iPhone 4.0 beta walkthrough video in English

Posted on April 11, 2010 by David Winograd.
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A few days ago we posted a Polish language video walkthrough of some of the features in the iPhone OS 4.0 initial beta. Since then, Michael Sherlock put together an English language video of a number of the features present in the new beta.

This video includes brief demos of:
  • Spell Check
  • Changing the Background image.
  • New features in the Camera.app
  • Making and populating Folders
  • The Unified Mail Inbox
  • The new Mail threading feature
  • and the new Game Center.
This video, though light on depth, will give you an idea on how these features work in practice.

I know one feature that I would like to see has not yet been addressed: the ability to rename Bluetooth devices. I use three Griffin BlueTrip Bluetooth receivers at home and when looking at the Bluetooth devices in the current version of the iPhone OS, all three come up with the same name and can't be changed. I'd like the ability to rename Bluetooth devices so I can get a handle on which BlueTrip is which. It's a minor point, but one that would make life quite a bit easier for me. I'm sure that this feature getting into OS 4.0 is about as likely as my winning the lottery, but if anyone from Apple is reading this...

What features did you see that were left out of OS 4.0 and would mean the world to you?

iPhone 4.0 beta walkthrough video in English originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)iPhone 4.0 beta walkthrough video in English originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quizarium the multiplayer trivia app is nearly ready for prime-time

Posted on March 12, 2010 by David Winograd.
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Quizarium [free], a multiplayer iPhone/iPod touch trivia game, arrived in the App Store today. I got a chance to look at a pre-release copy and I found some problems with the interface and flow of the game. Some problems will be solved either upon release, since an update is being approved right now, or within a few days after release. According to Anthony Almanza, one of the developers at Lithuanian software development firm On5, Apple has gotten much quicker with approving updates. I spoke with Anthony at length about the app and offered a number of suggestions that will be implemented quite soon.

Quizarium uses the Plus+ social play network which allows many players to compete against each other by answering trivia questions in a number of set category rooms, or in new rooms that can be created by users. A server problem was found yesterday (and a revision quickly submitted), so room creation may or may not be activated upon release. I really didn't get a great feel for how a multiplayer game would look since, at most, I played against two people from On5, but I can imagine that the action will be pretty intense.

To play, you flick the screen up to view the entire list of category rooms, and when you tap on a room, the game starts. You are shown with a trivia question for 60 seconds, or until someone gives a correct answer. You can see the minute tick down by watching a progress bar at the top of the screen. Hints are given as time passes, showing you how many letters are in the answer and, as time is running out, you'll see the first few letters of the answer appearing. If you are the first with the correct answer, you gain points and receive awards courtesy of the Plus+ network. Tapping the Plus+ button on the main screen shows you your awards and takes you to the leaderboard where you'll see just how well you've done. Weekly leaderboards will be updated every Monday night. There is also an overall Plus+ network leaderboard.

Continue reading Quizarium the multiplayer trivia app is nearly ready for prime-time

Quizarium the multiplayer trivia app is nearly ready for prime-time originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Quizarium the multiplayer trivia app is nearly ready for prime-time originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Put yourself in the picture with PixyMe

Posted on March 3, 2010 by David Winograd.
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Do you remember the personalized movies that had been showing up in your email a while back? The one that sticks in my mind was a 'get out the vote' video the Obama campaign sent out a month before the presidential election. The story told by the video was that Obama lost by just one vote and it was you, whoever you are. You name was smoothly integrated into about a dozen places in the narrative. It was a real attention getter.

PixyMe (US $1.99) brings a static version of this technology to your iPhone or iPod touch. This beautifully designed and rendered app lets you incorporate any name or short phrase seamlessly into an eCard or postcard, appearing as though it were part of the photograph. The resulting personalized photo can be either emailed, sent to Facebook, saved in your photo album, or sent as a high-quality physical postcard to any address in the world. It works remarkably well, as you can see from the picture on the right and the gallery below.

It's unfortunate that this app has the all too common problem of dropping you into the fray with scant instructions. That would be okay for a simple one-trick-pony, but this app is fairly complex and has functions that need explanation. There is an info screen at the end of all the options, but all it gives you are the raw basics and a link to get to the PixyMe site. What you probably don't know is that on the site is a great introduction and all the information you need to get started quickly in a video tour. You can view it at the end of this post. I feel that this video should be incorporated into the app or directly linked to rather than dropping you at the site. That's my only complaint. The rest of the app is a delight.

Continue reading Put yourself in the picture with PixyMe

Put yourself in the picture with PixyMe originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Put yourself in the picture with PixyMe originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Full text searches on the iPhone? There WAS an app for that.

Posted on February 25, 2010 by David Winograd.
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Sometimes you can't win for losing. A few weeks ago, I was talking to fellow blogger and all-around genius Brett Terpstra about how I wished there was a full-text search for iPhone mail. He told me that there was, and it was called reMail. I immediately downloaded the free app, paid the US $3.99 for the in-app feature of using IMAP mailboxes, and reMail started downloading copies of all my mail. This took overnight, but so what? When done, I could search on any word or term just like the Macintosh Mail application, and be rewarded with a listing of all the incidences of the term in my 3,000 or so email messages in a fraction of a second.

This worked like a dream. I immediately put reMail on my home screen and was happy. At least, that was, until last week when I read that Gabor Cselle, reMail's creator, announced that the app was being put out to pasture, and was immediately being removed from the App Store. Google both bought the app and hired Gabor to be a Product Manager on the Gmail team.

As a nice gesture, Gabor decided to keep supporting reMail until the end of March and make the two in-app purchases free. Along with IMAP support, you could also buy the option of having it work with Rackspace email. And thus started the conspiracy theories. Techcrunch surmised that this could be another shot over the bow in the Apple-Google smartphone war, and that Google bought the technology to kill it off, so Apple couldn't buy it first. There may be something to that since reMail is arguably a better mail app than the one that built into the iPhone.

On the other hand, it may be that Google, seeing a widening of the search market, wants to build reMail's functionality into another product. It would be foolish, in my opinion to not do so. Google has worked with Cselle before as part of the Gmail team and knows what he can do. With reMail as part of the bargain, he's more important to them than during his earlier tenure.

There is a rumor floating around that someone has reverse-engineered reMail and will release it as open source. This could be interesting and may change the game, but it may be just a rumor. Whatever happens, it'll be intriguing to keep your eye on the evolution of mail apps on smartphones, and to learn just what Google has in mind.


Full text searches on the iPhone? There WAS an app for that. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Full text searches on the iPhone? There WAS an app for that. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macworld 2010: We discuss iBird Pro with Mitch Waite

Posted on February 23, 2010 by David Winograd.
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We had the opportunity to interview Mitch Waite, the developer of iBird Explorer Pro (US$29.99). This is an iPhone/iPod touch App running under OS 3.0 or better. According to Mitch, it is fourteen field guide books rolled into one App.

Apple liked the App so much that it was included it in an iPhone TV commercial. Macworld liked the app too and it was awarded the best reference App of 2009.

This is one big App, since it contains over 900 beautifully rendered pictures of birds, that Mitch will tell you all about in the video. It weighs in at 391MB, which may be a concern for those of you running out of storage. It's self-contained, needing no Wi-Fi or cellular connection. This was a wise design choice, since out in the wild, Cell signals can be a hard commodity to come by.

We apologize for the poor audio syncing of the video, but Mitch's story is quite fascinating.

Click on the 'Read More' link to view the video interview and demonstration of iBird Explorer Pro.

Continue reading Macworld 2010: We discuss iBird Pro with Mitch Waite

Macworld 2010: We discuss iBird Pro with Mitch Waite originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Macworld 2010: We discuss iBird Pro with Mitch Waite originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone battery dead? In a squeeze you can charge it with Jaffa oranges

Posted on February 17, 2010 by David Winograd.
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This may be strange -- in fact very strange -- but Imperial Leisure, a marketing and social media firm, has created an advertisement using an iPhone, to promote the sale of Jaffa oranges. They found that with a lot of rods and cable you can use orange power, or rather the power of 2380 Jaffa oranges, to power an iPhone. Talk about thinking outside of the box, or in this case, the crate.

[via Engadget and Macenstein]

Click on the Read More link to view the ad.

Continue reading iPhone battery dead? In a squeeze you can charge it with Jaffa oranges

iPhone battery dead? In a squeeze you can charge it with Jaffa oranges originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)iPhone battery dead? In a squeeze you can charge it with Jaffa oranges originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macworld 2010: Get an education with the DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator

Posted on by David Winograd.
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DriveSavers has been the go-to company for data recovery since 1985, when I used to read about them in Apple ][ magazines. They have saved the bacon (and jobs) of many people over the ensuing years. When all else fails, DriveSavers can be counted on to retrieve your data -- whether it's on a hard drive, memory card, iPod, iPhone, or just about any type of storage media.

It seems that their heart is in the right place; although seemingly not great for their business, they created the wonderful free DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator app for the iPhone or iPod touch. The app teaches, in interactive fashion, how a hard disk works, and all the things that can crash a drive. It shows the inside of a hard disk where you can tap around to read descriptions of all the components.

Next, using interactive animation, sound and vibration, you'll learn all the things that can crash a drive. You'll learn what happens during a clicker failure, seized motor, problems with spinning up and down, solid state drive failures (yes, they can fail too), contamination and head crashes. It's both entertaining and educational. There is also a section relating to protection strategies, which covers best practices, backup strategies, securing your data, and how serious a problem must be before you call DriveSavers. Knowledge is power, and I consider this critical information for any computer user.

Another section shows you pictures of the clean room where all the data recovery gets done. DriveSavers employs the most advanced certified IS 5 (class 100) clean rooms in the industry and is authorized by all hard drive manufacturers to work on hard drives without voiding a warranty. If you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can still learn everything in the app via a web-based Flash video.

Gallery: Gallery of the Drivesavers app


We conducted an interview with Chris Bross from DriveSavers from the show floor. Chris talks about the philosophy behind DriveSavers. I found it interesting that there is a suicide prevention professional on staff to take call from clients on the verge of a nervous breakdown -- which is not an uncommon occurrence. Click on the Read More link to see the interview.

Continue reading Macworld 2010: Get an education with the DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator

Macworld 2010: Get an education with the DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Macworld 2010: Get an education with the DriveSavers Hard Drive Disk-aster Simulator originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macworld 2010: ScreenGuardz Privacy film keeps prying eyes off your iPhone

Posted on February 12, 2010 by David Winograd.
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NLU Products makes a very large line of screen and computer protection products. I got a chance to speak with Kirk Feller the President and CEO of the company about their newest product ScreenGuardz Privacy (US$19.95), that was released last month at the Consumer Electronics Show.

With the iPhone gaining more functionality seemingly every day through third party apps, privacy has become a concern. I really don't think I want someone looking over my shoulder when I'm doing online banking or reading private email. Kirk told me that there is a large demand for products that not only provide screen protection, but also increase privacy protection.

ScreenGuardz Privacy is a very sturdy screen protector for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The film used to cover the screen adheres using static electricity making it easy to put on and take off. But there are a lot of screen protectors out there, some offering privacy protection. This does it a bit differently.

Using tiny louvers built into the film, ScreenGuardz Privacy uses four way privacy protection. This means that whether you are using your iPhone in portrait or landscape mode, anyone to your side will see a dark screen. It also helps reduce the amount of light put out by the display which may be distracting in some situations. According to Kirk, other privacy protection products are fine under normal use, but turn the phone to landscape mode and your screen will be visible to any prying eyes. This is the first screen protection product that gives you full privacy protection,

I played with it for a few minutes and it worked exactly as advertised. The iPhone felt just as responsive as ever, but unless you were looking directly at the display, the screen appeared dark and this was true any way I held the device. This is a very simple idea, but the implementation is perfect. It's easy to install, and gives you some peace of mind. For anyone concerned with sensitive data, it seems well worth the price.

Click the 'Read More' link to see a short video of ScreenGuardz Privacy in action.

Continue reading Macworld 2010: ScreenGuardz Privacy film keeps prying eyes off your iPhone

Macworld 2010: ScreenGuardz Privacy film keeps prying eyes off your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Macworld 2010: ScreenGuardz Privacy film keeps prying eyes off your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Partner snore? There’s an app for that

Posted on February 11, 2010 by David Winograd.
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Ilan Aisic, the CEO of Pointer Software, had a problem. Or rather his wife did. Ilan snores and it was driving his wife crazy, so he developed Snoring U US $4.99 an unusual iPhone app that monitors snoring while you sleep using the built in microphone. You wear your iPhone using an arm band or put it on your night table and when it detects at least four snores, measured by a change in the decibel level of the room, the app will vibrate or play a sound clip that you can record to tell you to turn over, stop snoring or whatever you like.

It was developed under the guidance of an Israeli specialist in internal pulmonary and sleep medicine. Although no specific claims are made, I can easily see this working since I have exactly the same problem and this seems to automate what goes on three or four times a night. The snoring wakes me up, I ask my partner to turn over or change position and go back to sleep until the snoring wakes me up again. This app does the same thing but, from what I've been told, without the non-snorer waking up.

You can control just about everything in the app from number of snores to sensitivity determining when the app should kick in, to how long it should wait before it recognizes another snoring event. It also graphs what happened, so the next morning you can see a chart showing you all the times the app kicked in, what times it happened and the loudness of the snoring. But the neatest part for me, is prima facie evidence against the daily intoning of "...But I don't snore."

Ha! Busted.

Partner snore? There's an app for that originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Partner snore? There's an app for that originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Make your iPhone hands-free for less than the price of a ticket

Posted on February 10, 2010 by David Winograd.
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In most states it's illegal to drive while holding an iPhone to your ear, with the average price of a ticket coming in at at least $100. Personally, I'm lucky since my Lexus 400h, like many cars, allows me to make and take calls through my car stereo. My interaction is limited to receiving calls by pressing a green button, and then pressing with a red hang up button on the steering wheel to end the call. Now Parrot has provided that same functionality to any car for less than the price of a ticket, namely US$99.99.

The Parrot Minikit Slim is an ingenious device that clips onto your sun visor. After Bluetooth pairing to your iPhone, installation is complete. It automatically downloads your iPhone contact list and then voice-enables that list. Push the green button and tell it who to call, and it dials the number for you. If there are two numbers associated to your contact, you'll be prompted for either 'home' or 'mobile', similar to the Voice Command function on the iPhone.

The Minikit Slim is self-contained including a microphone and speaker. When your call is done, you simply push the red button and disconnect the call. The idea is simple, but the functionality is incredibly useful since you can move the Minikit Slim to any car. Outside of its obvious use as a hands-free kit, I can see it being quite valuable at the intersection of road warriors and rental cars. If your iPhone is synced with a Windows machine, it will download the address book, so it's fully cross-platform. The Minikit Slim won't weigh you down, either -- it weighs only about three ounces.

Continue reading Make your iPhone hands-free for less than the price of a ticket

Make your iPhone hands-free for less than the price of a ticket originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Make your iPhone hands-free for less than the price of a ticket originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Monoprice’s iPhone leather-cased battery backup is another great deal

Posted on January 22, 2010 by David Winograd.
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We like Monoprice around here. They are a wonderful source for cables and iPhone battery backups as well as lots of other accessories and add-ons. We covered their 2200 mAh battery dongle a few months back and nearly everyone who bought one was quite happy including our own Auntie TUAW. The price was great at US$14.50 when reviewed and currently up just about 75 cents to a still absurdly cheap US$15.23. One problem people had with it was that if left in your pocket, the dongle could get loose and stop charging the iPhone. Pushing it back into place corrected that, but it was an inelegant solution.

Getting ready for my trip to the Macworld Expo I wanted something that would stay in place dependably no matter where I put it, so I went back to Monoprice.com, and found a leather case cover with a 2200 mAh battery built in that the iPhone snaps into. The price is ridiculously low at US $20.75, just US $5.52 more than the dongle. This has been on sale for at least as long as the dongle, I hadn't heard anything about it, but decided to give it a try.

Continue reading Review: Monoprice's iPhone leather-cased battery backup is another great deal

Review: Monoprice's iPhone leather-cased battery backup is another great deal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Review: Monoprice's iPhone leather-cased battery backup is another great deal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The App Store Expense Monitor: Be scared. Be very scared.

Posted on December 29, 2009 by David Winograd.
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I know that we're between Christmas and New Years, but it seemed more like Halloween when I checked out The App Store Expense Monitor from WetFish Software. It scared the Yuletide right out of me, taking me from Ho Ho Ho to OMG No!!! This free Mac application looks into your iTunes library, finds the apps you bought under all iTunes accounts on your computer, searches for the current prices of the app, and then gives you the bad news in some detail.

It's scary how all those innocent little $.99 US charges add up, but it might not be as bad as it seems. Regardless of what you paid for an app, the Monitor finds the current price and uses it to total up your cost. If you have a bunch of apps that you got when they were free and they were later were changed to a paying basis, your total won't be accurate. That should be okay for most people. But if you want to make your accounting perfect, and you remember what you really paid for an app, you can edit the prices; quite a nice feature.

It's also possible to also export the information to a .CSV file for viewing in a spreadsheet, which would be a very nice feature if it actually worked. The program tells you that you can sort the information ranked by developer, name, category or price, but in actuality, your resulting spreadsheet file is two columns wide with most of the information jammed into column A. Not very useful...

In setting up the App Store Expense Monitor, I found another stitch dropped in the attention to detail department. The program expects to find your apps in the /~/user/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications folder, which is not where they live in the current version of iTunes. You'll need to change the path to point to the /~/user/Music/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications folder. That's not the biggest deal, but an oversight like this should have been caught and corrected, even in a free program.

Regardless of the minor glitches, the App Store Expense Monitor is still quite useful in giving you an idea of what you spent on all your apps, while affording you a reality check on the implications of tapping that Buy Now button.

[via lifehacker]

The App Store Expense Monitor: Be scared. Be very scared. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)The App Store Expense Monitor: Be scared. Be very scared. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earn It Stars: a motivating little app

Posted on by David Winograd.
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I came across a very simple little app that I felt would be useful -- at first thought, just for small children, but after thinking about it for awhile, realized that it could be helpful for just about everybody who tends to procrastinate (guilty!), or wants to reinforce or change a behavior. The app is Earn It Stars [iTunes Link] which sells for $.99 US and runs on iPhones and iPod touches with OS 3.0 or better.

This app is all about motivation and is really very simple; in this case, that's a good thing. Let's say you want to get your kid to clean her room and no amount of hectoring is getting the job done. Earn It Stars works on a reward basis, which some may call bribery, but I'll just call it positive reinforcement. Negotiate what the pay-off will be and how many times the room will be cleaned before the the prize is awarded. Let's say 20 cleanings before the kid gets to go to the movies to see something that will probably make the parent gag and retch. I'm looking at you, New Moon.

The app lets you designate what the task will be and how many times it needs to be done before it pays off. Then each time the room gets checked and you can see that the color of the carpet isn't laundry, someone gets to tap on Star Earned which plays a nice sound and increments the counter. When the counter hits 20, a badge is displayed that says: Earn It Stars. You did it! That's Great!! Enjoy (your) New Moon, or whatever the reward might be.

That's about it. It's really nothing more than a fancy looking counter, but sometimes simplicity is a good thing. Having grown children, I know that I could have used this years ago and that it would have worked. It would have eliminated the circuitous discussions based upon: Yes I did. No you didn't, Yes I did. No you didn't etc. Once you get into one of those, getting out is never easy, or fun, and if you don't think that kids like getting stars, ask any first grade teacher. Given the app's meager aspirations, I think it's fine, and the only thing I would add is a big audio flourish when the goal is reached.

Earn It Stars can be used for anything and can be used by anyone. Right now, I have it set that if I write 10 posts I get to eat. Simple.

TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.

Earn It Stars: a motivating little app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Earn It Stars: a motivating little app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More than one way to stream Bluetooth

Posted on December 20, 2009 by David Winograd.
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Want an easy way to use the Bluetooth in your iPhone/iPod touch to stream music to your traditional stereo? The new Belkin Bluetooth Music Receiver, announced this week, should do the job nicely. It's a little dongle that connects to your stereo either through a 3.5mm headphone jack or, using RCA cables, to the AUX inputs in the back of your system. It will remember half a dozen Bluetooth devices and let you stream music up to 33 feet away at a cost of $49.99 US.

Honestly, I didn't see the big deal, since I've been doing this for quite a long time using the now discontinued Griffin BlueTrip. The BlueTrip was made to stream Bluetooth audio from an iPod to a stereo using a dongle that plugs into the 30 pin connector adding BlueTooth to iPods that didn't have it built in. But what if you have an iPhone rather than an iPod? We've got you covered there, too -- read on.

[via Engaget]

Continue reading More than one way to stream Bluetooth

More than one way to stream Bluetooth originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)More than one way to stream Bluetooth originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better

Posted on December 19, 2009 by David Winograd.
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Moodagent [iTunes Link] (free for now) puts a new spin on the iTunes Genius Playlist system. Instead of leaving it up to Apple to give you category based Genius Playlists, Moodagent, gives you some control over what songs will appear in a 25 song customizable playlist of your music.

You are given 5 colored bars, each with an icon representing an aspect of music. The symbols didn't make much sense to me, but by hitting an info button, I found that the icons represented, in order: Sensual, Tender, Joy, Aggressive and Tempo. I could have used a full explanation of what they meant by Aggressive and Tempo, but trial and error gave me a rough idea. By increasing or decreasing the size of each of the bars, a 25 song Playlist is created, complete with cover art icons, that can be played or saved for later recall. Increase or decrease one or more of the bars and the playlist instantly changes, so if you like a playlist, it's a good idea to save it before changing anything. Once saved, a tap will play your chosen playlist. When saving, you are also given the opportunity to title the playlist any way you like, with the first song being the default title.

Another way of making a playlist, again similar to the iTunes Genius playlist, is to select a seed song to base the list upon. Choose one song and then adjust the bars to tailor the list to your liking.

When first loading the app, you run a sync that indexes all the music on your iPhone/iPod touch running OS 3.0 or better, with their server. My iPhone has about 2100 songs on it and syncing took about 10 minutes. When done, I was told that it couldn't sync about 750 songs. This wasn't surprising since my tastes tend toward the arcane, but there's a solution for that. You are asked to download a Moodagent Profiler application that, as does iTunes Genius playlists, upload anonymous information from the iTunes library on your computer, which is assumed to have more music on it than does your mobile device. This information is used to expand the Moodagent database. After running the Moodagent Profiler on my roughly 6100 song Macbook Pro iTunes library, which took over an hour, I re-synced Moodagent and this time the number of songs that couldn't be synced reduced to 149.

So why didn't it find 149 songs?

Continue reading Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better

Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app

Posted on December 13, 2009 by David Winograd.
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that deals with dysfunctional emotions and feelings in a structured manner usually involving journaling, and reflecting on your journaled thoughts. The idea is to discover incorrect thinking and emotions. It has been found to be effective in quite a number of disorders including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and OCD.

CBTReferee [iTunes Link] $4.99US, was written by Andrew Arrow to assist in his personal therapist-directed CBT. Finding himself always needing to carry around a notebook, since negative thoughts and feelings happen at random, he built quite a simple app for his own use. Finding it personally effective, he decided to put it in the app store, not really knowing if it would be useful for others. Feedback he received convinced him otherwise.

The app contains a brief description of CBT and clear instruction on how to properly utilize the app. It's just enough information to get started, and doesn't bog down in theory, so you can get up to speed quickly.

When a negative thought occurs, the app directs you to write it down immediately. Once done, tapping the next button takes you through a screen of ten potential fallacies inherent in your entry. Some of these include: Nothing or All (black and white thinking where one small flaw kills an entire concept), Conclusion Jumping (assuming facts that don't' exist), Emotions as Evidence (assuming that if you feel a certain way, it must be true), and many others.

With the journaled text visible, scroll through the list and check any of the options that you think may apply to your statement. Next, you are presented with a type-in screen titled:
Referee Says, where, based on your statement and the options you have chosen, you try to write as objective an assessment as possible, to negate the statement.

Continue reading Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide app ready for its closeup?

Posted on December 9, 2009 by David Winograd.
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Long before people went to the Internet for film information, movie buffs annually bought the latest revisions of huge paperback books like The Leonard Maltin Movie Guide and Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever. These were, and are, massive reference books; the current version of Maltin comes in at 1664 pages, and the current version of Videohound at 1700 pages. You needed a strong coffee table to hold these massive tomes.

Today there are many ways to get movie reviews, with IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes probably being the most popular sites. But there is a real virtue to reading reviews written by someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of film and a lifetime career of reviewing them. That's why I was very happy to find that the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide [iTunes Link] $2.99US, has morphed into an iPhone/iPod touch app, adding features that could never be found in books like streaming preview videos, and a tie-in to Netflix and iTunes along with the ability to email reviews from the app.

Upon launching the app you are presented with a scrolling list of Maltin's current picks. You can tap on them to bring up a full review, links to information on the director and major actors, and a streaming video preview of the film. If you have an Internet connection you can see the videos. If not, the option isn't even presented. I really like that, since unlike many apps that won't work without connectivity, the main database is always available for any iPhone/iPod touch running OS 3.0 or better.

Continue reading Is the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide app ready for its closeup?

Is the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide app ready for its closeup? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Is the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide app ready for its closeup? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2222 short stories in your pocket with the Colossal Short Story Collection

Posted on December 6, 2009 by David Winograd.
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I've done quite a bit of testing of eBooks, and quite honestly I've had a problem with the concept of reading a whole book on an iPod touch or iPhone. At a normal font size, an eBook can display about 75 words on a single screen. This requires even a rather short book to be hundreds and hundreds of screenfuls. My well worn copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer comes in at 218 pages which in the app Classics2Go [iTunes Link] translates to 813 screens of iPhone/iPod touch text. I know that this isn't a problem for a great number of people, but I haven't finished a book yet. There is too much flipping, and no matter how pretty the presentation, it just doesn't feel right to me. Your personal preferences may vary, of course.

The Colossal Short Story Collection app, currently under Apple review, solved my problem almost entirely. Contained in the app are over 2222 short stories, all in the public domain, that can be read in 15-20 minutes each. The vastness of the collection assures that you'll always find something that you want to read by authors ranging from Hans Christian Anderson to W.B. Yeats. An average story is around 30 screens. If light entertaining/distracting games can be referred to as casual gaming, this would be an app for casual reading.

I found that reading short stories on an iPhone/iPod touch is very enjoyable and not once did I get frustrated by the page size and number of pages/screens. Nothing got in the way of the story. Reading short stories seems like the perfect use of an eBook. Everything is in byte-sized pieces and I never had to make the considerable commitment that comes with starting an 800 page novel.

Continue reading 2222 short stories in your pocket with the Colossal Short Story Collection

2222 short stories in your pocket with the Colossal Short Story Collection originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)2222 short stories in your pocket with the Colossal Short Story Collection originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reel in a Netflix movie with the ezMoviePick app

Posted on December 3, 2009 by David Winograd.
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I am a huge movie fan and have been a customer of Netflix since they opened for business. I would say that I average over 200 movies a year delivered to me in red envelopes, so I was quite excited when ezMoviePick $0.99US [iTunes Link] was released. This app, which works with any iPhone or iPod touch running OS 3.0 or better, is a Netflix queue manager and movie selector rolled into one, so I had to check it out and see if if it could replace a few other Netflix apps like PhoneFlicks, that I have been using for some time, along with uncovering some worthy movies that I've missed.

Movie selection is at the heart of the app. It looks and works similarly to Urbanspoon taking the form of a slot machine. After entering your Netflix account information and choosing which formats of movies (DVD, Blu Ray, Watch Instantly) you are interested in, you tap a key or shake your device to set three wheels spinning. The wheels are for movie type, year of release and number of stars. The result -- after waiting a bit longer than I would have preferred -- is a nearly random selection. Any movies shown will be from the list of films that Netflix would recommend to you. You can tap on a resulting film it to get some information and have the opportunity to add any of your chosen formats to your queue.

The problem is that you can't lock a reel or two as you can with Urbanspoon, so there is no way to concentrate your searches based on any criteria. You get what you get. This is not an oversight in the building of the app though. The Netflix API, according to the developer, makes such a lock virtually impossible:

"Netflix does not offer an API that will let a third party do a request asking for : give me all movies in the category "Comedy" from the 90's, or all movies with at least 3 stars in the Thriller category. Thus because of that limitation, the application right now cannot provide a 'lock' feature."

Continue reading Reel in a Netflix movie with the ezMoviePick app

Reel in a Netflix movie with the ezMoviePick app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)Reel in a Netflix movie with the ezMoviePick app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On the first night of Christmas, my true love game to me - free game apps

Posted on December 1, 2009 by David Winograd.
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The folks at Blacksmithgames have come up with a really nifty idea. They've created an Advent calendar, or in their words, an appventcalendar. Each day from now until Christmas, a new door will open showing an iPhone game app that you can get for free, but only for one day.

Being December 1st, the first door just opened and what's behind it is 33rd Division [iTunes Link] a line-drawing stealth game where the goal is to escort your troops while avoiding enemy patrols. 33rd Division is for any iPhone or iPod touch running OS 2.2.1 or later. Tomorrow its price will go back to US $0.99 and another door will be opened.

Blacksmithgames promises a mix of well known and undiscovered games to keep things interesting. So go on over and pick yourself up a free game. Then keep checking back for new surprises.

On the first night of Christmas, my true love game to me - free game apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)On the first night of Christmas, my true love game to me - free game apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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