280North
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It's true, iReddit on the iPhone
reddit, an open source social news aggregator which has garnered a loyal following, has come out with a very slick, very handy little iPhone app for their service. Actually, it's the third one -- according to their blog -- but this one's "official." iReddit brings you the news ... you don't even have to join reddit, your iPhone will start spewing stories of all caliber and ilk at you the moment you launch the app (fortunately, a free account will let you start filtering the stream). Don't tell the rest of the TUAW team -- many of whom were clamoring to post about iReddit -- but I'd never used reddit.com in any serious fashion until I got in on the iReddit beta. I'm now a frequent reader ... at least on my iPhone. The app itself is much like the website in layout. It's also elegant, responsive and heart-warmingly cute, the cuteness due in large part to the reddit mascot checking the time and tapping its toes while pages load. I'm quite serious when I say that it's one of the best "loading screens" I've ever had the pleasure of using. Articles open in the built-in browser, where you can read them, send them to Safari, e-mail a link, or save them to your reddit account. The team behind the app is none other than our friends from WWDC, 280 North. You may remember (or be using) their online presentation app, 280Slides. iReddit is another fine accomplishment on the 280 resume. Check it out at the App Store for $1.99US.
WWDC '08: 280 North
The guys who comprise 280 North aren't actually working on any Mac applications. I tracked them down because what they are doing -- bringing the quality and usability of the Mac experience to the web -- is remarkable. Their web application, 280 Slides, turns making beautiful, web-based presentations into quick work. It's built on a platform called Cappuccino, using what they've dubbed Objective-J (named for its similarities to Objective-C) -- a library they created which provides a highly useful layer of functionality to standard javascript. According to 280 North, Objective-J provides a web development platform that is more Cocoa-like by removing a lot of the lower-level variables that are the bane of most web developers. Easy cross-browser compatibility, anyone? 2 of the three members of 280 North are former Apple employees, working on the iPhone and iTunes, respectively. They state that 280 Slides isn't so much "Apple-inspired" as it is "good-inspired," but the Keynote resemblance is hard to deny, especially in comparison to other, less-polished web-based presentation apps. 280 Slides is still a work-in-progress, but these guys are coding hard and fast to build what is going to be an excellent application. Check out the video (after the jump) and then take a peek at 280 Slides.
