In one word: a Great-Game. If you are used to play racing games on bigger and faster platforms, you would not expect much from a tiny device like your iPhone or iPod Touch. Like me, a gamer is not impressed so easy, until today. After I installed a brand new racing game named Asphalt 4 [App Store] I discovered that my iPhone is not that tiny device. It felt like I had a mature and fast gaming
Written by wakuwaku on September 11th, 2008 with no comments.
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It’s the grudge-match of the century (well, of the month… at least if you’re a web designer and are sick of iPod coverage): BBEdit 9, the old warhorse that’s been around for 17 years, versus the young pup from Panic Software, Coda 1.5. I’ve been using both over the past week, and my first impressions are below. Over the next 60, I’ll be using both apps for my web-design workflow (not programming nor copywriting) to see how the new versions measure up in that space and how much they can reduce my reliance on other software. In the meantime, here’s a brief overview, in brand-new, patented “yay” and “yuck” categories…
BBEdit 9
Yay: Non-modal windows for search finally don’t suck(™ ® etc.), speeding up find and replace massively. Being able to directly edit in results windows is great. Code-folding is now much easier to deal with using the keyboard. Projects work fairly well, providing a rapid way of caning through loads of files when editing. Document stats (live word count, line count and character count) are really good.
Yuck: Text completion just feels wrong: although it’s beneficial to writers as well as coders (due to including words rather than just code), it feels awkward, sluggish and not particularly accurate—it just doesn’t seem to ‘get’ what I want to input. The interface, while better than it was a few versions back, is starting to feel old. The preferences make me want to cry. Speed differences with large files don’t appear pronounced (or, frankly, in existence).
Coda 1.5
Yay: It’s like someone stuck a rocket up Coda’s bottom—the app feels so much faster than version 1.0, which I found borderline unusable. Coda’s speed bump has suddenly made its auto-complete very lovely indeed. The Clips window’s been sorted out, and you can now group clips; with tab triggers, you can easily add huge chunks of code or single elements. Multi-file search and replace is lovely.
Yuck: Still no custom shortcuts for invoking Clips from the keyboard. (C’mon, Panic! This is one area everyone else—even Dreamweaver—runs rings round you.) No code-folding. CSSEdit’s CSS tools still make Coda’s look a bit rubbish.
Overall
I’d rather like someone to smush these two apps together. Either that or improve BBEdit’s text-completion, workflow, and interface, or add to Coda code-folding, and keyboard shortcuts to its clips. Still, here’s to the next two months, where I’ll figure out which one’s really worth your time, web designer chums.
Written by Craig Grannell on September 9th, 2008 with no comments.
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iLounge just published a very interresting review about 16 App Store programs which could help stressed people to relax a bit. It is done very detailed with plenty of screenshots. One of the Apps is the famous Koi Pond program, a relaxing way to interact with koi fish in a traditional Japanese zen koi pond. Their top picks are these four:
Ambiance (1$)aSleep (1$)Koi Pond (1$) iZen Garden (5$)
Written by wakuwaku on September 4th, 2008 with no comments.
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One of the most arduous tasks iPhone owners likely face is video conversion. Most of the video content ripped from DVDs or downloaded from the internet is in a format that isn't iPhone or iPod friendly. This is because the iPhone and iPod only support MPEG4 and h.264 formats, with h.264 being arguably superior. iTunes and QuickTime make it relatively easy to convert these videos, but it takes time and renders your computer nearly inoperable until the conversion has finished. This is where Elgato's Turbo.264 comes in. This handy little gadget plugs in via USB and speeds up the conversion process while leaving your Mac's CPU available for other things.
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Written by Michael Johnston on December 21st, 2007 with no comments.
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Holster cases are often the choice of those who need to be able to get at their phone at a moment’s notice. Incase’s $40 Leather Folio for iPhone is a horizontally-oriented holster case for your iPhone, and while it may not be the quickest draw on the block, it’s still a pretty nice case.
Available in both brown and black, the Leather Folio is—unsurprisingly—made primarily of leather; Nappa leather, to be precise. The top flap of the case is covered with washed canvas (on the brown model) or ballistic nylon (on the black model), and the interior is lined with suede to prevent the case from scratching your iPhone’s exterior. Two small, Velcro fasteners keep the case securely closed. The case has very few openings: the sides are held together with small, stitched straps of leather, but they’re arranged to leave the speaker, microphone, and headphone jack accessible no matter which way you put the phone in the case. You can get to the Sleep/Wake button as well, though it’s sometimes partially obscured by one of the straps. (This design also makes it a bit too easy to hit the Sleep/Wake button by accident, especially when you’re removing the phone from the case—for example, when you’re answering the phone.) There’s also a notch at the bottom to let you push the phone out of the case easily, and the back features a solidly-attached belt clip. On the other hand, you won’t be able to get to the phone’s volume controls or ringer switch when it’s in the case.
There are similar cases out there, and while the Incase version is a bit on the more-expensive side, I appreciate the attention given to accessibility. The case is also well-made: the leather is pleasant to the touch, the Velcro works well, and the belt clip is sturdy. The leather is also thick enough, and padded enough, to keep the iPhone from coming to harm if you accidentally drop it while in the case, although the opening on the bottom does mean there’s the possibility, though small, for the exposed part of the iPhone to be scratched.
Overall, the Leather Folio is an excellent case for those looking for a simple, elegant, leather holster. Of course, if you prefer a vertical orientation, you’ll want to look elsewhere. And, like all holsters, the Folio keeps the iPhone safe only when the phone is in the case, so if you’re looking for a more permanent form of protection, holster cases probably aren’t what you want.
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Written by Dan Moren on December 20th, 2007 with no comments.
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