iPad By Davis: “Justin Williams talks Pit Pass, Elements, and more - WWDC 2013” plus 19 more |
- Justin Williams talks Pit Pass, Elements, and more - WWDC 2013
- Hands-on with Asphalt 8: Airborne
- The new Mac Pro: purpose-built for performance
- ADN's Dalton Caldwell talks micro-blogging, mixing, and being the platform
- Hands-on gameplay video of Deus Ex: The Fall for iOS
- Simpson's Tapped Out adds waterfront property
- Father’s Day Gift Guide: Featured in the App Store this Week
- Minion Rush brings adorable characters from Despicable Me 2 to iOS
- PYXL for iPhone review: One of the most challenging color matching games you'll ever play!
- Steve Jobs was resistant to entering ebook market until the iPad came around
- Steve Jobs was resistant to entering ebook market until the iPad came around
- Say Hello to My Big (Neglected) Friend, the iPad 3
- Square Wallet update brings a redesigned interface and faster payment support
- How to reset your Mac desktop password with your Apple ID in OS X Mountain Lion
- Notable New iPad Apps: 2013 US Open Golf Championship for iPad
- Microsoft continues to poke fun at the iPad, but are they actually selling any more tablets?
- Tweetdeck for Mac gets updated, new interface to match web versions
- Tripping with Andrew Stone at AltWWDC
- Deal of the Day: 49% off the Ballistic Shell Gel (SG) Series Case for iPhone 5
- Microsoft launches Office Mobile, brings subscription Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to iPhone
| Justin Williams talks Pit Pass, Elements, and more - WWDC 2013 Posted: 14 Jun 2013 09:43 PM PDT Justin Williams of Second Gear Software talks about Pit Pass, his clever developer concept for Passbook, and Elements, his text editor. Live from WWDC 2013! More: Second Gear Software 
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| Hands-on with Asphalt 8: Airborne Posted: 14 Jun 2013 08:54 PM PDT During E3, Gameloft announced the latest iteration of their long-standing racing series, Asphalt 8: Airborne. Asphalt 8 introduces a new aerial element where you're launching your car off ramps to do freakin' sweet spins and flips. It's basically mixing in Tony Hawk with your classic racing game. There are also massive improvements in graphics, with a ton of new particle and lighting effects that will definitely raise the bar for iOS racing games. Expect the usual stuff from the Asphalt series here, including customizable cars and multiplayer options. Ridiculous and unrealistic as it may be, it's tons of fun. I've always been a big fan of Asphalt for its arcade feel and wanton disregard for real-world physics. Asphalt 8 promises to be a fast-paced, challenging joyride when it launches later this summer for $0.99. 
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| The new Mac Pro: purpose-built for performance Posted: 14 Jun 2013 04:25 PM PDT The most frequently repeated joke at WWDC about the new Mac Pro is that it looks like a trashcan or a cigarette tray. There's nothing trashy about it: it looks more like a jet turbine - an example of form following function so evident throughout Jony Ive's design catalog. Built for speedJust about every aspect of the Mac Pro's performance is cued to reducing bottlenecks whenever possible. Internal storage via hard disk is gone and replaced with flash memory. Flash memory connected through PCI Express (PCIe). This isn't an SSD bottlenecked by SATA - you have the much heartier bandwidth of PCIe to work with - it's 2.5 times the speed of the fastest SSDs on the market. Thunderbolt 2 is another practical example. Each of the six Thunderbolt ports on the Mac Pro has full bandwidth - 20 gigabits per second. That's why you can have three 4K displays running simultaneously with three more dedicated to RAID storage, storage area networks or whatever else you might need, daisy chainable on other ports. Then there are the two workstation-class graphics processors built in to the system, to help drive pixels to the displays - up to three of them operating at 4K resolution. Unimpressed, gamers? I expect you are, because these aren't for you. AMD's FirePro processors are optimized for massively parallel operations - a boon to 3D designers, render farms and other businesses. The four memory sockets are occupied by 1866MHz DDR3, Error Correcting Code (ECC) memory. With up to 60 gigabytes per second memory bandwidth. That's twice as fast as the current-gen Mac Pro. Apple's keeping mum about specific processor configurations for now, but has said that 12 core systems will be an option. Four USB 3.0 ports encourage universal connectivity with commodity peripherals that aren't Thunderbolt-specific. And all of this horsepower is designed in a compact device that's not even a foot tall. Built around a common thermal core, the Mac Pro's heat radiates inward and rises like a chimney. Mac veterans wince a little recalling the convection cooling of the Power Mac G4 Cube, but even the fan has been engineered for performance: the blades are curved backwards, to run slower with more efficient heat removal. That also means quieter fan operations. From the top to the bottom, the Mac Pro is thoroughly optimized for maximum performance. Going into it, many feared that the Mac Pro was headed for oblivion. But based on what we're seeing, Apple is simply reinventing the category. Is the Mac Pro the new iPad?No, the Mac Pro is not going to sell as many units as the iPad. But the tablet market existed before the iPad, and it took the iPad to disrupt tablets enough into a real business. In that respect, the Mac Pro has the same potential impact where servers and high-powered workstations are the dominant market. 
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| ADN's Dalton Caldwell talks micro-blogging, mixing, and being the platform Posted: 14 Jun 2013 03:33 PM PDT Live from WWDC 2013 I sat down with Dalton Caldwell and got a State of the App.net -- everything from the current and varied crop of micro-blogging clients to the new messaging apps and photo mashups to what ADN could do better and where they're headed in the future. It's refreshing to see a social platform that's happy to be the platform and not need to own every bit of interface and idea in the space. It's a hefty 10 minutes, so grab a refreshing beverage, hit play, and enjoy. More: App.net 
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| Hands-on gameplay video of Deus Ex: The Fall for iOS Posted: 14 Jun 2013 03:04 PM PDT Deus Ex: The Fall was announced at E3 2013, and we got a little time to check it out on the show floor. Those that have already played Human Evolution will feel right at home - you'll find plenty of action, stealth, and cybernetic upgrades to enjoy, as well as a rich dystopian storyline that ties in tightly with the canon. The most important part about Deus Ex: The Fall is that the controls had been amply customized for touch. Sure, you'll still go through the usual virtual joystick trope for a lot of the game, but being able to tap on the ground to move about is very natural on an iPad. Beyond that, the game looks absolutely fantastic; maybe not quite as good as Modern Combat 5, but certainly up there. I could easily see Deus Ex: The Fall as being a great hook for players to pick up the console version and vice versa. The game comes out soon for $6.99, but until then you can find more information from the Eidos Montreal page over here. 
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| Simpson's Tapped Out adds waterfront property Posted: 14 Jun 2013 02:36 PM PDT Another bit of gaming goodness out of E3 was a fresh content patch for The Simpson's Tapped Out. The Waterfront update introduces a whole new range of buildings, decorations, quests, and characters. There are 30 new plots of land, so players can expand their own little versions of Springfield, and a new boardwalk section allows them to build out onto the water. Though Tapped Out is a pretty standard collection-style game, complete with collecting cash, and XP, premium items, and completing quests, there's a ton of self-referential humor peppered throughout that makes it worth coming back time and again.
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| Father’s Day Gift Guide: Featured in the App Store this Week Posted: 14 Jun 2013 01:54 PM PDT One of the featured app collections in the App Store this week is titled 'Father's Day Gift Guide'. So if you've got a dad in your life who's partial to a great iPad app you may want to give it a look and get some inspiration. The collection has 8 sections: Gifts for Music Lovers, Gifts for Photographers, Gifts to Get Stuff Done, Gifts for Foodies, Gifts for Casual Gamers, Gifts for Hardcore Gamers, Apps for Kids, and Games for Kids. Each section features 10 apps. One notable thing about the collection is that it highlights a number of Apple's own apps – including GarageBand, iPhoto, and Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. There are plenty of good app choices in each of the sections, so this collection should offer some good ideas for all the dads out there who aren't looking for a new pair of socks or a fancy new drill for Father's Day. You can find the Father's Day...         Related Stories
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| Minion Rush brings adorable characters from Despicable Me 2 to iOS Posted: 14 Jun 2013 01:33 PM PDT At E3, we caught up with Gameloft just as they were launching Minion Rush, an adorable endless runner based on the Despicable Me 2 film. Players dash through a veritable gauntlet of mad scientist contraptions as one of the bizarre yellow minions, collecting bananas along the way (they love those things, apparently). The setting changes regularly, as does the perspective, which is a nice change of pace from many endless runners. Players have to tap, tilt, and swipe their way through obstacles for as long as possible, until you get stopped in your tracks. Players can earn (or buy) new costumes for their minion, as well as consumable power-ups to help out in their next run, and upgrade the ones they encounter randomly throughout the wacky course. Minion Rush is a simple, polished endless runner based on a brand that's hard not to love. It's free, so definitely worth a play, especially if you plan on catching the movie.
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| PYXL for iPhone review: One of the most challenging color matching games you'll ever play! Posted: 14 Jun 2013 01:42 PM PDT PYXL may be a casual puzzle game for iPhone but don't let its looks fool you, it's actually quite challenging. You'll play PYXL, a baby pixel with dreams of one day becoming a real life pixel. To do this, you'll have to collect dots floating towards you while avoiding and popping the black ones. There's one catch, the colors must hit the side of PYXL that corresponds with their color. Once you actually start the game, you'll notice that PYXL stays stationary on the screen. Colored dots will slowly float towards him. You'll need to use your finger to rotate PYXL and make sure the colored dots hit the correct sides of him. You'll also be bombarded with black dots that you'll need to pop because if they hit PYXL, it'll count as a strike. You'll get three strikes total and once you've either let three black dots hit PYXL or you've gotten three colors wrong, the game will be over. The further you get into PYXL, the more dots will appear on the screen at once. In order to make sure you don't collide with objects you shouldn't, you'll need to pay attention to timing. Tapping on a dot will speed it up and make it hit PYXL faster. You'll need to do this in instances where you have multiple colored dots on the screen and don't have time to rotate PYXL if they're clumped too close together. The good
The bad
The bottom lineIf you're looking for good puzzle games to play, PYXL is an easy one to pick up and put down but will keep you entertained given the difficulty. Combine that with good graphics and a cute story line and you've got a winner on our hands. GIve PYXL a try and let us know what you think!
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| Steve Jobs was resistant to entering ebook market until the iPad came around Posted: 14 Jun 2013 12:58 PM PDT Steve Jobs was not looking to enter the ebook market before the creation of the iPad. This is according to Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, testifying in the Justice Department's ebook price-fixing case. According to Cue's testimony, it was the iPad that caused Jobs finally come around to the idea of an ebook service from Apple.
Cue was put in charge of securing deals with publishers, much as he did with music labels in past years. The particular challenge for Cue here was that he was given this assignment in November 2009, with Apple planning to unveil the iPad the following January. Cue said that getting the deals was of special significance to him personally, as Jobs' health was visibly deteriorating at the time. The iBookstore launched in March 2010 with over 60,000 titles, which has expanded to 1.5 million in the last three years. Apple has an application for iBooks on both the iPad and the iPhone, and starting this fall, they'll have one on the Mac as well. Source: All Things D 
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| Steve Jobs was resistant to entering ebook market until the iPad came around Posted: 14 Jun 2013 12:58 PM PDT Steve Jobs was not looking to enter the ebook market before the creation of the iPad. This is according to Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, testifying in the Justice Department's ebook price-fixing case. According to Cue's testimony, it was the iPad that caused Jobs finally come around to the idea of an ebook service from Apple.
Cue was put in charge of securing deals with publishers, much as he did with music labels in past years. The particular challenge for Cue here was that he was given this assignment in November 2009, with Apple planning to unveil the iPad the following January. Cue said that getting the deals was of special significance to him personally, as Jobs' health was visibly deteriorating at the time. The iBookstore launched in March 2010 with over 60,000 titles, which has expanded to 1.5 million in the last three years. Apple has an application for iBooks on both the iPad and the iPhone, and starting this fall, they'll have one on the Mac as well. Source: All Things D
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| Say Hello to My Big (Neglected) Friend, the iPad 3 Posted: 14 Jun 2013 10:01 AM PDT I am a little ashamed to admit that I have been neglecting my iPad 3, a lot, over recent months. I got an iPad mini on its launch day morning last November and it quickly won me over with its wonderful lightness and form factor. Like others, I was initially skeptical about the 8 inch (or near enough) tablet form factor, but after just a day or so with the iPad mini I was a big fan of it. All these months later, I still am and it's easily my most used device. I'd say my usage pattern on tablets recently has been around 60% iPad mini, 30% Samsung Galaxy Note 8, and only 10% iPad 3. This past Monday I wanted to get a multi-screen setup going while taking in Apple's WWDC 2013 keynote event. I decided to view Apple's live stream on the iPad, follow the Engadget liveblog in Chrome on my iMac and use Evernote on the iMac to take quick notes during the event. The iPad 3 screen was the...  Related Stories
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| Square Wallet update brings a redesigned interface and faster payment support Posted: 14 Jun 2013 09:57 AM PDT Square Wallet has just been updated to version 3.0 which brings a completely redesigned interface that makes finding businesses easier, especially the ones directly around you. The payment screen has also been updated to make it quicker to pay at local businesses. Upon launching the new version of Square Wallet, you'll notice a completely revised launch screen. Instead of seeing a list of businesses with only one featured location, you'll see each location now has their own tiles. If that merchant has uploaded a cover photo to Square, you'll also see that. The only down side is if businesses haven't paid very much attention to keeping their Square account updated with photos, you'll see a black tile, which isn't visually appealing. It does, however, aggregate places closest to you which makes payments quicker. The actual payment screen has also received some updates. Now when you click on a business from the main screen that's within your vicinity, it automatically takes you to the payment screen. Tap on the green banner at the top and the merchant will then see you're ready to pay. Basically, it's eliminating a few taps on the customer end. You'll still be able to access items for sale and gift card options below just like always. If you've tried out the new version of Square Wallet, let us know what you think in the comments!
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| How to reset your Mac desktop password with your Apple ID in OS X Mountain Lion Posted: 14 Jun 2013 09:04 AM PDT In the unfortunate event that you ever forget or lose the password to log in to your Mac running OS X Mountain Lion, hope does not have to be lost. Instead of fiddling around with recovery mode and terminal, you can easily reset it using your Apple ID as long as you've enabled your user profile to use that option. Follow along and we'll show you how. Before continuing, there's one caveat. You must have made resetting your Mac desktop password an option before you lost your password. If you haven't done this, you won't be able to reset it using this method. If you are reading this article for reference, have not lost your password, and would like to link your Apple ID in case you ever lose your password, click below to make sure your Apple ID is linked to your Mac account. Once you've done this, you'll be able to reset your Mac password using your Apple ID.
That's all there is to it. You'll now be taken to your desktop and your new password will take effect immediately. 
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| Notable New iPad Apps: 2013 US Open Golf Championship for iPad Posted: 14 Jun 2013 09:20 AM PDT Today is the second day of this year's US Open Golf Championship at Merion Golf Club and there's an official iPad app for it: 2013 US Open Golf Championship for iPad. The app offers a number of good features for helping you follow along with the second major of the year. These inlcude: – Live Video of 'marquee' groups. I tuned in just a short while ago and the Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Rory Mcilroy group was featured. The live video is available in the US only and over cellular data as well as WiFi. – Leaderboard – with stats leaders and some excellent breakdown views for individual players when you tap on their names.
The Course and Hole Insights: Hole Insights shows, for example, how missing a fairway or landing in a bunker will impact a player's score. The Course section also offers photos and video flyovers for each hole.  Related Stories
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| Microsoft continues to poke fun at the iPad, but are they actually selling any more tablets? Posted: 14 Jun 2013 07:36 AM PDT Microsoft continues to try and use the iPad to sell Windows tablets with this latest effort, starring the Dell XPS 10. Never heard of it? That's possible, since there's a good chance outside of the store you've likely not seen one. The tactic is still the same -- highlight what the iPad can't do, that Windows can -- but at least this time they've moved away from using Office as a weapon. Aside from being able to insert an SD card -- OK, we can do it with an adaptor, but it's not the same -- it's a pretty weak argument. Does zooming out so far on a 10-inch tablet that the tiles become microscopic really constitute a solid feature to convince someone against buying an iPad? The snap feature is pretty cool, but while you're watching a video are you really going to want to bring up your calendar? Your eyes can still only focus in one place at once. Oh, and that price? Yeah, Dell slashed $200 off the price of the XPS 10 recently. Perhaps they weren't selling all that well? Kudos to Microsoft for having it about them to go after the biggest player in the space, but are these ads actually selling more Windows tablets? A further thought turns to Office; did Microsoft purposely leave out the iPad from their Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers app for iOS because of their advertising campaign? Previous ads take delight in highlighting that Office isn't available on the iPad, and Microsoft would look pretty dumb if not long after they came out with at least some kind of Office for the iPad. And we're guessing that looking dumb isn't exactly what they're shooting for, even if the iPad is the perfect candidate for a mobile Office app. So tell us, what do you think of this continuing line of Microsoft ads? Tempting you to pick up a Windows 8 slate or are you still fine and happy with your iPad? Drop a line in the comments! 
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| Tweetdeck for Mac gets updated, new interface to match web versions Posted: 14 Jun 2013 07:13 AM PDT Twitter has pushed out an update to Tweetdeck for Mac giving it the same new interface as the web clients received a short time ago. The new looks is cleaner, has a new navigation bar on the left of the screen and makes customising your experience that much simpler. The columns in your Tweetdeck can now be rearranged by way of a simple drag-and-drop system, and there's a whole bunch of new filters including for interactions of followers or lists. Also included is a pretty handy Tweet translator, should you often find yourself dealing with a foreign tongue. Tweetdeck on mobile may have gone the way of the dinosaurs, but it's great to see continued development -- for now at least -- on the desktop Mac client. Grab a copy from the Mac App Store now, and let us know if Tweetdeck is or ever was your desktop Twitter client of choice.
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| Tripping with Andrew Stone at AltWWDC Posted: 14 Jun 2013 07:04 AM PDT Andrew Stone has seen a lot of changes in the Apple ecosystem - changes he talked about as a featured speaker at AltWWDC, the event that's happening concurrently with WWDC and is only a few blocks away. AltWWDC is a five-day gathering on the sixth floor of the downtown campus of San Francisco State University. While space is limited, it's absolutely free to attend. The event mixes technical labs with breakout sessions and featured speakers. Stone's trajectory through the Apple world is the very definition of a long strange trip. An architect by trade, Stone began programming when he was introduced to HyperCard, Apple's landmark visual programming tool. When Steve Jobs started NeXT a few years later, Stone began developing software for it. He's a vanguard of the NeXTStep operating system, the bedrock basis of OS X and iOS. He continues to make his living from that work - his Stone Design makes apps like Twittelator for iOS and Videator, the VJ and video effects tool . Stone, who lives in New Mexico, talked openly about his use of psychedelic drugs as a consciousness-opening experience. He was also part of lab tests for a psychoactive compound called DMT. Consumed by South American natives as a tea called ayahuasca, the substance is derived from the South American jungle vine caapi. Stone has written about his experience. And for those who question the use of drugs all together? Stone says that we have the power to create similar experiences ourselves, using nothing more than our minds and more conscious control of our bodies. He led the crowd in a breathing exercise to demonstrate. Stone's fascinating story captivated the AltWWDC crowd, but he wasn't just there to entertain with the story of his journey, but to act as a teacher and to impart some wisdom. He offered some practical advice born from decades of indie software publishing. "Small is beautiful, and you, the individual, can make a big difference," Stone said. "And to witness that, think of all the little indies that have been copied by Apple," Stone joked, getting a wry laugh from the audience. Stone emphasized the importance of maintaining a positive social media presence, encouraging indie developers reach out to their peers. Stone's final bit of advice: "Feed your head." More specifically, feed the other part of your head that isn't involved in programming and business. Try to have a rich and balanced life wherever it takes you, even a path less traveled like Stone's. 
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| Deal of the Day: 49% off the Ballistic Shell Gel (SG) Series Case for iPhone 5 Posted: 14 Jun 2013 04:45 AM PDT | ||||||
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Microsoft launches Office Mobile, brings subscription Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to iPhone
Posted: 14 Jun 2013 03:18 AM PDT
Microsoft has brought Office 365 -- excuse me, Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers -- to the iPhone, allowing anyone up-to-date with their fees to view and lightly edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint docs on the go. Support is offered for charts, animations, SmartArt graphics, and shapes, and Microsoft claims that you don't lose any formatting when you edit on your iPhone. (You read that right, there's no iPad version, at least not yet.)
Here are the bullet points:
Access documents from virtually anywhere:
- Cloud – With your phone, you can access Office documents that are stored on SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro, or SharePoint.**
- Recent Documents – Office Mobile is cloud-connected. The documents you've recently viewed on your computer are readily available on your phone in the recent documents panel.
- Email Attachments – You can view and edit Office documents attached to email messages.
Office documents look stunning:
- Great-Looking Documents - Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents look great on your phone, thanks to support for charts, animations, SmartArt Graphics, and shapes.
- Optimized for phone - Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been optimized for the small screen of your phone.
- Resume Reading - When opening a Word document from SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro on your phone, it automatically resumes at the place where you left off reading, even if you last viewed the document on your PC or tablet.
- Presentation Views - The Slide Navigator view in PowerPoint lets you browse slides faster, while speaker notes help you practice your presentation.
Make quick edits and share:
- Edit - You can make quick edits to Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.
- Documents Remain Intact - Formatting and content remain intact when you edit Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents on your phone.
- Edit While Offline - Your device doesn't have to be continuously connected to the network to work on an Office document that is stored online. You can view and edit recently used documents even while you're offline. Your changes will be saved online when your device reconnects to the network or to Wi-Fi.
- Create – You can create new Word and Excel documents on your phone.
- Comments - You can review comments that have been made in Word and Excel documents on your phone and add your own comments.
- Share - When you're done with your edits or comments, simply send the document in email or save it to SkyDrive or SharePoint.
Microsoft Office for iPhone -- sorry, Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers -- is free but does require a subscription to Office 365 as the name implies. I've let mine lapse but if any of you still have one, and take the new iPhone app for a spin, let me know -- how does it work for you?
Note: Only seems to be appearing in the US App Store right now, could be propagating still, or could be exclusive. Hopefully we'll find out soon.
- Free with subscription - Download now
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