News - page 2044

For almost twenty years now, Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software has been toiling away, a lone developer who has single-handedly produced a library of old-school RPGs that contains over fifteen separate games.

To put the scope of Vogel’s prolificness in perspective, imagine if Richard Garriott had made the entire Ultima series by his lonesome and you’ll have an idea of the creativity and single-mindedness on display here: Vogel has collectively put together thousands of hours of some of the most intricately written and smartly crafted RPGs in computer gaming history at a pace that would give some of the biggest game design houses a permanent case of creative whiplash.

Vogel’s most recent and popular games have long been available for the Mac, but his latest title, Avadon: The Black Fortress, marks development for an entirely new platform: the iPad. It’s worth getting excited for.

Every day, there’s another app bundle, and sometimes it seems like each is more forgettable than the last. Code Canyon’s Freelance Mac App Bundle is a wonderful exception: it’s the first app bundle we’ve seen in ages worth getting excited about.

Although Apple still sells a white model, the piano black plastic MacBook is much missed. It might be Back to Black time for the MacBook line, though, as several anonymous sources are now reporting that the Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge equipped MacBook Air could get a black anodized aluminum finish when it lands in July.

While you can hardly blame Microsoft entirely for this one, you’d think they’d at least notice that the featured Dictionary application on their official Windows Phone page had stolen its icon wholesale from the competition. Could we get a slow clap, please?

[via Craig Hockenberry’s Twitter]

When can you expect iOS 5 to drop on your iPhone? September’s a given, but the latest rumor gives an exact date that all the ripples of the iCloud will come to your device… along with the iPhone 5.

Ever since the first iPhone, bloggers and pundits have wondered what it would be like if Apple actually baked an iOS emulator into a future version of OS X that supported multitouch displays. Something Dashboard-like, called up with a function key press. I bet it would look something like this.

Many companies have stared Apple in the eye over Cupertino’s App Store ultimatum to ban links to out-of-app purchases by June 30th. Now the first one to blink is the streaming video subscription service, Hulu.

Adobe just released an update to its Flash Builder and Flex development tools, and for the first time developers can use the programs to create apps for distribution through the App Store for iOS devices. But are cross-platform Flash apps on the iPhone and the iPad really a good idea?

Are you looking for some good news about on-the-ropes RIM, battered and bruised by Apple’s iPhone and iPad one-two punch? Keep looking. Wall Street’s all but ready to throw in the towel on the punch drunk Blackberry maker.

Noterize, the popular note-taking app for the iPad mysteriously vanished from the App Store recently, with no indication of the reason for its disappearance. However, news that a takeover by voice technology company Nuance may be to blame, and could spell exciting things to come for voice recognition in iOS 5.

Turns out, creating a tablet that sells like an iPad is simple: just make it look and feel just like Apple’s device. Yes, you might run into the knee-crackers from Cupertino’s legal department, but you’re guaranteed a winner.

As we await the launch of iOS 5, jailbreak developers are creating new tweaks for the existing iOS 4 software that aims to provide us with a taste of the goodies we’ll be getting our hands on this fall. The latest is CameraLock — a great little utility that introduces a camera button to your lock screen.

Apple’s Mac Pro and Mac mini family of desktop computers are still patiently awaiting their Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt upgrades… but CNET’s Brian Tong has received word that a refresh for these machines isn’t too far away.

In an effort to compete with Apple’s latest Back to School promotion, Best Buy has launched a more attractive promo of its own that will see the retailer throw in a free $100 Best Buy gift card when customers purchase a qualifying Mac.

In an effort to deter the freeloaders who have been accessing the New York Post for free on their iPad through the NYPost.com website, the company has now blocked mobile Safari — directing readers to the subscription-only iPad app instead.

I guess the PC dad lets the kid crash to the ground?

David Schwen’s motto is “make something cool every day”. In some cases what’s past is present, as shown in this clever series of composite photographs of the classic Macintosh generic file icon out on the town in a variety of locations. Seen here emulating a parking ticket (but without the bright orange paper).

You’ve no doubt seen this post suggesting that Apple could use its $70 billion in cash to buy the entire mobile phone industry. The idea is worth a chuckle, but buying the phone handset industry is neither desirable nor possible. Apple doesn’t want to sell Nokia phones, and regulators wouldn’t let the company buy, then close, all its competition.

No, instead Apple should use its billions to take over Hollywood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFFkK2SmPg4&feature=player_embedded

Here’s Apple’s latest TV ad for the iPad, entitled, ‘Now.’

Now, we can watch a newspaper. Listen to a magazine. Curl up with a movie, and see a phone call.

Now, we can take a classroom anywhere. Hold an entire bookstore. And touch the stars.

Because now, there’s this… [cue iPad 2].

Whose voice is that?

Got an idea for a killer app? Consider huddling up for a weekend hackathon with designers and developers at iOSDev Camp 2011.

When American Airlines announced that they were planning on phasing out the paper in-flight charts in the cockpit in favor of the iPad, some of us smelled a PR maneuver. How could a couple of breakable $500 tablets in each plane be cheaper or easier than just printing out some maps?

As it turns out, though, paper’s heavy… and merely by switching to the iPad in every plane, American Airlines could save up to $1.2 million every year in fuel costs alone.

Apple might not have more money than God (yet), but come the end of this quarter, they are likely to have so much cash flowing from their coffers that, if they had a mind to, they could buy the entire mobile phone industry.

The most impressive ebooks on the iPad aren’t ebooks at all, but dedicated iOS apps. With the power of HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and ePUB3, though, there’s no reason that has to be the case at all: you can put together a truly interactive, animated ebook right within iBooks.

Check out this awesome look at the iBook put together by Walrus Books for the upcoming Lovecraftian tome Kadath: The Guide To The Unknown City. Not only does it feature interactive maps, embedded fonts, integrated pop-ups and more, but it even has its own in-book meta game and version of in-app purchases.

This is super cool. I wish we saw more iBooks like this, but unfortunately, it seems like most publishers design their ebooks for the lowest common denominator platform — the Kindle.

Here’s the bad news: Apple only owns 10% of all video sales, handily beaten by the likes of YouTube, Amazon and Netflix. The good news? If someone’s watching online video, chances are they’re doing it on an iPhone, iPad or Apple TV.

The news that the BBC would be creating a new iPhone app to beam stories live spread faster than an Internet hoax.

One small problem: that’s not exactly what the venerable news organization plans to do.