Section: Software + Apps , Miscellaneous , Third-Party , iPod + iTunes , iPod touch , iPhone , iPhone Accessories , iPhone , iPhone SDK & Apps Macintosh and iPhone/iPod updates and announcements for January 8, 2010: Macintosh Everyone knows that backups are essential to protect against file corruption, hardware failure, and theft, but to go beyond the limited security of turning on Time Machine or copying a few files to a disc, Mac users can now turn to “ Take Control of Easy Mac Backups ,” by award-winning author and backup guru Joe Kissell. RadTech’s innovative and versatile OmniStand provides several important benefits for notebook computer users: an adjustable desktop and/or low counter stand, an ultra-efficient cooling aid that doesn’t require power or tie up a USB port, and a compact form-factor that can be stowed in most any computer sleeve, bag or pack. iPhone/iPod One half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year.1 For the millions of workers whose pain is caused by long hours seated at a computer, relief has finally arrived in the new Computer Relief (Computer Rx – YogaMD) iPhone app now available in the iTunes App Store To celebrate the new year—and as a way of introducing themselves to the tens of millions of new players getting iPhones and iPod touches over the holiday— Appy Entertainment is having a sale. For the weekend of January 8-10 only, all of their apps are only $0.99. Zidware, Inc. has announced Matheroids 1.0 , their innovative educational app for iPhone and iPod touch devices. Matheroids was created by parents as an amazingly simple way for young children to learn basic number recognition and sequencing as they play their way through a hip space arcade game.

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Macintosh/iPhone software update roundup – January 8, 2010

Today, Google announced the Nexus One, and Google’s vision for the handset is about to shake things up a bit in the mobile technology industry. The question is, what is their battle plan, and will it succeed?  Google’s opening salvo in the smartphone (or is that “superphone” now?) wars was the launch of the free, open source Android operating system just over a year ago. Launched with only one operator (T-Mobile) in one country (the United States), and after months of initial growing pains, Android finally has 20 devices with 59 different operators in 48 countries and 19 languages to brag about, according to a blog entry today from Mario Queiroz, Google’s VP of Product Management. The Nexus One is presumably the second front in Google’s smartphone battle plan, as well as being a remarkable change of pace for a company best known for giving away most of its products: They’re actually selling a real, live, non-beta, Google-branded product at long last (never mind the fact that the hardware is actually made by HTC). Does this signal a paradigm shift at Google? Instead of relying on ad revenue and a huge pile of stock market investments, does the company plan to start doing things the old-fashioned way, like everyone else already does? If you want a Nexus One, for now their brand-new web store is the only place to get it. It’s available today, completely unlocked for $529 or locked to a 500-minute, $80 per month T-Mobile plan for $179 (and coming soon to Verizon in the USA and Vodafone in Europe)

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Google’s Nexus One: Think Different or Business as Usual?

If the word “Lomography” brings a smile to your face, then the Hipstamatic app is for you.  It emulates the quirky Russian-made Lomo “toy camera” line, whose plastic lenses and less-than-light-tight bodies produce photos with blurring, light leaks, weird/smeared colors, and unexpected vignetting.  Photo purists may roll their eyes in despair, but the Lomography crowd adores the unpredictable results of their cameras.  And now Hipstamatic brings that same low-tech look to your iPhone’s camera.  The basic US$1.99 app comes with two lens and film choices, each with their own distinct characteristics.  Expansion packs can be purchased from within the app for US$0.99 each; they include additional lenses, film stocks, and in some cases flashes (e.g. a flash with three different color filter options).  The resulting pictures can be emailed or uploaded directly to Facebook. Even as the Lomo cameras’ medium-format film becomes harder and less convenient to buy and process, digital solutions like the Hipstamatic (not to mention Photoshop plug-ins that will Lomo-tize any digital image) keep the Lomo’s accidentally-on-purpose aesthetic alive.  If you’re a photographer who’s convinced sharp focus and accurate colors are overrated, Hipstamatic may be the low-tech tonic your pictures need.

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The Blur Pics Project: Hipstamatic Brings Plastic-Camera Fun To The iPhone

Apple’s App Store elves have been busy pushing out last-minute updates for Christmas, and one of the coolest is a big Evernote for iPhone refresh. Evernote, you may recall, is the excellent “second brain” service that offers you a free (with paid options available) depository for ideas, web snippets and basically, anything you don’t want to deal with right now but might want to deal with later. In addition to client software for the Mac or Windows as well as a web-based version you can access from anywhere, Evernote was one of the original iPhone apps to hit the App Store when it launched last year. So what can iPhone users uncover with the new Evernote 3.2 update ? How about offline notebooks for Premium users? Speed improvements? Better note editing? Longer audio recording? Or even the ability to upgrade to the Premium version without ever leaving the app? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes again, and more to boot! The iPhone version now allows local note caching — any notes that you create or view on your device are now cached locally so you can view them again anytime without a network connection. Free account users can now upgrade to the Premium version as an in-app purchase, and once you do, you’ll have the added benefit of using any and all of your notebooks offline. That means you can access them from anywhere, even on an airplane with no network connection! Audio Note recording time has been doubled to 20 minutes. There’s a new “All Notes” button to make searching or filtering even easier, as well as a new Sync tab which consolidates all of the Sync and Account features. You can now use Evernote for iPhone in English, French, German and Russian, with limited language support as well for Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Swedish, Portuguese and Chinese.

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Santa Brings Huge Evernote For iPhone Update

These days, getting a fancy new iPhone 3GS (or even the cheaper iPhone 3G model) might even beat Santa delivering a new Mac under your Christmas tree — especially if the fat man in the red suit was generous enough to include the required 2-year contract with AT&T, complete with $30 per month unlimited 3G data. So with the hard part over — actually waiting for and receiving the iPhone! — what’s next? 5 Things To Do First With Your New Toy 1. Fork over your Christmas cash for a MobileMe subscription If you already own a Mac, the best way to unlock the true magic of the iPhone is to pony up another $99 to Apple for a 1-year MobileMe subscription (or $149 for the Family Pack, if you have up to 5 others in your household who can benefit from it). Now you’ll be able to keep the information on you iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC in perfect sync, with no cables required. And if you ever lose your precious new baby, help will be on the way at Me.com, thanks to the Find My iPhone feature of MobileMe. That alone is worth the price of admission for the forgetful among us. 2. Purchase & apply a screen protector — even with a case Some iPhone users prefer bulky cases to hide their new friend away from prying eyes and to keep scratches at bay.

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Setting Up Your New iPhone: The First 25 Things You Need To Do

Apple updated its iDisk iPhone application for MobileMe . Besides getting a fantastic new icon, version 1.1 of the application also gains some new features:  – Autocomplete email addresses when choosing recipients for a shared file – File sharing emails are automatically saved to your Mail account’s Sent folder – When viewing an image, tap and hold to save it to the camera roll or copy it to another app MacRumors also notes that the application increases the optional cache size from 200MB to 500MB, allowing faster downloading, squashes some bugs, and adds localizations for Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish.  MobileMe users can download this free application from the App Store [ iTunes link ], which includes these and more features.

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Apple Updates iPhone iDisk Application

Section: Software + Apps , Miscellaneous , Third-Party , Widgets , iPod + iTunes , iPod touch , iPhone , iPhone , iPhone SDK & Apps , Mac + Computers , Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod updates and announcements for December 16, 2009: Macintosh Spiderweb Software has released Avernum 6 v1.0.1 , a free update to their Indie Macintosh fantasy role-playing adventure. This upgrade fixes a handful of minor bugs and makes the game overall somewhat easier. Avernum 6 is a fantasy role-playing adventure set in Avernum, a nation of miners, adventurers, and misfits in an enormous series of tunnels far below the surface of the world. However, the combined blows of a devastating famine and an invasion of the savage, reptilian slithzerikai has at last threatened the survival of your homeland. Only you have the chance to lead your people to safety. app4mac has released the final version of Projector 2 , a powerful project management application for Mac OS X. Projector provides all the tools you need for professional project management.

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Macintosh/iPhone software update roundup – December 16, 2009

  It was Jan. 16, 1978, and the world was in transition. The Sex Pistols were on the verge of disbanding. Future Macintosh architect Jef Raskin was settling into his new job at Apple Computer Inc. And it was snowing in Chicago. A lot. But while Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, two members of the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists Exchange, were holed up during the not-so-great blizzard of 78, they werent wasting their time playing Uno or watching Logans Run. They were making history.

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The Complete History of Social Networking — CBBS to Twitter

Two weeks ago, clever thieves in Belgium made off with nearly 4,000 iPhone 3GS units from a warehouse belonging to carrier Mobistar. Now the stolen phones are starting to appear in Russia, of all places. The black market iPhones are valued at $3 million US and are currently being offered in Russia in batches of 100 at bargain prices, according to Russian website iPhones.ru . And needless to say, the transaction is cash only. “Today, several vendors with a forum reported that they call the unknown people and offer at knockdown prices to buy officially unlocked ‘Europeans’,” a Google translation of the report reads. (“Europeans” refers to the stolen iPhones.) “The minimum party is from 100 units in one-time payment without there installments or implementations. The owner of a shop at Gorbushka, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the windows of the market has already started to appear Belgian phones.” Russia’s carrier MTS got the exclusive on the iPhone 3G last year, but sales were lackluster compared to other countries, especially considering the carrier’s 84 million subscribers.

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Stolen From Belgium, iPhones Appear In Russia

Batches of stolen iPhones snagged during the “Great iPhone Heist” in Belgium earlier this month are showing up on the Russian black market. Two weeks ago, thieves made off with 3,000-4,000 iPhone 3GS from a Belgian warehouse belonging to wireless carrier Mobistar. The haul was valued at $3 million. Now the stolen iPhones are being offered

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Stolen Belgian iPhones Starting To Appear on Russian Black Market