Review: Twitter 4.0 for iPhone

By Cody Fink

That gorgeous app up above? That’s the next-generation Twitter app. Twitter 4.0 melds Twitter’s brand new web experience with your mobile phone, making it easier to discover and share information that matters most to you. Conversations, your activity feed, stories and trends have now been given focus in four new tabs that make Twitter more accessible than ever before.

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OnLive Gaming Service Launching on iOS and Android

By Cody Fink

OnLive has announced that its brining its streaming online gaming service to tablets and mobile phones via a playable client that will soon be available in the App Store. The OnLive app will make available console games previously unavailable to the iPhone and iPad, as digital gaming content is streamed over the Internet from a central location (processing and gameplay is done “in the cloud”). Those that have the bandwidth available can instantly pick up and play new titles without having to consume local storage or wait for the game to download. As games are played in the cloud, all save data is completely mobile and can be accessed from any device.

From the press release:

Over 25 OnLive titles, including L.A. Noire, family titles like LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and 5-7, and indies like Defense Grid Gold, will work with touch control on tablets and smartphones. And most of the nearly 200 games in OnLive’s growing library, including recent top-tier releases like Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Lord of the Rings: War in the North, are immediately playable on virtually any device with the Universal OnLive Wireless Controller, which utilizes OnLive’s exclusive adaptive wireless technology to automatically find an optimal wireless connection for a given tablet, smartphone, PC, Mac, TV or Blu-ray player. The Universal OnLive Wireless Controller will be available soon for purchase in the US and the UK, for $49.99 and £39.99 respectively.

The OnLive app will make use of OnLive Cloud Touch controls so you can manipulate the game on a touchscreen, but an optional controller is available for an additional fifty dollars that should seamlessly work with your iPad or Android tablet. OnLive says the iPad version should be available soon. TechCrunch notes than an iPhone version of the OnLive app is planned, but won’t be immediately available for the mobile launch. While the app itself will be free, you still have to pay to play games per title through OnLive’s PlayBack Bundle. Anyone who downloads the OnLive app will be able to play LEGO Batman free of charge.

[OnLive via MacRumors]

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New Revisions for Apple’s Spaceship-Campus Reveal New Solar Roof and Renderings

By Cody Fink

It was back in June when we last talked about Apple’s 2nd mothership, or the proposed circular spaceship-like campus that’s currently planned to occupy a 98-acre plot of land purchased from Hewlett Packard (the total campus area includes 175 acres of land). On Wednesday, new revisions surfaced from the City of Cupertino detailing the new campus submissions from Apple, which includes new renderings and details about the structure’s massive size.

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Game On With the Official Xbox LIVE App for iOS

By Cody Fink

Microsoft has released the official Xbox LIVE app for iPhone and iPad users, dubbed My Xbox Live, allowing you to read and send messages to friends, manage your friends list and accept invitations, edit your Xbox LIVE profile, change and customize your avatar with new clothing and items, and view the achievements you’ve been awarded through the metro-like interface. Resembling the recent Dashboard update the Xbox 360 received as Microsoft brings UI parity with Metro, the Xbox LIVE app can be downloaded for free on the iTunes App Store.

Screenshots past the break!

[via Major Nelson]

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Sparrow 1.5 Hits the Mac App Store with Dropbox Integration and Search Tokens

By Cody Fink

Sparrow, last updated with CloudApp integration (for large email attachments) and pull-to-refresh with version 1.4, has reached a milestone this morning with their 1.5 update now available on the Mac App Store. In this release, Sparrow continues to integrate Gmail natively with optional loading of remote images and token based searching for messages.

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Flud 2.0 Brings Social Interaction with a Revamped Interface

By Cody Fink

While I’ve taken a look at Flud before, its initial resemblance to Pulse left me uninterested. Flud, in their attempt to meld the news you were interested in with social media, never quite stood out enough from the competition or encouraged me to actively share articles with my friends. That was the case, but like Flipboard, Flud has a substantial update with a second version of their social news reader.

Flud 2.0 throws out its sharp-edged interface for an elegant carousel, containing the subscription’s headlines which scroll vertically to reveal more content. The interface, fluid and responsive when article images don’t need to be cached, differentiates itself from the likes of Flipboard and Pulse — sidestepping a magazine or traditional RSS-like experience — by presenting an open canvas (or in other words a very fancy grid) to discover content. There are some similarities with services like News.me in the updated Flud, with the main focus revolving around following your friends or idols who will curate interesting content.

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First Look: Apple’s Grand Central Retail Store Unveiled

By Cody Fink

As anticipation mounts for the grand opening of the Grand Central Retail Store on December 9th, at 10 AM, Apple has soft launched their retail store by taking the covers off early, giving journalists and passerby a sneak peek at what to expect come this Friday. Techfootnote writes that the the Grand Central Retail Store is also providing free public Wi-Fi for commuters. You can find more pics past the break thanks to Ross Rubin.

Apple and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are currently under scrutiny for the 23,000 square foot space, as the MTA is accused of giving Apple an overly favorable lease for the space. While Apple is only paying $60 per square foot, the MTA has argued that Apple has already made an upfront payment to the previous tenant, and is paying to upgrade the space’s infrastructure with additions such as elevators to assist daily commuters. Apple’s $800,000 rent (for the ten year lease) is apparently small change, however, as the Grand Central Retail Store is expected to rake in $100 million a year in sales.

[via techfootnote] Thanks Dan!

Update: Apple has formally announced the opening of the Grand Central Retail Store. You can can catch the press release below.

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Minecraft: Pocket Edition Getting a Basic Survival Mode

By Cody Fink

Minecraft: Pocket Edition landed on iOS weeks ago with a $6.99 price tag and barebones gameplay that mirrors the creative mode from its parent sibling. Minecraft fans will have no qualms in having a small playground to explore and construct buildings in, but the mobile version (designated as an alpha) does leave something to be desired. While building with a preset list of block choices is fun, there’s virtually no want to explore (especially since you can’t construct any tools), and the Pocket Edition leaves some in-game elements from the desktop version such as coal and gravel (that you can’t mine) which can be found on mountains. This might leave you to believe that the iOS and Android versions will eventually grow into the same game that’s finally reached 1.0 status as of Minecon. While it’s true that the mobile version will eventually get a survival mode, it won’t necessarily mirror the expansive world generation and gameplay that the desktop game provides.

Daniel Kaplan for Mojang writes,

The plan now is to start digging into making Minecraft – Pocket Edition with Survival features!! Please note that we will NOT replicate Minecraft and try to bring all the features that are already out. This is not possible and does not match the touch platform. I’m trying to be as detailed as possible to show you why some stuff may take some time.

This is what the plan looks like right now and being worked on:

A new file system – to make sure we can support items and mobs in the world

Item system – to be able to pick up items

Crafting – we know you want this. This will probably need some iterations since the interface will be customized for the touch devices

Inventory system

Mobs – animals and enemies!

Optimizing rendering code – we are experimenting with caves but need to make it work better before we are able to release it

Clean up of code and overall optimization

These updates will take time: Minecraft has to be optimized for mobile devices, and the current controls are only good enough to get by for what the game currently implements. Just like with early Minecraft, you’ll have the opportunity to watch it grow into a product that’ll have a lot more interaction than its predecessors. Even if the Pocket Edition could only match the early Minecraft beta days, that’s what I remember best, and it would be a nostalgic blast from the past.

[Mojang via Cult of Mac]

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An iPad Lover Plays With Fire →

Linked By Cody Fink

An iPad Lover Plays With Fire

Also, at times I seem to tap items and nothing happens, leaving me to wonder if I’ve somehow died, lost the electrical charge in my finger tips, and am just a ghost who believes I’m in our regular reality. I’ve had this happen with the iPad 2 and my iPhone, so I can’t blame it all on the Kindle Fire. I bet there’s a usage learning curve where I’ll intuitively understand how long and hard I have to make a tap to be to get a consistent response. I’m not there yet, but I expect my interaction to improve. If it doesn’t, it would be only a minor irritation because, after all, I only spent $199 on this device.

Chris Maxcer has written a multi-part series on the using the Kindle Fire at MacNewsWorld, looking at just how it compares to Apple’s iPad. With Christmas around the corner and budgets to be managed, the Kindle Fire’s attractive price point will certainly makes it an impulse buy for people who couldn’t afford one otherwise. Its price, however, may not necessarily be its only good quality. Maxcer writes that its media experience (for consuming video for example) is excellent, although actually using the Fire for anything productive ends up being a big hassle. The multi-part review is a good read through to manage your expectations if you’re thinking about getting the Fire.

An iPad Lover Plays With Fire: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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