Thanks to Ryan from gdgt for being my intrepid guide for this video.

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These guys have worked on some of my favorite games of all time, including LittleBigPlanet and Fable II, so they know a thing or two about creating some very addictive content. The “game” looks great, and has a quirky vibe that’ll definitely set it apart from other task managers.

Since you decide how many points you assign to each task, you can level up pretty quickly. Although I was hoping that there’d be some social aspects (competing against roommates for chore completion, etc) I can see how someone could easily cheat by creating easy tasks with high point values.

There’s one thing keeping me from using this app everyday: desktop integration. I currently use Things as my main to-do list manager, and it syncs with the Things iPhone app as well. I don’t really need two task managing applications on my phone at one time, and there’s very little incentive for a desktop client to use another company’s app for mobile use instead of developing their own.

The answer? EpicWin should create a full-featured RPG for the desktop that plays like a game! Yes, perhaps a little “pie in the sky,” but it would certainly hook more gamers.

EpicWin is $2.99 on the App Store.

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The cat known as Mr. Littlejeans is having his little furry moment in the sun. It all started with a photo I took of him, comfortably relaxing on Ryan’s lap. Ryan was having a difficult time finding a comfortable position on the couch for iPad typing, when inspiration suddenly hit…

Since then, LJ has been on TWiT, Lifehacker, MacLife, OS X Daily and several other blogs. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also include him on my own.

Update: Laughing Squid has us too! Thanks Scott!

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Ryan has been quite taken by the Droid SMS alert sound (as evidenced by the most recent gdgt podcast) so I decided it would be fitting to make it his ringtone on my iPhone when he calls.

Unfortunately, I realized after the fact that it would have been much funnier to make it the default ringtone on his phone for all calls. You can get the sound here for your own personal enjoyment.

I used MakeiPhoneRingtone after converting the .wav to .aac, but you can also use Fission, GarageBand or the myriad other methods available.

Related posts:

1. Talking iPhone 3G S on CNN.com
2. A little iPhone organization would be nice
3. The iPhone app organizer I would love to see

1. Close iPhoto.
2. Locate your iPhoto Library under User/Pictures/iPhoto Library.
3. Copy the folder by right-clicking or Ctrl-clicking.
4. Paste the entire folder into your external drive.
5. Go back to your original iPhoto Library and rename it to something like “iPhoto Library Old.”
6. Open iPhoto, and when prompted select the “iPhoto Library” from your external drive as the library you want iPhoto to use.
7. Once it loads up all of your images just fine from the external, go back and delete “iPhoto Library Old.”
8. All done!

Now, if you’re a laptop user, you’re not going to be able to view your photos unless you’re connected to the external drive. This is OK for me, but might be annoying to people who use iPhoto a lot, so make sure you’re cool with that before you do this!

This is also a good way of making a backup of your iPhoto library to an external drive. Now, commence rolling around in all that spare hard drive space like I did!

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Revision3 (where we produce Tekzilla) just announced a new show called AppJudgment, which also covers BlackBerry, Android and Palm Pre applications alongside the more familiar iPhone apps. Here’s the most recent episode:

My friends Scott Johnson and Eric Skyhawk have also launched a new podcast called AppSlappy, which is quickly making it’s way up the iTunes charts. They cover what’s new in the App Store, hot deals of the week, and also give us their take on what apps they’ve been using lately.

Last but not least, Sean Bonner (along with a huge cast of well-known names in new media) is hosting a new show called iPhun. It’s honest, quick-paced, and sarcastically funny in the best way. They also have more in-depth written reviews on the blog, so check that out as well.

On a slightly different note, fellow Emerson alum Jared DiDomenico has a music project called Nuclear O’ Reilly with his friend Brad Naprixas, and they created their new album entirely on the iPhone application Beatmaker (iTunes link) by Intua Software. It’s called, very appropriately, Phoning It In. Worth a listen just to hear how much effort went into it, but it’s pretty damn catchy as well. Here’s their “making of” video:

As applications (and the iPhone itself) become more advanced, users will continue to find new ways to be creative with them. Time for me to go download some new ones!

Related posts:

1. Talking iPhone 3G S on CNN.com
2. A little iPhone organization would be nice
3. Apple in the handheld gaming world

Despite losing my voice yesterday, I rallied for an appearance on CNN.com this morning with MG Siegler, Ben Parr and Mark McClusky. We spoke about the new iPhone 3G S and if now is a good time to upgrade, our favorite apps, and if Blackberry has a chance to win hearts and minds with their new offerings.

And why am I the only lameass with a headset on? Seriously, Veronica. Get with the program.

Related posts:

1. A little iPhone organization would be nice
2. Culture of the Apps
3. Droid SMS alert on the iPhone

Tuesday:
We’ll be at the (Jobs-less) Keynote, and then roaming the show floor at Macworld trying to find the coolest stuff to put on the show. There’s a Macrumors party that evening that I’d like to attend, depending on my exhaustion levels. For live coverage, make sure you watch Ryan’s liveblogging at gdgt!

Wednesday:
CES baby! We’re all flying down to Vegas in the afternoon. Digital Experience is that night, which always has something interesting to see.

Thursday/Friday/Saturday:
Live Tekzilla at 4pm at the NBC/Revision3 booth (Central Hall #12133). Come see me and Patrick record the show, which should last about 30 minutes or so. We’ll have a ton of new products to show off, most of which I can’t talk about yet. :/
I’m also hoping I might be able to pop into Buzz Out Loud for a little reunion show, but we’ll see!

Saturday night:
We’re having a Tekzilla party at the Double Down Saloon! We’re probably going to get things rolling around 8pm, but I’ll send updates to Twitter if anything changes. I’ll be the one drinking the bacon martinis.

If you’re at any of these events, stop and say hello! Post any predictions for Macworld/CES that you have in the comments, and we’ll see who has the best intel. BTW, we have a winner for the shuffle contest! It was Mirko from Croatia (#433). Congrats! I’ll get that out to you as soon as I get back from CES.

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I was listening to the gdgt roundtable this morning, and they started talking about the iPhone / iPod Touch as a gaming device. Josh Topolsky insisted that Apple was trying to drink Sony and Nintendo’s milkshakes, while Ryan said that Apple is just going for the “value add” of having games.

This got me thinking about my iPhone and the experiences I’ve had using it as a handheld gaming device, especially compared with the Nintendo DS and the PSP. Granted, gaming on my phone has not been my number one priority, but I’ve download a few decent ones: Spore Origins, Tris (which I believe is now unavailable) and Tap Tap Revenge. But at the end of the day, was it more fun for me to play games on my iPhone than if I’d brought along the DS or PSP? Well, no, not especially. Was it more convenient to not have to carry a second device? Of course. Yet the overall experience quality is still going to be better on a standalone gaming platform. I just wonder if people really care all that much about having the absolute best experience… maybe they just don’t need it.

This brings me to another point on the podcast: do mainstream users really care about the nit-pickings of technologists when it comes to their buying decisions? Yes, there can definitely be a trickle effect of opinion that can sway people (“Oh, I’ve heard this phone is very buggy, I’m going to wait for the next version”). But what about mainstream gamers? Are games on the iPod/iPhone ever going to effect the number of handheld devices being purchased, and the amount they’re used? Is it just a nice added benefit to the phone, or a major selling point?

Developers are cranking out some beautiful looking games for the App Store, and I’m sure they’re enjoying the direct-to-buyer system (that is, if their app makes it through the approval process), but I wonder what other frequent gamers are thinking.

Do you think people will eventually buy the iPod or iPhone with the primary function of being their gaming device?

Image courtesy of Apple.com

Related posts:

1. Culture of the Apps
2. A little iPhone organization would be nice
3. The iPhone app organizer I would love to see

I made a Friendfeed post a while ago about this, and then I realized that microblogging is sucking whatever ideas I have for blog posts right out of my head and turning them into one-sentence blips in the social-networking ether…

Anyhow.

The iPhone interface is intuitive. However, this does not mean that it’s practical, especially when you have numerous icons to keep track of. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were an interface for organizing your iPhone apps? You could decide which menu page your apps showed up on, or even separate them by type or alphabetically. It’s just a total pain that every single time your apps update (at least when you do it from the actual phone) that it dumps the updated apps to the very last page in the iPhone interface. Why don’t they just stay where I told them to go? Why do I have to manually drag them back to where they belong? That method is touch-and-go (heh!) at best anyhow — if you don’t get it just right, the icon just hangs on the edge of the screen, waiting to move to the next page.

Actually, it really would make sense to just build this directly into iTunes. We can already see all the apps that are installed on the Applications page. Why isn’t there some kind of sorting method right there?

And while we’re at it, how about trial periods for apps? I recently purchased Super Monkey Ball for $9.99, and it’s the most annoying game I’ve ever paid money for. I totally have buyer’s remorse. If developers could add a time limit into the DRM wrapper on the app, then it could turn itself off after a certain pre-determined trial period ended. I’m not an app developer, obviously, but this seems more viable than giving your app away for free for an amount of time and then suddenly charging all new customers for it.

Finally, while we’re on the subject of iPhones, my “iPhone Cubism” pool on Flickr has actually gotten some good coverage lately! We’re on TUAW, Valleywag and iPhone Savior (which, I learned, is 100% zombie proof. Nice work!). So if you’ve had an artful glitch on your iPhone, add it to the pool.

(Sorry about the dry spell here on the blog! I honestly think Twitter is killing my blogging… slowly, but surely.)

Related posts:

1. The iPhone app organizer I would love to see
2. Talking iPhone 3G S on CNN.com
3. Droid SMS alert on the iPhone

The main problem I’m having is this weird keyboard lag. Whenever I go to type a new text message or email, the keyboard takes forever to register that I’m trying to use it. Usually around 30 seconds or more, which seems like an eternity when you’re trying to fire off a quick note to someone.

Then there’s the battery life. I knew it was going to be worse than my old iPhone, because the 3G sucks a lot of life out of it, but holy crap… I had to charge my phone three times a day when I was at E3. And if you’re using applications with any kind of frequency, good luck. The worst part was this morning: I didn’t plug it in before I went to bed, and it was probably at a 75% charge when I last checked it. This morning? About 20%. I have never seen a gadget leak battery that quickly when it wasn’t in use.

I’ve heard through the Twitter-vine that if you restored the new iPhone from a previously saved backup it ended up less stable, and showed some of the symptoms that I’ve mentioned. I’ve also heard that it’s just a problem with the 2.0 firmware being released a bit early. No kidding. I hope that the next update makes it so I can enjoy using my phone again.

This post wasn’t so brief after all. Share your experiences in the comments and let me know how it’s all been working out for you.

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(FREE) The one thing I’ve desperately wanted out of my iPhone was a chat client that worked on a non-jailbroken phone. I couldn’t find an app that would work like Adium or Trillian, which would cover all your bases in terms of chat. If you’ve come across one, let me know! However, the AIM app works really well so far, even if it’s missing some of the iChat sleekness. UPDATE: However, as Dave Zatz points out you cannot run apps in the background, which makes running an IM client a little more annoying.

(FREE) In lieu of purchasing an Amazon Kindle like I’ve been considering, I took the advice of many to wait for an eReader for the iPhone. Here’s the first incarnation of one that I’ve come across. You can download hundreds of books from sources like eReader.com and FictionWise.com, although I’d still rather have a larger screen for reading if it were for an extended period. My eyes are strained enough as it is! The page flipping is very cool, and I feel like I’m going to get a lot of use out of it.

(FREE) Math? Not so much my specialty, especially when it’s a large group and there’s check-splitting involved. There are serveral web-based apps for iPhone, but this one will come in handy at my favorite restaurant in town that for some reason never has cell reception. The interface is just about as simple as you can get, which will help expedite the paying process.

(FREE) Midomi is a wonderful little app for figuring out that song that’s been stuck in your head for days. Either sing a clip, or type in the few words you remember, and the app will bring up some matches. You can then purchase the tunes or watch them on YouTube. Folks on my FriendFeed are saying that Shazam‘s app works faster and more reliably, but I haven’t given it a shot yet myself.

($2.99) The one app that I’ve actually spent money on is MobileFlickr. I’ve made good use of the dedicated Flickr email for sending in photos from my phone, but this has a lot more obvious functionality built in. You can so just about everything on the mobile version that you can accomplish on the web, short of editing and organizing.

It seems that most of the big names have apps ready to go, like eBay, Twitterific and MySpace. There’s a good number of free ones to choose from already, and while I’d be hard-pressed to spend $9.99 on an iPhone application, the Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook does seem pretty tempting!

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Two programs at the two ends of the spectrum. But what of the people who need an app that’s dependable, easy to use, and won’t break the bank? Sound Studio 3 ($79.99 from Freeverse) is a solid middle ground. I’ve been using it for the past couple of months, for anything from recording podcasts to voice overs. My setup at home is really basic (M-Audio Fast Track, SM57 mic) but I’ve been extremely happy with the sound quality of those tools with Sound Studio.

Features:
Take advantage of your Mac’s built-in audio capabilities.
Record and edit digital audio in 32-bit floating point accuracy, at any sample rate (hardware permitting).
Layer sounds with multiple tracks.
Apply any of 24 built-in effects filters.
Use any Core Audio plug-in Audio Unit effect.
Open and save in MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, and other popular file formats. (Saving in MP3 requires a free external framework.)
Create podcasts with chapter markers in AAC format.
Edit iTunes song metadata and ID3 tags.
Connects to any standard USB audio device or other Core Audio device.
Batch process files using Automator or AppleScript.

The preferences couldn’t be easier to use, which is a nice change from a lot of the high-end audio programs out there. And the toobar at the top of your audio track gives you easy access to features that you’ll be using frequently, like fade ins and outs. It’s far more intuitive and simple than the toolbar on Audacity.

Lee Sherman over at Macworld has a really excellent review posted, and I agree with his points. The lack of VST plugins may bother some people who are accustomed to using them (say, in Pro-Tools) but that won’t stop you from becoming the next self-recorded indie legend or podcasting star (the chapter markers mentioned above are super helpful for that).

Since I don’t have a rating system for software on this blog, I think I’ll invent one. Sound Studio 3 gets 4.5 lime cats out of 5.

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Did you know you can send text messages with your face when you’re in a call on the iPhone? That’s quite a feature. Apparently the proximity sensor in my phone isn’t working so hot these days…

Thanks to my pal Nick for pointing out my potentially offensive messages

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Click To Play

Don’t have time to watch over an hour of Steve waxing poetic about his new toys? Let Mahalo Daily help.
MD038 – The Steve Jobs 90 Minute Keynote (in 60 Seconds)

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I’ll be there tomorrow on the show floor, checking out all the fun new toys. See you then!

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But the best part about the show was taking live calls from listeners via Talkshoe. This was my first time using their interface, and I think they’re definitely on the right track. It reminds me a lot of Stickam and Ustream, except without all the pesky video. Yes, sometimes it’s nice to not have to deal with video, it’s true. Users interact with the host over chat, phone, VoIP or not at all (just listening). The host can queue up questions and bring them into the discussion at will.

The chat interface could use a little improvement, but I heard from someone over Twitter that they’re planning on implementing an IRC-based chat interface sometime in the future. Despite that (and it’s a small issue — I got used to it after a couple of minutes) I really enjoyed the experience. I didn’t even mind downloading their small app, which usually drives me crazy.

I love that there are new services enabling podcasters to really engage with their audience. My favorite part of podcasting is interacting with users, whether it be via forums, emails, social networks, etc. Now we have to figure out how to do a live Mahalo Daily, and we’ll be all set!

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Not only am I thrilled that she liked the show and is learning how to Yo-Yo from it (which speaks volumes of Doctor Popular’s teaching abilities, even over video), but I’m also amazed at how brilliant kids can be. I’ve heard that magnets aren’t the greatest thing to have around your gadgets, but since this is flash memory, I don’t think it should be a problem. They’d better get working on the patent application!

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I installed a great WordPress plug-in today called iWPhone (I read about it on TUAW) and it works really well! It automatically senses when someone is visiting the site via iPhone, and gives them this super-clean layout.

Oh a side note, why isn’t Apple’s web apps directory iPhone optimized? Isn’t that what the whole thing is about?

UPDATE: Well, it seems like it was causing some users to see my site “iPhone optimized” when they were just looking at it in Firefox on their computers. I’m not into that, so I’ve turned it off for now.

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UPDATE: Oooo! Check out these plug-ins that I found on the Quicksilver page. Nice!

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