Instapaper Pro has long been a great way to load your iPhone with content that you can browse at leisure–even if you don’t have a wireless connection. Now they’ve enhanced it in version 2.2 with pagination, dictionary (Wiktionary) lookup, an in-app browser, and email support. Instapaper lets you download web pages into your iPhone so they can be viewed offline later. A simple add-on to Safari and Firefox adds a "Read Later" bookmark to select sites for Instapaper. It does a good job of extracting the text so you don’t have to worry about trying to pinch-zoom or accidentally side scrolling. You can easily change the font size for easy reading. In the past, you had to either set the pages to scroll continuously or use the "tilt-scroll" feature. Tilt scroll is admittedly sexy, scrolling the page slowly as you tilt the phone. But like most eye-candy the fascination wears off quickly. The new pagination feature works like most e-readers; just touch the bottom or top of the screen to turn pages

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Instapaper Enhancements Just in Time for the Release of the iPad

The web is buzzing today with reports that multitasking will be coming to the iPhone OS at least by version 4.0, and just maybe in 3.2. In fact, Just Another iPhone Blog shows a screen shot with an allusion to multitasking in a javascript comment block. The iPhone OS has always supported multitasking; otherwise you wouldn’t be able to receive a call while listening to music! That’s also how you can continue listening to music from your iPod app while playing many games. But Apple has limited it to their own applications in the past. (Unless, of course, you did a jailbreak on your phone and ran an app like backgrounder.) To be fair, there were some good reasons why Apple hasn’t enabled multitasking of third-party apps in the past. First, apps that can run in the background without the user’s knowledge are a potential opening for malware. Second, once you start loading multiple tasks at once you’re going to see a real hit in battery life–which was a sticking point for many iPhone users already. Third, once you have multiple apps running, you have to give the user a new interface to switch between them–likely with additional utilities to allow the user to balance resource usage. Fourth, multiple tasks slow the system down and the processors in the iPhone won’t stand up to too great a load. In general, the lack of multitasking hasn’t been a serious issue for most (other than Pandora users). The size of the screen doesn’t lead a user to be thinking in terms of multiple windows anyway. But the iPad runs the iPhone OS, and with its larger screen and faster processor there will be much more demand for multitasking. It may be called the iPhone OS, but this upgrade is pointed primarily at iPad users.

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Rumor: Multitasking Coming to iPhone OS 4.0

Filed under: Gaming , Software , Apple , Developer , iPhone , iPad On the third day of GDC 2010 , Ngmoco’s Neil Young took the stage in one of the largest rooms at the conference to talk about what his company had “unlearned” in its time in the App Store. Ngmoco has become a large and polarizing figure in the world of App Store development — after starting out with a big investment from the iFund, it’s moved quickly to become one of the biggest iPhone-only developers , and after starting out with a few premium titles like the very successful Rolando, have recently made waves with its “freemium” business model . Young talked about the company’s history so far, and went in-depth on Ngmoco’s plan for ruling the App Store and why he believes it’s the “most significant shift and opportunity for [game developers] since the birth of this business.” We’ve summarized Young’s long address in this post. It was pretty incredible — not only did Young lay out his idea of a clear plan for building and developing a large portfolio of very profitable App Store titles “at scale” (the company plans to release twenty new freemium products on the iPhone in the near future, as well as six titles on the iPad ), but he made it very clear that he fervently believes that freemium and the model he’s structured is the future of the video game business. Continue reading GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST.

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GDC 2010: Ngmoco’s Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world

If your iPhone has a case of the "I can’t make it through half a day on one charge," it may be time for a replacement battery. if you’re looking to replace the battery in your iPhone and you’re feeling adventurous, we ripped apart a first-generation iPhone and iPhone 3G on video just for you. A word of caution, while the iPhone 3G and 3GS are relatively simple to take apart, the original iPhone can be difficult and there is a high likelihood that you’ll damage the case. You have been warned! What You Need: >     New iPhone battery (3G and 3GS $19.95, ifixit.com . First Generation – $14.95 iFixit.com ) >     Phillips 00 screwdriver (iFixit includes one with your battery) >     Two spudgers (we used one pointy black spudger and one flatter greenish spudger) >     A soft cloth to cover your work surface >     Small suction cup ($2.95, ifixit.com)   Replace the original iPhone’s battery:     Replace the iPhone 3G and 3GS’s battery:        

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Replace the Battery in your iPhone

Entertain and educate the most important members of your household with this family-friendly guide to the best Mac software, websites, and iPhone apps for kids. And don’t miss our step-by-step instructions for setting up parental controls on your Mac. Let’s play!   When they’re little, kids want to be just like you–pretending to drive the car, borrowing your shoes for dress-up, and yes, pulling up a booster seat to unwind with the family Mac after a hard day in the sandbox. As fun as some Mac staples are regardless of age (Photo Booth, anyone?), your kids deserve some special software just for them–to help them master basic computer skills, stretch their creative imaginations, reinforce educational concepts, and of course, just have a grand old time no matter how young they are. With that in mind, we test-drove 29 Mac and iPhone apps and 12 activity-packed websites just for kids. Some wound up being a little too dumbed down–on the verge of becoming, well, dumb–and our reviews separate the wheat from that chaff for you. Grab the mouse; it’s time to play!   Computer Skills   KidsMouse   KidsMouse teaches basic mouse skills with 18 learning games like ABC Puzzle, Color Ball, and Shape Puzzle. Each is operated using only the mouse or trackpad, and the brightly colored, charmingly illustrated graphics will delight little ones. Some of the games test your child’s sequencing (letters and numbers), shape recognition, and memory, while others just entertain–a bitmap paint program, for example, lets them draw colorful shapes. Really little kids might need prompting from Mom or Dad–ours had fun driving from our lap. We just wished KidsMouse would lock out keyboard input because those keys sure get banged on. Click matching shapes to hear a sound

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Kidding Around – The Best Software and Websites for Kids

Filed under: Gaming , Software , Apple , Developer When I was reminded of its name at GDC, I couldn’t recall hearing much about Engineous Games. It’s the development studio founded by Nitzan Wilnai, a former software developer at EA and Yahoo who’s gone to work making iPhone games for himself. But I did recall Engenious’ first title, Tatomic, which I wrote about a while ago — it was a great puzzler that put a new spin on Tetris’ falling block gameplay. Unfortunately, despite my purchase, Tatomic didn’t sell as well as Wilnai would have liked, so he’s decided to “create a game that would sell itself.” It’s called Sketch Nation Shooter, and he sat down to show it to me last week in San Francisco. He started off the demo by promising that he would make a game for me in two minutes, and sure enough, 98 seconds later, he had a custom spaceship shooter game up and running, as you can see in the photo above. Continue reading GDC 2010: Hands-on with Sketch Nation Shooter GDC 2010: Hands-on with Sketch Nation Shooter originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

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GDC 2010: Hands-on with Sketch Nation Shooter

Are Microsoft employees “nuts for the iPhone?” According to a Wall Street Journal piece, yup… and that’s starting to cause some problems at Redmond as they prepare to roll-out their own would-be iPhone OS killer, Windows Phone 7. Essentially, everyone within Microsoft knows that their current smartphone operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5, chonks hoad. Microsoft employees

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WSJ: Microsoft workers have to hide their iPhones from management

Gary Katz, patron saint of kids and parents stuck indoors with his iPhone theater in a box, has now developed a download version. (The mail-order version cost $20.) For just $12 you get high-quality images and a choice of walls, ceilings, roofs and curtains and plus extras for a touch of customization. It comes with instructions, you

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iPhone Personal Theater, Download Version Now $12

Although most famously known for his system-crushing, next-gen 3D engines, id software’s John Carmack has been a passionate enthusiast of iPhone app development. He’s personally cited the platform as a return to the older school of game design, where a single enthusiast can turn out a great game in a matter of a couple months,

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id software’s John Carmack promises “Rage” on the iPad

When the iPad was first announced, Apple promised that the process for signing up for 3G service would eschew the iPhone’s Mephistophelean contract with AT&T. Instead, it would be simple, allowing end users to sign up and cancel their 3G service on a month-by-month basis. If these screenshots of the iPad’s Settings panel are anything

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iPad 3G sign-up keeps it simple (stupid)