From the wonderful city of Manchester – birthplace of The Smiths and The Fall, unfairly mocked as Rain Capital of England – comes something wonderful and simple for your iPhone: the MoviePeg. It’s wonderful because it’s simple, and it’s simple because it’s really just a piece of plastic with a notch in it. But since no-one

Go here to see the original: 
MoviePeg, The Coolest British iPhone Stand You’ve Seen All Week

Man, Apple’s been coming down pretty hard on third party vendors lately. First it was the sexy apps, then the WiFi sniffers, then the book-only apps. In the latest round of purging, Apple takes it to the physical world. Whether it’s just because they want more store space for their own products or they’re cooking up their own screen films or they really think their oleophobic glass screens are all that tough, Apple has told screen protector vendors that they’re quits as far as the Apple Store and the website goes. Whaaat? Rumors are abounding that Apple has contacted vendors and told them they won’t be stocking anymore screen protectors. 9To5Mac links to Dan Frakes at Macworld who says he’s heard from multiple vendor sources about the heave-ho. And it’s not even confined to straight up screen protection. Even sleeve protector products that contain cling films are being asked to step outside. Image Source: iphone-products.com Personally, we don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a screen protector for their iPhone. In fact, we bought one the day we got our iPhone and put it on the moment it was registered, and the handy little cling film has never been off since. While we go out of our way not to put keys or any other hard metal objects in the same pocket with our iPhones (and many women we know have a dedicated pocket for it in their purses), we’d still never go without our screen protector. Even worse, we’d never even think of picking up an iPad with its four times as large screen without some serious cling action to protect our baby from scratches. So far, as is typical with everyone’s favorite computer company, Cupertino’s being a bit tight lipped about the whole thing

Read the original post:
Apple Thinks Their Screens Are Plenty Tough

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 16, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh Selznick Scientific Software, LLC has announced PasswordWallet 4.5 , a major update to their best-selling password management solution for Macintosh and iPhone. The app now allows the user to automatically share all of their passwords between their Mac, iPhone and MobileMe accounts, as well as their Windows, Android, Windows Mobile and Palm Pre devices. Simple and secure, PasswordWallet encrypts and stores passwords and other private information in one, convenient location. Yazsoft has announced Playback 1.5.1 , an important update to their popular zero configuration media server for Mac OS X. Playback allows anyone to share their media with any Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or other supported UPnP compatible device. Playback can also share media stored in folders or even make entire disks available to a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. By default, Playback will share almost any content on the users system.

See the rest here: 
Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 16, 2010

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 15, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh PagePlanet Software, Inc. has announced the Golden Master release of Modular Gateway Interface (MGI) 3.2 for the Macintosh OS X and Linux operating systems. MGI is an Apache 2 module that adds full functionality to every website on your server using a simple tag structure. MGI includes 67 tags to enhance a website with everything from simple counters and form processing to custom databases and shopping carts. You can also combine MGI’s powerful programming tags to make your website do anything you can imagine.  Need to build a custom login and tracking system? No problem. TheMacBundles today released its March bundle and a new and innovative Build Your Own Bundle store. TheMacBundles has set a new standard of quality and value with its high quality, low priced bundles. These no-gimmick bundles provide users with the same software, support, licenses, and upgrade benefits that apply to users who paid the full price for the titles. The new BYOB store maintains these high standards and lets users create their own customized bundles with some simple mouse clicks. iWebTemplate has announced the addition of a free iWeb themes and templates section to be used with Apple’s iWeb Website building application. iWeb Free Themes includes seven great themes: Sky, Picture, Church, Joy, Love, Billiard and Cat. Each iWeb Free theme can be used as the basis for a great new website.

Read more here:
Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 15, 2010

In this round of iPhone games and applications you have one that wants you to replicate a natural disaster, one calm title that allows you to raise a binary fish, and one that simply insults your sexual intelligence. Fingerzilla The strange destructive impulse in many arcade videogames has been captured very directly by the new free iPhone game Fingerzilla.  In Fingerzilla, which is a part of the popular Open Feint iPhone gaming network, you are asked to essentially take the “Godzilla” role and begin destroying a metropolitan snapshot.  Instead of actually seeing visual representation of the Godzilla character you will instead simply tap the screen to engage in the destruction.  This is done really by just tapping buildings until they are engulfed in flames and eventually demolished entirely.  A timer is set as you begin and you begin ‘going to town,’ so to speak.  There are a number of different building types, as well as cars driving away and minute individuals running in distress.  It is up to you to rack up the amount of money and death, and the dollar amount is declared with each destructive act.  This works as a point system of sorts, which actually keeps Fingerzilla in line with a very conventional puzzle formula.  Once you have finished with the level you will get a newspaper piece listing the destruction and mayhem you have inspired in your brief period of attack.  There are a few different levels you can engage with an the Open Feint network gives you a fairly in depth level of communication and interaction, though this plays out mostly in the form of score bragging rather than gameplay.  Fingerzilla is fun in a fairly casual way, but since there is not much diversity here or much linear progress it loses interest after a little while.  As a free iPhone game there is really no reason not to try Fingerzilla out, but do not feel like you really need to keep it on your desktop past its use.   Tap Fish One emerging iPhone game genre hails back to the mid-1990s fad of virtual pets.  This makes sense on a mobile platform that stays with you at almost all times, but does mean that you have to be even more dialed in to your iPhone.  Tap Fish is essentially a fish raising incarnation of this virtual pet format where you are given a small aquarium and all the necessary equipment to purchase and care for fish.  There are actually quite a bit of required intervention in Tap Fish starting with feeding of the fish and cleaning of the tank all the way to a leveling system based on how much interaction you have.  Each episode with the fish in Tap Fish will be a few minutes at the most, but as you acquire more fish and get more involved you are going to have to start returning several times a day.  This is fine as this is in line with the basic necessity of such a game, and really for a free iPhone game it stands up against competitors.  The financial system in Tap Fish involves much of how you will upgrade your gaming situation by going to the pet store to purchase things like new fish and food.  You have the option to visit your ‘Neighbor,’ which really just means looking at another fish tank.  All of these things will give you points toward leveling and you will constantly have options to get more money to continually move forward.  Tap Fish does stand out as a pet simulator in that it justifies the time it takes for you to be successful.  This may not be for many of the older iPhone users, but you may just find out that you have a little kid hidden deep down. 69 Positions Anyone that checks the iTunes’ App Store on a regular basis knows that the new free iPhone application phenomenon are applications that give you various sexual positions.  This is part of the way that iPhone developers have gotten around the puritanical restrictions set up by Apple and still tap into the market of ‘lurid curiosity.’  Currently one of the most popular is 69 Positions, which plays on the constant middle school laughter around the number 69.  Inside you get visual representations of this many sexual positions, each with their own little text snippet.  Each position in 69 Positions is described with humanoid figures almost devoid of any gender signifiers.  The information along with it is vague and usually including awkward puns to try and ’spice’ it up.  It is hard to judge an application like 69 Positions in general.  It is a fairly stupid concept right from its inception, but it seems by its popularity that there is somewhat of a general interest in it.  Even compared with other sexual iPhone applications 69 Positions is fairly useless in that it does not provide anything anatomically inventive, has almost no information, and there is really little reason to check it out in the first place.  There is both a free iPhone application version of 69 Positions and a paid one, and the paid one has so little extra content that it really feels like a slap in the face.

Here is the original: 
Mini Reviews: Fingerzilla, Tap Fish, 69 Positions

Looks like the House of Jobs’ hype machine worked. According to estimates by Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity board , Day One pre-sales totals for the iPad topped out at just under 120,000.  In the first two hours alone, 50,000 units were bought.  (Note: these numbers do not include iPads reserved but not actually purchased.) The graph shows some interesting facts: sales were evenly spread among the 16, 32, and 64 GB models, while Wi-Fi sales were more than double that of the 3G version.  (Remember: the Wi-Fi is definitely coming out on April 3, while the 3G is still sporting a “later in April” release date.) Victor Castroll, an analyst with Valcent Financial Group, summed it up best: “Apple has been able to generate over $75 million in revenue in one day on a product that 99.9% of purchasers haven’t touched or for that matter, even seen in person.  And, we’re still three weeks away. That is amazing.” [Via Fortune Brainstorm Tech ]

View original here:
iPad Pre-Sale Day One: 120K And Counting

Some iPhone applications use the built in features on the iPhone, update and offer promotions for existing iPhone games, or spoil the plots for your upcoming season finale. Gym Finder Gym Finder is as strait forward as you can get with a free iPhone application.  With Gym Finder you can, well, find a gym.  When you open it up you are given a list of popular gym chains like 24 Hour Fitness, Athletic Club, Bally Total Fitness, Curves, Gold’s Gym, and others.  You can select one of these gyms and then it will locate those that are relatively near to your location.  You can select a specific location and it will give you directions utilizing the iPhone Maps feature along with basic contact information.  It is also possible to do this in reverse by searching just by location to find what is near by.  Gym Finder does what it promises adequately, but it does make you wonder why you need a program that is so specific to finding one type of business.  Why not just use a Yellow Pages application?  Why not use the Maps function on its own?  Gym Finder is perfectly reasonable for the purpose it promises, but this is still part of the trend at the iTunes’ App Store that stresses quantity over quality.   iMobsters 28 Favor Points The most important quality that is universal between all text based iPhone MMO RPGs is the constant need for updates and promotions.  iMobsters, which is one of the most popular mafia themed text based iPhone MMO RPGs from the Storm8 tradition, has now released its most recent update.  iMobsters 28 Favor Points is actually more of just a free Favor Points offer than a true iMobsters update.  The reality of iMobsters 28 Favor Points is that it is used to simply to perpetuate interest in the free iPhone game.  Since Favor Points are really the only way that Storm8 can make money off of the iMobsters franchise this is really just to spark interest in what will supposedly just be a later series of purchases.  Inside iMobsters 28 Favor Points you are not going to see much quantitatively different to the base iMobsters software except for the most minor of update changes.  Fundamentally iMobsters remains the same, which puts iMobsters 28 Favor Points into a weird place.  Any free Favor Points package is going to be of interest, and possible necessity, to iMobsters players.  On the other hand, free Favor Points are not going to be really attractive to those who do not already have an interest in iMobsters.  There is nothing about iMobsters 28 Favor Points that is going to attract new players.  If you already play iMobsters then iMobsters 28 Favor Points is going to be one of the first free iPhone downloads on your list, but if not you can forget it entirely. Spoilers For the TV addict in the room online spoilers can be the main source of water cooler gossip.  The ‘there’s an app for that’ logic has infected almost every possible online institution, and this one was a late arrival.  Spoilers is a basic free iPhone application that gives you the available episode information for some of the most popular  on the air.  These are presented mainly in a large list of alphabetical options like Burn Notice, Entourage, Desperate Housewives, Dexter, and others.  These are presented in the largest list in the Shows tab where you can select the shows you want.  You can then find the ones you want and then add them to your Favorites, which will then list them under that specific tabs.  This is really where Spoilers becomes useful, especially once you have established a clear list for your Favorites.  You can also look according to Upcoming Episodes, but it is much more relevant to just get information from the episode specific lists.  All of this is find if Spoilers was more than simply adequate in what it provides.  Spoilers is not extremely detailed in the information it offers about each program, and more often than not you are not going to have access to the entire list of shows you will want.  Program information is limited at any given time, and Spoilers usually has issues bringing up all of what you are requesting.  This does not make Spoilers incredibly useful even in the marginally interesting feature it has.  With the time it takes to sift through the occasional info from the application you can easily use more reliable and complete online sources.

Here is the original: 
Mini Reviews: Gym Finder, iMobsters 28 Favor Points, Spoilers

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 12, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh Alesis has announced that the MultiMix 6 USB six-channel USB mixer, is now shipping to retailers. The MultiMix 6 USB is a six-channel desktop mixer designed for easy integration into a computer-based recording environment. This compact mixer is perfect for use in recording setups, video editing and production studios as it outputs not only line-level analog audio, but also stereo 16-bit, 44.1 kHz digital audio over USB for low-noise, simple computer connection. MacinMind Software has released Radiologik DJ 1.7 , optimizing loading and playback for this radio automation and DJ tool. This release includes several optimizations to help ensure the Radiologik system is as reliable and robust as possible for 24/7 radio stations both streaming and terrestrial. Radiologik DJ is the DJ music and playout system for radio or most DJ needs, offering beautiful real radio transitions by employing Track Prep through the accompanying scheduler program. Mode de Vie Limited has announced MyThoughts 1.1 , an update to their popular Mind Mapping software for Mac OS X. Intuitive, flexible and powerful, MyThoughts for Mac provides an ideal solution for those wanting to improve their brainstorming, learning and recall abilities through the use of Mind Maps. MyThoughts for Mac features an intuitive interface that lets the user focus on expressing and developing ideas with fluid, organic, Mind Maps. Bohemian Coding has released Fontcase 1.5 , a free update to the Apple Design Award-winning font manager that is like an iPhoto for your fonts. A few feature-highlights include versatile metadata support, the ability to share fonts on your local network and fantastic ways to preview all your fonts. Version 1.5 adds much-requested auto-activation, duplicates detection, speed increase and stability among other things

Read more here:
Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 12, 2010

Filed under: Retail , Apple , iPad According to MacDailyNews , shoppers who placed iPad pre-orders this morning are being told by Apple Store employees that demand could affect their plans for in-store pickup. It seems that several customers ordered iPads this morning, opting for at-home delivery. For whatever reason, they later changed their minds and opted for in-store pickup. That’s when things got tricky. When requesting the switch, those customers are being told that their existing orders will have to be cancelled and new in-store orders placed. However, the employees warn, demand for the iPad has been so “overwhelming” today that they can no longer guarantee that an in-store pickup order will be available on April 3rd if placed at this late hour. As of this writing, the online Apple Store notes that Wi-Fi iPads ordered today will be able for pickup at Apple Retail Store “…between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on April 3.” In other words: Selling like hotcakes . “Overwhelming” demand limiting iPad in-store pickup originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

Continued here:
"Overwhelming" demand limiting iPad in-store pickup

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac. This time, we review Air Assault, Bad Apples, Fire Drop Free, Ghost Capture – Free, Heli Rescue, Internet Radio Box, Sunday Lawn, synthPond Lite, Tiki Totems, and Titanic Rescue. APP OF THE WEEK Internet Radio Box:

View original post here: 
iPhone Weekly Digest: Internet Radio, A Mowing Game, A Musical Toy, And More