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Posts tagged with "iPhone"
#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday
Tweetbot for iPhone Review
I remember when I bought my first iPhone, Twittelator was the first Twitter client I downloaded from the App Store. Back then I wasn’t writing for MacStories, and I didn’t know about Loren Brichter’s Tweetie. I used Twittelator for months: it was a great app that had everything I needed. I saw no point in switching to another application, let alone start browsing the App Store looking for alternatives. Twitter was a young platform in the middle of expansion with lots of downtime issues, there were no lists or location features and the concept of “retweets” was just taking off thanks to the initiative of some users not affiliated with Twitter at all. For what I had to do, Twittelator was fine. Then I started MacStories, and the hunt for more compelling, alternative, different Twitter apps began.
Twitterrific came after Twittelator for me. I used it for a couple of months and then finally purchased Tweetie – which had seen a terrific rise in popularity thanks to an elegant UI design, a fast engine and a simple, yet powerful set of features. I fell in love with Tweetie: it was stable, fast, intuitive, continually updated. It received the support of the entire Apple community, and it quickly became a standard among iPhone geeks to have Tweetie on a device’s homescreen. The rest is history: Tweetie 2 shipped and revolutionized the ecosystem with pull to refresh, gestures, a refreshed interface and, overall, the richest feature set available on the market. In the meantime, Twitter as a platform was growing to accommodate more users, more servers and – as a side effect to media starting to use the service to deliver news – more responsibilities. Without going back through all the changes that happened at Twitter HQ between 2009 and 2010, you might remember when the company announced they were buying Loren Brichter’s Tweetie and putting him in the position of lead mobile developer. Twitter rebranded the app as “Twitter for iPhone”, Tweetie 2 for Mac disappeared from our radars to eventually come back as Twitter for Mac. Twitter as a company has changed (so much that they don’t even want too many unofficial clients anymore), but the core concept of the service stays the same: it’s all about sharing content in real time. That hasn’t changed at all. If anything, it got better. Read more
World of Goo Now Available for iPhone, Now Universal
2D Boy’s mega hit World of Goo set records for iPad sales and just last week we told you that a universal update was awaiting approval. The universal update is now available with support for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. So instead of walking around in circles waiting for Tweetbot (and our review), why not grab the universal update to World of Goo HD? It’s only $4.99 and you can get your gooey hands on it right here.
An iPhone/iPod Touch only version is also available for only $.99, you can get it here.
#MacStoriesDeals - Wednesday
We’ll tweet the daily deals at @MacStoriesDeals as well as exclusive weekend deals too, so please follow! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
Oscium’s $300 Kit Turns iPad into Oscilloscope
For anyone that doesn’t know, an oscilloscope, or O-scope, is an electronic measuring instrument that creates a visible two-dimensional graph, on a screen, of one or more continuously varying voltages or currents. Oscium has revealed the iMSO-104, a combination of a free universal iOS app and a $300 hardware kit that attaches via the iDevice’s dock connector. Read more
iPhone Tab Bar Lessons→
iPhone Tab Bar Lessons
Over the last couple of years, the iPhone has greatly popularized the tab bar navigational model for mobile handsets. Apple has put together a design rationale for the tab bar in their Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) along with lots and lots of other information — they do however leave some question unanswered. Having worked with interaction and graphical design for iPhone applications during the last couple of years I’ve managed to pick up some lessons the hard way, and in this post I would like to share my thoughts on a couple of do’s and don’ts.
Petter Silfver compares different tab bar designs from popular iPhone apps and gives some insight into Apple’s subtle design decisions that most of us won’t even notice, but are important to build a consistent and natural experience on iOS. Such as colors and hues in the tab bar, the ideal number of tabs, or the problems with a “More” tab that distracts users and hides important functionalities of an app that should be discovered naturally.
If you’re an iOS geek like me, a designer, or simply interested in knowing more about this particular aspect of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, check out the post here. It’s full of details, and it’ll make you re-consider the implementation of Instagram’s Camera button.
#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday
We’ll tweet the daily deals at @MacStoriesDeals as well as exclusive weekend deals too, so please follow! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
iTable: First in a Line of Apple-Themed Furniture
What’s rectangular in shape, black and aluminum, plays music, and has touch-sensitive controls? Meet the iTable, a coffee table that looks like a stack of iPhone 4s. The iTable is the idea of Kyle Buckner, an interior designer best know for car interiors that’s also working on a new line of unique furniture. The iTable is the first in a line of Apple-themed furniture for your living space.
Video and more pictures after the break. Read more
Company Claims To Offer Permanent iPhone Unlock That Lasts “Forever”
Company CutYourSim, specialized in SIM cutters and adapters for the iPhone, has launched tonight a new service that promises to provide a permanent iPhone unlock solution that doesn’t need jailbreak, additional software or hacks. The company claims their method will carry on forever through any iOS or baseband update, so users don’t have to worry about updating to the latest version of iOS. More importantly, CutYourSim says it doesn’t affect your iPhone’s warranty status “because this is an official iPhone unlock.”
How is this possible? Apparently, someone at CutYourSim found a way to “whitelist” devices by adding IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers to Apple’s own database – something that of course isn’t possible unless you have access to the aforementioned database. Which leads us to think Apple might soon find a way to block the service – but, then again, we don’t know all the details behind Apple’s IMEI database so we can’t judge right now. It is possible, however, that the procedure involves accessing the IMEI database from a carrier’s online backend. CutYourSim also says currently the CDMA sold on Verizon isn’t supported, and that the method doesn’t change a phone’s IMEI (which is illegal) but simply adds it to the whitelist. Interestingly, CutYourSim says this method has been around for a while (but never worked on AT&T) and was never cut off by Apple. Curious.
Previously, people who wanted to buy an iPhone from the United States at a cheaper price had to rely on tools like ultrasn0w for their unlocking needs. Otherwise, the phone wouldn’t work on an unsupported carrier. The obvious downside to hacks like ultrasn0w is that every iOS release and baseband update can “break them”, forcing iPhone users to stay on an older iOS version until a new unlocking tool is released. This is exactly what CutYourSim wants to improve by offering an unlock that works with any iOS update – again, because an iPhone’s IMEI is added to Apple’s whitelist.
Personally, I don’t recommend buying the $169 unlock process from CutYourSim as I have a feeling the whole thing is illegal and requires hacking into Apple’s own database. Still, I believe it would be interesting to know the technical details behind the process, and feedback from those who went ahead and purchased the unlock. If you did, let us know. [via @chronic]