Tennis for Everybody special price cut May 5 and
May 6

post from prMac on 04 May 2012 04:22:00 PM. © prMac

California-based developer Selectsoft is offering the iOS app Tennis for everybody on sale this weekend only. Enjoy an exciting and fun way to get in shape on your iPhone(R) or iPad(R) by learning how to play tennis. Follow along as our expert instructor demonstrates beginning techniques with step-by-step video lessons. Tennis is fun way for anyone to get in shape! Grab a racquet and balls and start improving your speed, strength, stamina and agility with this classic sport.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-42144.htm

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Jesus App to Win the Smart App Challenge

post from prMac on 04 May 2012 04:16:00 PM. © prMac

Personal Jesus Asian Edition participates on the "Smart App Challenge" with the main goal spreading the Gospel of Christ in China. The Mobile Asia Expo will take place in the city of Shangai, China between 20th & 22nd of June, and is looking for the best and most efficient app. Personal Jesus Asian Edition aims not only to win the 2 tickets prize to the expo, but most significant to approach the avid Chinese population. Personal Jesus needs people to like his 50 second video on YouTube.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-42150.htm

Digg this

iPad Keyboard Prototype

post from Daring Fireball on 04 May 2012 04:02:57 PM. © Daring Fireball

Quite clever iPad text editing concept video by Daniel Hooper. I am not convinced that this is a solution that Apple would actually consider, but, the problem it tries to solve is very real. Once you get used to it, the iPad keyboard isn’t bad for typing, but no matter how acclimated you are it’s poor for editing. It’s fiddly, slow, and (because you have to take a hand off the keyboard) disruptive to select text.

?

Read The Full Article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGQTaHGQ04Q

Digg this

iOS Dropbox App Kerfuffle Ends, but Highlights
Confusion About Guidelines

post from Daring Fireball on 04 May 2012 04:02:57 PM. © Daring Fireball

Nice piece by Jacqui Cheng on the recent rash of App Store rejections of apps that integrate with Dropbox. (Spoiler: it’s all about the benjamins.)

?

Read The Full Article:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/05/ios-dropbox-app-kerfuffle-has-ended-but
-highlights-confusion-about-guidelines.ars

Digg this

Games for the weekend: Lunar Racer

post from Apple on 04 May 2012 03:03:39 PM. © Apple

Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we?ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome enough to keep you busy until Monday, at least.

Lunar Racer (Free, Universal) is a side-scrolling 2D racing game set in space. Your lunar race car is customized to drive on the various moons within our solar system. So what’s the catch? In this racing game you don’t even steer!

Lunar Racer

The big difference between racing here on earth and racing on the moon is that the moon has a much lower gravitational force. This allows races on the moon to take place just as much above ground as on it. And that is how you win races — by balancing the amount of time you spend launching your racer into orbit, and how much time you spend grounded on the surface. In your lunar racer there are two controls: One you use to control your boost, and the other controls your gravity field. The first will propel you faster and faster into space, and the other will bring you right back down to the surface. As for acceleration, as soon as you are dropped off on the moon, your lunar racer automatically starts racing. There is no gas pedal, there are no breaks, and you don’t even have to steer. One full trip around the moon is a lap.

Lunar Racer

Giving your racer a boost of nitro just before hitting a crater, you can launch yourself into low orbit. Once your racer is space-borne, you have to control the pitch of your racer by tilting the device back and forth. This control not only prevents you from crashing, but also enables you to perform forward and backward flips. Your skills are further measured by how long you remain in space, as well as how well you land back on the surface. Each race will have three unique challenges where you will need to perform multiple combinations of these space stunts in order to earn more lunar bucks. Focusing on just the stunts will not help you win the race. Along the way, there are regenerating power ups that equips each racer with various weapons and shields to help you and your opponents on your way to victory.

Lunar Racer

The different terrain on the various moons in the solar system makes each race a unique challenge. Some moons are smooth, round and fast. While others are bumpy, oddly shaped and cavernous. But before you can race on the next moon, you have to earn your stars by winning races and completing challenges on the current moon. Each new moon race is unlocked buy a certain number of stars. On each moon there are two kinds of races where you can earn up to three stars each, an amateur tour and a pro tour. You must earn all three stars on a moon’s amateur tour before you can race and win stars on the pro tour.

Lunar Racer

Along the way you earn lunar bucks that can be used to upgrade your racer. While some of the upgrades are more about style, others do seem to have a real impact on the outcome of the race. Each combination of upgrades affect the speed and weight of the racer which in turn affects your ability to jump and land the vehicle. And where this is most important is when you challenge up to four of your friends in multiplayer mode. Over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, you will want to make sure that your customized lunar racer has what it takes to beat your local competition.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Read The Full Article:
http://gigaom.com/apple/games-for-the-weekend-lunar-racer/

Digg this

Father Time, Still Undefeated

post from Daring Fireball on 04 May 2012 03:03:36 PM. © Daring Fireball

Yours truly, on 42-year-old Yankees great Mariano Rivera’s tragic, fluke, season-ending knee injury:

Time?s effects, even against Rivera — the most graceful andelegant ballplayer I?ve ever seen, the closest thing in sports toan ageless wonder — are ignominious. The Yankees often win, butin the end, time always wins — the one opponent against whicheven the Yankees will forever be underdogs. To struggle againsttime is to struggle against the inevitable. We all know you can?tbeat time, but the joy of these aging Yankees is that sometimesyou can get lucky and race ahead of it for a while. But now this.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://americanmccarver.com/2012/05/father-time-still-undefeated/

Digg this

Have a jailbroken iPhone There’s a warranty
for that

post from Apple on 04 May 2012 02:03:33 PM. © Apple

It?s fairly widely known that if you jailbreak your iPhone it almost certainly voids the device?s warranty from Apple. The policy is meant to broadly discourage modifying the software and loading apps from sources other than the App Store, as well as introducing unsupported features or wireless carriers.

But what if you could get a warranty on a jailbroken device from someone who isn?t Apple?

Turns out you can. SquareTrade, the third-party warranty provider, is a company that has no problem replacing or fixing an iPhone, iPad, or really any smartphone whose software has been modified. The company’s new warranty policy, which starts at $60 for an iPhone, will fix or replace a device regardless of what’s been done to the software.

The technical expertise necessary to jailbreak an iPhone is itself a natural limiter of how many devices are jailbroken. But the warranty threat was another big deterrent. SquareTrade’s new offer does change the risk factor involved.

Apple?s attitude toward jailbreaking is laid out in a Knowledge Base article posted to its site:

Apple strongly cautions against installing any software that hacks the iOS. It is also important to note that unauthorized modification of the iOS is a violation of the iPhone end-user license agreement and because of this, Apple may deny service for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that has installed any unauthorized software.

From Apple’s perspective, the reasoning is related to the company’s goal of ensuring a uniform user experience. The entire philosophy behind the App Store — besides Apple getting a cut of every paid app that goes on a device and generally controlling all aspects of the device — is that Apple employees vet the apps for buggy code and security problems. Loading software onto an iOS device that hasn?t been vetted in theory could create a user experience with which Apple doesn?t want to be associated.

SquareTrade?s VP of Strategy Vince Tseng told me it makes no difference to SquareTrade what users do with the software. ?We are here to help the Apple community, and if they want something Apple doesn?t provide we are here for them,? he said.

The warranty policy covers any software modification, but hardware mods are off limits. ?Our general philosophy is that if a device hasn?t been played around with on the inside we don?t have a problem with that,” said Tseng.

Included in the company’s definition of hardware modifications? Filed-off serial numbers, meaning that SquareTrade is (wisely) shying away from offering warranties for potentially stolen devices.

Tseng acknowledges this policy isn?t targeting a huge group — jailbreakers aren?t a very large segment of the Apple community, he says — but those that do modify their iOS software are an important demographic when it comes to the future of the platform, believes.

?Is it the majority of iPhone owners? It?s not. But they are the community that is out there expanding the possibility of what the iPhone can do,? said Tseng. ?Apple has already had a touchy relationship with those kinds of people. Unofficially, they get some benefit out of it, but at an official level they want nothing to do with people modifying their devices.?

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Read The Full Article:
http://gigaom.com/apple/have-a-jailbroken-iphone-theres-a-warranty-for-that/

Digg this

I Had All the Ideas for Star Wars and Everything

Swiss film director Nathaniel Hörnblowér, righteously calling out the travesty of the best director award at the 1994 MTV VMAs. (Skip to 2:15.)

?

Read The Full Article:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-ya6gBI4w&feature=player_detailpage#t=135s

Digg this

Beastie Boys Co-Founder Adam Yauch Dead at 47

Rolling Stone:

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the BeastieBoys, has died at the age of 47, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch,also known as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009.The rapper was diagnosed in 2009 after discovering a tumor in hissalivary gland.

?

Read The Full Article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beastie-boys-co-founder-adam-yauch-dead-at
-48-20120504

Digg this