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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City For iOS Release Date Set For December 6th

Rockstar has announced that the 10th Anniversary Edition of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City will arrive on iOS and Android on December 6th. Previously announced in late October, the Anniversary Edition will cost $4.99 and feature “native high-resolution graphics” with support for Retina display devices.

The game will also include “updated character models and lighting effects, new and more precise firing and targeting options and a fully customizable control layout”. It’ll be able to run on all iPads, iPhone 4 and newer, and the 4th and 5th generations of the iPod touch.

[Rockstar via Eurogamer]

FTP Support, Short URLs, And Other Features Coming Back To Skitch→

FTP Support, Short URLs, And Other Features Coming Back To Skitch

In a post published on the Evernote blog, Skitch co-founder Keith Lang has shared a bit of backstory regarding Evernote’s acquisition of the product and confirmed many old features of Skitch will be coming back “soon”.

I am really excited about the newest release of Skitch for Mac, but troubled by some of the negative reaction from some of our oldest and most loyal users. After thinking about this for the past few weeks, I’ve come to the realization that we’ve underestimated how deeply ingrained Skitch had become in many people’s daily workflows and how disruptive changes to the product could be. I’d like you to know that we’re going to fix it.

Skitch, an image annotation tool, was released as version 2.0 with deep Evernote integration earlier this year. The new version included an updated UI, new sync, and many simplified and/or removed options that weren’t met with excitement by the app’s existing userbase. Namely, users weren’t thrilled with Evernote’s decision to build every single Skitch sharing feature into Evernote, thus removing functionalities to upload images via FTP, directly link to them, and share them in multiple ways. The new Skitch also didn’t come with proper keyboard and menubar support, and, generally, it left much to be desired for those that were used to the old feature set and who had become dependent on the app for their workflows.

Evernote quickly went back to the drawing board and re-added a menubar icon and background options. In the blog post published today, Evernote confirms support for FTP/sFTP, image deep linking, and short URLs for shared images will come back to Skitch soon. Options for multiple fonts and custom colors, streamlined cropping and resizing, and automatic type tool selection will also be added to Skitch in future updates.

Of course we’ll be doing a lot more than just putting improved 1.x features back into the new Skitch. We’re working on some really amazing stuff that should appeal to our most loyal users as well as bring in many millions of new fans. Imagine being able to Skitch on top of different document types, communicate complex ideas via email without typing a single line of text, and going on a manned mission to Mars.

Read the Evernote blog post for all the details.

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Apple Airs New iPhone 5 Commercials: “Turkey” and “Orchestra”

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Apple aired two new iPhone 5 commercials today. Both commercials feature voiceover by Jeff Daniels as in the first run of iPhone 5 commercials aired after the device’s launch.

The first ad, aptly named “Turkey” focuses on Photo Stream. Using Thanksgiving as a background theme for taking family photos with an iPhone, the ad explains how Photo Stream lets you share the photos you want, with just the people you want. Jeff Daniels also shows his appreciation for pie at the end of the ad.

Orchestra is a little more peculiar. Apple wants to explain the iPhone’s background noise cancellation, which is made possible by an improved microphone design and audio system. The voice asks the director of an orchestra to lower the volume, which is similar to what happens to background noise when you make a phone call with the iPhone 5. It’s a clever and funny comparison.

Excuse me maestro? Bring it down please. Better. That’s what happens to background noise when you’re making a call on this. This microphone here picks up the sounds around you and helps turn them down. So when the world gets noisy, calls sound better.

Both ads are now available on Apple’s YouTube channel, and we’ve embedded them below. Read more

Tokens: Easy Promo Code Generation For Developers

I often hear from my developer friends that generating promo codes for iOS and Mac apps is a tedious and annoying chore. From what I’m told, you have to log into iTunes Connect – which hasn’t the most pleasant interface Apple ever made – and generate these codes that you have to manually copy somewhere to share them via email, Twitter, or other systems. It’s a slow process, and iTunes Connect forces developers to “submit requests” for how many codes they need without offering any sort of social integration.

Enter Tokens. Developed by Padraig Kennedy and Oisin Prendiville, Tokens is an automated promo code generator for Mac that makes it super simple to generate and share promo codes for apps available in iTunes Connect. Tokens couldn’t be approved in the Mac App Store because it uses HTML scraping to interact with iTunes Connect remotely; the developers offer a FAQ to understand how Tokens works, for which kind of apps, and why it’s built for OS X 10.8. Read more

ScriptKit - Drag and Drop Programming for iPad→

ScriptKit - Drag and Drop Programming for iPad

Mark Wilson profiles Scriptkit by Kyle Buza, a new “touchable programming” app for iPad.

The app I’m using is Scriptkit, by Kyle Buza, and it allows you to drag and drop snippets of code from a library of well-annotated APIs. The goal? Rapidly prototype your app ideas on the very device you’re looking to run them on. Sure, you’ll still get your hands dirty on the iPad keyboard from time to time, tweaking the X/Y values determining size and shape of a button, for instance, but building a functional app really isn’t much harder than a few taps and a few drags–especially if you already know what you’re doing (which I don’t).

Only last week, I wrote:

I believe that, going forward, Pythonista and other similar apps will show a new kind of “scripting” and task automation built around the core strenghts of iOS.

I had no idea ScriptKit existed, but this is exactly what I was referring to in my Pythonista article. Yes, ScriptKit is limited, it’s confined in its own sandbox, and its initial set of APIs could use some additions. But look at what ScriptKit already enables: a touchable programming interface for building prototypes that use real data (Facebook photos, Dropbox files, etc) with real iOS core elements such as Camera and Location Services. Developers can use ScriptKit to build quick working prototypes; users with an interest in scripting like me can learn a basic syntax to build scripts and app demoes that may lead to bigger interests in other areas of iOS and languages. All within a touch-based interface, with real APIs, on an iPad.

Codea, Pythonista, ScriptKit – the future of iOS couldn’t be more exciting to me.

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#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday

Black Friday is getting close, expect the deals to get better everyday until Friday! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
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Evernote 5.0 for iOS Review

Evernote 5

Evernote 5


I have been using the latest Evernote app for iOS, Evernote 5, for the past week. I am not an “Evernote power user”, but having recently revamped my paperless workflow, I thought I had a good opportunity to properly test the major update. I believe Evernote has a strong foundation to build upon, but the first result of this process – the new Evernote 5 for iOS – is far from solid. Read more

Andreas Zeitler’s Keyboard Maestro Macros Repo→

Andreas Zeitler’s Keyboard Maestro Macros Repo

A new collection of Keyboard Maestro macros by Andreas Zeitler:

Macros are meant to be imported “folder by folder”, rather than all at once. I’ve tried to make it more convenient for the user by putting all macros in a group labelled “Keyboard Maestro Macros Repo” before exporting. This way they are imported in a group of the same name, so that you can easier find them.

Note however: Some macros have very “commonly” used triggers like F1, ↑, or ↓. In these instances it is best to put the macros in a new group that is only available in one certain application, or a group that can be turned on and off by a separate shortcut. The window manipulation macros are an example of that. The triggers for moving a window by 1px in either direction is simply ↑, ↓, ←, and →. If not put in a new group you won’t be able to use these keys anymore.

Andreas is the creator of the Keyboard Maestro Markdown Library, which I use on a daily basis. In fact, I don’t think I could ever come back to using a Mac – or writing on my computer in general – without the Keyboard Maestro Markdown Library, which is now part of the repo available on GitHub.

I’m already a big fan of several macros Andreas included in this new collection. I particularly appreciate the ones related to Mail: there’s one to easily copy a message’s unique URL, and another one to print a message as PDF with a single keystroke.

Get them here.

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