I’m no painter, but Layers for iPad really made me feel like one. Layers let’s users create beautiful paintings with just their fingers. You can use some of the many available brushes to paint, smudge, and erase. You can even have more Layers to create even more complex paintings.
Layers for iPad: Reviewed.
Reverse Gold Rush
The iPad has been out for 5 days now, mine is on its way to Italy too, everyone seems to be happy and satisfied. It’s a great device, no doubt about it. But I can hear the far away voice of those people who haven’t purchased an iPad yet and decided to stick with their iPhones. Waiting for better times (camera, 3G, other random excuses) to come. I can hear this voice, I can hear these people complaining because they fear developers have forgotten about them.
Developers, this one is for you. They are right.
Apple Rejects iPad App For Using “Pinch to Expand” Gesture
AppleInsider reports:
“Scott Sykora and Eugene Kaneko are the creators of Web Albums HD, an iPad application that accesses photos saved to Google’s Picasa Web albums. The software was initially rejected from the App Store, Sykora said, because it employed the pinch to expand gesture to “peek” at photo albums, in the same manner as Apple’s own native Photos application for the iPad.
When the application was initially rejected from the App Store, Apple sent a letter to the developers noting that the pinch to expand feature is “associated solely with Apple applications.” The form letter-like e-mail also mistakenly named another application, leading Sykora to assume that Web Albums HD is not the only software that has been rejected for its use of pinch to expand.”
I can see many other stories like this coming, which isn’t exactly good for Apple. They need to fix it.
Follow iPhone OS 4.0 Event Live on MacStories
That’s right, we’ll be covering tomorrow’s event here on MacStories. You just have to go here, signup for a reminder and wait for our live chat to start. You’ll be notified if you previously subscribed using the widget.
From the live coverage page:
MacStories will offer live coverage of the event, instantly aggregating news from sources like Engadget, Gizmodo and Ars to keep you up to date with what’s happening.
But it doesn’t stop at live coverage. Various Mac and iPhone designers and developers (together with yours truly and our editor Cody Fink) will participate to the live chat, thus bringing first impressions and thoughts to the discussion.
See you tomorrow folks.
P.S. We’ll be kicking off 30 minutes before the official start of the event. You know, just to gather last minute predictions.
Kinetic Type Video Made with CSS, Webkit and Javascript
We’ve seen many Webkit / CSS experiments, but this one, seriously, it’s an outstanding achievement. We’re talking about a kinetic type videos, one of those you usually see realized with Flash and advanced After Effects techniques. This time, we have a kinetic type video made entirely with Webkit, CSS and javascript. The experiment is called “The Man from Hollywood” and it’s available here.
From the website:
“It’s a Kinetic Type experiment that makes use of Advanced CSS selectors and Webkit CSS properties. The idea is based off of kinetic type videos that are usually created using After Effects, Flash, or other animation tools. Javascript is used, but minimally, really just to turn class names on and off. All of the animations are accomplished using CSS.”
Be sure to check out the screenshots after the break, and see the video in action here.
OmniVision Hints at 5MP Camera for iPhone, iPad 2nd Gen
The iPad came out 5 days ago, an Apple Media event is scheduled for tomorrow, but the rumor mill never stops. Today some OmniVision executives suggested that the next generation iPhone and iPad (yeah, already) might include one of their 5 megapixels sensor, instead of the widely adopted 3MP. Actually, JP Morgan analyst Paul Coster added that OmniVision is “well positioned” to provide sensors for Apple’s next products.
OmniVision’s sensor have been used by Apple before, and they have a long history of rumors behind them. Whether this might turn out to be true or not, I think we should only focus on the OS 4.0 now. Honestly, I can’t see myself holding a tablet to snap photos. I really don’t understand why people want this so bad.
Mirror’s Edge for iPad: Reviewed.
The Mirror’s Edge iPad launch has had quite an interesting story. Initially, it was planned to launch for iPhone and iPod Touch early this year, but then it was mysteriously delayed. Why this delay? Well know we know. EA decided to wait for the iPad to launch, and it was well worth the wait.
Matt Patenaude’s Open Letter to Mozilla
Matt Patenaude, developer of Bowtie and Bluebird, regarding Firefox and Ogg Theora support:
“Mozilla’s decision to use Ogg Theora and Vorbis for video and audio (respectively) is certainly admirable: personally, I would love an open codec to gain widespread industry notoriety and usage. The fact is, however, the production industry has already standardized on H.264. Nowadays, H.264 is perhaps the most common codec for Internet-distributed video, with the exception of Flash, much of which is encoded in H.264 anyway.
Content producers love H.264 because it works with their existing workflow tools, and there’s widespread hardware-level support for H.264 on a number of devices, including the iPhone and Android-based phones. The benefits brought by a switch to Ogg Theora — if any even exist — are vastly outweighed (for most content producers) by the time and effort required to make such a switch, and quite frankly, most producers don’t want to be serving up both H.264- and Ogg-encoded content.”
Could you say he’s wrong? You can’t deny H.264 has become pretty much a standard, and Firefox is still missing from the list of compatible browsers.
I think this time would be quite fair to follow the trend.
Apple Publishes New iPhone Ad: “Concert”
Apple has published a new iPhone 3GS commercial, called “Concert”, entirely focused on Shazam. It’s pretty cool.
Check it out after the jump.