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Realmac's Clear task manager now free for 24-hours
Realmac announced earlier this month that it was removing Clear+ from the iOS App Store and keeping the original Clear app as the only version of its popular task manager. To compensate customers who bought Clear+, Realmac decided to make its Clear app free for two 24-hour periods, allowing existing users to upgrade for free. The first of these two "free" windows opened today. Clear+ was built for iOS 7 and was offered as a universal app for Clear customers who wanted an iPad version of the app. Realmac discontinued its original Clear for the iPhone, with the expectation that customers would pay for the upgrade and switch to Clear+. Instead, the company was deluged with angry customers who were upset at the removal of Clear from the App Store. In response, Realmac reversed its decision to discard Clear for the iPhone and put the app back into the App Store. After updating and maintaining two versions of Clear, RealMac changed its mind again and settled on one version -- Clear for the iPhone. Clear was updated in early February with support for the iPad and will be the only version maintained by Realmac going forward. Clear+ owners should switch to Clear and take advantage of the free offer that is in effect today.
Say hello to Hatch and Fugu, your new virtual pet friend
There's something about virtual pet apps that just draw you in. You get introduced, spend a few minutes with your new BFF and you're hooked. We've seen this phenomenon happen en masse with the Tamagotchi, but we haven't had a similar hit on the iOS platform -- until now. The latest entry in the world of digital companions is Hatch, a collaborative effort from Impending and RealMac. If you are a virtual pet type of person, then you are going to love the app and its Fugu pet. When you launch Hatch for the first time, you are told the history of the Fugu egg and are introduced to your sidekick, Max, who will help you along your journey. You are also prompted to pick a color for your egg, which will hatch in a short time after you go through these initial steps. Once your egg hatches, you can name your new pet and start your adventure together. Fugu is a cute, blob-like character that purrs when you pet it, kisses you, waves at you and otherwise interacts with you in a loving way. It's a cutesy interaction and not an overblown type of affection. As an owner, you are required to feed your pet on a regular basis, play with it and clean up after it poops. And yes, it does its "business" in a loud and boisterous way that'll delight any juvenile in the room. It also sleeps when when you plug in your phone to charge at night and wakes up in the morning --sometimes crying for food and attention. The background image cycles along with the day -- it's light when it's daytime and dark at night. Food, like apples, oranges and grapes, can be harvested from the trees and is plentiful. Just grab one a fruit and drop it in your Fugu's mouth. If it is hungry, it will chomp down. When your Fugu doesn't want to eat that luscious piece of fruit, you can store the food in a bag for later or place it in a donation bucket that earns you acorns or hearts from Fugu. Besides feeding, your Fugu pet requires attention. To pet your Fugu, just rub it with your finger and it will purr and roll over in delight. You can also poke its tummy to make it laugh, bark or blow kisses. Every once in a while, your Fugu will be so happy it will jump at you and give you a big, wet kiss. It makes my two-year-old and the kid in me go "awww." Fugu also does a happy dance, which will earn you a cornucopia of fruit. Other rewards in the game include starfruit, acorns and stickers. The starfruit can be harvested from trees and is also hidden in the environment of the app. These turn into gold coins when you harvest them. You also need to search for stickers and acorns . Hatch supports the parallex effect of iOS 7 so you can tilt your phone to change what you see in the background. Sometimes you really have to drag and tilt the background to search in every nook and cranny. Stickers can be stored in a notebook and shared with others via social networks or messaging. Acorns and starfruit, though, are the currency in the app and can be used to purchase blankets, bags and other items for your Fugu pet. The store is manned by your sidekick Max during the day and closes every night. There are no in-app purchases -- you have to earn every acorn or coin in your coffers. The best purchase is the camera, which allows you to take photos of your Fugu pet with you or another object in the background. You can then share the pictures with your friends. I had a great time with my daughter, who was also playing with the app. She and I would share pictures of our Fugu pets doing wild and crazy things. Rewards are not only earned, they are also given as a gift from your Fugu pet. These gifts are not only rewards for taking care of the Fugu, they also serve to remind you to interact with your pet throughout the day. The gifts are small, but fun. Sometimes Fugu will give you a piece of fruit that you can feed to it. Sometimes you will get a sticker or a handful of acorns. If you are really fortunate, you will get a gold coin. Rewards are not overly bountiful, but there are enough of them to keep you and your Fugu satisfied. Taking care of the Fugu pet is the perfect level of difficulty -- it is not too hard to pet, feed and play with it regularly. It takes just a few minutes every few hours to provide a level of care that keeps your pet happy. Unlike other virtual pet apps that require you to monitor a variety of metrics to gauge the happiness of your pet, you can tell how happy your Fugu is just by how it behaves. Is it sulking or crying? Then you need to play with it or feed it. Does it jump for joy when you launch the app? Then keep doing what you are doing as your Fugu is happy. If you need a more concrete gauge, there's a trust level that starts at 60 and increases up to 100 as you take care of your pet. One interesting thing I noticed about Hatch is that it is not a scripted experience. I installed Hatch on my phone and on my daughter's phone and our in-game experience was very different. She received different stickers than I did and was offered different items in the store. Not everyone travels down the same path with their Fugu pet, which adds to the overall experience and makes playing the game with others much more enjoyable. There are a few little shortcomings in Hatch that could use some polish. I found it too easy to slip into the store when scanning the environment for stickers and acorns. The store is accessed by grabbing the background and swiping from right to left. This same motion is used to move the background when you are looking for treasures. At least a few times a day, I would end up in the store when I was looking in a corner instead. I also found myself wanting more interaction with my Fugu pet. There are a handful tricks it can do, but it basically stays stationary on its mat. I would love to have it move around and be more interactive. The same applies to the store, which is filled with blankets and bags for storing food. After a few weeks of playing with the app, I already own nine different blankets, a bag that holds infinite pieces of fruit and a camera. I have enough coins and acorns to buy out the store, but I'm not interested in buying yet another blanket. How about some hats or scarves to put on my Fugu? Lastly, there are a few glitches, like food getting stuck in the bottom left corner and sound cutting out. Anytime these occurred, a simple force close of the app (double-tap the home button and swipe the app off the screen) fixed the problem. And for the kids out there who think they can cheat at the game by setting the iOS clock forward, don't do it -- you will throw off the internal time of the game, which will have unexpected consequences. I would expect some of these hiccups to be addressed in future versions of the app. Overall, though, these problems were minimal and did not effect my enjoyment of the app. In summary, Hatch is an excellent launch app from Impending and RealMac. You can tell the Hatch team spent a lot of time getting the app right. There is more than just the engaging interaction with your Fugu pet -- the backgrounds are delightfully colorful, the animations fit in with the lighthearted nature of the game and both the sound effects and music are just perfect. Without a doubt, kids are going to love the Fugu. Adults, too, will find themselves enamored of their little pet, even if they might be a little embarrassed to admit they woke up at 5AM to feed their pet before it got too hungry. You can download Hatch today from the iOS App Store for US$1.99. It is compatible with the iPhone running iOS 6.1.1 or greater.
Clear promises Leap Motion support in Mac app, offers a glimpse of what's to come
We've seen some big Leap Motion deals announced, and some fairly impressive demos, but we haven't yet heard of many big-name apps that will support the gesture control technology. While not the biggest around, Realmac has today confirmed that the Mac version of its Clear to-do app -- itself noted for its novel interface -- will indeed support the motion controller "later this year." Details are light beyond that, but the company's offered a peek at what you can expect in the brief video after the break.
Task: Clear ripoff on steroids
Task ($0.99) from Nuage touch is an amazing to-do app. It's basically Clear on steroids. There's just one problem: it's not by Realmac Software, the people who invested so much time and energy creating a stripped-down, gesture-based interface. Listen folks, it's one thing when Apple Sherlocks you. It's another when a competitor basically muscles in, takes everything that defines you as unique and special and uses that as a jumping off point. Sure, they're validating you. Sure, they're giving you a huge compliment. But when does "perhaps borrows a little too much" cross a line? Task has some awfully cool stuff in it. When you take away the added spiffy, what you have is Clear: copied, enhanced, but Clear. And for that matter, Clear undercut by two bucks in pricing. We at TUAW support innovation. We want people to push boundaries, define new areas, and take apps to the next level. If we approve of Task then we're basically saying: "We want you to innovate but prepare to get cut in an alley by thugs who don't respect your time, talent, or effort." Create your own greatness. Buy Clear. Show them you care. Product Video Smackdown Realmac responds We reached out to Realmac for comment. Nik Fletcher, the Realmac product manager responded with the following statement We're flattered (shall we say) to see that so much effort has been made to recreate some of the interactions and GUI in Clear. Competition is always good for developers - it pushes us to make better products - but at the same time, it's quite disheartening to see so many apps liberally borrow so obviously from Clear. Since Clear launched, we've seen a lot of knockoffs and apps clearly inspired by Clear arrive on the App Store - in the region of one per week, by our records. Since our last update to Clear at the end of April, we've been back to work at the next Clear release. We've got some big plans for Clear that should start to take shape over the course of the next few months, so stay tuned.
Clear: 350,000 sales in 9 days, iPad and Mac versions coming soon
Clear, the new todo list iPhone app from Realmac software, got a lot of buzz thanks to very impressive demos during Macworld in January. Interest in the app was so high that at least one opportunistic ripoff artist copied Clear wholesale and put a copycat app on the App Store before Clear even debuted. Our own review of Clear found that its simple but intuitive interface definitely lived up to the weeks of hype, and in my own usage I've found Clear an invaluable tool for organizing my day. It turns out Clear has been extremely successful so far, having sold 350,000 copies in just nine days according to The Guardian. Those are extremely impressive numbers for a simple todo app; Clear joins Epic Games' Infinity Blade and its sequel as two of the few apps I've heard of that have gained so many new users so quickly. Widespread press coverage, a low introductory price of US$0.99, and Apple featuring it as App of the Week on the App Store helped propel Clear to the success it's seen thus far. Realmac isn't resting on its success, though; an update to the iPhone version is in the works, and Realmac confirmed to The Guardian that iPad and Mac versions will follow. Realmac is "open to the idea of taking it to other platforms" -- Android and Windows Phone 7, in other words -- but they reiterated that Apple's devices are their first priority. If you haven't checked out Clear yet, I highly recommend it if you're looking for a simple todo/list maker app with a streamlined interface that doesn't get in your way.
Daily iPhone App: Clear uses iPhone's intuitive interface to its advantage
We got a sneak peek at Clear last month, and fellow TUAW editor Steve Sande and I have been happily playing with the beta ever since. The collaboration between Realmac Software, Milen and Impending, Inc. has turned enough heads that it caused a knockoff to briefly appear in the App Store over the weekend. Clear lives up to the hype. It's a simple to-do list and that's it. Don't expect to be able to schedule reminders, time-specific appointments, or even create complex layers of lists and tasks like OmniFocus or Things. Its strengths lie in its interface and innovative use of the iPhone's gestures. If you're a fan of basic lists and want to jot stuff down, then you will love Clear. I personally wish the lists went down another couple of layers, just enough to tuck a grocery list under "go to grocery store" in an errands list, but that's a very minor quibble. If you revolve your life around the Getting Things Done system, you might not care for Clear. I like it because I can just make a list and not worry about priorities or due dates. We've done a video demonstration of Clear to demo a new process of creating app reviews. Watch the full video to see Clear in action. Clear is 99 cents on the App Store, and even if you're not interested in it as a to-do list, it's worth checking out for the interface and innovative use of gestures.
RapidWeaver giving users trouble, fix has been submitted
Fans of Realmac Software purchased RapidWeaver from the Mac App Store today, only to have trouble with the app. Fortunately, Realmac is aware of the issue and a fix is on the way. Users took to Twitter to lodge their complaints. One customer wrote, "just bought [RapidWeaver 5] on the app store and I can't edit my RW4 project. The add page dialog is empty and I get missing plugin errors." We spoke with Nik Fletcher, head of support and QA at Realmac, who assured us that it will be taken care of soon. "The fix is already in with Apple for approval," he said, "and it should be live later today via the [Mac App Store] update mechanism." Indeed, the app's official Twitter stream, which Nik calls "the best thing for people to keep an eye on," confirms this as well. Sit tight, Rapidweaver users! You'll be back in business in no time.
New Courier Mac app from RealMac teased
Usually, I'm not so hot on the vague teasers, especially for Mac software. If you want me to be interested in your movie or your game or your software, just let me know what it does and how, and I'll decide if I want it or not. But what the heck, it's the freakin' weekend, so here's a teaser short for a new RealMac app coming soon called Courier -- not to be confused with the Microsoft tablet. Frederico at MacStories says it might be one of the best apps of the year, and why not -- we'll take his word for it (at least until we can try it out ourselves). Plus, the teaser has a nice cover of Stand and Deliver, and I can't really argue with that. From the look of it, the app will allow you to collect and send whatever you want around the world, from music and movies to pictures, and ... toy horses? We'll keep an eye out for Courier when it releases sometime next week.
Five widgets for Friday
As we've previously pointed out, in many ways, Dashboard Widgets are the precursor to iPhone apps. Need to know when your latest packages will arrive? Yes, there's an app for that. But there's a widget too. Need to figure out how many pesos are in a dollar, or what a Quarter Pounder with Cheese comes out to in the metric system? There's an app, and a widget, for that as well. For this Friday afternoon, here are five useful Widgets to help you make the most of your Mac. And best of all, they're all free.
Upgrade your iPhone camera with LittleSnapper
LittleSnapper from Realmac Software has been available for OS X for quite some time (and was one of the apps available in this year's Macheist bundle), and a few days ago they released a trimmed-down version that runs on your iPhone. While it lacks the basic photo editing and annotation available on its desktop counterpart, LittleSnapper for iPhone is no slouch. One of the things about LittleSnapper that first caught my eye was the interface, which is extremely slick and shows great attention to detail on the part of the developers. The real jewels of this app, however, are a bit less obvious. In fact, after just a few hours of use, it has supplanted the built-in Camera application on my home screen. Using the default configuration, when you snap a picture, it's immediately added to your Camera Roll (hence the replacing of Camera). After you've taken your photo, you can then upload it to QuickSnapper (Realmac's companion photo sharing site, which is free to use). Once that's done, you can then email a link to it or post it to Twitter (via Tweetie, Twitterrific or Twitterfon) right from within the app. I don't know about you, but whenever I take a picture with my iPhone, there's a very good chance that I'd like to email it immediately afterward. For me, being able to do this within a single app is huge. The other killer feature of LittleSnapper is the ability to screenshot any web page from within the application. The only downside to this feature is that you don't have access to your Mobile Safari bookmarks and you must type in the URL manually (or browse to it via another URL, like a Google search). Obviously this issue will be history once iPhone OS 3.0 is out in June (which includes system-wide copy-and-paste), so it's understandable that they didn't bother getting to crazy with the cheez-whiz in terms of browser integration and whatnot. LittleSnapper's chrome is also removed from the webpage snap, which is a nice touch. Of course, no application is perfect, and LittleSnapper has a few (small) warts. For one, I'd love to see a subset of the annotation tools available on the desktop version, as well as a more iPhone friendly view of the QuickSnapper site when browsing your uploaded photos. Tighter integration with the OSX application (like syncing photos and their metadata) would also be pretty sweet. These aren't anywhere close to deal-breakers for me, but I can see them being becoming popular feature requests. I'm very impressed with LittleSnapper and, given the amount of half-baked throwaway apps that seem to be cropping up lately, it's nice to see one with a good bit of polish. LittleSnapper [App Store] is available now for $2.99US.
LittleSnapper 1.0 is released
Way back in September, our friends (including former TUAW blogger Nik Fletcher) at Realmac Software started trickling out details about their newest Mac app: LittleSnapper. Now after a thorough beta process and lots of hard work, the application is finally available! I have been using the application since its first alpha and I have to say, it is a strong contender for my favorite Mac utility of the year. LittleSnapper was developed to solve the problem of organizing, sharing and notating screenshots -- especially screenshots from web pages. LittleSnapper does this, and more, effectively and beautifully. I'll be posting a more in-depth review soon, but here are some of my favorite features: Take snaps from any browser, without installing a plugin. Regardless of the browser you use, you can take a snap by invoking the LittleSnapper keyboard shortcut or clicking on the LS menubar icon. Save and view the web archive of the site you snap. You can view full web archives within LittleSnapper and access the code (using your choice of editor). This is really useful for development work. Use DOM selectors to snap specific portions of a web page. Within LittleSnapper's built-in browser, you can use the DOM selector (think Web Selector for Safari) to capture a specific element. I love this feature. Edit images non-destructively within the program. You can add blur, highlight specific parts of the screen, add text and callout arrows within LittleSnapper and export the image with annotations on or off. The blur feature especially is sure to save me lots of unnecessary Photoshop time. Open a snap directly in Photoshop. Share snaps via the web using either QuickSnapper, Flickr or your own FTP or web server. Organize snaps into collections and set rules to automatically file snaps in place based on content or tags. Import your existing screenshots into your LittleSnapper library Realmac's page has more detail and case studies (full disclosure: I'm one of the users they profiled). If you take a lot of screenshots, especially of web pages, I really encourage you to give the app a try. The unregistered version lets you take up to 30 snaps to try out all the features. LittleSnapper 1.0 requires OS X 10.5 Leopard and is $39.99 US for a single license (5-user Studio licenses are available for $129 US). All LittleSnapper licenses include full access to the QuickSnapper service.
Realmac teases LittleSnapper
Our friends over at at Realmac Software, makers of the popular RapidWeaver website creation app, have just posted some information on their next Mac app, LittleSnapper. From what I can glean from the promo page, LittleSnapper -- which is expected sometime at the end of 2008 -- is designed to be the ultimate mash-up of screenshot applications like Skitch and Paparazzi.Back in May, I tested and reviewed various (static) screen capturing programs and options for OS X. Although I did not have a chance to actually address the issue of full web page captures in that article, I was, and continue to be frustrated by the lack of a good, Leopard-friendly program that can capture an entire web site, and not just the portion that appears on the screen. Stitching together screenshots in Photoshop is time consuming and unfortunately, Paparazzi's Leopard support is kludgy (.43 works with Leopard, but .5 won't even open). I demoed Web Snapper, but it is a Safari plugin (or InputManager for the semantically correct), which is not always ideal.From the Realmac website, it looks like LittleSnapper is really designed to take the best aspects of a program like Skitch, the ability to capture portions of the screen and annotate and share with other people, with the ability to work with web browsers and also organize screenshot libraries. They even show off a DOM-highlighter, so you can instantly capture a specific element of a site, much like Safari's WebClip and CSSEdit's Inspector.We'll let you know more about LittleSnapper as the details eke out. You can sign-up for updates at Realmac's website. LittleSnapper will be a Leopard-only application.
RWThemeMiner 2.0.5
Did you just upgrade to the latest version of Realmac Software's RapidWeaver? Then you might notice RWThemeMiner, which lets you edit your RW themes, is no longer working. Fret not because RWThemeMiner was just updated to version 2.0.5 which works with RapidWeaver 4.RWThemeMiner is available for $15 (US) and you can download a free 20 day trial version from the developer's website.
MacDock & Realmac offer web hosting deal
Realmac software, the folks behind RapidWeaver, have struck a deal with web hosting company MacDock to offer discounted hosting for registered users of RapidWeaver. For $14.95 per month, you get: 100MB of Xserve storage 8GB per month of bandwidth for transfers 24 hour FTP login 1 MySQL Database and more... Check out the full details on the deal here. If you've got your RapidWeaver site ready to go and you just need a host, check it out.
