Conversion apps feel like a design playground, with so much potential for uniqueness and variety in their interfaces. The trend has been towards multifunction, multi-purpose Swiss-army knife apps that attempt to cover a whole range of disparate measurements. In my experience, as a result of racing to add one more ratio to their feature list, the simplicity of these apps suffer.
Currency sidesteps this battleground entirely and, as the name implies, focuses solely on converting amounts of money. The app touts support for over 160 currencies from around the world, which was more than enough to satisfy my needs. The app surfaces a handful of common currencies at first launch, each accompanied with a beautiful representation of its respective country’s flag.
The iPhone lockscreen hasn’t changed much in the past six versions of iOS, with the exception of the addition of a camera slider. Atom is a new jailbreak tweak that seeks to completely redesign the lockscreen and add new functionality, and it does not disappoint.
Keep reading to find out how Atom can make your lockscreen even more useful.
When Apple introduced Notification Center in iOS 5, they changed the way most people manage notification on their iOS devices. For the most part, they were right. Unfortunately, Notification Center introduced its own deficiencies and now people are looking for changes once again.
Today, change has finally come in the form of a jailbreak tweak called Abstergo, and we’ve got five free copies for our readers. Keep reading for a full breakdown of the tweak and more information about how you can win a copy.
Back in late 2010, Google brought Google Goggles (not to be confused with Google Glass) to the Google Search app for iPhone. At the time, it seemed like a great feature. You could take a photo of anything with your iPhone, and Google would instantly identify the object in the frame, returning relevant data about the photo.
That was 2010. You’d probably think that in the years following, Google would’ve continually updated Goggles, making the recognition more accurate and expanding its features. Well, you’d be wrong. In fact, Goggles functions entirely the same as it did in 2010, another fine example of Google’s continued dedication to their products.
Image Searcher, the developers behind a new app called CamFind, have seemingly stepped in where Google failed, creating a image-based search service that they claim is “four times more accurate than Google Goggles.” Let’s take a look at how it really performed.
Twitter #music takes a step toward filling the void created when everyone migrated from MySpace, which was one of the most effective music discovery tools for me until it was largely vacated.
Twitter promises to “change the way people find music, based on Twitter,” per the social network’s blog, which I believe will be widely appreciated.
Every now and again, someone comes up with an idea which is deliciously simple yet rather useful. Meet Cord Tacos: a folded piece of leather with a rivet through it.
Yep, that’s it. The rivet acts as a kind of button, so you can unfold the leather, insert your cable and then clip it in place. No more cables getting tangled at the bottom of your bag, and much more elegant than the rubber bands we OCD types use to keep things tidy.
The review bit: they work. The cables are held securely, and the rivets don’t come undone.
My only complaint is that the standard 5-pack comprises two large (suitable for USB leads and the like) and three small. The small ones are really only useful for earphones, and who carries more than one set around? Which gets you three usable Tacos for $30 with shipping. A little steep, but a lot prettier than an elastic band. Available on Etsy.
Welcome to 9to5Mac’s Smackdown series, where we compare the top hardware and software accessories for your Apple products.
App.net (or “ADN,” as many users have come to call it) was launched last year as an alternative to other microblogging platforms that had become more hostile to developers in recent months. The idea wasn’t so much about ripping off Twitter as it was about giving developers a friendly place to build cool apps and services. Rather than being funded by venture capitalists or advertisments, ADN was funded solely by the people using the platform. Users and app developers paid a yearly fee to get into the network or build on its API.
In the time since it was opened to the public, ADN has lowered their annual fee, introduced feature-limited, invitation-only free accounts, a cloud storage service, and more. Thanks to the developer-friendly atmosphere, many amazing iPhone clients have been released. In today’s smackdown, we’re going to put three of the most popular, fully-featured apps head-to-head to determine which one is the best.
If you want to give these apps a try, you’ll need either a free or paid ADN account. The free accounts are only available by invitation, but lucky for you we happen to have 400 invitations to hand out. Want to claim one? Just click this link and sign up. Once you get there, be sure to follow us.
I’ve never been greatly enamoured of the concept of phone cases. You pay all that money for a beautiful design that Jony Ive and his team sweated over for months, then hide it in some butt-ugly plastic case.
I’ve always just used a matte screen-protector (as much to remove reflections as protect the screen from damage) and a Zagg stick-on leather cover for the rear, leaving the phone reasonably well-protected from scratches but without making it look like something bought from Toys-R-Us.
But I was intrigued when I saw that a couple of companies had brought out iPhone cases made from real wood. I love wood as a material, so decided to give the cases a try. On test here are the Zagg ifrogz Natural Wood Case for iPhone 5 and the Miniot iWood for iPhone 3/4/5 … Expand Expanding Close
Readdle has finally brought their popular Documents iPad app to the iPhone and iPod touch with the latest update. The iPhone version has all of the features you would expect in a file management app and a few extras.
The main file manager window displays all of your files in a grid or list sorted by name, date, or size. You can create folders, zip and unzip archives, and view a variety of file types from this view. PDFs, plaintext files, audio, pictures, and more can be added to your collection. The audio player works when the app is in the background so you can continue listening to your music.
Your most recently used files will accumulate in a special folder automatically so you can find them again easily. A search feature on the main page allows you to search any file by name, but you can also enable an indexing feature lets the app search the contents of your documents as well.
The Oregon-based software company is largely known for their OS X FTP client Transmit, but entered the iOS space in April 2011 with the launch of Prompt, their SSH client for iPhone and iPad, followed by their affectionately named web editor Diet Coda this past May. This marks the third year in a row that Panic has released an entirely new app on the iOS platform.
Spring is finally here and it is time to bring our music and speakerphones outside. There’s no better way to enjoy sound outside than with a portable bluetooth speaker. But as Jordan noted to me during our CES coverage, there must be 100,000 Bluetooth speakers to choose from including a growing horde of no name brands OEM’ed from fly-by-night Chinese companies.
We’re here to help you pick the right speaker with the right features on the right budget. (Update: We’ve since reviewed the JBL Charge and Bose Soundlink Mini, both of which merit attention.) Expand Expanding Close
We’ve reviewed and enjoyed a number of TwelveSouth products over the years. We were intrigued by the hollowed out book idea with the company’s original BookBook case for the MacBook Air and since it has brought out similar hand distressed leather BookBook cases for other Apple devices, like the iPhone and iPad mini. While maybe not the ideal option for Apple’s anti-skeuomorphic cheerleaders, I found the stark contrast to Apple’s sometimes cold industrial design a nice juxtaposition.
I tend to not use any skins, covers or cases when using my MacBook on a day to day basis. I slide my MacBook into a laptop pouch built-into my backpack or use a standard laptop case when on the go, and rarely do I actually leave the MacBook in the case when in use. A case was necessary for protection when traveling, but for me the average soft or hard plastic laptop case never quite does the pricey, Jony Ive designed Apple hardware inside justice. BookBook is different… Expand Expanding Close
Next came keyboard attachments – two of my favorites are from Logitech and Zagg – but they don’t offer much protection if you drop your iPad (in fact you may notice a slight crack at the top right of my screen there *ahem).
I had a chance to put the two up against each other to find out which was the best and found out that it just isn’t that simple… Expand Expanding Close
Anyone who grew up reading Sci-Fi will know that by now we’re all supposed to be driving hover-cars and living in fully-automated homes, with Star Trek-style swishy doors and cookers we can talk to.
Home automation hasn’t really happened, unless you are either very wealthy, very geeky or both. What Belkin has set out to do with its Wemo products is provide at least a touch of home automation for the rest of us: something affordable, and easy to use … Expand Expanding Close
As someone with years of experience of pushing the battery-life of laptops to the limit, the iPad was something of a revelation. If we ignore the time I stupidly left the Smartcover auto on/off engaged while it was in a bicycle pannier on a London to Paris cycle ride, I’ve literally never run out of power.
However, since I was reviewing the Digital Treasures Powerflask, I thought I would look at the company’s Props Power Case at the same time. The concept is a simple one: a protective case with a built-in battery. Plug your iPad into the case, and the case provides the power…
Most technologies have changed beyond all recognition in the last 10 to 20 years. Compare a smartphone from 10 years ago with the latest iPhone, and the difference is night and day. Laptops, TVs, cameras … pretty much any technology you can name has transformed almost beyond recognition. But there’s one technology whose pace of development seems truly glacial: batteries.
I’m not suggesting battery tech hasn’t improved at all, of course, but my smartphone 10 years ago got me through a typical day with a bit to spare, and my iPhone today does pretty much the same (albeit in a significantly smaller package). Those tiny fuel-cell batteries they keep promising us, with smartphone and laptop battery-life measured in weeks and not hours, seem as elusive as ever. Until that glorious day arrives, there will be times when our iPhone or iPad just isn’t going to have enough power to cope with an extra-long day, weekend camping trip, or similar.
There are a couple of different approaches to the problem. The first is a powered case. We previously reviewed the Morphies Juice and Air power sleeves. This is ideal when you know in advance that you’ll need the extra power and don’t mind a bit of extra bulk to achieve it. The second approach is an external battery pack you use to recharge your phone (and other USB-interfaced gadgets) when needed, or when you’re in one location for a while.
FastCompany today posted an in-depth look at the differences between Apple’s MapKit and Google’s recently launched Google Maps for iOS SDK from the perspective of developers. The lengthy piece gets insight from several iOS app developers with apps that rely on the SDKs and sheds some light on a few things that Apple is doing much better than Google despite a perception from users that Google Maps are superior:
“Google doesn’t currently charge for the Places API, but they do require a valid credit card for access–which gives you a quota of 100,000 daily requests. So you have to wonder if they plan to start charging sooner or later,” McKinlay explains. “That 100,000 limit perhaps sounds reasonable, but each user session can generate many requests–particularly when using the ‘autocomplete’ feature of Tube Tamer–and some types of requests count for 10 times the quota each, so it can get used up pretty quickly.”
While noting that Google wins out with location lookup services, 3D buildings, directions, geocoding, and better hybrid satellite imagery, the developers were also quick to point out downsides of the Google Maps SDK such as quotas for the Places API, an increased app size, and limitations with markers, gradient polylines, and overlays.
Developer of transportation app Tube Tamer, Bryce McKinlay, discussed some of the benefits of using Apple’s MapKit:
“Subjectively, the current version of the [Google] SDK does not perform as well as MapKit,” McKinlay says. “GMSMapView’s frame rate is capped at 30fps, which is lower than typical for iOS and results in a slight but noticeable ‘jitter’ effect when panning and zooming the map. Drawing of labels and POIs sometimes lags behind if you pan quickly, even on a fast device like the iPhone 5.”
“The fact that annotations in MapKit are UIViews also means that animation and other effects can be applied easily using Core Animation, which isn’t currently possible with the Google Maps SDK approach,” McKinlay says. He also points out that MapKit has some other handy features that Google’s SDK currently lacks, like “Follow user location” and “Follow with heading” modes. “MapKit provides a button that automatically moves the map to follow the user’s location, and rotates the map according to the compass heading. This is very helpful for pedestrian navigation. It is possible to implement this manually in Google’s SDK, but it adds extra development time/effort.”
It looks like some developers feel Google has some work to do with their Maps SDK for iOS. While Apple isn’t free of its own issues with MapKit, developers will definitely want to read Fast Company’s entire post before deciding which solution will be best for their app. The developers ultimately end up recommending MapKit over Google’s Maps SDK for the majority of developers.
Designers typically present and visualize their ideas by photographing and Photoshopping or by printing and constructing mock-ups using paper and glue. Both of these are often time-consuming and take designers away from their main focus—designing. LiveSurface is a unique new image library of more than 350 specially constructed image templates that contain 3D surfaces. The pre-built images dramatically shorten the time it takes to create realistic representations of a design idea.
Design can be a tough sell to clients who often don’t know what they want until they see it, and designers often work in the void of the Illustrator Artboard and wait to test their designs on real-world surfaces and materials until later in the design process.
Joshua Distler, Apple alum and creator of LiveSurface, gave us a demo of Context, LiveSurface’s next-generation design tool. Context, now in beta, is a Mac desktop application that integrates with Adobe Illustrator via a plug-in. The application works with Illustrator to allow designers to visualize and present their ideas with just a few clicks… Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s Time Capsule network storage/wireless router is a fine device, but it often doesn’t offer all the flexibility people desire. For instance, my in-laws were after some of the functionality of a Time Capsule (back-up, fast wireless), but they also have a PC (along with a few Macs) and wanted DLNA storage for their Roku video player and some Cloud access to their files from both computers and iOS devices.
That’s where Netgear’s new Centria WNDR4700 comes in. Released last month and available in 2TB and $188 empty configurations, the Netgear Centria is a very nice looking Time Capsule replacement that can save a few bucks and add some missing capabilities. It comes with the same dual 802.11N radios and 4-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, but it adds two USB 3 ports compared to the Time Capsule’s single USB 2.0 port…
Setup isn’t Apple-easy, but it also isn’t hard. The hard drive comes formatted (if you get one without—formatting takes awhile and only goes up to 2TB internally at the moment). There is a setup ‘Genie’ that takes you through most of your wireless settings, including changing the passwords and setting up a Cloud account.
backside
Network Printing is one area where the Time Capsule handily beats the Centria. Netgear requires that you put a small utility on your PC/Mac client machines that must be active when you want to print, rather than printing to a typical print server-type configuration. The upside is that it makes printers AirPrint compatible.
Network speed is as good—if not better— than a recently tested Time Capsule, and I got a much better range unscientifically (out to the street in suburbia). Netgear also allows you to create separate networks for 5GHz and 2.4GHz and open and close guest networks at the same time.
A bonus feature is the easy SDCard backup. Inserting an SD card and pushing a button starts an automatic backup of the SD. Nice-to-have.
Time Machine updates over wireless and wired and both worked fine over about a week of testing. I haven’t had good luck with Time Machine backups in general, so I like to do manual backups every month or so.
The pitch
A small quibble: The fan/hard drive is significantly noisier than a Time Capsule—which is almost silent. Keep that in mind if this thing isn’t going to be living in a closet.
One area where the Centria beats Time Capsule is adding an external USB drive. The 10x USB 3 definitely shows up here and almost matches the internal drive when it comes to backup speed.
The Apps for both iOS and Android are rudimentary. You can download and play videos/pictures/audio from any Internet connection, but it isn’t nearly as robust as Synology’s DiskStation apps for instance. Here’s an iPad screenshot:
If you have PCs that you want to back up and share data, the Centria is definitely a bonus. It has automatic backups for PC users and better Windows-sharing options.
From a networking perspective, you have a lot more granular access to port forwarding and QoS than you have on a Time Capsule. Most people won’t find that important.
Wrap-up:
The Netgear Centria is a nice midrange wireless router/network attached-server option for Mac users and people in a mixed Mac/PC environment. The printing and setup complexity is easily outweighed by its much broader feature set. Things like faster USB 3 connections, SD Card access, easy hard drive upgrades, iOS app/printing, DLNA and Windows compatibility push it over the Time Capsule.
When I used to work an overnight shift at my old job, my coworkers and I had a habit of pulling out our phones and blasting music while we worked. I always thought it was a bit odd that my iPhone 5’s speaker was so much quieter than those of the low-end Android phones many of the other employees carried. It’s not something that happens often outside of that job, but sometimes I find that my phone is just too quiet.
There are a variety of cases on the market that purport to solves this problem without any additional speakers. Most of these just work by putting a small cupped piece of plastic behind the speaker to direct the sound toward the front of the phone. I’ve been summarily unimpressed with these cases.
When I saw the Ampjacket by Kubxlab, the distinct design caught my eye. Instead of a cupped piece of plastic, the Ampjacket redirects the audio from the iPhone’s to a two-way amplification chamber built into the back of the case. Could that be the key to finally getting improved volume out of the iPhone, or would it prove to be just another dud?
The Ampjacket is available for the iPhone 5, fifth-generation iPod touch, and iPad mini. The model reviewed here is specifically for the iPhone 5.
Slickwraps sent us some of their awesome MacBook Pro covers (starting at $20) this month to give a test drive on our Retina MacBook Pro. These are basically hi-tech ‘stickers’ that you apply to your Apple device. Application is easy and bubbles and warps are easy to smooth out. What you see above is the result of about one minute of application of the ‘carbon fiber skin’. If I had spent a little more time, I probably could have aligned things exactly. These things are made to exactly fit Apple’s devices. Note that the stickers don’t cover up any of Apple’s mics, speakers, I/O ports or even the fans on the underside, yet give the MacBook Pro an entirely new, distinctive look.
These covers keep dust and scratches from the Aluminum and glass. The ones you see above have been affixed without issue for over a week. If nothing else the material makes a great palm rest as well.
We also tried out the iPhone wraps (this one is Mahogany). Same story. Very easy to install. Looks great. Taking it off left no residue and it blocks scratches scuffs and dirt. You can even apply many more times because the panels retain their stickiness.
Over the past few weeks, Mophie has released two new battery cases for the iPhone 5: the Juice Pack Helium (above, right) and the Juice Pack Air (above, left). Both cases are similar in functionality, but both offer their own unique pros and cons. Read on after the break for our reviews.
For years, iOS users have wanted a proper way to save, open, and store files on their devices. While Apple has given us a partial solution with “Open In…” sheets, the folks at SonicoMobile have taken it upon themselves to go a step further. Today, they have launched a new app called Files that aims to be the missing “Finder for iOS.”
Of course, we’ve seen similar apps before. What is it that makes Files different from the rest? Keep reading to find out.
