 |
|
At some point in your life, you might want to buy someone an App for the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad without having to simply buy a gift card and telling them which App to get. Until the latest iTunes update, this was impossible. Now, however, Apple is kindly allowing us to give the gift of Apps. Starting earlier this week, Apple now allows users to buy an app for a friend or loved one (or enemy, depending on the App) as a gift via the App Store. Next time you try to download a new App you’ll likely be prompted with a new copy of Apple’s ToS, which details the change in legalese. Before you get too excited, there are a few limitations: You can’t use gift cards to purchase an App as a gift for someone else, you can’t gift in-App subscriptions or purchases, you can’t “gift” an OS update for the iPod Touch, and, of course, App gifts are non-refundable.
Semi-Serious Side Note: If anyone reading this wants to buy me some fun new App to be reviewed here, just let me know in the comments.
Ever wonder how Apple got its name? A great article over at Business Insider reveals how Apple as well as 12 other Silicon Valley giants originally got their name.
According to their article, Steve Jobs’ favorite fruit is apples. “The company was three months late in filing for a name and a trademark, so one day Steve Jobs challenged the other founders to come up with a better name than “Apple” by the end of the day or else that’s what he would file. The rest is history.”
Rumors coming in from various places around the web are reporting that Apple has decided to stop screen protectors from being sold in Apple stores. According to sources for MacWorld, “Apple will no longer sell such products, or any other products that adhere to Apple devices, in either the online Apple Store or Apple retail stores.” This apparently even includes the anti-glare film that is being sold to fit pretty much any Apple laptop. The reasoning behind this move is not exactly clear, as this has been one of the best selling iPhone and iPod accessories, but an educated guess would say that Apple doesn’t want to give off the impression that such protection is needed. This writer will, however, continue to keep one on his iPhone.
Although you will likely not find these at Apple stores, you can always still buy them online
Thanks to a great new discovery by 9to5Mac, there is news of two new types of gestures that have popped up in the iPad SDK 3.2b4. As seen in the picture below, the devices will presumably now include an option for developers to use a “3 Tap” and a “Long Press”. The long press is currently used exclusively by the OS itself for the pop-up copy menu; The 3 tap is used to toggle the display on or off while using VoiceOver. Both of these however, will now be available for developers to include within their applications to perform other functions. Although there is no official word yet that these will be also available to developers for the iPod Touch and iPhone, it is probably safe to assume that they will be.
They’ve been teasing us about this for quite some time, but now it’s official. Valve’s digital distribution service Steam is coming to Mac in April, and it is bringing it’s most popular titles with it. Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and, of course, the Half-Life series (along with Source) will all be available for Mac users everywhere. Not only that, but you will be able to play the games cross platform – starting on a Mac and continuing the game on a PC, or visa versa. Still not awesome enough? Mac and PC versions will be bundled together for a single price, so you don’t have to buy one copy for your PC and another for your Mac.
Here’s the press release:
VALVE TO DELIVER STEAM & SOURCE ON MAC
Leading Gaming Service Expands to Mac Platform
March 8, 2010 – Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve’s gaming service, and Source, Valve’s gaming engine, to the Mac.
Steam and Valve’s library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.
“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”
“Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac,” said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. “Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play.”
“We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”
Portal 2 will be Valve’s first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. “Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step,” said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. “We’re always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.
Anyone who’s ever played multiplayer online games enjoys them and this is no exception when it comes it iPhone and/or iPod Touch (and soon to be iPad) gaming. The following 5 free games are all internet-enabled multiplayer games that any serious iPhone gamer will enjoy.
Words With Friends Free is in a league of its own. As we’ve said previously, this is easily the absolute best word game available for the iPhone today and the online play earns it the top spot on this list. Don’t let the title deceive you, this should be installed even if you don’t have friends.
Chess With Friends Free comes from the same people who brought us Words With Friends, but instead of a Scrabble-esque game, you get to play chess with friends, random opponents, or I suppose even your enemies. If you’re looking to learn this classic strategy game or just practice your chess skills, this is the app to do it with.
Mancala FS5 Free is a hugely addictive version of Mancala for your iPhone. This classic game of who can get the most beads is hugely addictive and the online play is very competitive. If you liked playing this game as a kid, you’ll loving having it on your phone where you can play against AIM buddies, the computer, or just random players.
Live Poker is pretty self explanatory. Play poker, live, against other people. This ties in with the hugely popular version for Facebook, allowing you to play against your friends. It gives you 1000 free chips a day to play with, so don’t worry about going broke. The interface is clean, easy to use, and makes online free poker a fun time-waster.
Cube is one of the first and arguably the best first person shooter available today for the iPhone platform. It can be both single- or multiplayer and provides fast, fun gameplay. The controls take a bit to get accustomed to, but once you’ve got them down you’ll be fragging with the best of them.
For the past week, I have changed by default browser on both my home and work computers (Apple iMacs running Mac OS X Snow Leopard
The Good
The absolute first thing I noticed when I opened it up is that if I had blinked, I would have missed it. When it comes to opening speed, Firefox is, well, slow. I had previously thought Safari was quick to load, but Chrome even makes Apple’s default browser seem sluggish. Beyond just opening, page loading is also speedy and smooth. Also a terrific feature is the ever-growing selection of extensions. This is something that I’ve always enjoyed about Firefox and is a great first step if Google wants me to switch over to their offering. Even the interface itself is clean, intuitive, and simple to use. Overall it is a very appealing browser and is constantly being updated with new features trying to stay ahead of the competition.
The Bad
I’m not a big fan of the search box and address bar merger. I have a ton of different search engines that I use regularly and the ability to rapidly toggle between them. Chrome, sadly, does not make this an easy task.
The Ugly
There were more than just a handful of sites with nagging visual errors that just simply are not there when using Firefox or Safari. I can overlook just about every other issue I have with Chrome, but incorrectly displaying pages that I frequent is a dealbreaker.
After a week, I will admit I am impressed. Although Google Chrome will not be usurping Firefox as my primary browser, it has earned a spot in my Applications folder and I will be continuing to use it as a secondary browser.
Apple briefly released – and then unreleased – the iPad SDK the other day, and much to the surprise of those who got their hands on it, there was camera support. Needless to say it is impossible to know if this was for a once toyed-with feature that was taken out or for the possibility of inclusion in future models, but the software development kid includes support for a front facing camera, camera flash, zoom and even video conferencing.
For those of you who consider the glass half full, this could mean the potential future inclusion of a camera, but the realists out there probably realize that this was a once included feature that was cut for one reason or another.
Follow Chai Life
Top Shared Posts
8 
3008 
2757
