Best of SPE, 17 May 2009

Each week we bring you the Best of SPE and this week is no exception. From Android to Windows Mobile and everything in between, we’ve got your smartphone news fix right here.

Android Central

The waiting game for Android 1.5 on the T-Mobile G1 at least has a rulebook now — or at least the makings of a release schedule. We’re also happy to see new functionality in Google search — barcode scanning, but even with that we still prefer ShopSavvy ourselves. Not shopping? Spend some time watching NBC Shows on your G1 - it’s free, which will help because some T-Mobile customers may be having some rate increases coming soon.

CrackBerry.com

In last week’s Best of SPE, we made note that Jim Balsillie confirmed a “Storm 2″ was in the works. Fast forward just a few days and the first real photos of RIM’s next generation of touchscreen, codenamed “BlackBerry Odin”, leaked on CrackBerry. WES 2009 is now over, but the content still continues to roll in. Worth checking out is Gi & Di’s Mobile Security Card solution and if you have 35 minutes to kill, this panel discussion of bloggers predicting the future of BlackBerry! And if you’re the podcast type, the WES 2009 wrap-up podcast is a must-listen.

Nokia Experts

It was another busy week of AT&T Nokia E71x coverage over on Nokia Experts as we try to assist all the new S60 owners with their sleek, slim devices. The week started with a Q&A roundup since so many questions are pouring in about the E71x. Did you also know you can watch Hulu via Skyfire and listen to your Zune Pass subscription tunes on your Nokia E71x. We aren’t the only ones impressed with the device as other sites are awarding it high marks. We also posted a review of the new Spb Puzzzle game for the Nokia 5800.

PreCentral.net

We had plenty of action in our PreCentral.net Pre Forums, from spotting the Pre at a NASCAR event to spotting it inside Sprint stores, our forums are the #1 place to learn about and talk about the Pre. Meanwhile we’re feeling better about the June 7th release date, liking Google more and more, and checking out all sort of goodies from the Palm Pre box. Add in a contest to win a copy of the Classic PalmOS emulator and you have a pretty full week, though not one without a little venting of frustrations

The iPhone Blog

Apple announced no Steve Jobs at WWDC, but Phil Schiller and crew will rock the iPhone 3.0 stage in his stead. Analysts promptly chicken-little’d that the new iPhone would be delayed, and the web responded with multiple rumors of Apple’s considering limited background multitasking for 3rd party apps. We’ve crossed the crazy rubicon here people!

Meanwhile Apple released Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard, re-enabling note sync and fixing the dreaded DFU bug that complicated Jailbreaking. Thank you Apple! And AT&T prevented SlingPlayer Mobile from being released with 3G support. Which sucks. A lot.

TreoCentral

Although all the news has been happening over at our friends at PreCentral.net, we still were happy to see Agendus get an update for Windows Mobile and PalmOS. We also took a peek at the iharmonix Platinus Stereo Earphones. Toss in a new PalmCast Podcast and hopping forums and you’ve got plenty to read through at TreoCentral.

WMExperts

It was a quality week in Windows Mobile land. We started off with Microsoft’s own Loke Uei showing off the snappiness of the HTC Snap. We survived another Zune phone rumor, then saw possible required specs for Windows Mobile 7. We broke the news of what should be the HTC Snap on Sprint. Software keyboards were reviewed. The AT&T Samsung Jack was announced. The Marketplace blacklist was explained. Firefox mobile hit official Alpha, Windows Mobile 7 may feature “non-touch” and Tech-Ed videos take us inside WinMo 6.5.

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

Best of SPE, 17 May 2009

App Review: MYST for iPhone

MYST Forum Review by msbaylor. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

For those of you that do not know what MYST is, it is a port of the old MYST computer game. MYST is an adventure puzzle game in which you are attempting to find your way off the island, or rather attempt to figure out how all the things around you work.

Having played the original MYST, the iPhone version is just like it. It consists of multiple 3D still images that fade from one to another depending on the area of the screen you touch.

Controls

Controls are very simple here. You tap in the direction that you want to go or you tap on objects to interact with them.

Graphics

Like I said before, the game is like a 3D image slide show. However, many of the objects that you will interact with do not act as a slide show, but rather as animations. Also there is video in different parts of the game, such as in the books.

Sound:

I was very impressed by the way the game handled sound. As you continue through your adventures throughout the ages, the audio is constantly changing, not just when you are interacting with objects, but also the ambient noise.

The game is quite large in file size about 720MB, while this is quite a large size, the game is definitely lacking, but rather is in its full scale, just on a smaller screen. This is not a game that you pick up walk around a bit, but down and come back to later, rather it is a game that you will want to sit down with and actually play for a significant amount of time. I suppose you could sit down with it for a short time, but at times the games is very complex in which you might want to take notes, so you might want pen & paper nearby.

Besides all the “usual” game properties, there is also an Options screen. The options screen allows you to “bookmark” or in other words save your game in 4 different slots. You simply drag the current screen (the largest of the boxes to one of the four smaller boxes to save the point in the game you are at. To restore a point, you simply drag in the other direction. There are also sliders that control the speed of the transitions and the volume of the sound. You also have the ability to drop a page if you have one in hand (in order to grab a different one.) Or you you can tap on the Help or Hints buttons. These two buttons will take you out of the game and into the Safari browser. The website it takes you to is formatted for the iPhone, so you should not have any issues viewing the web page. There is also a “back” button which literally takes you right back into the game. I thought the “back” to the game button was a really nice touch to have.

I was curious about what Cyan Worlds had planed for MYST, so I emailed Mark at Cyan Worlds and asked him if there would be any updates for MYST in the future. He replied stating that they would be fixing some minor items, adding an in-game browser for looking up hints “and a few other surprises” Well I can honestly say I’ll be looking forward to what is coming from Cyan Worlds.

Overall

I really enjoyed playing this port of MYST. I highly recommend this game to an MYST fan and for anyone that like puzzles or adventure-puzzles for that matter. However if you are the type of person that just wants to quickly play part of this game to kill time, then this is not the game for you.

Pros:

• Full game, simply a port
• Save up to 4 different instances
• Interacting objects on screen as well as navigating by tapping in the direction you want to go

Cons:

• No in-game browser for hints (feature coming soon)
• Not a “tome-waster” (could be a “pro” as well)
• slide show movement

TiPb Review Rating

Myst is available for $5.99 from the iTunes App Store.

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

App Review: MYST for iPhone

Email ‘n Walk iPhone App makes it Easier to Write Email while Walking

Satchel is Backpack on the iPhone done right (finally)

Filed under: Productivity, iPhone, App Review

Being a productivity nerd who happens to love technology has its benefits. Those of us who are happy to spend a Friday night creating and destroying a list of tasks have absolutely no shortage of quality applications upon which to practice and hone our weirdo craft.

For web-based task management there's the popular and venerable Backpack by 37Signals which, up until very recently, was in bad need of an equally awesome representation on our iPhones. I'm happy to say that the clouds have wandered west and the iPhone-toting Backpack lovers can rejoice at the advent of Satchel [App Store].

I know what you're thinking. "Dude, could you be a little more gushy about a freaking iPhone application?" Perhaps I could, but there's a reason that this article is written with such an overt sense of elation and joy. I love this application. It has succeeded where others (most notably, FrontPocket) have woefully failed. So, if you just want to know whether or not I "endorse" this product, the answer is yes. Read on if you're curious as to why.

Continue reading Satchel is Backpack on the iPhone done right (finally)

Satchel is Backpack on the iPhone done right (finally) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 17 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Satchel is Backpack on the iPhone done right (finally) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 17 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple working on various Options to Gain Smartphone Market Share with iPhone

Image manipulation goodness with PhotoForge for the iPhone

Next time you want to do image manipulation, retouching, effects, and color correction to your photo shot from your iPhone, you dont have to transfer that image to your computer. PhotoForge from GhostBird Software is a $4.99 Photo Manipulation app which can do almost everything that your desktop app can do. PhotoForge is a superb photographer’s [...]

Future iPod may end up with cameras like the iPhone

Straight from the “almost confirmed” rumor mill: Future iPod designs may include a camera similar in design to the iPhone’s camera when new models are “refreshed” in mid-September or so. Right now, its being reported on a few sites as being practically a fact. It may make sense for Apple, since they figure it would help [...]

Now you can walk and “talk” at the same time; EMail ‘n Walk for the iPhone

Email n’ Walk overlays an email composition window on top of the view from your iPhone’s camera, so you can type out an email and watch where you’re going at the same time. It’s clever, silly and we’d say don’t use it for its recommended purpose unless you also have a death wish. You know what [...]

App Review: Twittelator Pro Twitter Client for iPhone

Twittelator Pro Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Twittelator Pro is a twitter client with support for multiple accounts. It is beautifully designed and feature packed to make your mobile twitter experience quick and enjoyable. It would take a book to review each and every feature of Twittelator Pro, so I will pick what I consider the highlights and direct you to Twittelator’s full feature list for more.

General Interface

Twittelator Pro has 3 different themes to chose from: Gradient, Dove, and Raven. Here are some screenshots demonstrating all three.

Big Stone Phone claims that each theme is ideal for different lighting conditions: Gradient for indoors, Dove for outdoors, and Raven for night.

The Tab Bar at the bottom has what you’d expect from any Twitter application: Friends, Mentions, Messages, Settings, and More. However, Twittelator distinguishes itself by making it customizable. When in the More tab, hit edit and you can now drag any item to any of the four locations next to “More”.

Reading Tweets

I absolutely adore the experience of reading tweets with Twittelator Pro. The above photo (stolen from Twittelator’s website) shows how much info is included with each tweet. Not shown in the picture, however, is that you can have both the username and real name of the tweeter displayed (as seen in my screenshots). This is great for people like me who want to see real names but are terrible at remembering usernames.

Tapping a user’s avatar brings you to their profile. If there were any other users mentioned in the tweet, then you will be asked who’s profile you want to view. The profile interface includes the typical info, including the option to follow or stop following. There is also a magnifying glass to quickly search for other screen names and what looks like a price tag to bookmark the user.

Tapping a username brings up a list of options for that tweet: reply, private, re-tweet, email tweet, copy tweet, favorite tweet, or copy link to tweet (more on copying later). You can save a tweet by tapping and holding for 2 seconds.

If there is a #hashtag or hyperlink included in a tweet, tapping the paperclip will take you to the the hash feed or website. When viewing a website, you can copy the link (again, more on this later). If there is a photo attached (with yFrog, Pikchur, TwitPic, MobyPicture, or twitgoo) there will be a thumbnail of it to the right. Tapping it will allow you to view it. When viewing an image, there is a little two-way arrow icon at the upper right which toggles between filling your screen vertically or horizontally. It’s nice to be able to view photos in full screen even if the photo wasn’t taken with an iPhone. Tapping on the photo will give an option to save it to your camera roll.

If there is a bubble around the time since the tweet was tweeted, then this indicates a conversation. Tapping the bubble will allow you to read the chain of replies. If there is not a bubble, then tapping the time opens a new @ reply to the tweeter.

Writing Tweets

Writing a tweet is an experience of its own with Twittelator Pro. There are many options, characters, and features that make writing tweets fast, easy, and fun. Twittelator does support landscape keyboard (and can be disabled from settings).

If you had previously copied a link or tweet, you can paste it into your tweet by tapping the bottle of glue. Even if you’ve exited the application, Twittelator Pro will remember what you have copied. To add a photo, tap the camera. Tapping the drop pin will add link to Google maps of your current location. Unfortunately, opening such a link will not launch the native Google maps application on the iPhone.

Underneath the current character count, you can tap on the icons to bring up 8 pages of characters. The characters are viewable with other twitter clients as well as on the web. Very cool.

At the upper right of the New Tweet screen, there is a button called “@friends”. Here you find a scrolling list of who you are following. Scroll to who you want to @mention, tap +, and Twittelator adds them to your tweet. I think this is a great feature, but feel as though it can be better. I only follow 93 people, and it can take awhile to scroll through the list. I can’t imagine if I was following 300+ users. I think something like Contacts with the alphabet on the side would be better. Ideally, I’d like to see an autofill feature.

Inside the tweet bubble, there is a # on the bottom right and two arrows facing each other on the bottom left. Tapping # will provide a scrolling list of all the #hashtags you have used before. Tapping the arrows will shrink your tweet (including URLS) with common abbreviations. This is nice for those situations when your tweet is 10 characters or so over the limit.

One of the coolest things I found about Twittelator Pro is the ability to tweet from Safari. First you must go into Twittelator’s settings and tap “Add Safari Bookmarklet”. This leads you to a website with the instructions for setting up this feature. It’s very simple - just save the page as a bookmark, then edit it by deleting the beginning of the URL. Once set up, just open the bookmark with Safari and it will launch Twittelator Pro with the URL of the website you were viewing added to a new tweet. Awesome!

Pressing Send does not immediately send your tweet. You are given the option to send, or save as draft. I do not like this, but luckily there is an option to disable it! If disabled, you must hit cancel to get the option to save the tweet. Twittelator Pro allows you to save as many drafts as you want. This is awesome for those times you don’t have reception, want to log a quick thought, or for iPod Touch users. If you have any saved drafts, you will see “tap for drafts” under “New Tweet”, so tapping here gives access to your drafts.

More

There is much more you can do with Twittelator Pro. Some of the highlights are:

• create subgroups
• view tweets of users you have bookmarked
• access saved tweets
• see just your tweets
• delete your tweets/messages
• play mp3 and video within Twittelator Pro
• search nearby tweets
• switch between accounts while creating a new tweet

Conclusion

Twittelator Pro is the best iPhone twitter client I have used. It is clear that the the developers put a lot of thought and effort into this app with its nice interface and many features. At $4.99, Twittelator Pro isn’t the cheapest client available, but it is worth every penny.

Pros

• Multiple accounts
• Auto-refresh
• Full-featured
• View conversations
• Link a page from Safari directly as a tweet (via bookmarklet)
• Copy/paste tweets and links

Cons

• GPS links do not launch Google maps

TiPb Review Rating

Twittelator Pro is available for $4.99 from the iTunes App Store.

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

App Review: Twittelator Pro Twitter Client for iPhone