Remember Word Lens, the jaw-dropping iOS Babelfish that allowed you to just point your iPhone at a sign in Spanish and turning it into English (and vice-versa?)
Well, if you’ve got an iPad 2, good news: your camera-equipped tablet is now fully supported in the latest version of the free app.
Of course, “free” should be surrounded by insidious quotes, because in reality, there’s nothing free about Word Lens. You can download it for free, sure, but the app does nothing without buying either the Spanish to English or English to Spanish modules as an in-app purchase… each of which costs $9.99.
Word Lens is still one of the biggest jaw-dropper programs on the App Store, though. If you’ve got an iPad 2 and are just itching to show someone what it can do, picking up Word Lens for free $9.99 is a choice option.
If you haven’t scored your iPad 2 yet, and are also looking for some sporty wheels, high-end Mercedes-Benz customizer Brabus has the package for you. Updating their iBusiness package that we reported on last year, the new version modernizes hardware and ups the specs for this next (fast) lap around the sun.
The iBusiness 2.0 package is available for all S-class models. A pair of iPad 2s on adjustable keyboard trays are installed front and center (in the rear seats). These are married to a trunk-mounted Mac mini with internet access and a 15″ widescreen display – in addition to the seatback headrest displays! Videoconferencing, in-flight television and passenger control of many vehicle functions are possible. A 64GB iPod Classic helps keep your tunes accessible, and WiFi and USB link it all together.
The demo model isn’t too shabby in the automotive department either: the Brabus 800 iBusiness 2.0 is housed in a Mecerdes S600 sedan that has 788 horsepower, goes 0-62mph in 3.9 seconds, and comes with rear privacy curtains and an optional Yachting wood trim package. Sweet.
Considering how much time I would spend in this car, there seem to be a shortage of cupholders…
It’s sitting on my iPad just waiting for some playtime, but I picked up Forget-Me-Not by Nyarlu Labs by dint of this wonderfully pithy description courtesy of Touch Arcade: “the magical lovechild of Pac-Man and Rogue.”
I’m a huge fan of rogue-likes, but coming from a heritage of text input and computer terminals, their input mechanisms tend to be too complicated to translate to iOS.
That’s why I love the look of the approach taken here. Rogue-likes are traditionally RPGs at heart, but by marrying the spirit of Rogue — random levels, malevolent difficulty and permadeath — with the arcade trappings of Pac-Man, Naryu Labs appear to have created some sort of endlessly replayable Pac-Rogue mutation, in which your simplistic avatar explored ever-changing mazes, killing ghosts and collecting flowers, fruit and keys.
Very neat. Forget-Me-Not is a universal app and available on the App Store now for just $1.99.
Right now, if your iPhone runs out of juice, your only option is to slap in a third-party battery pack or rush to the nearest USB outlet. In the future, though, you might be able to just lay it out in the sun to soak up some rays, thanks to a prototype solar panel that is completely transparent and thin enough to work with touchscreens.n
The solar panel is made by a French company, and was spotted by Mark Spoonauer over at Laptop Magazine. The layer is only 100 microns deep, yet photosensitive enough to fully juice your iPhone after laying in the sun for just six hours. It’s makers, Wysips, wants to work with Gorilla Glass to integrate the film directly into future glass panels for handsets like the iPhone 4.
I still think it’s unlikely that Apple would ever recommend you lay your iPhone out in direct sunlight when it’s running out of juice, but Cupertino’s certainly toyed with the idea: back in June, we examined a patent for a solar-powered iPhone with invisible collection cells that seems to be forecasting the creation of just such a solar-charging touchscreen.
A small company called Robocast seems to be making a bit of a cash grab against Apple in a new patent infringement lawsuit, as the former claims that Cupertino has ripped off their automated browsing technology in iTunes, Apple TV and Front Row.
It looks like Apple has responded to the outcry over an app from Christian group Exodus International aimed at “homosexual strugglers” by removing it from iTunes.
Some 145,000 people signed an online petition demanding it be removed. (That’s the entire population of Pasadena, California, Rochester, England or Beihei, China).
The real issue: Apple has no coherent policy about what kind of content gets approved and remains in iTunes.
Apple has not yet released a statement about why it yanked the app, which had been available since February 15 and marked 4+ for containing no objectionable content.
Our obsessive checking for it just showed that poof! The Exodus International app was no more.
There’s nothing about it in Apple’s online press room, though it is likely a spokesperson will issue some kind of statement when reporters start ringing tomorrow — since they took the app out after close of business today here in California. (We’ve also put in another request for comment.)
As of this writing, Exodus’ site still has a prominent front page splash for the app and gay rights group Truth Wins Out hasn’t updated the poll with the news, either.
Does that means Apple has pulled the app, like more than 140,000 customers have asked? It’s hard to tell; Apple hasn’t issued an official statement yet. Until they do, it’s important that we keep up the pressure, so that Apple hears loud and clear that “ex-gay” therapy deserve no place in the App Store.
The iPhone 4 integrates an LED flash into the 5MP camera’s lens, but it’s neither big nor particularly bright. Enter the iFlash, a little dongle that snaps onto your iPhone’s Dock Connector and triggers when you take a picture.
Except to what end? The idea here is to supplement your iPhone 4’s LED flash with something beefier, like the way you can buy an external flash for an SLR camera. The problem is that those latter types of strobe have a lot more capability than the iFlash, not least of which is the ability to bounce the flash off of a wall or a ceiling, resulting in a more natural shot.
If you’re taking a picture with your iPhone 4 and the built-in flash isn’t resulting in an attractive image, the iFlash isn’t likely to improve matters. If you really just want to turn every single person at the dance club into a pale-skinned, red-eyed vampire next time you’re out, though, the iFlash is attainable for £19.99.
The venerable iPod Classic hasn’t been update since September 2009, and even that was a negligible update to the last model, the sixth-generation iPod debuting in 2007. The long gap, coupled with Apple’s increasing focus on their iOS devices, have prompted some to ask if we’d see the discontinuation of the iPod Classic sometime soon… especially as it looks increasingly likely that the next iPod Touch might come with as much as 128GB of flash storage.
If you love the iPod Classic, though, don’t pay the morbid speculation any mind. Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself has weighed in upon the matter, writing a (nearly hysterical) MacRumors reader and saying that they have “no plans” to kill off the iPod Classic.
Honestly, that sort of relieves me. It’s easy to look at the iPod Classic as antiquated tech, but I like to think of it like a samurai sword, razor-keen and honed to perfection after countless foldings. That it doesn’t have the same functionality as a ray gun doesn’t make a samurai sword obsolete, it just makes it less flashy, more focused and subtle.
The iPod Classic is aimed at exactly one kind of person: the guy who wants to have his entire music collection in his pocket at all times. As music file sizes get larger, as digital music collections grow, there’s always going to be someone for whom the iPod Touch just doesn’t cut it. Apple always wants to be able to sell those guys an iPod. They’re the guys who built the brand to begin with.
Updates galore! Hot on the heels of the Snow Leopard 10.6.7 update yesterday, a fresh new update to Apple’s Aperture is also now ready for your installing pleasure via Software Update.
I don’t really know much about Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP except what the guys over at Touch Arcade have written about it here. I know it’s an iPad game with a title that is phonetically spelled like a slight speech impediment. I know it features a cigar smoking protagonist named the Archetype, a protagonist called The Scythian, and supporting characters named Girl, Logfella and Dogfella. I know it’s due out Thursday. And that’s about it.
What else do you need to know, though, that isn’t conveyed in the mystifying, absorbing and utterly gorgeous trailer above? Look at the style of it: simplistic, abstract pixel art brought to life by ultra-realistic, fluid-like motions. Something about it reminds me of Another World. I can’t wait.
Two and half years after the last major version, Mozilla has finally released Firefox 4 for Mac, PC and Linux, bringing dramatic speed and performance enhancements, improved HTML5 support, increased customizability, improved security, a while new interface and cross-platform syncing features to the world’s second most popular browser.
Even though it has taken more than two years for Firefox 4 to creep out the door, Firefox 5 should be coming relatively soon: Mozilla has said that they want to release Firefox 4, 5, 6 and 7 by the end of 2011 as they adopt a more Chrome-like rapid release schedule.
The impetus to catch up in version numbers with the likes of Internet Explorer, Chrome, Opera and Safari are doubtlessly part of it, too: although Firefox is about as advanced as any other browser on the market, the lower version number risks the perception of being less advanced. If you knew nothing about web standards and security, which browser would you pick: Chrome 10, Internet Explorer 9, Safari 5 or Firefox 4? Exactly.
Firefox 4 is a free download, clocking in at around 27 megabytes. You can download it here.
Trapster is a popular iPhone app that alerts drivers to police speed traps, red light cameras and DUI checkpoints. The company tired to remove DUI checkpoints, but users kept putting them back in.
Four U.S. Senators have sent a letter to Apple urging it to pull several apps they claim help drunk drivers avoid the police.
“Giving drunk drivers a free tool to evade checkpoints, putting innocent families and children at risk, is a matter of public concern,” the senators said. “We hope that you will give our request to remove these applications from your store immediate consideration.”
According to the senators, there are “numerous” apps that help drivers identify DUI checkpoints, allowing drunk drivers to avoid them. One app has a real-time database of DUI checkpoints, while another allows its 10 million users to alert each other to DUI checkpoints in real time, the senators say.
The letter was sent to Scott Forstall, who is in charge of iPhone software at Apple.
The four Democratic senators include Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Speaker. The others are Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Tom Udall (D-NM).
Are there really numerous DUI checkpoint apps? And should they be pulled? Last year, I talked to Trapster (likely one of the apps targeted by the Senators), which was seeing a number of police departments using the app to highlight their own checkpoints. It’s just another way of increasing enforcement, the police say.
Here’s the full text of the letter that the senators sent to Scott Forstall:
UPDATE: Brian Tong sent me a note pointing out my unfair characterization of him as “just a TV show host.” Brian has worked at CNet for three years where he is an editor. He’s a journalism major and even used to work in Apple retail. He’s got lots of contacts at the company. My apologies to Brian for unfairly questioning his credentials.
New iMacs with Sandy Bridge CPUs and the zippy new Thunderbolt port are due at the end of April or the first week of May, according to CNet TV presenter Brian Tong, citing “anonymous sources.”
There won’t be a redesign. The new machines will look the same as the old, which is no bad thing.
The source of this info is a bit iffy. Tong isn’t a traditional is a tech reporter — he’s a TV show host — but he does work in tech news and Tong is an editor at CNet and host of CNet TV’s The Apple Byte Show. He says he’s “highly confident” about his source.
The Sandy Bridge update is definitely on the cards. What’s new is the ship date — four to six weeks. This in line with our interactive Buyer’s Guide, which says an iMac update is overdue.
Please, please, please let this be true. I’m in the market for a new desktop to replace my old Mac Pro, and Sandy Bridge, big screens and Thunderbolt make for a juicy, juicy update.
The last iMac update was about eight months ago with Intel’s Core i3, i5 and i7 chips and ATI Radeon graphics. But the MacBook Pros were just updated with quad-core Sandy Bridge processors, and they’re screamers.
Thunderbolt is a new port for high-speed peripherals and displays. Dubbed “one connector to rule them all,” it’s a single 10Gbps cable that consolidates almost all existing ports, from FireWire to USB to miniDisplay to eSATA.
Samsung, the South Korean “frenemy” of tech giant Apple, Tuesday released its two Galaxy Tab devices, both aimed squarely at Apple’s iPad. Taking a page from RIM, which earlier in the day unveiled its own PlayBook tablet, Samsung set its Galaxy Tab 10.1 at prices mirroring the iPad 2: $499 and $599 for 16GB and 32GB Wi-Fi versions, respectively.
However, both Tabs have a 1280×800 pixel display, versus the iPad 2’s 1024×768 9.7-inch screen. The Samsung devices shave a hair from its thickness. Still the difference (Samsung’s 8.6 millimeter versus the iPad’s 8.8 mm) is only noticeable with someone carrying a finely-tuned scale.
Woot! Sparrow for Mac — the Tweetie-like email client that has become my go-to Mac email app — just got its long promised 1.1 update, and it’s a beefy one: it brings universal IMAP support to the mix.
What does that mean? Sparrow is no longer a Gmail only client: it should work with almost any webmail service now. If you haven’t given Sparrow a try simply for lack of support of your choice of webmail, you now no longer have an excuse.
That’s not to say Sparrow isn’t still mostly a Gmail-centric app, though. In fact, Sparrow 1.1 improves upon its predecessor’s support for Gmail functionality and now allows you to switch between your regular inbox, priority inbox and unread items.
Along with stability improvements and bug fixes, Sparrow also features a redesigned preferences panel that allows multiple signature support. Other changes include a format bar in the compose window, a new minimalist mode that hides message previews, improved scrolling performance and multitouch gesture support.
If you haven’t already bought Sparrow, it costs $9.99 in the Mac App Store. There is also a Lite version which can only be used with a single account at a time, but it has yet to be updated to 1.1.
Valve Software’s incredible Steam platform came to OS X last year after years of Windows exclusivity, and as far as I’m concerned ushered in a refreshing new era in OS X gaming, in which Mac gamers were afforded all the same perks on our platform as Windows gamers have long taken for granted on theirs.
It looks like Valve’s love for Apple might not stop at OS X, though. Valve is now apparently looking into expanding Steam into iOS.
For Mac fans the patch of land in North Carolina owned by Apple is akin to Area 51: everyone knows it exists, but few know its true purpose. Speculation has centered on some cloud-based service requiring beefy data pipes. While a recent report seemed to suggest the Cupertino, Calif. company doesn’t plan to kill the golden goose with free streaming music, one analyst Tuesday offered a number of possibilities.
According to Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi, potential uses for the data center range from expanding Apple’s streaming and advertising business to a voice “interface” based on the tech giant’s recent Siri acquisition.
These updates and suggested fixes worked for some, but unfortunately they didn’t work for everyone. People are still complaining on Apple Discussion Forums about problems they are encountering when connecting their MacBook Airs to external displays.
People were hoping that the next Mac OS X release would solve these problems. That update, Mac OS X 10.6.7, was released yesterday.
It didn’t solve the problem for some people, but we’ve gotten some clues on how to resolve the problem for others.
The hubbub over the app from Christian group Exodus International keeps growing. The petition against the app for “homosexual strugglers” has reached nearly 130,000 signatures.
Apple has still not responded and, at this writing, the free app is still in the iTunes store. The battle is also being waged in the reviews for the app – currently there are 371 five-star reviews and 836 one-star reviews.
Exodus International spoke to the Christian Post about how they hope Apple the reviews won’t shake the initial 4+ rating for their content – meaning it contains no objectionable material — and how the app has been misunderstood.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who participated! I had a great time reading all your comments. Congrats to Mitchell Chin (youtube user: Sportwin) and Mark Fleser (youtube user: markfleser) on winning a small stack of assorted Gear Ties from Nite Ize. If you’re one of those two people, check your youtube account, I just messaged you!
If you missed my gushing review of these brilliant Gear Ties from Nite Ize, check it out here to see what all the fuss is about.
I love these little rubber-bonded-over-pliable-steel pieces. I use them so often and they work so well, they’ve become one of my favorite new products.
Well, I got to thinking that you, our dear CoM readers and viewers, might love them too. So I asked Nite Ize if they’d be willing to give some away to you, and they responded with a resounding “yes!” So, if you’d like to qualify to win some of these little wonders, you only need to do two simple things:
After a long wait, Research in Motion announced Tuesday morning pricing for its PlayBook tablet identical to Apple’s iPad 2. The 16GB Wi-Fi version is $499 32 GB costing $599 and a 64GB model priced at $699. RIM’s tablet hits U.S. and Canadian Best Buy stores April 19.
“Previews of the BlackBerry PlayBook have generated tremendous excitement and we know that customers are eager to get their hands on one,” Craig McLennan, Regional Managing Director, North America, Research In Motion, said in an announcement.
Given how difficult it is to get an iPad 2 in America right now, you didn’t have to be a die-hard cynic to think that Apple was going to have to repeat 2010’s one month international delay in launching the iPad internationally.
Not so! Apple wants everyone to know that the iPad 2 will still launch in 25 more countries this Friday.
Apple also announced that all models of iPad 2 will be available in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and additional countries in April.
As with the American launch, customers will be able to purchase their iPad 2 directly at an Apple retail store starting at 5pm local time. If you want to order one online, you can do so through Apple.com at 1am that same day (the press release doesn’t say, but presumably this is Pacific Time).
If you’re an international customer planning on ordering an iPad 2 online, keep in mind that even the U.S. customers who ordered their iPad 2s within minutes of the order page going live had to wait 3-5 business days for their iPad 2 to ship (mine only came yesterday). Also, U.S. customers who didn’t order their iPad 2s quickly now face a 4-5 week wait. Set your alarms and get ready to be patient. To explore more about thehistory on Mac and how previous Apple devices evolved, check out this detailed timeline.
How is Apple capable of launching in 25 countries when they can’t even supply the United States? My guess is that they’ve either been stockpiling iPad 2s for the international launch, or that current US delivery estimate times are massively informed by projected international demand.
Either way, if you’re someone who has been trying to get an iPad 2 at your local Apple Store, only to have a shady gray market iPad 2 smuggler purchase it out from under you every time, take heart! As the gray market overseas is a huge part of what is contributing to current shortages, iPad 2 availability through retail channels should actually improve when the tablet is available in more countries.
With the iPad 2 set to launch internationally on Friday, it’s time to set our eyes upon the next big thing… the iPhone 5’s debut in June or July. Apple certainly is: China Times is reporting that the iPhone 5 has entered trial production and is scheduled for wide scale release in Q3 of this year, which aligns with the iPhone’s traditional late June / early July release date.
As for what the iPhone 5 will look like, the latest report supports rumors suggesting that the iPhone 5 will mostly be similar to an iPhone 4s, with the major differences being a slightly larger 4-inch touchscreen in the same form factor (accomplished by having less room between the side bezels of the device), as well as a metal chassis to make the device lighter and improve antenna sensitivity.
