Sounds like Sci-Fi malarkey: an app that measures the amount of calories burned throughout the day just by sitting in your pocket and using the iPhone’s accelerometers to measure motion. But nope, it’s real, and it’s at the App Store for $3.
There’s no doubt that the original version of TeamViewer — a free OS X and iOS app that lets users remotely commandeer another user’s Mac (with their permission, of course) and troubleshoot stuff — is a Big Gun for any Mac troubleshooter or wannabe Genius (or hey, maybe even the real Geniuses use it).
We think there’s little better than laying our fat mitts on the suddenly real version of something that’s, to that point, been fantasy — so you’ll excuse us if we go all giggly over the Hipstamatic app-themed new $40 HipstaCase 100 for the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch.
The smooth little black pebble above from XtremeMac is a new combo charging/bluetooth-streaming option called the InCharge Home BT ($80). Pretty simple concept: Plug it into a wall outlet, then hook it up via the 3.5 mm jack to any speaker system and bango, you’ve given the system Bluetooth streaming capability, which means you can stream music to your speakers from any iDevice or Mac; then use the USB port to charge stuff (comes with a USB t0 30-pin connector and a 3.5 mm jack cable). There’s also an auto version called, naturally, the InCharge Auto BT ($80) that XtremeMac says allows hands-free calling, so we’re assuming it’s equipped with a microphone.
It may not be as pretty as an Apple product (but seriously — what is), and at $180, it’s almost double the price of the ATV. But Elgato’s HDHomeRun comes in swinging for the fences with a trick Apple’s little black coaster doesn’t have: the ability to stream live TV, in HD, to your Mac or iPad — even over a 3G connection.
Ok, we’re a little baffled why this dude is pulling out an iPad in this sitch. Last-minute conditions-check? Confused about the term “surf the web”?
What’s pretty clear though, is that the blindingly yellow G-Form iPad Extreme Sleeve case ($60) he’s peeling off his iPad is now shipping. We love talking about this case; partly because we’re fascinated with the extreme-sport-derived protective material it’s made from, and partly because we’re mesmerized by the crazy videos G-Form keeps releasing to demonstrate the Extreme Sleeve’s protective ability — which seems formidable.
Right now, it’s only available (thankfully, also in black) from G-Form directly.
I love the soft tappity-tap of popping out an email, text, IM or 348-page novel on my iPhone’s virtual keyboard. Some people, though, prefer banging around on actual keys.
For them, then, NUU’s new MiniKey might make sense (currently $80 at Amazon): It’s a Bluetooth-enabled keyboard/case with a frilly feature list that includes backlit keys, text-editing shortcuts and a power-saving function that puts the little guy to sleep by severing the BT connection after a lapse of activity; start typing again and voila, it reconnects.
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Wow. Is developer GhostBird really shoe-horning this much functionality into the second iteration of their legendary photo-editing app, PhotoForge? Looks like they’ve crammed practically every post-processing tool and feature on the planet into what will probably amount to an under-$5 app: curves, real layer support (including masking), ability to edit raw files (and images up to 20MB), editing timeline and a big pile of sharing options.
Add to that a smorgasbord of filters that simulate papers, processes, cameras and you’ve got the makings of what looks like the killer photo app. GhostBird also claims fast processing times — how they’re able to pull this one off, and just how fast it’ll clock on the slower processors of the 3G/s is the big question, though; we’ll know in a couple of weeks, the timeframe the developer has suggested for the app’s release.
Just like their first kit for the original iPad, ModulR have released a case set of modular accessories for the iPad 2. At the heart of the system is a $40 iPad 2 case (with included hand strap) that features attachment points to which a whole slew of industrial-looking modular accessories can be attached, like a shoulder strap ($20) or a magnetic fridge mount ($15).
ModulR didn’t just resize the old set and slap it onto the iPad 2 — they say they’ve reworked it from the ground up, incorporating user feedback from the original set, resulting in a slimmer case and the ability to customize cases with a corporate logo. Which means it’s probably only a matter of time before a BMW ad features hard-hat wearing workers on the factory floor walking around with BMW-emblazoned iPads, right.
Seems practically everyone has cottoned on to the idea that the iPhone makes for a stellar cycling computer — because hardware that turns the iPhone into a feature-packed riding companion keeps popping up. The latest is Velocomp’s iBike Dash series of app-enhanced hardware stashed inside their waterproof Phone Booth case that work with its free iBike app.
The unit starts out at $200 for the waterproof case with built-in ANT+ receiver and a speed sensor for your bike; $329 will bag you the Deluxe kit that adds a heart-rate strap, cadence sensor and supplemental battery for the iPhone. Velocomp also sells the Phone Booth case only — without the ANT+ electronics in it — for $50.
The waterproof case looks pretty rugged, but pricing strikes us as a tad steep compared with other kits out there from Wahoo, Digifit and New Potato Technologies (even though we were less-than-enthusiastic about the latter).
Who wants to sift through all this text crap when you could just watch a video? If your answer to that question sounds something along the lines of “not me,” you should probably download Showyou onto your iDevice during your next coffee break — just don’t blame us if your boss fires you because you spend the next five hours watching clips on it.
The app elegantly aggregates all the videos that your contacts on Facebook or Twitter have posted, and also from its own Showyou network that can be joined via the app. Sharing clips looks just as elegant and effortless.
Showyou looks good on the iPhone, but gets drool-worthy on an iPad with videos from feeds laid out in a seamlessly swipeable checkerboard. Bonus: It plays nice with an Apple TV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS1iXdqOVC8&feature=player_embedded
With the Flock browser going the way of the dodo, there’s really only one social-media-enhanced browser left: RockMelt. And yesterday, they released an iPhone version of the browser.
RockMelt is pretty handy for those of us who like to post news and blog posts straight to our Facebook and Twitter feeds from the web on our iPhones. It also functions as a basic newsreader, and It’ll sync with the browser’s Mac version so you can access bookmarks and posts that have been tagged with its “View Later” feature. Best of all, it’s free.
News.me is a social news experience from bit.ly unlike any other currently in the App Store. Not only does it provide you with a list of content your friends are sharing like applications such as Flipboard and Zite, but it also allows you to view the content they are reading. It claims to offer a “seamless interface for immersive reading” that uses “science to find the most relevant content in every user’s stream.”
The News.me iPad app just hit the App Store, but made news before its release thanks to its backing from the New York Times, and the publishers and websites that are also on board; such as AOL, Forbes, Gawker, Business Insider, Gigaom, Mashable, Venturebeat and the Associated Press.
The big news today is all about how Apple has apparently been busy secretly squirreling away data about your movements on your iPhone 4 or GPS-equipped iPad, and storing it in a file on your computer via syncing. Is this a big deal, or business as usual, just a giant tech company doing its thing?
[polldaddy poll=4946757]
If possession of any one app could ever be considered an instant ticket to membership in the Cult of Mac, this is it. Mactracker has been around since early 2001, and we’ve talked about it before on our site (Giles Turnbull thought it was so fantastic he included it in his list of 50 Mac Essnetials); but last week a newly-updated version hit the Mac App Store — which is enough to earn it a spot as today’s Daily Freebie.
The app lists painstakingly complete data on every Mac product ever made in an elegant, searchable, easy-to-use interface. The new update even brings with it the ability to track your Macs’ serial numbers, service work performed, etc.
The app is free, but we think a little donation at the app’s website (which is where those who’re allergic to the App Store can also download the app directly) is money well spent.
Doubtless because creeps look indistinguishable from the pizza delivery guy on the iPhone’s tiny, standard-def screen, Logitech yesterday released an HD, iPad-version of their remote CCTV app, Logitech Alert. The app allows the user to monitor hi-def feeds, complete with “rich audio,” from an installed Logitech Alert CCTV camera system over the Internet.
While the app is free, the hardware starts at $300, and lets you observe a live feed from your iPad or iPhone; you can also view footage recorded onto your computer’s HD directly. An extra $80/year will net you the full Monte, allowing remote review (with an iDevice) of recorded footage from your computer’s HD.
The App’s page states “please use Wi-Fi for the best video and audio performance and experience,” which we’re assuming means the service will function over 3G, albeit most likely with hobbled performance.
Seriously: Imagine your kids being able to play around with all the wonders of physics — without the fear they might slice off a finger (or two), or burn their eyebrows off.
That’s the basic idea behind the brilliant Xperica HD for the iPad, a physics sandbox that lets high-school kids (or anyone, really) make sense of physics through playing with interactive experiments. The first four modules are free, with $4 netting the remaining half-dozen set of physics experiments.
While the first set is all about physics, the developer told us they’ll soon have experiment sets in other spheres of science (like chemistry) available soon, with some modules in each sphere being released for free — and that they might make all the modules free at some point (which might make one hesitant to buy the extra modules, we think, but there ya go).
What’s better than a free app? Yeah, two of them — so today’s Daily Freebie is actually a twofer. Both are from MacPhun, developer of the PhotoStudio app we reviewed yesterday.
The first is a free version of PerfectPhoto, macPhun’s iPhone photo editor. It may lack the fancy filters of the paid version, but it comes with all the darkroom tools you’ll need to edit photos on the iPhone: adjust exposure, contrast, color temp, shadows, crop images and even a posterize and vintage effect. Frankly, you’re going to be using PhotoStudio for the effects anyway.
The second app, Cartoonatic, (that’s a screencap from its App Store page, above) is where the real fireworks are, though — it’ll let you transform a video clip with nine different, wild-looking effects, with live previews while recording, the ability to play around with the clip’s speed, add a soundtrack from your music library and all kinds of other neat stuff. That’s a lot of wow for free.
Okay, this is sorta creepy — and if you aren’t aware of this little fact by now, you should be: Unless you’ve adjusted the settings to turn this feature off, every time you snap a photo with your iPhone it embeds data with your exact location in the image file. This data, called a geotag, can be easily read using easily available software by anyone who has access to your images online (btw, contrary to what the folks at NBC say, it’s not new technology; the ability to geotag photos has been around since at least the first iPhone to include GPS, the 3G).
It’s no secret that the iPad 2 should open the floodgates of the augmented reality experience — and here’s another example of what the iPad 2 can do with AR.
No doubt in anticipation of Yuri’s Night, Vito Technology has just released an AR-equipped version of their venerable star-watching iPad app, Star Walk ($5). Just hold the screen up to the sky and the app will superimpose constellations and all sorts of other info onto a realtime image of the sky being viewed through the iPad 2’s camera. And that’s on top of all the other cool features, like a satellite tracker, night mode and a time-machine function that lets you see what the sky looks like on any given day or time.
Still saving for an iPad 2? That’s ok, the iPhone version has the same features (but not the awesomeness of the iPad’s giant screen), and it’s on sale for a buck till April 12 — which, not coincidentally, is Yuri’s Night.
Just like Pogoplug and ZumoCast (the latter currently MIA from the app store), Tonido is a service that’ll let users stream media and access files on a computer from a mobile device. It sort of combines features from both — it’s completely free, works via a mobile app that connects to server software (free download from Tonido) running the user’s computer and allows access to music, videos, photos and even plain ‘ol documents. In fact, pretty much everything on a connected hard drive is accessable.
The big difference with Tonido though, is that virtually nothing is stored in a cloud — not even your account password (“think of the Tonido server like a giant router” says co-founder Venkat Ramasay). Don’t want to use your computer as the server? Tonido sells a remarkably-Pogoplug-looking NAS device for $99 that you can plug an external HDD or USB stick into. Ramasay says the software footprint is also very small, and that’s it’s also intended to run on home routers. The next version will also support Airplay.
The interface seems a little rough around the edges — I wasn’t able to stream music because I couldn’t figure out a way to simply select music to play, for instance — but it’s free, so worth taking a look at.
We’ve been keen followers of developments at CloudEngines, the outfit behind the Pogoplug network-attached storage device, ever since we reviewed the first one back in late 2009. This month, a little over two years after the Pogoplug debuted, brings a whole raft of new offerings from the company — including one that may bring a big surge to NAS popularity in general.
Don’t get me wrong — I love chunky; chunky is great to hold, easy to get along with. Thin, though — well, thin is just plain fast. It’s stealthy, slinky, looks great sitting on a desk. Of course, we’re talking about the latest addition to Seagate’s line of GoFlex modular drives, the GoFlex Slim external laptop drive.
Seagate says it’s the “world’s thinnest”; we haven’t whipped out a tape measure yet, but our very brief hands-on time with the 9mm-thick drive at CES definitely left us with the impression it was stealthy. We’re thinking the drive is probably aimed broadly at professional women, judging by its product shots.
The fast-spinning, 7200RPM drive comes in one flavor and price right now: $100 for 320GB.
If you’re lucky enough to posses an iPhone 4 and haven’t already downloaded freebie Ball Pit, do it now and play around with it a little. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Pretty cool, right? For those of you at work or still saving for an iPhone 4, the game is basically a first-person shooter set in the middle of a what looks like a holodeck from the later Star Trek shows, with the objective of shooting down the spheres that happen to be floating around in the big room with you.
We received these cryptic press releases from two fairly well-known developers today, and we just thought we’d share them with you — especially since one of them was marked confidential and requested we not reveal anything till Monday; as if! We’re revealing it NOW! (Yes, we’re horribly easy to manipulate).
