Popular reminder app Due has recently received a major update to 1.3.1: OTA sync is now available via your favorite online syncing tool, Dropbox. While the second version delivered intuitive new interactions and rescheduling, version three brings effortlessly sync, back up, restore, and undo reminders without the hassle of deleting unfinished or nonexistent tasks. With an iPad version in the works, our favorite fast reminder tool will soon receive a major league update to our favorite tablet device. We’ve been fans of Due since we first reviewed it in September, and now we’re giving away five copies so newcomers can start off with the latest and greatest quick reminder tool for the iPhone, normally $2.99 in the iTunes App Store.
Due Gets An Update to 1.3.1: We Celebrate With A Giveaway
DropVox: Save Voice Memos to Dropbox In Seconds
DropVox is an iPhone app I discovered in the App Store over the weekend, it’s incredibly simple yet I wonder why I didn’t think of using something like this before: DropVox uploads voice memos instantly to the cloud, and more specifically to Dropbox – the service I use on a daily basis for almost anything in my workflow, from music to app libraries.
Developed by Irradiated Software (the same folks behind MacStories’ favorite Cinch for Mac), DropVox works like this: you fire it up for the first time and log in with your Dropbox account. Every time you want to record a voice memo, open the app, hit the huge Record button, then stop and wait for the file to land in your Dropbox. Boom, just like that. No file management, no renaming features, no time stamps – just record and upload.
DropVox is a microphone for DropBox. Get it now, while it’s still priced at $0.99 as a limited time offer.
Nottingham 2.0 Beta Available, Simplenote Client For The Desktop
Nottingham is a note taking application for the Mac we first reviewed more than a year ago, and lots of things have changed since then. The application went under a private beta testing stage, and Nottingham 2.0 is now finally available as a public beta. Nottingham, for those who missed it, is a desktop app that plugs into the popular service Simplenote (which we love here at MacStories) to retrieve notes stored online and continuously backed up through the cloud.
Version 2.0 of the app, released a few minutes ago, adds a completely redesigned user interface that’s heavily inspired by the iOS Notes app with yellow notebook-like background and the possibility to switch between landscape and portrait mode. The notepaper design can be disabled in the Preferences and you can switch to the Notational Velocity-like vertical layout using a button in the top toolbar. Not very intuitive at first, as it looks like a “sharing” button. The app can sync with Simplenote and pick any folder to read notes from – put the folder in your Dropbox and you have cross-platform syncing with Simplenote and Dropbox at the same time. Similarly to Notational Velocity, the app can read multiple file types and be assigned a keyboard shortcut. The app is entirely keyboard-friendly and the developers promise more features will be added in the final release.
You can download Nottingham 2.0 public beta for free here.
#MacStoriesDeals - Monday
Here’s today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot! Read more
Hockey: An Open Source Platform For Distributing Ad-Hoc iOS Betas
Buzzworks has announced version one of a new open source platform for distributing ad-hoc betas to iOS testers called Hockey. As an alternative to TestFlight, Hockey faces stiff competition from developers seeking a “happy meal” solution for rapidly exchanging the latest iterations of applications with minimal setup. The immediate difference between TestFlight and Hockey comes down to the developer’s willingness or want to host their own their own apps: Hockey requires initial (though minimal) setup in combination with a PHP5 server. Arguably every developer has their own hosted nameapp.com website which they can utilize for this purpose, but what benefit does this provide to the developer? Satisfying the testers.
Hipstamatic Photos Come To Life In UK Exhibition
Hipstamatic is one of the most popular and successful camera apps ever released for the iPhone: Apple included the app in the iTunes Rewind top selection of 2010 and even The New York Times ran a story on the front page featuring a photo by Damon Winter, shot using Hipstamatic for the iPhone 4. The application mimics the appearance of the original Hipstamatic 100 toy camera, created by the Dorbowski brothers and released in 157 limited edition models between 1982 and 1984.
At the Orange Dot Gallery in London, the “Exhibition for Hipstamatics” features 157 prints of photos realized with Hipstamatic for iPhone and selected from the fan-made website Hipstamatics, where users can submit images uploaded from their iOS devices. The iPhone photo gallery will be held until February 13th, and it’s surely a big improvement over the (hilarious) world’s smallest Instagram gallery we covered a few weeks ago.
We think it’s great that photos coming from a smartphone camera are being showcased in real-life exhibition, inside an actual photo gallery. In case you had any doubts, this once again proves that software is the best addition to Apple’s hardware. [via The Apple Lounge]
Motorola Prepares Another Jab at Apple with Super Bowl Commercial
It looks like Motorola is back to its usual business of launching commercials with clear and direct pokes at Apple’s products. After the “giant iPhone” argument for the iPad, here comes a teaser of the ad Motorola will run during Super Bowl for its upcoming Honeycomb tablet, the Xoom.
The ad / teaser, called “Goodbye 1984”, says:
2011 looks a lot like 1984. One authority. One design. One way to work.
It’s time for more choices. It’s time to explore. It’s time to live a free life.
In the video, you can see planet Earth wearing Apple-white earbuds slowly fading from colors to black & white. The “one design” and “one authority” Motorola mentions is an obvious reference to the popular Super Bowl commercial Apple ran in 1984, quite possibility the most famous tech commercial of all time. Tech specs of the Xoom are presented in the ad, like Android Honeycomb support, 5 MP camera and 3G connectivity upgradable to 4G.
MacBook Air Finds Its Natural Habitat: Floating In The Air
Sometimes Apple can take its product line a little too literally. That’s the only reason we can think of behind Apple’s latest storefront setup in various Apple Stores, where a MacBook Air is gently floating in the air, attached to a balloon. Sure, a metal wire is attached to the balloon – but the trick works. The whole setup looks pretty cool.
Most of all, Apple put an end to all those MacBook “air” jokes. Check out the video below. [Obama Pacman via 9to5mac] Read more
From Russia With Love: Old Films Become Illegal Apps
For as much as Apple wants to curate the content of its App Store, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the app review team at Cupertino to filter apps based on illegal content with no copyrights from the genuine ones. A new report on the BBC points to several apps being sold in the App Store with no consent from the Russian company that has rights on the content of these apps. The apps, in fact, are based on old Russian films like Gentlemen of Fortune, Assa, The Diamond Arm, Kin-dza-dza and Cheburashka.
The films and cartoons, as noted by the BBC, are still protected by copyright. Russian film studio Mosfilm and the Joint State Film Collection confirmed that they didn’t approve the release of those apps in Apple’s App Store:
It is illegal to present our films as applications either in iTunes or on any other internet site. It is permitted only on our own Mosfilm site”, Svetlana Pyleva, Mosfilm’s deputy director-general, said in an interview with bbcrussian.com.
“The only official internet site where you can watch legal Mosfilm content is the Mosfilm site.,” she said. “There are no third parties which we have permitted to use our content.
An Apple spokesperson told the Russian BBC that the company “understands the importance of protecting intellectual property”, so it won’t be a surprise to see the apps pulled soon. After all, this is not an isolated case of apps sold without consent of the original copyright owners: just open the App Store and look for clones of Nintendo’s Super Mario, Angry Birds or other 1980’s hits. The truth is most companies don’t care about the rip-offs, and some file complaints to get the apps removed. Overall, the App Store is a crowded place with more than 350,000 apps and it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for Apple to check on every copyright agreement ahead of the app’s approval. At least it’s fairly easy to contact the iTunes team and claim copyright infringement.