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Apple’s long rumored camera-equipped iPod touch may have a more definite release window, according to a purported source. A contact insists the device is back on track and that it would unusually launch outside of Apple’s typical upgrade cycle, releasing in spring 2010. To make that goal, however, Apple would use the same 2-megapixel camera as in the…
Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Holidays, App Store, App Review
My wife and I are unabashed Disneyphiles, so the last two months have been a lot of fun. After my wife taught a tutorial in L.A. last month, we spent a few days at the West Coast properties — Disneyland and California Adventure. This month, we had some Disney Vacation Club points left over, so we spent five days at our “home” resort near Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
I thought these trips would be a perfect opportunity to try out some of the many travel apps that have sprung up for the iPhone, all of which purport to be the solution to all of your Disney dining, lodging, and theme park information needs. As with any genre of app, there are a mixture of good and bad apps available. Since the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is generally a big time to visit the parks, here’s a quick tour of a few of the apps that my wife and I used on our trips so you can load up your iPhone if you’re going to visit The Mouse over the holidays.
Continue reading Mousing around: A review of Disney theme park iPhone apps
TUAWMousing around: A review of Disney theme park iPhone apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple owners claim that their Applecare warranties have been refused due to “health risks of second hand smoke.”
There will be two cameras in it, and an option to mount it on the dashboard of your car when one camera will serve as a back-up camera, an option present in many high end automotive GPS systems. And it will come with apps to show you what your new haircut will look like. Insert giggle sound effect here.
Books will be sold by the chapter instead of by the book, which sounds odd to me but does seem to go along with the iTunes concept of buying individual TV episodes or songs.
My first and primary thought is that T This article is a hoax. The only reason I’m telling you about it is that it came from the Huffington Post which, in my experience, doesn’t print many rumors and their fact checking has usually been excellent. Also their humor is a little bit… arch.
However, this does seem HIGHLY suspect. Why would Apple give the Huff Post one and no tech venues? And a 10″ phone? Really? It’s beyond suspect. It’s just not all that funny.
Take a gander at Mr. Sinden’s post and tell us what you think. Could this be real? No. The consensus of the TUAW crowd around the water cooler says it’s somewhere between parody and satire.
Thanks to Stuart Carnie for sending this in.
TUAWThe Huffington Post has seen the iTablet… not! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google’s Android is working to match the iPhone App Store’s mobile software market but with fewer restrictions for developers. This article is the fourth in a series examining how Android stacks up in comparison to the iPhone as a smartphone software platform, with this segment looking at third party support.
What if you have to buy Christmas gifts for parents, brothers, husband, sister, children, aunt, uncle and who else more but you have only particular amount of money. You must handle the challenge and be organized while shopping. In addition, you should…
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, App Store
Software. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a Mac or for an iPhone. There are certain qualities we just love, that make an app really stand out to us. As a rough approximation, we call it “Attention to Detail” but there’s a lot more going on than just looking at tiny details. It’s about understanding the user, what he or she wants from the app and needs it to do and how the realities of being humans with weak eyes, large fingers, and bad memory affect the way software gets designed. I asked my TUAW colleagues to share their thoughts on what makes a good app.
Brett Terpstra loves apps that are designed with a unique look but that use familiar controls. As a design philosophy, his ideal applications are both easy to use and fun to look at. Delicious, if you will. Cookie-cutter app elements may be great for prototyping an application’s infrastructure but to him an app that really stands out has a unique visual voice.
He really loves Tweetie 2’s ability to refresh your Twitter stream by scrolling to the top (with a tap on the title bar, of course), then pulling down and letting go. It’s non-standard, but so intuitive that it should be. That’s the kind of attention to detail that makes him feel warm inside.
For me, it’s all about putting yourself into the mindset of the user. Were features put in place because they need to be there or because the developer thought it would be cool? Is the developer really understanding how real people might use the app? Take the iPhone. Is there a switch that lets you disable autorotation when you’re using a game while lying on a couch or in bed? Because that’s how real users use real games. And if the developer hasn’t thought about details like this, they haven’t hit that design sweet spot of matching real world needs against programming limitations.
Chris Rawson loves well-designed icons. They should give you some indication of what the app does, so you can launch it with barely a glance. Want to use multi-touch controls? Make sure those controls are intuitive and that they provide an innovative use of the technology. In his opinion, Convertbot is a great example.
Remembering already-set preferences is another hobbyhorse. Take iPhone apps that connect with the Mac over Wi-Fi for example. A brain-dead simple initial setup should be followed by only needing to push a single button (if that) to connect on all subsequent connections. And as for a finishing touch, he feels that well-polished graphics shouldn’t look like something squeezed out over a single afternoon by someone with no artistic skill whatsoever.
Well designed, easy to follow instructions are key for David Winograd. In the best of all possible worlds those instructions should even include user interaction, whether via Q&A or by modeling, to make sure the key points get through to the user. In his opinion, Irene’s Spirit has the best tutorial he’s ever seen in an iPhone app. If the app were as good as the tutorial, the world would probably implode.
These are just a few key points from our team. Add yours to the comments below. What are the key elements that make an application, whether for Mac or iPhone or any other platform, shine for you?
TUAWAttention to Detail: What we love in an app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, Bugs/Recalls, Troubleshooting, Snow Leopard
I have a couple of Gmail accounts set up with Google Apps, so that Google is hosting my email using my own domain names. While those accounts have been working flawlessly for quite a while, I suddenly ran into issues a few days ago where Apple Mail couldn’t pull email from the server. I could use the Gmail Web client and access the email, but using Mail or my iPhone, I’d get an error.
Both Mail and the iPhone initially reported that either my password or username was incorrect, but after restarting my MacBook Air, the message changed to what you see above. While I had been sending some large files through email last week, I wasn’t using anywhere close to the 2 or so GB per day of bandwidth that Google allows.
A quick search revealed that there’s a known bug where accounts are locked out for exceeding IMAP bandwidth limits when using Apple Mail under Snow Leopard. To quote Google’s support page,
This is a known issue for users of Apple Mail on the Snow Leopard OS. We are working with Apple on a resolution to the issue. In the meantime, there are a few workarounds to reduce the likelihood of hitting the bandwidth limit:
- Do not sync attachments.
- Reduce the number of folders you sync by using the Advanced IMAP Controls tab in Gmail.
- Close your email client when you are not using it.
For my business, I keep my email client up and running most of the day, so the third workaround was not an option. Syncing attachments is easy to turn off in Apple Mail Preferences for Gmail IMAP accounts by selecting “All messages, but omit attachments” under “Keep copies of messages for offline viewing” on the Advanced tab, but it didn’t resolve the problem.
I fortuitously noticed that my MacBook Air seemed to be losing a lot of disk space, and searching the ~/Library/Mail folder indicated that the issue seemed to be in the “Recovered Items” Inbox for this Gmail account — something I didn’t even know existed! It was taking up a whopping 18.66 GB of space, so I went into Mail and deleted the “Recovered Items” inbox.
While this didn’t fix the issue immediately, it did eventually allow the account to come back on line with no problems. All told, I was without Mail.app and iPhone access to the account for four days, but at least I could check my Web mail occasionally to see what was coming into the Gmail account.
If you’re running Snow Leopard and get bit by the “bandwidth bug” with a Gmail account, I hope that this tip can help you out.
TUAWGetting bit by the Gmail “exceeded IMAP bandwidth limits” bug originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
