webclips posts

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Hacks, Odds and ends, Freeware, Apple, iPhone

AppFlow for the iPhone

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 21st, 2008

Some enterprising iPhone developer named Erica Sadun (we hear she blogs for a fly-by-night Mac site) has been tinkering around with CoverFlow on the iPhone for a book she's writing, and while the result of my doing the same tinkering would be nothing but a broken iPhone, she instead pulls off the opposite: an enhanced iPhone.

AppFlow is a CoverFlow-style interface for launching iPhone apps and icons. You just install the app on your jailbroken iPhone, and then launching your favorite app is as simple as flipping to the icon and double-tapping. Webclips, we're told, are launched a completely different way, and thus not included in the flipping. But "maybe in a later update," our inside source told TUAW exclusively.

If this is the kind of stuff we're getting from Sadun before the SDK drops, just think what we'll see after. The woman's a genius. And it's almost surprising that Apple didn't think of this in the first place -- if it works in Leopard, and it works in the iPod of the iPhone, why didn't they give us the option to flip through apps in this way?

Update: AppFlow has been incorporated into XLaunch and now supports Webclips

Tags: appflow, applications, coverflow, icons, iphone, leopard, webclips

Filed under: Cool tools, Freeware, Widget Watch, Deals

Widget Watch: Woot!

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Jan 31st, 2008

This Lifehacker comment thread made me go researching on what I might use for Webclips, but save for the front page of my favorite blog (TUAW, duh), I couldn't think of anything I'd really want to keep on my Dashboard 24/7. I did like the idea of putting Woot.com (and Shirt.woot, which I've been looking at a lot lately) on there, but as a few of the commenters say, webclipping (can I verb that?) the entire page makes things a little too big.

Fortunately, David Elliot piped up about the Woot.com widget, which easily and quickly lets you monitor the Woot sites from your dashboard, with a minimum of space taken up. And now I've got two instances of it running on my Dashboard, one for regular Woot and one for the Shirt version. I especially like that it includes Growl notification, too -- if I happen to be working around midnight and a really good deal pops up, I won't miss it.

Of course, you may not want to have something popping up on your Dashboard all the time tempting you to spend money. But if you're already following the Woot empire (and to tell the truth, I almost never buy anything-- I just like looking), the widget is an easy and simple way to stay up to date.

Tags: dashboard, lifehacker, shirt.woot, webclips, widget-watch, widgets, woot

Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone

TUAW Responds: Creating Web Clips with User Names and Passwords

by Erica Sadun (RSS feed) on Jan 31st, 2008

TUAW reader Rudi writes that he needs web clips on his iPhone that "prefix my web path with a username and password, great for things like web based corporate email." In response to Rudi and to anyone else who needs special-purpose URLs, including ones that make telephone calls (using the tel:// prefix instead of http://), here's ClipIt.

When run, it prompts you for a web clip name and URL. Enter these and tap Create. The utility builds a new web clip for you and places it on your home screen. There's no way to go back and fix a URL with this (and of course, being the iPhone, no cut & paste yet), so make sure you've entered it carefully the first time.

If you're looking to create a telephone link, build a URL that starts with tel://, e.g. tel://202-456-1111. When tapped, the web clip first opens Safari, which then asks you to confirm whether you want to continue placing the call. ClipIt, with its web clip functionality, works only on iPhone firmware 1.1.3 and higher.

Tags: web clips, WebClips

Filed under: iPod Family, Cult of Mac, iPhone

Flickr Find: Use Webclips to create a personal Photo album

by Erica Sadun (RSS feed) on Jan 17th, 2008

TUAW reader DoctaBu has come up with a novel way to use Webclips: creating a personal photo album. He realized he could have some fun with webclips by building an entire page of nothing but his friends' and family's pictures. He placed these all on a separate SpringBoard screen, which he can flick over to whenever he wants. Have you done something extraordinary or unique with Webclips? Let us know!

Tags: 113 Firmware, 113Firmware, Webclips

Filed under: Macworld, iPod Family, How-tos, Internet Tools, iPhone

Create custom iPhone and iPod Touch webclip icons

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Jan 15th, 2008

Dan Dickinson has posted a super-simple way to ensure that those who visit your site with an iPod Touch or iPhone will get a nice-looking webclip icon. When I say simple, I mean it:

Create a 57x57 PNG.
Name it "apple-touch-icon.png"
Throw it in the root folder of your website. (Not the root of your server, the root of your web documents.)

That's it. Note that your icon will receive the glossy treatment as well as those rounded corners, so keep that in mind.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Tags: iphone, ipod, web-clips, webclips

Filed under: Cool tools, Tips and tricks, Internet Tools, Apple, Leopard

24 Hours of Leopard: Web Clips

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 26th, 2007

Feature: Web Clips, little roll-your-own widgets for Dashboard that will tell you anything the Web can.

How it works: Making a Dashboard widget isn't really that hard now, but it's about to get a lot easier. There'll be a little button in Safari that you can press to take a "clip" of a web page and turn it into a widget on the Dashboard that updates as that page does. Found your local weather forecast somewhere, or a webcam that watches the outside of your house? Clip that section of the page into a web clip, and you've got a simple, custom-made widget so easy Grandma can make one. Here's what it looked like in an old build, and it's probably going to be even easier in Leopard.

Who will use it: If it's as easy as Apple says it is (and all indications say yes), everybody. Anything on the web can be clipped into a widget, so if you can access constantly updated content (say, the top story of TUAW?) then you could use it as a web clip.

You can check out all our 24 Hours of Leopard posts here.

Tags: dashboard, easy, grandma, safari, user, web, web-clips, webclips, widgets

Tip of the Day

Holding the Command key (aka the Apple key) and pressing Tab will cycle through your open applications. It's easier to Cmd-Tab if you are Copy (Cmd-C) and Pasting (Cmd-V) to and from various applications.

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