Jan 27

Essay: iPad Rich Text Editor Shows Promise, Needs Work

Posted in: apps, ipad, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

Essay is a rich text editor for the iPad. Apple’s tablet has plenty of plain text editors, with all manner of special features, but unless you go for the more complex apps like Pages, or entire office-suites like Documents To Go, then you can’t add simple things like italics or headlines to your work.

Enter Essay, which bills itself somewhat ambitiously as “the iPad word processor”. It’s an ultra-simple text-editor in the vein of Plain Text or iA Writer, only it lets you format that text.

Essay syncs with the iPad’s de facto file system, Dropbox, and stores its files in HTML format, readable by just about any desktop text-editing software. You can also get documents out via iTunes or email. And as features go, that’s about it.

The real decider in these kinds of apps is the interface, and Essay gets the job done admirably. Open the app and you see a list of documents in a column on the left, with the document panel alongside. On the far right there is a small bar with some controls: mail, print, full-screen-view and edit. Edit (in the shape of a pencil) brings up a panel with buttons for bold, underline, italics, strikethrough and highlight. You can also convert a paragraph into a “section” or a “subsection” (or back into body text). This panel can also be accessed by swiping it in from the screen-edge, which hides the source-column, keeping the main section the same size.

It works very well, and looks a lot like Hog Bay Software’s PlainText, with extras.

The problem comes when you use an external keyboard. You can type, but almost no keyboard shortcuts are supported. You can’t italicize, embolden or otherwise tweak your text. Neither can you cut, copy or paste. Some keyboard navigation is supported, but frustratingly not all. Whilst shift plus an arrow key will select letter one at a time, and alt-arrow will let you skip a word at a time, alt-shift-arrow (which should select a whole word) only works occasionally, and Command-arrow (or Command-shift-arrow) for skipping around a line at a time (or highlighting a whole line) don’t work at all. These are serious omissions for “the iPad word processor.”

Right now, Essay is worth a look, but for serious writing it still needs work. In this aspect, it’s like pretty much every text editor on the iPad: almost there, but missing the one or two features that would kill the opposition. We’ll stay tuned for v1.1. $4.

Essay product page [iTunes]

Essay [Essay App]

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Jan 24

10 Billion iOS Apps Downloaded, Winner Hangs Up on Apple

Posted in: Apple, ios, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

Ten billion apps have been downloaded from the iOS App Store, winning one lucky person a $10,000 iTunes gift voucher. The App Store launched in July 2008, and has “sold” seven billion apps in the last year alone. That’s an astonishing 19 million per day.

The 10 billionth app was Paper Glider, a free game for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and it was downloaded by Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, England. Or more accurately, it was downloaded by one of her daughters. In fact, when Apple’s vice president of iTunes, Eddy Cue, called up to tell her the good news, Davis hung up on him, assuming it was a prank call.

Speaking to Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney, Davis said that once her daughters had put her straight, she tried to call back but couldn’t get past the front-line of Apple’s help-desk. Later, another Apple employees called and the prize was awarded.

According to Kahney, the prize will actually end up costing Davis money. “We’re thinking of upgrading our Nanos so we can join the party” she said.

Upon hearing the news, our own Brian X Chen tweeted “I don’t even know what I’d do with $10,000 of iTunes money.” What would you spend that money on? I guess what it really means is free apps, movies TV shows and even Mac applications for a good chunk of the future, but where do you start? Any suggestions for expensive apps you might like to own if you weren’t paying? Answers, as always, in the comments.

Apple’s App Store Downloads Top 10 Billion [Apple PR]

$10K iTunes Winner Hung Up On Apple, Thought It Was a Prank [Cult of Mac]

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Jan 24

Instagram-Like Camera App Uses Game Center for Achievements

Posted in: iPhone, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

100 Cameras in 1 is like Foursquare crossed with Instagram. The iPhone app offers a range of effects for dirtying-up your images, and you can share the results via Facebook, Twitter or Flickr. So far, that describes 100 other iPhone photo apps. The gimmick of 100 Cameras in 1 is that you can earn achievements and badges via the iOS Game Center.

The app, by photographer Trey Ratcliff, actually look pretty good even without the Game Center integration. Add a photo and choose from 100 effects, much like Instagram or Hipstamatic. The effects can be adjusted with a slider, and you can actually stack various filters one after the other, each time getting another 100 options to flip through.

But the sharing part may be what makes this a hit. Or it could be, if it were actually more social. As it is you earn awards for using the various filters and features of the app. These clock up on your Game Center score-table, where you can battle friends, but surely it could be more interesting, with badges for taking a lot of shots in the same spot (using GPS) over a period of time, say, or mastery of night photography.

Still, 100 Cameras in 1 is yet another example of what happens when your camera also includes processing software and an internet connection. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Instagram, the current big daddy of iPhone photo-sharing app, got some kind of achievement feature.

100 Cameras in 1 [Stuck in Customs]

100 Cameras in 1 [iTunes]

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Jan 20

FaceTime, PhotoBooth and Camera Icons ‘Confirm’ Dual-Camera iPad 2

Posted in: Apple, ios, ipad, rumors, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

A screenshot inside the latest iOS 4.3 beta from Apple gives further evidence that there will be both front and rear-facing cameras in the iPad 2. The shot, which is used to preview desktop backgrounds in the Settings app, shows icons for the FaceTime, Camera and PhotoBooth apps. PhotoBooth is currently an OS X-only App for taking and applying filters to photos of yourself.

The image is exactly the same as the current one except for the addition of these new icons, and the movement of the icon for the settings app to the last position in the list. Further, MacRumors has also found evidence of PhotoBooth filters within the beta, including “Thermal Camera, Mirror, X-Ray, Kaleidoscope, Light Tunnel, Squeeze, Twirl and Stretch.”

This would seem to be the clincher for expectations of a dual-camera-equipped iPad 2. It also means that I have just lost all incentive to buy an iPhone 4, now that the next iPad will do everything the iPhone can do, only without the pesky phone-calls.

FaceTime, Camera and PhotoBooth Icons Confirm Camera in iPad 2 [MacRumors]

Picture: MacRumors

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Jan 20

Apple: New Multitouch Gesture Not for Public Consumption

Posted in: ipad, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

Those looking forward to the new multi-touch gestures in the forthcoming iOS 4.3 for the iPad are in for a disappointment. In the release notes of the latest version, iOS 4.3 beta 2, Apple has made clear that the four and five-finger gestures that appeared in the first beta are merely for testing purposes. They won’t make it into the final version.

This beta release contains a preview of new multitasking gestures for iPad. You can use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen, swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar, and swipe left or right between apps. This feature will not be enabled in iOS 4.3 for customers, but we are providing this preview to gather input on how these gestures work with your apps

This is a crying shame, as these cool-looking gestures were the one thing I was looking forward to in iOS 4.3. The other new features – streaming video from third party apps to AppleTV and iAd full-screen banners are fine, but they won’t improve everyday iPad usage. Still, the wording makes it sound like we may still get it in a future release.

Photo: Jon Snyder / Wired.com

iOS and OS X developer page [Apple]

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Jan 19

AirView Turns iPhone, iPad into AirPlay Receiver

Posted in: airplay, Apple, ios, ipad, iPhone, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili, video

AirView is a free iOS app that lets you send video wirelessly between iOS devices, and from iTunes to iPhones and iPads.

The app does this by tapping into Apple’s AirPlay, the technology introduced in iOS 4.2 that lets you send music and movies from your iPhone to compatible devices. Up until now, “compatible devices” has meant either the AirPort Express router, the AppleTV v2 and a handful of third-party stereos.

Run the AirView app on any iOS device and it will then show up on your Wi-Fi network as a new destination for video, just like any other, and you’ll be able to choose it in the pop up list in iTunes or another iOS device. This lets you stream from iTunes to an iPad (previously impossible), or to send a movie from your iPhone to your friend’s iPad when you go visit.

It works perfectly in testing, with one big caveat: the app is for video-only. You can’t stream audio (although movie audio is transmitted, of course). This means you can’t use an old, broken iPod Touch as a makeshift AirPort Express. Not yet, anyway.

It’s worth grabbing this one now, as you never know when you may need it, it’s free, and it’s only 400k in size.

Also worth a mention is AirFoil, a well-established Mac (and now Windows) application from Rogue Amoeba which lets you stream any audio from a Mac (not just from iTunes) to an Airport Express or iOS device. That costs $25.

AirView product page [iTunes]

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Jan 18

Hands-On with ReadPad for iPad: Better Than Reeder?

Posted in: apps, ipad, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

There are three kinds of RSS reader in for the iPad. The first mimics desktop readers and can be powerful (NewsRack) or abandon-ware (NetNewsWire). The second uses RSS, but keeps it a secret (Flipboard). The third category comprises apps which exploit the touch capabilities of the iPad, of which probably the best example is Reeder.

ReadPad is in this last category, and is the only one I haven’t deleted after a day (for the record, Reeder is the RSS app I use daily). Like most RSS readers, it syncs with Google Reader, making it easy to try out (just sign in with your Google ID). ReadPad’s publicity blurb says that it is “beautiful,” “download[s] articles like a wind” (sic), and that reading on it is a joy.

And that’s mostly true. After an initial sync, subsequent updates are fast. Reeder-fast, in fact (and Reeder is just about the quickest reader I have used). With both already synced, a new refresh took 20-seconds for ReadPad, and 26-seconds for Reeder.

“Beautiful” is always a subjective judgement, but as I’m a sucker for simple, elegant interfaces I’ll agree with the developer, George, on this one too. The interface is dark-on-light, reversing to light-on-dark for the article view. When in held horizontally, the source-list is on the left. Tap a title to see all the articles in that “folder”, and tap the circle next to the title to expand that folder and see the feed titles within.

Then just tap a title to read that article. You can scroll to the next post in a list by pulling the current article up, and the new one then snaps in from below (just like in Reeder). To see the articles list again, swipe the main page either left or right to reveal the list beneath.

Sharing options are many. You get Instapaper, Twitter,Facebook, Delicious, Pinboard, Read It Later. Tumblr, Google Reader (of course) and email. Only those that you have configured show up, keeping the menu free from clutter (unless you use them all, of course, in which case you’re on your own).

The speed and ease of reading actually makes the interface disappear, and I find myself liking this almost as much as Reeder. In fact, if ReadPad had come along first, it would probably be my daily RSS client. As it is, I am too used to the utility of Reeder’s big thumbnail/icon view to change now, but you never know.

As it stands, this is a very strong (and so far very stable) v1.0 release, and the only way to pick between it and Reeder is to try them. Both are competent and full-featured. Your taste will decide. $5.

ReadPad product page [iTunes]

ReadPad product page [geeTouch]

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Jan 13

What We Know About Honeycomb, the Android for Tablets

Posted in: Android, Google, honeycomb, palm, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili, ui

A leaked preview of upcoming Android 3.0 release (aka Honeycomb) dropped last week on the Android developers’ YouTube channel. We certainly noticed, and of course the scrutiny of the drastically different UI began shortly thereafter.

Google’s official preview video (above) provides us with the most in-depth look we’ve seen of the OS since Google’s VP of engineering Andy Rubin gave us a sneak peek of it in December. It’s too preliminary to make any absolute judgments, but from what little we’ve gleaned from the video, there are a number of pretty big changes. It’s a complete interface makeover.

The most notable change is Google’s emphasis on Honeycomb being “built entirely for tablets,” rather than a scaled-up version of an existing, smartphone-optimized Android OS release.

After Apple’s runaway success with its 2010 debut of the iPad, expectations on tablet offerings from competing companies in 2011 have been high. And at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, there was certainly no dearth of new tablet debuts. Estimates of the number of new tablets showcased at CES ranged in the 50s to the 80s. From what we understand, the Honeycomb operating system has been designed to take advantage of the tablet shape in particular.

What hasn’t been made clear yet, however, is whether or not Honeycomb will be a tablet-exclusive version, or whether it will also be available for phones.

Android UI director Matias Duarte speaks to the issue, however effusively, in an interview with Engadget: “What you see in Honeycomb is absolutely the direction for Android,” Duarte says when directly asked about portability.

It’s a non-answer, and I doubt we’ll know more until closer to the time that “Ice Cream,” Honeycomb’s eventual successor, is released.

From what we can see in the new video, Duarte’s influence on the new UI is palpable. He came to Google in May from HP-owned Palm, where he developed the webOS interface for Palm devices, seen below:

Duarte’s scrollable page widgets from the webOS interface above are reminiscent of those seen on Honeycomb in the recent video from Google:

The Rubin demo screen shot and the screen above grab from Google’s leaked video share the same minimalist aesthetic, even more so than “Froyo” version 2.2 seen on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab (an OS which Duarte had no part in creating).

Surface area is obviously greater when moving from a 4-inch smartphone screen to that of a 10-inch tablet, and the scrollable Gmail, calendar and browser bookmark widgets sitting side-by-side simultaneously make good use of the increase in screen size.

Another stark difference: the complete lack of physical buttons on the device itself. “With Honeycomb,” says Duarte in the Engadget interview, “you don’t need to have physical buttons.” Note their complete absence in the wide shot of the Xoom:

Instead, physical navigational buttons have been replaced with on-screen versions of themselves, as seen in the arrows in the Xoom’s bottom left-hand corner, while the full app menu is still accessible in the upper right-hand corner:

But manufacturers aren’t beholden to buttonless devices. “Our partners can take that and do what they want with it,” Duarte says in the Engadget interview. “If somebody feels that, for their application, physical buttons are absolutely the right thing to do? Great. They can do that.”

Other app demos in the video seemed relatively straightforward, with heavier emphasis on their tablet application. Google Books leverages the tablet’s shape for page-turning and reading purposes, much like opening an iBook on the iPad. Gmail interactivity remains similar to its “Gingerbread” application — scrollable inbox, no-frills white-and-gray color scheme — but is now separated into two columns for navigability’s sake.

Google isn’t saying much about Honeycomb, outside of what’s been shown in the video, and after recent rumors circulating about the release of Honeycomb successor-to-be Ice Cream, it’s doubtful that the company will begin to talk until it’s good and ready.

Until then, our eyes will be glued to YouTube for the next leak.

Photos: Courtesy of Motorola and Palm


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Jan 13

Google Translate Adds Live Speech Translation to Android

Posted in: Android, Google, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

Google has just just added a little bit of Star Trek to Android. An update to the Google Translate app adds “Conversation Mode”, which acts a lot like the universal translator from the TV show.

In Conversation Mode you speak into your phone, Google translates your words into the language of your choice, and then the phone reads out the results in a pleasant robot voice. Here’s a demo of a prototype version recorded a few months ago:

It’s not perfect, but it’s impressive nonetheless. The app will translate from 15 languages, and output the results in any of 53 languages. And there’s good news for owners of older phones: Google Translate works on Android 2.1 and better.

It probably won’t replace a little bit of study before you go on vacation, but as most native English-speakers seems morally opposed to learning another language, it certainly won’t hurt.

A new look for Google Translate for Android [Google Blog]

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Jan 11

Rumor: Android ‘Ice Cream’ to Debut Summer 2011

Posted in: Android, Google, Miscellaneous, rumor, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

Open source software enthusiasts might see another version of Android as soon as this summer.

A new Android OS version, codenamed Ice Cream, is scheduled for a release some time in June or July says Pocket-lint, citing “multiple sources familiar with the matter.” Pocket-lint’s sources say Google will announce Ice Cream at its I/O developer conference this May in San Francisco.

News of Ice Cream’s speculated launch date comes shortly after posts from the same site yesterday, which claimed that one of SonyEricsson’s Xperia Arc smartphones shown at CES appeared to be running a new version of Android. That tip was based on a picture taken of one of the phone’s sub-menus that displayed the Android version number as 2.4. The latest official Android OS release is Gingerbread, version 2.3.

“We are launching with Gingerbread for the Xperia Arc,” SonyEricsson Head of Marketing Peter Farmer told Wired.com in an e-mail. “Nothing has been announced to date on anything beyond that.” SonyEricsson employee Rikard Skogberg expounds on this in the company’s product blog, citing the number error as a “misconfiguration in some samples” and “nothing to get too excited about.”

Pocket-lint’s sources and rumors are yet to be substantiated. The timing of the supposed release date, however, seems to fall in line with Google’s staggered, two-to-three Android product launches per year.

Confused about Cupcake, Gingerbread and Ice Cream? The table below gives an idea of past Android releases.

  • Version
  • Release Date
  • Notable Features
  • Android 1.5 “Cupcake”
  • April 30, 2009
  • Video recording and playback, new keyboard with autocomplete,
    Bluetooth A2DP support, enhanced copy and paste
  • Android 1.6 “Donut”
  • September 15, 2009
  • Improved Android Market, updated Voice Search, enhanced search,
    speed improvements
  • Android 2.0 “Eclair”
  • October 26, 2009
  • Revamped user interface, turn-by-turn driving directions, HTML5
    support, Microsoft Exchange support, Bluetooth 2.1, Live Wallpapers,
    speed improvements
  • Android 2.2 “Froyo”
  • May 20, 2010
  • USB tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot capability, Adobe Flash 10.1 support, voice dialing
  • Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”
  • December 6, 2010
  • NFC support, updated UI, supports larger screen sizes and resolutions, download manager for longer downloads

Although no specific details have been given on any upcoming product debuts, Ice Cream predecessor Honeycomb is anticipated to appear sometime in the spring, accompanying the Motorola’s Xoom tablet launch. Honeycomb will run on that device.

Photo: sociotard/Flickr

[via Pocket-lint]


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