TODAY is the last day before iTunes Connect shutdown for the holiday, so we’re re-running a few things you may have missed -> Here’s some great deals for today on iOS & Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em before they’re gone!
Posts tagged with "iPhone"
#MacStoriesDeals - HUGE Wednesday!
Tap To Chat Is A Simple, Useful App for Facebook Chat
I don’t use Facebook much, but when I do it’s for one thing: chat. I don’t like Facebook Messages, I don’t want to get in touch with my friends on walls, I don’t get the new Groups functionality – thus, I use chat. It’s not exactly reliable and full-featured (hello? easily file and photo sharing?) but as all my friends are on Facebook (and addicted to it) it’s the best way to get ahold of them.
What about the iPhone? The official Facebook app does chat, among other things. Those “other things” is what I don’t need: I don’t need to jump to people’s profile while I’m chatting, I don’t need the grid interface, I just want to find my friends online and chat. A simple request.
Guess what, we have an app for that. It’s called Tap To Chat, it’s universal for iPhone and iPad and it’s available at $0.99 in the App Store. Tap To Chat is the simple Facebook chat app meant for those who just want chat to work without all the bells and whistles of Facebook. Simple factor aside, Tap To Chat (developed by the same creator of Buddies) has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it the best implementation of Facebook chat I’ve seen on iOS devices. Read more
iPhone To Play Nice With Ford Cars in 2011
If you have an iPhone and have a 2011 Ford Fiesta – or you’re considering a Ford car for your 2011 car fix – you’ll soon be able to control a couple of apps using your voice. As noted by Engadget, Ford has announced that it will extend of its Sync AppLink Platform to Apple’s smartphone sometime in 2011, allowing iPhone users to control music playing from Pandora vocally. Pandora Radio for iOS and Android is indeed one of the first apps to support Ford’s voice recognition technology in cars.
BlackBerry and Android phones are compatible with Ford’s Sync now, iPhone users will have to wait a little longer. I’ve always been interested in this kind of technologies that let users do stuff in the car without having to look at an additional display, but I do wonder how Ford’s solution will handle high music volume and voice control. I mean, I don’t want to scream to change songs.
Press release embedded below. Read more
FaceTime Santa Spotted At Apple Store
Ok, Apple has a thing for Santa Clause and FaceTime. They launched a new iPhone 4 commercial to promote FaceTime with a dad dressed up like Santa, and now they have put FaceTime Santas in the Apple Stores. They previously installed iPad Snow Globes to get people and customers ready for the Apple Christmas season; now it’s time for Santa to take the spot and FaceTime with his elves at the Apple Store.
Check out the video below. I usually don’t like mannequins, and that smiling Santa with an iPhone 4 kind of creeps me out.[via TiPB]
Camera+ 2.0 Is Live In The App Store
As announced by tap tap tap yesterday, here comes a new version of Camera +. Camera + 2.0 is a major update that contains a huge list of new features and interface improvements, such as a redesigned lightbox, faster start-up times, a timer shooting mode, lots of new modes and effects. From a first look at the app, it looks like one massive update – which is free for existing users.
I’m testing the app right now and I can already say the tap tap tap developers really did a great job in optimizing everything to make the app faster. The SLR screen has been removed to let Camera+ start up directly to the camera UI, just like Apple’s own Camera app. The various shooting modes are accessible from a popover menu next to the camera button, timer shooting mode will let you choose between different intervals before shooting a picture. It’s really nice. The lightbox animations are faster, each photo has its own details such as ISO and location, there are several new effects available under the in-app purchase “I love Analog” pack. You can adjust these effects with a slider, and preview them as demo.
Everything feels new and improved in Camera+ 2.0. From a first quick run, I’m seriously impressed by what tap tap tap has achieved with “just an iPhone app”. The interface design elements on screen sport some beautiful pixels, too. Most of all, Camera+ doesn’t “force you” to share anything, I see it more as a full-featured replacement of the default Camera app that allows me to edit and apply neat effects to my photos, or not. Camera+ 2.0 – but this was a strong selling point of the first version, too – lets you decide whether you want to shoot, edit and share, or just shoot better (thanks to its multiple modes) and forget about it. I like choices.
The app is available here. Expect a detailed review soon on MacStories. Full changelog and screenshots below. Read more
SB 2 Cloud Now Out in Cydia: Automatically Upload Screenshots to Cloud App
SB 2 Cloud is a new tweak now available in the Cydia Store at $1,49 which allows you to easily share any screenshot you take on the iPhone through Cloud App. Really, it’s the simplest Cloud App client for the iPhone ever: once activated, every time you’ll take a screenshot by pressing the home and power buttons simultaneously the file will be automatically uploaded to Cloud App in the background. Just like on the Mac with Cloud set to automatic mode. The iPhone will also paste the short URL to your system’s clipboard for easy sharing.
The app doesn’t come with an actual interface or shortcuts to quickly modify the behavior of the upload. You can only enable or disable automatic upload of every single screenshots for now, and hopefully more options will be added in future updates. SB 2 Cloud shows you an upload in progress with a cloud icon in the iPhone’s status bar, and will play a sound notification once it’s complete.
SB 2 Cloud is simple, but does uploads in the background really well. Recommended for Cloud App users.
iPhone Apps and Custom Tab Bars→
iPhone Apps and Custom Tab Bars
There’s been a new trend with iPhone apps to use more sophisticated custom tab bars. In case you don’t know what a “tab bar” is, it’s historically been the black bar at the bottom of the screen, which provides the main navigation for the iPhone app.
A trend started by Instagram (the first popular app to place an action button in the tab bar, not a view selector) is quickly expanding to other apps like Gowalla and Path. While I recognize this isn’t exactly ideal from a UI ecosystem standpoint (it break several of Apple’s interface guidelines), I do think that sometimes disruption is necessary as it leads to innovation. The problem is, many developers just wait for Apple to innovate.
WordLens Founder On The Limitations Of Augmented Reality Apps→
WordLens Founder On The Limitations Of AR Apps for iPhone
Interesting interview with Robert Scoble. Turns out on-the-fly video translations are a tricky thing to accomplish, the technology underlying the app is all custom and, hopefully, more European languages will be released in early 2011.
I’ve tested the app and it’s not perfect, but it sure looks impressive. I can’t wait for this to gain more languages and, as the founder says in the interview, the possibility to give “context” to words recognized by the camera.
That would be magical.
Simulate Long Exposures With Magic Shutter
As the iPhone becomes just about everyone’s photographic tool of choice, developers keep inventing new ways to utilize our pocket devices in the same ways we would our DSLRs. Magic Shutter continues the trend of simply beautiful iPhone apps by simulating long exposures. Ever wanted to dabble with light photography or take one of those common but still cool blurry freeway pics? Magic Shutter allows you to blur images to achieve neat effects (suddenly that 10mph vehicle looks very fast) thanks to Flash mode and Light-painting mode. You already have an idea of the latter, but Flash mode takes a still object and records video post or pre-tail, ensuring you’ll get nifty effects for roller-coaster shots or your next NASCAR outtakes. Magic Shutter is $3 from the iTunes App Store, and makes a perfect gift for the photography buff in your family.
[Magic Shutter via Wired]