The Retina Display is great, and it’s always a pleasure to see updated apps show up in iTunes every day. If you don’t have an iPhone, you really have no idea how gorgeous apps look on it.
I was amazed by Ether, a simple radio app by Pandapps, as I saw the first screenshots in iTunes. Why? Because it’s the first music app that actually looks great on my new device.
Look, we get it that you use your iPad to read articles online. We’ve talked oh-so-many times before about it. You have Reeder, Ashes, Instapaper, Pulse and Blogshelf already installed and placed on your home screen.
Now, you have Digg, too.
We’re still waiting for Tweetie 2.0 for Mac to be announced (though we’ve heard something new is going on this week) yet a lot of developers haven’t given up on developing and refining their own unofficial Twitter clients. And since Apple released Safari 5 with the possibility to install extensions on it, it was just a matter of time until someone developed a “full-featured” Twitter client for it.
Meet Ostrich.
Looks like the issue has gone mainstream in the US. Gotta love the “eye foam” though.
Thanks everyone who entered the DeskAgent 1.1 giveaway.We also want to thank the MacRecon developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.
Here are the winners:
Ignignokt
KaL MichaeL
Phillip Johns
Matthew Bostock
Bruna
Eli
You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few hours. Congratulations!
Ok, so we know FaceTime is a great technology. Video calling is nothing new, but Apple’s implementation is perfect: one-tap calling, simple UI, easy to use.
How stable and compatible can Apple’s FaceTime be, anyway? We’ve read reports of firewalls blocking its connection. Still, the good folks over at TUAW have managed to talk with a reader who was on a plane, thousands of feet above Earth, using Gogo in-flight Wifi service. The same service which blocks Skype and other VOIP softwares, it worked just fine with FaceTime.
The quality of the call is good, and Bills even changes camera to show that he’s actually on a plane, FaceTime with us poor Earth dwellers. Check out the video after the break.
The iPad is still waiting for its Tweetie: a Twitter client which will set new standards and raise the bar so high it’ll be difficult for developers to catch up. Twitterrific hasn’t raised the bar: it brought a blow of fresh air in a market that, since Twitter’s acquisition of Loren’s app, is struggling to find its new Messiah. For as much as I love Twitterrific 3.0 (it’s my default client on the iPhone) I can’t say The Iconfactory has reinvented the wheel. The first Tweetie for iPhone did.
Maybe the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented. Maybe we’ve already explored all the possible ways to lay out a Twitter application and now we’re just waiting for the one developer who implements them best. It’s a subtle difference.
If we take this approach, Osfoora for iPhone and iPad might be the best example to take a look at. It started as a quite blatant Tweetie ripoff, but it slowly evolved overtime in a wisely developed alternative to much more celebrated clients such as the aforementioned Tweetie, Twitterrific but also Echofon, Twitbird and Twittelator. It’s really changed a lot since the last time Cody reviewed the iPhone version here on MacStories.
Even though its terrific evolution, this time I won’t be talking about Osfoora for iPhone. The iPad version, released last month, was updated yesterday with a lot of new features and now it’s seriously claiming the throne of the best Twitter client for iPad. App Store users seem to be on Said Marouf’s side.
Here’s why I agree with them.
Apple has just started sending out emails to remind Mac OS X developers that they can now submit Safari Extensions to Apple to be featured in the upcoming Extension gallery.
Tapbots are well known for making incredible applications: they look incredible, they’re incredibly useful. Pastebot is one of my most used iPhone apps, and the recent Retina Display update made it even better. Convertbot makes converting units fun and simple. Weightbot - I wish I’ll be able to use it someday. Thing is, no one gets custom UIs as right as Mark Jardine does. Period.
There was so much hype about Tapbots’ new projects. This review is not about Tweetbot, and I guess we’ll have to wait for their much-requested Twitter client for a while. The folks over at Tapbots have just released a brand new application for iPhone and iPad, and before you hold your breath for something incredibly complex and game-changing - Calcbot is a “just” a simple calculator.
But it’s the best calculator app I’ve ever had on my iPhone. And iPad. And it’s not sitting on both my home screens.
