The iPhone's biggest weakness is its 2-megapixel camera. Not to worry, though—we've put together a whopping 22 tips and apps to help you get the most out of Apple's underpowered shooter.
Red Bull Air Racing on the iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
Got a hankering to fly through some pylons? Red Bull Air Race World Championship Lite Version [App Store link] might be just the ticket. The $0.99US game puts you in air races in either San Diego or Abu Dhabi. Red Bull Air Race is not a flight simulator like X-Plane, but more of an arcade game. It uses the iPhone accelerometer for steering. and is pretty responsive. The course, said to be an accurate representation of the real locations, is rendered in nice 3D. On-screen markers point you in the right direction if you get off course. You will.Flying the race is a good challenge, and happily you can choose to turn off the background music if you want to. You can choose a cockpit eye view, or follow along behind your plane.
In the hangar you can chose from 2 planes to fly, but you have no options to configure them further. An options screen allows you to change the volume, the vibration and sensitivity of the controls. There is also a calibration screen if things get off a bit.
The game is the lite version, with a more full-featured version coming. It runs on both the iPhone and the iPod touch.
My only complaint is that the game has a slow load time, made even slower by seeing an animated logo from the developers, then a video from a real race. It takes about a minute from the time you launch the app until you are flying. As they used to say around the flight schools, 'Got time to spare, go by air.'
Screen shots are here:
TUAWRed Bull Air Racing on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple trumps Windows PC makers in customer experience study
Apple's reputation has been polished with a new customer experience study from Forrester Research that shows happiness and overall satisfaction with Macs being much higher than for several major Windows PC builders.
A standard for the Femtocell
Femtocell are 3G mini antennas whose power does not exceed that of a Wi-Fi terminal and that allows, for example, a reliable relay of the signal inside. Already SFR and AT&T have tested these products with view to marketing them.
One of the main obstacles to mass usage has just been lifted. The 3GPP who enact the standards of 3G mobile telephony has just published a standard to ensure compatibility and inter-operatively of all the solutions that manufacturers start to propose. Better still, this standard will make it possible that millions these cells can cohabit and run with true relays. Thus, it will be possible to create a tight grid which could for example be used for the fourth 3G operator that we wait to be created, which would be less expensive and make use of its customers Internet.
AOL Daily Finance app raises the bar for iPhone investment tools
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
The first key feature to note is the free real-time equity quote service, provided from the BATS Exchange; major exchange (NYSE & Nasdaq) quotes are delayed, though. You can quote individual symbols or watch your entire portfolio with ease, whether you enter it on the device or link to your existing lineup under your AOL or AIM screenname; up to 25 separate portfolios can be managed. You can also view up-to-the-minute financial and market news from the AP and other sources.
The other standout feature of this app is its comprehensive charting support. Clicking the chart button on an equity page brings up a straightforward chart, but rotate your device into landscape mode and you're in a Cover Flow-esque lineup of all the charts in your portfolio. Double-tap a chart to access a full suite of advanced comparison options (vs. markets, vs. peers, seasonality, showing events like earnings & splits, and custom symbol comparisons). Holding down a finger on a single-line chart enables a crosshair cursor that lets you see the specific data for any point on the chart. All the functions are intuitive and easy to use; the charts are cached so you can see most of your data even if your device is disconnected from WiFi or cell service.
If you're of a mind to keep an eye on the markets while you're on the move, you may find this app has the tools you're looking for. Check out the gallery below for a few screenshots.
Editor's Note: TUAW's parent company Weblogs, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.
TUAWAOL Daily Finance app raises the bar for iPhone investment tools originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Shuffle's Mad Margins, AT&T's Separation Anxiety, and Visions of an $899 iMac
Conversation in the Apple-focused blogosphere is all over the map this week, but with Apple in the tech world's driver seat these days, wide-ranging activity is only to be expected. Out of dozens of news nuggets, here are three that create some interesting glimmers: iSuppli's teardown of Apple's diminutive iPod shuffle reveals a tidy profit margin; AT&T reportedly wants to keep its lock on the U.S. iPhone channel; and Apple is offering an $899 iMac -- but only to educational institutions.
Movies come to German iTunes Store
Filed under: iTS
After much time and negotiation, movies have finally come to the German iTunes Store. As of this writing, there are 500 films available to German customers (just about 100 are available in HD), including American hits like The Dark Knight (good movie, but the motorcycle is a bit over the top) and Die Fälscher from German cinema.Pricing breaks down like this:
- Older titles are sold for €7.99
- Newer titles sell for €9.99
- Brand-new releases are €13.99
[Via iPodNN]
TUAWMovies come to German iTunes Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Friday Favorite: TextEdit
Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, Friday Favorite
What's free, flexible, easy-to-use but powerful and can handle a wide variety of file types? Our good friend, TextEdit, an app that ships with every Mac. TextEdit is, of course, a simple text editing tool like Notepad or WordPad on Windows. But there's a lot more to "simple text editing" that you might imagine, especially when TextEdit connects to services and other apps. I'm going to show you a few cool things you can do with TextEdit: create an inbox, use it as a development tool, or grab snippets of text on the go.First, you should know that TextEdit defaults to the .rtf format. If you're not familiar with it, RTF is "rich text" and, unlike the .txt files generated by something like NotePad, RTF includes formatting, like bold or italics or bullet lists. "Plain text" .txt files are pretty much just the basic ASCII characters and paragraph breaks. So what? Well, if you want things to look pretty, you'll stick with .rtf, a format which is easy to share across platforms. Side note: did you know TextEdit will open Word documents? It isn't perfect, but it works if you don't have Word on your machine. The older .txt format is better for coding or when you don't need or can't have formatting.
To create an inbox, I suggest the simpler .txt format. What I used to do was set up Quicksilver to easily append to an inbox.txt file, and I used GeekTool to pin that .txt file to my desktop. You could also use LaunchBar to append, and I'm sure there's a way to whip up an AppleScript, but I never bothered. Instead, when I ditched Quicksilver, I started keeping the text file in the Dock, and I just open it up to add items. All this is portable, indexed by Spotlight, and fully cross-platform compatible.
Next up: munging HTML with TextEdit, and grabbing snippets of text from any app and dropping them into a file.
Continue reading Friday Favorite: TextEdit
TUAWFriday Favorite: TextEdit originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
22 Tips and Apps for Your iPhone's Camera
The iPhone's biggest weakness is its 2-megapixel camera. Not to worry, though—we've put together a whopping 22 tips and apps to help you get the most out of Apple's underpowered shooter.
Red Bull Air Racing on the iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
Got a hankering to fly through some pylons? Red Bull Air Race World Championship Lite Version [App Store link] might be just the ticket. The $0.99US game puts you in air races in either San Diego or Abu Dhabi. Red Bull Air Race is not a flight simulator like X-Plane, but more of an arcade game. It uses the iPhone accelerometer for steering. and is pretty responsive. The course, said to be an accurate representation of the real locations, is rendered in nice 3D. On-screen markers point you in the right direction if you get off course. You will.Flying the race is a good challenge, and happily you can choose to turn off the background music if you want to. You can choose a cockpit eye view, or follow along behind your plane.
In the hangar you can chose from 2 planes to fly, but you have no options to configure them further. An options screen allows you to change the volume, the vibration and sensitivity of the controls. There is also a calibration screen if things get off a bit.
The game is the lite version, with a more full-featured version coming. It runs on both the iPhone and the iPod touch.
My only complaint is that the game has a slow load time, made even slower by seeing an animated logo from the developers, then a video from a real race. It takes about a minute from the time you launch the app until you are flying. As they used to say around the flight schools, 'Got time to spare, go by air.'
Screen shots are here:
TUAWRed Bull Air Racing on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple trumps Windows PC makers in customer experience study
Apple's reputation has been polished with a new customer experience study from Forrester Research that shows happiness and overall satisfaction with Macs being much higher than for several major Windows PC builders.
A standard for the Femtocell
Femtocell are 3G mini antennas whose power does not exceed that of a Wi-Fi terminal and that allows, for example, a reliable relay of the signal inside. Already SFR and AT&T have tested these products with view to marketing them.
One of the main obstacles to mass usage has just been lifted. The 3GPP who enact the standards of 3G mobile telephony has just published a standard to ensure compatibility and inter-operatively of all the solutions that manufacturers start to propose. Better still, this standard will make it possible that millions these cells can cohabit and run with true relays. Thus, it will be possible to create a tight grid which could for example be used for the fourth 3G operator that we wait to be created, which would be less expensive and make use of its customers Internet.
AOL Daily Finance app raises the bar for iPhone investment tools
Filed under: iPhone, App Store
The first key feature to note is the free real-time equity quote service, provided from the BATS Exchange; major exchange (NYSE & Nasdaq) quotes are delayed, though. You can quote individual symbols or watch your entire portfolio with ease, whether you enter it on the device or link to your existing lineup under your AOL or AIM screenname; up to 25 separate portfolios can be managed. You can also view up-to-the-minute financial and market news from the AP and other sources.
The other standout feature of this app is its comprehensive charting support. Clicking the chart button on an equity page brings up a straightforward chart, but rotate your device into landscape mode and you're in a Cover Flow-esque lineup of all the charts in your portfolio. Double-tap a chart to access a full suite of advanced comparison options (vs. markets, vs. peers, seasonality, showing events like earnings & splits, and custom symbol comparisons). Holding down a finger on a single-line chart enables a crosshair cursor that lets you see the specific data for any point on the chart. All the functions are intuitive and easy to use; the charts are cached so you can see most of your data even if your device is disconnected from WiFi or cell service.
If you're of a mind to keep an eye on the markets while you're on the move, you may find this app has the tools you're looking for. Check out the gallery below for a few screenshots.
Editor's Note: TUAW's parent company Weblogs, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.
TUAWAOL Daily Finance app raises the bar for iPhone investment tools originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Shuffle's Mad Margins, AT&T's Separation Anxiety, and Visions of an $899 iMac
Conversation in the Apple-focused blogosphere is all over the map this week, but with Apple in the tech world's driver seat these days, wide-ranging activity is only to be expected. Out of dozens of news nuggets, here are three that create some interesting glimmers: iSuppli's teardown of Apple's diminutive iPod shuffle reveals a tidy profit margin; AT&T reportedly wants to keep its lock on the U.S. iPhone channel; and Apple is offering an $899 iMac -- but only to educational institutions.Movies come to German iTunes Store
Filed under: iTS
After much time and negotiation, movies have finally come to the German iTunes Store. As of this writing, there are 500 films available to German customers (just about 100 are available in HD), including American hits like The Dark Knight (good movie, but the motorcycle is a bit over the top) and Die Fälscher from German cinema.Pricing breaks down like this:
- Older titles are sold for €7.99
- Newer titles sell for €9.99
- Brand-new releases are €13.99
[Via iPodNN]
TUAWMovies come to German iTunes Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Friday Favorite: TextEdit
Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, Friday Favorite
What's free, flexible, easy-to-use but powerful and can handle a wide variety of file types? Our good friend, TextEdit, an app that ships with every Mac. TextEdit is, of course, a simple text editing tool like Notepad or WordPad on Windows. But there's a lot more to "simple text editing" that you might imagine, especially when TextEdit connects to services and other apps. I'm going to show you a few cool things you can do with TextEdit: create an inbox, use it as a development tool, or grab snippets of text on the go.First, you should know that TextEdit defaults to the .rtf format. If you're not familiar with it, RTF is "rich text" and, unlike the .txt files generated by something like NotePad, RTF includes formatting, like bold or italics or bullet lists. "Plain text" .txt files are pretty much just the basic ASCII characters and paragraph breaks. So what? Well, if you want things to look pretty, you'll stick with .rtf, a format which is easy to share across platforms. Side note: did you know TextEdit will open Word documents? It isn't perfect, but it works if you don't have Word on your machine. The older .txt format is better for coding or when you don't need or can't have formatting.
To create an inbox, I suggest the simpler .txt format. What I used to do was set up Quicksilver to easily append to an inbox.txt file, and I used GeekTool to pin that .txt file to my desktop. You could also use LaunchBar to append, and I'm sure there's a way to whip up an AppleScript, but I never bothered. Instead, when I ditched Quicksilver, I started keeping the text file in the Dock, and I just open it up to add items. All this is portable, indexed by Spotlight, and fully cross-platform compatible.
Next up: munging HTML with TextEdit, and grabbing snippets of text from any app and dropping them into a file.
Continue reading Friday Favorite: TextEdit
TUAWFriday Favorite: TextEdit originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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