Dring - Beautiful Ringtone Creation and More for iPhone

Ringtone creation on the iPhone is still new to the App Store; there are several out but only a few that have a great UI and functionality. Wake Apps’ Dring arrived last week and does it look beautiful and work wonderfully.

Dring has a finely tuned, gorgeous retina display UI that lets you customize and create your own ringtones right from your iPhone with sliders, toggle switches and buttons that look real. I can almost feel the textures under my fingertips and they lay perfectly on top of on a wood grain background. Every little detail looks absolutely great, even the spinning tape recorder wheels that come up after hitting record look authentic to a time of analog that’s long lost. Julien Martin is the magic man behind the UI of Dring, I saw some dribbble shots of Dring months ago was drooling then. Read more

Apple Launches iAd Producer - HTML & CSS Layout App for iAds

A few minutes ago Apple launched a new app for the Mac called iAd Producer which is aimed at developers and designers willing to create visually rich, interactive iAds. iAd Producer “automatically manages the HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript behind your iAd” and also offers advanced Javascript editing and debugging.

iAd Producer is available for download on Apple’s developer website and it requires Mac OS X 10.6.5, Safari 5 and iOS SDK 4.0. A user guide is available here. Read more

Dungeon Defenders Will Bring Android & PC Cross-Platform Multiplayer to iOS

Dungeon Defenders (universal, $2.99) is a recently release game for iPhone and iPad that it’s like a mix between Diablo and the classic Tower Defense; it’s got nice graphics and loot system but apparently gets lost when it comes down to UI (lots of huge buttons on screen) and 3D camera controls. In spite of the flaws of the first version, we should all look forward to the next update. Dropping sometime next year, an updated Dungeon Defenders will bring proper iOS, PC and Android cross-platform online multiplayer.

Several developers tried to follow the road of mobile and desktop cross-platform online battling before, and most of them failed. In the video below, though, you can see the DD developers playing the same game at the same time on an iPad, a PC and two other Android tablets. It all looks smooth and fast. It’s cross-platform multiplayer between the desktop and two different mobile OSes. Pretty intriguing.

We, too, do wonder whether the game’s servers will actually hold up once the update goes live, but right now – it looks perfect. iOS, PC and Android running the same game online? Don’t tell this doesn’t make you excited. At least a bit. [via TouchArcade] Read more

GoodReader for iPhone: New PDF Engine, AirPrint, Improved Annotations

Popular document management / viewing / sharing / all-in-one app GoodReader for iPhone was updated yesterday to include a plethora of new features, improvements and most obvious bug fixes. With this “App Store update” massive trend that is going on this week, it was no surprise to see GoodReader for iPhone show up in the “Updates Available” screen.

This new version of GR adds a brand new PDF displaying engine that allows for smoother zooming and panning, with the possibility to go back to the old engine if the new one isn’t working well for you. Weird choice? Maybe. Still, options are always welcome. The app now also has support for AirPrint (iOS 4.2 is, of course, needed) and sports improved annotations with adjustable drawing opacity and line thickness.

GoodReader for iPhone is available at $2.99 in the App Store. Full changelog below. Read more

Erica Sadun Releases AirFlick for OS X: AirPlay Just About Anything

Wouldn’t your new Apple TV be much more enjoyable if you could beam Internet videos to it? One of our favorite fangirls over at TUAW, Erica Sadun, has just announced AirFlick (an alpha build) for OS X. Having previously released the awesome and MacStories approved AirPlayer (which allows you to play AirPlay content on your Mac), AirFlick allows  you to drop files and URLs to play the content on your ATV 2. Can you say, “awesome!?” We’ll have an in depth review of AirFlick later, but in the meantime you can read the full release notes and download the application over at TUAW. You can also follow Erica on Twitter @ericasadun, where you may find recent tweets related to the progress of AirFlick and her related AirPlay hacks. Be sure to send her a warm thanks for all of her hard work!

“Yes, I’ve Always Wanted A Naked iPhone 4”

If all you’ve ever wanted is trick your friends to think you’re using a broken iPhone 4 with exposed internal, well – first I feel bad for you because, honestly, all you’ve ever wanted can’t be this, then I’m about to tell you this kind of weird dream can now come true thanks to a decal available on Etsy.

Well, it could have come true – the item’s been sold. But hey, maybe the creator will put new ones up for sale. Maybe there’s still a chance all you’ve ever wanted will be online again.

Anyway, it’s a decal that will make your iPhone 4 look “naked” on the back, with battery and camera lens well visible. I do think it’s pretty great and geek.

Still, you’ll have to wait for new units to become available. Dreams can take a while to come true. [Gizmodo via Etsy]

Screens 1.1 Available: More Gestures, Better SSH, Bug Fixes

Edovia released Screens for iPhone and iPad last week, and it quickly became thousands of people’s new favorite VNC client for iOS. The app makes it easy to access a computer remotely and actually use it on the iPhone or iPad thanks to the support for multi-touch. No mouse cursors to move, you just touch the windows. Also, Edovia’s Screens Connect feature is simply great to log in a computer while on the go with a 3G connection. Tested last week and it was perfect.

Screens was updated a few minutes ago, and this 1.1 version brings a lot of improvements, new features and bug fixes to make the app even better. Screens now supports customizable 3-finger gestures to map to any action you want and lets you launch the Mac’s app switcher with a 4-finger gesture. Edovia improved SSH in the app, which now allows for an address for the SSH tunnel, lets you customize the port and also doesn’t force you to activate SSH tunneling when connecting to a computer on a local network.

The list of changes and bug fixes is huge, so check it out below. Support for more gestures single-handedly makes this update worth it, so go buy the app at $14.99 now if you still haven’t. Screens is the best VNC client for iOS, hands down. Read more

OpenDNS May Slow Down Your Apple TV Streaming

I noticed this issue last week and I thought it was, once again, my ISP’s fault. The Vodafone Station connection I have here doesn’t exactly play well with…anything. Basically, I tried to set up the device using OpenDNS and I saw streaming speed of iTunes content go terribly down – even lower than what I’m used to with the Vodafone Station. It turns out, though, that it might not be Vodafone’s fault at all this time. Instead, it appears that the Apple TV doesn’t play nice with third-party DNS providers such as Google’s DNS or OpenDNS.

According to TUAW, developer Joe Maller and quite a few users on Apple’s discussion boards, setting different DNS other than your ISP’s in the Apple TV can cause iTunes to take even hours to start a streaming session. Maller’s Apple TV took 2 hours to start streaming content under a 20 Mbs connection. Read more