TodoMovies 2: A Gorgeous Way to Keep Track of Movies You Want to Watch

By Cody Fink

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Due in part to the frequency I can meet up with friends and get to a movie theater, I inevitably end up with a backlog of movies to watch since I often don’t see them until months after they’ve been released. It wasn’t until last weekend that I finally watched The Hobbit for example, both in part to try Vdio and get hands on with Taphive’s latest app.

Where Apple’s Trailers showcases upcoming films and offers up information on where and when to watch them, TodoMovies 2 is your personal list of movies seen and not yet seen, keeping movies sorted in any preferred order while also offering trailers and additional links to associated goodies like soundtracks. Integrated with TMDb and additionally bringing in ratings from sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix, TodoMovies 2 offers a quick glance at actors and actress, plot summaries, and ratings underneath gorgeous movie posters that shine on Apple’s Retina displays.

iToner 3: Create and Manage Ringtones on the Mac

By Cody Fink

iToner 3 Banner

Introduced in January, iToner 3 by Ambrosia Software is an all-in-one application for creating and managing ringtones and text tones on the Mac. Available for only $2.99 on the Mac App Store, iToner includes a library of hand picked ringtones in addition to an advanced editor for creating ringtones from your own music. A few stand out features include a Ringtone Library for collecting created ringtones, ClearTone™ for optimizing ringtones for the iPhone’s speakers, and a variety of fade types and extra controls that can be used in the waveform editor.

Twitterrific 5.2: Push Notification Rollout, Profile Banners, and Storify for Discussions

By Cody Fink

Push Notification Beta Alert

Redesigned from the ground up, Twitterrific launched last December with a fresh design that pleasantly surprised long time fans of the app. Breaking ground on the original iPhone, Twitterrific has relatively stayed the same for years, subtracting unnecessary features and focusing on delivering a robust core experience. Today, people expect more from their Twitter clients, such as the ability to mute hashtags and receive push notifications for follows and replies. The Iconfactory addressed the former through their last update with muffling, a simple way to shush users, hashtags, and domains on the timeline. Yesterday, The Iconfactory began addressing the latter by introducing push notifications in Twitterrific 5.2.

Podcasts 1.2: Thoughts on the New Now Playing View, My Stations, and More

By Cody Fink

Now Playing View

Yesterday, Apple updated their podcast player by introducing some great new features as well as some visual changes to the Now Playing view. I’ve talked at length before about Podcasts and where it stands amongst other podcatchers on the App Store, but I’d like to revisit some of those notions as playlists take center stage in the form of stations.

How to Enable Two-Step Verification for Your Apple ID

By Cody Fink

About Two Step Verification

Today, as originally reported by 9to5Mac, Apple has rolled out two-step verification for Apple IDs. Two-step verification makes it more difficult for someone to compromise your Apple ID by adding an additional layer of security. In this case, it’s an iOS device you own such as your iPhone (iPads and iPod touches also apply). As you make a purchase from iTunes on a new device or after you log into your account with your username and password, you’ll be asked to authenticate with a short code four-digit code. Currently, two-step verification is available for Apple customers living in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Using two-step verification is completely optional — you’re not required to use the extra security measure if you don’t want to. For those who opt-in, Apple gives fair warning that you’ll need your trusted device with you to access your account information. Apple does provide a printable Recovery Key in case you lose your iOS device or forget your password, but they won’t be able to help you if you lose it. I recommend storing the Recovery Key in 1Password for safe keeping. If you do lose the Recovery Key, you can generate and print a new key if you can log into your account.

If you won’t be enabling two-step verification, it might be a good idea to revisit your security questions. Instead of using likely answers, generate less guessable, complex words with 1Password instead for added security. Here’s a quick guide.

How to Enable Two Step Verification

Setting up two-step verification starts by visiting appleid.apple.com. Upon logging in, click on the Password and Security tab. After entering a couple of answers to your security questions, you can find the option to turn two-step verification on at the top of the page. Simply click Get started… to begin setup.

FlightPath, TestFlight’s New Mobile Analytics Tool, Launches as a Private Beta

By Cody Fink

Today TestFlight is announcing FlightPath, a new mobile analytics tool that makes it easy for developers to gain insights on how their customers are using their apps in real-time.

Launching as a private beta, FlightPath shows what you care about on a single, easy-to-read living page. A simple chart provides a high-level overview of an app’s status and usage in real-time. Developers can click on various points to filter data into specific metrics, such as session length, that can be combined with other data points and saved off as preset segments for easier tracking. Preset segments, such as Loyal Users and Flight Risks, give developers a head start on gaining valuable insights. Developers already using the TestFlight SDK can easily take advantage of FlightPath by adding a single line of code.

FlightPath appears to be the Squarespace of analytics tools: it’s easy to get started, everything is a click away, and more nuanced data is available if developers want it. FlightPath aims to solve common frustrations with analytics tools by reducing complexity and by delivering up-to-date information now, not later.

Developers can sign up for the FlightPath beta by signing up at www.flightpathapp.com.

A Month with Mailbox

By Cody Fink

Mailbox, Inbox Zero

Orchestra, the company originally behind Mailbox, set out to redesign the traditional mobile email app by transforming the inbox into a to-do list. Recently acquired by Dropbox to the tune of $100 million, Mailbox has been making waves in the media on the promise of helping people act-on their email more quickly and efficiently. Anticipation for the free email app began late 2012 and came to boil over as the app launched in February, thanks to an incredible amount of press attention and clever marketing through Twitter.

Questionably, Mailbox launched with a reservation system to cope with demand. Available on a first come, first served basis, Mailbox was initially only available to those who signed up for the service early-on. So far, over a million people have signed up to use the app, and the company has filled over 500,000 reservations according to a recent TechCrunch interview with Mailbox founder Gentry Underwood.

Mailbox has had its fair share of both praise and criticism. Understandably there’s a healthy amount of skepticism over whether Mailbox actually helps you deal with the bulk of email people receive in their inboxes.

I gave Mailbox my phone number before much of the recent press, leaving me with a reservation somewhere in the early 20,000s. My reservation was filled relatively quickly. As I downloaded the app, I decided I’d pass on early impressions to get a good feel for whether Mailbox could be my daily driver on the iPhone.

As Mailbox is structured around the principles of Inbox Zero, the actions that can be performed are built on top of making quick decisions about what’s necessary to keep. With mobile in mind, Mailbox is designed to help people quickly archive, delete, snooze, or put email in a “do someday” list. People are always checking their phones throughout the day, so why not give people an easier way to weed out the things that don’t matter?

Twitterrific 5.1 Adds Muffling, a New Font, and Picks Up Speed

By Cody Fink

Sorry Zac! I promise I did it just for the screenshot.

Muffling

When The Iconfactory launched Twitterrific 5, they launched an app that reflected a specific vision of what a Twitter client should be. Twitterrific certainly hasn’t lost its charm since it launched back in December. Setting itself apart with a modern interface and clever gestures, Twitterrific started anew with a clean slate and plenty of room to add features thanks to feedback from their fans. Throughout the last few months, The Iconfactory has been progressively iterating Twitterrific, leading up to the first major update which launched yesterday evening.

The most notable feature in Twitterrific 5.1 is muffling. It’s muting made simple.

Control YouTube Videos with Your Mac’s Media Keys with Tube Controller

By Cody Fink

Out of habit I tend to reach for my media keys when playing music and videos. While Rdio has certainly spoiled me with its compatibility I’ve yet to learn that the rest of the world, the web mainly, doesn’t work with the three most useful keys on my keyboard. While trying to pause YouTube videos with the play / pause key can lead to some egregious overdubs, it’s always a little frustrating when it doesn’t just work.

Enter Tube Controller, a free app from the Mac App Store for anyone running Snow Leopard and beyond. Interfacing with Chrome and Safari, Tube Controller sits in the menubar and enables your Mac’s media keys to fast forward, rewind, and pause videos on YouTube. It’s simple and convenient. You can’t hide the menubar icon, but you can tuck it away with Bartender if you’d like.

Tube Controller does a few clever things. Rewinding and fast forwarding YouTube videos is interesting because it always feels like it works perfectly. That is to say in just the right increments. It isn’t an exact amount, but Tube Controller seems rewind and fast forward in roughly 3.5-percent increments based on some quick math and plentiful watching of various length videos. Some more complicated algorithm looks at the duration of the video and slightly adjusts where needed.

The app is also aware of iTunes and what it’s doing. If it’s in the background, Tube Controller will keep eyes on YouTube, letting you play and pause the video even when you’re browsing other tabs or jumping into different apps. Once iTunes comes into the foreground or you close whatever tab your YouTube video is playing in, Tube Controller directs the media keys to control iTunes instead. Apps that implement their own media key solutions like Rdio will override the controls.

Without the Flash Player installed, I’ve found Tube Controller doesn’t work with the YouTube 5 extension I have enabled on Safari. Others, in the app’s review section and on Twitter, have noted that Tube Controller also doesn’t work in a full screen view. I’ve personally had success with Chrome and both its full screen and presentation modes, as well as YouTube’s full screen video player in that browser.

I don’t know why you would watch two YouTube videos at once, but if you do, Tube Controller handles it pretty well. The last video you viewed takes precedence over the other. It doesn’t work on web pages with embedded YouTube videos, however.

Tube Controller offers to launch when you log on and there’s a few other settings such as keeping your Mac awake while YouTube is playing (although I don’t think my Mac has ever gone to sleep while YouTube is playing) and changing the color of the menubar icon from black to red. You can enable and disable its functionality manually if you’d like.

I’m keeping Tube Controller running in the background (it uses up a measly amount of memory) for the convenience of using my media keys with YouTube. It’s certainly recommended if your play / pause reflexes are anything like mine. Download it from the Mac App Store.

Side note: The developer doesn’t have a personal site or a landing page up, but you can check out some of his other work on Bipolar (a game also available on the MAS).

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