Mike Rundle’s First Thoughts on iPhone 4

By Federico Viticci

“Apps that haven’t been updated with 2x-resolution raster images look like shit; pixelated and blocky and clunky. I didn’t think I’d notice but I definitely do, it’s unmistakeable which ones aren’t optimized for the new screen.

Text rendered on the new screen looks foreign it’s so sharp. I’ve never seen Helvetica like this.

I bought a bumper, and before I put it on, it felt like the phone was incredibly droppable.

The screen is making my eyes buggy because it’s so sharp. I’ve never seen a screen with this type of pixel density and it’s so sharp it’s almost jarring, like my eyes aren’t used to it yet.”

Brief and insightful. Check out the full post here.

Congratulations, Twitter: You Blew It. [Tweetie]

By Federico Viticci

Writing about Tweetie for Mac updates has become some sort of a joke to me. “Tweetie for Mac has been updated? Yeah, sure.” That’s why many people last night didn’t initially believe Twitter actually pushed an update with OAuth support, and once they realized it was real, they just didn’t update. Why? Because they’re not trusting Loren Brichter anymore. And considering what happened to Tweetie for Mac last night, go prove them wrong.

Retina Display Under the Microscope

By Federico Viticci

PhD candidates Ryan White and Bryan Gauntt of Penn State University sent Engadget some interesting comparison images of a Retina Display under the microscope together with a 3G screen.

“According to their measurements, the iPhone 3G’s pixels measure 13 x 40 microns, while the iPhone 4’s measure 6.5 x 20 microns, which adds up to exactly four times as many pixels.”

We know it’s impressive, but if you want scientific confirmation - just check out the images after the break.

Sharing Files with Dropbox Just Got A Lot Easier

By Federico Viticci

Dropbox, the most popular online / desktop backup tool for Mac, just got a brand new feature: all your files in your Dropbox can be shared, not just those saved in the Public folder.

You just have to right click on a file or folder int he desktop or web view and select “Get shareable link”; this will redirect you to a web page with a short link for that file or folder. This is a long-awaited feature, which has made sharing file with Dropbox a lot easier. Good job.

First iPhone 4 Reception Bug Seems Pretty Bad

By Federico Viticci

Picture this: you hold the iPhone 4 in your hands and the signal drops. You leave it on the desk and it goes up again. You touch it with your skin and boom, no signal. There’s this video that’s running around in the internet, which shows an iPhone 4 “magically” going to to No Signal with just a few inches of skin.

TUAW is also reporting:

“In fact, this reception conniption was predicted on Fox’s Gadgets and Games two weeks ago: “Having been in the cellular business most of my career, I think it’s really odd that you’d want an antenna grounded by a moist hand.” Check out the video; it’s about 24 minutes in when MAKE magazine’s Dave Mathews calls it.”

Check it out after the break. If true, it’s pretty bad.

Tweetie for Mac Updated with OAuth Support [UPDATE: New Build Available]

By Federico Viticci

I almost can’t believe I’m writing this: Tweetie for Mac has been updated. Sadly, it’s not the long awaited Tweetie 2, but at least it’s got OAuth support, meaning that the app won’t die when Twitter will officially kill the old authentication system.

Since Twitter acquired Loren Brichter’s Tweetie for iPhone and Mac, we all feared that the new team would only focus on the iPhone app, leaving Mac users behind with a version based on a deprecated authentication system. Knowing that they didn’t even have plans to make it an official client didn’t help either. Then, two weeks ago we reported that an update for the Mac version was on its way this month, and here it is: a rather minor update that brings OAuth, better Magic Mouse support and removes Fusion Ads according to Twitter’s new Terms of Service.

It’s kind of surprising though that there’s still no official word about the 2 version (we don’t want that much, a tweet would be enough) especially considering that thousands of users entered the latest MacHeist sale just to get their hands on an early beta version of Tweetie 2 for Mac. But, we heard some rumors last week from a source close to Loren, who claims that he’s up to “some amazing stuff for Tweetie”. I bet he is. Working at Twitter must be awesome.

Anyway, that’s not the point. There’s a new version, go check for updates, Tweetie for Mac won’t die. At this point, I’m afraid to say it’s enough.

You can find the changelog of the new 1.2.7 version after the break.

[UPDATE] They’ve pushed another build that fixes the authentication problems, 1.2.8. It’s available here. Still, you know my position about this.

FarmVille for iPhone Now Available

By Federico Viticci

Announced at the last WWDC keynote in San Francisco, FarmVille is one of the most anticipated apps for the iPhone. Apple has finally approved Zynga’s game, which is now slowly propagating in iTunes.

As announced by Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus at the WWDC, the iPhone version of FarmVille comes with iPhone-specific features such as push notifications, so that you won’t miss anything of what’s new in your farm.

It’s already live in the New Zealand store. [Link]

iOS 4 Fast App Switching Explained

By Federico Viticci

Great post by Matt Neuburg over at TidBITS, where he explains the most important technical details you need to know about iOS’ multitasking.

Remove Recents Hides iOS Apps That Don’t Support Multitasking

By Federico Viticci

The most important feature of iOS 4 is multitasking and, look, we get it. You’re now able to quickly switch between apps and go back to the exact place you left off the app. It’s cool, and it works good. The problem is, there are too many apps that still don’t support the new multitasking APIs, and it’s kind of annoying to get these apps in the multitasking drawer, tap on them and find out that they haven’t been updated for iOS’ persistent state.

Fortunately for jailbroken users, the solution is in Cydia.