Archive for: mobile apps
- November 16, 2010 8:35 am
Who says corporate America doesn’t listen to the voices of the consumer? In response to consumer demand, Rovio announced via Facebook that Angry Birds plush toys are are gaining some new friends after the holiday season. Specifically, the birds themselves will be coming in new sizes. More importantly however, the Pigs will be joining the fray — big pigs, little pigs, and even pigs with cracked helmets. From the picture above we can also make out what looks like a ball.
No pricing is available on the new products yet. But Christmas isn’t that far away. We’ll be sure to update you all once we know more. Anyone picked up any Angry Birds merchandise yet?
Fans of the popular Flash-to-HTML crunching Skyfire browser on the iPhone (and many other platforms) will be happy to know that the Skyfire team is working on an iPad-specific version. At the time of writing, there aren’t many details to share. Ok, there aren’t any details to share. For a possible release date keep checking back.
So far, my personal experience with Skyfire has been pretty good. The only hiccups were around launch day when the servers imploded under the insane stress placed upon them by countless hundreds of thousands if not millions of users. So stay tuned iPad users, your day is soon coming…
While Facebook was having their own play date with the media today, Twitter took it upon themselves to do some favors to the mobile world as well. Namely, the pretty pathetic Android Twitter app received a healthy update, bringing new features and a much more polished UI.
The latest update weighs in at version 1.0.5 and goes something like this:
- Quote/Retweet option when hitting the retweet icon
- More streamlined timeline
- Tap a tweet to view it’s details
- Retweet, favorite, share, or reply straight from the search results
- Swipe-to-reveal (think twitter on iPhone)
- Promoted tweets in search
Overall, it’s a very nice improvement that should make it a much more enjoyable app.
- September 22, 2010 6:57 am
Blunt? Perhaps. But it kinda-sorta feels like a Friday. What does that have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is not getting plastered by a truck when you’re rockin’ out to your beats and struttin’ your stuff through the city. It seems like a day doesn’t pass without some newspaper publicizing how some poor sap get his face reconstructed by a car because he couldn’t hear them coming, all because he was blaring Lady Gaga too loud on his headphones. Apparently, humans have forgotten we have these wonderful devices called…eyes…*Gasps!* that allow us to search our surroundings for dangers — You know, like a big freakin’ truck! — before preceding. Nevertheless, technology has come forward to save us from technology.
Introducing: “Awareness”. This app is compatible with iOS 4 and runs in the background while you listen to music. When you start it up, it picks up the outside noise via microphones on your iPhone and then plays that noise back at the “standard/default” level on top of your music. Basically, you’ll get the effect of open headphones even if you’re wearing a pair of noise-reducing ear-canal phones like Shures, Etys, Ultimate Ears, etc., etc.
Thankfully, the developers have added a few helpful features that ensure this novelty is actually useful. First, the end user can adjust how loud the background noise is. Second, a feature called “Ducking” turns your music volume down as outside noise increases should you choose to prefer the latter over the former. Unfortunately as of writing, a bug in iOS is causing Ducking Mode to fail. A fix is in the works, however, and should be submitted to Apple for approval within the next few days. The gist of the story is this: If you want to not die, listen to headphones, and roam the streets, you need Awareness.
$5 in the App Store. If you want to see Awareness in action before plopping down the required cash, step on through for a helpful video…
There’s always something liberating about sticking it to the man, whomever he may be. Going above and beyond false or real limitations feels good, plain and simple. On that note, after Apple showed off iMovie for iPhone, at least a few people were bummed that it wouldn’t run on anything except the iPhone 4. Choose for yourself if you’re going to believe Apple’s spin that “it doesn’t perform up to standards” on older 3GS hardware. But such things are smokescreens and false restrictions put in place to provoke people to shell out more money for the newer model. (Completely legitimate business decision, though it sucks for consumers)
Thankfully a little jailbreak love and a simple editing of an iPhone info.plist/.ipa file is all that’s needed to trick your non-iMovie compatible iDevice and iMovie into playing nice together.
Want to see it work? Jump in….
Those of you toting around a familiar green friend and not so keen on Google Checkout (or geographically can’t) as your only payment option can now breathe a sigh of relief. PayPal mobile payments are finally here on the Android platform. For myself, I’m fine using Google Checkout. But to others, using anything but PayPal is like asking them to give up their fist of kin. Pretty extreme stuff.
Now that you’ve got the option, feel free to hit up that market and make your credit card weep. For curiosities sake, has anyone really held off on Android Market purchases or Android altogether because of the Google Checkout requirement?
Phandroid
The JooJoo, CrunchPad, wonder tablet — call it what you want. Since the much publicized falling out between TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington and Fusion Garage’s Chandra Rathakrishnan, the JooJoo’s future has been rehashed many a time. On one hand, you have this small company putting out their own in-house creation against countless other tablets as well as the big gun Apple iPad. After seeing countless reviews full of videos and pictures, I have come away pretty unimpressed. For $500 — the same price as an iPad — you have yet another proprietary device that runs a proprietary OS that will require a completely separate SDK with all new apps. I’m not saying the JooJoo is going to fail, I’m just saying that for the price, and seeing the competition, there isn’t really all that much that drives me towards it and choosing it over any other of the options on the market.
The big deal with the JooJoo however was it was going to get an early lead on the iPad with a late February release. That early lead has since fallen with the new launch date slipping all the way back to March 25th — within days of the iPad. Now that the early lead is gone, does the JooJoo stand even less of a chance? Personal opinions aside, the JooJoo is still a unique device, offering up a slightly different spin on the standard tablet computer. It’s just that now that all the ducks are in a row, the battle has become increasingly heated.
Do you think a developer eying the market is going to be wooed by the JooJoo? Or does Apple’s App Store and numerous different platforms (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad) make the ROI too hard to resist?
Wired
[Image Source]
Why would you want to pick up a copy of and install BlackBerry Application Suite on your Windows Mobile device? Well, if you wanted to give RIM’s BlackBerry OS a try without jumping fully on board, this would be a way to do so. It’s been quite awhile since the Application Suite was shown off on camera — many months to be exact. At that time, RIM themselves mentioned that both BES and BIS versions were coming. See as how this leak is an unofficial release, the lack of a “complete” package isn’t too surprising.
If you’re feeling lucky, head on over to xda-forums to score yourself a copy of the Application Suite.
As you wait to for page to load, there’s a few things you should know. Namely, this leaked version is the BES version meaning you’ll have to have access to a BES server or else it won’t work. Period. Second, the OS that you’re emulating is of the 4.5 era (according to BerryReivew) — hardly new or exciting anymore. While I don’t necessarily discredit BerryReview’s claims, if the image displayed on the image above — which was pulled from BerryReview — is the ApplicationSuite, it looks more like 4.6+ to me as no 4.5 devices had the newer BB Precision theme. It could be a special skin for 4.5 and the Application Suite though. In the end, BlackBerries are BerryReview’s thing. So more likely than not I’m in the wrong. Anyone care to chime in and set me straight?
So far a few WinMo users have chimed in saying they got the App Suite up and running on a Windows Mobile 6.5.x ROM and all was well except not having access to a BES server. Even for users not on 6.5, you should be pretty well off regardless. Let us know how it goes.
BerryReview
- February 5, 2010 10:02 am
Frequent the digital underground of those ruthless and highly violent iPhone jailbreakers? It’s not nearly that dramatic or sinister, though Apple would like you to think otherwise. Truth be told, jailbreaking is a liberating experience. It gives back to you, the owner of the device, the reigns to do just about whatever you want. Nifty stuff.
With that said, obtaining such forbidden fruits came with several options. There is the ever infamous and stable Dev-Team’s “PwnageTool” which makes complete custom firmwares from scratch. Some people don’t want the bother of having to reload firmware and re-sync all of their content. Fair enough. For such people, Blackra1n was their poison of choice.
In case you were unfamiliar with BR, it is a project of a rather young hacker/developer who goes by “Geohot”. His work has spanned the generations of the iPhone and just recently moved into PS3 hacking — no small feat. With all of the accomplishments under his belt, it would seem like nothing could stop this kid. Unfortunately for us, Blackra1n’s users’ fears are materializing after the 3.1.3 iPhone update. The outlook isn’t too promising for now as a recent Twitter post by the young chap states:
“There is no solution for 3.1.3 on newer devices or 05.12.01 (baseband). There is no untethered jailbreak. I don’t know if/when these things will exist.
Disappointing stuff to say the least. But let’s be real, how many times have we heard these “jailbreak doomsday” tales? I seem to remember such comments following just about every iPhone update since day 1. With that in mind, don’t count out new devices/firmwares just yet.
**Important stuff: While the patch over a normal firmware method used by Blackra1n is not functioning on 3.1.3, the Dev-Team has in fact cracked 3.1.3 for all but there newest iPhone 3GS and most recent iPod Touches. Something to keep in mind if you really must have that ever so important and exciting 3.1.3 update.
The cat & mouse game between Apple and jailbreakers is nothing new. It will continue on forever as long as Apple maintains their asinine stance on jailbreaking in general, iron glove and all. The jailbreakers will feel increasingly pissed and frustrated with some even leaving to other, more inviting platforms. Yet life will go on.
Walyou
Geohot’s Blog
