Apple App Reviews

Filed under: App Review Never before in human history have there been so many ways to part with your hard-earned cash. The spotlight might be on credit card acceptance tools from Square & Verisign , or the beta Venmo service’s SMS-based trust network — still, don’t forget about the cagey veteran. Paypal is 12 years old now (and in Internet years, that’s… uh… “wicked old”) but the eBay-owned payment site is innovating as fast as ever; case in point, the 2.0 version of the free Paypal iPhone app. The new app features a revamped interface and history display, along with options for payment reminders, funds withdrawals and a new “Request Money” tool. You can create and send a fund request within the app at the moment you need it (just spotted your pal $20 for the movies? Bingo!), which makes it that much more likely that you’ll get reimbursed. In like fashion, you can collect money for a shared gift or charitable donation, or split a restaurant check and send off requests for everyone’s share of the bill.

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Filed under: Hardware , Retail , iPad Yes, that’s 10pm Eastern DAYLIGHT Time; hopefully by now you’ve worked out exactly what time it is where you are so you can show up on time instead of coming in at the end. (Thanks, cell phone with automatically updated clock!) Tonight’s show will also include the debut of a TUAW challenge! What kind of challenge? Tune in to find out! While you’re there, I’m sure we can find some other Apple news to discuss this evening. I’m sure if we look really hard there is some interesting tidbit out there for all of us to chat about… Unlike those customer service recordings that try to convince you, your call really IS important to us. Without the audience, we are just talking to ourselves, and what fun would that be? To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client , the embedded Facebook app , or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client ; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantage of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you’ve got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here . Talk with you then! TUAW Talkcast Reminder: Tonight at 10pm EDT, now with added fun! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:45:00 EST.

With so many great games coming out seemingly every day, real estate on your iPhone and iPod touch can become a tough resource to manage. Consolidation apps can be great way to clear your device of simple utility apps by containing a bunch of apps in one. Take a look at the APPZILLA app [continue reading...]

Indianapolis, Indiana – Sunstorm Interactive Inc. the founder of the hunting game genre and the developer of the mega-hit game Deer Hunter proudly announces the release of Real Trophy Hunting 1.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch platform. Building on the style and knowledge of over 50+ value games and hunting simulations, Real Trophy Hunting takes big game hunting to a new level of realism! Real Trophy Hunting requires skill, patience, and persistence as players find themselves in realistic locations, using all the tools of the trade to bring in and bag the most prized big game animals straight from the Rocky Mountains! Playing the game is an incredible experience that closely simulates real-life hunting where you’ll need the same techniques and feel the same thrills! Unmatched graphics and sounds, realistic animal behavior, rain, snow and wind effects will place you on location in the hunt of a lifetime. “Our app store game ‘Real Deer Hunting’ has been a huge success for us so we’re excited to release the next game in our ‘Real’ hunting series. Real Trophy Hunting builds on the series with more animals including some of the most prized trophies in the world. The graphics are stunning and the level of immersion is unprecedented!” – said Anthony Campiti, President and Founder of Sunstorm Interactive Inc. Device Requirements: * iPhone and iPod touch * Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later * 25.3 MB Pricing and Availability: Real Trophy Hunting 1.0 is $1.99 (USD) and available exclusively through the App Store in the Games category

Filed under: OS , Cult of Mac , Mods It couldn’t happen, they said. It wouldn’t work, they warned. But gmjhowe over at Instructables did it anyway: he converted his old 1984 Macintosh into a machine that could run Snow Leopard . And he laid out some pretty good instructions on how to do so yourself. His two rules are as thus: don’t hurt the old Mac in any way — besides its value as a collector’s item, the thing still looks great. And don’t skimp on costs — you could probably do it a little cheaper than he did, but why would you? This is a one-of-a-kind project, and he went all out.

While latest studies seem to demonstrate the opposite , we all live with some sort of fear regarding radiations emitted by our dear iPhones. To address this concern, Tawkon, an Israeli startup came up with quite a brilliant concept; a radiation counter app. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t want to hear about it. Some background first, to connect to surrounding cell towers, as you probably know already, your iPhone emits radio signals. The power of this signal however varies importantly depending how far you’re situated from the tower. If you’re close, it stays low, if you’re far away, it goes up. You can actually easily consult your iPhone’s current emitting power by going in test mode, to do that, just type *3001# 12345 #* on your iPhone’s dialpad and hit call. In short, the idea of the app was to take that data, and turn it into something more human-readable. Alright, it’s a little more complicated than that and Tawkon went a little further: Algorithmic magic analyzes your phone’s dynamic SAR ( Specific Absorption Rate ) levels, location, environmental factors, as well as unique smart-phone capabilities such as bluetooth, accelerometer, proximity sensors, GPS and compass. The level of radiation a person is exposed to during calls is determined by analyzing several dynamic parameters, including the impact of environmental factors such as distance from cellular towers, network and weather condition, terrain, antenna’s proximity from the body, antenna orientation (if the user is holding the phone vertically or horizontally) and travel speed. While we have no way to tell how plausible those measurements are, it did look like an interesting tool. However, like so often before, Apple rejected it.

An app that lets you win free stuff including food, tvs, and wiis by just going to different locations sounds too good to be true, right? That’s what I thought when I first heard of Dreamwalk, so when it was released it was time to put it to the test. The big question is, does this system actually work? The short answer is that it depends. Depends on what, you ask? Well as business knowledge suggests, location, location, location.

So much for those rumored iPad delays and production bottlenecks. Apple said this morning that its new tablet device will arrive at market on Saturday, April 3, with pre-orders beginning March 12. Initially, only Wi-Fi models will be …

Filed under: OS , Leopard , Mac 101 , Snow Leopard Let’s face it: unless you’re just casually surfing the Internet or playing a game, chances are pretty good that your hands are on the keyboard most of the time when you’re at the computer. Sure, the mouse is only a few inches away, but wouldn’t it just be easier if you didn’t have to keep going back and forth from the mouse to the keyboard? Enter the world of keyboard shortcuts. A keyboard shortcut is exactly what the name implies: a way of using the keys on your keyboard to quickly perform tasks that typically would require multiple steps using a mouse. Before we dive in to the magic keystrokes, let’s take a quick look at how shortcuts work on the Mac. Most keyboards have a number of special keys in the bottom corners that look and work differently from the other keys. These keys are called ‘modifier keys’, because they change (or modify) the behavior of any keys that are pressed while the modifier key is held down. A good example of this is the shift key, which causes letters to appear in uppercase as they are typed. Although the shift key is commonly found on everything from typewriters to telephones, the other keys that are available depend on the keyboard you have and what kind of computer it is plugged in to. But just like the shift key, you use them by holding down the modifier key, pressing another key, then letting go of both keys. On a Mac, the most commonly used modifier key is the Command key, which is just to the left of the space bar, and can be identified by a clover-like icon on the key. The most commonly used shortcuts in OS X make use of the Command key.