Cody Fink

1547 posts on MacStories since January 2010

Former MacStories contributor.

cody@macstories.net

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How to Optimize Your Settings in Paper by Facebook→

Facebook’s new Paper app is the best excuse yet to ditch the social network’s older offering. But while the re-imagined mobile experience adds beautiful fullscreen images and new, intuitive swipes to the mix, it also comes with a few limitations. So before you banish that blue and white standby to the netherworld of discarded apps, you probably want to make a few quick changes.

Roberto Baldwin for Wired writes about how toggling a few switches can make Paper by Facebook better and turn off some annoyances, like videos that automatically play.

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Hoplite: A Mini Dungeon Turn-Based Strategy Game for iPhone and iPad

Each step feels more perilous than the last. As you dash over a pool of lava, you lunge to slay a demon archer, cornered and unprepared for the daring attack. Looking ahead it seems all but impossible to make the last jump, as demon footmen move to block the exit. Throwing your spear, you impale the dark beast, only to be greeted by a bomb that lands behind your feet. You bash away the bomb with your shield, taking out another demon as it explodes at a distance. Leaping across the last chasm, a lapse in judgement leaves you directly in the crosshairs of a second archer, who fires an arrow directly into your exposed side as you land.

And thus ends the quest for the Fleece.

This is Hoplite, where a pair of sandals, a trusty spear, sturdy shield, and three hearts are all that protect you from hordes of demons in the Underworld. Your quest is to recover the Fleece and make it out alive, but the journey is treacherous.

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Rymdkapsel Now on Mac and PC

There aren’t too many games that get my attention, but rymdkapsel was one of them. It was the right kind of addicting eerie fortress defense meets Tetris meets what-are-these-monoliths that brought something unique and different to the touchscreen. The game’s back, now available on Mac, PC, Linux, through Steam or the rymdkapsel page.

The desktop edition of the game includes new game modes: Plus mode features four new mysterious monoliths to unlock, and Zen mode removes the invading space aliens from the game for a meditative experience.

A special Monolith edition of the game is exclusively available from the developer, and includes DRM free versions of the game for all desktop platforms, a Steam code, the original Android version of the game, a complete 45 minute soundtrack, ringtones, and a bonus game for the PC (Windows) version.

Rymdkapsel is available for $7.99 through the Humble Store and on Steam. The Monolith edition of the game is $11.99 and exclusively available on the Humble Store. You can also get the soundtrack separately on Bandcamp for €4.

A Look at SwiftKey Note

Third party keyboards have been showing up on iOS, not as system replacements, but as individual apps that aim to provide an alternative to Apple’s standard keyboard. Keyboard replacements on Android, and apps on iOS like Fleksy, aim to either provide an alternate method of inputting characters (such as swiping over characters with your finger) or predict what you’re going to say next.

Apple’s keyboard for iOS is good, but not great. Auto-Correct doesn’t provide the right balance of letting me decide what I want to say[1] without disabling it completely, and popovers dismiss corrections rather than select them. Apple’s keyboard feels counterintuitive, and dare I say Apple’s smaller displays don’t lend themselves well to cramped keyboards[2] with buttons for dictation and international keyboards.

SwiftKey Note doesn’t replace Apple’s keyboard layout, but it does attempt to improve upon automatic corrections while offering easy-to-tap suggestions as you type. Does it hit the ball out of the park? Not completely, but it’s decent and for the most part has better suggestions than Apple.

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Highlight Important Folders by Changing Their Color with Folderol→

Friend of the site Erica Sadun recently released Folderol, a Mac app that simply lets you change the color of your folders on OS X. Of the many changes in OS X Mavericks is how labels are displayed; now being tags, small little colored dots next to file and folder names are all that differentiate how your stuff appears. Folderol brings back some visual distinctiveness, a feature that Apple once offered on classic Mac OSes, starting with System 6 for color Macintoshes.  Folderol’s default color palette smartly pair with Apple’s tags, but you’re free to choose your own with the built-in color picker. Download Folderol for $0.99 from the Mac App Store.

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Rap Genius Brings Annotated Lyrics to the iPhone With ‘Genius’

Rap Genius and its community have been making themselves the de facto place to get the scoop on what’s actually being said and what it all means, replacing sites like SongMeanings and A-Z Lyrics (a common Google search result). The state of music lyrics is infuriating, considering the best source for a lot of this stuff are artist wikis, lyric books that come packaged with CDs, and any number of shady lyrics sites looking for hits.

MusicXMatch solves a lot of these issues, have great apps on iOS and in Spotify, but their desire to connect to social networks like Facebook, and emphasis on timed lyrics make it more suitable for karaoke and sharing than reading and reflecting.

Genius lets you read at your leisure.

Genius is basically the mobile version of their website, bringing together other avenues like Rock and Poetry into a single application. It works the way I’d expect it to, being less reliant on your media library and more about search and popular tracks. Just as you’d find on Rap Genius, you can tap on lyrics to reveal annotations about what an artist might be trying to say, or why it’s a particularly punchy and meaningful line. The app provides a good way to get in the know about all the little cultural references that can be found in today’s music, and completely bypasses the company’s recent Google controversy.

Rap Genius is so big and community driven that it’s hard not to find a popular song or artist today that doesn’t have their lyrics added to the database. And like other apps, Genius shows you lyrics for songs in your iOS device’s local music library, or lets you activate the microphone to get lyrics for a song that’s playing around you.

It’s free to download from the App Store, and you don’t have to sign into Rap Genius to start searching for lyrics.

Vox 2.0

Vox is a simple and powerful drag and drop media player for the Mac, letting you drag in folders and individual tracks to create custom playlists. The app supports just about any media format, from FLAC to AAC to WAV, and has a built in equalizer so you can dial in the perfect sound. Vox has been around since 2007, and I’m amazed that it continues to be free.

I mentioned it briefly in the footnotes when I talked about GoodReader’s iOS 7 design, but there’s so much music out there that’s not in iTunes. Upcoming artists are putting demos and downloadable Mixtapes on SoundCloud, Bandcamp has become an avenue for independent game makers to sell soundtracks, and Amazon’s willing to send you the digital equivalent when you buy physical albums. If you love supporting your favorite artists, iTunes also ignores common perks that you get when preordering music direct, including exclusive tracks, different masters, custom artwork, and swag. A lot of music ends up in my Downloads folder, and instead of waiting on iTunes, I just drag my folders of newly acquired tunes into Vox.

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