Adam Atomic Talks Canabalt and Indie Gaming [Video]

By Federico Viticci

Adam Saltsman (aka Adam Atomic) is the man behind Canabalt, seriously one of the best “indie games” ever released in the last decade. What’s Canabalt? It’s a parkour-inspired game where you have to run and jump to avoid obstacles. Actually, the character automatically runs and you only have to press the jump button - or tap the screen in the iPhone and iPad versions.

The following footage was produced by James Swirsky and the team behind Indie Game: The Movie, due out next year. This segment won’t be included in the final movie. Check it out below. [Indie Game: The Movie via Engadget]

Tumbleroo: The First iPad App for Tumblr

By Federico Viticci

I was thinking about this a few days ago: where are Tumblr clients for the iPad? I know that the guys at Tumblr are up to something, but I’m surprised that no third-party developer thought about releasing a full-featured client - especially considering that Twitter clients are (again) invading the App Store and that many Dribbble clients are in the works, too.

Today it’s the start of a new trend: finally, someone released a Tumblr app for iPad. Developed by the Hanso Group (no guys, it’s not the Hanso Foundation), Tumbleroo is the first complete Tumblr application for the iPad.

“Get a Mac” Star Justin Long Jailbreaks His iPhone [Video]

By Federico Viticci

In what is probably one of the videos that made me laugh the most recently, former “Get a Mac” ad star Justin Long shows off his jailbroken iPhone on ABC. Or maybe the producer asked him to jailbreak it in order to install the TV-out application from Cydia?

Check out the video below. [via Engadget]

Apple Launches New iPad Commercial - “iPad is…”

By Federico Viticci

Apple has just launched a new iPad TV commercial, featuring some 3rd party apps like Flipboard and Fruit Ninja HD and even Twitter.com while being used from the iPad.

The new commercial “iPad is” is all focused on contextual experiences based on the different purposes of the device. I think it’s very well done as it carries the message that, thanks to the App Store and Web, the iPad can do anything.

Check it out after the break.

Dunk: A First Great Dribbble Client for iPhone

By Federico Viticci

Dribbble is a website where designers can share previews of their latest creations. The most viewed submissions go to the home page, thus allowing the designer to get his name out there. It’s a pretty popular service to get feedback on early mockups of new websites and apps, but some says it’s pointless and dominated by “elitists”. As long as I can stay up to date with new apps coming out for iPhone and iPad, I don’t care.

The Dribbble staff understood that the next step would be that of opening an API and they did so. They came at a point where opening up to 3rd party developers would be absolutely necessary to get the Dribbble name out in the App Store. Because if you have an online service nowadays, you need to have mobile applications, too. Otherwise, you’re missing out. That’s what the experts say.

Actually, I think the idea of viewing Dribbble images on iPhone and iPad might work. I’m no designer and I have no reason to ask for an invite (yeah, it’s an invite-only website), but I enjoy browsing through screenshots of designers I respect and admire. From today on we’ll be taking a look at all the Dribbble clients coming out in the near future (trust me, there’ll be many of them) so let’s just start with Dunk by Robocat.

Apple Granted Patent for “Slide to Unlock”

By Federico Viticci

When Apple introduced the iPhone and Steve Jobs showed how to unlock it for the first time, people went “ooohhh”. Back then, it was a revolution. Over the years smartphone makers and OS designers for touch screen-enabled mobile devices have been trying to copy Apple’s unique implementations and to reach the bar set high by Cupertino’s magical designers.

Three years ago Apple filed patents for the two most distinctive features of the iPhone: “slide to unlock” in the lockscreen and pop-up letters when you type on the virtual keyboard. Perhaps you’re so used to them you wouldn’t even think there’s a need to patent them.

Indeed there is, and United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Apple two design patents titled “Animated graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof ” that will allow Steve to keep on sliding on his iPhone 5 while wandering around Google’s campus without the fear of being observed by Eric Schmidt and his evil design team.

I guess that’s what Apple patents are all about.

[via TUAW]

Super Prober: Sort Of Like Chrome for iPad, Gone Wrong

By Federico Viticci

Two years of App Store and I still haven’t found a decent alternative to Mobile Safari. Something I could keep on my homescreen for more than 2 days. The reason is obvious: you are not Apple. Developing a browser is not like building a Twitter client: we’re talking about the primary tool to access the web here. And if Apple ships an almost state-of-the-art mobile browser by default, well then - sorry if I don’t trust you.

Mobile Safari is a simple application that lets you navigate the web, we call it “browser”. Developing a browser for a cellphone is a difficult task: you don’t have windows, you don’t have tabs, favicons don’t make sense on a small screen. Also, the elegant interface of the iPhone makes it really hard to implement features seen in desktop browser without looking awkward. Have you seen Opera Mini? Exactly.

But the iPad is magical, right? It’s got a larger display, it’s a tablet, you can put your hands on it! Let’s develop a full-featured browser for the iPad! Not so fast, cowboy. For as much as the iPad is indeed bigger and more suitable to richer applications, take a second look at what Apple offers: Safari for the iPad is, again, simple. Sure, it has those beautiful thumbnail previews for open tabs. Sure, there’s a bookmark bar. Still, it doesn’t overwhelm you with dozens of features that would probably look cool in the App Store description page, but kill usability. Mercury Browser, I’m looking at you.

It turns out, though, someone decided to develop some kind of Chrome-like browser for the iPad and call it Super Prober. I went into the App Store and bought it. Here’s what happened.

Elements Brings Dropbox Integration to Your Notes - 3 Codes Up for Grabs

By Federico Viticci

Two weeks ago we posted an exclusive sneak peek at Elements for iPhone and iPad, a new text editor by Second Gear Software that stores your notes in Dropbox, so that you’ll have them always available no matter the device you’re using. Whether it’s the iPhone, iPad, desktop Mac or even a Windows PC, just log in your Dropbox account and you’ll find the notes created with Elements in there.

The app was finally released in the App Store a few hours ago.

Actually, Apple Has Been Using Liquidmetal All Along

By Federico Viticci

Last week we found out that Apple had closed a deal with Liquidmetal, a Californian-based manufacturer of an alloy that is extremely light, hard and that shows a glass-like structure. From what we heard, Apple had acquired “substantially all of [Liquidmetal’s] intellectual property assets,” not to mention a “perpetual, worldwide, fully-paid, exclusive license to commercialize such intellectual property in the field of consumer electronic products in exchange for a license fee.” [Engadget]