iPhone Nuts » iPhone Features

Apple’s Game Center

Ryan Ray — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:44:13 +0000

Games, games, games, and more games. I finally got around to upgrading to 4.1 last night. I had been waiting for a clean and simple jailbreak for 4.1 before upgrading. It’s taken me through four operating systems before I got hooked on jailbreaking. I’m not a very hardcore jailbreak man, but I do like to be able to customize how my phone looks (on the screen, not physically). I also love to be able to create a hotspot wherever and whenever I want. None the less I bit the bullet and am running 4.1, a jailbroken 4.1

The big feature that came packaged with 4.1 is Apple’s Game Center. A central location that is trying to make gaming on the iPhone social. So let’s take a first look at how Game Center works. First off, any app developers out there that want their app to be in the Game Center have to update them to work with it. Sadly I haven’t found many games that I own that are on that list yet. At the moment I have one game in Game Center. The second thing is is that this is a social platform. Without an easy way to find friends what am I going to do to compare my scores with other iPhone gamers? Like the picture below says, I need friends…

Well this is what the main Game Center screen looks like. That’s my username if you want to add me and give me some friends. Like I said I do have one game now that had to be launched before it put it in my Game Center.

Of course the interface and graphics are awesome looking. Reminds me of some old poker table, fitting isn’t it? As you can see, I have no friends, but next to that is my one game that I have. It’s an awesome fingerboard game called Touch Grind. I haven’t played it since it was updated for Game Center. It also reset my score since I moved it to Game Center, so beware because I think most apps will have to do this. One downside I guess to social gaming.

Well with no friends and one game, Game Center feels pretty lonely. I think a smart developer out there will write an app to take advantage of the social aspect of gaming and give us something awesome to play. In the meantime I’m going to try and find a friend and level back up in TouchGrind. Thanks for reading!

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

Apple’s Game Center

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How Do You Like Your iPhone Folders?

Ryan Ray — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:53:27 +0000

I’ve talked about folders on the iPhone a few times on this site. We all know how lovely they are to use. I rely on them almost exclusively on my iPhone. I keep some junk apps on the home screen. Apps like text, to do’s, calendar, etc… EVERYthing else goes into a folder and organized away. I can’t wait to get folders on the iPad. Definitely missing iOS 4 on it right now. Anyway let me show you my approach to folders on my iPhone, and see what you think about my thought process behind it.

Here is my second screen on my iPhone. It’s the only screen besides my home screen, and it houses all of the folders here. I can’t tell you any rhyme or reason to how I put apps on my homescreen, because there honestly wasn’t one, but it works for me. Some of Apple’s apps have made it into folders and others haven’t just yet. So what’s the method to my madness? In one word I would call it simplicity. In the folders I have things like photography apps, shopping apps, social networking apps, jailbreak apps (shhh), remotes, games, etc… I tried the best I could to put any app into a respectful category. I have one folder labeled reference and it has things like the kindle app, a weather app, and evernote. That may be my catch all folder if I don’t know where an app belongs.

Like I mentioned earlier I try and keep my app collection simple. If I don’t use the app that often, it’ll soon be deleted. I break my own rule on my photo apps though, I love collecting those. It’s my weakness. For instance I use to have at least 5 remote apps. I’m down to just two now, no need for 3 other apps that do the same thing. Just need to find the best and stick with it!

Here are two shots of some of my folders. The lifestyle one I’ll admit is somewhat random, but mostly includes things revolving around food, fitness, and traveling. The other folder is my second photography folder. Like I said I’m addicted to collecting those. YIKES.

Anyway, I’d like to hear what you think about folders. Also tell me your approach to organizing and using the feature. I’m all ears! Thanks for listening.

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

How Do You Like Your iPhone Folders?

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Magic Trackpad or iPhone?

Ryan Ray — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:32:20 +0000

By now most of the tech world knows of the Magic Trackpad. It was rumored to come out about 4 days before it actually did. It was launched with minimal fanfare and it really didn’t make a big splash. But if you examine it you might find some worth from it. At this point I am very intrigued by the device, I wish I knew a friend who has bought one. I’d just borrow it for a week and see how it works as a mouse right next to my keyboard. In my daily computing life I do a lot of typing, and often am either editing video, audio, or digging around in code for websites. The mouse is an important tool obviously with a lot of the way I interact with the interfaces in the apps I use. I do like the Magic Mouse a lot but I’m also interested in an enlarged trackpad. So what does this have to do with the iPhone?

The iPhone, with the right app, can perform somewhat par for par right a long side the Magic Trackpad. I’ve tried about 4 remote apps and the one that always works and has been my standby is called Rowmote Pro. So with that running I can use my iPhone as a semi trackpad on my iMac. Is this a better and cheaper route since I already own the iPhone, what am I missing out on.

Alright so there may be only one pro, like I said the cost is nothing for me since I already have the phone and app. I can set it up right next to my keyboard and start working. On the other hand these cons, in my opinion, might outweigh the cost and convenience benefit. The physical click just can’t happen on the iPhone. I would have to press really hard and probably break the glass to get a click, then nothing would be happening after that. I like having a physical click on my mouse or trackpad. The tap to click just doesn’t work with me.

How about when someone calls me? I would have to revert back to my good ol’ point and click mouse. Not truly that convienent! Also consider that the screen on the iPhone isn’t that big to move a mouse pointer across a 21.5″ iMac. That might get annoying to keep swiping around… ugh. Thankfully the iPhone 4 sits level on a flat surface, but if you had the iPhone 3G or 3GS then it would be pretty impossible to keep it still enough to use.

Alright, well dang, after looking and thinking about it it seems that the iPhone doesn’t make a very good permanent trackpad. It is really convenient though in this way. When I am hanging out with my girlfriend we sometimes watch movies from her computer. I can just whip out the phone and control it from a distance as we watch a movie on her TV. It does get points for the instant remote capabilities, but for a full blown trackpad. I’d leave that up to the Magic Trackpad only!

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

Magic Trackpad or iPhone?

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My First iPhone Video

Ryan Ray — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:04:56 +0000

It’s no secret to most that the iPhone 4 shoots HD video in 720. This doesn’t mean that the iPhone shoots video comparable to any professional HD camera. That should be a given. Just think, how could Apple squeeze in the optics and sensor, not to mention lenses, required to get something at least like a 7D into their iPhone. JUST CAN’T…YET hah. I say that in contrast though because it’s still a fun video camera to use, also super EASY to use.

I forgot to mention the convenience of the camera being on the back of my phone. I just so happen to take my phone with me everywhere and that means I can take HD video whenever I please. I do keep a lot of space on my iPhone just for video and pictures . So why haven’t I made a video with my iPhone yet? Good freaking question. Previously I wasn’t inspired by the quality of iPhone videos. I took clips that are saved, but definitely aren’t worth sharing. Now, with the iPhone 4 I wanted to try out the quality and see what it could do. Check out the video below before I give you my rundown of my experience.

It was alright, wasn’t it? Hah, the video was easy to shoot. Just a short sequence of my trip down the road. I didn’t ever take my eyes off the road to look at what I was shooting. I just held it out and hoped for the best.

I didn’t get to test out any lowlight shooting, but on the next one I will. The quality looks just fine with plenty of light. It definitely helps improve the quality of the footage. Luckily the footage comes out of the iPhone pretty flat, ready for me to treat it and spruce it up. It responded well to minimal color treatment. I didn’t do anything crazy on it, but it helped a lot. That’s also the audio straight from the camera. I didn’t do anything to it. It didn’t make for a great test of the audio, but I can tell you the placement of the mic relevant to what your shooting is going to be a problem. Luckily I own a Zoom H4N which captures separate audio if I ever need it for an iPhone video.

Also before editing I converted the footage using a program called MPEG streamclip to make sure the clips played well with Final Cut. They had no issues after, I didn’t test them without converting them.

Overall, with a quick idea while i was driving the iPhone 4 video performed well and is great quality for it being packed into a cell phone. I’m already interested in doing more shoots with it. Let me know if you’ve shot and edited with yours, I’m interested in seeing some video!

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

My First iPhone Video

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iPhone Folders

Ryan Ray — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 02:50:04 +0000

To sum up this post about iPhone Folders, I LOVE THEM. Honestly if that’s all you want to take away from my post about iPhone folders, then that’s all you need. This is a great feature for any iPhone owner with multiple screens full of apps. That usually qualifies everyone a candidate for the beauty of folders on the iPhone. So follow along if you want to read a get a more in depth look at what I think about folders.

Folders was touted as one of the big, tent pole, features of iOS. It was definitely worthy of such honors. From my perspective, which is probably an over anal attentive to detail one, this is genius. I’m sure there were a lot of people asking Apple to implement this feature, because obviously Apple listened and did. But what are folders?

Folders is a feature where you can put like or unlike apps into a folder that then only take up 1 icon place, but holds 12 apps at max I believe. Here is what my one screen of folders looks like. You may notice that thanks to a nifty Jailbreak feature I’ve even taken off all labels of what the folders are. I very much like the clean look of the screen without app names below them. I should probably do that for my apps in the dock. I’m very much so a visual person, I appreciate a good app icon. Instantly recognizable and memorable. Beside just memorizing where I put my apps, their icons are a big help. Thus I felt having an icon and app name was a little redundant. Here is how you create a folder on iOS 4.

VIDEO

The second thing you might notice is that my home screen has a lot of default apps on it, and then on this second screen I have ALL of my apps put away into folders. I don’t have to go searching onto multiple screens to find apps I want to use. They are all right here. I’ve latched onto this idea and have really liked it so far. I’ve gotten comfortable with it and it feels good.

Here is what the screen looks like when you pop open a folder. As you can see it’s full of my “shopping apps.” Any app that involves selling/buying goes here. My folder organization may only make sense to me but it works. For example some of my other folders are IM apps, social apps, news, 2 photography folders for my addiction to photo apps, etc…

Like I said folders seems like a very natural part of using the iPhone now. I definitely can’t wait until it comes over to the iPad. If you aren’t using folders or if you are and love it like I do leave me a comment and let me know what you think about them. It’d be much appreciated! Thanks so much for reading!

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

iPhone Folders

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App Store Updates Like Christmas Morning

Ryan Ray — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:09:34 +0000

This is going to be quite the light hearted post. Just wanted to break the rhythm of reviewing apps, demanding this or that from Apple, etc… Today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite things about the iPhone and it’s app store. That of course is App updates.

We all know how important the developers are to the platform, and how awesome they are too! These developers work their magic and they work it often in the app store. Much faster than any other platform out there. Mac OS X updates for it’s software or for itself don’t even come close to coming this fast. This is one thing that is different and that makes the app experience on the iPhone lots of fun.

Now stay with me for a second here. Think back to your early days as a child, can you remember how you felt each and every year when Christmas time would roll around? Or if you don’t celebrate Christmas think about your favorite holiday that you got the most excited for. I can remember we had a countdown hanging on our hallway wall. Every morning I’d get up and rip one of the pieces of velcro off of it and proudly proclaim that Christmas is coming. It’s now only an x amount of days away!

Let’s go back to the app store for just a second now. I get almost as excited when people make great apps for the iPhone, except I don’t have to wait until that one time a year that it happens. It’s great to know developers are always working on new and exciting features. There is so much potential within apps and I think the reason I love it is just that. Paid or free apps they both usually work the same.

For instance three of my favorite apps that are always updated are Pocket God, Four Square, and Weather. The developers for these apps often refine their user interface, add new features, or just add new levels/goals to the game.

Anyway, with all of that said. I love seeing new app updates and definitely think it’s something unique to this platform at how fast the developers work on their apps. Much love to the developers!

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

App Store Updates Like Christmas Morning

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AirPlay & The iPhone

Ryan Ray — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 05:35:46 +0000

For us in the jailbreak community software updates are usually late coming for us. We make sure we can preserve our jailbreak status before even touching the newest software from Apple. We all know that upgrading will erase any notion of a jailbreak that you used to enjoy. With that said I’m very tempted to dump jailbreak for this new feature that will be coming along with the iOS 4.2 update.

This update will finally bring the iPad up to date on the iOS family and add a lot of great functionality we already experience on our iPhones to the iPad. I don’t want to talk about the iPad right now though, this is a website about the iPhone! The thing I want to point out that will be coming to all iOS devices is this great thing dubbed AirPlay.

We all know about something Apple has had for awhile called AirTunes, but this was really limited in what it did. You could get an airport express that oddly enough hooked up to a stereo and then you could stream your iTunes to any speakers hooked up to it. Finally though Apple raised the bar and has created AirPlay. AirPlay goes perfectly well with the new AppleTV and I’m so excited to get mine and play around with this. With the AppleTV you can now stream anything from any iOS device upgraded to 4.2 to the AppleTV. So say you come to hang out at my house and you have a great new movie on your iPhone. Just stream it straight to my TV! I love that idea. Even better is when there are more AirPlay ready devices and you can bring your music with you from room to room, or from your house to a friends! This is what they showed us of AirPlay on the iPad below…

You can be watching a movie on your iPad and walk into your living room and switch it right to the AppleTV… Genius! I hope this as well as other standards Apple is working on become widely adopted so other devices besides iOS devices can take advantage of the cool features. Just try and imagine Windows machines, and Androids working as one with iOS devices and AirPlay gadgets.

Anyway, I’ve posted a video below of an AirPlay demo so you can see what exactly I’m talking about. What do you all think about this new feature? Worth erasing a jailbreak for, or should I wait?

Apple iPhone News, Reviews, Hacks, and More Copyright 2008 iPhone Nuts. All Rights Reserved.

AirPlay & The iPhone

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iPhone 4 Hands Off Review

Ryan Ray — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:05:17 +0000

Hands off? What do you mean hands off? Well sadly I am not a mainstream, fancy pants, blogger and can’t work my way into WWDC. This is where after the Keynote lots of high profile bloggers could get their hands on the iPhone 4 and see what it’s all about. Instead I get to look at their pictures and say ooo ahh until the day the iPhone comes out and I rush to get it ASAP. See I’m just a normal person like you! Haha, anyway thanks to Engadget for letting me poach their pictures so I could help illustrate my favorite parts of the new iPhone 4. That’s what we are going to do today, the last post talked about just the new hardware so now we’ll talk about what I’m really excited about on the new iPhone. Let’s get started shall we?

First off I really love the new design, it takes it back a little bit to the original iPhone’s design. Brushed aluminum look, flat back, etc… This new design looks great and from what people say feels great too. I’m very excited to see what Incase comes out with for this thing! It’s also THINNER, you’ll see just how much in the pictures below…

Secondly, I love taking pictures with my iPhone. I also LOVE using my 7D, but there is something different about just being able to pull out your phone and take some pretty decent pictures too. Not to mention the whole screen of image editing apps I have. This camera on the new iPhone 4 is going to be awesome to use, plus it has better low light performance and a flash! I’m very excited to mess with it.

Let’s not forget it also shoots in full 720p! I study video production at school and am definitely going to start putting together iPhone videos. It’s a good marketing ploy and also sounds like a ton of fun. Don’t worry my 7D will get plenty of work in, the iPhone will just move up to being used more for fun video now. I’m so excited!

I can’t wait to see the new screen in person. I’m already getting the chills thinking about going and getting the new iPhone. It’s almost become like a Christmas morning feeling for me. I know every year when the time is coming for the new iPhone and I wait very anxiously for Santa Steve to deliver, and I think he did this time around. I’m sure by now you’ve read everything about the screen, it’s going to be great to use it especially once developers update their art. It’ll be interesting to see where other phone manufacturers go now…

Here are the pics where you can see how thin it is compared to a 3GS. I’m very surprised Apple pulled this off. I thought the iPhone was pretty thin as it is and was just fine if it never got thinner. The engineers though didn’t think so, they went as far as putting the antennas in the actual steel bezel to make room on the inside of the phone for a bigger battery and to make it thinner. That’s wild stuff IMHO. Props to them.

Again, more pictures comparing the old vs new, I think the new one looks awesome.

So hardware aside but running in combination with iOS4 it’s really what makes the iPhone special. Apple almost makes everything that goes into the dang phone so it’s responsive, has better battery life, speedy, etc…

There are two things I’m really looking forward to with the new OS. They’ve finally opened up and gave us a form of multitasking. iPhone users everywhere have been asking for this for almost two years. Their implementation may not be TRUE multitasking, but their background API’s are genius and I will definitely use it to my advantage. I also assume they’ll keep adding to these background API’s allowing more and more true application running in the background. As long as it doesn’t hurt my phones performance I’ll stand by their multitasking.

Lastly on the iOS4, I’m really wanting to use the new app folders. Like I mentioned earlier I have a whole screen full of camera apps, I can now pile all of those apps into one icon and put them anywhere. I’ll soon become a folder whore, and I’m not ashamed.

Take the new design, faster chip, new camera, awesome iOS4, this is going to be a great update to the iPhone. Especially if you already love your current one. This is much better than the iPhone 3G to 3GS update. What are you most excited about, leave a comment and let me know!

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The iPhone 4 Is Here

Ryan Ray — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:55:39 +0000

Read it and weep everyone the iPhone 4 has been announced. Not that most of you didn’t already know, it’s been TWO DAYS since it’s unveiling and I’ve yet to talk about my personal feelings for it. Before we get to that post though I should mention all of the specs, or at least the important ones, just so you know how great this new iPhone is. Ready?

Obviously it comes with a fantastic new design, I couldn’t swoon about this design enough. All of your ears would bleed with pain and numbness. The new design is GREAT. It has a very strong glass front and back, and the sides are made out of a stainless steel that also serves a function of the antennas for the device. One of my favorite parts. Here is what the white iPhone looks like…

So sexy, don’t you think? Most of the buttons on the actual phone are the same excluding the volume rocker. The rocker has disappeared and we now have two separate buttons for turning the volume up and down. A welcome change to me.

Also if you notice hardware wise the iPhone 4 has a front facing camera for a feature called FaceTime, which is VIDEO CHATTING on the iPhone. Right now the video chatting only works over Wifi and supposedly with other iPhone 4′s, but Apple says they are working on that.

Next up is their new display that they call the Retina Display. This display has been getting great reviews from people who got to spend a little hands on time with the iPhone 4. It effectively quadruples the amount of pixels on the display I believe, and it just looks awesome. It also has the IPS technology from the iPad so that colors look better and the viewing angles are quite improved. I don’t think any pictures do the display justice, but here is a picture of it anyway…

Of course there are also some great camera improvements, the number one for me is that it records 720p HD video. Not to mention the camera has a new sensor and is bumped up to 5 megapixels. Trust me, if Apple isn’t lying on their website, the pictures from iPhone 4 look really really good. It also has an LED flash, don’t forget about that! With those camera improvements they also developed a mobile version of iMovie! How crazy is that, I think I had talked about that awhile ago and turns out I was right about something!

Inside the phone they’ve beefed up the battery, and to little surprise are using their own custom made silicon. It’s their A4 chip from the iPad, but made a little smaller so the battery in the iPhone 4 could be beefed up. I believe everything else is standard, they will come in the same capacity as the iPhone 3GS which is kind of a bummer, but I will not complain.

Well what else can I say about the iPhone 4 hardware wise? The software is a whole other topic that has been covered before here. Tomorrow we’ll talk about my personal opinions of it all, even though you can tell I’m excited. So what do you all think about the hardware improvements, do you like the new design? Voice your thoughts by leaving a comment!

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What The iPhone Needs; Nested Texting

Ryan Ray — Sat, 15 May 2010 17:39:51 +0000

Here we are again with another installment of the ever so popular series called, What The iPhone Needs. It’s simply a place where I can rant about what I think the iPhone should have. Really they are either stupid complaints or simple improvements on the existing iPhone. So today I wanted to rant/talk about the SMS app on the iPhone. I’ve never used any other texting app, although maybe I should do some research and see if any others solve my problem. I’ve always just used the standard, Apple supplied texting app. If you know of any better texting apps let me know, I’m open to trying something new.

My issue with this app, or really texting on the iPhone in general, is that texting to individuals works fine. You have an iChat like back and forth conversation. It looks and works great. Your texts on the left and your friend’s are on the left. Yours are green and theirs clear. I don’t really have any complaints for the texting between individuals, I actually quite like it. If you’ve seen other phones and their texting systems it’s quite ugly and annoying to use. But if you want to annoy me with the iPhone and it’s texting try sending mass texts and keeping track of the conversation.

The current way it works isn’t terribly bad, I just believe there could be something better. For starters it’s easy to create a mass text list. Start a new text message and keep typing in friends name and tapping them to add them in. Once you send your first message though that list is permanent and can’t be added or subtracted from. Quite annoying, especially if you forget to add someone or need to add someone later or even delete them from the list. The only way to do this is start your list and convo all over again. That’s not very user friendly Apple! That’s my first glaring issue that frustrates me.

Secondly, once you start receiving responses from people in the list their responses don’t stay in that conversation. It for unknown reasons starts an individual thread with them, which can be useful sometimes. I’d honestly prefer an option though to respond to all and have my text appear in the mass text convo, or to respond to the individual and then it would show up as a single conversation between me and the sender of the mass text. I understand that maybe that’s not possible at the moment since if they replied to all everyone would be getting texts, and it doesn’t work the same on every phone but if it showed up in everyone’s iPhone that had one as a threaded convo that’d be awesome.

It’d just offer a simpler way for me and everyone to keep track of mass texts like that. Perhaps this needs a SMS standards committee to insure the same experience on every phone. At the very least though, Apple listen up, we could have the ability to edit our mass text conversations and add or delete people as needed. That’s the least you could do!

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