Info Laptop

The weekend has arrived, bringing with it the opportunity to reach that perfect state of iPhone-related relaxation: open the App Store and get ready to download the latest recommendations.

Before we get to the weekly picks, it’s time to take our usual look back at Apple news for the past seven days.

First up, more odd goings on with Apple’s utterly inconsistent App Store approvals process. This time round, Apple has chosen to banish Google Voice from the App Store. This means apps that allow users to access the Google Voice service, such as GV Mobile and Voice Central, have been disconnected from iTunes. An incredibly disappointing decision on Apple’s part.

It seems that some over-enthusiastic Chinese peripheral manufacturers have produced cases for Apple’s unannounced forthcoming Nano and iPod touch updates. As expected, we’re going to be seeing a camera-integrated touch and a Nano with a wider screen and smaller wheel. And let’s not forget the usual weekly rumor about Apple’s tablet too.

Staying in China for a moment — Chinese Apple fans have cause to celebrate this week as China is finally getting an official release for the iPhone. The device will be released via China Unicom, a carrier with over 135 million subscribers.

Our own David Appleyard posted a truly wonderful tutorial for those interested in customizing their Macs. David introduces BootXChanger, an application that allows you to change the default OS X Boot Icon. It’s an incredibly simple and potentially visually-yummy hack. So simple in fact that I’m considering replacing my Apple boot logo with Katamari Damacy.

From an unexpected corner of the portable media player galaxy comes news of the Zii Egg. The device, a handheld StemCell Computer running Android, is being touted as a serious competitor to the iPhone and iPod touch. It looks gorgeous and the specs are certainly up to par, however it’s worth remembering that it’s the content — namely the apps — that makes a device, not the hardware.

And finally, in its ongoing battle with the iPhone jailbreaking community, Apple has announced that jailbreaking could disable transmission towers. I’d have to side with Darrell that this sounds much like sensationalist scare tactics.

Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at Ghostly Discovery, Let It Sleep, The Secret of Monkey Island and Space Invaders Infinity Gene.

Ghostly Discovery (Free)
Ghostly International, electronic record label extraordinaire, just keeps pushing it forwards, signing Internet-electronica superstar Tycho, releasing a compilation album with Adult Swim as a free download and now creating their own music streaming app. The app allows you to decide what kind of music you hear (all of which is from Ghostly’s catalogue), based on your mood or how digital/organic you’d like the tracks to be. Best of all, this gorgeous-looking streaming music box is absolutely free — for folk who like their ambient synths, glitches and bleeps and other electronic noises, this is an absolutely essential download.

Let It Sleep (99 cents)
Occasionally an app comes along that’s a bit of an oddity, and Let It Sleep falls in to this category. It’s not genuinely useful, but it is functional in a charming kind of way. Wrapped in John Lennon-inspired artwork (a reference to Let It Be), the app allows you to record your nocturnal noises. Using the iPhone’s mic, the app will start recording if you trigger the sound sensor. It’s very sweet and, for only a buck, certainly worth downloading. Especially worthwhile if you’re curious as to what goes on at night while you’re sleeping.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition ($7.99)
A classic of the point ‘n’ click graphic adventure genre, Monkey Island is fondly remembered by many for its painfully obscure puzzles, wit-infused sword play and laugh out loud script. Sure it was horrendously difficult for most kids (and many adults too), but it was all about the journey: becoming Guybrush Threepwood, grogging it up with pirates and locating Monkey Island. Now the original game has arrived on iPhone complete with the same bizarre puzzles. The control scheme is disappointing, given the potential for re-designing the interface around the iPhone, but it’s still the same classic adventure.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene ($4.99)
Another classic video game in this week’s App Store picks, except this one has been totally re-imagined and re-equipped for the iPhone. This isn’t your daddy’s Space Invaders as Infinity Gene packs in gorgeous vectorized graphics and an armory of fresh weaponry too. The game stays true to its roots though. It’s still 2D, the invaders are still as iconic as ever, but now the gameplay and visuals evolve as you advance. Japanese game shop Taito have built something special here, capturing the essence of the retro shooter while blending it with modern gameplay conventions.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

---

Your Web is Wireless. Mobilize 09
$595 Regular, $395 limited time
Register now!

It’s the world’s first handheld StemCell Computer. It sports 1080p HD output, X-Fi Audio processing, a ten-point multi-gesture capacitive touchscreen, text-to-speech engine and expandable SDHC memory. It’s got lots more, too.

And it’s running Android.

In short, it’s a mobile device that beats the pants off the iPod touch — in hard, cold specs, at the very least. The Egg is built using the new wave of multimedia hardware and software from ZiiLABS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology. Here’s the blurb from the official website.

“The Zii EGG is an energy efficient handheld StemCell Computer based on the powerful ZiiLABS ZMS-05 media-rich applications processor. Besides its multi-touch 3.5-inch LCD screen, it can also output HD video at up to 1080p. The ZMS-05’s 24 floating-point processors deliver up to 8 GFLOPS of raw processing power, while the StemCell Computing’s flexible architecture allows stunning display of 3D graphics on a small handheld battery powered device.”

Although the Egg isn’t a mobile phone, it soon could be. ZiiLABS is allowing third parties to develop for and re-brand the device. The only thing stopping this from being a mobile phone is a cellular transceiver, and they’re not so hard to find. And because it already runs Google’s Android operating system, it won’t take a lot of software jiggery-pokery to get the thing making calls.

Even without cellphone functionality, the current specs of the Zii Egg put the iPod touch to shame. And with the Zii Plaszma and Android platforms as a foundation (both of which are open-source and free, therefore very attractive to OEM’s in today’s economic climate) the Egg promises real future innovation and creativity in a market that has, since 2007, only been playing catch-up with Apple. Using the Egg, Apple’s competitors might get their 15 minutes of fame. Remember, this is a first-generation release that already boasts more bells and whistles than any of the top devices already available on the market. OEM’s have a great starting-point, and they didn’t have to do any of that pesky, expensive R&D work to get to it.

Although you can’t buy it in the shops, it is available to developers and OEM’s as part of a pre-order kit for a paltry $399. For a device that truly comes close to the iPhone in size, style, function and development promise, this may be the first to truly deserve the title “iPhone Killer.”

---

Netbooks or Netbooms. Find out at Mobilize 09
New ideas and new contacts. 1 day.
Learn More »

It just wouldn’t be a normal news week without the rumor-mill churning out more “proof” of unannounced products. For a change, this rumor is not about the fabled tablet device, but instead, it’s the turn of the next-generation iPods touch and Nano. Specifically, their happy-snappy new camera functionality.

According to a report on Cult of Mac, the features and dimensions of the next versions of the iPod touch and iPod Nano, while officially a secret in America, are China’s worst kept secret. Apparently, manufacturers in China have started producing cases for the devices, and CoM offers up dozens of photos of them in all their silicon glory.

If they’re genuine, there are no big surprises, save for the fact that the iPod touch camera is located in the top center of the device, not in one corner, as one would find in its iPhone cousin. Also noted, the Nano’s screen will get wider, making its click wheel smaller.

No word on camera resolution, or whether the Nano will be able to record video, though the assumption is made that the iPod touch will.

The revised iPod models are due in September, when Apple usually refreshes that product line.

---

Market research you can use:
Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure.
Learn more »

By now, we’re no stranger to rumors of a new iPod touch model complete with a built-in camera and microphone. Even without sources backing up these claims, it just seems like the logical next step for Apple to take with the device if it wants to keep providing consumers with an incentive to upgrade. The latest word is not only that these rumors are accurate, but that the device in question is already on the assembly line in China.

The source, a “well-connected” one talking to Wired.com, claims that circulating rumors about the camera and microphone are both spot on. They even confirm that the camera included in the new iPod touch (which was last updated at the beginning of September in 2008, making this the longest interval between model changes) will indeed be able to capture both images and video. And it will include an external mic, in addition to the external speaker and headset support included in the current iteration.

As Wired points out, this will make it an ideal device for use with existing Skype applications already available in the App Store. The combination of the two could make the iPod touch a viable home phone replacement for those who already only use their landlines for long distance anyways. They also note that combined with a Verizon MiFi, it basically becomes an iPhone without the cruddy AT&T network and attendant charges.

I’d long suspected that Apple was holding off on including these phone-like features in the iPod touch to differentiate between it and the iPhone in order to avoid cannibalizing sales, but my own experience has been that touch owners are much more inclined toward an iPhone purchase than not. I think Apple has realized this “gateway drug” phenomenon has little to do with hardware features and a lot to do with a constant data connection and cell phone features.

Which leads me to believe that they only reason they’re pacing the release of the rest of the iPhone’s extra bells and whistles to their portable media player platform is for differentiation between models, not across product lines. That means there’s hope for GPS integration in future versions, which I think we’ll see if turn-by-turn apps on the iPhone become a significant success. Also don’t forget that the iPod touch was actually the first to get built-in Nike+ support, so expect to see at least one surprise when this device does launch, which should be in two to three months, if Wired’s source is accurate.

---

Market research you can use:
Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure.
Learn more »

The stars must be in alignment, because I only just finished watching “2 Fast, 2 Furious” this past weekend (yes, boredom can make you do terrible things) and now it’s been revealed that the follow-up, “Fast & Furious”, will boast some innovative new features when it hits Blu-ray July 28. Universal has just announced that the Special Edition Blu-ray release of the Vin Diesel/Paul Walker car film will ship with an iPhone app that interacts with the disc media.

It’s an intriguing use of both an iPhone application and BDLive capabilities, which, on compatible Blu-ray players, allow the disc media to connect with a viewer’s Wi-Fi network in order to download content, connect directly with other users, and so on. So far, I’ve yet to use the BDLive features on any of the Blu-ray movies I own, since they seem largely to be silly bells and whistles included just for the sake of increasing the value proposition of the disc-based media.

While I’m not actually much of a “Fast & Furious” franchise fan, despite (or because of) my weekend viewing, I do want to get my hands on a copy of this new special edition to see just how the iPhone integration is executed. So far, all that’s clear from Universal’s release on the subject is that the iPhone app will be able to control a special feature that allows viewers to view and interact with different cars from the movie in a virtual garage. The app will be released free via the App Store for Special Edition owners to download.

I’m hoping they don’t stop there, since it would probably be a simple next step to include playback controls in the very same app. Even without that, though, this could represent a turning point for special features and movie tie-in apps alike, both of which right now seem like weak promotional tools that are generally a waste of time for viewers and developers alike.

Poking about at a virtual car may not seem like a revolutionary new way of interacting with media, but it is a surprisingly well thought-out special feature, given the context: “Fast & Furious” fans are often car enthusiasts, and will care about what’s under the hood of the vehicles that make an appearance in the film. And controlling virtual models of automobiles on screen via a touch screen device isn’t gimmicky, it’s just the most intuitive way for that sort of thing to work.

This time around, I might not actually go out and buy the movie, because, seriously, it’s “Fast & Furious”. But release a “Star Wars” (original trilogy) Blu-ray Special Edition with the exact same features for starships, speeders, and ground assault vehicles, and money will be no object.

---

Your Web is Wireless. Mobilize 09
$595 Regular, $395 limited time
Register now!