It's true. I'm delighted to find free applications that stimulate and involve. The iPhone/iPod touch continues to open new vistas for those willing to explore the app store.

If you love great art, then get thee to iTunes and download Love Art [App Store link] which is a tour of some of the great works at National Gallery in London.

The app features about 250 art treasures, with videos, audio commentary, zoom-able high-res images, and galleries and themed tours.

The download is 207 MB, so don't try this if your iPhone is on the edge storage wise. I really enjoyed browsing through all the material, and learned a great deal listening to the commentaries and viewing the videos.

Having been to the National Gallery myself when I lived in London, it brought back happy memories. It is not a substitute for visiting the great art treasures on display there, but it will do until my next trip.

This is the kind of app that could sell for real money. For free, it's a great demo of what the iPhone can do, and a great app to explore and enjoy.

If you want to see how the app works without the big download go the the developer's site and click on 'watch the video demo'.

One of the real advantages of being a TUAW regular is getting tips to great free software. Here is your bonus for today.

Here are some screen captures of the app in action:

Gamers, are you excited for next weekend's release of Spore? We sure are (even though the iPod game got pulled from the iTunes Store, darnit). I've created my first species in Creature Creator and he (it?) is ready to go.

If you're also anticipating the game, and happen to be at London's Regent Street Apple Store on Sept. 3rd at 3:00 PM, you can meet Spore creator Will Wright. He'll be talking about the game and showing it off. Here's your chance to talk with Will!

If you just can't wait, or if you want a little background to help you formulate a killer question, check out this interview Will did with cnet.

Londoners like to know what's going on in the tunnels beneath their feet. The Tube is how every Londoner gets pretty much anywhere, and when bits of it are broken, it helps to know before you walk to the nearest Tube station.

The beauty of the Tube, (well, the central zones in particular) is that the lines are so intertwingled that it's often quite easy to route yourself around breakages or blockages. If the Northern Line's hosed, maybe the Piccadilly or Jubilee Lines might get you close enough to where you need to be. And if the Circle line's running slow (which is often is), you might be able to skip round the problem via one of the many other lines that bisect it.

Which might explain why TubeStatus (App Store link) by Malcolm Barclay is such a good idea.

Oddly, though, Malcolm had been hoping that it wouldn't appear in the App Store, while he sorted out some copyright issues with Transport for London, the body that manages not only London's transport network but also the data feeds about it that make apps like TubeStatus work. If we hear anything further on the status of TubeStatus, we'll let you know.

RetailWeek recently compiled a list of the top 100 retail locations around the world. What did they find? Well, Apple holds two positions in their list: one for the 5th Avenue store (New York) and one for the Regent Street store (London).

According to the list, the 5th Avenue store has all three key deciding factors: "excitement, education and ease." They go on to say that the glass cube is in line with the "DNA of the brand."

Does this change your mind about shopping at Apple's retail stores? Be sure to take our poll and drop a comment.



[via MacNN]

As many of our readers know, London is already host to the world's largest Apple store (pictured above) on renowned shopping-mile Regent Street. However, Apple's ambitions for the UK capital have yet to be fully realised according to a Macworld UK report today - for Apple is preparing to open another store just over a mile away in Covent Garden.

The new store is touted as being a 3-storey affair taking up around 25,000 square foot. The existing Regent Street store is approximately 28,000 square foot, and according to ifoAppleStore remains one of the best performing stores - clearly Apple thinks there's plenty more custom to be snapped up and certainly TUAW visits to the flagship store have never been quiet affairs.

The Covent Garden store is apparently going to be located at 4 The Piazza, in a location currently taken by a restaurant and nightclub -- it is of course too early to guess when the new store will indeed open.

Michal Revivo is a lucky woman. She visited the Regent Street Apple Store on Tuesday at precisely the right time. As "shopper #10 million," she was surrounded by applauding employees and handed a special prize: A brand new black MacBook, an iPod nano and a One-to-One training membership. Congratulations, Michal! Enjoy your new stuff.

I'm now on my way to the Braintree Store to walk in and out of the doors over and over.

[Via ifoAppleStore]

Good morning, dear TUAW readers. London calling. It's Tuesday morning, and that can only mean one thing. We've been getting tonnes of tips that the Apple Store is down. The Apple store is still online, although tipster Gary tipped us off that the O2 store - the very same network rumoured to be the sole carrier of the iPhone here in the U.K. is in fact offline. Yes, that's right - iDay / iPhone Day / totally iPhone-unrelated announcement day is upon us, so sit back and enjoy the show. If you're short of reading material before the event, we'd recommend you check out this article in yesterday's Guardian about the deals rumoured to have been struck to bring the iPhone to our fair isle and beyond.

Summary

• iPhone coming to the U.K. November 9th
• Will cost £269 and be available from Apple Retail stores and the Carphone Warehouse. 8GB model, EDGE not 3G (so the same model as the US). iTunes WiFi Music Store will of course come with the iPhone.
  
• O2 is the exclusive carrier
• Contracts cost £35, £45 or £55 a month and include unlimited (within fair-use) WiFi at The Cloud hotspots and EDGE & GPRS on O2. For more details there's a shiny new O2 page here.

If you want to read the live text transcript, click the link below.

This year's MacLiveExpo schedule has been announced. The event will run October 25-27 at London's Olympia exhibition centre.

New this year is the Hands on Theater, which will connect attendees with multimedia professionals, as well as the Seminar Theater, which will host enough seminars, debates and workshops to interest everyone.

Here's the best part: admission is free for the first 5,000 pre-registered visitors! After that, you'll pay £15 each. It sounds like a great time. Let us know if you attend.

[Via MacMinute]

This Tuesday, London's newly refurbished Regent Street Apple Store will host Keane playing a stripped-down acoustic set for Apple Store customers. This is the first concert in a series of "Live From London" events hosted in the Apple Store.

The show, which begins at 9PM, will be broadcast around the world to every Apple Store according to SoundGenerator.com Tickets are limited. Only 350 people will attend. The Times newspaper has 50 pair of those tickets to give away to competition winners and an event video should hit iTunes around January.

Its hard out there for a London iPod listener. It would seem that muggings are up on the streets of fair London and the Bobbies blame iPods (and other expensive portable electronics). Luckily, the good fellows at Crave Talk have a few ways of concealing your iPod from would be attackers. Most of the methods are rather imaginative (some are even rather impressive) though I think they might be more fun to write about than actually do.

I say, wear black headphones and be ever vigilant. It is a dangerous world out there.

As someone who has only visited the CambridgeSide Apple Store in Cambridge, Mass. (one of the earlier stores, and a modest one), I haven't seen the spectacular flagship stores in New York City and London. That's why I found this animation so entertaining. It's a nice representation of the Regent Street store that's annotated with the various features of that location. Click on one of those features, like the theater for example, and see a photo.

Ah, you lucky Londoners. Enjoy your gorgeous store. Incidentally, the upcoming Arndale Centre - Manchester store is still looking for employees. Good luck!

Earlier today, Apple opened its newest retail store at Brent Cross in London. As usual, we asked any TUAW operatives who may have attended to share their reports and/or pictures. So, did you go, and if you did, how was it? Let us know in the comments. Here's hoping you scored a T-shirt.

This Saturday, January 28th at 9:00 AM in London, Apple will open its newest Apple Store at Brent Cross. This store is located in the Upper West Mall of the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. You can find complete travel directions here. As usual, the first 1000 visitors will be rewarded with commemorative t-shirts. Visitors can also enter to win the “Grand Opening Sweepstakes,” which will award one winner with an iMac, an iPod nano, a Canon digital camera and camcorder and an HP inkjet printer.

If you're going to attend the opening at Brent Cross, please send us links to your photos and reports! Good luck and have fun.

File this one under "I am absolutely going to do this in my own town and make a ton of dough." Selfridges in London is offering classes to iPod-toting Londoners to the tune of £65 (about $115US as of this writing) each, with topics like using iTunes, creating playlists and downloading podcasts.

Classes can be attended at Selfridges' Oxford street location, or in your own home. If I had know someone would give me a hundred and fifty bucks to show them how to make a playlist, I would have set up shop years ago. So good luck to the enterprising geeks at Selfridges (and may London's iPod owners not realize that they can walk to the Regent Street Apple Store and get the same thing for free).

[Via Australian IT]