Apps

Here’s a novel use for the camera on your iPhone. Do you hate the overhead of taking notes to keep tabs on your calories intake and having to worry about not exceeding your daily targets? Worry not, all you need is the Meal Snap – Calorie Counting Magic app that takes the number crunching off your chest in a pretty ingenious way.

You just launch the app, point the device at your meal and take a picture. It then gets sent up to the cloud where some clever image analysis occurs, your meal gets recognized and voila – an approximated calories count automagically appears on the display. I’m telling you, it’s magic.

The Meal Snap app costs three bucks a pop and can be downloaded now for your iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store. More screenshots after the break.

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We told you how record labels are hoping to re-ignite interest in digital downloads by re-packaging albums as media-rich iPhone apps with interactive features. David Bowie is jumping on the bandwagon with a digitally re-mastered release of his 1975 single Golden Years, scheduled to land on iTunes on June 6.

Bowie, which previously released Space Oddity app album on iTunes, envisions the Golden Years app with remixing capabilities, based on eight separate tracks containing lead vocals, back vocals, percussion, harmonium, twelve-string guitar, bass, drums and percussion.

Music Radar details other features of the app:

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Facebook for iPhone (iTunes, free) just got a nice little update with the following new features:

– Added Map View for Places
– Added the ability to Check in to Events that you’re attending
– Added the ability to unfriend from the phone
– Improved News Feed
– Improved notifications UI

Screenies below:
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Apple’s review process has gone a long way since the early days when every day would bring a new story about a controversial rejection. It’s rare nowadays that an app would take longer than a couple of weeks to be reviewed, let alone months. That’s exactly what happened to the TrapCall app by Tel Tech Systems Inc. After a whopping 201 days in review, the App Store team has finally approved this app.

The free app requires a paid TrapCall service from five bucks a month. It lets you stop getting harassing phone calls by unmasking blocked and private phone calls. Developers claim it’s the only app in the world that can do this, speculating their workaround of the *67’s caller ID blocking feature is probably why it took Apple so long to review the app. Their product manager Nate Kapitanski told us in an email message:

The whole situation was incredibly frustrating as we had a real hard time even getting a response from Apple after 2-3 months as to what was possibly holding our app up.

What’s really interesting is how the program handles call unmasking…

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We already told you that Apple has a photo-based social component called Photo Stream up its sleeve and now glimpses of this feature are appearing in customer’s iPhones. 9to5mac reader Mario Piombo spotted references to Photo Stream albums in his iOS 4.3 iPhone 4. The references are hidden from the user’s plain view of Photos.app and were discovered via a third-party application, which allows the user to select photos from their library for editing.

It looks like users will be able to setup Photo Stream albums in Photos.app just like they can make playlists of songs in iPod.app. These Photo Stream albums will then be able to be streamed to specified groups of people like we detailed back in January:

From the looks of different alerts and plists, it appears that Apple will let iPhone users set up “Photo Streams” that friends could “subscribe” to. Also, it looks like there will be some privacy preferences related to this, so you can choose who is allowed to view your “Streams.” With Photo Streams, you will also be allowed to “invite” other users to view your pictures as you take them and upload them to a service. This service looks like it is connected to MobileMe, and we speculate that “Media Stream” can be directly connected to “Find my Friends.”

Basically, Photo Stream will be the easiest way to share photos taken or stored on your iPhone with your friends. No need to post them online – via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. – just stream the albums you choose to your family and friend’s photos.app. An older version of iPhoto for Mac included a similar feature called Photocast. Photocast allowed a user to send a photo album to another user. That photo album would then appear as an album in the friend or family member’s iPhoto library. We’re thinking Apple is going to be doing the same thing with Photo Stream.

Since Photo Stream references have been found in iOS 4.3 we speculate that Apple pulled the feature at the last minute to include as a component of a greater social offering in iOS 5. Also, as we noted before, this Photo Stream feature may be MobileMe specific. Mario’s iPhone is connected to MobileMe, Photocast required MobileMe (then .Mac), and our SDK findings referenced MobileMe. Hopefully this comes with the free, revamped MobileMe service.

To counter the recent efforts of Time Warner and Comcast who have offered streaming content through the iPad, Optimum online today announced that it would also offer an iPad service. (iTunes link)

The good news is that you can use every channel you get at home, up to 300 channels.

The bad news is that the system is little more than a home Sling box that broadcasts the channels you get in your house over your Wifi.  You can’t sign in from outside your house (without setting up a VPN;).

While this is nice for watching TV in and around your own home, it doesn’t compare to the streaming model that the other two cable producers are putting out.

Full press release below:

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With fake news published on a daily basis on The Onion website, every day feels like April Fool’s Day. Joining today’s laughing festivities (which is good for your health, scientists say), “America’s finest news source”, as these jokers call themselves, have released a native iPad app. Available free from the App Store, it augments their iPhone application The Onion and the Onion News Network podcast. It’s got everything you’d expect from the leader in fakes news on the web…

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We told you this was coming…Some of our Time Warner readers have just informed us that the company has posted a public acknowledgment of the removal of some channels from Discovery, Fox and Viacom on their iPad App.  For the 300,000 people who downloaded the app, the following channels are being removed:
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Adobe’s Photoshop Express app for iPhone and iPad gets the job done for quick image edits on the go. It’s free and has a bunch of filters (more available via in-app purchase) and border presets, as well as color correction and image cropping tools. It looks crisp on the Retina Display, supports multitasking and enables seamless sharing and cloud integration via Photoshop.com.  Fans of the program will be happy to know that it’s about to get even better.

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Music publishers Universal and EMI are considering packaging more music albums as iPad apps, reports the New York Times. This will allow labels to charge app albums more than their standalone counterparts on iTunes because of the native experience and bonus multimedia content such as photos, video clips and lyrics:

The Universal Music Group has teamed up with a video company, Eagle Rock Entertainment, to create iPad versions of films about classic albums like Nirvana’s “Nevermind,” with social networking features that allow fan commentary. This month, Bjork announced that her next project, “Biophilia,” will encompass “music, apps, Internet, installations and live shows.

EMI already released “Until One”, a ten bucks app album for iPad by Swedish House Mafia, seen below. It weighs in at 659MB and comes with documentaries, image galleries and more. With app albums you get smooth experience and high interactivity without the overhead of iTunes LP (which in itself is a specially packaged web page with Javascript code and hooks for iTunes). Despite these bells and whistles, I see big problems with this new app album trend and here’s why.

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Apple, in late 2009, acquired a mapping company called PlaceBase and since then many rumors have said that Apple is working to revamp their built-in maps application. Rumors have covered a redesigned iOS application all the way to Apple creating their own maps database – with PlaceBase’s data – to replace Google’s backend currently used in iOS maps.

Now, Apple has filed a new job opportunity for an iOS Maps application developer. Apple wants the candidates to work on a team that will “radically improve” maps and location services within their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch operating system.

The Maps team is looking for an exceptional developer to join us in our mission to radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services.

Apple also wants the candidates to have “excellent skills in object-oriented software design and programming” and they will be “collaborating closely with Apple’s peerless human interface team to add new and innovative features.” Additionally, the candidates should have “experience at the application and user interface level” and “experience with the iOS SDK and Cocoa programming.”

From that description, it seems that this person will be “radically improving” the entire maps application, not specifically the backend. We speculate that Apple would not revamp their whole maps app if they are not going to give it a whole new backend.

In iOS 5, Apple is expected to introduce a new “Find my Friends” map-based social network, so perhaps this team will be involved in implementing this as well. Apple has not really updated their built-in maps application since an iOS 1.x update.

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Apple is continuing their new “if you don’t have an iPhone…” campaign, this time showcasing Apple’s iOS social gaming platform Game Center. The new TV advertisement opens up by noting the vast library of gaming titles available on the iOS App Store then transitions to the main point about Game Center.

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Twitter has released an update to their iOS application with support for the iPad 2’s dual camera system. The update now allows users to capture photos and videos within the application and directly upload them in a tweet via any photo/video uploading service they choose.

– Photo/Video capture support for iPad 2
– Disabled significant location change monitoring that was causing compass to appear constantly when in app
– Bug Fixes from user reported crashes

The rest of the update covers bug fixes relating to location, the built-in compass in certain iOS devices, and app crashes. We think this update will make a big impact as it will now seemingly be the quickest way to share media taken with the iPad 2 with the world. Get it for free on the App Store.

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Skype announced a new release of its Internet telephony software for Macs. Version 5.1 boasts enhanced conference calling capabilities enabling participants in group calls to easily identify active speakers – very handy. iSight Firewire webcam detection problem has been resolved as well, Skype says. Another nice-to-have: It’s finally possible to select recently called numbers stored in the dial pad. Release notes accompanying the download also mention “several minor bug fixes” and “call quality feedback.”

Skype 5 enraged many Mac fans, this author included, with its huge interface. It’s plain ugly, unfriendly and takes up too much valuable screen real estate unnecessarily. Perhaps in a realization of the backlash, Skype today backpedaled with a contest to redesign the application’s chat window, one area heavily criticized for the clutter.

Something about the accompanying statement rubs me the wrong way:

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It is a fact that all mobile phones emit a certain level of radiation. Yes, even the iPhone. That’s why a company named tawkon developed an application to measure the amount of radiation coming through your iPhone. According to the company the application was praised by Apple executives for its graphically appealing design, use of non-private APIs, and overall functionality.

We tried the front door via Apple’s App Store, including great discussions with senior Apple executives at their Cupertino headquarters who praised our app functionality and graphic appeal, and explored various technical solutions with us to overcome API restrictions and get tawkon onto the App Store.

The problem is that it was still rejected. This is not the first time an application was given a blessing from an Apple executive then still rejected (think Google Voice). After their app was rejected, tawkon e-mailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs inquiring about the reason. In return they got a simple “no interest.” For those interested in the application it is now available on Cydia via an iOS jailbreak.

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Image credit: Pennsylvania DUI blog

If you resort to software to figure out those speed traps, know that your senator is possibly lobbying to ban such programs from mobile bazaars forever. A group of senators took a tough stance on the matter, reports ABC News. The senators call such specialized apps “nothing but a public safety hazard”.

Deciding enough is enough, senators Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Frank R. Lautenberg and Tom Udall – all Democrats – in a knee jerk reaction sat down and wrote a letter to Apple, Google and Research In Motion.

They want those checkpoint-dodging programs taken down from Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Market and RIM’s App World. A mind-boggling excerpt from their letter reads:

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According to several threads on the Apple Discussions forum (here, here and here), the iPad’s front camera locks up in the FaceTime app when attempting to establish a video call. It’s unknown how widespread the issue is, but it seems to be stemming from a software bug likely to be addressed with the next iOS release. According to users posting on the forum, the problem won’t go away until device is restarted.

Other hiccups are also being reported. One poster details the issue:

Facetime was frozen on iPad 2. It had the last video capture as the main screen of Facetime. Could not see receiving video. Resolution: Reset to factoring settings. Apple – possible app glitch.

Another user is having troubles with the back camera, too:

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Voice searching is all the rage on Android devices (and your Chrome desktop with this nifty extension) and at the same time we’re being promised new forms of software interactions stemming from the advancements in the natural language processing science. Our operating systems have basic speech-to-text capabilities, but it doesn’t work that great and we rarely use the feature in everyday computing. With Chrome 11, Google is taking a different approach, leveraging their vast computing power to deliver cloud-drive speech-to-text to HTML5 web apps, explains a blog post:

Fresh from the work that we’ve been doing with the HTML Speech Incubator Group, we’ve added support for the HTML5 speech input API. With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe your voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer’s microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for you.

How does it work?

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As promised, Mozilla, the open-source organization behind the Firefox browser, has just released Firefox 4, the next major iteration of the popular browser. The 27 MB download is available in over 80 languages on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Firefox 4  features an optimized JavaScript engine that makes web apps run noticeably faster, with GPU-accelerated page rendering. The browser comes with a new look user interface. There’s a a dedicated bookmark button right next to the search filed.

The tab bar is placed atop the address bar (you can also revert this setting), resulting in a more polished, cleaner appearance. If you’re like me, you keep dozens of tabs open as you scrub through your favorite websites. This quickly adds up to the confusion as sorting through tabs becomes an increasingly tedious affair. Luckily, more controls are now available to manage your tabs.

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When a critical Flash Player vulnerability was discovered being used in the wild last week, Adobe posted an advisory and promised an update within a week. The exploitable software flaw lets attackers take control of your system after opening an Excel spreadsheet with an embedded malicious Flash file (Office 2010 is said to feature safety countermeasures that prevent harmful code execution).

This undoubtedly nasty bug that affected the whole web and not just the parts of it needed a quick fix. It comes as a surprise that Google has managed to beat Adobe to the update punch by squashing the bug with a Chrome update while Adobe preps to issue the fix this week. How’s that possible?

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If you happen to own a Google TV-branded product, the official remote app released last December on Android devices is now available free on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad running iOS 3 or higher. Sporting a plethora of buttons, the program packs in channel surfing, DVR access, voice search and other features from the Android version minus the ability to push web pages from your iPhone to a Google TV device. Check out Google’s quick video tutorial for more features, embedded below.

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