Gestures - page 2

Notifications on the iPhone can be annoying. Right? They drop at inappropriate times, and I always end up accidentally activating them. Of course, my iPhone is more than happy to hop over to the application that sent the Notification in the first place. There are, however, a couple of cool ways of dismissing them without activating them, short of waiting for them to go away, which is what I’ve done since they appeared in iOS 5. Today’s tip shows you how.

Using map apps on the iPhone can be a pain when you’re trying to zoom in to check out some specific detail of where you’re going.

Usually you have to use one hand to hold your iPhone and the other to pinch and zoom, but Google just made an awesome new zooming gesture that only requires one hand and one finger. 

It’s not every day that a Mac accessory comes along and promises to give you superpowers, but that’s just what Thalmic Labs is promising with their innovative new armband today. Called the MYO, it’s a Bluetooth-enabled device that allows you to control your Mac, just by flexing your muscles.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Earlier today we posted a snippet about the Mauz dongle, and how it can turn your iPhone into a remote that can control your desktop through gestures, through either waving your iPhone around, or waving your hand over it. Now the Israeli-designed device has hit Kickstarter, with a funding goal of $150,000.

This is Dolphin. It’s a neat web browser for iPhone. You could easily be forgiven for saying: “What’s the point of having an extra browser? Mobile Safari does everything I need.”

Which is true. Safari does everything you need. But try Dolphin for just a few minutes, and you’ll discover a browser that does everything you need but in a totally different way. A way that’s much better suited to using on your phone while you’re moving around.

I’ve been messing about with this new app, called Listen, on my iPhone 5 for a little while, after the developer hit me up on Twitter about it. Now, I’m not able to jump on on every app, Mac or iOS, that someone asks me to look at, but I gave this one a look-see. Turns out, it’s a pretty neat little app, which does exactly what its name says it does.

The new Notification Center in OS X Lion is pretty cool, you gotta admit. It really integrates the notifications from your iPhone, iPad, and various Macs you might use during the day into one place.

While on a Mac, whether desktop or laptop, you can click on the Notification icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen, causing the whole display to shift to the left, and the dark linen background of Notification Center shows up on the right. There isn’t a keyboard shortcut to make this happen, but we’ve got two different ways you can activate it, even still.

This replica is probably the closest you’ll ever get to having a real Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver. What does it have to do with Apple, you ask? After all, this is the Cult of Mac.

The Screwdriver is also a universal remote, which means that it will not only control your TV and VHS VCR, but also you Apple TV and – via the Universal Dock – your iPhone or iPod.

When you think of calculator apps, great innovations don’t usually come to mind. Most calculators function the same way, by punching in numbers on little keys. Rechner Calculator (Rechner meaning calculator in German) hopes to change that. This new application, available for $0.99 on the App Store, is the first of its kind to use gestures for operation.

Remember SlideWriter, the innovative iPad text editor that turned one impressive keyboard concept into a real app, which we told you about back in May? Today it’s finally available to download from the App Store for just $0.99 for a limited time.

Clear, the hugely popular to-do list management app from Realmac Software, has received its first major update since hitting the App Store back in February. Version 1.1 brings new themes, new gestures and new features, in addition to a whole host of tweaks and fixes that make Clear even more of a joy to use.

A new jailbreak tweak called Stride brings better-than-Android-like gestures to your iOS lock screen. Developed by talented App Store and jailbreak developer Adam Bell, Stride costs $3 in Cydia. Gone are the boring days of the ‘slide to unlock’ bar. Now you can unlock your jailbroken iPhone with a pre-set gesture of your choice! And boy does it look sweet.

IPhoto for iPad is pretty amazing and, like most of Apple’s iApps, much of the functionality is hidden away like the sweet, sweet meat of a walnut hidden inside its shell. Much of the app is gesture based and, while many actions have menu-driven alternatives, some tricks are gesture-only. Here’s a long list of ways that you can navigate and control iPhoto, using just swipes, taps, twists and pinches.

Once you’ve downloaded Better Touch Tool and started to explore what it has to offer, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – Hundreds of tech journalists are huddled in the Galileo Showroom at the Venetian Casino this morning to hear the latest from Intel, and surprise surprise, Intel wants to talk about ultrabooks… the ultra-slim laptop form factor that the whole PC making industry is hoping will save them from being eaten at both ends by the iPad and MacBook Air.

Unfortunately, after all is said and done, most of what Intel had to offer to PC makers were a grab bag of gimmicks.

Henry D. is an awesome boy hacker out of the UK, and this video of him “pwning” a local Apple Store is just too cute and funny for words.

If your Mac has a multitouch trackpad, there’s a simple but amazing tweak you can make that could revolutionize the way you use your computer.

There’s a secret gesture you can use with Mac multitouch trackpads that lets you double-tap with four fingers to switch back to the most recently used desktop space in OS X Lion (although not previous versions of OS X).

If you use your iPhone or iPad in a speaker dock, you’ll understand that the ability to control it from across the room would be just awesome. Apple may already be working on a solution, according to one of the company’s patent applications, which suggests future Macs and iOS devices could be controlled from afar using special gestures.

iOS 5 includes a handy new feature that allows you to create your own custom multi-touch gestures. Although dubbed as an accessibility feature, it serves a larger function that that. In this video, I’ll show you how to create custom gestures, and use them to your benefit.

OS X Lion includes a plethora of new gestures to enhance the user experience. While the majority of these gestures are based around the trackpad, the Magic Mouse still has more than a few new gestures. In this video, I’ll show you how you can use Lion’s new gestures to make the most of your Magic Mouse.

Earlier today, we told you that Apple was looking to discontinue the Magic Mouse in favor for the Magic Trackpad. This report was based off an inside source confirming that Apple was phasing out the Magic Mouse’s part number from its inventory.

Our source in Apple inventory has followed up with us, and it appears that Apple has instead discontinued the Magic Mouse’s old part number in favor for a new one. This move may indicate an update to the Magic Mouse, with the most logical prediction being better integration with advanced gestures in OS X Lion.

Apple’s new OS X Lion operating system has been available for just under two days now, and continues to bathe in a multitude of positive reviews. However, not all of its one million new users are enjoying their new purchase, and have discovered a number of new gestures that the majority of us may never stumble upon.

Here are a few Lion gestures that Apple doesn’t tell you about…

The list of products flying out of Cupertino today continues to grow. Safari 5.1 is now available to download and introduces full screen mode, new multi-touch gestures, Reading List, and a whole lot more.

If you have an iPad (any model) running iOS 4.3 then you can easily add additional four or five-finger multi-touch gestures to your iPad. It will take only a few minutes and you don’t have to jailbreak your iPad to get them.

The only requirement is that you’ll need a copy of Xcode 4 and if you don’t already have a copy you can purchase it for $4.99 in the Mac OS X App Store. Registered Mac OS X or iOS developers in the paid development programs for either operating system can download a copy of Xcode 4 at developer.apple.com after logging in with their developer credentials.

However, you don’t need a developer account to activate these gestures either — at least for the time being. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple changes this later.

If you are using Windows you are out of luck that is unless you can find a friend with a Mac to help you out. Xcode doesn’t run on Windows.

Here are the steps.