Macgasm

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In this episode, Grant talks about capturing .flv files.

[01.4 MB] [0:02:50] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner]

I’ve owned an iPod for over 4 years now; my first was a 4GB Green iPod Mini. Since then I’ve owned seven iPods total. Three of said iPods were the iPod Nanos, two have been iPhones, and one has been the iPod with video (5th Generation).

Lately, my iPod 5th generation’s battery has been failing. Either the battery, or the entire unit itself will need to be replaced. During this time, where I decide what to do, I’ve been wanting to use my iPhone 3G as my iPod, but I can’t due to some rather important missing features in the iPhone OS iPod app.

The biggest missing feature, and the one that I use the most, is the sleep timer. I like to listen to music while I fall asleep and setting the timer allows the battery to not completely die. Along with that, I do not have to get a major shock if I do awake during the night and music is still playing.

The second feature that is missing from the iPhone OS iPod app is scrubbing. While there is scrubbing within iPhone OS’s iPod app, it is not the same degree at which the iPod Classic can move through an audio file. I know that iPhone OS’s iPod app has scrubbing. However, I can get to the spot within an audio track much faster, and with better precision on my iPod Classic OS device than my iPhone OS device. This does not seem to be the way that the software should behave.

These are the two biggest missing features of the iPhone OS iPod app. I’m sure I’m forgetting some features, but it is not

I mentioned Eliss in a previous “retro” games article, but this game deserves its own post.  It’s that addicting.  Very few iPhone games have kept me playing for more then a week. I’m lying, that’s a euphemism, none have kept me playing for a week.  I think that’s a real testament to the simplicity and design of this game.  It’s simple, it makes you think, and most importantly, it makes you react.  If we had a rating system, I’d give this a perfect 5 out of 5.  Hell, it has made me want to create a rating system just so I can give this a perfect rating.

The concept was a little challenging at first, I had a hard time figuring out what the heck the point of the game was, but it’s so simple that once you get it you feel like an idiot for taking so long to figure it out.  Essentially, there’s two color circles that spawn–pink and yellow.  You don’t let them touch each other or you die.  You can push two like colours together, or pull them apart.  The actual objective of the game is to get these circles and place them into the corresponding hollow circles.

The catch?  You have to make sure that the solid circle is as big as the corresponding empty circle.  If it’s too big or two small it won’t let you combine the two.

Once they’re combined they clear from the screen.

Simple, but it gets hard as hell, and it’s probably the sole reason I keep coming back to this game week after week.  It’s not free, but frankly, it’s the best 2.99 I’ve spent on a game for my iPhone.  Normally we’d do our own screencast of the app, but Steph has done such a good job with his own that we decided just to embed the video.

The game, it’s worth it.

I don’t really have any scientific evidence to suggest that audio only podcasts don’t kill battery life as fast as video podcasts do, but common sense seems to indicate that this might be a great way to save a couple minutes of battery life.  We know that video playback as a whole drains the life of the battery a lot quicker than just listening, but this little hack might not fully fit into that categorization.  It’s still pretty neat if you ask me!

This works great if your favourite podcasters neglect an audio only version of the podcast, or if you’re at work and need to kill some time.

Here’s the tip:

1. Start your video podcast like you normally would.
2. Let it play for a couple seconds then, hit your sleep button (the silver button on top of the device).  This closes the video entirely.
3. Now double click your home button, this should bring up the iPod controls.
4. Hit Play.
5. You’re now in audio only mode.
6. You’ll remain in audio only unless you unlock the screen by “sliding to unlock”

[Thanks goes out to @eastscene for the tip.]

[image via Steve Keys]

[Download] [01.8 MB] [0:03:40]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Josh talks about the EFIX dongle.

[Download] [02.4 MB] [0:05:00]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Grant talks about managing your desktop folder.

There is a saying in life “You never miss something until it’s gone” and this is very true with me and my 10-key pad. The new Apple keyboards and the entire Macbook line has no 10-key pad (…or number pad if you want to call it that). I go crazy without it as well. I come from a financial background and have always depended on my 10-key skills. Nothing makes life harder than doing a bunch of data entry and having to peck around on top of your keyboard. But this is where NumberKey comes into play. NumberKey [opens to the iTunes app store] is an iPhone/iPod touch application that turns your device into a 10-key pad for your mac!! It connects through wifi, but their website explains how to create an ad hoc network so you can use it even when you don’t have a standard network connection. There are two versions of the app in the app store. A free version and then a paid version for $1.99. There really doesn’t seem to be much of a difference except for a few extra features on the paid version. After you download it you only have to install a piece software on your mac so the two can talk! Super useful, I am using it all the time. More information can be found on the company’s website.

You go to bed one night being able to re-download your applications if you’ve deleted them, and you wake up the next morning having to repay for the applications if you need to re-download them over the phone.

Cheeky.

We’re not sure what the motivation is, but it seems like an unclogging the pipes type of deal. I mean, why else would we be able to download the applications from iTunes on the desktop for free, but be forced to pay again over the phone? I’ll tell you one thing though, if I was running the show at the telcos I’d be sure to get something like this going. As much as us users don’t want to admit it, it’s a horrible waste of bandwidth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve deleted something on my iPhone, then a week later re-downladed it over 3G . Is it right that they’re charging us again? Nope. But, it sure makes a lot of sense and clearly something needed to change. I’m a lot kinder to news like this than I am when I see iPhone ads toting 7mbps download speeds in a city that only has Edge (I was quickly thwarted in my picture attempts this weekend on that front).

Looks like the 3.0 OS has some sneaky little quirks about it.  I wonder what else is coming.

[via iPhone Blog]