Monthly Archives: October 2009
Bitlbee and Rooms: Accessing AIM Chat Rooms from your iPhone
We’re a pretty AIM-based blog around these parts. The fact that Weblogs, Inc. is owned by AOL may or may not play a role in that. Regardless, we TUAWians spend a lot of time in AIM chat rooms. The App Store’s lack of AOL chat room support has been a real burden when we’re out on the road with iPhones.
I was delighted when a recent tweet put me in contact with Björn Teichmann, author of the iPhone IRC application Rooms [iTunes link]. Rooms, claimed Teichmann, could bring AOL chat rooms to our iPhones.
Teichmann sent over a promo code for his app, which normally retails for $1.99, and spent a few hours getting me up to speed on AOL chat rooms using his software. Let me explain: It’s not that setting things up ended up being difficult to accomplish, but rather there weren’t a lot of clear and available instructions for doing so. What Teichmann worked out over those hours was a somewhat reliable way to access AOL chat rooms via IRC.
Voice on the Go makes your cellphone safer in the car
Voice on the Go has been out for quite a long time, and I’m surprised we never reviewed it. Imagine getting your emails and texts read to you while you drive, and creating and sending emails and texts while never touching your cellphone. Recently a friend suggested I give it a try, so I did and found there was actually a new iPhone app [iTunes link] that supported it.
Here’s what Voice on the Go is all about. You sign up, choose a local number to connect to them, and assign yourself a 4 digit password. If you live in a smaller town and there isn’t a number for Voice on the Go you can call any of the numbers. If you’re on a national cell plan there won’t be any extra cost.
You then go to the Voice on the Go website and put in your email details, and you can upload a CSV file that contains your contacts. This is much easier if you have an iPhone, so more on that later.
First Look: video editing on your iPhone with Nexvio ReelDirector
With the introduction of the iPhone 3GS back in June of this year, iPhone lovers finally got what a lot of other smartphones already had — video recording capabilities. A little over a week later, I wrote a post titled “How to make iPhone videos sparkle with iMovie.” At the time I remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could do editing on the iPhone instead of having to do it on my Mac?”
Somebody at Nexvio was obviously thinking the same thing, and the company has introduced ReelDirector [US$7.99, iTunes Link], a video editing app for iPhone. One reviewer noted that “it’s not Final Cut Pro,” but make no mistake — ReelDirector is a powerful, easy-to-use, and fun iPhone app for creating videos with titles and effects. It’s perfect for putting together on-the-spot vacation videos to send to friends and relatives, making quick video podcasts, and teaching kids (or yourself) the basics of video editing.
As stated on the Quick Start page, “ReelDirector is a video editing app that allows you to put together video clips with transitions, and add text watermarks at the opening and closing of your movie.” That pretty much sums up the capabilities of the app right now, but there’s more to ReelDirector than just that.
Watch live NBA games with League Pass Mobile for iPhone
The NBA, via MobiTV, has made available its “League Pass” service to the iPhone via the League Pass Mobile app [iTunes link]. Like the MLB At Bat app [iTunes link], League Pass Mobile allows you to stream live NBA games onto your iPhone — over 40 live NBA games per week. There’s also the ability to view stats from the current game, and look at scores from games across the league. Subscribers can also replay full games up to 48 hours after the game has been played.
I’m a basketball junkie, and a former subscriber of NBA League Pass Broadband, the NBA’s desktop version of the service — former, because I actually just canceled my subscription yesterday. I found the service subjected too many games to blackouts, which often prevented me from watching many games of my beloved world champion Los Angeles Lakers. As a result, I’d often hop on over to my local sports bar to watch the game, which set me back at least US $12 with beer factored in. This year, instead, I’ll be sacrificing the comfort of watching games in front of my desktop (and now the potential of watching it on my iPhone) for the peace of mind that the game I want to watch will be available at my local sports bar.
Win a copy of Boxhead – The Zombie Wars
If you’ve seen Minigore [iTunes Link] or played iDracula [iTunes Link] you’re familiar with this game mechanism, now quite popular on the store: left thumb moves, right thumb aims and shoots, all in an isometric 3/4 view. Boxhead Zombie Wars [iTunes Link] brings some nice weaponry to the game, plus a raft of defensive tools to allow a little more strategy than either of the comparison apps I mentioned.
Boxhead offers a Flash-based version of the game here if you’re interested in how much gore and mayhem is involved. It’s a lot, really, but perfect for the genre.
Official Settlers of Catan out now on App Store
Just in case you missed it, I got my wish from a while back: there is an official version of the classic board game Settlers of Catan, called just Catan, on the App Store right now. I’m still playing Kolonists, the unofficial knockoff that got kicked off of the store for infringement, but if you’ve got wood for sheep, this official version should get you your portable fix. If you’re unfamiliar with the Catan juggernaut, check out this thorough piece from Wired.com.
There’s hot seat multiplayer gameplay (I assume you just can’t cheat by looking at what resources other people have), or a few AIs to tangle with if you don’t have friends at hand, and the game includes a scrollable board to play on, game stats to track, and a tutorial for those of you who haven’t rolled the dice and tried to build the Longest Road yet.
The game is created by United Soft Media, a German company that’s also ported the game to the DS, and while it’s not quite as shiny as the Xbox Live port (my personal favorite version of the game, outside of the real thing, of course), the reviews on iTunes say it gets the job done, at least while you’re waiting for the next board game night (and while we’re talking about board games, can I recommend Dominion? Best table game I’ve played in years). The game is $4.99 and available right now. Anyone have any ore?Official Settlers of Catan out now on App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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