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Playlist Alarm Clock, drift off and wake up to custom soundtracks

Filed under: Multimedia, Reviews, iPhone, App Review

Be sure to check the end of this post for details on your chance to win a free copy of Playlist Alarm Clock!

We covered Chilli X last year, with their release of the successful iPhone to-do application, "Done" (iTunes link), and again with myCal, their app for creating custom calendar wallpapers for your iPhone lock screen (be sure to check out the free, user-generated wallpapers they're making available). They've been pretty quiet for a while, updating and tweaking Done (now at version 1.7), handling an App Store rejection of their own, and working on a newly-released app: Playlist Alarm Clock.

Playlist Alarm Clock is not necessarily a new or novel idea, but it's well-implemented. It's an iPhone app which allows you to create playlists, one for falling asleep and one for waking up. You can configure the length of time the sleep playlist will play, and how long it will take to fade out, as well as a fade-in time for the wake-up playlist. Setting times and fades comes down to a couple of taps, and adding songs to the playlists is done with a familiar iPod interface with full access to your library and playlists. If you're generally drowsy in the morning, you're covered as well: the snooze time can be configured to five, ten, fifteen or thirty minutes and is just a groggy tap away.

As is often the case, there are a few things I'd love to see enhanced. First, a night mode, ala the excellent Night Stand (iTunes link), which would let Playlist Alarm Clock function more appropriately as an always-on clock. Currently, the time display is large and easy to see, but the brightness of the interface is not ideal for bedside use. Second -- and this is really my only other complaint -- removing songs from the playlist doesn't seem to be an intuitive process. Accidentally tapping the wrong song during playlist creation seems to be a pretty permanent blunder, requiring a do-over of the playlist creation sequence. Beyond that, this app does exactly what the wrapper says, and I'm looking forward to falling asleep tonight to some favorites of mine, and hopefully not jarring my wife into a bad mood when my personal idea of "wakeup" music fades in.

Playlist Alarm Clock is $1.99US in the App Store. However, Chilli X is offering TUAW readers a chance at one of 10 free copies. All you have to do is submit (in the comments) your ideal playlists, one for falling asleep, and one for waking up. Be creative, be funny, be brilliant ... Chilli X will choose their favorites next Thursday and send out codes to the winners.

Here are the rules and a link to the legal statement:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment listing your choices for sleep and wake playlists.
• The comment must be left before Wednesday, July 22, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: Promo code for one copy of Playlist Alarm Clock (US$1.99 value)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Good luck!

Playlist Alarm Clock, drift off and wake up to custom soundtracks originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Playlist Alarm Clock, drift off and wake up to custom soundtracks originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon Remote Wipes Kindle Copies of 1984, Animal Farm — Redefines Irony

According to Engadget, Amazon has remotely wiped copies of George Orwell’s classics, 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles, refunding the purchase price of affected users.

We’re not yet certain, but users of the iPhone Kindle app are probably similarly effected.

It remains unlikely that Amazon broke into any houses, repossessed any copies of same, and left change on the bureau.

By contrast, when Apple removed NetShare from the App Store, already purchased copies remained — and remain to this day — on the devices of whomever purchased them.

Takes a lot of wrong to make App Store policy seem right these days, so way to go, Amazon. You’ve either redefined ownership in the DRM age, or broken faith with any customers thinking of owning any more Kindle content…

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

Amazon Remote Wipes Kindle Copies of 1984, Animal Farm — Redefines Irony

Review: Glyder for iPhone

Stunning graphics and natural controls make this flying game from Glu a winner.

Twitter app makers start pushing notifications

iPhone 3.0 brought us push notifications, and Twitter applications have already started adding them, albeit in a variety of ways.

Google: The Web, Not App Stores, is the Future Of Mobile Development

Speaking to attendees of the MobileBeat 2009 conference in San Francisco yesterday, Google Engineering vice president Vic Gundotra predicted that the Web would prevail as the dominant mobile application development platform despite the huge success o...

Windows 95 Running on Hacked iPhone

Firemint Real Racing intros iPhone OS 3.0 feature

Real Racing, Firemint's stunning racing game for the iPhone, improves in leaps and bounds with a 1.0.1 update.

Friday Fun Video: ZGrip iPhone Stability System

Note: We know Vimeo isn’t iPhone friendly. We wish it were. Help us all by writing your favorite video sites and content producers encouraging them to use iPhone friendly formats for videos about iPhones.

Cali Lewis tweets:

This iPhone 3GS Rig is on my wish list as soon as an iPhone or Touch does 720p

We bet Matt wants one. Us too.

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

Friday Fun Video: ZGrip iPhone Stability System

Verizon compromises on exclusivity deals

Verizon plans to let rural operators sell its exclusive phones after a six-month period.

App Store rating system raises questions

The App Store's rating system, which was supposed to help avoid consternation for developers, seems to instead be causing it.

Review: Birdfeed and Reportage for iPhone

We continue our look at the multitude of Twitter clients for the iPhone and iPod touch. Up next: Birdfeed, which ranks among the top Twitter apps in Lex Friedman's estimation, and Reportage, a different approach to the microblogging service which fails to satisfy.

Documents to Go updated version released; adds 3.0 Copy and Paste and more

Documents To Go for iPhone has only been out for a couple of weeks, but it has already got an update with some pretty major new features added – features that I get the impression many users of DTG thought should have been there from the outset. In any case, the features in question are there [...]

The iPhone coming to China may be nearing reality

Apple may have finally cleared a hurdle in bringing the iPhone to China as it has reportedly applied for a Network Access License in the Asian country, putting a release just a few months away — albeit without Wi-Fi. Although he doesn’t say how he obtained the information, Wedge Partners analyst Matt Mathison claims that the [...]

Apple’s new patent: memory storage in earphones?

Apple’s patent policy: filing for basically any idea that any employee is willing to sketch, ever. This gives us an endless supply of speculation grist, some interesting, some not. Take this patent, which calls for flash microstorage in headsets and earbuds. The patent describes the sharing of device settings, preferences and even media between iPods and [...]

Developer: Serious Doubts About App Store, Does Apple Care?

Macro.org, from the developer behind Tumblr and Instapaper, has a post up highlighting the latest App Store controversy — that all web-embedded apps must be rated 17+ and now don’t get Promo Codes — and comes to this conclusion:

Apple thinks reviews can take 8-30 days and web-capable apps need nudity warnings and the management interface can be buggy as s**t and they don’t need us to be able to reach them and nobody really needs to take any of this very seriously. Because it’s working for them. They’re making a killing taking their 30% commission on the 1.5 billion copies of $0.99 top-25 games that they’ve sold. Who cares if the App Store discourages good developers from putting serious effort into it? Apple doesn’t need to care. And, clearly, they don’t.

The whole post is definitely worth reading, and brings to mind the classic riff — “any incompetence sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from malice”.

Here’s the the thing, though: Apple is not only serving developers. They’re being served with lawsuits. And their hyper-vigilant legal departments are no doubt saying — perhaps rightly — that if someone uses a Twitter client that embeds a WebView and happens to see the f-word or a nipple, they’ll sue Apple.

Ridiculous, sure. A poor solution, of course. But it’s the kind of rolling triage Apple seems to be doing as the App Store grows beyond even their expectations.

Don’t get us wrong, all the problems marco.org mentions are real, frustrating, and need to be fixed yesterday. For Apple to force 17+ Ratings on these apps, and remove Promo Code functionality, is intolerable — and we wonder why Mobile Safari, Mobile Mail, iPod, etc. aren’t forced to pop up the same warning under that logic.

It’s entirely Apple’s fault, setting themselves up as editors to the App Store, and then not implementing the policies or staff necessary to keep up with the content requiring editorial approval.

But we don’t think Apple doesn’t care. They surely do, and will no doubt continue to make slow, steady improvements and address developer and user concerns, while at the same time making other clumsy and what look like bone-headed decisions and mistakes. Lots of them.

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

Developer: Serious Doubts About App Store, Does Apple Care?

Apple Disables Promo Codes for App Store Applications with Mature (17+) Ratings

TUAW reports that with the introduction of age-based ratings for App Store applications in iPhone OS 3.0, Apple has taken the step of preventing developers of applications carrying mature (ages 17+) ratings from issuing promo codes for the affected a...

Triazzle 3.0 comes to life on the iPhone

Filed under: Gaming, Reviews, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Triazzle 3.0 is one of the most uniquely beautifully and ultimately playable games I have yet to see on the iPhone. Truthfully, I am nothing more than a casual gamer and find most games too complex or time consuming, but I was sucked in immediately. it's a bit like chess in that it's very easy to learn, but mastering it? Well, that's something else again.

Triazzle, in one form or another, has been around since 1991 (when it appeared as a paper cut-out game). Later it was developed as software and sold by Berkeley Systems and then Activision. Like a fine wine, the game has aged well and the iPhone 3.0 version proves to be the best version yet

The game presents you with a large triangle board and either 9 or 16 smaller triangular pieces with repeating graphical images that fit onto the larger triangle. Each piece can be rotated and moved onto the board. When all the small triangles are in the right places, you win. Sounds easy, right? Well it isn't.

There is only one possible solution and since many of the pieces look amazingly similar, you are bound to come up with what looks like a perfect solution, but isn't quite right. It takes strategy and a good sense of spatial relationships to get things just so. You are also helped a bit by little insects that become animated when you get a piece in the right position.

Continue reading Triazzle 3.0 comes to life on the iPhone

Triazzle 3.0 comes to life on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Triazzle 3.0 comes to life on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TiPb Presents iPhone Live! #19 — Pre-Sync Down!

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Join Dieter and Rene for iPhone 3.1 Beta 2, iTunes 8.2.1, Palm Pre Sync no more, and all the latest news, views, and how-tos. Listen in!

Sponsored by the iPhone blog store

Rene showed off the Plantronics Voyager PRO Bluetooth Headset and Dieter rocked the Griffin PowerJolt Reserve Backup Battery

News

• Apple releases iPhone 3.1 Beta 2
• iPhone 3.1 Beta 2 Breaks AT&T Tethering Hack, Allows Wi-Fi Testing, Intros Augmented Reality APIs?
• Apple also releases iTunes 8.2.1 and…
• iTunes 8.2.1 kills Palm Pre sync dead!
• iTunes Goes Back to the Future with D45s - 2 Songs, 1 Lower Price
• App Store One Year Later: 65,000 Apps, 100,000 Developers, 1.5 Billion Downloads
• Apple Trumpeting iPhone App Store a Gut Punch to Microsoft and Verizon?
• Rumor: $800 iTablet to Use Custom Apple Chipset?
• TiPb iPhone App Picks of the Year!
• Hockenberry on How the App Store has Changed, and What Still Needs to be Changed
• iPhone 3GS Doesn’t Support HSUPA for High Speed 3G Upload
• iPhone 3.0: HTTP Streaming Media
• Will Apple’s iPhone Surpass Nokia by 2012?
• Google Announces Chrome OS, Should Schmidt Leave Apple Board?

Help and How-to

• iPhone 101: How to Access More Than 180 Apps or WebClips via Spotlight on iPhone 3.0
• iPhone 101: iPhone Connection Speed Symbols from O to E to 3G (or an Airplane)

Forums

• iTunes 8.2.1 Update Breaks Palm Sync, AT&T & MMS, Palm Users, New Applications

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

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

TiPb Presents iPhone Live! #19 — Pre-Sync Down!

Apple to Release Q3 2009 Financial Results on July 21st

Apple today issued a media alert announcing details for the July 21st release of its financial results for the third fiscal quarter and second calendar quarter of 2009. The results will cover sales from March 28th, 2009 through June 26th, 2009, and w...