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Reeder for iPad 1.2 Adds iOS 4.2 Support, Facebook and Zootool Sharing

What I consider the best RSS app for iPad, Reeder, got updated a few hours to version 1.2. This update introduces support for iOS 4.2 (which should be really around the corner now) and task completion for Google Reader syncing: you can close the app while it’s syncing and it’ll finish in the background. Persistent state also works fine in this new release.

Other features of 1.2 include support for Facebook and Zootool sharing (if you haven’t checked out Zootool yet, it’s a great web app to collect and organize bookmarks), better handling for accounts with hundreds of subscriptions, a larger tap area for next / previous buttons and less sensitive slider controls.

Reeder for iPad remains the best app to access Google Reader. If you don’t give it a try, you’re missing out. Available at $4.99 in the App Store.

Flight Control HD for Mac Coming Later This Month via Steam

Although Firemint already announced a Mac version of award-winning game Flight Control, dubbed Flight Control HD, will be released in the Mac App Store, Mac users will be able to download the game later this month via Steam.

From the official Firemint blog:

The Steam version of Flight Control HD will feature a brand-new, exclusive map. The new “Stunt Flying” map will introduce an exciting new gameplay element, where you can score extra points for flying through a course of stunt cones before landing. This adds a new challenge to the much-loved and insanely addictive gameplay first made famous by the worldwide iPhone hit that has now been downloaded more than 3 million times.
Flight Control HD for Steam will also feature Steam achievements and leaderboards, and will be available world-wide.

Mac gaming got a lot more interesting since the release of Steam, and it’s about to get even better with the Mac App Store. In case you haven’t yet, go check out Flight Control for iPhone and iPad here and here.

WSJ: Indeed, Apple Announcing Beatles & iTunes Tomorrow

This could be the end of the saga. It seems like Beatles’ library coming to iTunes is “official” at this point. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The deal resulted from talks that were taking place as recently as last week among executives of Apple, representatives of the Beatles and their record label, EMI Group Ltd., according to these people, who also warned that there is still a chance that Apple could change plans at the last minute.

Spokesmen for Apple, EMI and Paul McCartney declined to comment.

They couldn’t learn the terms of the deal, but according to their “exclusive” sources it’s a done thing. How the Beatles catalogue available in iTunes is supposed to change our lives can’t be verified either.

Fullscreen.me Is The Simplest Way To Create Full-Screen iOS Web Apps

Fullscreen.me is a neat service I discovered last night which enables you to create iOS web apps that run in full-screen mode with just a few taps. Many popular web services out there come with iPhone and iPad specific interfaces (Gmail, Google Reader, Flickr), but wouldn’t it be great to easily run them in full-screen mode instead of being forced to open them in Mobile Safari every time you launch a webclip?

Fullscreen.me does just that: it turns websites into full-screen web apps. You can choose from a set of built-in services (namely Google products) or manually enter a URL and make your own web app. What’s cool is that Fullscreen.me lets you pick your own icon (stored somewhere on the internet) to override a website’s default apple-icon.png – meaning no more fuzzy Gmail icon on your Springboard. You can also set a custom status bar color or create a “splash URL” to display before the web app fully loads.

You can try out Fullscreen.me by opening it on your iOS devices. Really good stuff.

Billboard: Beatles Coming To iTunes Tomorrow

Following Peter Kafka’s comments at All Things Digital about streaming and cloud services not coming to iTunes tomorrow, Billboard now weighs in consolidating the rumors that Apple is going to announce an exclusive deal to bring the Beatles’ library to the iTunes Store:

That’s not fully confirmed, but after a day of phone calls, e-mails and cryptic messages, Billboard.biz is sticking its neck out and saying this is what we’re going to hear tomorrow.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Apple was “on the verge” of announcing a Beatles deal. For years, every music-related announcement coming from Apple carried a hint of maybe “today’s the day.” But this time it’s very likely that it’ll be the case tomorrow morning.

For these (admittedly thin) reasons and others that we can’t yet divulge here, place your bets on a Beatles announcement tomorrow. Now comes the speculation as to what that announcement will entail.

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“Everyone Has A Scam”→

“Everyone Has A Scam”

Dave Winer on iPhone apps that silently grab your data:

It’s like spammers took over technology, like the pet food guys did in 1999. Everyone has a scam. This year the scam is to grab all the user’s data and resell it. It’s gotten to the point where it’s a risky proposition to try out a new iPhone product.

Perhaps a little bit tragic, but I get his point: how do you gain trust in a sea of 300,000 apps?

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StreamToMe Streams Music and Video From Your Computer To iOS

With all the talk about iTunes’ “exciting announcement” and the possibilities of a cloud-based iTunes streaming and storage solution, I decided to take a step back to cover one of my favorite apps for iPhone and iPad, an app that allows you to stream audio and video from any computer to any iOS device.

The app is called StreamToMe, and unlike the popular Air Video it can stream music just fine, whether it’s organized in your iTunes library or stored somewhere else on your computer. I keep mine in Dropbox and it works just fine. Not to mention video, which works flawlessly with StreamToMe. So let’s see what you have to do to get things up and running. Read more

Is “iTunes Live Stream” The Announcement We’ll Never Forget?

Italian blog The Apple Lounge found something really interesting the property list file of iTunes 10.1: code references of a feature called “iTunes Live Stream”, although it’s not clear what such feature could be aimed at. The Apple Loung and MacRumors speculate it might be something video-related, as Apple recently deployed its own HTTP streaming solution for Apple devices by live streaming the latest Steve Jobs’ keynotes. Read more

Momento 2.0 Collects Your Social Activity In A Single Beautiful Place

Momento is a diary and journal writing app for iPhone I first reviewed back in December 2009 when it came out. Not much happened since then: the developers released a few updates with no new features, Apple released the iPad and the iPhone 4, but a completely new Momento was nowhere to be seen on the new devices. We didn’t get an iOS 4 / iPhone 4 update this summer, we didn’t get the chance to run the app on our tablets.

iPad version aside, everything else is about to change today with Momento 2.0, a free update for previous Momento owners (that like me, might have uninstalled the app as it wasn’t getting an update). Momento 2.0 features an awful lot more feeds you can import your activity from such as Youtube and Foursquare, not to mention the possibility to add any RSS feed and create multiple accounts. For those who missed it: Momento collects all your online activity in one single, beautiful place. And with full Retina Display support and a new landscape view, you can bet it’s beautiful. I’m trying the app right now and it looks great on my iPhone. I liked the UI before; now it just shines.

Momento 2.0 comes with so many new features it’s really hard to cover them all here. If you want, you can take a look at the changelog below and see how much the developers refined, implemented and fixed. For instance, you can now easily backup and restore and export in plain text format.

Momento 2.0 is a free update for existing customers and it’s available at $1.99 in the App Store. Check out the full changelog and screenshots below.

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