Macgasm

We’ve complained a lot around here about Apple’s official remote application only being available on the iPhone. When I’m on the couch listening to tunes I don’t want to have to dig through my pockets for my iPhone, especially if I’m already doing some browsing on my iPad.

Turns out that the new remote app, updated today, is a universal application, and better yet, the iPad edition looks a lot like iTunes. Curious, isn’t it? Does this qualify as a streaming iTunes player? We think so, but it doesn’t exactly stream your media to the iPad. Instead, it acts like a remote, playing the audio out of your computer speakers.  Missed opportunity here? Probably.

The application also adds support for retina displays, and the new Apple TV, so once we get our hands on either of those devices, we’ll let you know how well integrated they are with the remote.

As it stands, we have a bit of a difficult time seeing how this doesn’t duplicate functionality with the iPod application. While the remote plays files remotely, we’ve got a gut feeling that these two apps could merge down the road.

Here’s some first look screenshosts

It may be the end of an era at Apple, and the beginning of a kinder and gentler App Store, where developers can develop anything they want, so long as they meet the guidelines that Apple released earlier this month.

It appears that the official Google Voice app might just be coming back to the App Store, and taking up residency along side other Google Voice applications such as GV Mobile, and GV Connect. TechCrunch is alleging that the application has already been approved, and Google is currently in the process of updating their application to include iOS support for multi-tasking.

It has been just over a year (July 2009) since Apple and Google reached a stalemate regarding Google Voice on the iPhone. The official Google Voice application has been sitting in an approval queue the whole time, neither moving forward nor being denied. Instead it just stagnated in the review process pool.

Could this be the end of an era, and the proverbial end of the “wall” that is Apple’s App Store? Only time will tell.

Article Via TechCrunch

So, changes have obviously been made to the iPhone 4, but questions remain about just how far Apple has taken the alterations. If they’re keeping with the typical naming convention of their phones, the iPhone 3,2 and iPhone 3,3, as shown in the screen shot, should keep the same look and form factor.

A clever little firmware hacker was poking around the USBDeviceConfiguration.plist file and found that the new Apple TV firmware mentions two new iPhone models.

The changes could be anything frankly, so this isn’t an overly exciting bit of news. Apple could have changed a chip here and a chip there, or fixed the not so broken antenna, but it could also be that one of the two devices is a CDMA phone, rumoured to be released in the first quarter of 2011. We wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but it could be possible.

Article Via 9 to 5 Mac, BGR, and MacStories

We’re not 100% certain, but this might just be the very first busker to kick out the jams on an iPad. It’s an interesting concept, and I’m not knocking the musicianship required to play an app like Seline HD, but I wonder if people who are willing to pay buskers feel like she’s cheating a little bit.

I’d be curious to know if there’s a difference in the money she makes while she’s playing Seline HD over a traditional instrument.

The First iPad Street Musician? from Alex Shpil on Vimeo.

Thanks to The Kasabian for submitting the video.

Noterize is a sophisticated application for note-taking, annotating PDFs and PowerPoint slides, recording lectures, and sharing. With multiple mark-up options, webpage and websnap insertion, numerous import and export options, and extensive in-app help, Noterize offers users incredible functionality with a beautiful and easy-to-understand interface.

The Main Screen: When you open Noterize in landscape mode, the lefthand portion of the screen (the sidebar) contains a list of your documents (called “Note Sets”), and the main portion of the screen displays a page for editing. In portrait mode, the entire screen is used for the editing page and note set options appear as pop-up screens accessed via a menu button.

You can create a new Note Set by pressing the “new note set” button at the bottom of the sidebar/pop up. This creates a blank notebook page in your choice of paper styles (yellow lined, white lined, graph paper, etc.) You can type directly on these pages and the text automatically snaps to the lines, or you can draw or create text boxes. Using the “Import PDF/PPT” button, you can import PDFs or PowerPoint documents via your documents folder, the in-app web browser, Box.net, or Dropbox.

When you open a document, the sidebar/pop up changes to display all the pages in your document and you can swipe through them easily to locate the page you want to edit. You can also insert blank pages using the insert button at the bottom of the sidebar. In landscape mode, you can hide the sidebar by tapping the “sidebar” tab, but this does not make the editing page bigger. Instead the page is simply centered with wider margins. If you want a true full-page view you must switch to portrait mode.

Editing and Annotation Options. In both landscape and portrait modes, editing and annotation options are displayed in the top menu bar. Using the icons, you can bookmark a page for easy reference, create an audio recording, insert a text box, write directly on your document, highlight passages, and erase.

Bookmarks. When you create a bookmark, you can give it a title and a red ribbon will appear on the thumbnail of the page in the sidebar. Using bookmarks, you can create a table of contents of sorts for an individual note set so you can easily access pertinent items without having to swipe through the entire document.

Audio Recording. This feature allows you to record meetings, lectures, etc. simply by tapping on the + icon. Recording begins immediately. If your notes require more than one page as you are recording, Noterize automatically closes the first page and begins the next, assigning the recording to the proper page.

Text Boxes. Text boxes come in a variety of formats. You can create a simple box that contains text only, a box with a border, or a sticky note. In addition, you can also insert images into text boxes, choosing from your photo library or saved photos, or creating a web snap. If you choose to create a web snapshot, Noterize takes you to the in-app web browser where you can search Google for images and/or text to insert into the box.

Pen, Highlighter, Eraser. Both the pen and the highlighter buttons come with six color choices and a line-width selector. In addition, you can utilize the app’s “palm protect” feature which makes accidental palm presses less likely. The eraser button allows you to choose the width of your eraser.

Sharing Options: When the pages sidebar is open, a “share” button appears at the bottom. Choose this and you can share one or multiple pages of a document using a variety of methods, including email, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, Box.net, and Dropbox. If you have audio files embedded in your document, you must use the document folder option (transferring your documents via the iTunes interface). This is because files with embedded audio tend to be much larger. You also have the option of opening your document in other PDF-friendly applications on your iPad.

Other Features: Noterize offers other advanced features that are quite helpful. You can password protect sensitive documents that you plan to share, though I didn’t see an option to password protect documents within the app itself. You can reorder or delete pages using the edit button on the sidebar. Noterize has its own clipboard (separate from the iPad’s clipboard) which allows you to copy and paste pages between or within note sets. If you want to share your documents on a big screen, Noterize supports VGA out.

What’s Macgasmic: Noterize is one of the most full-featured applications I have on my iPad. Not only can you use it as a simple note-taking application, you can record audio while you take notes, highlight your notes later for study purposes, and add text boxes and images to your notes. In addition, Noterize can annotate both PDFs and Powerpoint slides. This seems to me to be the perfect combination of features, especially for students. I appreciate how portrait mode allows you to view the entire page of your document. And the multiple annotation options make it easy to mark up your document using whatever method you prefer (text boxes, hand-written notes, stickies, etc). The in-app web browser is great, especially for importing documents from web pages and, even better, screen shots and web snaps. I like that you can hide the sidebar in landscape mode, but I wish the page enlarged to fill up the entire screen. Being able to insert note-taking pages between pages of a PDF or a Powerpoint presentation is really handy, especially if you’re taking down lecture notes while using a professor’s Powerpoint slides. The user’s manual, which you can download straight into Noterize, explains all the features thoroughly.

What’s Not: Import can be glitchy, especially for larger PDF documents with lots of media. Sometimes I had to download a document more than once to get it to work. But I’ve found that most apps that import PDFs struggle with large files. I’m puzzled by the fact that Noterize can import Powerpoint presentations but not Keynote, but this may be due to Apple licensing issues of which I’m unaware. The page turning animations within note sets are pretty slow and distracting. I prefer using the sidebar to skip to the page I want simply because it’s quicker. Initially, I had a difficult time figuring out how to edit text boxes. Through trial and error I discovered that I had to triple-tap text boxes to put them into editing mode (I probably should have read the manual more closely). I would like the ability to create folders and sub-folders to better organize my note sets.

Noterize is available on the App Store for $2.99. With your purchase you get a 15% off discount coupon for a Pogo Sketch Stylus as well.

Things must be going really well for Condé Nast these days, as they’re continuing to bring their magazines to the iPad, one after another. Joining the ranks this time, alongside Wired, GQ, and Vanity Fair, is the New Yorker. The weekly is selling for $4.99 per issue on the iPad, which works out to be $259.48 per year, if all the issues are priced similarly. This is pretty steep when it comes to a magazine subscription, considering you can subscribe to the print copy for three years at the low, affordable price of $99.95.

If there was ever a case for a subscription-based magazine model on the iPad, this might be it. While we don’t know the ins and outs of the negotiating that’s been going on between Apple and the publishers over the subscription model, we’re hoping something gets worked out pretty quickly. If digital publishing is really going to save the industry, these unlikely partners need to get consumers realistic prices for subscriptions. A $4.99 magazine isn’t all that pricey if you’re the type of reader who wants to pick up an edition here or there, but if you read any of these magazines religiously, it’s going to be hard to justify the premium price for the luxurious iPad edition.

The New Yorker iPad magazine works like the rest of the Condé Nast publications. You download the reader for free, and then download the magazines one by one in application, after paying for each edition separately. The UI and navigation framework are the same as the Wired magazine: swipe up and down within an article, left to right to switch between articles, and tap to bring up a scrubber.

You can watch Jason Schwartzman give an app demonstration in the video below. It’s pretty funny, and by far, my favourite part is when he pulls the iPad out from underneath a pillow.  We’ve all be there, haven’t we?

Stylebook is an iPhone database of your wardrobe. This wonderful app is designed not only to be your virtual closet in your pocket, but also to help you mix and match your clothes and accessories to create fashionable outfits. You can add pictures of all your clothes, shoes and accessories to the app, organise them in different categories, use fashion pics as inspiration to create your outfits and there’s even a calendar to keep track of when you wore each item.

How does it work?

When you first open the app, there’s a screen that briefly explains what you can do with Stylebook. Then you have the main screen where you can choose, from the buttons on the bottom, between Closet, Looks, Calendar, and More.

From the Closet, you can upload pics of your clothes and organize them in the different categories. You can add custom categories and edit the existing ones.

Looks is where you organise your clothes into outfits. Each outfit also goes into its own category (work, evening, formal, etc.). In addition to adding clothes/shoes/accessories to each outfit, you can also add an inspiration pic (explained below).

In the Calendar, you can add what you wore each day so you can make sure you’re not wearing the same outfits too often and you can also use it to plan your future wardrobes or what you’re going to wear to an upcoming special event.

There’s also an Inspiration tab where you can add pics (from fashion magazines, friends, etc) for you to get inspiration for your own outfits.

In the More tab, there are several tips explaining how to use the app and, most notably, how to better photograph your clothes and remove the background.

What’s Macgasmic?

When you create looks, you can pinch to make items bigger or smaller which is very helpful if you photographed your clothes from different distances. You can also layer them to get a better idea of how your outfit is going to look.

The included automatic background remover isn’t perfect, but Stylebook gives you plenty of tips on how to photograph your clothes, what color backgrounds to use to make everything smoother and there’s even a manual edit mode to fix what the background remover couldn’t.

What needs work?

Currently, you have to edit out the background of each pic as soon as you upload it. There’s no option to save it so that you can edit it later. It would be better if you could photograph a bunch of clothes at once and edit them all later. This limitation is also a problem if you make a mistake while removing the background. That is to say, there’s no going back after saving the pic.

Another thing that needs work is adding clothes to outfits: you can only select one item at a time which can be time consuming if you have a look with lots of layers and accessories.

As a girl who always packs too much, I would also love a packing list feature. That way I could try to optimise my packing by trying to pack items that could be used in different outfits.

It might seem like it’s too much work to photograph and upload all your clothes. If you do manage that, Stylebook can be an amazing tool. You can use it while shopping to see how something would look with your clothes back home. You can use it to plan your outfits for the week to avoid those “I have nothing to wear” mornings. If you’re lucky enough to have more clothes than you can keep track of, it’s very useful to help you find what you’re looking for.

Giveaway

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

1. Follow @macgasm on Twitter.
2. Tweet this message “Win a copy of Stylebook from Macgasm. Details and review here: http://bit.ly/bWxzuz”.
3. Post a comment here with a link to your tweet.

That’s it! I’ll randomly pick a winner Friday, October 1st. Good luck!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Congrats to LucaDB!  We’ll be in touch over Twitter.

Photo credit: kandyjaxx

The iPhone 4 isn’t just a “western world” phenomenon, everyone seems to be wanting to get their hands on an iPhone 4 these days, and even the Chinese are having a hard time fullfilling the 200,000 iPhone 4 preorders that China Unicom committed to since the release of the iPhone 4. China Unicom managed to sell about 60,000 physical phones over the launch weekend, with about 40,000 going to individuals, and the rest being shipped to bulk customers.

With all the success of the iPhone 4, it’s hard to say if Apple will announce another new phone in January. While previous generation phones have sold like hot cakes, I don’t remember any of the iPhone 4′s predecessors selling out 9 months after their announcement.

Apple’s traditionally announced a new phone every January, so there is a high likelihood that a new device might get some play time at an event, but it’s going to be hard for Apple Inc to trump the iPhone 4′s demand.

Article  Via MacNN