Media Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

iOS app Viggle trying to turn second screen TV watching into cold, hard cash

by Mike Schramm (Jan 25th, 2012)

I've posted about the "second screen" idea before -- there is a growing trend among iOS and other mobile device users to both watch television or play games, and have their tablets or iPhones open and running apps related to that TV or gaming content, essentially using two screens at the same ...

Rumor: Apple media event slated for January?

by Michael Rose (Jan 2nd, 2012)

On this slow-start Monday (the official observance of the New Year's Day holiday in the US, in case you were wondering why everything was moving like molasses), we have AllThingsD's Kara Swisher to thank for a neat tidbit of possible Apple news. The Dow Jones site is reporting that Apple is ...

Holiday Gift Guide: iPad apps for the home

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 15th, 2011)

Welcome to TUAW's 2011 Holiday Gift Guide! We're here to help you choose the best gifts this holiday season, and once you've received your gifts we'll tell you what apps and accessories we think are best for your new Apple gear. Stay tuned every weekday from now until the end of the year for ...

Mac 101: Encode media from Automator or the command line in Lion

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 22nd, 2011)

There's an easy way in OS X 10.7 Lion to convert video or audio from one format to another, using a fixed suite of conversion settings. One approach uses Automator and can be launched from the Finder. The other uses the Terminal application and the afconvert (for audio) or avconvert (for video) ...

Study shows iPad owners read more magazines

by Kelly Hodgkins (Nov 21st, 2011)

The iPad is the perfect tablet for consuming magazines. It's the right size and its interactive features can make a magazine come to life. The Association of Magazine Media realizes that and asked 1,009 mobile magazine readers about their experience reading digital magazines. Not surprisingly, ...

Dreamworks animated films now available on iTunes

by Mike Schramm (Sep 1st, 2011)

After quite a wait, Dreamworks Animation has finally relented to allowing its movies on iTunes, which means the company's catalog is more or less up for grabs. Kung Fu Panda is one title customers have been waiting for, and Monsters vs. Aliens, Bee Movie, and Madagascar 2 are available as well. ...

Hands on with Boxee for iPad and Boxee Box v1.2

by Richard Gaywood (Aug 10th, 2011)

The long-awaited Boxee for iPad app went live yesterday and quickly rose to the #13th most popular free app for iPad. Simultaneously, Boxee released a new firmware version for the Boxee Box set-top media player, v1.2, with some new Apple-friendly features like AirPlay and AFP support. We've ...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me watch Amazon videos on my TV

by Erica Sadun (Jul 11th, 2011)

Dear Aunt TUAW, Checking out your apps, you have some major talent, thanks for sharing. I know you probably get a gazillion requests, but one feature that would be incredible that I can't find anywhere is the ability to 'stream' Amazon Instant Videos to the AppleTV. I have these free movies ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Music Commander

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 1st, 2011)

Controlling iTunes with the keyboard is easy enough, but what if you want a little more information without having to resort to the full iTunes window? Music Commander is here to help. Sitting in the menu bar, Music Commander allows you to control iTunes with an extensive drop-down menu. ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: VLC

by Samuel Gibbs (Jun 17th, 2011)

Yesterday on the Daily Mac App, we showed you how to bestow QuickTime Player with the ability to play a multitude of formats and codecs, but sometimes even Perian won't cut it, and that's where you can turn to VLC to get the job done. VLC is a free, open-source, cross-platform multimedia ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Perian

by Samuel Gibbs (Jun 16th, 2011)

Have you ever wished QuickTime would just play all those random formats you've got? That you didn't have to resort to other programs, or worse converting everything, just to get them to play? You need Perian. We've covered Perian a lot in the past, and for good reason -- it's a one stop-shop ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: unDock

by Samuel Gibbs (May 10th, 2011)

When you're using a MacBook in the vicinity of a desk, you're likely to have a lot of things plugged into it. Be it hard drives, flash drives, memory cards or any other type of storage, we all know how bitterly OS X complains when you just pull them out. When you're in a hurry to get out the ...

doubleTwist adds AirPlay hooks to Android

by Mike Schramm (May 9th, 2011)

I remember doubleTwist as an iTunes alternative from back in the day, but it's apparently morphed into an Android application and promises to bring many of the standard iTunes and iPod music features to the Android platform. Now the app has added yet another trick to its arsenal: doubleTwist ...

How Apple does damage control

by Chris Rawson (Apr 30th, 2011)

Typically, whenever something goes wrong with a company or its products and services, the company will try to head off a media free-for-all by releasing a brief statement that usually does only two things: it acknowledges that a problem exists and promises more information at a later date. But ...

Gruber ruminates on Apple's cloud

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 18th, 2011)

Recently, Amazon introduced a new cloud-based file storage and media playback system aptly named Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. The debut of this system, which is compatible with Android handsets, kicked off a debate on cloud storage and Apple's lack of a similar mechanisms for its iOS devices. In ...