Cubetastic, A Superb Puzzler Now On The Mac & iPad App Stores

Which one of you was the jerk who’d take a Rubik’s Cube, mix it all up, and make it almost impossible for the average human being to solve? I have terrible memories of those things – spending hours trying to figure out what it would take my senior high buddy about five minutes. Of course, fate would have it that some awesome group of developers would take the Rubik’s Cube and completely base it on one of the most twisted brain teasers ever. When we say twisted, we literally mean these puzzles take a few turns to solve.

The folks from doPanic have created a multidimensional puzzle game that focuses on getting a glowing orb (your light) to a goal. It sounds pretty easy, and skilled players will solve puzzles in as few moves as possible, but once you start spinning the cube…things get a little Cubetastic.

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Pixelsync Transfers Photos Between Aperture and iPad

Professional photographers who own an iPad and have seen that lightweight photo editing is possible on the tablet have been asking for a portable version of Apple’s Aperture software for quite some time now. While there’s no evidence that Apple is working on a native iPad version of Aperture with focus on the OS X audience and the Mac App Store (where Aperture is being sold at a nice discounted price), third-party developers have set out to create alternatives to the most popular “pro” Apple apps like Final Cut and, indeed, Aperture.

Pixelsync, previously known as “Tagalicious”, is a new app by developer Bart Jacobs that can sync Aperture photos between the iPad and the Mac. With a minimal and elegant interface (that’s dramatically improved since the first version of the app which, frankly, was quite ugly) that resembles the default Photos app, Pixelsync needs to communicate with a “helper” software users will have to install on their OS X machine running Aperture. Pixelsync Helper will than make it possible for the iPad app to fetch photos from the desktop application.

In Pixelsync for iPad you can’t edit photos, but you can play around with the metadata. Put simply, you can rate photos and assign color labels. Once projects and / or albums have been imported, you can edit and organize these data on the iPad and then sync back to Aperture. It all happens wirelessly with no USB cable required.

At $5.99 in the App Store, Pixelsync might be a little too pricey; still, Aperture users who have been looking for a lightweight iPad companion should give it a try.

Skype 5 Out Of Beta, Group Calling Part Of Premium Package

Skype 5 is official this morning, delivering an enhanced interface and group video calling, which is part of a paid premium package and available with a seven day trial. Otherwise, expect to pay $4.99 a day or $8.99 a month for access to the bandwidth hogging feature. Video calls are also seeing the return of the much requested full screen mode. Trimming down the interface, Skype has reduced whitespace and tightened visual accessibility, and have plans to launch a contest where Skype users can design the perfect interface for the Mac.

You can download the latest update by visiting the announcement post on Skype.com, or by visiting this direct link.

This Copter Is Controlled By An iPhone [Video]

Is there anything the iPhone can’t do these days? People come up with the greatest and, at the same time, weirdest accessories to extend the capabilities of Apple’s shiny smartphone. From the black diamond that brings apps to life or the iPhone-based steering wheel to the 8x optical zoom and heart monitor, you might think “we have seen enough”. Luckily for us, no.

Meet the iPhone-controlled copter by AppToyz. It’s a copter (RC car coming soon) that’s entirely controlled by an iPhone running a special app and plugged into a receiver dongle that fits into the headphone jack and can let the copter communicate with the device. You can fly the copter away, play real sound FX – you can’t shoot.

These toys will be available in April starting at $80. Epic demo video after the break. Read more

BBC iPlayer App for iOS Launching Next Month?

In December, a series of reports suggested that BBC was working on a subscription-based version of the popular iPlayer streaming service for iPad, targeting a mid-2011 release only in “certain markets” with both free and paid versions.

According to PaidContent, the BBC iPlayer app for iPhone and iPad is now nearing final release and should be available by the end of February, ahead of BBC’s technology director Erik Huggers departure to Intel.

The service’s web-native version already works on iPhone and iPad, to a fashion. Executable app versions are likely to work a lot better. Some Android users have complained about lack of plans for their smartphones.

The service will be available only in the UK, though BBC Worldwide is planning an international, subscription iPlayer containing different shows.

The iPlayer service registered a record 145 million requests in December 2010, with users making 4% percent of those requests through mobile browsers. A native iPlayer iOS app could bring more features than simple streaming via Mobile Safari, like social integration, support for AirPlay, a better UI and a faster navigation system.

AT&T Q4 Earnings: 4.1 Million iPhone Activations and 442,000 iPads & Tablets

US-based carrier AT&T has announced its quarterly results for Q4 2010, and there are some interesting numbers in there worth to be considered. The company reported 4.1 million iPhone activations in Q4, the last quarter as the exclusive iPhone carrier in the United States. On February 10, Verizon Wireless will begin selling a CDMA version of the iPhone 4, with pre-order sales starting February 3rd.

Mentioning “continued expansion in new wireless growth areas”, AT&T also announced they added 1.5 million “connected devices” including 442,000 iPads and Android tablets. AT&T started selling the iPad WiFi + 3G model in its retail stores on October 28th, 2010.

AT&T also reported 9.9% growth in wireless revenues and consolidated revenues of $31.4 billion in the fourth quarter. Full press releases embedded below. Read more

Epic Games: “Anything In The Apple World Is Perfect”→

Epic Games: “Anything In The Apple World Is Perfect”

The Slow Down interviews Jay Wilbur, Vice President of Epic Games, makers of Infinity Blade for iOS:

Q: What are the challenges in developing for Android? The demo there seems to be running great.

A: It runs really well and really fast. One of the problems with the Android marketplace is hardware fragmentation, that’s a really big issue. The other thing is marketplace fragmentation, there are so many different appstores out there. The Android marketplace is a little more difficult [to develop for] because there is less control. I think the Android marketplace is robust … I find it very easy to buy things on it, it’s just that Apple has very tight control. So anything in the Apple world is perfect. It’s just perfect. We like that, we like that a lot. We know that it’s just gonna work. Sometimes that’s not always the case in the Android marketplace.

Infinity Blade did great in the first weeks of App Store and slowly dropped off since then. A major update with new maps, weapons and features is expected soon, and that should bring the app back into the charts. We can’t wait to see more Unreal Engine games find their way to iOS. Read the whole interview here.

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Why Should I Jailbreak My Apple TV 2nd Gen?→

Why Should I Jailbreak My Apple TV 2nd Gen?

Good rundown on Reddit. Right now the options are: XBMC, Plex, aTV Flash, BTStack – and lots of other SSH tweaks you can play with. The current Apple TV jailbreak is tethered, but it’s a better scenario than the iPhone or iPad: when the device goes to “sleep” (TV is turned off, Apple TV doesn’t do anything) there’s no need to run the jailbreak software on next relaunch. As long as the power cord is plugged, the jailbreak is on.

Personally, I’m thinking about it just for Plex.

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AppShopper.com Now Mac App Store Friendly

All of us at MacStories love AppShopper.com, I use it every day, along with MacAppDeals.com, to help grab the best deals for our #MacStoriesDeals posts. Although it’s not been officially announced, I noticed this evening that there have been a few exciting changes for us app hunters. First, there is a new set of buttons on the far left, “iOS / Mac”. You guessed it, AppShopper is now listing Mac App Store apps into their stream! Also, they have slightly changed their OS category descriptions. They now separate into “Mac OS, and iOS iPhone, iOS iPad or iOS Universal.” Subtle but greatly improved. Read more