Offline Pages for iPad: Simple and Free Offline Reading

We’ve heard so many times that the iPad is the perfect device to consume content and you know what, after some days of testing I have to agree. The iPad is just perfect to read, watch movies and listen to music. Instapaper on the iPad feels great, and so does the iPod app. Safari is very well developed, it’s fast and makes it easy to jump from one page to another just to read what’s new. I’ve never done stuff like this on my iPhone. But on the other hand, don’t listen to those who say you can’t produce content on the iPad: I’m finding myself writing entire posts, taking notes and storing screenshots with it. All in all, it’s a great productivity device.

Back to using the iPad as a reading device, there’s Instapaper and a couple of good feeds readers that allow me to stay up to date with the latest news and read longer articles from my couch or bed without having to worry about carrying the MacBook with me. It’s a good environment. I’ve just found out this other application though, free in the App Store, which is called Offline Pages and might come in handy if you’re not a fan of Instapaper.

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New iPhone Dev Agreement Bans the Use of 3rd Party Services and Analytics

There’s a been a lot of talking about the now famous Section 3.3.1 of the iPhone Dev Agreement, the one that bans applications written in other programming languages than Objective C. As Gruber pointed out in his Steve Jobs-endorsed post, Apple wants to make Obj-C and the Cocoa Touch API the de facto standard for mobile applications, period.

But in my opinion that of banned cross-compilers is not that a big of a deal compared to what developers found out in Section 3.3.9 of the iPhone Dev Agreement.

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Want the Perfect iPad Stand? There’s A Cat For That

Seriously, something must be wrong with people. I don’t know how to explain otherwise these pictures appeared over at OS X Daily of some people using their cats as iPad stands. Read again, cats as iPad stands. And quite useful stands, they say.

[UPDATE]: Turns out the cat actually happened to be at the right place at the right time. The idea could be explored, anyway.

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Apple Vs. Adobe: Steve’s Take

According to Mashable, Steve Jobs has replied to some emails from Greg Slepak from Tao Effect (developers of Espionage) regarding the situation of Apple banning applications written in languages other than Objective C. Apparently Steve Jobs is endorsing John Gruber’s take on the subject, but I suggest you to take a look at the full post here.


Transport App: Easy iPad / iPhone File Sharing From Your Mac

How do you share files on the Internet? Do you use a Mac app like the recently released Cloud, or you chose to stick with the good old Droplr? Maybe you just use a web service to share pictures and shorten links, ‘cause you’re not really into this file sharing thing. Either way, you want to keep everything simple and straightforward and have your files shared just fine across multiple devices so that your online fellows can access it anywhere. I understand your position, you don’t want to spend too much time searching for the right app for you, so you’re still sticking with emails to send links and PDFs to your collaborators. What an old way to accomplish tasks.

The app we’re going to talk about today is called Transport, woks for both iPhone and iPad (it’s a Universal app), and allows you to quickly upload and share files from your Mac to your portable devices.

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Egretlist, To-do with Evernote. Review & Giveaway!

For the people that use Evernote religiously, it’s an invaluable too. And if you aren’t using Evernote, maybe you should reconsider. Imagine walking down the street with your iPhone, and see you a Tate Real-estate sign promoting a home for sale. Wanting to remember the information later, you simply take a picture of the sign and the flyer with Egretlist, adding it to a to-do list for your agent to check up on. When you get on your Mac at home, you simply search, “Tate,” and Evernote pulls up the to-do note and the picture using its amazing image search technology. That as a matter of fact, was a similar use case for me as I browse apartments. Read more


OpenFeint’s Founder Talks Game Center

TUAW has published an interesting interview with OpenFeint’s founder Jason Citron here, where he talks about the future  of the platform and the Game Center announcement.

From the post:

“So why now? “Apple stumbled onto this,” he told us. “They were trying to make cool phones, an iPod and a phone coming together. They opened up the SDK, and all of a sudden there were all these games out there, and now it’s disrupting the handheld gaming industry.” We’ve seen a few hints, mostly in commercials and rumors, that Apple has been looking at the iPhone and specifically at the iPod touch as a gaming platform, but Citron believes the wind has changed for good. “I don’t think they’re thinking of it as an accidental opportunity any more. I think they’re diving in headfirst.”

And considering all the mentions regarding the iPhone (and thus the App Store) being more successful than Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP as a gaming device, I definitely agree that Apple is seeing this a huge opportunity.


Radium Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Radium giveaway.We also want to thank the CatPig Studios developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

Matt

SensorPro

Henry Yue

Bruno

Sofia Fontes

Adamtree

Juan Angosto

Remy

seventoes

jaryre

Viktor

Cindy

Adam Jones

Patrick

Joresch

svenmw

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few hours. Thank you!


Taska Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Taska giveaway.We also want to thank the bitAlpha developers for the promo codes they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

bacce

Levi Figueira

OddIceTroll

TrevorML

perKypot

Richard Cousins

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a few minutes. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week. You can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet or Federico as @viticci