Palimpsest for iPad Aggregates Hand-Picked Magazine Articles

I love Instapaper. Whether I’m finding cool links on Twitter or I simply mark items for later in Google Reader, Instapaper provides a unique and beautiful way to keep all my reading material together and synced across the web, iPhone and iPad. In fact, Instapaper has changed my reading habits, and especially on the iPad, it gives a whole new meaning to the tablet as a tool for text consumption. Yet sometimes, there are those days when you feel like you haven’t found anything new worth saving in the queue, and the more you keep looking because you’re hungry for new articles in your inbox, the more you keep hitting things you’ve already archived in Instapaper. With version 3.0, Instapaper developer Marco Arment added a new feature to find articles your friends are “liking”, thus making the app more social and better suited for discovery. In the past week, I’ve also been using a new iPad app called Palimpsest to find great material from sources like The New Yorker and The New York Times to send directly off to Instapaper.

Palimpsest aggregates articles from popular online magazines and presents them in a beautifully formatted view. The original webpage is preloaded in the background so you’ll be able to send it to Instapaper, or read it as the author intended. Articles are sourced from popular curators like Arts & Letters Daily, Longreads, LongForm, and many others, in addition to the developer’s own picks. This curation aspect gives the app a personal touch that I think is pretty cool considering we often stumble upon automatic link-tweeting bots online. But because the developer’s and curators’ tastes might be different than yours, Palimpsest also includes like / dislike buttons to tell the app articles you’ve found interesting, and others you won’t like to see the next time. The app fetches around 50 articles on first launch, with 5-10 new articles every day, and roughly 10 saved for offline usage in the app’s cache. In my tests, I was given articles about politics, the death of Osama bin Laden (quite obviously), technology, food, and economy. The articles came from top-notch sources, so basically if you’re a Longreads user you’ll feel right home using Palimpsest, only this app also aggregates content from other websites and curators.

At $1.99, Palimpsest is a neat way to find a fresh feed of great articles every day (and send them to Instapaper), although it could really use an iPhone counterpart. Get the app here.

ProductiveMacs Bundle: 8 Great Mac Apps at $29

Given all the great apps available for the Mac, wouldn’t be great if someone bundled together some really powerful utilities that help you get work done? How about utilities like Keyboard Maestro, Mail Act-on, TextExpander, and Path Finder all in one shot? If the addition of HoudahSpot and Today wasn’t enough, then how about the killer price tag of $29? The ProductiveMacs bundle, organized via Apparent Software (who just picked up Socialite from Realmac Software) are hosting a bundle that features a fine collection of seriously powerful software for your Mac.

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Cloud Connect for iOS Gets 3.0 Update, Brings Finder Integration

When it comes to remotely accessing your computer, AirPort Extreme station, FTP, Dropbox or WebDAV servers, Cloud Connect Pro is a staff favorite here at MacStories. Not only the app provides a full-featured solution to connect to all kinds of machines, servers and online services, it also offers a neat way to browse files and media in a Finder-like view for iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. We have covered the app a few times in the past, and I was impressed when Antacea managed to port the whole tablet experience to the iPhone.

The latest 3.0 update, however, makes things look much better with some UI refinements, a new audio player, a proper PDF viewer and some stability enhancements. The app retains all the functionalities of the previous versions, but introduces some welcome features and little touches throughout the whole package that add a new layer of accessibility, communication with iOS built-in tools, and more. For example, Cloud Connect 3.0 can directly play music stored in the iPod.app library, or visualize photos and videos from the camera roll. Songs can be sent to the new audio player’s playlist, which sits at the bottom of the app and displays album artwork, a list of songs waiting in the queue, as well as an AirPlay button to beam music to external speakers. Speaking of which, gone is the hideous Mac-like dock, leaving room for a more minimal bar of icons. Browsing files and folders in Cloud Connect has been improved, too: alongside the (great) column view, the developers have implemented icon-based navigation to tap your way around the filesystem. What’s cool is that you can switch between views with a tap in the toolbar, and a new button in the column view allows you to bookmark, copy, download & compress or delete any file or folder. On top of that, this new version allows you to browse songs and media from the camera roll using your Mac’s Finder by connecting to the “iPad” device under the Shared tab once Cloud Connect is running. This is by far the easiest way to import photos and music off an iOS device and onto an OS X machine I’ve tried, with Cloud Connect acting as a bridge between the two. It works great.

The app could still use some UI polish (I personally can’t stand those blue and grey tones), but I can see why Antacea decided to focus on adding and refining features for now. The lack of a serious PDF viewer, for example, was a major disappointment in Cloud Connect 1.0: the new PDF viewer introduced in version 3.0 is quite fast and responsive, lets you create bookmarks and search for text within a document.

Other features in Cloud Connect 3.0 include Google Picasa support, possibility to use a Mac or PC as a gateway to connect to other Easy Connect computers, and RDP for HP printers only. At $24.99 in the App Store, Cloud Connect doesn’t come cheap but it’s powerful, easy to use and works both on the iPhone and iPad. The app keeps getting better on each release, and I’m looking forward to some serious design improvements in the next version. For now though, Cloud Connect surely is one of the best ways to manage your remote and local connections. Read more

Shine Is A Beautiful Weather App for iPhone

If you’ve found yourself struggling to find the perfect weather app that looks great and it’s packed with functionalities at the same time, you might want to take a look at Shine, the latest entry in the weather software panorama that, at $0.99 in the App Store, provides a neat way to check on your current location’s weather, forecasts, temperature and wind speed. Shine wants to keep things simple, and for someone like me who’s no weather expert at all, the promise of offering readable weather data in a beautiful and intuitive design sounds like a major selling point, especially considering the price of one buck.

The app’s main screen lets you see your location’s weather conditions at a glance. Current weather is displayed above in a large calendar-like view with temperature, icon and wind speed, whilst a today / tonight / tomorrow forecast is embedded below with the same stats. You can assign multiple locations in the settings, and re-fetch your location by tapping on the crosshair icon in the top right. Switching between locations is as easy as sliding your finger on the location bar on top. Another feature of Shine is the extended forecast view you get by pulling up the screen with a verticals swipe; the only problem is, the app seems to be US-centric in the way it gets weather information – it relies on SimpleGeo and the National Weather service, and I wasn’t able to get forecasts or correct wind speeds in Italy. Perhaps the developers should implement Yahoo Weather data or something else to make sure Shine works across countries outside the United States.

As it stands now, Shine is a simple, beautiful weather experiment that I’m sure works perfectly in the US, but lacks the necessary data to be a hit internationally. Perhaps the developers will fix this in a future update (I sure hope so), so if you live in the US and have $0.99 to spend, give it a try. Otherwise, wait for an update.

Seagate Announces Portable Wireless Hard Drive for iOS Devices

With all the recent talks about MobileMe and the cloud, it’s easy to forget most users still don’t have access to fast and reliable Internet connections that would allow them to stream their entire music library, movies and photos off the web. Whilst streaming is undoubtedly the future of media consumption (just look at the Apple TV, Google Music Beta, Netflix, or Spotify), managing media locally still plays an important role, especially for iPhone and iPad owners who are forced to keep everything organized into iTunes, and sync. Seagate wants to become the new middle man in this scenario, and with the official announcement of the GoFlex Satellite this morning, it looks like they have a chance to provide a better solution for many users.

The GoFlex Satellite is an external portable 500 GB drive that’s got a wireless connection and can stream content up to 3 connected devices at once. It’s got a built-in battery with 25 hours of promised life, and can stream 5 hours of continuous movie content. It works with iPhones and iPads through the GoFlex Media app, but Seagate says it’ll also be compatible with other WiFi-enabled devices and it will be accessible on a local network from a web browser. The portable drive, offering way more storage than an high-end iPhone or iPad, is clearly meant to carry all your music and HD movies around, bridging the gap between local storage and streaming. So while you’ll have to carry yet another gadget in your bag, at least no cable will be required to beam content to iOS. Most of all, music and movies won’t need to br synced locally to an iPhone or iPad; on the other hand, media can be transferred from your Mac or PC to the GoFlex Satellite with a USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) cable and the Media Sync desktop software.

With the growth of the tablet and iPad markets and the larger volumes of high-quality media now being consumed, there is a clear need for access to content that is not plagued with the challenges of streamed video over the Internet,” said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Seagate’s retail group. “The unfortunate fact is that these popular new mobile devices are hampered by their limited storage capacity while one of their primary functions is that of media consumption.

“With the GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage, we wished to create an elegant solution that provides real value to the multitude of iPad users out there by delivering a seamless connection to local storage. No longer will a consumer feel as though it is a compromise to purchase a lower capacity tablet or iPad. With GoFlex Satellite, people will be able to carry their entire media library with them without the need for wires or the web at a fraction of the cost of adding 3G or purchasing or a higher capacity tablet.

In spite of non-exceptional battery life (5 hours of video doesn’t sound exactly great, considering I like to watch my Lost episodes one after the other), I think this is a great idea, and I’m definitely looking forward to the product. The GoFlex Satellite ships this summer, and it’s available for pre-order now at $199.99 from Seagate.com, Amazon and BestBuy.com.

Castlerama Takes On Epic Citadel with Unreal Engine for iOS

If you were one of those who followed or watched Apple’s September 1, 2010 media event – where, among other things, iOS 4.1 and Game Center were officially unveiled – then you most definitely remember Epic Games’ Mike Capps and Steve Jobs talking about a revolutionary game that would set new technical standards on iOS devices. The game was based on the popular Unreal Engine ported to iOS, and on stage it was presented as a work-in-progress demo called Epic Citadel, also released for free on the App Store. The demo was impressive: there was nothing to do besides wandering around a medieval village, but the graphics, the lightning and the details were impressive. Tech-wise, everything about Epic Citadel was amazing. And as you may know, the game evolved and eventually became a real adventure with a plot and sword fights: Infinity Blade, based off the Unreal Engine and Epic Citadel’s first-person setting, was a huge success on iPhones and iPads.

As the story goes, however, other developers have tried to implement the Unreal Engine powerful set of tools in their games. The latest entry in the Unreal Engine-based game market is Castlerama by the Codenrama development studio, a first-person game with a striking resemblance to Epic Citadel and its environment. Castlerama seems to offer different landscapes though, as well as its own control scheme based on two virtual analog sticks displayed on screen.

The developers also explain their decision to accept “compromises” in order to make the game run on new devices like the iPad 2 and older units like the iPhone 3GS:

While developing Castlerama, we had to face the fact that newer devices such as iPhone4s and iPad2s are very different from their predecessors, iPhone3GSs and iPads, in that the former have twice as much memory. In order to have the app run on all devices, we had to compromise quite a bit, pushing the old devices to their limits (risking crash if other applications are left running) while keeping the new devices well behind their capabilities. In the future we believe we will have to develop two versions for each application.

Castlerama is available for free in the App Store as a universal download. With more games supporting the Unreal Engine coming out in the near future, it’ll be interesting to see how Castlerama will manage to provide a unique experience for iPhone and iPad owners. In the meantime, check out the app’s demo video and a walk down the Epic Citadel memory lane below. [9to5mac via TouchArcade]
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Lodsys Responds to iOS Developers Over Patent Infringement Notices

Last Friday there was news that a number of independent developers for the iPhone and iPad had received legal warnings that they were violating patents that Lodsys owned. Suffice to say it sparked an outcry from developers, users and commentators; few had anything nice to say of Lodsys. Well today they have responded to a number of criticisms on their website in a series of Q&A posts. The key patent in question was that of Dan Abelow who sold his portfolio of patents to Lodsys back in 2004.

Its first response was in regards to the fairly frequented notion that Lodsys is a “parasite, troll, should die etc.”, they respond to this in saying that they are just like any other company who sells a product or service – they try to “get value for the assets it owns”. They write in the post “threats and irrationality don’t help.  In particular, the death threats are seriously uncool.”

As for the question of the patents being “too broad”, Lodsys notes how easy it is too look back in hindsight, saying “of course this is how everyone is going to do it”. In response to patent licensing being unethical and similar questions, they say that it seeks an economic return to sell their patent assets, completely legal and furthermore citing the notion that patent licensing encourages future invention.

As for why they directly contacted developers and not Apple, they say it is because Apple (as well as Microsoft and Google) has already licensed the patents in question. They claim that they cannot provide the third party developers with the rights to the patent, and Apple hasn’t approached Lodsys for the purpose of attaining an eco-system-wide license for the patents. They say their goal is not to prevent developers from using the technology, rather that it is to popularize it and charge a relatively small license for it.

They claim in multiple areas that they specialise in efficiently selling rights to patents, they say that by having a consistent price model it also means independent developers aren’t unfairly disadvantaged.

As for how much developers will need to pay, Lodsys clarifies that the in-app purchasing mechanism for example would cost a developer 0.575% of their US revenue over the period the technology was implemented until the patent expires. It gives an example of an app that earns US$1 million in one year would pay US$5,750.

[Via TheNextWeb]

You can read all of Lodsys’ responses on their blog.

Flipboard Blocked By The Great Firewall Of China

It appears that the Chinese government yesterday blocked Flipboard, meaning the app, which is available on the App Store in China, is largely unusable from within China. Flipboad’s CEO, Mike McCue, made the revelation on Twitter yesterday and said in follow-up tweets; “Lots of folks in China had been using us happily until now” and “Guess we had unwittingly poked a hole in their wall which has now been shut down… Presumably unless we block Facebook and Twitter ourselves in China”

The block impacts on Flipboard’s Amazon servers, which are required for users to aggregate their content from various sources, effectively this means that services such as Google Reader, Instragram and Flickr are all blocked from Flipboard users in China. Facebook and Twitter, which were already blocked by the Chinese government, had previously been accessible to some users who used a VPN service, but this latest move has blocked Facebook and Twitter completely from the app.

[Via @mmccue]

iOS 5 Voice Recognition Interface Conceptualized

With far improved voice recognition expected to make its way into iOS 5, the next questions is how Apple will implement it. Well one person, Jan-Michael Cart, has thought of how it might be possible to implement and put together a well-thought out video demonstrating the concept (after the break).

There are number of aspects to the voice recognition he conceptualizes, starting with the notion that it can be used to navigate the entire user interface and is triggered by holding down the home button – much like how Voice Control currently works. Yet instead of bumping you to a whole new screen like Voice Control does, the status-bar will turn blue and serve as a visual guide as to when to speak and telling you how it interpreted what you said.

That’s a fairly straightforward extension of what iOS currently does, what is more intriguing is Jan-Michaels concept of how any text-field can have voice input. All you would have to do is press and hold the text-field and again the status bar turns blue and you speak. For somewhere like notes or mail (which don’t have a text-field but rather an area for a block of text) you would double tab to open the copy and past bar but which would also now have a microphone icon – pressing it would start voice dictation.

As would be reasonably expected, Jan-Michael also believes that APIs would be offered to developers to use voice-recognition and shows how the Facebook app would be an easy candidate for voice recognition support. Make sure to jump the break to watch the video by Jan-Michael, and if you like it, I would highly recommend checking out his YouTube page which has some other iOS 5 concepts including faster app switching using gestures and how widgets could be implemented.

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