa services, and balancing their needs against your limited resources of time and equipment.
As your salon earns money, you re-invest into improvements such as hiring employees to automate some of the stations and upgraded equipment to provide higher levels of satisfaction. The challenges grow more sophisticated over time (although I could have done without the whole eyebrow tweezing service that appears late in the game), as you attempt to perfect your spa-fu.
The game is addicting, well designed, and the small details have all been very well thought out. It's charming, engaging, and a great deal of fun to play.
Are You Alright is currently on sale for just $1.99 and offers you a near equivalent to Sally's Spa. It offers essentially the same game except not quite as refined or polished. Are You Alright plays out as an earlier version of Sally's, with less editorial oversight because it fails to match the fine detail execution of Sally. Clearly the same development hands programmed both applications.
In Are You Alright, you run a medical clinic instead of a spa. Exams take the place of beauty treatments and you put together skeletons, remove shards of glass, and scan for bacterial infections rather than offer massages and facials. Some of the actions you need to perform in your daily tasks are morbidly hilarious ,and yet AYA is simply not as fun a game to play as Sally's Salon is. It's missing a great deal of refinement.
Polish and attention to details can really make or break an iPhone game app, and Sally's tiny nuances are missing from this near-clone. If you've played Sally's to the end, you might still want to pick up Are You Alright to keep going with the same kind of gameplay, but I think you'll find it a bit of a letdown from the real thing.
Turbo Subs costs just $1.99. In it, you run a sandwich shop, providing subs, sodas, cookies, and chips to your customers. The graphics are acceptable, the music is awful, and the gameplay tends toward the simple side. It's very, very easy to perform extremely well to the point that you can buy up all the improvements for each level long before each level is finished, leaving you with "nothing left to buy" for round after round.
There's really not a lot of planning you can do with Turbo Subs. Each time you empty coffee, you can remember to start a new batch and you can pre-make your cotton candy, but beyond that it's simply a matter of speed to serve each customer, making sure to group all your actions to get the highest number of points. For early levels, just leave all your tips out until you've served all six customers and then collect them at once to earn insanely easy multiplier bonuses.
The thing is, though, that despite the bad music, the cheesy graphics, and the lack of planning, Turbo Subs is pretty darn addictive. Because it doesn't take a lot of brain power, it lends itself well to use on the go as you play a level or three while waiting at the bus stop. Like Sally's, I found myself returning to Turbo Subs quite a lot.
It would be nice if the designers added more interesting interactions to the game and would get rid of that stupid little petty thief (at least let us call the cops), but even as it stands, Turbo Subs is a fun game and a great time waster.
Jane's Hotel arrived with high praise and personal recommendations, so I was so disappointed to find that its game play didn't really live up to the hype. In this game, you run a hotel, and like the other games of this kind, you need to wait on customers. Here, you fetch newspapers and coffee, distribute room keys, and instruct the maid to clean up rooms and water plants.
I found the menus and tutorial text hard to read, with poor font choices that upped the froufrou and decreased legibility. Like Are You Alright, Jane's Hotel could have done with a better UI supervisor to finish tweaking fine details.
Most frustratingly, Jane's Hotel doesn't really provide very good feedback about how well you're doing and how happy your customers are. After a few levels, the goals just get harder and harder and each level soon ends with "YOU LOSE" or something like that. I forget exactly what it said, and I certainly wasn't willing to play yet another tedious round to find out the exact wording for this write-up.
That's because after a while playing this game, I seriously wanted to slap the customers. Jane's Hotel feels a lot less like playing a time management game and a lot more like being a mommy to a bunch of whiny kids. "Where's my TV?" "Where's my Newspaper and Coffee?" "Why haven't you cleaned my room?"
Like other games of this type, you can upgrade equipment after each round but in Jane's you don't really get much of a choice. Not only do you more or less have to buy plants, then you have to start looking after them and watering them or you'll get in trouble with your customers.
To sum it all up Jane's Hotel is dreary, joyless, and a chore to play. It feels poorly tested, and it's missing an elegant GUI as well as captivating gameplay.
Diner Dash was also a big let-down. For $4.99, you can run a virtual restaurant, serving customers as a waitress. You seat them, take their orders, deliver food, and bus the tables after. That's pretty much it. Oh yeah, you can also serve drinks.
There's almost no planning possible in Diner Dash. It's just the same actions, over, and over, and over, with some weird rules about bonuses for seating people in seats that match their clothing colors. (As if any woman alive would pick a seat because it matched her dress? I mean, really?)
There's a lot of down-time in Diner Dash, most of which involves you standing at the manager's podium while insanely long lines of people listen to you explain why this early in the game there are only 4 or 6 tables and that they have to wait for seats. This apparently mollifies them and increases their patience levels and eventual tips.
Diner Dash just doesn't have the kind of thinking element that would make it fun to play. There's no real strategy component and since you are graded on doing the same kind of thing all at once (bonuses for serving each table one after the other, bonuses for then cleaning up those tables one after another), things quickly blur into a kind of tedious sameness that repeats over and over again.
Serving people, waiting for them to eat, and then cleaning up after them over and over again may be your kind of fun, but it wasn't mine. Like Jane's Hotel, Diner Dash was a chore rather than a game.
TUAWTUAW Smackdown: iPhone time management games originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Shazam adds Last.FM integration to iPhone apps
Filed under: iPhone
Shazam is one of my favorite iPhone apps, and it was one of the first I downloaded from the App Store. Every time I'm in a store or listening to the radio and hear a song I like but don't know, I let Shazam listen. The free version is still in the store, but just recently they've also released Shazam Encore and (Shazam)RED, two paid versions of the app that offer up more functionality (the RED version gives part of the purchase price to charity). Among that new functionality is Last.FM integration: now, you can apparently send any songs you "tag" straight over to the Last.FM app (assuming you have it installed), and make up a radio station directly from there. Pretty slick, and the iTunes description for both apps says that Pandora works as well.
Unfortunately, reviews for the paid version say that the app still includes ads (a weird choice for a paid app), and there are a few reviews that even say the app crashes occasionally (though I've never experienced the problem of it not finding a song for me -- even with rarities and b-sides, it's always come through). But it's a real shame that reviewers are having problems -- while Shazam definitely needs to find a way to monetize its service, failing to provide a premium experience on a premium app obviously isn't the way to do it. Still, if you made the jump to the paid app already, or use Last.FM and/or Pandora often, it might be worth a look.TUAWShazam adds Last.FM integration to iPhone apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - TUAW review: Create perfect self-portraits with Self Image
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review
How many times have you tried to take a picture of yourself or you and a buddy with your iPhone, only to end up with your face well out of the frame? The folks who brought you the fun panoramic photo app, Pano, have just delivered their latest creation to the App Store -- Self Image is now available for just US$.99.
Self Image uses sophisticated face-detection algorithms to let the iPhone camera know when it has a face or two in the field of view, at which time it begins a countdown to get you ready for a photo. The app is simple to use -- you launch it, press a button marked with a "1" if you're taking a photo of yourself, "2+" if taking a photo of yourself with a friend or two, or "self-timer" if you want to just take a photo with a self-timer.
If you're taking a self-portrait, Self Image searches for a smiling face (or faces, if you are with friends), and then begins a three-beep countdown when it finds one. When the picture has been taken, it is saved to your camera roll. In practice, this works very well provided your face is properly lit. In dark conditions, Self Image might have trouble finding your face, at which point you'll want to find some light.
Self Image is definitely tuned for human faces. I tried unsuccessfully to get it to recognize my cat's face, and I only succeeded in annoying the cat. Be sure to take a look at the gallery below for some screen shots of the app in action, although unfortunately the only portraits you're going to see are of my face. Arrrrgh.
TUAWTUAW review: Create perfect self-portraits with Self Image originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - $1000 iPhone law exam review app sends traditional publisher running for cover
Filed under: Multimedia, Retail, Software, iTunes, Apple, iPhone, App Store
You readers were skeptical that BarMax, the iPhone app that offered up a full law prep system for $1000, would make too big a splash in the law prep community. But apparently that's exactly what happened -- three weeks later, BarBri, one of the more traditional competitors to the new app, has made significant changes to their pricing and service that appear to be aimed at keeping law students away from BarMax. First, they've decided to offer complete online access for free to every student that takes their courses (we don't know how much they charged previously, but it used to be an additional cost). Second, in direct opposition to BarMax's "buy once, use forever" deal, they've allowed students to save at least $2000 every time they retake the test courses, by offering retakes for free as well.
That's pretty incredible. Just by offering up one much cheaper alternative through Apple's iPhone platform, BarMax has already started to revamp the entire business. Of course, I couldn't tell you anything about the quality of these two programs (and whether either BarMax or BarBri is worth using at all), but clearly BarBri smells danger in the wind. It's just not possible to publish content the old way when even one competitor has an alternative through cheaper channels, and the App Store model is as cheap a channel as you can get.
Just imagine what's going to happen when the iPad opens up iBooks and launches the revolution in education publishing that everyone's talking about. The next twelve months are going to be very interesting for textbook customers and/or publishers.TUAW$1000 iPhone law exam review app sends traditional publisher running for cover originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - How to: Facebook chat in iChat or Adium
Filed under: How-tos
Last week, the fine Facebook folk let us know (via the Facebook Help Center) that you can now sign in to Facebook's chat service using iChat. Of course, the free Adium client has directly supported Facebook chat since version 1.3 (released in 2008), but this step opens up a much wider range of clients for the service.
Facebook's chat service is powered by the Jabber/XMPP open source chat protocol. Many networks (such as Google Chat) rely on Jabber, and for this reason chat clients like iChat and Adium allow for the setup of a generic Jabber account to facilitate the widespread use of Jabber.
The process is simple. First, create a new generic Jabber account pointed at Facebook's Jabber server. The username to use is your Facebook username (which you can find on the Account Settings page) and the password is the same as your Facebook login password. Next, point the server to "chat.facebook.com," configure the port to 5222 and un-check the box for "Use SSL."
After it's all said and done, you should be able to communicate with your Facebook friends using iChat without being logged in to Facebook with a browser.
[via Cult of Mac & 9to5Mac]TUAWHow to: Facebook chat in iChat or Adium originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Переслать - Savant: iPad to "Redefine home automation"
Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Software, iPad
Automating one's home with a Mac isn't new. Indigo has been around for a while, as has XTension. Heck, you can even feed your dog remotely. The folks at Savant offer a way to control your home or office's entertainment system, climate, security cameras, lighting and more with an iPhone or iPod touch. To say that they're excited about the iPad would be an understatement.
In an interview with Electronic House, Savant president Jim Carroll called the device's release a "...watershed moment." He also confirmed that his company is working on an iPad app, including some "pretty cool" plans for the device's large screen.
For now, home automation can be expensive, but Carroll believes that the iPad will change that. With a device that starts at US$499 (and should only get cheaper) and runs App Store apps, more and more people will be able to take advantage of this technology. Of course, that doesn't mean your home will be as cool as Daniel Graystone's overnight, but it's progress.
At the very least, imagine a beefed-up version of Apple's Remote app that went beyond Apple TV and iTunes sharing. We're living in the future!
TUAWSavant: iPad to "Redefine home automation" originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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