Camera+ Returns to the App Store

Camera+ has returned to the App Store this evening sporting a version number of 2.0. You may remember Camera+ for the controversy it stirred with Apple when the developers unveiled a way to reassign an iPhone’s volume buttons to act as shutter triggers when running the app. It is unknown whether Apple outright pulled the app from the App Store, or if the developers pulled it to avoid banishment or something of the like.

Nonetheless, it is back with a laundry list of improvements. What I’m liking the best so far is the removal of the silly SLR interface that used to greet you upon launch. Now the app gets you from launch to taking a picture extremely quickly. Everything else, so far, seems mostly like polish, polish, polish.

To celebrate the app’s return, it’s on sale for a whopping 99¢ right now. Owners of 1.x need not fret, 2.0 is a free update.

Squarespace Releases iPad App

Today Squarespace announced the release of their long awaited iPad app. Squarespace is, of course, the host and CMS of this fine site. Needless to say, I’ve been waiting for an iPad app from them for some time. Naturally, I am typing this post on my iPad.

Overall, the app is very good. I’ve encountered (and reported) a couple bugs, but that is to be expected. Overall, the app is a reflowed carbon copy of the iPhone app, which surprises me that it is a separate app instead of a universal app. The main difference is the editor on the iPad is far superior (read: usable).

The editor supports undo, redo, hyperlinking, bold, italics, underline, block quote, and excerpts. It also features a marked improvement to the interface that allows you to assign categories, tags, and the publish date.

I can definitely see using the iPad to publish a post in a pinch, but most of the time I think I’ll stick with composing on my Mac.

Squarespace for iPad is a free download from the iTunes Store.

Dropbox 1.0

The amazing syncing utility Dropbox has finally left beta and entered the land of 1.0! I’ve been a Dropbox user for some time now, and really do love it. Dropbox, to me, is what Apple’s iDisk should be. By far, one of my favorite uses of Dropbox is the ability for apps to sync their databases to it (like the very wonderful 1Password), which is great for apps that have both Mac & iOS versions.

If you want to become a Dropbox user, please follow my referral link. By doing so, you’ll get an extra 250 MB of storage, even on a free account, and I’ll get the same little bump in storage. Now, get to syncing!

Apple Opening Mac App Store on 6 January

In three short weeks Apple will be opening the Mac App Store for business. Part of me does wish it was opening before Christmas, so I could show it off to my folks, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law, since I will be seeing all of them over Christmas.

Word has it that developers who want to be included in the Mac App Store’s 6 January debut need to submit their apps by 31 December.

Find My iPhone Becomes Free Service

Find my iPhone is a feature of Apple MobileMe service. MobileMe is a $99 per year subscription service that provides syncing of your calendars, contacts, & bookmarks across your computers and iOS devices, along with an email account, iDisk server storage, photo galleries, and Find my Iphone (or iPod touch or iPad). When Find my iPhone was added as a feature of MobileMe, I thought (and still think) it is a great part of the service.

Say your iPhone slips out of your pocket while you’re sitting at a coffee shop. You leave, and a while later, you reach for your iPhone and have a near heart attack. Never fear, you can hop onto me.com or the Find my iPhone app from another device (say, your spouse’s or your friend’s) and locate your iPhone on a map. From there, you can passcode lock the screen, send a custom message with an alert sound that overrides the volume or mute switch, or, in extreme circumstances, remote wipe the device. This works for iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads.

(It should be noted that if you wipe the device, you won’t be able to track it again. Wiping resets everything to factory condition).

Well, today Apple updated the Find my iPhone app and is allowing any iPhone 4, 4th-Generation iPod touch, or iPad to use that portion of MobileMe for free. Download the app to sign up for an account.

There is a little trick here if you have an older device. Just register your Apple ID on someone else’s current generation device, then delete your info from their device. Once you have registered on a supported device, you can then activate Find my iPhone on any of your older devices.

I’d really like to see Apple open this up for all of their iOS device users, but I understand their desire to encourage folks toward newer devices. Apple is a business, after all.

I recommend that everyone take advantage of the Find my iPhone program. It could save you a lot of panic and headache if you were to ever lose your device.

Update on 2010-11-23 02:14 by Chris De Jabet

It appears MobileMe Gallery may also have become a free service today. Interesting.

4.2

Apple released iOS 4.2.1 today for iPhone, iPod touch, & iPad (indeed, 4.2 itself never publicly graced an iOS device).

Apple, of course, has a nice page detailing all the features of the iOS 4.2 update.

For iPhone and iPod touch owners, the two keystone features are AirPrint and AirPlay. Other than that, there are many little tweaks and polish to iOS.

The real news surrounding the 4.2 update is the ipad. Back when the iPad was released, iOS 4 hadn’t been announced yet. Instead, the iPad received its own special branch of iOS 3 — 3.2 to be exact. So iOS 4.2 is the iPad’s first encounter with the features its smaller sized siblings have been enjoying for months. To name a few: multitasking, folders, Game Center, & Mail improvements. For the first time, the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are on the same iOS.

iPad

Multitasking

Multitasking has been enjoyed by iPhone and iPod touch users for a while, and any of your universal apps that have multitasking support will work automatically with multitasking after the update. Standalone iPad apps will need updates to work with the new feature, and those have been trickling into the App Store steadily over the past week or so.

Multitasking works as advertised, just like on the iPhone and iPod touch. The only hindrance I can foresee being a problem for heavy multitaskers is running up against the iPad’s limited 256 MB of memory. It really hasn’t been much of a problem for me (I’ve had 4.2.1 since the weekend, so I’ve had time to play). It would be nice if the next iPad hardware had at least 512 MB of memory (1 GB would be even better).

Folders

Folders is the feature I’ve been wanting on the iPad since I bought my iPhone 4. I’ve easily consolidated my homescreen count from five to two, which is much nicer. Once again, if you’ve used folders on iOS 4 before, you’ve seen this already. It’s just nice to have congruency across my iPhone and iPad.

Game Center

Game Center is Apple’s built-in achievements, leader board, and multiplayer platform for iOS. Now it is on the iPad. Like some of the other iPad apps, Game Center has an expanded user interface to accommodate the larger screen size.

Mail

Hallelujah, Mail now has unified inbox and threaded messages! These features are things I’m amazed weren’t shipped with iOS 1.0, but it’s good to have them. I’ve loved them on the iPhone, and it’s great to have them on the iPad, especially since the iPad is a great experience for dealing with an unruly inbox.

iPhone and iPod touch

The changes that are new to the iPhone and iPod touch are less noticeable. There are new sounds for SMS/MMS alerts to choose from. They honestly sound as if Apple hired a composer from Looney Toons. There are new parental controls, including disabling some of Game Center and one I about did a backflip over — disbaling the deletion of apps. My son just loves to delete all the toddler games from his iPod touch on a long roadtrip. Trust me, I could high five the Apple employee that added this.

Also, the birthday calendar now sports a wrapped gift icon, helping to make someone’s special day stand out a little more against your busy schedule. Voice Memos got a new icon, somehow even uglier than before.

Another nice feature is font choices in the Notes app. Marker Felt is still there, but is now joined by Chalkboard and the ever-wonderful Helvetica.

AirPrint and AirPlay

AirPrint allows your iOS device to print wirelessly. When the feature was announced, it was revealed that it would work without additional setup with select HP printers, and then with a little extra work, your existing printer that is shared with your Mac or PC. Unfortunately, only the former found its way to the release. It is unknown if the latter is delayed temporarily or indefinitely.

AirPlay, on the other hand, is something I am extremely excited for. AirPlay allows you to stream audio, video, or photo content to your TV from an iOS device via Apple TV, or audio to AirPlay-compatible third-party speakers. It works today with the new Apple TV, and third party speakers, such as the iHome iW1, will be available around the holidays. I definitely plan on putting a couple iW1’s around the house.

That’s about all that is worth mentioning. If you find any other gems in the release, drop a note in the comments.

Update on 2010-11-23 05:31 by Chris De Jabet

iLounge wrote up an exhaustive overview of pretty much every change in iOS 4.2.1. As usual, their Instant Expert article is extremely well done.

Blast Off to Fun with Astronut!

The Iconfactory today released their long-awaited hyperjump back into iPhone gaming Astronut! You play Jacques the Astronut, leaping planet to planet through 24 levels across 6 sectors. Astronut is also Game Center compatible, sporting 40 achievements and leaderboards.

Needless to say, The Iconfactory has boldly gone into the super high resolution territory of the Retina Display, bringing graphics so sharp it’d make Buzz Lightyear jealous.

You get the first 4 levels for the steep price of free, and then an in-app purchase of $1.99 gets you the rest of the game. This is a great compromise for a sort of demo try-before-you-buy. If you like the first 4 levels, you’ll really love the rest.

I’ve had a hard time putting Astronut down today, and my twitter followers are probably tired of hearing about my achievements. I can’t recommend this game enough. Go get it.

P.S. Don’t forget to grab the gorgeous free wallpaper pack for Astronut.

P.P.S. Astronut’s arrival totally makes up for Apple’s yawn of an announcement regarding The Beatles earlier.

iTunes Undergoes British Invasion

If you mosey on over to the iTunes Store or Apple’s homepage you’ll notice there are now more bugs in iTunes. Specifically, those bugs are The Beatles.

Apple said we’d never forget this day, and they’re right. I’ll remember this always as the day Apple overhyped something to a ridiculous degree.

I’m surprised Apple didn’t really take the bull by the horns like they did with U2 a few years ago. They could have spun the delay of the white iPhone 4 as the “iPhone 4 – White Album Edition.” Or, how about an iPod touch with a yellow face, for a Yellow Submarine iPod touch?

Okay, I’m done. Where’s my iOS 4.2?

iTunes is Plotting Something for Tomorrow

Apple changed its homepage today to tease an announcement set for 9:00 a.m. CST tomorrow. Apparently, there will be “an exciting announcement from iTunes” tomorrow.

I have spent the last 15 minutes racking my brain about what this may be. Whatever it is, it will need to be extremely significant, as it has to be something that a regular consumer will “never forget.”

My first thought was perhaps the release of iOS 4.2, but that hardly seems worthy of this much fanfare. Some people I follow on the twitter think The Beatles is finally coming to iTunes (meh). Lastly, the other big rumor circulating is that Apple will be utilizing that big data center they’ve built in North Carolina, allowing users to stream their purchased libraries to their devices, versus having to download everything to their Mac or PC.

I’m not even going to bother offering an educated guess, as this is so out of the blue, I’d likely be wrong.

What do you think?

Instapaper Updated with Even More Awesome

Yesterday, Marco Arment’s excellent Instapaper app for iOS was updated with some thoughtful new features. Among these are combined length/progress indicators for saved articles à la Kindle, new sharing options, and a Light/Dark theme toggle within articles on the iPhone or iPod touch (this has been present on the iPad for a while).

Naturally, there’s one more thing.

Not only can small-screened iOS devices now toggle Light/Dark mode within an article, but Marco built an amazing location-aware feature that checks the sunset times for your locale and automatically switches to Dark mode at night and Light mode during the day. Marco describes this feature as “ridiculous.” I describe it as wonderful.

Instapaper is a great free service on the web, but I have found the iOS app well worth the $5 several times over. And each free update makes it even better. Needless to say, I love how many apps, including Twitterrific, have Instapaper support for sending links to read later.

If you aren’t using Instapaper, shame on you.