Posts in reviews

Dropzone 1.0 Released On The Mac App Store

Way back in 2009 I first reviewed Dropzone, a dock-based utility by Aptonic that, through a grid interface allowed users to quickly perform common but tedious actions like uploading images or sharing text with a single drag & drop. Later, I took another look at Dropzone as a way to effortlessly download Mac apps as .DMG files, and have the app automatically extract the contents of a disk image and install an application for me.

With the 1.0 release on the Mac App Store today, Aptonic had to make a few changes to Dropzone in order to be approved by Apple and sell its app on the Mac’s native digital storefront: Dropzone is now a menubar app – which you can still decide to launch on login – and gone is the dock access that was also made popular by Dropzone’s own icon and Stacks-like appearance. However, in spite of the technical changes, Dropzone 1.0 still shares the same user interface and set of actions of the previous version: for those not familiar with the concept of the app, Dropzone offers a series of built-in actions (and others that you can manually download and install) to perform tasks automatically and save precious seconds and clicks when working with your Mac. So, for instance, you can drop pictures onto Dropzone’s window and have them uploaded to Flickr, or compressed in a .zip archive and emailed to someone. You can drop files and move them to a specific destination on your Mac, or configure FTP servers and directories if you find yourself constantly uploading files via FTP every day. Dropzone aims at letting you save time with boring tasks and, at the same time, quickly share items with your friends or coworkers without going through separate clients and web upload tools.

Dropzone is very lightweight, and it’ll ultimately make your life easier through drag & drop. Version 1.0 is available at $13.99 on the Mac App Store.

Review: Galaxy on Fire 2 HD

Galaxy on Fire 2 HD is an excellent sci-fi game with an extensive storyline, massive amounts of side missions, and graphics that will render you speechless. The original version of this game has been around for almost a year but the developers have released this HD version which is optimized for devices packing Apple’s A5 processor, which include the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

The storyline holds true to the original version of Galaxy on Fire 2 but for those unfamiliar with the game, here is the back story:

A hyperdrive malfunction sends intergalactic adventurer and war hero Keith T. Maxwell tumbling through space and time. Awakening 35 years later at the far end of the galaxy, he quickly finds himself fighting for his life against a mysterious alien armada that is wreaking havoc on the warring races occupying this volatile sector of space.

The story is just interesting enough to keep me motivated to see it through to the end. The developer boasts that game has 10+ hours of gameplay and that is no lie. I have passed the 10 hour mark, have not completed the main storyline, and there are still more side missions left than I know what to do with.

You spend the majority of the game in a third person view of a spaceship and the only exception is when you are docked at a space station. In these stations you will experience text based conversations with other characters. Through conversations you will acquire more missions and receive money for successfully completing them. You can also get money by mining astroids for Ore and then selling the materials in the space station’s Hangar. Money can be used to buy more powerful spaceships and weapons, hiring wingmen, or purchasing components to build your own weapons. Different planets will have different prices for all items so there is definitely an element of economic strategy to the game. There is a Space Lounge on every planet and it is the place to go when you need a mission or want to earn some extra money. The types of missions vary from transporting cargo or passengers across the galaxy to being hired security for other citizens. Overall the gameplay is entertaining and it makes it hard to put the game down.

The real selling point of this release is the stunningly enhanced visuals. All the 3D models used in the game have been completely rebuilt and many elements such as asteroids and jumpgates are four-times the original resolution. The developers have added additional light sources for incredible realism which can be truly appreciated when taking an “Action Freeze” – it is like a screenshot except you can spin the camera around in any direction to find the best angle, utilizing the light sources to enhance the quality of the freeze frame. New textures and enhanced backgrounds all equate to an amazing visual representation of a living, breathing universe that is so immersive I guarantee you will lose track of time while playing. Read more

Ecoute 3.0 Brings New UI, Queue, Lion Features

Back in January I reviewed Ecoute 2.0, a major update to a standalone iTunes music player that was made quite popular by its support for “themes” to be used in a desktop music controller. Today, developers PixiApps have released Ecoute 3.0, which represents a big shift in terms of user interface and underlying engine, but builds on the feature set offered by Ecoute 2.0.

For those unfamiliar with standalone music players, Ecoute belongs to this family of apps that are capable of playing iTunes’ media library without actually using iTunes. By fetching the required files to make iTunes’ library available outside of the iTunes environment automatically, Ecoute offers an alternative view for music, videos and podcasts, while at the same time giving the user additional tools to share songs online, create keyboard shortcuts, and more. Unfortunately, it appears Ecoute 3.0 still can’t automatically identify an iTunes library stored somewhere else than the default location, as I noted for version 2.0 in January. The app does have, however, an option to manually open iTunes libraries stored on your Mac or external drive.

From a feature standpoint, Ecoute 3.0 is fairly similar to its predecessor. You can share tracks on Last.fm, Twitter and Facebook, assign keyboard shortcuts to various playback controls, install themes, navigate with gesture swipes and control the artwork widget on your desktop. These are features that were implemented in version 2.0, and have been improved for 3.0. Still, there are some important additions in this update: for one, the app is fully compatible with OS X Lion (natural scrolling, full-screen mode) and 64-bit. These optimizations have brought along a faster UI and more responsive search results when filtering your media library.

Speaking of user interface, the biggest change in Ecoute is the application’s design, which has completely changed from Ecoute 2.0. The app now uses a multi-column layout that adapts on screen depending on what you’re browsing and works with three-finger swipe navigation. Say what you will about Lion’s gestures, but I find this method incredibly more intuitive than Ecoute’s old interface. Now playing information has been merged with the title bar, where you’ll also find buttons to love a track, enter full-screen, and the duration of a song. Gone is the huge bottom bar from Ecoute 2.0, which leaves room for more compact music controls and, overall, provides a more elegant look to the entire app. Ecoute 3.0 feels a lot cleaner and it’s been simplified to make browsing music fast and lightweight.

There are other new features in Ecoute 3.0. Artwork view has been given its own section and you can now automatically display it after a period of inactivity; minimal mode and gapless playback have been implemented, giving a reason to those who can’t stand iTunes’ bloated interface to go even more minimal with Ecoute; you can also “shuffle by albums” and have multiple selections.

More importantly, at least for me, Ecoute 3.0 comes with a queue feature (accessible through Lion’s typical popover control) that lets you re-organize the songs you’re about to listen to. You can drag & reorder songs as well as add more to the queue from Ecoute’s main list.

If you’ve been looking for a fresh new way to access your media library in a standalone, easy-to-use app while leaving iTunes to perform heavier tasks such as TV show and movie management, I recommend Ecoute 3.0 today just as I did with Ecoute 2.0 in January. The app is elegant, responsive, fully updated for Lion, and you’ll be able to customize it with themes. Ecoute 3.0 is available at $8.99 on the Mac App Store.

iTeleport Adds “Launch” VNC Voice Command for iPhone 4S

iTeleport, a popular VNC client for iOS that allows users to remotely connect to Windows PCs and Macs, has added a new feature in its latest update that lets iPhone 4S users launch applications just by using their voice. iTeleport, which I reviewed here, has always been a fine app to connect via VNC to OS X and Windows, and recently the app added full Lion support with authentication through the OS’ username and password. Unlike Screens by Edovia, another great VNC app for iOS and Mac, iTeleport doesn’t use its own online service to make computers available over the air, relying on Google logins instead (via Google Talk protocol).

With version 5.2, iPhone 4S owners will be able to open Mac apps by saying “Launch” followed by an app’s name. Once connected to a Mac, the keyboard icon in the upper toolbar of iTeleport will display the standard iOS system keyboard with a compose box on top of it. And because the iPhone 4S comes with Siri and dictation, the keyboard will also have the dedicated microphone icon next to the spacebar. What happens with iTeleport is that if you say “Launch iTunes” through Siri’s dictation, the app won’t transcribe your command in the text box – it will directly launch the app as you can see in the screenshot above. The developers have apparently figured out a way to parse dictated commands directly inside the app to let it recognize installed applications, and launch them in seconds. In my tests, voice recognition in iTeleport has been as good as you’d expect from regular Siri, and app names such as Evernote, Google Chrome, iTunes and Sparrow were recognized instantly.

iTeleport was already a solid VNC app and this new feature will allow iPhone 4S users to save a few seconds when using a Mac remotely. iTeleport for iPhone and iPad can be downloaded on the App Store, and you’ll need the iTeleport Connect app to make your Mac available over the air.

App Journal, Episode 7: Muon, Flint, Sociable, CoinKeeper

App Journal is a new series aimed at showcasing apps we have enjoyed using on our iPhones, iPads, and Macs, but decided not to feature in a standalone, lengthy review here on MacStories. App Journal is a mix of classic reviews, weekly app recommendations, and a diary of our experiences with apps that still deserve a proper mention.

After the release of iOS 5, iCloud and the first wave of new apps that take advantage of Apple’s new OS and sync services, the App Store is quickly marching towards a holiday season that will be huge, both for hardware sales as well as app and game releases, software deals, and new retail features at Apple’s physical stores. While we wait for the craziness to begin later this month, we take a look at a cool music visualizer for the iPad, a finance app for the iPhone, a Campfire client and a utility to update your status on multiple social networks at once.

Sounds cool? Follow us for this week’s app collection after the break, and stay tuned for more App Journals in the next weeks.

Muon

I found out about Muon when I first saw an ad in our site’s sidebar. I don’t manage advertising on MacStories anymore, so the encounter was completely random, and the fact that the developers are advertising on our site didn’t influence my decision to mention their iPad app on the Journal. Just making things clear.

That said, Muon is a nice music visualizer for the iPad, kind of like iTunes’ own visualizer but with more effects and touch controls. The app can fetch songs from your existing Music library, and displays AirPlay-compatible controls as a translucent bar at the bottom. You can tap on a song’s name at any time to change artist or album or pick a playlist, but I don’t like the blue design of the music picker menu. Visual effects are obviously Muon’s main feature, and interestingly enough the app comes with settings to control the Audio, Drag and Mutate reactions of the Visualizer. You can tweak things like Orbital Speed, Life Span, Color Entropy and Zoom & Blur, and you’ll notice that modifying these parameters really changes what’s displayed on screen.

The developers claim Muon can move up to 500,000 particles on the iPad 2, with a complex visualization engine that makes effects evolve with the beat of you music and gradually form different shapes and patterns that you can capture as presets, or screenshots with the dedicated camera button. The app supports video-out and AirPlay Mirroring, as well as dual monitor setups and full-screen view on the iPad.

Overall, Muon comes with some fairly advanced control options but I simply prefer to keep it running and let it decide which effects to use according to the song that’s playing. Muon is $0.99 on the App Store for a limited time.

Flint

For our communication needs here at MacStories, we use 37signals’ Campfire. For those who are not familiar with the service, it’s a fantastic chat tool for teams that, among other things, allows you to upload files, manage chat transcripts for multiple rooms, and visualize media such as pictures and videos with inline previews. We use Campfire every day to quickly put out news, casually hang out, and assign articles to each other. There’s no doubt Campfire has become an essential tool for getting things done over here.

In the past months I’ve been testing Flint, a native Mac client for Campfire that’s available on the Mac App Store. It’s been hard for me to switch from the browser-based, pinned tab for Campfire, but Flint is simply fantastic. The interface is elegant, gets out of the way and nicely highlights conversations in a Campfire room. There are profile pictures for users, and a popover at the bottom lets you see all participants in a conversation. The app supports most of Campfire’s web functionalities (image previews, sounds, but no emoji), and more importantly it’s perfectly integrated with Growl on OS X.

This is the main reason I use Flint – with Growl integration, I can take a look at what’s being said without opening the app and, from the Preferences, control the behavior of sounds, dock badges, keywords and enter/leave messages. In the past weeks, the developers have also released an update that improves the reliability and speed of the app from the first version – so if you gave it a try initially and went back to Campfire on the web, now it’s time to fire up the app again and see if things have improved for you.

I, for one, will keep using Flint to catch up with my team and get work done. If you’re serious about Campfire and have a Mac, Flint is $9.99 on the App Store. Read more

MacStories Product Review: Stem Innovation TimeCommand

You go through the same routine every morning right? Slap the snooze button a couple of times, roll out of bed, and turn on the blinding lamp sitting on your dresser. Good Morning! Well kids, there’s a clock in town that has pretty neat wake-up, sleep, and light dimming capabilities, while doubling as an iPhone, iPod, and iPad dock. The TimeCommand’s best qualities aren’t even time related — Sonic iQ technology (in other words: nice sounds) make this a snazzy bedroom or living room speaker when you’re rocking to your favorite tunes. Ready to integrate your iPhone and a light show into your daily routine? Let’s do this.

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iCloud, Mobile Documents Sync and GoodReader

Last night we detailed how it’s possible to sync documents across multiple Macs configured with the same iCloud account through a hidden folder in Lion’s Library called Mobile Documents. As I explained in the article, this folder is actually the destination and sync location for iCloud-enabled apps, such as Instacast and iWork, that have been updated by developers to officially take advantage of iCloud’s Documents & Data. But as it turns out, Mobile Documents can be used for syncing files across Macs “manually” – just drop a file or folder in there, and it’ll show up on another Mac running the same iCloud account. So whilst Mobile Documents is “officially” used for App Store apps that work with iCloud, it can also come in handy as a native “drop box” powered by iCloud.

As many were quick to point out, syncing files between Macs is nice, but “real” syncing solutions like Dropbox come with mobile apps to make sure your documents and folders aren’t simply synced between desktop machines. Since Apple isn’t offering a new version of iDisk based on iCloud – and seems to be moving away from the concept of filesystem altogether – the method I described in the article was obviously meant for owners of multiple Macs – the Mobile Documents “hack” is cool, but it’s not supported by Apple.

On the App Store, however, that are several apps that over the years have tried to re-implement the filesystem on iOS by offering access to a plethora of online sources for your files, such as FTP servers, Google Docs, Dropbox and SugarSync. These “file management” apps like iFiles and iStorage aren’t integrated on a system level, but they work as “aggregators” for documents you may have already saved in the cloud, only they bring them together in a single location.

One of such apps is GoodReader, perhaps the most popular document reader & file manager ever landed on the App Store’s virtual shelves – GoodReader comes with hundreds of features and support for multiple online services, plus it’s also a decent PDF reader with annotation functionalities and an overall good preview engine. As I was playing around with the idea of having Mobile Documents work with an iOS app, I realized one of the latest GoodReader updates introduced full iOS 5 and iCloud compatibility, meaning the app can store its documents and data in iCloud, and will show up as iCloud-enabled app in your account (to check this, open Settings->iCloud->Storage & Backup->Manage Storage on iOS, or System Preferences->iCloud->Manage… on OS X Lion). And if an iCloud-enabled app with Documents & Data shows its contents on OS X under Mobile Documents, it means GoodReader should be capable of syncing its own filesystem back to the Mac.

Indeed, you can use GoodReader to manage files and folders on iOS, and have them available on the Mac as well through iCloud and Mobile Documents. GoodReader will create its own folder inside Mobile Documents, and every change (new file, new folder) you’ll make on the iOS app will appear inside GoodReader’s “Documents” directory. Of course, you’ll have to use GoodReader’s “iCloud” folder to enjoy these syncing features; thanks to GoodReader’s file management features, you’ll be able to create folders and sub-folders, move documents around and delete them, create new text files, rename documents, and more. GoodReader has some pretty powerful features, and it’s nice to see the developers are supporting iCloud out of the box with a dedicated folder on the main “My Documents” page.

Thanks to GoodReader’s support for multiple online services, you’ll be able to, say, move files from Dropbox or Google Docs to iCloud directly from the iOS app.

In my tests, iCloud sync with GoodReader has been extremely fast and reliable. Documents imported on iOS would show up in seconds on the Mac’s Mobile Documents, and vice versa. I was able to move screenshots between my Mac, iPhone and iPad using Mobile Documents and GoodReader, but I also created folders, compressed files, imported PDFs and MP3 files. Because iCloud is based on push technology, files are pushed immediately to the cloud and downloaded on all configured clients, but I noticed that GoodReader for iOS, unlike the Mac’s Mobile Documents folder, doesn’t download a full document as soon as the data is “pushed” from iCloud. Try this: on your Mac, drag a medium-sized PDF into GoodReader’s iCloud folder. Notice how the PDF’s icon and name show up on GoodReader after your Mac has pushed the document to iCloud. But try to open the PDF from GoodReader, and you’ll see the app will require additional download time, as only the main information about the file has been pushed to iOS – if you want to read it, you’ll have to wait for the full download. I actually found this method pretty clever, as it gives me up-to-date file information in seconds, and allows me to download files when I need them. Overall, I’m impressed by iCloud and GoodReader working together to sync files across different iCloud clients.

Why should you care to have GoodReader syncing files that also happen to show up on your Mac? First off, it’s a cool trick. More importantly, iCloud’s push technology works well, and users (like me) may find it convenient to have an easy way to, say, import iOS screenshots on the desktop without using Photo Stream, while still relying on iCloud. Thanks to GoodReader’s support for audio and video, iWork and Office files, HTML archives and text files, you’ll be able to copy a variety of documents from your desktop onto iCloud, and have them synced back to iOS in seconds.

Check out how to sync files with Mobile Documents and iCloud here. GoodReader is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

Recommended Read: “Talking to Siri” by Erica Sadun and Steven Sande

I got my iPhone 4S two weeks ago, and have been experimenting with Siri and my best American accent since then. In spite of the software still not supporting maps and directions in Italy (more countries, including Italy, will support Siri in 2012) and weather requests, I’m having my fun in playing around with Siri for things like messages, notes, emails and Wolfram Alpha questions (I thank Americans for giving me a reason to convert their units to the metric system). Siri makes for the perfect iPhone demo to non-iPhone users, but impressive presentations aside it’s actually a great tool to quickly “do stuff” that would require looking at your phone and manually interacting with apps otherwise. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve already asked Siri to send messages to my co-workers while I was driving, change songs, call my girlfriend, or create new calendar appointments.

A few days ago I was sent a link to “Talking to Siri: Learning the Language of Apple’s Intelligent Assistant” by TUAW’s Erica Sadun and Steven Sande. I’ve read the book using the Kindle app on my iOS devices and Amazon’s CloudReader on the web and, let me tell you, it’s a great book to learn more about Siri.

At first I was skeptical – why would I need a book when Siri is so intuitive? It turns out, Erica and Steve have put together an impressive collection of things Siri does that I didn’t know about, also explaining with a friendly and familiar style (if you’ve been reading TUAW, which I do) how you should ask things to Siri. The book is organized in sections, covering every system app that’s integrated with Siri as well as built-in tools such as Wolfram Alpha and Yelp. Erica and Steven have also included lots of screenshots and descriptions, so you’ll be able to immediately understand and see what they’re referring to in describing Siri. It’s an incredibly pleasant read for new iPhone 4S users, and a nice handbook to get started with Siri. Without spoiling much, let me just say that I’ve learned a lot about things you can ask Wolfram (built into Siri), how to keep adding new items to a note, sunrise and sunset times and recurring reminders.

“Talking to Siri” covers in great detail every possible combination of commands Siri supports, providing a comprehensive guide to know more about what Siri can do for you. You can buy the book on Amazon as Kindle edition.

Plex 2.0 for iOS Brings Revamped Remote Access, New Home Screen - Plex 0.9.5 “Laika” Released

Back in April I wrote about Plex 1.1, a new iOS version of the popular media manager for Mac and Windows (as well as other connected devices such as Roku) that brought a new design, better streaming of movies and TV shows with Direct Play and Direct Streaming, and many changes from the original application that was released a year ago in November 2010.

With a series of releases announced via various blog posts, the Plex team launched last night version 2.0 of Plex for iOS, another major revamp of the mobile client for iPhone and iPad that brings an improved home screen design (for the grid UI that was introduced in 1.1), new remote access, better subtitle management and over 150 bug fixes. As previewed last week, the Plex team figured one of the most requested functionalities for the desktop media server – a utility that finds media on your computer or local network and handles transcoding, metadata and streaming to Plex clients – was better access of personal media (movies, music, TV shows) over the Internet. In its previous versions, Plex was capable of making a computer or external hard drive available over the Internet via port forwarding, but setup was far from easy and seamless, and the lack of any online counterpart for over-the-air sharing made it impossible to build a platform on top of a local Plex installation. With myPlex, Plex brings “real” remote access to all your media, allowing the app to communicate with my.plexapp.com through a user account (which you can create for free), letting users not only access servers (like your iMac or Mac mini) remotely, but also to share specific sections of a library with other Plex users.

myPlex is a full-featured solution to access, share and save content for later. “Access” means all your connected Plex media servers will show up online, readily available to show your sections and library; I haven’t been able to personally test the remote access part of myPlex as my router doesn’t want to play nice with port mapping, but I can see how the redesigned preference panel will make for a more intuitive experience when making a computer available online. Moreover, the screencasts posted by the Plex team (available below), show how easily it’s possible to connect media servers to myPlex.

Sharing plays another big role on myPlex: whereas in previous iterations of Plex users could only share content with others by opening up their routers for external access, providing a friend with the required authentication system to access a Plex installation, myPlex makes it extremely easy to pick a folder (say a Music collection, or a TV series), enter an email address of another Plex user, and start sharing content online. Users can share an entire Plex library or just some sections, and obviously the system will take advantage of Direct Play and Direct Streaming between remote connected users and libraries whenever possible. myPlex is a simpler interface on top of the old (manual, URL-based) sharing process, and it’s deeply integrated with the updated iOS and Mac clients. Read more