Monthly Archives: April 2009
Simplify Media update, take 2
Filed under: Software Update, iPhone, App Store
Earlier today we reported on an update to the media sharing tool from Simplify Media. It added some nice features, but it also installed a demo share on home machines that was not appreciated by many. It set off a mini-firestorm on the company blog, and we received plenty of negative comments as well.
Tonight, wasting no time, the folks at Simplify Media have pushed out another update for Macs, as well as Windows and Linux boxes. It defaults with the demo/test share turned off, but allows you to turn it on if you want to test to see if your system is working.
Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated
Filed under: Internet, iTunes, Software Update, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
The Simplify Media app for sharing your music libraries across the net or to your iPhone has been updated to version 2.0 (previous coverage here). If you have the app installed on your Mac, PC or Linux computer, you’ll see an update notice real soon now. The update includes stability improvements, the ability to share only selected playlists, and a much-desired feature that lets you send your shares to Sonos, Roku or XBox 360 devices. The app now supports FLAC, in addition to the usual MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple Lossless codecs.
Simplify has also added a version 2.0 for the iPhone. The original app will continue to work fine, and it’s free. The new version, Simplify Music 2.0 [App Store link], is $2.99US and adds the ability to search your music library from afar, tag tracks as favorites, create on-the-fly playlists and a ‘scrub bar’ so you have more playback control in podcasts and audio books.
TUAW Review: Quickoffice for iPhone
Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review
Having worked with Quickoffice on both the Palm and Windows Mobile platforms in the past, I was eagerly anticipating the release of the iPhone version. Quickoffice gives you the power to view, edit, and create Microsoft Office documents. The new Quickoffice for iPhone “only” works with Word and Excel files (no PowerPoint — yet), and also provides a way to link to a desktop or MobileMe iDisk.
iPhone owners who have used Quickoffice on other platforms may miss the lack of PowerPoint compatibility. Another professional trainer I know actually used a Palm device with Quickoffice and a video-out cable to teach her business analysis courses. She’s now an iPhone owner, but there’s no way she’s going to be able to leave her laptop at home until Quickoffice supports PowerPoint. On the other hand, this is the initial version of Quickoffice for iPhone, so there’s nothing saying that the PowerPoint capabilities won’t be built into a future version.
MLB is about to make a million dollars off an iPhone app
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
Lots of developers are saying that they can’t sell their apps at $9.99 in the App Store, but Major League Baseball is apparently the exception — the $9.99 At Bat app is not only gaining accolades from users, but it’s selling like nachos at the ballpark, too: with 130,000 copies sold so far this year, MLB is about to break a million dollars in revenue, even after Apple takes its cut.
Pretty impressive for a pricey app. Of course, that’s chump change when you consider exactly what MLB is dealing with — the app integrates the Gameday Audio service, which sells for $14.99 on its own, and baseball’s television and video content makes much, much more than a million dollars. The iPhone revenue, big as it is, is just a drop in the bucket for MLB, really.
Dial 9 is another smart dialer for the iPhone
Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review
The number of dialers for the iPhone give a pretty good indication that this is functionality that needs to be built in. Last week we took at look at one clever dialer; here’s another. The Dial 9 visual dialer [App Store link] has a nice GUI and a couple of clever features, all for a reasonable $2.99US price.
This dialer keeps track of who you dial, and what numbers you use, and offers you those smart choices when you are ready to contact someone. Dial 9 will automatically import any images that are associated with your contacts, and I was glad to see when I updated a contact with a picture after I installed Dial 9, the app picked up on that without any intervention from me.