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Chilli X has birthday - everyone gets presents, but no cake
If you look under your seats, you'll find a bevy of free iPhone apps. That's right ... you get an app, you get an app, everybody gets an app (or 16)! We've mentioned Chilli X a few times, and I've developed a fondness for their collection of sleek, simple iPhone apps with great-looking interfaces. And now it's their first birthday, and they're giving out presents: this weekend only (starting right now), you can grab any (or all) of Chilli X's iPhone apps for FREE. There are plenty to choose from; 16 apps in the App Store and one just submitted for approval today. We've mentioned Done [iTunes link], MyCal [iTunes link] and Playlist Alarm Clock [iTunes link], but much has happened since then. What follows is a roundup of some of the latest apps, but you can find them all by searching for "Chilli X" in the App Store.
Announcing the Chilli X giveaway winners!
We started taking entries for a giveaway last week, with 10 copies of Chilli X's Playlist Alarm Clock up for grabs. If you missed the initial coverage, Playlist Alarm Clock is the iPhone app that lets you build custom playlists for falling asleep and waking up. We asked for your custom playlists and heard from a lot of people with musical tastes ranging from Beethoven to System of a Down. Here are the 10 randomly-selected winners! iGO (comment #46) jack bauer (comment #37) ddelgmac (comment #69) Ian (comment #22) jsemtp2005 (comment #35) Dorv (comment #49) psn (comment #39) Samer (comment #71) +. (comment #67) Tinez (comment #38) Chilli X will be contacting the winners directly with the promo codes. Congratulations!
Playlist Alarm Clock, drift off and wake up to custom soundtracks
Be sure to check the end of this post for details on your chance to win a free copy of Playlist Alarm Clock! We covered Chilli X last year, with their release of the successful iPhone to-do application, "Done" (iTunes link), and again with myCal, their app for creating custom calendar wallpapers for your iPhone lock screen (be sure to check out the free, user-generated wallpapers they're making available). They've been pretty quiet for a while, updating and tweaking Done (now at version 1.7), handling an App Store rejection of their own, and working on a newly-released app: Playlist Alarm Clock. Playlist Alarm Clock is not necessarily a new or novel idea, but it's well-implemented. It's an iPhone app which allows you to create playlists, one for falling asleep and one for waking up. You can configure the length of time the sleep playlist will play, and how long it will take to fade out, as well as a fade-in time for the wake-up playlist. Setting times and fades comes down to a couple of taps, and adding songs to the playlists is done with a familiar iPod interface with full access to your library and playlists. If you're generally drowsy in the morning, you're covered as well: the snooze time can be configured to five, ten, fifteen or thirty minutes and is just a groggy tap away. As is often the case, there are a few things I'd love to see enhanced. First, a night mode, ala the excellent Night Stand (iTunes link), which would let Playlist Alarm Clock function more appropriately as an always-on clock. Currently, the time display is large and easy to see, but the brightness of the interface is not ideal for bedside use. Second -- and this is really my only other complaint -- removing songs from the playlist doesn't seem to be an intuitive process. Accidentally tapping the wrong song during playlist creation seems to be a pretty permanent blunder, requiring a do-over of the playlist creation sequence. Beyond that, this app does exactly what the wrapper says, and I'm looking forward to falling asleep tonight to some favorites of mine, and hopefully not jarring my wife into a bad mood when my personal idea of "wakeup" music fades in. Playlist Alarm Clock is $1.99US in the App Store. However, Chilli X is offering TUAW readers a chance at one of 10 free copies. All you have to do is submit (in the comments) your ideal playlists, one for falling asleep, and one for waking up. Be creative, be funny, be brilliant ... Chilli X will choose their favorites winners will be randomly selected next Thursday and promo codes will be sent to the winners. Here are the rules and a link to the legal statement: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. To enter leave a comment listing your choices for sleep and wake playlists. The comment must be left before Wednesday, July 22, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Ten winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: Promo code for one copy of Playlist Alarm Clock (US$1.99 value) Click Here for complete Official Rules. Good luck!
Chilli X seeks the savage wit of TUAW readers
iPhone developers Chilli X are looking for a little help with the App Store promo materials for their new ToDo list app, Done. First, though, a little bit about Done. You're probably thinking, "there are too many task lists available for the iPhone, and they all do the same thing." You'll get no argument from me there. For me, it's a matter of how well they do it, and Done has the potential to be very fluid to use, taking a little more advantage of the iPhone platform as a user interface. Not having tried it yet, I'm judging by the features listed on the promo page: multiple lists, priorities, colors, shake to sort, as well some more novel innovations. It looks simple ... maybe too simple for some, but potentially ideal for those who shudder at the mention of GTD (sorry, did I say that too loudly?). One novel feature which I don't believe exists in other task managers, yet, is a snapshot capability which will replace your iPhone/iPod touch wallpaper with an image showing your top 6 tasks. The app was recently submitted to the App Store, and is awaiting approval. That's where you -- with your highly-developed sense of humor and savage wit -- come into play. Chilli X would like to have clever task lists in the promo shots for the app. They are -- by their own admission -- developers and not comedians. You can see their prior attempts at their website, but -- and I say this with love -- they're not great. If you think you have the comedic chops to write a truly fun, interesting and humorous list, leave a submission here in the comments. Chilli X will be watching and picking their favorite entries, the authors of which will receive free copies of Done, in addition to the glory of having their carefully-crafted task sequences displayed in the screenshots of the app in the App Store. I've heard rumors indicating that App Store glory is often accompanied by prolonged health benefits and above average success with dating prospects, but your results may vary (the TUAW legal department kindly asks me to inform you that TUAW makes no such promises, and takes no responsibility for this post). Chilli X does offer one stipulation: "keep them clean(ish) and don't say nasty things about anybody." Easy enough.
