Hasta La Gadget!

We know, it’s a bit odd to see the Jawbone name attached to something other than a Bluetooth headset or speaker, but Aliph is forging into the application game with a new voice messaging service for iOS. Called Thoughts, the software is basically like text messaging or instant messaging with voice. The free audio-based messaging iPhone app, which should be hitting the App Store today, lets you send short audio recordings to either a single contact or a group with a tap of a button. We got a chance to check it out at the D: Dive into Mobile conference this week and found the whole thing to be a really great way to circumvent voicemails or longer texts — all you have to do is tap the name of your contact and then leave a short voice message. There’s absolutely no ringing or waiting. If and when that contact responds it appears as a threaded message, and if you’re in an area that isn’t conducive to listening to those thrilling messages, there’s also a transcription feature. The app should be hitting today, but if you need more details before tapping install, hit the break for the full press release and a short promo video.

Continue reading Aliph gets into the app game with Jawbone Thoughts voice messaging

Aliph gets into the app game with Jawbone Thoughts voice messaging originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aww, would you look at that, the iPhone’s trying to play big boy games! Following in the well received footsteps of Rage HD, today marks the debut of Infinity Blade, the second in what’s hopefully a wave of gorgeous-looking iOS games boasting advanced 3D graphics, if not 3D gameplay. Epic Games has put aside the chainsaw-equipped projectile weaponry of its wildly successful Gears of War console series to deliver the first mobile game built around its Unreal Engine 3. You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s utterly delicious to look at, and the visuals certainly helped transport us to this alien realm of swords, axes, shields, and magical rings — where body armor is optional, but helmets apparently are not. Jump past the break to see this visual feast in motion and to soak up some more of our impressions.

Continue reading App review: Infinity Blade (iPhone)

App review: Infinity Blade (iPhone) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, the games that grown-ups play. It’s a situation that’s beginning to feel an awful lot like the Google Voice fiasco that made the rounds in mid-2009, but if it ends in a similar fashion, you won’t find us kvetching about the teases. As the story goes, a bona fine Google Latitude app made its appearance in Japan’s App Store hours ago, only to be yanked before it could sashay over to any other nation. TechCrunch reckons that it was El Goog doing the pulling — it’s quite possible that the folks in Mountain View weren’t quite ready to publicly reveal it, and with all that Chrome action going down yesterday, it’s not hard to imagine how an impending launch was overlooked. At any rate, the description of the app as well as most of the screenshots were in English, so we’re cautiously optimistic that it’ll resurface in the near future once a few Is are dotted and Ts crossed. With iOS 4 supporting background location, there’s hardly a reason to wait any longer, right?

Google Latitude makes brief appearance in App Store, gets yanked post-haste originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s no secret that the Mac App Store is launching soon. Jobs himself said that it would go live “within 90 days” back when the iOS-inspired App Store was announced on October 20th — that’s mid January, if the timeframe is carried to its fullest extent. Now we have AppleTell citing an “inside source” claiming that Apple is trying to launch the Mac App Store before Christmas, specifically targeting December 13th while telling developers to have their software ready by Monday, December 6th. Unfortunately, the Mac App Store also requires an OS update to end users to which MacRumors reminds us that the new OS X 10.6.6 has already been seeded to developers. So yeah, that’s a pretty aggressive timeline if true and could possibly be kicked off by a press event that would also birth Apple’s rumored recurring subscription billing model in support of Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily digital newspaper.

Mac App Store launching on December 13th? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that “Related” / “Similar” tab we spotted in Google’s own Gingerbread video? Looks as if you won’t have to wait for Android 2.3 to enjoy the spoils of having El Goog sort out what similar apps you may like after you download one. This morning, waves of Android loyalists are finding a new tab in their Market, with a Droid 2 and Nexus One both seeing the update here at Engadget HQ. Naturally, it works just like the App Store’s equivalent, but it remains to be seen just how accurate the advice is. When looking at ‘Related’ for the (also recently updated) Engadget app, we’re finding items we’d prefer to be listed first about a page or so down, but we’re sure the mix-and-match engineers in Mountain View are already fine tuning things as we speak. You know, during the brief moments they aren’t preparing for Tuesday’s big Chrome reveal.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Android Market update brings long-awaited ‘Related’ tab, similar app suggestions originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Dec 2010 13:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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