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Folderol: An amazingly useful OS X utility by one of TUAW's finest
While we're busy closing down shop here at TUAW, I thought that I'd write one final app review. It's fitting that it's an app by Aunt TUAW herself, Erica Sadun. Folderol (US$2.99) is a surprisingly useful and fun utility that does one thing very well -- it applies custom colors and images to folders in OS X. It's quite easy to use: in its most basic form, launching Folderol displays a small window with the words "Drop Folders Here" on it. There is a palette of colors to select from, as well as a color picker for creating your own bright/obnoxious/pastel/camo hues to color your folders. Drag a folder onto the target and drop it, and it changes to the new color. Don't like the look of your folder? There's a "cleared tint color" to select that sets the folder back to its original blue color. Want to put a picture of your favorite person on a folder full of photos? That's easy, too. There's a box for "Custom Image" -- drag and drop an image onto that box to "load it" into Folderol, then drag the folder onto the "cleared tint" option or one of the color options. If you've selected the "cleared tint" color, the image shows up on the folder. Select one of the color options, and the image is tinted that color and applied to the folder. As you probably know, OS X 10.9 Mavericks introduced the concept of tags, which are organizational tools for folders and files. If you've set up tags in Mavericks or Yosemite, you'll be happy to know that you can use a "tint and tag" menu option to not only change the color of your folders, but apply a tag to them at the same time. If you have a picture that's not the same aspect ratio as the folder, there's a menu setting for "fit image to destination." It's what allowed me to make the nice-looking TUAW folder you see at the top of this post without distorting the classic logo. For anyone who likes to customize his or her Mac, Folderol is a great addition to your bag of tricks.
TUAW TV Live Special Edition: WWDC 2013
Thanks for joining us today here on TUAW for our continuing coverage of WWDC 2013. I am joined this afternoon by renowned author, developer and TUAW buddy Erica Sadun on a special edition of TUAW TV Live. Here's the archived video for your viewing pleasure!
What can you say to Siri in iOS 6?
Last year, Steve Sande and I put together a "What can you say to Siri" post that proved to be hugely popular. We'd been working on "Talking to Siri: Learning the Language of Apple's Intelligent Assistant", which we initially self-pubbed as an e-book, and then later moved to QUE publishing. We're now working on the second edition of "Talking to Siri" and thought we'd update our original post for iOS 6. A lot of people are now using Siri and Siri-related features. Siri is available on the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5, the new third generation iPad, and the fifth generation iPod touch. Dictation-only support also appears in OS X Mountain Lion. There's a lot of Siri going around. As we work on our update, we thought we'd share the following Apple-supplied examples for using Siri. It's only a partial list, but it gives a great flavor of what Siri can do. Standout new features include the sports, movies and restaurant categories recently announced by Apple. But there's a lot more too. Siri now supports arbitrary relationships. You can say "Megan Lavey-Heaton is my favorite comics author" and Siri will add that relationship. You can launch applications by saying "Launch Angry Birds" and post to Twitter and Facebook by voice. Siri also now lets you dismiss her (or him) by voice. Say "Goodbye Siri" and Siri will close the interaction window. The examples that follow below only scratch the surface of what you can do with Siri. We're having a ton of fun discovering all Siri's new improved capabilities. Keep your eyes peeled over the next few months as Steve and I share new favorite tricks and tips as we work on our update. Have you found some great new Siri features? Share them in the comments! ASKING ABOUT CONTACTS What's Emily's address? What is Susan Park's phone number? When is my wife's birthday? Show Lindsey's home email address What's my brother's work address? FINDING CONTACTS Show Brian Conway Find people named Park Who is Jimmy Patrick? ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIPS My mom is Susan Park Jimmy Patrick is my brother Call my brother at work APP LAUNCHING Open Photos Play Infinity Blade II ADDING EVENTS Set up a meeting at 9 Set up a meeting with Jimmy at 9 Meet with Emily at noon Set up a meeting about hiring tomorrow at 9am New appointment with Susan Park Friday at 3 Schedule a planning meeting at 8:30 today in the boardroom CHANGING EVENTS Move my 3pm meeting to 4:30 Reschedule my appointment with Dr. Patrick to next Monday at 9am Add Emily to my meeting with Brian Cancel the budget review meeting ASKING ABOUT EVENTS What does the rest of my day look like? What's on my calendar for Friday? When is my next appointment? When am I meeting with Jimmy? Where is my next meeting? USING ALARMS Wake me up tomorrow at 7am Set an alarm for 6:30am Wake me up in 8 hours Change my 6:30 alarm to 6:45 Turn off my 6:30 alarm Delete my 7:30 alarm CLOCK What time is it in Berlin? What is today's date? What's the date this Saturday? TIMER Set the timer for ten minutes Show the timer Pause the timer Resume Reset the timer Stop it SENDING EMAIL Email Emily about the trip Email Lindsey about the change in plans New email to Susan Park Mail Dad about the rent check Email Dr. Patrick and say I got the forms, thanks Mail Emily and Brian about the party and say I had a great time CHECKING EMAIL Check email Any new email from Jimmy today? Show new mail about the lease Show the email from Emily yesterday RESPONDING TO EMAIL Reply Dear Susan sorry about the late payment Call him at work FACETIME FaceTime Brian Make a FaceTime call to Susan Park FACEBOOK Post to Facebook headed to the new Pixar movie Write on my wall just landed in San Jose! FIND MY FRIENDS Where's Brian? Where is my sister? Is my wife at home? Where are all my friends? Who is here? Who is near me? Let me know when Jimmy leaves home Let Susan know when I leave work LOCKSCREEN READING Read my notifications Do I have any new messages? MAPS Show me the Golden Gate Bridge Show me a map of 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino California LOCAL BUSINESSES Find coffee near me Where's the nearest coffee shop? Find a gas station near work NAVIGATION How do I get home? Directions to my dad's work Get me directions from San Francisco to Santa Barbara What's my next turn? Are we there yet? What's my ETA? Find a florist along my current route MAPS Show me the Golden Gate Bridge Show me a map of 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino California LOCAL BUSINESSES Find coffee near me Where's the nearest coffee shop? Find a gas station near work NAVIGATION How do I get home? Directions to my dad's work Get me directions from San Francisco to Santa Barbara SENDING MESSAGES Tell Susan I'll be right there Send a message to Brian Conway Send a message to Emily saying how about tomorrow Tell Lindsey the show was great Send a message to Susan on her mobile saying I'll be late Send a message to 408 555 1212 Text Brian and Emily where are you? READING MESSAGE ALERTS Read my new messages Read it again RESPONDING TO MESSAGES Reply that's great news Tell him I'll be there in 10 minutes Call her SEARCHING FOR MOVIE INFORMATION Find Disney movies What comedies are playing? Who starred in Tron Legacy? Who directed Finding Nemo? What is Toy Story 3 rated? FINDING MOVIE SHOWTIMES I want to see the new Pixar movie What's playing at the movies tomorrow? What's playing at Main Street Cinema FINDING MOVIE THEATERS Find some movie theaters near my office READING MOVIE REVIEWS Show me the reviews for Toy Story 3 MAJOR MOVIE AWARDS Which movie won Best Picture in 1983? MUSIC Play Walk by Foo Fighters Play Little Broken Hearts shuffled Play Norah Jones Play some blues Play my party mix Shuffle my roadtrip playlist Play Pause Skip NOTES Note that I spent $12 on lunch Note to self: check out that new Norah Jones album Find my meeting notes Show me my notes from June 25 PHONE Call Brian Call Emily's mobile Call Susan on her work phone Call 408 555 1212 Call home FaceTime Emily REMINDERS Add artichokes to my grocery list Add skydiving to my bucket list Remind me to call mom Remind me to call my mom when I get home Remember to take an umbrella Remind me take my medicine at 6am tomorrow Remind me to pick up flowers when I leave here Remind me when I leave to call Brian Remind me to finish the report by 6 Victor Agreda is my hairdresser Kelly Guimont is my colleague SEARCHING FOR RESTAURANTS Find some burger joints in Baltimore Good Mexican restaurants around here RESERVATIONS Table for four in Palo Alto tonight Make a reservation at a romantic Italian restaurant tonight at 7pm RESTAURANT REVIEWS Show me the reviews for Seven Hills in San Francisco SCORES Did the Giants win? How did Kansas City do? What was the score the last time the Tigers played the Red Sox? Show me the football scores from last night GAME SCHEDULES When do the Giants play next? When is the Boston Red Sox's first game of the season? Show me the schedule for baseball PLAYER INFORMATION Who has the highest slugging percentage? Who has the most home runs on the Giants? Who has the most goals in soccer? Which quarterback has the most passing yards TEAM INFORMATION Show me the roster for the Dodgers Who is pitching for the Miami Marlins this season? Is anyone on the Red Sox injured? STOCKS What's Apple's stock price? What is Apple's PE ratio? What did Yahoo close at today? How is the Nikkei doing? How are the markets doing? What is the Dow at? TWITTER Post to Twitter another beautiful day in Cupertino Tweet with my location great concert Tweet meeting up with Brian Conway for lunch today Tweet the new iPad looks insanely great! hashtag Apple Keynote WEATHER What's the weather for today? What's the weather for tomorrow? Will it rain in Cupertino this week? Check next week's forecast for Burlington What's the forecast for this evening? How's the weather in Tampa right now? How hot will it be in Palm Springs this weekend? What's the high for Anchorage on Thursday? What's the temperature outside? How windy is it out there? When is sunrise in Paris? WEB SEARCH Search the web for polar bears Search for vegetarian pasta recipes Search the web for best cable plans Search Wikipedia for Abraham Lincoln Bing Foo Fighters (We know, we know. Sorry.) WOLFRAM ALPHA What does repartee mean? How many calories in a bagel? What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people? Who's buried in Grant's tomb? How long do dogs live? What is the Gossamer Condor? What's the square root of 128? How many dollars is €45? How many days until Christmas? How far away is the Sun? When is the next solar eclipse? Show me the Orion constellation What's the population of Jamaica? How high is Mt. Everest? How deep is the Atlantic ocean? What's the price of gasoline in Chicago?
TUAW TV Live: Mountain Lion Special Edition
Welcome to the Mountain Lion Special Edition of TUAW TV Live. In this show, Erica Sadun and I will be discussing and demonstrating the new features of OS X Mountain Lion. Below, you'll find a Ustream livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. You'll be watching the show in glorious HD! If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone and join the chat by downloading the free Ustream App. It's a universal app and is wonderful on an iPad, both for viewing and participating in the chat. We'll start at about 11 AM EDT, so if you're seeing a prerecorded show, be sure to refresh your browser until you see the live stream. For those of you who are not able to join us for the live edition, you'll be able to view it later today on our TUAW Video YouTube channel and as part of the TUAW TV Live podcast viewable in iTunes or on any of your Apple devices.
TUAW TV Live: Join us for a special Mountain Lion edition at 11 AM EDT
Mountain Lion is available today, and that means only one thing -- it's time for a special Mountain Lion edition of TUAW TV Live. Join me and fellow TUAW blogger (and co-author) Erica Sadun for a short look at all of the new features of the latest Cupertino cat. We''ll be starting the show at 11 AM EDT (8 PM PDT / 4 PM BST) sharp, and we'll take a few minutes to chat before the demos start. To join in on the chat and watch the live streaming video, drop by TUAW about five minutes before the start time to get your instructions on how to participate. If you're unable to join us for the show, remember that you can always subscribe to the video podcast and watch the show at your leisure in iTunes or any other favorite podcatching app. The past shows are also available on the TUAW YouTube channel. The chat is on IRC: join us on server chat1.ustream.tv, chat room #tuaw-tv.
Daily Update for October 31, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
TUAW's Daily iPad App: Sadun's Collage
To start off this new series of daily apps, I thought I'd pick something close to home -- an app by TUAW's own Erica Sadun. The free, ad-supported app is called Sadun's Collage, and it produces fun photographic collages of pictures taken with the cameras in your iPad 2. Sadun's Collage is very intuitive to use. When you launch the app for the first time, you see a corkboard with a live image frame on it, as well as a group of buttons that are at the top of the screen. The buttons fade out, but are summoned back with a tap on the corkboard. To take a photo with Sadun's Collage, you tap on the live image frame. Once the photo is "pinned" to your corkboard, you move it by sliding it around with your fingers, use the pinch gesture to make it bigger or smaller, and rotate it by twisting it clockwise or counterclockwise with two fingers. Every photo has a white Polaroid-like frame, and displays shadows for a feeling of depth as you layer the images. To take another photo -- there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many you can place on the corkboard -- just tap on the corkboard and then tap the + button that appears in the toolbar. If you've been snapping photos of your friends with the rear-facing camera but want to add your face to the board, there's a button for toggling between the cameras. You're not stuck with just the cork background; there are also slate, marble, sandstone, and limestone to use as backgrounds. Once you've captured, sized, and placed images on the background, a tap on a "photo" button sends the collage (sans advertising) to your iPad photo library. Another button opens a blank email with the collage attached for sending to friends. Any individual image on a collage may be removed by tapping on it to display a minus sign (-), and then tapping the minus sign to confirm the deletion. If you decide to erase the entire collage and start over, a tap on the "recycle" button offers up a clean slate to start with. I asked Erica why the app doesn't let you place images from your iPad photo library into the collage. Her response was that the app is designed for spontaneous fun with groups of people more than after-the-fact collage creation. It's also possible that the standard iOS photo browser was omitted because it tends to be a bit slow and is a memory hog, but that's just my opinion. While you're hanging around at a picnic, hiking in the mountains, or waiting for the fireworks to start over the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. this weekend, be sure to download Sadun's Collage, have a little fun passing around the iPad 2, and enjoy those holiday memories in a clever photo collage that you created.
Banana TV now shipping
TUAW's own Erica Sadun recently announced the immediate availability of Banana TV, software that allows users to display photos and videos from any iPad, iPhone or iPod touch on a Mac connected to the same wireless network. Banana TV closes a notable gap in Apple's AirPlay streaming technology. Typically, AirPlay enables iOS devices to stream photos and videos only to a second generation Apple TV. Now, with Banana TV, customers can easily choose to use the big displays on their Macs to show off content from iOS apps that support AirPlay, including third-party apps in iOS 4.3. The software should be especially useful for customers with Macs integrated into their home entertainment systems. Any Mac can easily be connected to an HDTV directly or with inexpensive adapters. Mac users who wish to wirelessly stream video from an iOS device to their television sets can spend less buying Banana TV and a few adapters than the US$99.00 needed to buy a second generation AppleTV. The software also makes sharing photos and videos on a bigger screen possible in situations where an AppleTV is not available (for example, at the office or while visiting friends and family). To use the software, customers launch Banana TV on a Mac, and within moments, the Mac appears as a valid target for AirPlay sharing on iOS devices within the same Wi-Fi network. It's that simple to enable a Mac to wirelessly showcase the latest music video that you cut in iMovie on your iPad, or the photos you took of your trip to Hawaii using your iPhone 4. Banana TV does suffer from a couple of limitations. Currently, the software supports streaming for photos and video, but audio-only streaming isn't available. Banana TV also struggles with displaying photo slideshows from Apple's "Photos" app. Lastly, video protected by iTunes digital right management (DRM) must be authorized to play on the target Mac. Sadun aims to resolve many of these limitations in future updates to the software. Banana TV is available now for US$7.99. To stream images and video from an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, the device must be running iOS 4.2 or higher. Keep reading to watch a short promotional video for Banana TV.
Banana TV will let iOS devices stream video to the Mac
When it comes to making AirPlay sit up and do tricks, we're proud to have one of the best in the business right here at TUAW. Erica Sadun has released a full suite of in-progress Mac apps to work with Apple's video streaming protocol. While AirPlay is intended to allow iOS devices or iTunes to stream media to the current-gen Apple TV or third-party receivers, Erica's AirFlick, AirPDF and Bruce utilities extend the AirPlay universe to allow you to show content, weather/RSS or arbitrary video files and images from your Mac to your Apple TV, all without diving into iTunes. AirFlick even cooperates with Air Video Server to transcode files and streams on the fly, meaning that otherwise-incompatible video formats like AVI or MKV play just fine. Now she's given us a preview of an app that's hopefully coming very soon: Banana TV. This handy tool turns the AirPlay pathway back around, allowing you to play video or images from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4.2 or higher directly onto your Mac. While you probably have most of the same content on your computer that you have on your iDevice, it's a great way to show videos on a bigger screen when visiting a friend or family member; it also opens up AirPlay streaming from iOS devices your friends or colleagues have with them, even if you don't have an Apple TV (at the office, for example). No word on when Banana TV might be available or at what cost, but it's a sign of very interesting things to come from Erica's secret underground labs. Keep an eye out for more updates to the other AirPlay apps and more new features.
AirFlick allows streaming of arbitrary media, DVDs, even screencasting to the Apple TV (video)
If you've run out of things to do with your Apple TV and have been using it as a hockey puck now that the lakes are getting solid, you'd better go dig it out of the snowbank. Following up on her iOS AirPlay hacks, Erica Sadun has released an alpha version of a tool called AirFlick which enables the playback of any 'ol media files on an Apple TV. That's demonstrated in a video below. Things aren't perfect yet but already others are having a field day with the tool, the folks at TUAW figuring out how to not only stream whole DVDs to an Apple TV but their entire desktop image too by simply providing a VLC screen:// URL into the player. The quality looks a little iffy and, as you can see in the video below, it's not entirely error-free. But, if you have the smallest little bit of patience, it's sure worth a shot, eh?
AirPlay hacked onto XBMC Ubuntu PC, Windows next (video)
You won't find this hack available for download just yet, but Erica Sadun over at TUAW has posted a video showing AirPlay streaming from an iPad to an XBMC media server running on Ubuntu. As we understand it, the Linux box runs the AirPlay client service with XBMC advertising its availability using the Bonjour-compatible Avahi. Erica, who helped initiate all this AirPlay trickery with her early code spelunking efforts, says that Windows hacks are also in development. Click on through to see AirPlay take another bold step down the path of device agnosticism.
AirPlay video streaming from iOS devices hacked into Macs (video)
Hey Mac home theater users, listen up -- your AirPlay wishes have come true. TUAW's very own Erica Sadun has developed a free (ad supported) 0.01 AirPlayer alpha hack that lets your Mac play host to AirPlay video streamed off of iOS devices. Right, just like an Apple TV and without requiring a Jailbreak. But as long as you're skirting official support anyway, why not install the free AirVideoEnabler app onto your jailbroken iPod touch, iPad, or iPhone to stream video from even more applications than Apple currently allows. Works for us. Everyone else can check the video after the break.
AirVideoEnabler hack brings AirPlay video to the rest of your apps
Apple's new AirPlay video streaming functionality is great... unless you want to use it in a non-Apple app. For whatever reason, Apple is restricting AirPlay video to just its first party apps right now, and not even all of those (Safari is left out, for instance). Interestingly, Apple actually built the functionality in, it's just not enabled. Thanks to some "spelunking" work by TUAW's Erica Sadun, it was discovered that a single line of code is all that's necessary to spread the feature to any app that relies on Apple's MediaPlayer framework, including VLC, AirVideo, and even Safari. Now Zone-MR has built a hack called AirVideoEnabler and put it on Cydia, allowing you to bring this functionality to your own jailbroken iPad. For the hack-averse, let's hope Apple catches up in functionality soon. Check out a video of AirVideoEnabler and Erica's original hack in action after the break.
Apple TV Hacking: Spelunking into the AirPlay video service
When Apple announced its new iOS 4.2 feature set, Apple TV's AirPlay video service really caught our attention. That's why we were particularly disappointed when 4.2 debuted on Monday -- only Apple's own applications could ship video from iDevices to the 2nd generation Apple TV; third party applications were limited to audio transport only. We contacted Apple PR to ask for a statement about that, asking why the feature shipped without third party support -- and whether it had to do with performance licenses or similar legal matters. TUAW has not yet heard back from Apple at the time this post went live. Mike Rose asked if I could poke into the situation and see what's going on under the hood. Here's what I found. Big Massive Update: Thanks to Steven Troughton-Smith, the code has been reduced to a single line with no YouTube work-arounds needed. Details appended to the bottom of the post...
Apple TV restores in iTunes via micro-USB, UI hacked onto iPod touch (video)
It sure didn't take long for the dev community to hack into Apple TV's iOS build. One of the first payouts is a port of Apple TV's "lowtide" 10-foot user interface to an iPod touch as briefly demonstrated in the first video after the break. While not very useful on such a small display, that could change when ported to the iPad's bigger 10-inch display. In fact, that might be Apple's plan according to our friend Erica Sadun who's been busily spelunking the Apple TV's disk image. She posits that the iPad could launch the lowtide UI when responding to AirPlay requests in a future iOS build. Another minor victory was achieved by TUAW reader Arix who spliced the Apple TV's AirPlay daemon onto a jailbroken iPhone 3GS thus allowing it to receive AirPlay streams (second video). But the best news of all, perhaps, is the ability to restore the Apple TV in iTunes by connecting its micro-USB port to your computer. That means that existing PC- and Mac-based jailbreak tools can be updated to work over the connection. In fact, TinyUmbrella has already been updated to backup the Apple TV's SHSH blobs in order to preserve your ability to downgrade in the future. With 8GB of storage and 256MB of RAM to play with, we suspect this little media puck will become quite the developer playground, with or without Apple's consent.
Join us for a special pre-WWDC keynote episode of TUAW TV Live
It's about an hour before the keynote address at WWDC 2010, and all of us here at TUAW are as giddy as schoolkids on the last day of school. Join me and other TUAW bloggers for a special edition of TUAW TV Live. We'll be discussing the possibilities for announcements at WWDC 2010 and just about anything else that you, the viewers, want to talk about. We'll talk until about 10 minutes before the start of the keynote to give everyone a chance to get ready for the big event. To join in from your Mac or PC, just go to the next page by clicking the link at the bottom of this post, and you'll find a live stream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to join in on the fun by asking questions or making comments. If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone by downloading the free Ustream Viewing Application. We haven't forgotten about iPad users, as you can tune in to TUAW TV Live on your iPad! That link will send you to a non-Flash page, although you won't have access to our chat tool.
Voices that Matter iPhone: "From iPhone to iPad" panel
To end the first day of the Voices that Matter iPhone conference in Seattle last weekend, a group of veteran iPhone developers sat down for a roundtable panel and talked about the iPad. August Trometer (Yowza!!), Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire), Kyle Kinkade (Tap Tap Revenge), Daniel Pasco of Black Pixel, Tim Wood of The Omni Group, and TUAW's own Erica Sadun were questioned by moderator Chuck Toporek about the differences between the iPhone and the iPad and a few of the pressing issues that both devices are likely to face in the future. Even though the panel ended the day (and all of the attendees and panelists were craving the eventual beer and pizza that would be available later in the evening), it was a lively discussion that offered both insight and frank opinions from these developers. Read on to hear what they said about Flash on the iPhone, app pricing, and their favorite apps on the iPad.
First Look: iPocket for iPhone/iPod touch
One of our fellow bloggers, Erica Sadun, sent me an iPhone/iPod touch application that she created to manage files. iPocket is sort of like a Finder for your iPhone. It allows you to peer into the file structure on your iPhone. Specifically, I was looking to retrieve one of my voicemail.amr files for saving.This application allows you to browse files locally, through FTP and a web interface. You can also send files via Bonjour (using a specially made Mac app) and through email. This is really handy if you want to browse the file structure of an application, or if you need to grab a file. Currently you can view images, sounds, movies, PDF files, text, and property files in iPocket. You will not, however, have access to your iTunes media library on the iPhone as Apple doesn't allow you to view this data. Although this was submitted before the App Store deadline, it remains in review with an uncertain shelf date. You can also check out the gallery of screenshots from the application.%Gallery-29111%
Next talkcast: Parenting with Mac moms & dads
We had a fun time on the ol' TUAW talkcast last Sunday, with panelists Christina Warren, Dave Caolo, Erica Sadun and reader Brett Peters (yes, the broken iPhone guy). Brett had a sad saga of MacBook Air performance woes to tell -- his machine refused to run on two cores under moderate load, apparently a thermal management feature run amuck, and it's going back to the mothership now (read the details here). We also ran through the iPhone 3G rumors with a coarse-toothed comb. You can download direct, listen in your browser or subscribe to the TalkShoe feed in iTunes.For this coming Sunday's show (4/13), we're going to be talking about parents, kids and the Mac with Dave Caolo and hopefully some special guests. We'd love to get your suggestions and recommendations for the best educational software, kid-friendly peripherals and utilities, art and music tools for tots, and more. If you'd like to contribute your picks and pans, you can comment below or use our handy PBwiki page (you'll need a login, so just comment that you want to help out and I'll send you an invite). If you're wondering how to introduce your tots to computers or whether content filtering/parental controls really work as advertised, call in and we'll talk.
Make your iPhone listen to your radio -- and tell you what's playing
Picture it: you're riding in the car and a great song comes on the radio. You're dying to know what it is so you can go buy it ASAP but there's no satellite radio receiver to tell you what's playing. How can you find out what song it is? Whip out your iPhone, put it near the car speakers, and watch the screen. Poof! There's the song, artist, and album.No, I am not kidding. Our own Erica Sadun was inspired by someone who came up with the original idea, she set off to make it happen, and the result is Listen. It's still "very beta" but, hey, it's still one of the coolest iPhone hacks I've ever heard of. Go check it out and let us know in the comments how it works for you.
