This Week's Sponsor:

Textastic

The Powerful Code Editor for iPad and iPhone — Now Free to Try

Osfoora HD for iPad Is Now iOS 4.2 Compatible

A few days after a sneak peek at the Mac version, popular Twitter client Osfoora for iPad has been updated to include support for iOS 4.2. The update took longer than expected, as Osfoora users have been asking for multitasking support for several weeks now. The app now runs smoothly on iOS 4.2 and can correctly save your position when switching to other apps.

The 1.2 version also brings improved scrolling in the timeline, a variety of bug fixes and updated image sharing services. For those who missed our review of Osfoora HD for iPad:

Osfoora for iPad comes with a couple of original and interesting ideas, combines them with tons of features geared towards the average Twitter power user and offers a good-looking, polished package which gets a very few things wrong, but surely deservers your attention.

Osfoora HD for iPad is available at $3.99 in the App Store.

Color Splash Gives A “Dramatic Look” To Your Photos

I downloaded this app last week, but it turns out it’s been around for quite some months in the App Store. Color Splash by Pocket Pixels is a simple iPhone app (iPad version is available, too) that allows you to highlight areas of a photo to make them black & white, or make the entire photo black & white and only set certain areas to be colored.

It’s a very cool effect that it’s made easy by iOS multi-touch technology and would otherwise be a rather difficult task for the average user on Adobe’s Photoshop. Read more

BlackBerry vs. iPhone: What’s In Your Pocket?→

BlackBerry vs. iPhone: What’s In Your Pocket?

Apple says the iPhone is more than a mere appliance for sending e-mail. The device, with its sleek touch screen and ability to run hundreds of thousands of Web-connected applications, games and utilities, can be used for nearly any purpose, business or personal, a line that Apple hopes to blur out of existence.

“Most people now want to use a single device to handle both their personal and professional lives,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Kaufman Bros. “That’s what Apple’s really good at — and now RIM is playing catch-up.”

I guess the question is: can they even catch up at this point? 275,000 apps is no small difference. [via]

Permalink

iPad Gift Cards Spotted at Apple Stores

As noted by iLounge, Apple has started selling “iPad Gift Cards” in its retail stores right ahead of Christmas. The cards aren’t anything special – actually, they’re just standard Apple gift cards wrapped inside a nice iPad-specific package.

What’s interesting is that, apparently, Apple updated its iPad purchase policies to include support for discounts through the aforementioned gift cards. Until a few weeks ago, Apple only allowed customers to buy an iPad via a debit or credit card.

Now you don’t have excuses anymore: your wife wants an iPad. You know what to do.

“The iPad Is Not Newspaper With Moving Words”→

“The iPad Is Not Newspaper With Moving Words”

The problem for anybody wanting to believe that the iPad is a newspaper or magazine replacement is that it is not. It’s a digital device, which means people will get easily distracted and start playing Scrabble, or listening to music or whatever else one can get up to on a crowded carriage.

It’s also still too easy to jump from one news source to another, because digital has fundamentally changed people’s relationship with printed news sources. Once, a newspaper was not just a source of information, but a statement of identity, where most buyers would not dream of picking up a competing title.

Paid Content also cites a report from Screen Digest according to which the average iPad user downloads 60 apps a year – but only 6 are paid apps. Where did they get these numbers? I’m curious.

Perhaps the problem with the publishing industry on the iPad is that most newspaper / magazine apps suck? [via Brooks Review]

Permalink

Steve Jobs is a Ninja!

UPDATE: Ninja Steve was approved and is live in the App Store for $.99 -> LINK

The gameplay is very simple, Ninja Steve is all about fast reflexes and accuracy. The ‘Smartbots’ fly around until they get close enough to zap you. Touch an enemy to fire a shuriken. After a while you will build up a RDF, which is like an electromagnetic shock, shake your iDevice to activate it. There are three different stages and four different ‘Smartbots’. There are 15 main levels, plus 2 extra levels.

It’s a really simple game with a few Apple-like references but it gets a little stale and repetitive after a while but for $.99, Apple fanboys can kick ‘Smartbot’ ass ninja-style!

______________________________________________

Remember when Steve Jobs couldn’t take his ninja stars aboard his private plane back in September? Maybe he should have used a smoke bomb to get them aboard.

Anyway, Woltz Media is developing an iOS game called Ninja Steve. It’s about a CEO named ‘Steve’ (no official affiliation with Jobs or Apple) that is also a trained ninja assassin.

Read more

Slow Down: An App That Will Make You Slow Down Your Car, With Music

This is an app I’m completely supporting, as it’s been developed and promoted by the Belgian organization OVK, Parents of Children Killed in Road Accidents. Slow Down, available for free in the App Store, will make you slow down your car by slowing down the music you’re listening to while driving.

Thanks to a combination of GPS to retrieve a road’s driving speed limit and access to the iPod library on your iPhone, Slow Down will remind you when you need to slow by slowing down a song or completely stop its playback. Simple and genius at the same time, as as I said – a concept I’m seriously rooting for.

Go download the app here. Then use it.[Engadget via OVK] Read more