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Filed under: Audio, Blogging, Freeware, Internet Tools, Podcasting, iPhone, App Store, App Review

AudioBoo lets you broadcast audio directly from the iPhone

by Mike Schramm on Jun 26th 2009 at 10:00AM

Back when we looked at Radar, a photosharing site with an accompanying iPhone app, I mentioned that while Twitter had monopolized the "text exporting" function from your iPhone, there would be a slew of companies to try and grab the rest of the media you want to broadcast. Radar, I said, wanted to be the photo app. And AudioBoo, it appears, wants to be the audio app (we've yet to see a strong video contender pop up with the 3GS, though YouTube is certainly serving for now).

I've been using AudioBoo (iTunes link) for a few weeks now, and I have to say, it definitely does what it says on the box: after a short signup session and the installation of the app to your iPhone, you can record and upload (and almost more interesting, listen back to others') audio quickly and easily.

You hit record, can talk for a while (i haven't hit a limit yet, though three minutes is what I originally heard, and that tends to be about right for these little mini-podcasts), then hit stop and upload, add a picture, title, and tags, and a few minutes later, your audio is right there on the web for everyone to hear. I've used it on my EDGE phone and my friend's 3G, and I have to say the experience is better on the 3G -- the upload speeds are much better (I generally have to wait on my iPhone until I get on Wi-Fi to upload the audio), and to my ears, the audio sounds better. Here's a recording I made at a Cubs game on my 1G with a few friends, and a recording my friend made on his 3G at a restaurant. Edge works, obviously, but the 3G seems to work better.

Continue reading “AudioBoo lets you broadcast audio directly from the iPhone”

Tags: 3g, app-store, audio, audioboo, broadcasting, edge, facebook, iphone, listening, multimedia, recording, site, sparse, twitter, upload, video

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Features, Internet, Apple, TUAW Interview, Developer, iPhone, SDK

TUAW interviews OpenFeint's Peter Relan, Net Jacobsson, and Jason Citron

by Mike Schramm on Jun 25th 2009 at 12:30PM

Danielle Cassley and Jason Citron are the folks with their names on Aurora Feint, but as Danielle told us in an interview a while ago, Peter Relan is the real mastermind behind the growing Feint empire. Not only did he put the two together in an idea lab, but he's one of the driving forces behind the OpenFeint enterprise. Under his oversight, the Feint folks have swelled to become one of the major forces behind iPhone gaming (and thus, behind the iPhone's app ecosystem itself).

Netanel "Net" Jacobsson is a newer addition -- he's previously worked with Sony Ericsson on their mobile devices and Facebook on their own growing app empire, and now he's arrived at OpenFeint to help them use the lessons he's learned at the biggest online social networks around on their social software. Get the sense of how big this is yet? Relan, Jacobsen, and Citron all have pretty big ideas about where iPhone gaming is going, and as 3.0 comes down the pike and introduces a whole set of new features from Apple, they're in the best seat they can be in to do exactly what they want to do.

TUAW sat down with the three last week, and chatted about iPhone 3.0 and why it's such a big deal for developers, how they're going to approach microtransactions (carefully), and what's coming next for OpenFeint now that they've rounded up a whole stable full of developers implementing their backbone. Click "read more" to continue.

Continue reading “TUAW interviews OpenFeint's Peter Relan, Net Jacobsson, and Jason Citron”

Tags: aurora-feint, engaged, engagement, facebook, future, gaming, in-app-purchase, interview, iphone, iphone-3.0, jason-citron, mafia-wars, mechanic, microtransactions, net-jacobsen, openfeint, peter-relan, pocket-god, push-notification, social, social-networking, software, tuaw

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

First Look: Postman adds social networking to the iPhone ecards mix

by Michael Rose on Jun 18th 2009 at 7:00PM

In the ecosystem of the App Store, the postcard-sending app occupies a healthy niche; about two pagefuls -- 60 apps -- show up in the store, for a category weighting of 0.125 flatulans. The flatulan, of course, is the unit of measurement of App Store penetration, equaling the 480 individual apps that include the word 'fart' somewhere in their description.

Among those postcard apps, there are several standouts for virtual cards (ADA winner Postage, for example) and even a few that let you send physical postcards for a small fee (TapTapCards, goPostal and Postino).

With Postman (iTunes link/website), released today by Freeverse and Taptivate for $0.99 for iPhone OS 3.0 devices, the postcard-sending app category gets a social media boost. Postman lets you deliver your two-sided ecards (yes, the app gives you the option of simulating the back of a traditional postcard, complete with stamp graphic) via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, email, or simple upload to the postmanapp.com website for public review. You can already track several tweeted postcards (some which probably should never have been sent.) You can also simply save your postcards to the photo roll on the device.

Creating postcards with Postman is fast and easy; all the controls are persistent in a small icon bar at the top of the screen and large front/back and 'share' buttons at the bottom.

Postman has style and several handy features. In addition to using your own camera images/photo library or the included stock images for postcard sources, you can locate yourself on a Google map and use that graphic instead (this leverages the Map API in iPhone 3.0). Once you pick a graphic, you've got a choice of one-click filters to apply that spice up the look of your card. You can easily switch fonts and colors for your text input on the card front or back, and then send with a couple of taps.

There are a few rough edges with the first release. I found the lack of a portrait mode frustrating, as I'm actually a faster typist on the vertical keyboard; not that you'll be keying in a chapter of War and Peace, but there's quite a bit of room for copy on the postcard back and I'd like to be able to rotate on that screen. The selection widgets seem cramped a bit, particularly the one for the stock templates. It would be nice to save postcards in progress and switch back to them, but for now there's only one card and no way to revert to earlier versions.

If you want to have super-slick, email-only postcards from your iPhone, and are willing to spend a couple of dollars more for some added flexibility, you may be better off with Postage or the still-awesome Comic Touch. For $0.99, however, the first pass of Postman delivers ease of use and some very handy delivery mechanisms on the back end.

Tags: app review, AppReview, card, facebook, google map, google-map, GoogleMap, iphone, postage, postcard, postcards, postino, postman

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

OpenFeint 2.0 brings social discovery to the iPhone

by Mike Schramm on Jun 11th 2009 at 11:30AM

The Aurora Feint folks are at WWDC with the rest of the Mac development world this week, and while out there, not only are they having a party, but they sent out an announcement: OpenFeint 2.0 is out now, and it has some "social discovery" features now included. Their open platform already supported doing things like leaderboards and profiles from directly within iPhone applications and games, but now the new release will also allow users to bring their friends lists in from Facebook and Twitter, update profile pictures of themselves, and both find their friends and figure out what they're playing. The system is free to integrate into iPhone apps and games, and there's a user-based model that costs more at higher levels.

OpenFeint isn't the only system attempting to do something like this (be a sort of Xbox Live for iPhone games), but they are certainly the biggest, with more developers jumping into their boat every day. And as is the way with social networks, sometimes being the biggest is just as good as being the best. Look for their features in an iPhone game near you.

Tags: announcements, facebook, integration, iphone, networking, openfeint, social-networking, social-platform, twitter, wwdc

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

A photo frame for your pocket and desk

by Mel Martin on May 21st 2009 at 6:00PM

DreamStream [App Store] is a new piece of software for the iPhone and iPod touch that gives you a personalized wireless portable picture frame. It can access photos you have on your phone, or with internet connectivity provide you with links to MobileMe galleries, Facebook, Flickr tags and RSS image feeds. I tried attaching to my MobileMe account and Flickr images and it worked just fine.

You also get widgets that display the time, weather in cities you select and the date. Happily, the app runs in either portrait or landscape mode.

I thought the documentation was a bit thin, and adding images from your camera roll on the iPhone is a bit time consuming as there is no way to select multiple photos -- you have to add them one at a time.

I'd love to see a method to add scrolling news feeds from selected sources, and perhaps an option to add music from your on-board collection. Remember that iPod touch users will only have Wi-Fi as an option for connectivity.

As it is, DreamStream is a nice, well performing app, and certainly worth the $1.99US asking price. I like the ability to see the photo streams from friends around the country, and now when my iPhone is idling and charging on my desk it has something to do.

Here are some screen shots of Dreamstream in action:

Tags: DreamStream, Facebook, Flickr, iphone, ipod touch, IpodTouch, MobileMe, photo frame, PhotoFrame, photos, pictures, streaming photos

Filed under: Gaming, Odds and ends, Freeware, App Store, App Review

Mafia Wars out now on the iPhone

by Mike Schramm on Apr 8th 2009 at 12:30AM


Unfortunately, the classic mobile game of Dope Wars (I played hours of it on my old TI-80) still hasn't been allowed on the App Store -- Apple reportedly wasn't happy with the drug-themed gameplay, and so there are only "sugarcoated" versions there now (including one that is literally about sugar, branded as Candy Wars). But Zynga, makers of Scramble Live, have now released a game called Mafia Wars, which brings the same kind of premise: you're a mob boss, and you buy and use firearms to get money and all sorts of illegal items. The gameplay isn't exactly the same (rather than selling for higher and lower prices, you're "doing jobs" that cash out earned points for money), but Mafia Wars goes a little farther than Dope Wars, too, in that, since the game was originally created on MySpace and Facebook, you can "fight" against other players and win cash from them, too.

Don't expect to see any of Grand Theft Auto's 3D graphics or storyline (for that, you can go try Payback) -- this is a strictly turn-based button pressing simulation. But it's got quite a life of its own on Facebook already, so it's well balanced and fun for a few pick-up-and-play minutes at a time. It's free right now on the App Store, though Zynga says there'll be "premium versions" (whatever that means) that cost from $10 to $40 (whatever that means) available soon.

Tags: app-store, candy-wars, dope-wars, facebook, firearms, mafia, mafia-wars, myspace, payback, scramble-live, simulation, zynga

Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, App Store

Scrabble for iPhone gets a Facebook boost

by Michael Rose on Mar 24th 2009 at 6:45PM

Say the words 'Facebook' and 'Scrabble' in the same breath and you're likely to get the evil eye from fans of the lamented Scrabulous application that formerly called the social network its wordy home, even though the official game has made its way back onto Facebook. Despite the stomp job on the unofficial version from Hasbro The Hardnosed Holder of the copyright, the game is still addictive in analog, online and iPhone formats.

Now a new version of the iPhone Scrabble game, which previously permitted networked head-to-head play over WiFi, is giving players the option of using the Facebook Connect tools to play against friends far and wide. Announced today at the Game Developers Conference, the FBC-friendly build of the app requires you to add the Scrabble application on Facebook, then log in from the iPhone to connect the two. If you don't already own the iPhone app, it's $4.99US. Play can cross over between the web and iPhone versions of the game with no difficulty -- I'm loading it up as we speak and challenging my Facebook buddies (who are, without exception, better at Scrabble than I am) to a match or two.

We'll have a full rundown of GDC opening day iPhone news later on tonight.

Tags: facebook, games, iphone, network, scrabble

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, iTunes, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Scramble Live lets iPhone users play against Facebook users

by Mike Schramm on Mar 4th 2009 at 9:00PM

Zynga has released a new iPhone game called Scramble Live, and while the game itself isn't anything really new -- it's Boggle, basically -- the technology is pretty interesting. They've already got a Facebook version up and running with over a million users, and the new app will let you play against other users, on both the iPhone and Facebook, in real-time. That's a pretty impressive hook -- rather than building up a new social audience, you can just carry away your Facebook friends and play with them while you're on the iPhone.

Unfortunately, there's a catch (isn't there always?) -- the game's iTunes page says the live game is only available over 3G or Wifi, so us first-gen iPhone users are out of luck for that mode. But there's also a solo mode, as well as a "pass and play" version that you can use to play with people around you.

The game's "on sale" at $2.99 until March 9th, when it'll jump back up to $4.99. If you're a fan of the Facebook version and want to try out some cross-platform gameplay, give it a look.

Tags: app-store, boggle, facebook, game-modes, gaming, iphone, online, pass-and-play, real-time, scramble-live, social, words

Filed under: Switchers, Ask TUAW

Ask TUAW: Recovering pictures, updating Facebook, iPhone battery life and more

by Chris Ullrich on Feb 25th 2009 at 12:00PM

Once again, it's time for another edition of Ask TUAW: the place where we try to answer all of your Mac and Apple-related questions. This week we're taking questions about recovering pictures from corrupted compact flash cards, Twitter for the iPhone, extending iPhone battery life and more.

As always, we welcome your suggestions for this week and questions for next time. Please leave your contributions in the comments for this post. When asking questions, please include which Mac and which version of OS X you're running. If you don't specify, we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac.

Okay, let's get to it!

Nick F. asks:

I've got some pictures I need to recover from a corrupted Compact Flash card. What's the best, preferably free, software to do it on my Mac?

This is one of those questions that can get frustrating if you're a Mac user. On the Windows side, there are a few good (and free) pieces of software that can help you accomplish this task. For the Mac, you're choices are mostly limited to pay applications -- at least if you want good results. Fortunately, these pay applications are very good.

For my money, the piece of software that works best when you want to recover pictures from a bad CF or SD card is Klix ($29.95) from Joesoft. I've used it quite a bit with clients, and on my own bad cards, and each time it performed flawlessly, recovering every lost picture from the card. Other alternatives for the Mac include CardRaider ($19.95), PhotoRescue ($29.00) and Data Rescue II ($99.00).

I realize that $29.95 for a piece of software might seem like a lot to some people. But if the software is easy to use and works as advertised, I think it's a worthwhile investment in the long run. Besides, it would cost far more to go back and take those vacation pictures you lost on the card again when you could buy Klix and recover them from your bad card instead. Given that, a program like Klix is actually a bargain.

If you've got Windows running on your Mac (either through Boot Camp or virtualization) and you've had good luck with one of the tools from the other side of the fence, let us know in the comments.




Continue reading “Ask TUAW: Recovering pictures, updating Facebook, iPhone battery life and more”

Tags: ask tuaw, AskTuaw, battery life, BatteryLife, camera, facebook, help, iphone, photography, switcher, switchers, tips, training, twitter

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Peripherals, Software, iTunes, Developer

DVD Jon's Doubletwist sends and shares your media

by Mike Schramm on Feb 24th 2009 at 8:00PM

Why, you might wonder, would we want another media program -- isn't iTunes enough? But a new app called Doubletwist (by DVD Jon, creator of the old DeCSS DRM-stripping software) looks to answer that question by taking an iTunes-style interface, and expanding it to pretty much anything you'd want to do with media -- send it to your own phones and portable devices, upload it to sites like Facebook or YouTube, or even send it off to your friends, even those who don't have the app. We first heard about Doubletwist about a year ago, but there wasn't a Mac version to speak of (so who cares, right?).

But the Mac version is now out in public beta, and it's pretty impressive -- you can basically ignore file types, formats, or anything else that would keep you from sending a video, audio, or photo file from your computer out into the great blue yonder. There are a few other screencasts floating around as well, including this demo of the way the app works with pretty much any device you want, from iPod Blackberry to Android, the Sony PSP, and soon, the Nintendo DSi. [Note that the current build only supports the iPhone and iPod on the Windows side, but they say that Mac support for our favorite devices is forthcoming.]

It seems very enticing (though I'm doubtful that all of the video converting and sharing really goes as fast as it looks in the video). But if you want to find out for yourself, have at it -- DoubleTwist is currently a free beta download for Intel 10.5 and up users.

Thanks Sebastiaan!

Continue reading “DVD Jon's Doubletwist sends and shares your media”

Tags: beta, doubletwist, dvd, dvd-jon, facebook, itunes, media, public-beta, sharing, update, youtube

Filed under: iLife, Multimedia, Software, Productivity, Reviews

TUAW Review: iPhoto '09 is a pretty picture

by Mel Martin on Jan 28th 2009 at 12:00AM

As noted by Robert yesterday, the first boxed copies of iLife '09 reached users today. The two iLife '09 apps that have changed the most are garnering the lion's share of excitement this week. iMovie and iPhoto have some rather dramatic improvements, and I'll detail the iPhoto changes here.

Before you install, please note that the iLife '09 setup will nuke your older iLife apps. You'll need your original install disc to revert. I ran a Spotlight search and those old iLife apps are nowhere to be found. If you think you might want to roll back, be sure to back up your apps and your iPhoto library beforehand.

When you start up iPhoto for the first time it updates your libraries and starts an immediate search for faces in your photos. That search goes on in the background, so you can do other things with iPhoto at the same time.

Here's a rundown on the new features:

The most technically advanced feature is Faces. iPhoto now does some face recognition to help you automatically find people in your bushel of images. You start by identifying a face, and you enter the person's name. iPhoto will then suggest matches in your library, and you can confirm them with a click. iPhoto generates a cork board where you can see one example of each face you have identified. Double-click on that face and it displays all the other faces that match.

The technology is not perfect. It didn't get all the matches right, but when it was wrong I'd have to admit the person it found had a similar face. To try and trick it, I showed it a picture of a parrot. Although there were many similar shots of the same parrot, iPhoto utterly failed to match any of them. I think Faces wants human faces (although there are examples of penguins being recognized, and Mac|Life has tested it out successfully on feline faces).

Check out the gallery for some close ups of iPhoto features and controls, and read on for more notes on the updated features.

Gallery: iPhoto '09 Gallery

Slide show controlsPlaces mapImage enhancement toolsSharing controls


Continue reading “TUAW Review: iPhoto '09 is a pretty picture”

Tags: Facebook, Flickr, iLife 09, Ilife09, iPhoto 09, photo editing, slide shows

Filed under: Macworld, Software, iPhone, iPod touch

Facebook for iPhone and iPod touch updated to version 2.1

by Chris Ullrich on Jan 8th 2009 at 9:00PM

In the online social networking space you've got your big guns: MySpace, to a lesser extent Twitter and for business users, LinkedIn. Facebook is also extremely popular and now, Facebook's client for iPhone and iPod touch has been updated to version 2.1.

Among the changes for this update include fewer crashes (that's an important one), corrected timestamps for all time zones, improved sync time and faster loading of the inbox. It's also worth noting that Facebook for iPhone and iPod touch requires iPhone 2.2 firmware.

Other iPhone and iPod touch apps updated recently include Pandora, Things, Darkslide, Lists and the trifecta of iSteam, iFog and icanhascheezburger. So, fire up iTunes or the Applications app on your iPhone / iPod touch and go get 'em!

Be sure to let us know how they work in the comments.

Tags: facebook, iphone, macworld09, socialnetworking

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Odds and ends, Internet, Surveys and Polls, iPhone

Social networking getting bigger on mobile phones

by Mike Schramm on Dec 23rd 2008 at 12:00PM

This is a big duh to anyone (like me) who's switched to a smartphone within the last year or so, but according to "new research" (I've never heard of them either), social networking applications and websites are blowing up on mobile phones, including none other than the iPhone.

Things are going both ways -- social networks are reaching out to mobile users with mobile versions of their sites and device-specific applications, and mobile phones are reaching back by allowing quick and easy ways to take pictures or upload text or video. That dude on his phone in the bar next to you is just as likely to be texting his entire network as he is texting that friend he's waiting for.

The end of The Guardian's article about this notes that search is up on mobile phones, too. Throw one more tick on the list of ways the iPhone has influenced how, when, and where we're using the Internet on our phones.

[via textually]

Tags: facebook, iphone, mobile-phones, myspace, photos, social-networking, socialnetworking, text-messages, twitter

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Ziibii floats updates to your iPhone

by Cory Bohon on Nov 21st 2008 at 8:00AM

Do you like keeping up with friends on social networks? Do you have an iPhone? If so, you might be interested in a new social networking application for the iPhone called Ziibii. Ziibii [iTunes link] brings an innovative approach to viewing your social networking sites and RSS feeds -- without ever leaving this one app. Ziibii allows you to see friend updates, videos, and photos from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube.

Ziibii's killer feature is its "River" feature, which depicts friend updates, photos, videos, and RSS feed headlines "floating" down a river on tiny rafts. You can interact with the river and rafts with gestures. Moving too fast? Move your finger left or right on the screen. You can even make the river flow in the opposite direction by swiping your finger against flow.

Rafts too close together? Pick it up and move it. If you tap on a raft, you will be presented with a full screen view of the update and get the option to share that update via email or Twitter. If you get sea sick with River view, you can also give list view a try, which stacks updates on top of each other; swiping right to left loads more updates.

Ziibii comes pre-loaded with some good blogs (TUAW is listed under the "iPhone Stuff" section), and you can also add your own RSS feeds via the "My Feeds" setting.

Ziibii has a very nice user interface, and allows you to quickly see all of your friend updates in a unique fashion. However, we would like to see an option to post updates and photos to Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. We would also like to see support for Pownce and Digg, among others. With the price of free, Ziibii is a must-have application for anyone that uses social networks. You can download Ziibii from the iTunes App Store.


Gallery: Ziibii for iPhone

Tags: Facebook, firstlook, Flickr, iPhone, Twitter, YouTube, Ziibii

Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Facebook v2 for iPhone goes live

by Cory Bohon on Sep 29th 2008 at 11:15PM

The Facebook [iTunes link] application for the iPhone has just been updated to version 2 (although you may see it listed as version 1.1 in the store), and the new version number brings some stellar features! In this release, the Facebook team has completely revamped the user interface and brought the client up to parity with the mobile Facebook app for Blackberry (really surpassed it, if you ask me). Some of the new features are:
  • Facebook Chat (OK, not new, but seems to be working much better now)
  • Address book lookup
  • New, easier to use interface, including notifications and the full news feed
  • WritePhoto post on friends' walls and view their full profiles
  • Photo tags (holding your finger down on the photo will show them)
  • People search, friend requests and your full inbox/inbox search
  • Photo uploading is faster
  • You can now upload photos from your library stored on the iPhone
In addition to all those changes, there are also "dozens of bug fixes that improve stability" and speed -- especially for users with a large number of friends. Now that's something every iPhone-owning Facebook user will like!

You can download this new version of FaceBook.app for iPhone from the iTunes App Store today. Be sure to check out the changes in the user interface by looking at our gallery of screenshots.

Gallery: Facebook 2 for iPhone



Thanks for the tip, Jason!

Tags: App Store, AppStore, facebook, iPhone

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