Filed under: Software, iTunes, Developer, iPhone, Graphic Design, App Store
Our friends at LateNiteSoft sent word that they’ve updated Sketches, one of the first iPhone apps I ever picked up, to version 2.0. The app has been released [iTunes link] as an entirely new download, so even upgraders from version 1 will have to pay the current price of $1.99. LateNiteSoft tells us that upgrade price is temporary — they plan to keep the original app on the store as “Sketches Classic” for 99 cents, and eventually the price of the new version will go up a few more bucks. If you want to upgrade, go grab Sketches 2 as soon as you can.
Tthe new app offers a number of improvements, including a completely revamped UI designed to quickly run through large collections. The new UI also keeps tools handy, but out of the way, as you use them. As you can see in the screen shots above, all the tools are stashed at the bottom of the screen instead of covering up your picture while you’re working on it. Sketches 2 now lets you paint using brushes, which makes for some nice choices in terms of marking pictures, canvas, maps, or whatever else you choose as a background in the app. The zoom functionality has been updated, with new gestures and a smoother shape adjustment interface. As with the original Sketches app, you can share and export your work however you like. You can use the app to create a masterpiece and then tweet about it, or just mark some notes on a map and send it off to a friend.
Sketches 1 was a bargain back when I picked it up for $7 in the earliest days of the App Store, and this new version adds even more features at less than half the price. If you have any inkling about making some art on your iPhone, it’s a solid buy.
Sketches 2 available now for creating even better art on your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sketches 2 available now for creating even better art on your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Software
TechCrunch, among other news outlets, reports that Adobe is cutting 680 employees as part of a restructuring plan. This is roughly 9 percent of the company’s workforce. The news comes on the heels of Electronic Arts’ decision to layoff 1,500 workers and a reduction of 600 from Adobe back in December. Adobe had purchased Omniture in September and reduced its workforce by 9 percent at that time.
The cost of restructuring for Adobe will total between $65 and $71 million, the TechCrunch article says.
The layoffs come just after Adobe announced that Flash Professional CS5 will be able to turn Flash projects into iPhone apps. The company has also recently released a version of its Photoshop.com Mobile app for the iPhone [iTunes link].
TUAWAdobe layoffs strike home, 680 to lose jobs originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: iTunes, iPhone, iPod touch
While of my colleagues are tremendously excited about Norah Jones and iTunes LP, I’ve got to say I was far happier to discover the new iTunes 9 iPhone application management screens that Brett touched on yesterday (Sorry, Dave!). Located in the Applications tab for each iPhone and iPod touch device, the manager lets you organize your applications on a screen-by-screen basis from the comfort of your desktop. Unfortunately, the organizer remains fairly primitive.You can…
- …check or uncheck apps that you want to sync or not sync.
- …drag apps around individual pages to reorder them
- …drag apps between screens to reparent them.
- …change page order by dragging them within the page column.
And that’s pretty much it. There’s no way to sort your screens alphabetically or by category. There’s no way to copy or share layouts between devices. There’s no undo support if you change your mind about any changes. That having been said, there are some iTunes 9 tricks that may help you better organize your applications. Here are TUAW’s top four.
Use Command-Click to group apps. Command-clicking an application icon adds it to (or if already added, removes it from) the currently selected group. You can move groups all at once between pages.
Use empty pages. If you have the pages to spare, use the empty pages that iTunes makes available to you to help organize applications by “theme”. For example, you can drag an empty page into, say, the page 2 position and then start filling that page with games from the other pages. Adding apps to that empty page causes another empty page to appear at the end of the list if there is room. You’re limited to eight 11 pages total for your applications.
Use the dock. Your dock provides a home for up to four applications that you use the most. Docked applications appear on every page, offering the quickest access to your most-used apps. Don’t feel limited to the apps that the iPhone OS defaults to. It’s your dock. Use it the way that best suits you.
Use the home screen. If you have more than four apps that you need quick access to, don’t forget that the first screen of apps is always just a Home button click away. Tapping the home button when viewing apps automatically jumps you to the first page. Place your high priority apps on this first page if they fall short of the urgency of the dock items.
The new Application editor is certainly a great step forward from the way things were. Here’s hoping that Apple will make it even easier to manage your applications in future iTunes releases.
iTunes 9 Focus: Tips for editing your iPhone apps screens originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iTunes 9 Focus: Tips for editing your iPhone apps screens originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, iPhone, iPod touch
Last week the Baby Shaker app received a lot of negative attention and was subsequently pulled from the App Store. Deservedly so; that game was tasteless.
This week, Elaine Howard of the International Pacific Women’s Information Network called Bolt’s popular Pocket God an “…arrogant slap in the face to our people,” referring to Pacific Islanders. If you’re unfamiliar, the object of Pocket God (it’s really more of a toy than a game) is to torment and kill island-bound characters in a variety of ways. I’ve always thought of the characters as pre-historic “cave men,” not belonging to any specific culture. However, if I were of Pacific Island descent and saw someone playing this game on the subway, it’d bother me.
iPhone Saviour quotes Bolt representatives as saying “The fictional characters in Pocket God do not directly or indirectly represent any human nationality, race or cultural people … Bolt Creative does not intend and has never intended to offend or marginalize any nationality, race or culture in any of its video games, including Pocket God.” I believe that the game was in fact created without malicious intent.
Perhaps a solution would be to use culturally neutral characters like astronauts or LOLcats (see above)? For more on Apple’s questionable approval process (not to mention the tastes of some customers), check out this horrifying list of The Ultimate Tasteless iPhone Apps.
TUAWMore App Store controversy from Pocket God originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you’re a Chicago resident, you are undoubtedly aware that the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) allows you to track the exact location of a number of bus lines through its CTA Bus Tracker website thanks to GPS. This, in turn, allows you to determine exactly where the closest bus is and when it will be arriving at your stop (since the busses are susceptible to traffic, they almost never arrive according to the predetermined schedule).
But if you are already out of the house, the CTA Bus Tracker’s website is, let’s just say, less than ideal on a mobile device like the iPhone. Since the bus data is available for third parties to incorporate into their own apps, however, two iPhone apps have sprung up to try and make presentation prettier and easier to use. And since we are loyal Chicago residents, we figured what better way to compare these two apps than here at Ars?
The two applications are Buster and CTA Tracker, neither of which are developed by the CTA itself and both of which are priced at $0.99. Both pull the same live data down from the CTA Bus Tracker’s API over WiFi, 3G, or EDGE, so comparing the two is less about core functionality and more a matter of how your personal usage habits mesh with the different UIs.
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