Back when the iPhone was first announced, there was no SDK, you'll remember. Jobs said that developers could just make web apps, and that they would be good enough. Of course, he was wrong -- given what you can do with your iPhone now compared to what you could do with your iPhone then, even Steve would be happy to say that yes, there is a native app for that. But let's not toss the projects out with the development platform, so to speak. Neven Mrgan, one of the devs over at Panic, has released Pie Guy, a free and surprisingly full-featured game for the iPhone that exists only as a Javascript web app. To play it, just point your iPhone 3GS (the page says you need one of those, and while I was able to play it on my 1G, it was too clunky to enjoy) to mrgan.com/pieguy, add that page to your homescreen, and there you go.

In case you haven't guessed from the pic above (or the name), the game itself is a straightforward Pac-Man clone. But what's most interesting here is the example this game sets. Think about it: a full featured, automatically updated game release, delivered straight to the iPhone without any approval required by Apple. The revenue model might need some work, but maybe we dismissed this whole "web app" idea a little too quickly. For devs looking to go around the App Store's process, maybe there's a solution here. Boy, Flash sure would help with that, wouldn't it?

It's been hinted at for a few days, but Cabel Sasser and the rest of the crew at Panic Software may have accidentally slipped some mind-altering substances into their last batch of Coda Cookies; how else to explain a three-day, 50%-off sale on all of the company's well-designed and well-regarded apps?

The FTP/SFTP client with the often imitated icon, Transmit, is $14.50US; Web authoring jack-of-all-trades Coda is $49.50. Interface tweaker CandyBar 3 and newsreader Unison are also discounted at $14.50 and $12 respectively. The sale page notes that these licenses are also good for discounts on future paid upgrades to the product line, which are expected soon. Sale pricing is in force until 11:59pm PST on May 29.

A cheery little dialog box informed me just a few minutes ago that Coda 1.6 is available from the fine folks at Panic.

Coda is a one-window web-development and editing environment that is one of my favorite apps, and one that we've covered here before.

Coda 1.6 introduces a plug-in architecture that extends Coda's already pretty robust text-editing functionality. With Coda Plug-in Creator, even users who aren't familiar with Cocoa can create plugins, which follow a similar format to TextMate's command bundles. The plug-in functionality mirrors that of up-and-comer Espresso, with its Sugar plug-ins. Espresso is still in beta.

Also included in the update is the Open Quickly command: a Spotlight-like command that searches your sites for files to open. Hit Control+Q to show the Open Quickly window, type a few characters, and open one of the files listed to get to work.

On top of that, Coda improves spell checking support, and now includes an Objective-J syntax mode. Full release notes are available here.

Coda 1.6 is available from Panic's website, or from inside the app by selecting "Check for Updates" from the Coda menu.

Lost in the din of yesterday's Apple announcements, Panic has updated Coda, its all-in-one website editing tool, to 1.5.1.

The update largely fixes possible crashes, issues with source control, and squashes several bugs. CFML syntax coloring has been improved, and the release notes promise more syntax coloring improvements to come.

Coda 1.5, released on August 26, added Subversion source control, multi-file find and replace, custom books, and a host of other additions and improvements.

Coda 1.5.1 is available by selecting Check for Updates... from the Coda menu, or via their website.

Thanks, Gordon!

Milestones come and go, but the big milestone of the day was 10 years in the making. Panic's Co-founder, Steven Frank, noted on his personal website that their flagship product, Transmit turned 10 years old.

Transmit, originally called "Transit," was released on September 8, 1998. Who knows, without the success of Transmit we might not have the other beautiful applications from Panic. If you want to relive the old days of Transmit, Panic offers up a free version (you must be running a pre-OS X Mac, or have a classic mode enabled Mac) for your downloading pleasure.

Join TUAW in saying, "Congratulations, Panic." We cannot wait to see what is next!

Panic has released Coda 1.5, a free update to my favorite all-in-one web development application.

Coda 1.5 adds several major new features, including find-and-replace across multiple files and a fully-integrated Subversion client.

Also included in the update is a user-customizable bookshelf, which allows you to specify any given website as a "book." You can also enter a sample search URL with a wildcard character, and command-click on terms to look for them in the book you created. Syntax highlighting has also been improved, as well as performance running under Leopard. Full release notes are available, too.

The update is free for all registered Coda users, and $99 for new users. Discounts are available for registered Transmit owners, too.

Panic recently updated their Transmit software to version 3.6.6 after the previous (3.6.5) update caused problems with syncing over .Mac. Steven Frank (co-founder of Panic) wrote on his personal blog about the issue. According to Steven, "TransmitSync," a service that syncs Transmit favorites with .Mac, would crash when certain configurations were in place.

The other change made in the 3.6.6 update is restrictions of dot characters when uploading to Amazon S3. Transmit 3.6.6 is a free upgrade to all Transmit 3 users and can be downloaded from within Transmit or from panic.com.

[via Steven Frank]

Coda is Panic's awesome all-in-one web worker's application that we've written about before. We even got a nice first hand look at this month's Macworld Expo.

Today, the folks at Panic have released a Developer Zone for Coda, which is full of great resources like video tutorials, quick tips, handy Applescripts and feature articles. If you're a developer or a power user, you'll want to check this out. It's quite useful.

[Via Shawn Blanc]

Shawn Blanc continues his outstanding series of Mac software reviews by looking at Coda, the all-in-one web worker's application from Coda (we've mentioned Coda several times). He explores Coda's performance as a text editor, CSS editor, FTP client and more, while extolling the little touches like the Clips feature:

"You can save any text you want as a "Clip"... [which feature] a Global database as well as a site-specific database...."

We love Coda, too, as well as Shawn's comprehensive -- even exhaustive -- explorations (somehow, "review" seems inadequate). Have fun reading, and if that doesn't convince you to purchase Coda, we don't know what will.

We've talked about Coda plenty here, but it was nice to find the Panic crew on the show floor and get a quick overview of Coda's interface and capabilities. If you're looking for a single tool to do web authoring, check out Sandvox, Rapidweaver, and Coda for your needs. Video after the jump.

The developers at Panic have released CandyBar version 3.1.2. If you're unfamiliar, CandyBar 3 is a super simple and fun way to customize Mac OS X's icons and dock (Leopard required). Version 3 introduced some very cool features - like Pixadex integration - that make this killer app even cooler.

Changes to version 3.1.2 include:

• Importing Pixadex libraries on first launch is more reliable
  
• Application and volume icons update more reliably in the Finder
• Fixed a potential problem with generic file icons

There's more, of course, and you can read the change log here. CandyBar 3.1.2 is a free upgrade for registered users for version 3.x (a single license will cost you $29US).

Blogger Shawn Blanc is at it again. After writing a thorough exploration of NetNewsWire, he's turned his attention to Transmit, Panic's popular FTP client. He starts with the origin of Panic and Transit 1.0 (there was no "M" back then) before looking at the Transmit we all know and love, comparing it to "...the huge dude in the gym that makes everyone else look like 7th graders."

Favorites, Droplets and visual confirmation of what's going on (via the Dock icon) are just a few of the little things that make Transmit so pleasant to use. If you're searching for an FTP client, check out Shawn's review.

Earlier this week, Panic released Transmit 3.6.3. If you're unfamiliar, Transmit is the FTP application that's loved by many (including us). Version 3.6.3 offers improved Leopard and Amazon S3 compatibility, French and German localization and several bug fixes.

If you haven't tried it out, take this opportunity. It's a great application. This update is free for registered users of version 3.x. Transmit requires Mac OS 10.3.9, and a single license will cost you $29.95.

Hot on the heels of a rather brilliant update to CandyBar, developers par excellence Panic have updated their all-in-one-window web development application Coda to version 1.1. As the release notes show, there are more little updates for version 1.1 than you can shake a (fairly sizable) stick at, including a tonne of Leopard-y goodness. One such change is the application going from the original (in-house developed, and much fabled) toolbar to the default Leopard GUI, meaning it's now customizable - a minute difference from a user standpoint, but kudos to the folks at Panic for biting the bullet and moving back from their bespoke design.

There's plenty more for web development gurus to get their hands on in this free update, which is available from the Panic website, or via the in-application updater.