Archive for year 2007
Addictive Game: Bubble Trouble
44 years ago
I knew it was a matter of time before my finger would make it’s way to the Games section of the Apple Web Apps page for the iPod touch. Now that it has I’ve fast become addicted to Bubble Trouble.
The aim is quite simple: Pop the same colour adjacent bubbles, in blocks of three or more. The more bubbles you pop in a tap equals more points. My highest score so far is 3407 3515 (as of 19 October). See if you can beat that on your iPhone or iPod touch 
iMac and Leopard
2Mac OS X Leopard was officially announced today and we can expect it in our hands on Friday 26th October. I will be ordering the new 20in iMac next Friday when Leopard will ship with it. For those who bought their eligible Mac’s between 1st October 2007 and December 29th 2007 they will be able to get Leopard for £5.95 ($9.95 US)
I actually placed an order for the new 20in iMac, early September. However, due to a shipment delay I was starting to think “Shall I wait just that little bit longer, for Leopard?” and I promptly cancelled it. I then purchased the iPod touch touch to keep me entertained and I must say it’s done a good job of it so far
So, expect an exciteable entry when I’ve ordered the iMac and an even more exciteable one when I’ve taken delivery of it. My Mac Mini, current Mighty Mouse and aluminum keyboard will then be sold on to a good and loving (I hope) home. It’s served me well for over 2 years and it’s still going strong 
Commenting issue
8A friend alerted me to a problem while commenting on this site. I was able to duplicate the problem earlier today but it seems to have sorted itself out now. The error was this after commenting…
So, still not sure why that was appearing as clearly Graham nor myself were posting in quick succession. If you have this problem when trying to make a comment then please e-mail me via the contact page above. Another workaround I found was to click on the X on the toolbar underneath the comment box before pressing submit. That seemed to work but obviously I’m still not satisfied. I’ll look into it more and post an update.
UPDATE: Removed the coComment script and all seems to be working well.
Apple Web Apps
14 years ago
Today Apple launched their new Web Apps page for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can access popular social networking sites such as Facebook, keep up with news sites like Digg and get the current weather for your area, aswell as games and productivity tools. I for one will be keeping a close eye on this page and look forward to it’s development when more apps are available.
One of the Social Networking apps which is featured on Apple Web apps is Hahlo which is a Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod touch. I discovered this yesterday as I searched for an alternative to PocketTweets which was taking quite a while to load for me over the past few days. Hahlo has now become my number one choice for the iPod touch. Gorgeous UI but more importantly it loads much quicker than the others I’ve played around with recently…
I’m also looking forward to seeing some Instant Messaging apps making their way to Apple Web Apps. I have been playing with JiveTalk for iPhone today, by beejive. This is a really cool little app that makes staying in contact with your AIM/.Mac, Yahoo, Windows Live, Google Talk, MySpace, ICQ and Jabber buddies on the move an absolute breeze. I tried this out today with my .Mac account and found it to be really slick and I particularly love the iChat interface. Typing on the iPod touch on-screen keyboard is a little more fiddly than it would be if you’re at your Mac, but it’s so nice to have an app like this for those moments when you want to catch up quickly with someone, especially as the iPod touch doesn’t come with a Mail client.
Mailplane
34 years ago
I’ve been using the desktop Google Mail app for the Mac, Mailplane, for about 2 months now, since receiving a beta invite. I wasn’t sure whether I would use it that much as I just have the one Google Mail account and I was already using the Google Notifier in my menu bar to keep up with mail going to that account.
Mailplane takes the pain out of checking my GMail and since using this I’ve actually handled my mail a lot better. I reply quicker than when I was having to open my browser to get to the GMail page. Growl also notifies me so I can quickly read a snippet of the e-mail when it comes in without having to disturb my workflow.
Once out of beta Mailplane will require a license. The price was announced last week – $24.95 for a single user license. It was a little more expensive than I was expecting so I decided that once out of beta I would just go back to my simple little GMail notifier. However, an e-mail from Mailplane today reveals a new introductory offer of $19.95 for all 1.x updates. This is a little more tempting to me and I’d buy it in a heartbeat, but I have a little concern about how much it will cost to renew when v2 comes along, especially if it arrives within 6-12 months.
So, I’m going to think about it a little longer. I think it’s a great product and I’m sure people with several GMail accounts will really find that it takes the pain out of checking. But, for someone with one account which mostly gets notifications rather than e-mail that needs urgently replying to then I’m just not sure. If Mailplane were available as an app for the iPod touch then I would not hesitate in buying a license
I have 1 invite left for Mailplane beta. If you’d like to try it out then simply leave a comment here and I’ll get one off to you
iPod touch Wallpaper
1If you have an iPod touch you may want to change the default wallpaper. The touch has 28 built in wallpapers for you to choose from, but if that isn’t enough then how about choosing from these fun character faces at Gizmodo.
There’s also lots of other iPod touch wallpaper resources popping up on the internet. To save these to your iPod, simply download them to your Mac, then open up iTunes with your iPod attached, click on the ‘Photos’ tab and then sync with iPhoto and choose the library where you saved your wallpapers. Then from your iPod click ‘Photos’ in the dock, select the album you saved the image(s) to, click on the image you want to use then select the bottom left icon which will ask you if you’d like to set this as your wallpaper. Done.
Top 3 Twitter Apps for OS X
94 years ago
If like me you’re a Twitter addict then following your friends updates at the Twitter site just isn’t enough. Luckily there are Twitter apps for OS X to download to your desktop so you never miss a beat. Here are some recommendations…
Left to right: Twitterrific, Tweetr, TwitterPost
Favourites in reverse order…
TwitterPost has quite a basic interface. It displays a badge on the dock icon which lets you know how many tweets have been posted since you last logged in. This is quite a nice feature.
Tweetr has an almost iChat interface. Quite pretty with more extras than Twitterrific or TwitterPost deliver such as 3 views: tweets, replies and direct messages. You can also take a picture via your webcam, directly within the Tweetr application and instantly upload them to share with Twitter friends.
Twitterrific has been my Twitter app of choice for 6 months now and is my personal favourite out of the three listed here. It’s got a nice clean user interface. It may not have the extra bells and whistles such as the 3 views that come with Tweetr, but it’s still my favourite.
PocketTweets
0A couple of weeks ago I found out about a site called PocketTweets which is a web-based Twitter client for the iPhone. It also works on the iPod touch.
It’s got a gorgeous sleek iPhone exclusive interface and you can see replies and direct messages easily via the toolbar. Since I am a Twitter-holic this has just helped feed my addiction even more as it’s such a pleasure to use.
iPod touch
I received my iPod touch 8GB yesterday and have rarely put it down in the past 24 hours.
It’s everything I imagined it to be and more. From the moment I lifted it out of it’s beautiful box it was like holding something light years ahead of it’s time. The whole transition from one application the other is so smooth. When I switched it on I headed into ‘Settings’ to set up wi-fi. Immediately it picked up my network aswell as my neighbours. Clicked on my network name, entered the password and I was up and running. It was so quick, no problems.
The iPod touch interface, as you can see above, is gorgeous. One of the things that has impressed me so far about the touch is the ability to have more than one page open at a time (picture above right). This is something I’ve always wanted from a handheld device and the iPod touch has delivered. Browsing websites with Safari is a lovely experience as it’s a proper browser, not a mobile one where pages appear messed up if not optimised for mobile devices.
Now, to music. I didn’t sync my iPod touch with iTunes as I wanted to transfer music manually. My whole purchased music library only comes to 1GB, so the 8GB is perfect for my needs. I also plan on buying a new iMac in a few weeks so wanted to put the extra money towards that.
Coverflow on the iPod touch is stunning – friends and family in awe as you simply flick your finger across your music collection and it scrolls through. A beautiful touch. I also find the text input easier than I thought I would. Just a gentle touch to the on-screen keyboard is enough.
At the moment I have nothing even remotely negative to say about the iPod touch. I haven’t added many songs to it yet and no TV shows or my own movies have made their way onto it. I’m looking forward to doing that so I can see how good the screen really is.
Oh, and I may aswell address a question here that I’m frequently asked…
Q: Why have you bought the iPod touch and not the iPhone?
A: I would love the iPhone. Show me an Apple fan who wouldn’t. I knew the monthly tariff for the iPhone was going to be beyond £30 so I wasn’t surprised to hear that the lowest plan costs £35 per month for 200 texts, 200 calls, unlimited data and free wi-fi via The Cloud. That in itself is not a bad deal, but since I don’t use my phone as much as some people it just wouldn’t be worth it for me personally to pay £35 a month…even if it *is* for something so stunning as the iPhone. I am already an o2 customer and I managed to get a good deal last november when I upgraded my handset. I was given the £30 a month 400 texts/400 calls deal for just £15 a month and it’s way more than I’ll ever need. Never say never, though. If things change then who knows
Recent Comments