This Week's Sponsor:

Inoreader

Boost Productivity and Gain Insights with AI-Powered Intelligence Tools

Kickstarter: Pocket Tripod Slips Into Your Wallet

Pocket Tripod, an iPhone stand that’s no bigger than a couple credit cards, provides a steady platform for propping your iPhone up on a table, nightstand, or kitchen counter. Only 2.3mm thin, Pocket Tripod was designed to be practical, available for any given moment to fill a variety of needs. Pocket Tripod unfurls to become a angled stand on an airline tray or an immediate tripod for capturing a family portrait. Because of the iPhone’s uniform edges and design, the stand is able to accommodate the iPhone in a variety of positions in portrait or landscape, seating it vertically or tilted back at any angle.

The card sized stand was designed to meet manufacturing goals and to withstand abuse. As the stand packs flat and unfurls or disassembles to prop up the iPhone, ensuring the stand doesn’t wear out is a concern. Geometrical Inc., the company behind Pocket Tripod, claims that its design is up to the challenge of everyday use.

Kickstarter pledges start at $20 for a black or white model, which are currently all sold out. For $25, backers can expected an expedited copy of the Pocket Tripod off of the assembly line if the project is successful. Pocket Tripod has a goal of $45,000 with 29 days to go. Pocket Tripod is expected to retail for $30 when it’s available.

Learn more and back Pocket Tripod on Kickstarter here.

Tweetbot for Mac 1.3 Adds Media Timeline, More Tweaks

Following the 2.8 update released on iOS in April, Tapbots today updated Tweetbot for Mac to version 1.3, which adds various tweaks to the interface as well as the media timeline that debuted on the iPhone and iPad.

To access the new media timeline, which provides an inline media view of all timelines in Tweetbot, you can hit ⌘F and click on the icon next to the search bar, or, alternatively, choose View > Media Timeline (⌥⌘M with the keyboard). The media timeline retains the same functionality and design that Tapbots first brought to the iPhone; to switch back to the default timeline, you can click another icon next to the search bar or go to View > Default Timeline (⌥⌘T).

Complying with Twitter’s new display guidelines, the tweet detail view now comes with retweet and favorite counters – again, implemented just like in Tweetbot for iOS. And alongside a series of bug fixes and improvements, Tweetbot 1.3 brings a welcome enhancement to profile views: besides Cover Image support, you can now double-click the titlebar on a profile to scroll back to the top. Double-clicking again will scroll a profile’s timeline to the top as well.

Tweetbot for Mac 1.3 is available now on the Mac App Store.

Apple Announces iTunes Festival 2013 in London→

Apple PR:

Apple today announced that global superstars including Justin Timberlake, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Jack Johnson and Jessie J are among the headliners at this year’s iTunes Festival in London. Running every night in September at the Roundhouse, the iTunes Festival features over 60 acts performing at the legendary venue.

The festival schedule for this year’s iTunes Festival hasn’t been posted yet, and Apple says that more details on the 30 nights of free live shows will be made available as they get closer to September. As with last year’s iTunes Festival, viewers from around the world will be able to watch live shows using iTunes, an Apple TV, or a dedicated app for iOS.

iTunes Festival used to take place in the month of July, but Apple moved it to September in 2012. Tickets will be available with a lottery system run by Apple and its media partners.

Permalink

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Coming To iPad→

BioWare’s classic, released 10 years ago, is coming to the iPad. IGN’s Steve Watts has a review:

Knights of the Old Republic is a classic-style BioWare RPG, and still stands up remarkably well. Though its action mechanics aren’t quite as polished as those of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, the characters, setting, and infamous plot twist are as well-delivered today as ever. The iPad’s touch interface is largely an improvement over the original, save for a few reservations.

Knights of the Old Republic is widely regarded as one of the best Star Wars games ever made. IGN’s review doesn’t mention a release date, but it’s safe to assume the game should be released very soon. As Pocket-lint notes, the game is being ported to the iPad by developer Aspyr, who accidentally leaked information about it in a newsletter last week.

Permalink

Apple Introduces New Low-End 16 GB iPod Touch

Apple today quietly updated its online Store to launch a new low-end iPod touch that replaces the fourth-generation model. Eric Slivka reports at MacRumors:

Apple today made a quiet update to its iPod touch lineup, launching a new 16 GB fifth-generation model without a rear camera for $229. The new iPod touch, which is only available with a black front and silver back, replaces the fourth-generation iPod touch that Apple had continued to offer since the introduction of new models late last year. The new model is available now in Apple’s online store and should be available in the company’s retail stores starting tomorrow.

New design aside, there are a series of notable additions for the new low-end iPod touch. Removing the rear-facing camera and 16 GB of storage from the higher-end iPod models, Apple could reach the $229 price point, which is $70 cheaper than the fifth-generation iPod family. Keeping the front-facing camera (bumped to a 1.2 MP “HD” status) allows Apple to keep FaceTime and ensure basic compatibility with third-party iOS camera apps.

Apple is, essentially, future-proofing the iPod touch family: adding Lightning, a taller Retina screen, a dual-core A5 chip, faster WiFi on the 5GHz band, and, presumably, more RAM than the 256 MB found in the fourth-gen iPod, the new 16 GB iPod touch will certainly be capable of running iOS 7 and future updates. It’ll be interesting to see if iOS 7 will run on the just-discontinued iPod touch 4th gen, which had less RAM than the iPhone 4 (512 MB), also released in 2010.

On the new iPod touch webpage, Apple features the higher-end iPod models as the ones with iSight and loop – the latter absent from today’s new low-end model.

ReadKit 2.0 Adds Smart Folders, Built-in RSS, Fever, and More

ReadKit initially answered the requests for a proper Instapaper and Readability desktop app, including Pocket and later adding support for popular bookmarking sites like Delicious and Pinboard. Bringing together the multiple places where people are likely to save stuff on the web, ReadKit 2.0 adds offline support for RSS to the mix, and also includes support for Fever and NewsBlur. But by far, my favorite feature is smart folders.

I have a big backlog of articles I have to read through in Pocket, but I’m only interested in a few topics at the moment. Smart folders act as ReadKit’s playlists, bringing forward articles based a set of rules. For example, I can make sure I’ve caught up on all the games I like by looking for keywords in the title.

ReadKit 2.0 also adds a few new options for readers in the preferences, such the option to save and restore reading positions and to cache images locally. Under the hood you’ll find improve sync performance and various other bug fixes.

ReadKit 2.0 is a free update for previous Mac App Store customers, and is currently available for $4.99. With the exception of newly added services, our initial review of the app still holds true.

Second Gear Pit Pass→

This is a neat idea by Second Gear: instead of the regular newsletter, they’ll be using Passbook to gradually release information about their new app.

In Italy, I’ve seen a couple of services that are starting to use Passbook. Pit Pass is the first item that I’ve added to my Passbook since its launch last year, and I’m intrigued by the prospect of more developers using it to tease upcoming apps.

Lex Friedman has a nice overview of Pit Pass at Macworld. As an aside, I’ve also found out today that Passbook files can be viewed in Mountain Lion’s Mail through a popover.

Permalink