As soon as the official Twitter app for iPad (free) hit the App Store, you could tell that it was going to be a controversial app. Immediately, the twitterverse was filled with people either commenting on how much they loved the innovative and unique user interface, and others ranting about how much they despised the UI. One of our bloggers said that she enjoyed the new features of Twitter for iPad so much that she "wanted to have a cigarette after I was done, and I don't even smoke." On the other hand, TJ Luoma reported in his first look at the Twitter app that "... judging by most of the comments of people that I follow on Twitter, the initial reaction is definitely one of 'too busy' and 'over designed.' "

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I have been a fan of Twittelator for iPad ($4.99) since it appeared in the App Store, so I wasn't expecting that Twitter would make an impact on my tweeting. Wrong. After a few hours of using the free Twitter app on my iPad, I'm pretty well smitten with it. The rest of this post describes how the Twitter app works to let you do more tweeting and less fumbling around trying to figure out how to do something. Be sure to take a look at the gallery below for screenshots of Twitter for iPad in action.

Gallery: Twitter for iPad

TUAWTUAW Review: Twitter for iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Usually, we like to use this space to highlight developers and apps that could use a little more exposure, not call out big-budget titles from developers like Electronic Arts. But this one's worth it -- Mirror's Edge is a pretty terrific, completely original translation of the plaforming game that arrived on consoles last year. It was out on the iPad at launch earlier this year, and now the game has made its way to the iPhone, bringing Retina Display graphics and the same well done gameplay.

Out of all of the "major" game publishers, EA has shown Apple quite a bit of love in the past, and this is probably the company's best original (in mechanics, if not actually name or premise) title for the iOS platform. It's a real shame that it took so long for this one to make it around to the handheld, but now that it's here, it is worth the $4.99 purchase price for those looking for a premium iPhone experience.

And heck, if that's too much, just be patient another eight months or so and you'll probably see the game on sale. If you're interested in this gameplay at all -- basically a complicated Canabalt, with heroine Faith running, sliding and shooting her way across rooftops -- definitely give it a look.

TUAWTUAW's Daily App: Mirror's Edge originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs was surprisingly candid with All Things Digital's Kara Swisher yesterday -- he reportedly told her that both Facebook and Apple had spoken about integrating more closely with the new iTunes social network Ping, but Facebook asked for "onerous terms that we could not agree to" regarding Facebook friends connecting on Ping.

He didn't elaborate, obviously, but you can see in Facebook's public documentation that Apple probably wouldn't have appreciated handing any more of its network over to Facebook than it did. All Ping seems to be at this point is a system of "liking" certain content (specifically on the iTunes Store, to the frustration of many of us who want to do it directly from our personal library of music), and if Facebook required that all of the "like" buttons went their way, you can see why Jobs wouldn't agree.

Turns out that even after Ping's launch, things got even more fractious between the two companies -- Apple did kick off Ping with the option to add friends with Facebook Connect, but Facebook blocked access when it was discovered that Apple wasn't playing by the rules. It's actually an open service, unless Facebook decides that it isn't, and apparently Apple's Ping network was an unwelcome guest with a lot of traffic since Apple didn't come to terms with FB ahead of time. Apple removed the service from Ping, but you'll still see some notes around suggesting you can bring in friends from Facebook.

So. Looks like Ping is already making a splash with much larger social networks. If Apple can build up its network without using Facebook's services, it seems much less likely that they'll find a way to share users in the future. As you can see above, Facebook is still implemented on iTunes, in the form of sharing albums and songs that you like, but it's completely separate from what's been built for Ping.

Despite the sour start to the social mixup between Ping and FB, Engadget suggests that conversations between the two companies are still ongoing. It may not be long before all this is a hearty laugh between friends.

TUAWSteve Jobs: Facebook had "onerous terms" for Ping originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gamasutra cornered Epic Games' Mike Capps (he of the very impressive Epic Citadel demo yesterday at the Apple special event), and Capps confirms that what you see running on your iPhone is the real deal -- Unreal Engine 3, with all of the bells and whistles that it has on the major HD consoles. The actual game that Project Sword will become is being designed by Chair (which is the same group that did the popular Shadow Complex game for Xbox 360), and we'll see the full project soon.

Capps also confirms that UE 3 needs at least an iPhone 3GS to run, but he says that in terms of hardware, Apple's devices are right where they need to be. High-resolution textures are an issue (you can't install a 15gb game on an 16gb portable device), but the memory and speed are actually there, says Capps. "You've got 16 gigs of flash memory," he says, "which is way better, faster memory than what most people have generally on a home PC. So that stuff works really well."

The biggest issue holding handheld gaming back is larger environments, but game developers are getting better and better at designing worlds that render quickly and well to all kinds of platforms. And Capps looks into the future, and sees even more possibilities for Apple and their product lines. "It doesn't take a whole lot of leaps of faith to say, 'Right now, I can display from my iPad to my Apple TV on a big screen TV.' How far away are we from 'that's my game console, and it's displaying wirelessly to my television set?' It's not far away."

That's kind of a trippy thought -- that Apple had to finally move away from the Mac to earn a larger foothold in gaming. It's very heartening, as a gamer and an Apple fan, to hear Capps as excited as he is about the possibilities for iOS and the App Store.

[via Joystiq[

TUAWEpic's Mike Capps talks about Epic Citadel and the future of iOS gaming originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, I might be a little bit fangrrlish about the new Xcode 4 IDE. But seriously, it's really an awesome update to the existing Xcode tools. Yes, it's still majorly buggy and yes, there are still many features missing in action -- but it's such a treat to see how the new tools are evolving into their final form.

Today, Apple has released developer preview 3 of the new Xcode 4 suite, which you can download by heading over to the developer.apple.com site. You will need to sign in with your online or paid developer credentials to access the page and the preview dmg. I'm a little iffy about what the NDA situation is with regards to the release (I believe it is under NDA until it leaves beta) so I'll leave finding out about the details (there's a Readme and release notes) to you.

TUAWApple releases preview 3 of Xcode 4 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Game Center is almost out in consumers' hands, but that hasn't stopped the folks at OpenFeint from pushing forward on their unofficial social network for gamers. PlayTime is a newly-announced feature of the third-party social networking software that will allow players on both iOS and Android to play in real-time with each other, and even use voice chat while doing that. OpenFeint is splitting its multiplayer services into two different paths: "Casual" games will use highscores to offer up multiplayer and even co-op challenges, while "Core" games will actually run real-time multiplayer, in conjunction with a system from a company called Exit Games.

Sounds interesting -- the new features are being tested by developers right now, and will be available in OpenFeint sometime later on this year. Game Center will definitely make a big splash in iPhone gaming when it gets released next week, but OpenFeint is still planning on sticking around and innovating where even Apple hasn't yet dared to go. iOS game players will be glad to have both around when all is said and done.

TUAWOpenFeint announces PlayTime, real-time multiplayer with voice chat for iOS and Android originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here's a quick tip for iTunes that puzzled a few of us this morning: once you've gone ahead and set up Ping in iTunes 10, how do you 'like' a song instead of an album? The albums have those handy thumbs-up buttons, but it's not as obvious for songs.

A bit of exploration reveals that the 'Like' command is under the pop-up menu for each song, along with the other song-specific actions like gifting, sharing, wish-list-adding and the 'Other Versions' search.

We'll have more iTunes 10 tips and tricks coming right up.

TUAWiTunes 10 quick tip: Liking a song in Ping originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Power users of the command-line are no doubt familiar with iTerm, the free replacement terminal application. iTerm has been the go-to alternative for people who wanted tabbed windows and other advanced features.

Development of iTerm has been fairly slow and irregular. The initial release was back in 2002 and the 0.10 release is almost a year old. A look at the version history shows very little has happened since 2006.

A "fork" of the project is now available on Google Code and goes by the name iterm2. The current version, labeled "Alpha 6" was just released yesterday. On the surface it looks pretty much the same, until you get into the bookmarks, preferences, and profiles which have been completely rewritten.

Thanks to TUAW reader Nikola Knezevic for sending this in!

TUAWiTerm 2 in early development originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here's a good sign that you've made some pretty significant changes to your application: three different people from the company write three different posts about the new design. That's what the folks from Iconfactory did about Twitterrific 3. David Lanham wrote about Redesigning Twitterrific, not just the timeline, but also the settings, contacts, filtering, and more to "optimize the user experience." Gedeon Maheux wrote about Twitterrific's Tough Love, and realizing that Twitterrific had gotten out of hand, along with the steps they took to make it better rather than just pile more on top of it. Craig Hockenberry wrote about not designing for early adopters, whose expectations may limit making something better by expecting you to simply build on what you had before.

I was an early adopter of Twitterrific on the Mac, and still compare all other applications to Twitterrific when I am using them. When I first heard about the changes in Twitterrific 3, I was sure I was going to hate them. After having used it for awhile, I still think Twitterrific is my favorite iPad app. I've been using it since I bought my iPad back in mid-June, and although I've tried some of the others, I keep coming back to Twitterrific. Many others have just started using Twitterrific 3 for the iPhone or iPad because Twitter turned off "basic authorization" logins. All Twitter applications now must use Twitter's (severely, thoroughly flawed) OAuth system for logging in.

Read on for my thoughts on the app, as well as what TUAW heard directly from Iconfactory about the future of the app.

TUAWTwitterrific 3 for the iPad: change, tough love, and better originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If I had to make a list of the top ten features I thought would be included in the iOS 4.1 update, HDR photography would not have been on it. HDR really came out of the blue, and one developer told me he was 'shocked' to hear that the feature was included in the next iPhone update.

Let's back up a minute. HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is a method where pictures are taken at different exposures and combined into one image. Since the iPhone and most monitors can't really display the full light to dark range of the image, the HDR software tone maps the picture, so you see details in the shadows and don't blow out the highlights, such as a bright sky. HDR images are controversial. Some people hate them, and think it produces garish pictures. Others love the flexibility to shoot pictures in challenging lighting conditions.

I like to use HDR at times when shooting landscapes, and recently documented a photo trek where I was able to use HDR apps on the iPhone.

TUAWiOS 4.1 with HDR built-in comes as a shock to HDR app developers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last month, Google released Priority Inbox, a system that learns which messages are the most important to you and highlights them automatically over time. It's in beta right now and Google is slowly turning it on for its users. If you're tired of waiting, or if you use Apple's Mail and not Gmail, you'll appreciate this setup from Ben Brooks.

Ben explains how a combination of rules acts as his "priority inbox" for Mail. He's got some basic rules in place, like one that identifies messages from Apple and one that files backups away. Others are more clever.

For instance, he's written one that first notices if his work address is in the CC field, and then checks if his name appears in the message body. If not, it's highlighted red and stored away. That way, it's marked "less important" in Priority Inbox terms.

Conversely, another rule searches for messages from people on a pre-defined "Important" list and flags them. Taken individually the rules are clever but not amazing. Combined, however, they make for an effective system. Go and read the whole post.

[Via Shawn Blanc]

TUAWSet up your own Priority Inbox with Apple's Mail originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Before I get rolling here, let me warn you -- I'm not a frequent user of iTunes. I don't spend all of my time purchasing new music, videos, and movies, nor do I obsess over creating playlists to share with my friends.

However, I do use it often enough that after firing up iTunes 10 last night, I immediately found some things I wasn't fond of and some other items I quickly loved. Am I going to lose sleep over the things I don't like? Nope. But I hope that it gets TUAW readers thinking about what they like and dislike about the new iteration of iTunes.

Dislikes:

1. What's with the close / minimize / maximize buttons being vertical in the top "toolbar" of iTunes 10 (see example at right)? As I stated to my cohorts here at TUAW this morning, doesn't that fly in the face of 10 years of experience with OS X and even violate Apple's Human Interface Guidlines? Fortunately, there's relief. A tweet from @rudyrichter showed how to fix this -- pop into Terminal and type or paste in "defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1", press Return, relaunch iTunes and life is back to normal.
2. I miss the colorful icons in the sidebar. There used to be color in the icons for Library, Store, and Shared Items. What happened to the color? It looks so ... drab over there now. If anyone can come up with a defaults command to bring the colors back, I'll give 'em a nickel. Hey, they also removed color icons in the preferences. I want my color back! Everything is so grey and boring. Perhaps that's Apple's way of saying "focus on the content we're trying to sell you, not the application."

TUAWFive dislikes plus five likes equals iTunes 10 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has jumped into the social media pool with both feet by introducing Ping to iTunes 10. Since this is brand-new, we'll show you how to set it up and start pinging your friends. Whatever that means.

After installing iTunes 10, you'll see the Ping button. Click it to enter your Apple ID and begin the process of creating your profile. It'll pull the information stored on the account, like name and address, but fortunately you can edit it. You can add a photo to represent yourself as well. There are many PhotoBooth-style filters available, so have fun playing around.

Note that your photo won't go live until Apple approves it. Mine took a good 20 minutes to show up, and others have said the same thing. Just be patient, it'll get there.

Click below to read more.

Gallery: How to set up Ping

TUAWiTunes 101: How to set up Ping originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A few months ago, Twitter announced that they had acquired Tweetie and the web (I refuse to use the word "blogosphere" because it is a stupid word) exploded with predictions that they had effectively killed off the market for 3rd party Twitter applications by offering a free alternative.

With the release of Twitter as a universal app that now includes iPad support (read the official announcement here) I feel confident that the reports of the death of 3rd party Twitter applications have been greatly exaggerated.

The UI for Twitter for iPad is, without question, unlike any other Twitter application that we've seen. Opinions around the TUAW offices differ on whether this difference is "awesome" or "an abomination." I definitely range towards the latter end of the scale, and judging by most of the comments of people that I follow on Twitter, the initial reaction is definitely one of "too busy" and "over designed."

This is in sharp contrast to Twitterrific, which just released a major update for the iPad and iPhone where the Iconfactory made dramatic simplifications to the app, while retaining the most important features for the most users. (Craig Hockenberry talked about those changes here.)

TUAWOfficial Twitter app updated for iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you have a secret love affair with shoulder padded t-shirts (that you wear around the house when no one's looking), and you instinctively roll up your sleeves when you put on your favourite blazer jacket (and don't get why people look at you funny), then here's an app for you.

Back in June Akai Professional released SynthStation for the iPhone / iPod touch, and we got excited. Very excited. Why? Because we love synths, especially when they are the old school type (cue Terminator soundtrack). And it just so happens to be that Akai has got a rather large name for itself when it comes to synths, especially the old school type. So we decided to take a closer look. You know, any opportunity to lay down some ominous beats over a sea of warm pulsating analog synth.

SynthStation is an all-in-one mobile music creation setup. It comprises of three virtual analog synths sonically tailored for melodies, chords and bass lines respectively. To go with your texture, there's a comprehensive and customizable drum kit, too. Add some awesome sounding synth effects, a sequencer, on the fly input and tweaking, a mixer to pull it all together and you've got yourself a package that Thom Yorke may even appreciate for his next solo project.

TUAWCount The Beats: Akai brings the analog synth to your iPhone, and more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Billboard has announced that it will be giving awards out for iOS music apps (of all things). At the Music App Summit on October 5th, Billboard will choose winning iOS apps in six different categories, from Best Artist App and Best Music Creation App to Best Branded Music App. You can find the full list of nominees after the break, and there are some recognizable names on there, including a Phish touring app, TUAW favorite I am T-Pain, and the now Disney-owned Tap Tap Revenge.

Winners will be announced at the summit, and they will be selected by a panel of judges that includes (not kidding about this) MC Hammer and a bunch of CEOs and marketing folks. It seems silly (and let's face it... it is), but Billboard is a big deal in the music industry, and this means that the dinosaur-like recording giants are at least starting to notice the effect that apps have on artist profiles. Plus, it's good to see LaDiDa get a little more attention -- I liked that one.

TUAWBillboard nominates music app awards originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sometimes you roll along, having a pretty good day... and sometimes, you just want a giant worm to rise up out of the ground and destroy everything. Super Mega Worm is for that second type of day. (You'll have to find something else for the first -- Doodle Jump, perhaps?) It's a game where you control a gigantic worm on a 2D field. You use a slider (or the accelerometer) to direct it through the soil and up onto the surface of the Earth, where puny little humans await their inevitable destruction. The game is funny in a morbid way; you end up cheering for the little worm as it grows (and learns new abilities) over time, and eventually, you'll find yourself reveling in the destruction of the human race.

Quality pixelated graphics and excellent sounds help immersion a lot, and the control scheme is surprisingly fitting for the kind of movement that the worm does. There's even a little mini-game in jumping off of various vehicles into the atmosphere and exploring the game field in both directions. Super Mega Worm isn't really a title for the faint of heart; even though the graphics are pretty retro, things get gory fast. But if you've ever found yourself laughing at or cheering for the monster in a horror movie, Super Mega Worm will probably dig its way into your free time. The game is US$2.99 on the App Store right now.

TUAWTUAW's Daily App: Super Mega Worm originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you been waiting all day for iTunes 10 to go live? It finally has. Although the download page remains a little spotty, this direct link seems to work fine for downloading. We're installing our version right now and will update with fun iTunes facts as we discover them.

Happy Pinging, everyone!

Update: Windows link to supplement the OS X one above. And an x64 link as well. (Thank you to everyone pitching in in the comments!)

Update: See our gallery of installation and setup screenshots.

p.s. Hey, we're on Ping! Come share our awful musical tastes (Erica Sadun, Steven Sande, Victor Agreda, Dave Caolo, etc)! And let us share yours!

Gallery: iTunes 10

TUAWiTunes 10. It lives originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You saw them in the keynote today, now watch them again in the privacy of your own home: the new iPod touch and iPod nano television ads are live on Apple.com and on Apple's YouTube channel. "All kinds of fun," indeed.

(If you're a fan of NBC's Chuck, like some of us are, you may appreciate that Cake's Short Skirt/Long Jacket -- the show's theme song -- is featured in the new nano ad.)

[via MacRumors]

TUAWNew iPod commercials now on Apple.com and YouTube originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The public servants at the FCC are earning their keep today, favoring us with several PDFs full of lovely, detailed images of both the internal and external design of the soon-to-ship iPod touch.

Check out the gallery below for several of the pictures, and consider how much nicer it will be when you actually have the new hotness in hand.

Gallery: iPod touch internals from the FCC

[via Engadget, their video hands-on of the new iPod is after the break]

TUAWFCC dissects the new iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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