For the few of you who may own a Google TV enabled device (or a TV such as the Sony Internet TV), your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad can now power your futuristic format thanks to the new Google TV Remote app. It’s chock full of glorious soft buttons that could take the Logitech Harmony to task, and includes Voice Search so you can quickly search for content using your iPhone’s microphone. Multiple Google TV Remotes can work over the same network as well, meaning anyone who has an iOS (or Android) enabled device can browse the television right from their lap. The app is free to download from the App Store, and we’ve included a quick video of the Android version below: the experiences are very similar (the iPhone can’t push webpages to their Google TV, however).
Posts tagged with "app store"
Google Launches Google TV Remote for iPhone
NFC Technology In iPhones Could Also Enable Remote Computing
According to a source of Cult of Mac, Apple is planning to use Near Field Communication (NFC) not just as a method for retail payment services but also to turn an iPhone into a pseudo-ID tag for remote login. According to Cult of Mac:
…when a NFC-equipped iPhone is paired with a guest machine, part of the user’s profile includes the apps they’ve purchased through the Mac App Store. The icons for their apps appear on the remote Mac, but aren’t downloaded, our source said.
Once the guest machine is logged into; users would be able to open any of their apps, which would download on demand, although presumably only those from the Mac App Store. Documents too could be accessed and synced using MobileMe from anywhere using this remote login system and once a user leaves, the Mac would wipe any documents and applications.
As MacRumors points out, it is similar to the once promised feature of ‘Home on iPod’ that would have allowed OS X Panther users to sync their Home directory on to an iPod for easy document storage regardless of where you were. Cult of Mac claims that this new feature is currently being developed in OS X Lion but their source stresses that it isn’t guaranteed to become public.
[Via Cult of Mac]
Firemint: Flight Control for iPhone Hits 4 Million Downloads, $2 Million Budget for Real Racing 2
Developer Firemint has always been one of the biggest “players” in the iOS gaming scene with hugely popular games and Apple Design Awards won at the WWDC, and they’ve been under the press spotlight again recently thanks to the release of Real Racing 2 HD – a version of their successful racing game specifically optimized for the iPad 2 improved graphics, processor and gyroscopic controls. With more updates on the way and a brand new iOS game announced last month, Agent Squeak, Firemint has become one of the top names in the App Store for iPhone and iPad games.
In an interview with Pocketful of Megabytes, Firemint’s Logan Booker has answered some interesting questions about what’s going on behind the scenes of Real Racing and their other game franchise, Flight Control. As revealed by Booker, Flight Control, released in 2009, recently surpassed 4 million downloads for iPhone, and it keeps growing. The game was the result of weeks of sketching and prototyping back in 2008 and early 2009, when the App Store was a relatively new platform and no one really knew whether or not Apple (and third-party developers) could turn a profit out of it. Read more
We Have Five Copies Of Zen Viewer HD For iPad Up For Grabs
File managers on the iPad need not be boring nor unintuitive. Zen Viewer HD for iPad wrangles documents and media into a stylish file viewer that plays back audio, movies, pictures, PDFs, and gives you the ability to organize documents. You also have the cloud at your fingertips, thanks to Dropbox, Box.net, and MobileMe integration so you can pull files from just about anywhere. Record audio on the fly, manage files and folders (easily get files into Zen Viewer HD by drag & drop while in Manage Mode), and compress & decompress files to save storage space on your iPad. If you want to carry your Windows or Mac files around with you, Zen Viewer shouldn’t disappoint. Currently on sale for $2.99 in the App Store (with some additional artist themes costing $.99 in app), who says managing files shouldn’t be both easy and beautiful? Your new iPad should have a proper system in place for handling all of the documents stored on your home system, so we’re giving away five copies past the break.
iOS Games Now Listed on Metacritic
As noted by TUAW, Metacritic, the popular aggregator of movie / TV show / music / game reviews found online, announced yesterday full support for iOS games. For all the people “keeping score of entertainment” through the service, this means iPhone and iPad games are now listed in a dedicated section that displays the overall top-scoring games, and offers the option to filter down results by category and user score. The clean design of Metacritic and the ease of use of the system will surely come in handy to see what the web thinks of a specific game, as Metacritic basically works by aggregating average scores and reviews from highly visited websites like Slide To Play and Eurogamer.
Metacritic is proud to announce that we have added complete coverage of iPhone/iPad game reviews to our site. As many of you know, we have been publishing monthly IPhone/IPad games guides – recommending the best new iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch games available for a total budget of $30 — and this popular feature will continue to appear each month.
As the team behind Metacritic also notes, this change marks a major shift in the gaming community that has grown to accept iOS and the App Store as important distribution platforms for great games. The fact that gems like World of Goo (whose iPad version has been insanely successful), Real Racing, Tiny Wings and Aralon are being listed in the top games confirms many people’s theory that you can find all kinds of games on iOS nowadays.
The big names in the game development industry understand iOS is no platform to ignore, and just about any top console game now comes with an iPhone or iPad counterpart of sorts. On Metacritic you can now browse these games and check out what the reviewers are saying on the web, write a review yourself or even check out trailers and videos for a specific app. To see the new Metacritic page in action, head over here and start looking for your next favorite game.
Apple Showcasing “Great AirPlay Apps” In The App Store
With the release of iOS 4.3, Apple enabled third-party developers to implement the AirPlay streaming technology in their apps, a feature that was previously exclusive to Apple’s own software on iOS 4.2. On the new iOS 4.3, not only does Safari allow you to stream video content from the browser to an Apple TV, developers also got the possibility to use the AirPlay APIs (after several requests) in their applications. Apps like Air Video or StreamToMe greatly benefit from the addition of AirPlay without any manual hacking.
To celebrate the new feature for all developers, Apple has put up a section on the App Store to showcase the first apps that make great use of AirPlay. “AirPlay-Enabled Apps” collects 11 different apps that have been updated to support wireless streaming, The list includes the VEVO Player, Air Video, ESPN Magazine, and Discovery Channel HD. All these apps let you beam video from your iOS device to the Apple TV in your local network.
You can find the section here, and we hope Apple will soon update it to feature more great apps for the iPhone and iPad. The problem? If you have a Verizon iPhone you might be out of luck.
Flickpad Pro 2.4 Launches: Visual Updates & The Return of Flickr Explore Grid
Flickpad is an immersive way to browse Flickr and Facebook photos with flickering fingers, and the latest Flickpad update brings an update interface (new app icon and wood background), introduces advanced search capabilities, and brings back Flickr Explore in a grid-tastic format. We reviewed Flickpad a while ago, and it’s still a fantastic way to browse through photos by flicking them off the screen, browsing the latest photos as a slideshow, and to comment on inspiring photographs. You can download Flickpad Pro on your iPad for only $0.99 from the App Store.
Australian Government Wants To Classify Mobile Games
The Australian Government has today revealed that it plans to enforce a classification of review of any mobile games (and possibly apps) that are referred to the Australian Classification Board after a complaint. Any app referred for review would have to receive a rating of MA15+ or lower to remain on sale legally in Australia.
The Government has said that if the proposal goes through it would force Apple and Google to comply by removing any app that is banned by the Classification Board as well as ensuring that any app that has gone through classification would have its classification displayed for consumers to see.
Currently there is ambiguity over classifying new online content including mobile apps for the iPhone or for Google’s Android OS in Australia with some suggesting that technically every game should be classified, an impossible feat with the number of apps in the App Store alone. The new proposal by the Home Affairs Minister would only require classification of game apps that the Classification Board receive complaints about and the Minister believes that there would be “very, very few games” that would be refused classification (banned).
Explor: It’s Like Ping, For Apps
I’ve never been a loyal user of “app discovery” tools for iOS: I’m talking about those apps that help you find out about new apps and share the results with your friends. Sort of meta, I know, but apparently there’s a huge market for these things now that the iOS App Store has crossed the mark of 300,000 apps available for the iPhone. In the sea of applications that’s inundating our inboxes, it seems like there’s plenty of room for alternatives to the default App Store app.
Explor, a free app by Hello,Chair released today, is the latest (and possibly greatest) addition to iOS software discovery panorama that comes with interesting features I haven’t seen anywhere else. Read more