Cody Fink

1547 posts on MacStories since January 2010

Former MacStories contributor.

[email protected]

This Week's Sponsor:

1Blocker

A Cleaner, Faster, and More Private Web Experience

Add a Speedometer to Maps in iOS

Traveling at the speed of light? Measure just how fast you’re going with a speedometer you can add to the Maps app via a Cydia tweak for Jailbroken iPhones. Speed for Maps is a small utility that you download to measure how fast you’re traveling in miles per hour, feet per second, kilometers per hour, meters per second, or knots if you’re traveling the high seas. A small, circular badge is added to Maps that displays your current speed — useful for biking and boating, but maybe not so much for driving where your panel instruments already give you everything you need. Regardless, it’s a simple tweak you can find in the Cydia repository if you’re interested in adding the tiny overlay.

[via FunkySpaceMonkey]

Banca for iPhone Giveaway


You’ve read the review. Banca is a downright beautiful currency converter for the iPhone, quickly enabling you to convert dollars to euros and australian bills with a couple swipes and a few button presses. Need to figure out how many Washingtons that swank Italian leather jacket is going to cost you? Whip out the iPhone, tap the lower Euro amount, and enter that 250 to get good ol’ USD in return. You’ve got all of the world’s currencies at your fingertips from South America to the outskirts of China, and a simple arithmetic calculator so you can quickly add up totals without having to leave the app. Beautiful, simple, customizable, and good to have on you when traveling, Banca is perhaps the most useful gadget you’ll have on your iPhone if you spend dough overseas. Banca by Radiant Tap is currently $1.99 in the App Store.

For our MacStorians, we’re giving away five copies so you too can translate currencies (like a boss) in the palm of your hand — no Google search required. Check past the break for all the details.

Read more

Gmail: Now Pull to Refresh and Retina Display Ready

Use Gmail on your iPhone? There’s an update waiting for you when you log in, including sharper graphics that shine on the iPhone 4’s Retina display. The  new graphics were a highly requested feature by Gmail users, and now Google’s gone and made everything prettier so their web interface doesn’t look as fuzzy or pixelated on our high resolution phones. And hey - now it feels like it belongs!

Want to refresh your inbox or a conversation? Simply pull down to refresh. Gmail now lets you refresh your inbox naturally, and you keep the conversation going if you’re rapid replying to a friend’s or coworkers email.

Finally, there’s some new transitions you can check out. As you navigate across Gmail, sliding transitions help create flow while generally looking pretty — it’s that final polish that iOS users come to expect on all apps (native or web).

There you go kids. A better Gmail for iOS.

[via The Official Gmail Blog]

By The Numbers: What Can An OWC 6G SSD Do For Your 2011 Mac mini?→

By The Numbers: What Can An OWC 6G SSD Do For Your 2011 Mac mini?

But if you’re into audio editing, video editing, or doing anything else that reads and writes large amounts (or several small amounts) of data – there’s just no substitute for a SATA Revision 3.0 capable SSD such as the OWC Mercury EXTREME 6G SSD. The speeds are well over twice as fast [as Apple’s SSD] boasting 506MB/s read speeds and 432MB/s write speeds from a single drive!

Then we tested two OWC Mercury EXTREME 6G SSD in a RAID 0 configuration (on the server model of Mac mini – again we’re looking into how to get a second hard drive into the consumer model, but that will be another blog post down the road after we figure it all out) we got Thunderbolt-saturating speeds averaging 995MB/s and 994MB/s for read and write speeds respectively.

When I put a Mercury EXTREME 3G into my MacBook, cold boot times were reduced from a minute thirty to just 25 seconds — reboots are even faster. OWC knows their stuff, and their USA grade solid state drives are impressive as always. With the Mac Mini, they found they could achieve more than 10x the speed of a conventional hard drive, and over 4x the speed over Apple’s SSD with their setups. Regardless of whether you choose Apple’s or OWC’s Mercury EXTREME 6G SSDs, the performance boost over a traditional hard drive is stunning.

Permalink

150 Million Photos Uploaded on Instagram So Far

When you launch one of the world’s most popular photo service, how long does it take to reach 150 million uploads? Only nine months according to Instagram, whom launched their slam-dunk-app back in October of 2010. Instagram is celebrating this afternoon by showing off their favorite Instagram photos, and noting the success of their app thanks to the seven million users who’ve downloaded the app since its inception. That’s seven million people uploading at a rate of fifteen photos per second. Instagram’s success is well deserved: those guys got a top-notch formula down. From the Instagram team:

We’re constantly amazed by the range of photos shared on Instagram. People use Instagram to snap photos of everyday moments with friends and family and also to document significant personal moments, like weddings and honeymoons. There are Instagram photos from major events like the World Series and the Grammys, and some Instagram photos have even made the national news. Artists and celebrities have begun to give fans a unique look into their lives through photos, while brands like Burberry have started to realize the power of communicating with their followers through images.

Here’s to another 150 million.

For the post picture, we’ve re-posted the 150,000,000th photo according to Instagram from user @janefot. It’s a great pic too!

[Instagram blog via The Next Web]

Tweetbot 1.4.3: Sleep Time for Notifications, Hiding Spam, and Mentions from only People You Follow

Tweetbot 1.4.3 has been approved and is now waiting for your loving fingers to tap Update in the App Store. With push notifications now open to everyone who uses Tweetbot (in case you haven’t heard), you’ll now have access to realtime updates for when a tweet is favorited, retweeted, replied to, when you’re mentioned, or when you receive a direct message. With so many notification types available (and our forgetfulness to put our devices on mute before going to sleep), Tweetbot also adds features to help curate what kinds of notifications you receive, and when you receive them.

Read more

Griffin IntelliCase for iPad 2 Intelligently Covers the Front and Back

We all love our Smart Covers for the iPad, but it only covers the front and not the exposed aluminum backing. What if we could have the best of both worlds: a smart cover that puts the iPad to sleep when we close it, and protective backing keeps the aluminum frame from getting scratched and dinged up? Griffin’s IntelliCase for the iPad 2 is an all-in-one case and cover wrap for the iPad 2 that provides the functionality of Apple’s Smart Cover via a three paneled cover, while covering the the back of the iPad 2 in a grippy finish that wraps around your iPad for full protection.

Instead of just having a cover that folds into a triangle, Griffin has implemented a tuck and fold solution that allows you to prop up the iPad for typing and watching video via a small pocket integrated onto the back of the polycarbonate case. If you want the functionality of the smart cover plus additional protection, I’d recommend giving Griffin’s IntelliCase for the iPad 2 a shot. It’s $59.99 through Griffin’s storefront, and available in black.

Banca: Convert Currencies Swiftly With this Beautiful iPhone App

With the US economy in flux, it’s a good idea to keep a close eye on your dollar. As world travelers we find ourselves spending a good dime overseas, and international friendships online can lead to an occasional penny dropped in each other’s PayPal bucket. As foreign currency plays a big role in today’s lifestyles and businesses — boundaries are practically absent — knowing how the USD compares to the Euro or the Australian dollar at the press of the button becomes very useful. Radiant Tap’s Banca for the iPhone isn’t just a calculator, but a currency converter (it supports all of the world’s currencies) that’s both beautiful and incredibly elegant in design.

Read more

Twitter begins rolling out new HTML5 interface for iPads

It doesn’t matter if you’re using a native app or a web app if you want to use Twitter right? Right. So as long as you have options, an overhauled iPad interface can’t hurt. Twitter has already rolled out an updated HTML5 interface for phones (with a nifty tab bar on the top), and the new iPad interface follows suit. Heck, it even includes the dual panes you’re so used to on the desktop version of the app, showing your timeline on the left as single tweet views and miscellaneous information displayed on the right. The feature is rolling out as we speak (I don’t have the new goodies yet), but hopefully we can get some more screenshots soon for those waiting. The redesigned interface may take a week to reach your account, but don’t worry, you still have Twitter’s speedy native iPad app to hold you over.

[Twitter via Techcrunch]

Image via Techcrunch