Apps

Firemint has just released the HD version (iPad) of their wildly popular racing game, Real Racing 2. The new game takes full advantage of the iPad and iPad 2s unique features like faster processors and larger displays and specifically takes advantage of the iPad 2s superior graphics hardware and dual-core processor.

The game also includes “cutting-edge” 3D graphics, precision controls (with gyroscope support!), and over 10 hours of game play. A career mode is also available with 16 player online gaming with Game Center support. Another cool feature is the ability to sync your progress between the iPad and iPhone versions of the game.

Real Racing 2 HD comes with all the features and content of Real Racing 2: authentic pack-racing with up to 16 players; 30 licensed cars from real-life manufacturers, including the 2010 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, 2010 Nissan GT-R (R35) and 2012 McLaren MP4-12C; competitive online leaderboards and frenetic 16-player online multiplayer – all powered by Firemint’s own iOS-optimized Mint3D™ engine.

The game is available on the App Store for $9.99.

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The Wall Street Journal announced that they have added added 200,000 subscribers from mobile devices like the Apple iPad. Even more interesting is that the Journal added 150,000 mobile subscribers in the last year – the iPad was just released around a year ago.

Les Hinton, head of the newspaper’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., which is owned by News Corp., said Thursday that about 150,000 of the new subscribers were added in the last 12 months. Subscribers pay about $4 a week to read the Journal on their iPad.

The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp., the creator of the Daily, but that 200,000 user figure does not cover subscribers of the Daily. This fairly substantial number represents how iPads are truly changing the news industry

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Even though the original iPad is able to run the latest version of iMovie for iOS, Apple has decided to not allow original iPad users to install iMovie directly through the App Store. This decision has to do with the original iPad’s lack of cameras, slower processor, and less RAM.

Original iPad users who want to run iMovie on their original iPad shouldn’t fear as iMovie can work on their iPads… without a jailbreak.
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In addition to a few big features, yesterday’s release of iOS 4.3 brought several nice-to-haves such as password reentry for in-app purchases and the ability to comment on songs or like them directly in iPad’s built-in iPod application (no, not “like” as in “Facebook like”). The feature requires you to sign up for an account with Ping, Apple’s social network for music. Furthermore, it appears to work only with songs purchased through the iTunes Store, reports MacStories.net.

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Smart parents needn’t worry anymore about in-app purchases in iOS games, they only need to update to iOS 4.3. You’ve probably heard about horror stories involving kids draining their parent’s bank accounts unintentionally because they were lured into buying stuff inside games without even realizing it.  Smurf Villiage is #7 ranked in gross earnings in the App Store and has been seen as one of the biggest offenders.

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The debate about Flash on iOS devices rarely makes headlines these days, but it’s far from being over. You can see it in an increasing number of apps from third-parties that aim to solve this nasty issue once and for all. While the vast majority of solutions only tackle Flash videos, only a few iOS apps are capable of rendering other content types delivered through Flash, like games and interactive apps.

Enter iSwifter, a new iPad app that claims to stream any Flash content.

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Interesting note from a Wired UK story on Rovio: The company was almost in bankruptcy prior to releasing their Angry Birds app in the App Store. They had been making meager earnings selling apps through the mobile carriers and for other companies.  One App for app store and now they are $50 million in the black with a lucrative franchise on their hands.

Wired.co.uk via SAI
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Apple has updated their iMovie iOS application to work on the iPad 2. The update also brings some features from the iPad 2 version down to the iPhone and iPod touch version.

(update: GarageBand too. – both work on iPad 1 as well)

Here are the new features:
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The new St. Patrick’s Day update to the blockbuster puzzler has gone live today for iOS and Android devices, with Palm and Nokia following soon. It is bound to spoil you with an entirely new level pack containing brand spanking new puzzles to solve, bonus content and the unmistakable, charming humor that turned Angry Birds into such a high-grossing entertainment franchise (video below). Also, Angry Birds Rio is coming later this month.

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Following the release of iOS 4.3 Apple has updated their popular iAd Producer application, which allows anyone to create iAds with little or no programming knowledge. iAd Producer has been updated to version 1.1 and here are the release notes:

• Support for full screen banners in ads that target an iPad running iOS 4.3
• Creation of ads with multiple banners
• Improved compatibility between iAd Producer project files and version management systems
• Support for importing and editing JavaScript (JS) and CSS files
• Sample projects and plug-ins that demonstrate iAd Producer and iAd JS capabilities
• iAd JS is updated to version 1.3.1 and includes numerous bug fixes and enhancements, including the following:
  • TransitionController now provides notifications that the view will disappear when the visible view controller is changed, rather than when the animation starts

In addition, Apple has updated their iPhone Configuration Utility software for improved compatibility with iOS 4.3 devices. This utility is meant for enterprise users and allows companies to do things like encrypting and provisions devices. Both Mac and Windows downloads are available.

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Apple has posted video guided tours for the iPad 2 Garageband, iMovie, and iBooks applications. The walkthroughs range from about 2-6 minutes, depending on the video, and showcase how the applications work on Apple’s iPad 2.

Both the white and black iPad 2s make appearances and the videos are pretty enjoyable to watch. iBooks is already available on the App Store and iMovie and Garageband for iPad will be available for $4.99 on March 11th.

iBooks and Garageband work on the first iPad but iMovie is exclusive to iPad 2 . You can view them all here.

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Pioneer announced their first AirPlay compatible receiver, the VXS-1021 today.  It does what you probably think it does – it let’s you stream music from your iOS device to the receiver as if it were an Airport Express.

Here’s where it gets interesting though.  The Pioneer will put the album art and music information on your screen (Via HDMI out?).  If they can do that, why can’t you stream video to this bad boy?

The VSX-1021 also offers other connectivity choices:

(yeah the $549 receiver is already in our cart at Amazon)

Pioneer also updated their other iOS products, below:

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Following a preview in 2010, Adobe has finally released a pre-release version of their ‘Wallaby’ Flash-to-HTML5 file conversion software. The software is easy for developers to use and allows developers to drag and drop their Flash content into an Adobe Air application that will then convert it to HTML5 code.

The new code can then be completely edited in programs like Adobe Dreamweaver or manually by hand in text editing software. This new application from Adobe is a huge deal and developers can now easily convert their Flash websites and web applications for use on non-Flash devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

It is important to remember that Adobe makes its money on selling developer tools and not on selling Flash plug-ins.

Here’s a video of the software in action:
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According to the Guardian, Stateside iPad owners will now get to enjoy all the glory that is the BBC iPlayer for less than $10 (that’s £6.13 quid to you Nigel)/month when the app is released later this year.

The global version of the corporation’s online catch-up service for iPads will launch “definitely this year”, adding that it will cost, “a small number of dollars per month, definitely fewer than 10”. The international iPlayer iPad app will also give subscribers access to BBC archive programming.

Interestingly, Mark Thomson, BBC director general said:

The iPlayer app allows the BBC to “sell directly to consumers” without shows being rebranded or reformated, which often happens when UK shows are bought by international broadcasters.When asked what effect the iPlayer’s international launch will have on the business model of the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, Thompson said the corporation is following in Hollywood’s footsteps and “looking at a series of windows” for shows, to “optimise value across that lifecycle”.

Perhaps such a move could convince Jony Ive to stick around for a few more years.
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Infinity Blade ($2.99) for iPad and iPhone today got an upgrade, the timing couldn’t have been better…

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Peter Hajas, the creator of MobileNotifier, created a video for us of his new update. In short MobileNotifier is how we think iOS notifications should have been implemented. It’s obviously jailbreak-only and you can grab it from Cydia at this repo: http://phajas.xen.prgmr.com/repo

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This new feature in Mac OS X 10.7, discovered by reader Mime454, really wows us. It’s called ‘Signature Capture’ and it allows you to write your signature with a black pen on a piece of paper, hold it up to your Mac’s built-in camera, and place it on a document in Preview. The feature works as advertised and is very seamless.

The image capture is also very quick and mostly accurate. We got decent-to-good results in all of ours tests and the best advice we have is to write very clearly. Following Apple’s instruction to use black pen is also a must. Using a blue pen, for example, gave us washed out results. We see this coming in handy a lot, especially in PDFs, and hopefully Apple makes it a framework that other companies can integrate into their applications.

The feature will surely make its way across the Mac ecosystem, hopefully very soon in the rumored in iWork ’11, and hopefully Microsoft manages to work with Apple in implementing it into the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Do you think you will find this useful? We have a video now after the break. (Thanks Mime454 for the video, Sonny for the image)

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Apple has long had a feature in MobileMe called Back to my Mac, which allows you to remotely access all your internet-connected computers’ files. Additionally, you could ever screenshare with your own computers over the internet. This feature has been very handy for me as a MobileMe user but what about Mac users who aren’t. Back to my Mac seems like the kind of feature that should have been integrated for everyone in Mac OS X from the beginning. Well now with Lion, it appears that Apple, too, has had the realization.

In Snow Leopard, MobileMe users’ other Macs will appear in the Finder’s left panel with options to ‘connect as’ (access files) or screenshare. MobileMe members simply need to put it their other computer’s login information and Apple takes care of the rest. In 10.7 Lion a new option has appeared and that is to login to remote computers with your Apple ID. The option is specifically your Apple ID (which anyone can get for free) and not your MobileMe credentials.

To us this means that anyone with an Apple ID should be able to access their remote computers with Back to my Mac. Apple has already begun the process of implementing free MobileMe features, starting with Find my iPhone (by way of an Apple ID), and Back to my Mac going free makes complete sense. What if Apple creates a standalone application to allow users to remotely login to their computer from any other Mac?

Maybe, in the future, users will always login to their Macs with their Apple ID versus a stationary username and password. This would be just like the cloud-focused Google ChromeOS notebook. Apple even allows users attach their Apple ID credentials to their user account in system preferences.

We have also been told that Back to my Mac has received a few tweaks in its Lion implementation such as easier access to AirPort disks and servers. Perhaps this will all show up in the new, free, cloudier, MobileMe. (Thanks, anonymous)

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Apple has been really thinking about their content creation strategy in Mac OS X and has lead the industry with applications like Garageband and iMovie. With 10.7 Lion Apple has moved to some new consumer content creation and that is podcasts. Apple has long had two application called ‘Podcast Producer’ and ‘Podcast Capture’ which work together to allow people to create podcasts and share them.

Unfortunately, these applications have been exclusive to Apple’s Mac OS X Server platform and were created with a “pro” mindset. Sort of like Final Cut Pro being the “pro” version of iMovie. Now, in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple will introduce a new application called ‘Podcast Publisher’ and it’s the consumer version of ‘Podcast Producer‘.

Podcast Publisher allows users to create as many shows as they want and within each show they can have episodes. Podcast Publisher lets you capture video and/or audio for your show, and you can even record your Mac’s screen in realtime if you want to demo something. You can even do some quick iOS-like editing of your clips (“trimming”) and the whole feel of the application is very user-friendly.

Once your podcast episode is complete you can export it as a file to your desktop, iTunes, or an e-mail. You can also easily send it to your Podcast library’s server or remote workflow. We think Podcast Producer is something a lot of people will use, as Apple’s is yet to implement a true podcast creation tool in Mac OS X for use by anyone.

Check out a screenshot walkthrough after the break in addition to Apple’s explanation of the application. (Thanks, anonymous)

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It looks like Apple decided to drop support for their full-screen Mac media center application, Front Row. Front Row is just like the old Apple TV software and presents all your media in a full screen view. Whether that be videos, photos, songs, or movie trailers, it’s there. According to the developer preview of Lion, that won’t be the case in Apple’s next-generation Mac operating system launching this Summer.

We don’t know why Apple made the change and with the new full-screen application functionality, hopefully Apple is working on a cool, new implementation with the built-in iTunes application. Perhaps Apple will also use the change to promote their latest $99 Apple TV, which has the same functionality as Front Row, but much more, too. Front Row is still an application in Snow Leopard, Leopard, and some Tiger machines. Thanks, Mike T.

Keep in mind this is a preview/beta so Apple could bring this back before the actual release. Hopefully the new Front Row is cloudier.

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Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was the writing on the wall for Apple to completely drop PowerPC support. Snow Leopard was the first Mac operating system to not work on PowerPC machines, yet it still ran PowerPC software through Rosetta. Even more, Rosetta was an optional download in Snow Leopard. Now in 10.7 Lion, Rosetta has vanished and Apple’s operating system launching this Summer will not support software built for PowerPC Macs.

This change will surely upset some longtime Mac users, but through our research it seems that many modern, supported Mac applications have been rebuilt to work on Intel machines. Also, every app on the new Mac App Store will work seamlessly with 10.7 Lion as they are all compiled, by default, for the Intel computing architecture. Users on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion who attempt to run a PowerPC application will get the alert shown above. Thanks, anonymous

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