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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Freeware, Apple, iPhone

App Store loses "All Free Apps" link

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Sep 29th, 2008

Apple's made some strange changes to the App Store lately. While the reviews change was a good one, this latest update is just confusing: they removed all of the "See all" links from the sidebar of the main App Store page, including the much-visited "All Free Apps" that many of our readers used to browse the new free stuff in there.

Now, all that's there is a bunch of category links. You can still search for apps, obviously, and you can click on the Top Paid and Free apps to see those, and you can even click on the "See all" near "New," "What's Hot" and "Staff Favorites." But if you want to browse all the new Free apps in the store completely unfiltered, you're out of luck.

Why would this be? Depends on who's guessing -- if you're angry at Apple (perhaps one of many developers who haven't seen their apps in the store yet), you might claim that it's because Apple wants to keep a firm grip on just what new free apps get seen on the homepage. If you're so-so on the issue, it might be because you think Apple wanted to streamline the process and keep you from the hassle of browsing all the free trash yourself. And if you're what our kind commenters call a "fanboy," you might claim that Apple is just having problems with their store, or that they're actually trying to help developers by raising app prices.

Personally, I'm going for option D: someone working on the iTunes page didn't realize how popular the link was, and after a little outcry, it'll be back soon. In the meantime, there are still a few RSS feeds around that will help you keep tabs on what's showing up in the store.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Tags: All-free-applications, app-store, apple, apps, BreakingNews, fanboy, free, hiding, homepage, iphone, itunes, links, paid

Filed under: Terminal Tips

Terminal Tips: Modify iTunes arrow links

by Cory Bohon (RSS feed) on Sep 2nd, 2008

Do you know those little arrows that appear in iTunes when you have a song selected? You know, the ones that appear just after the title of the song, artist, and album and link to the iTunes Store when clicked? Yeah, those! Well, if you want the arrows to link to your iTunes library instead of Apple's induced store (and another impulse purchase), then just type the following command into Terminal (found in Applications > Utilities):

defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool YES

To change things back to normal, just replace the YES in the above command with NO. As some commenters have pointed out, you can temporarily reverse this hack by pressing option and clicking on the arrow.

Want to see more tips like this? Visit TUAW's Terminal Tips and TUAW Tips sections.

Tags: arrows, iTunes, links, Mac, music

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Tips and tricks, Developer

Stumbi: StumbleUpon for Safari

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on May 27th, 2008

Being a Firefox user (I know, I know, and it crashes on me all the time, but still I run back to it ashamedly), I had no idea that there was a gap in the functionality of StumbleUpon (a handy little link-finding and sharing browser plugin) for Safari users -- it only works with IE and Firefox. But Eli K tipped us off that he's trying to bridge that gap with Stumbi, a StumbleUpon plugin for Safari.

It's the very definition of no-frills: it just creates a menu option for StumbleUpon that will let you access the most basic of functions from the Safari browser. And unfortunately, it's not exactly completely easy to get working -- you've got to make sure to install SIMBL (which, helpfully, comes with the binary download), and then the binary also requires a reasonable $2 purchase after 100 stumbles (or, for the more technically inclined, you can download the source and do it all by yourself for free).

But if you just can't live without StumbleUpon, and can't bring yourself to use Firefox to do it, this might be just what you're looking for.

Thanks, Eli!

Tags: browser, firefox, links, plugin, safari, sharing, simbl, stumbi, stumbleupon

Filed under: iPhone 101

iPhone 101: Special Link Types

by Erica Sadun (RSS feed) on Jul 25th, 2007

The iPhone offers three special kinds of links that receive special treatment. Each of these links can appear in Safari or in your mail. When clicked, they tell the iPhone to launch a specific application to handle them.

The first, the mailto: link, you're probably already familiar with. It's just like the Web-based mailto: link that's been in use for the last decade. When clicked, it opens your iPhone's email application, creates a new message and addresses it to the target of the link, e.g. mailto:sjobs@apple.com.

The second link is tel:. As you might guess, it opens the iPhone's calling application and calls the number used as the link's target. This allows Web developers to add "call us" links in their web page that, when tapped, actually place a call.

The third kind involves Google Maps. Instead of opening Google Maps links in Safari, they automatically open in the iPhone Maps widget instead. It doesn't matter whether you click them in Safari or Mail. The iPhone recognizes the link and launches the Maps widget for viewing.

Thanks iDan.

Tags: Google Maps, GoogleMaps, iPhone, Links, mailto:, tel:

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, iPhone

iPhone Tip: Tap and hold on a link for a description popup

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jul 1st, 2007

Safari on the iPhone might be slightly limited in some areas (for example: you can't double-tap contacts in Meebo to begin a chat), but we're discovering all sorts of useful goodies that I don't remember Jobs or the Apple videos ever highlighting. In this screenshot of my iPhone (sorry I couldn't snap a better quality pic), I've tapped and held my finger on a link in Safari, which invoked this handy popup with the name of the linked page, as well as the actual URL. This is a very useful way of translating the typical status bar UI in desktop browsers so it is still accessible on the iPhone for the times you need it, and yet it doesn't take up any valuable real estate during most of the times you don't.

Tags: iphone, link, links, pop ups, pop-ups, PopUps, safari, status bar, StatusBar

Filed under: Software, Blogs, Developer

Cocoa Blogs, by Scott Stevenson

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Dec 12th, 2006

I have to admit right up front that I'm not as familiar with the Mac dev community as I'd like to be. I don't know a lick about developing, and I get a bit intimidated as I know it's one of those trades that has a completely different set of constraints and connotations to manage; there's nothing like trying to swim in the big kid's pool while still wearing floaties. Though, for the record: that's just an analogy; I don't wear floaties when swimming in real life. I got rid of those months ago.

That said, I'd like to pass along Cocoa Blogs, a new venture from Scott Stevenson, whose name I only know from its mention on a number of Mac developers' blogs I've stumbled across from time to time. As you might glean from the title, Scott waxes on Cocoa, one of Apple's major (and dare I say preferable?) programming environment for Mac OS X, as well as the world of development and its community. He also wrangles a number of Cocoa developer resources and notable blogs for skills both advanced and new.

While much of the language in Scott's code-oriented posts and links might as well be Latin to me (and no, you don't get points for noting that up to 80% of English is Latin-based), this looks like a great new resource for Cocoa developers in all walks of life.

[via Gus Mueller]

Tags: blog, blogs, cocoa, cocoa blogs, CocoaBlogs, dev, developers, developing, development, links, resource, resources

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Internet

Macgamefiles offers free game hosting

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jun 6th, 2006

Macgamefiles.com has announced free game hosting for shareware and freeware game developers (but not for things like maps, mods, etc.). The only catch is that the game's developer needs to point their download links to the game's product page hosted at Macgamefiles.com. This, I assume, is so MGF can make up their (probably astronomical) hosting costs with ad hits.

Given some of the bills I've heard of for hosting large files like podcasts and software downloads, I would imagine this is a huge bonus for garage-based game developers. Three cheers for internet advertising business models!

Tags: ad, ads, advertising, download, downloads, file, files, free, game, gaming, host, hosting, link, links, mac, Macgamefiles

Filed under: Widget Watch

Widget Watch: CreativeBits Widget 2.0

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Mar 22nd, 2006

CreativeBits, a design and OS X-centric creative community, has produced a really slick looking update to their widget that acts as a portal for their site. Users can view the latest articles, forum posts, critiques and links. Clicking on a title in the widget opens the entire article in your browser, while the widget includes its own forward and back navigation if you'd like to simply browse the latest CreativeBits goodies right from the comfort of your Dashboard.

Tags: community, creative, CreativeBits, critiques, design, forum, links, widget, widget watch, widgets, widgetwatch

Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks

Terminal Tips: Lynx

by C.K. Sample, III (RSS feed) on May 27th, 2005

The UNIX and Open Source section of Apple's Mac OS X Downloads site features Lynx today. Lynx, as well as Links (another favorite of mine), is a Terminal-based, text-only web browser. Why would you want to use such a thing, you ask? Well, because since it simply ignores all non-text items in a webpage, the browsing experience is lightning fast compared to most modern browsers.
tuaw in lynx

When you download the disk image, you'll find that if you follow the installation instructions, Lynx won't work. In order to correctly install Lynx, drag lynx.command to your Applications folder, as the README file instructs you to do. Now, launch your Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and type open /usr/local/lib/ at the command line and hit enter. Now drag the lynx.cfg file from the Lynx disk image into the lib folder window that pops open. A dialog box will pop up warning you that you do not have permissions to write files to that folder. Click the Authenticate button and enter your Administrator password when prompted.

Now, simply close the window, navigate to lynx.command in your Applications folder and double-click it. Or, if you already have the Terminal open, you can simply type /Applications/lynx.command; exit at the command line. Lynx will open in the Terminal. Now, simply type g (for Go) to get a prompt where you can type in a web address of your choosing. Tab will tab you through links on pages. Return or the right-arrow will take you to the highlighted link. The left-arrow will take you back to the previous page, and hitting q will quit the browser. Easy. Have fun!

Tags: links, lynx, terminal

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