Review: Pixelpipe for iPhone

If you’re looking for a way to share photos from your iPhone to multiple places in one fell swoop, Pixelpipe is up to the challenge.

Base Tent offers mobile access to Basecamp

Filed under: Software, Internet, Internet Tools, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

I've been using 37signals' Basecamp to manage projects large and small for almost a year now. It's tremendously useful, and everyone I've shown it to falls in love. While the folks at 37signals have produced some great applications, they've left the extras to 3rd party developers.

I've been using Outpost for a bit, and this week I had a chance to try out Base Tent [App Store link]. While not as pretty as some of the others, it works very well.

The Pros

When first launched, Base Tent asks for your login criteria and begins its initial sync, which was much quicker than I anticipated (note that I did all testing over EDGE). Four tabs label your Dashboard, Projects, To Dos and Milestones, and they use the same color coding you'll find on Basecamp.

Below is a series of icons that let you re-sync, access the app's help pages or add and remove accounts (I only have one account, but I imagine those with more than one will appreciate being able to jump back and forth). Best of all is the option to find tasks, etc. assigned to a certain contact. Of course, the purpose of dropping ten bucks on an app like Base Tent is ubiquitous access to Basecamp.

Click any item in the Dashboard to jump directly to it. Reading and responding to messages is intuitive, though longer threads take a bit of time to load. The app includes an option to view a message title, post date and author or the full text, which is nice. Responding to a comment is just as easy as you'd expect and syncs as you publish.

The Projects page lists all aspects of a given project. What's really nice here is the option to move between projects and contacts with a click, just like Basecamp's "Switch to a different project" feature. I had a very easy time adding to dos, responding to messages and setting up appointments from the road.

The Cons

Base Tent syncs upon launch to look for changes. Unfortunately, this process commandeers the display until it's finished. Additionally, and I know this is a bit superficial, but the Dashboard screen looks a bit cluttered. I'd like for the "Completed By" text and date to be a bit smaller. Finally, I know they're going for the Basecamp "look" with the tabs, but they seem cramped in the iPhone's display.

TUAW Buying Advice

The good news is that none of my complaints are about the app's performance. Interacting with Basecamp via Base Tent, which is the point after all, is pleasant and reliable. Many of Basecamp's customers, myself included, depend on the data in Basecamp for our living.

The developers have told us that a major update of Base Tent is complete and currently awaiting approval at the App Store. At $10.00 US it isn't the cheapest solution in the App Store (nor its it the most expensive), but it's worth it.

Base Tent offers mobile access to Basecamp originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Base Tent offers mobile access to Basecamp originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meet Bump, the App Store’s billionth download

Bump is a contact-swapping app that debuted on the App Store about a month ago. And when a Connecticut teen downloaded it on Thursday, Bump secured a place for itself in iPhone history.

Snow Leopard ‘Screen Recording’ Feature Allows Desktop Video Recording

AppleInsider reports on one new feature that has been found in the latest Snow Leopard developer seeds: screen recording.

Similar in many ways to a feature long offered by Ambrosia Software through its Snapz Pro X utility, the option...

Apple Loses Patent Lawsuit from Opti Inc. on “Predictive Snooping”

Arstechnica reports that Apple has been ordered to pay $19 million to Opti Inc. for patent infringement on a technology called "predictive snooping":

The patent -- its full name is "Predictive snooping of cache memory for master-init...

Apple Loses Patent Lawsuit from Opti Inc on “Predictive Snooping”

Arstechnica reports that Apple has been ordered to pay $19 to Opti Inc. for patent infringement on a technology called "predictive snooping":

The patent—its full name is "Predictive snooping of cache memory for master-initiated acces...

Get 50% off iPhone in Action until April 30

Filed under: Books and Blogs, Developer, Deals, iPhone, SDK, iPod touch

Some time ago I reviewed iPhone in Action from Manning. While there are other "starter" books out there, if you know how to code and you want to get up-to-speed on everything from web apps to the SDK, this book is a great primer. Of course, the pending 3.0 update to the iPhone's OS will add many new features, and the book's authors are hard at work with an update that I'm told will be available as a downloadable e-chapter. The authors will first serialize it on their blog, so you can keep up there as well.

Until the update is ready the good folks at Manning have provided a code that'll get you 50% off iPhone in Action until April 30, 2009. To get the discount, just go to the site and when you order use this code: tuaw50. Remember, this is only for the current edition of iPhone in Action.

Get 50% off iPhone in Action until April 30 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Get 50% off iPhone in Action until April 30 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone and iPod touch continue to dominate smartphone web traffic

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, iPod touch

Admob has released another monthly survey of smartphone metrics, and Apple continues to look very healthy both in the U.S. and around the world. In website requests, Apple iPhones and iPod touch devices are up 4.2% from the previous month, while Nokia, still the top dog in handsets world wide, is down 3.6%.

One other interesting piece of data is that half of the requests for internet data on the iPhone are coming from 3rd party apps, telling us the impact those apps are having. Apps like sports scores, news and weather apps, streaming music players etc. are really getting heavy use, not only from the iPhone but similar numbers apply to other smartphones as well.

The research paper also sees the Android phone coming on, with 2% of mobile requests in the U.S., and is the number four smartphone behind the iPhone, Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl. With the iPhone combined with the iPod touch, Apple has the top devices in the world generating mobile traffic.

Admob measures the impact of various mobile phones by looking at requests for mobile ads from a network of 6,000 websites and 1,000 applications. While the numbers may not exactly reflect the universe of mobile phone use, it does show trends that are important to keep an eye on.

When you consider that the iPhone is only about 2 years old, the numbers are even more impressive.

If you'd like to read the complete report, click here.

iPhone and iPod touch continue to dominate smartphone web traffic originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone and iPod touch continue to dominate smartphone web traffic originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Contest of the iClones: What Would You Do For a FREE Palm Pre?

I’d do the same thing I offered to do for a BlackBerry Storm: try using one. Believe me, for someone who’s mellow has been 100% de-harshened by the iPhone, that’s a contest ender.

Luckily for all of us, I’m not allowed to enter our sibling site, PreCentral.net’s awesome new Palm Pre contest. But maybe YOU can!

Think you have what it takes to win a FREE Palm Pre? Time to put up or shut up! PreCentral.net is giving away FIVE Palm Pre Phones the day that the Palm Pre is released. In addition, we’re sweetening the deal by making them into full-on Palm Pre Packs, including:

• A Palm Pre Smartphone on Sprint
• A $100 Amazon Gift Card to fill your Pre up with music
• A Touchstone Charging Station & Battery Cover
• Any case from the PreCentral.net Accessory Store
• A Set of Motorola S9-HD Bluetooth Stereo Headphones (A $99 value) to rock out with your Pre

If the qualifiers end up anywhere near as fantastic as last year’s CrackBerry.com’s Storm give-away, we should be in for some epic tattooed, mud wrasslin, paint-ball blasted, smartphone smashed, Palm Pre fun.

Kudos to PreCentral, and best of luck to all the contestants!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Contest of the iClones: What Would You Do For a FREE Palm Pre?

[App Review] TAITO’s Cameltry

TAITO's Cameltry was originally released as both an arcade game and platform game for the Super Famicom in Japan in 1989, better known as "On the Ball" as it was released here in the US in 1992. An updated version was released a few years ago and now there's ...

Review: Sushi City for iPhone

Sushi City, a match-three puzzle game with sushi as the centerpiece, left our reviewer with a stomach ache.

Found Footage: 3 Numbers traveler’s multicalculator

Filed under: Software, Found Footage, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

TUAW readers know that I'm a sucker for good iPhone user interface design; that's why I love the apps from Tapbots so much. I also have a soft spot for steampunk, so when we received a tip about the 3 Numbers "traveler's multicalculator" (click opens iTunes) today, I immediately clicked through to watch the demo video.

3 Numbers is the brainchild of Berlin developer Halle Winkler. It's not just a converter application, it's an adventure! Visiting the 3 Numbers website, you find that this mysterious polished brass device filled with glowing vacuum tubes and spinning gears was "found" by the developer in an old dusty box in the attic.

3 Numbers is more than just a pretty face, though. It has some unique features, such as being able to keep up to 3 numbers in a holding area for future use, writing notes to accompany calculations, and being able to access those notes from any Bonjour-enabled computer on your wireless network.

Please enjoy the developer's video demonstrating this US$4.99 app, accompanied by the lovely strains of Elgar's Enigma Variation #10.

Found Footage: 3 Numbers traveler's multicalculator originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Found Footage: 3 Numbers traveler's multicalculator originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: VegOut for iPhone

Vegetarians and vegans looking for meat-free menus when they're on the road should consider this restaurant-finder, which leverages the iPhone's location features.

Connor Mulcahey, 13, Wins Billion App Contest With a “Bump”!

Apple (via Macworld) has announced the winner of their 1 Billion App contest:

• Connor Mulcahey, 13, from Weston, Connecticut who’s winning app was contact-swapper Bump.

Congratulations, Connor, enjoy your $10,000 iTunes card, MacBook Pro, iPod touch, and Time Capsule!

Oh, and your iPhone and Bump!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Connor Mulcahey, 13, Wins Billion App Contest With a “Bump”!

View .cbr comics on your iPhone

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, iTunes, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Of course there's an app for this, but I'd never even considered it. While I do occasionally read .cbr (Comic Book Archive files) on my desktop, the iPhone didn't really occur to me as a portable comic book reading device. But sure enough, there are apps for that. iComic is probably the cheapest, but I hear it's a little tough to get set up. ComicZeal is extremely popular, and just a little bit cheaper from the somewhat similar myComics. Pull Lists uses a desktop client to sync up comics for you, which is a little more than I need, but it seems like some people like it. There are actually lots of choices, it turns out -- I would have thought that the iPhone's screen was pretty small for reading comic book pages, but I'll have to give those apps a try.

Or, if you're too cheap to pay a buck or two for a full app, you can even do it yourself. .cbr files are really just .jpg archives, so as this tip from a while back on the iPhone Comic Book Reader says, you can actually extract out the jpegs, and then just sync them up to your iPhone via iPhoto if you want. Three dollars really isn't that much, and any of those apps listed above will give you a little more functionality (easy flipping between pages, bookmarking, and many other features per app), but if you really want to DIY, there you go.

Now it would be nice to be able to officially buy .cbr archives over the web from some of the major companies -- the closest they've come that I know of is a subscription service, but of course you've got to use their own client for that (and there's no iPhone app that I can find, though Uclick has a few apps in there for certain books). As long as reading pirated .cbr files is outlawed, only outlaws will end up reading them.

View .cbr comics on your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

View .cbr comics on your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and iPhone to Take Aim at Microsoft Server Empire?

Apple Insider has been putting two and two together, based on web content and WWDC 2009 session info and coming up with:

Apple will leverage the popularity of the iPhone to deliver business users new Mobile Access services in Snow Leopard Server to securely deliver corporate email, contact, calendar, and intranet web services to iPhone and iPod touch users far more cost effectively than Microsoft Windows Server.

If you don’t mind Mac-centric geekery, check out the full article. Bottom line, however, is that anything that makes Apple invest more heavily in secure business-focused iPhone features, the better for everyone on all platforms.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and iPhone to Take Aim at Microsoft Server Empire?

Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles released for iPhone

Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles is the prequel to the console game, now available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

This should have been built into the iPhone: RedMonkey custom dialer

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

The iPhone and iPod touch are pretty complete, but they are not perfect. The upcoming software update to version 3.0 will add a lot of features people have been crying for, but here's one that I don't think is in the summer update.

Red Monkey [App Store link] does something I've always wanted... a one touch button to dial a number. The free app can be placed on the main home screen of the phone and easily configured to dial a favorite number. In addition, it can be set up to start an email, map your current location, or visit a favorite website. You can only configure one task, so pick the one you want and you're good to go. While the app is free, the developers will sell you an additional 4 buttons for $0.99US each, allowing you a total of 5 buttons for 5 different tasks (if you want to check out RM's competitors, just search the store for 'dialer' and you'll find plenty).

One drawback is you have to remember which button does what, because there is no way to use anything but the generic icon that comes on each button, although after you tap it the button tells you what it is doing.

The app works fine on an iPod touch as a customizable launcher, but naturally you will need a WiFi connection for any of its network-related functionality.

I think this sort of feature should have been built into the iPhone by default; and who knows, maybe it will show up someday. I think this little app is worth a try for free, and if you really fall in love with it you can always add more buttons. There is a pretty comprehensive FAQ on how to use Red Monkey at the developer website.

This should have been built into the iPhone: RedMonkey custom dialer originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This should have been built into the iPhone: RedMonkey custom dialer originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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5-Fold Increase in Video Encoding with OpenCL-like Technology

NVidia and Nero announced yesterday that a recent update to the Nero Movie it software application for Windows reduces video encoding time by up to five times by utilizing NVIDIA's CUDA architecture. They specifically describe the encoding of HD vid...

Google Product Search Now Optimized for iPhone

Google’s blog has announced that Google Product Search now joins the growing list of Google web sites and WebApps optimized for the iPhone and it’s Mobile WebKit cousins:

I’m happy to announce that as of today, when you type a product query on Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser, you’ll get Google Product Search results nicely formatted for your phone. You can see online ratings, reviews, prices, and product details if you’re out and about, or just do some mobile web surfing from your couch. Whether you’re trying to decide between two digital cameras while you’re in a store or checking out prices for a new product that you’ve just seen on TV, we hope Google Product Search for mobile helps you to make better-informed shopping choices.

[via Android Central]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Google Product Search Now Optimized for iPhone