Macgasm

Every Friday, I ask all of you to take a moment, and join us on our social networks. We believe interaction between the content creators and the consumers is a vital part of our medium, so we want to hear from you as much as possible.

Facebook

We share all of our very best content via Facebook. If you’re a Facebook fanatic, you’ll always be in the loop with the latest Mac news. Be sure to Like our page, and then leave us a message.

Twitter

Tweeting our staff is the best way to get two-way communication. If you have something interesting to say to us, I’m sure every staff member would be happy to respond.

Flickr

My favorite aspect is our Flickr group. Mac fans from around the world post their Apple-related pictures to our group, and then they’re automatically displayed right on our sidebar. If you’re a photog, let’s see what you’ve got in store for us!

Thanks for communicating with us. Every time we hear from you, we’re inspired to write more.

The best video game from my childhood had to be punch out, I spent hours and hours trying to kick Mike Tyson’s butt, but couldn’t even remotely come close. I’d battle my way there in what seemed like record times, just to have my ass handed to be on a silver platter time and time again. I never succumbed to the game genie crap that people were using to beat him either, if I couldn’t win on my own, I didn’t want to win at all–still to this day he kicks my butt.

There’s been a lot of attempts over the years to bring Punch Out to iOS devices, and the I found the closest thing possible on the App Store the other day, it’s not quite the same calibre, but Super K.O. Boxing 2 is a pretty solid rendition of the original.

Dodge, block, counter is the name of the game, and Super K.O. Boxing 2 holds pretty close to the original game dynamics of Punch Out. You can see the inspiration everywhere, there’s even hints from the boxers about their weaknesses in the opening sequences of the fight, just like in the original.  The controls are overlaid on the screen and worked a lot better than I thought they would.

On the whole I’ve spent most of the weekend playing the game, and it’s almost brought me back to my childhood, so if you’re feeling nostalgic in any way this might be a must-have for you.

The iPad Vs. iPhone version

We’re not sure if the iPad version is a direct port to the iPhone, or if the developers recoded it to make use of the extra screen real-estate, but the iPad version looks blurry when compared to the iPhone edition. It’s certainly playable, and still enjoyable, but you can’t escape the feeling that they cut some corners bringing the game to the iPad. The game also isn’t a universal application, instead you have to buy it twice if you’re hoping to play it on both the iPhone and the iPad. Given the blurriness of the iPad edition I’d personally recommend just running the iPhone version on the iPad and using the x2 multiplier to make it larger. You’re probably not going to notice much difference anyways.

A gripe: Roids

If you’re having a hard time beating a level they game will offer you the ability to buy roids for your character. While I’m not exactly sure how I feel about that considering kids will likely be playing this, I’m certainly annoyed that the roids are an in game purchase for $0.99. It took me off guard, but selling virtual drugs is something I just couldn’t get over.

Buy it for the iPhone or iPad

You can purchase the iPhone version for $0.99, and the iPad edition for $2.99

With the big Apple event less than 24 hours away a lot of people are speculating about a lot of ridiculous things, but one thing that’s on everyone’s mind is the 3G patch and a fix for the proximity sensor issue.  If you don’t know what we’re talking about, essentially the proximity sensor in the iPhone 4 is a little bit off kilter, and your screen doesn’t disable quick enough to stop people from dialling with their cheeks. If you have chubby cheeks or not isn’t the issue, it seems to be a challenging problem for everyone.

Well, it looks like we’re all going to be waiting just a little bit longer because an Apple Spokesperson is on damage control duty today, telling the world that the proximity problems will not be patched in version 4.1 of iOS. Fiona Martin says that we probably shouldn’t hold our breath for an announcement at the event because the company is still trying to figure out the best course of action for a solution.  Like the iPhone 4 attenuation problem, it seems like the proximity sensor problems are on a case by case scenario. Not everyone’s noticed it, and some are going insane from it.

Up here in Canada there’s rarely been a peep about it being a problem at all, so there may be a good case to be made that the first batch of iPhone 4′s out the door in the US were bunk.  Mrs. Martin is probably right though, a software bug fix isn’t really something that gets announced at these iPod events, so I wouldn’t expect it either.  We probably won’t hear a thing about it until it slips into some cryptic patch notes in the future.

Article Via Cult of Mac

The number of times that I’ve recommended an iPad over a PC to people who are a little bit older has been climbing rapidly over the last month. If they check email, surf the web, and look at photos, there’s not really anything better than an iPad—it does it well, it does it elegantly, and it does it for the fraction of the cost of a laptop or desktop.

One of the biggest hurdles these days is explaining all the nuances of an iPad. How do you lock the device, where’s the dock connector, how do you put it to sleep, etc. As of this very moment I’ll be forwarding people this PDF instead of engaging in the same Q and A a couple of times a month. Mark Grambau has taken the pre-emptive approach and designed a brief how to guide for the “elderly.” I’d argue that the name need a little bit of work, and that the PDF is great for everyone new to the device. He did a great job on the multiple page instructions.

Article Via Unplggd

Many people would die to work at Apple these days. I’m not one of them, but I know a lot of people would be interested in a marketing position sector that’s innovational. The iBookstore fits most of the criteria as a dream job for many marketing students. But, don’t bust out your resume just yet, Apple’s looking for someone with serious experience to drive “Awareness and sales of iBooks through co-marketing programs with publishers and authors, strategic partnerships, and via online and direct marketing tactics.” In laymen’s terms: They’re asking is for someone to sell a crap load of books for the publishers.

Apple’s taking the iBookstore pretty seriously, and if they have any hope of increasing their reach in the market, they’re gonna have to start selling a lot more books. We don’t doubt their abilities, they were able to transform the music industry, but this time around they have more formidable opponents, who’ve been around longer and have a more established reader base. It’s going to be an uphill battle that, like I’ve said before, is going to require more selection in the store. I was ready to buy the Stieg Larsson trilogy last week, but didn’t because it wasn’t available. That’s significant profit they’re missing out on, and if they’re going to compete, they’re going to need publishers to get on board in a more active way. Not being able to find a book in a bookstore is a little bit of a problem if you’re hoping to sell books.

If you think you’ve got what it takes for the position you can apply here.

Article Via iPodNN

Many of us have been waiting for a long time to get a multiuser Billings app. The application is a move away from the one person business setup to a small business system where a company may have to track the time of two or three employees working on a project.

The application pretty much remains the same, and has a few additional features like a time card for employees, pre approved slips, effortless synchronization, as well as the other traditional parts of Billings.  They’ve also created a web app for other platforms that don’t include OS X.

We’re in the process of reviewing the application, so we’ll have a more definitive review up shortly, but until then you can look over these case studies.

Billings Pro isn’t cheap by any means, and comes in at 209.95 per user, or 189.95 if you’re upgrading from Billings 3. They also offer a pay as you go option, and a multi user discount. Hopefully their pricing doesn’t put the application out of reach for their most likely clients: small businesses.

It looks like TV top computers are en vogue again, Apple’s slated to potentially release an update to Apple TV and Plex is releasing their updated version at midnight on the same day. It seems like people are genuinely curious about how computers will be tying into televisions in the future. Will they run Apps? Will they be in house editions of Blockbuster, who if you don’t already know is preparing for Chapter 11, or are they all hype and zero bite?

I love Plex, and try to love the current installation of the Apple TV. There’s currently a Mac Mini hooked up to my television, running Plex. It does a lot more than the current Apple TV does, and it’s pretty much headache free. So it comes as a note of interest when I saw that TechCrunch had an exclusive on what the new Plex can do. Without stealing their thunder, we’ll embed their video below, it’s pretty amazing stuff.

The most notable change to the device is integration with iOS devices. There is going to be an iPhone/Touch application and an iPad application. They’ll act like a remote, as well as let you stream your media over your wireless network to your devices. That’s pretty huge, I can’t count the number of times I started a movie on my television and found myself wishing I could continue it from the luxury of my bed.

Contrary to the Crunchgear article, Plex always had a media manager that would let you stream content (audio, video, pictures) to another computer. It was previously available for download, but it wasn’t included in the default application, we’re not sure if they’ve changed the model, but the functionality still exists. You can use your Mac Pro as a media server, and stream everything to your TV’s Mac Mini—preferably over a wired network; HD movies over the air don’t seem to work so well.

As Crunchgear does point out, the Media Server has been completely revamped allowing for a much more intuitive process. It’s looking a lot easier to set up a PLEX network in your home than it was when I under took the project with versions previous. If you want a great guide on how to setup PLEX check out Screencasts Online’s tutorial, it’s pretty in depth, unlike this early look at PLEX 9 from Crunchgear.

But, sadly all this information is second hand information, so until we actually get our hands on it, we can’t really comment on its efficiency and features, so here’s Crunchgear’s first look video, if anything it’ll illustrate exactly what a TV PC can do for your media consumption, and just how far Apple needs to go to make the Apple TV a competitor.

Article Via Crunchgear

There’s a slew of RSS readers on the iPad and iPhone. Given the amount of time we spend patrolling the Apple news corridors, it’s no wonder that we spend a lot of time trying out some of these applications, and then reviewing them for you. FLUD News is the latest, and it’s made quite the splash on the AppStore, already hitting the top paid application listing within the first week. It’s an impressive feat, and they’re on top of some really great applications.

There’s a lot to love about it, and there’s a couple of suggestions we have for them as well, so here we go!

What’s Macgasmic:

Google Reader

In today’s world of RSS and up to the minute news updates, having access to a good RSS reader is paramount. While a number of other services have come and gone, it seems like Google Reader has become the defacto RSS aggregator for a lot of people. Google lets you connect to their service and import your feeds to an application that supports their service.

The benefit is that you can sync your RSS feeds across multiple applications, devices, and browsers, giving you the ability to jump between applications without having to waste an entire weekend importing your feeds. It also stops you from having to read through duplicate news, it’s bad enough that we’re in an echo chamber already, so having two or sometimes three copies of the same articles in your reader can be avoided, thank God.

FLUD News lets you connect to your Google Reader account so that you can immediately get your feeds up and running without configuring them one by one. I can’t recommend any service that doesn’t have Google Reader support these days, so it’s a huge positive that FLUD News has given us the option.

In App Video

Video on the web is huge, obviously, but up until now YouTube integration on iOS has been a little suspect. I don’t particularly like being shunted to the official YouTube application every single time I want to watch one of their videos on my iPhone or iPad. FLUD News lets you watch the videos right in the articles. It’s handy, and saves time. You can get your content immediately without having to wait to load the video in another app. It’s another huge positive for the application.

Social Features

I love having access to social media features directly in my RSS readers of choice. It’s another must these days, and it’s good to see that FLUD News also gives you access to this kind of functionality, a quick click and you can love it, ship off an email with a link to the article, share it on Facebook, or tweet it to your followers on Twitter. If you’re a news junkie there’s probably a high likelihood that the people to associate with are as well. Being able to send off links to things you find important will help you share your interests a lot easier than some of the other applications for iOS.

What could use some polish:

De-Pulsify

FLUD News has been getting some criticisms over the last week about their originality, and their similar look and feel to Pulse. While there’s obvious similarities, I’d argue that FLUD News actually takes their concept one step further, and incorporates a much tidier experience. For instance, FLUD News has clearly defined categories at the top of their application, whereas Pulse does not. They also provide a better article page, complete with tools for sharing and loving the content you’re reading.

I’d recommend trying this application out for yourself and coming to a conclusion on your own. We see the similarities, but we also see a lot of differences between the two apps. Think of it like Twitter applications, there’s only so many ways someone can display a tweet. FLUD News took the Pulse model and ran with it, and I think they did an admirable job pushing the boundaries of the model.

That being said, there’s a lot to gain by pushing themselves beyond the “Pulse” layout that they’ve built their great application around. Differentiating themselves even further from Pulse would be the most beneficial thing they could do to their app.

Giveaway

With this review we’re also doing a giveaway. If you want a chance to win a promocode for FLUD for iPad (US only) just follow these three steps:

1. Follow @macgasm on Twitter
2. Tweet this message “Win a copy of FLUD News for the iPad. Details and review here: http://su.pr/18fnKF”.
3. Post a comment here with a link to your tweet.

That’s it! I’ll randomly pick a winner Friday, September 3rd.
Good luck!

The Winner: Fabio

Buy It

If you’re not the giveaway type you can also buy the app on the App Store for $3.99