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Samsung imagines full-screen phone with a camera hidden under the display
Samsung is working on a "perfect full-screen" phone that will be 100 percent display, with no notches, bezels or cut-outs. According to Yang Byung-duk, the company's display R&D vice president, "Technology can move to the point where the camera hole will be invisible, while not affecting the camera's function in any way."
iTunes and iWork updated for Lion, add full-screen support, and resume
What good is an OS update without some software that can take full advantage of all its fancy new features? Naturally, Apple's got your back, and today you'll be getting some spiffy new versions of iTunes and iWork to compliment that fearsome Lion upgrade. iTunes 10.4 finally ushers the music management app into the 64-bit era, and adds support for OS X 10.7's full-screen windows. The iWork Update 6 also brings along the distraction-free functionality, as well as resume, auto-save, and versioning for all your important docs. Not everyone is seeing the updates just yet, so be patient, it shouldn't be much longer before you're interrupted by that slightly annoying, but oh so satisfying, Software Update window.
Lion's full-screen apps: Some hits, a lot of misses
One new feature of OS X Lion that is sure to win both fans and foes is the ability for apps to go full-screen. Apple teased us with this last year when updates to several of the iLife apps -- iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand -- brought the ability to take over the entire screen of a Mac with a single click. Now in Lion, more of the standard Mac apps are full-screen apps. After using Lion and these apps for a while, my feeling is that full-screen apps are a good idea, but in the initial OS X Lion implementation they're inconsistent. How do full-screen apps work? You can tell when you're in one thanks to the double-ended arrow up in the upper right-hand corner of the app window. With a click, the app takes over the entire window on your Mac. That's right -- the menu bar and dock are nowhere to be seen. The app also gains its own Space and is accessible through Mission Control. If you need to get to the menu bar, moving your cursor to the top of the screen reveals it again. Want to get back to a normal window? Just press the Esc key on your keyboard and you're there. What apps are full-screen enabled at this time? As mentioned earlier, iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand got the full-screen treatment last year. Safari, Mail, iCal, Preview, DVD Player, QuickTime Player, and Photo Booth have also been updated to take advantage of full-screen. Using these apps at the same time in full-screen mode is wonderful. You're focused on the task at hand, but when you need to jump over to another full-screen app, one quick gesture brings you to Mission Control where you can swipe over to the other app; a left-right swipe can switch you as well. It's quick and seamless, and especially on a small-screen Mac like an 11.6" MacBook Air, it's a wonderful way to work. I love what Apple did with Photo Booth, which of course is probably the most popular app for people who are trying out Macs in Apple Stores. When Photo Booth goes full-screen, the photo window is framed by beautiful wood and a red velvet curtain. It's much more exciting than the boring windows we've seen for years. So what's with iWork? At least at the time this post was written, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers were full-screen, but didn't use the double-ended arrow to jump into that mode. That seems very inconsistent, but it wouldn't surprise me if an update was on the way to add the Lion-specific full-screen capability to iWork. Other Apple apps that aren't full-screen happy include FaceTime, iChat, Address Book, iTunes, the Mac App Store, Chess, Dictionary, iDVD, Image Capture, iWeb, Stickies, TextEdit, and pretty much all of the Utilities. I was only able to find a handful of third-party apps that went full-screen (Pixelmator is a perfect example), but they didn't properly create their own Spaces. That indicates to me that developers have a way to go to provide consistent support of full-screen mode. From my point of view, full-screen apps make a lot of sense, as they make the best use of available display real estate. While some apps can seem somewhat absurd on a large 27" display, it's nice to be able to concentrate on one application and not have anything else get in the way. When you want to slip over to another full-screen app, one or two quick gestures gets you there easily. As more and more apps become available in full-screen mode with support for Spaces, I think we'll see full-screen apps hitting their stride.
Samsung Galaxy Tab can be made to run all apps in full screen, here's how (video)
You might have noticed in our Galaxy Tab review that a number of pretty significant Android apps failed to scale to fully utilize its real estate, leaving an unpleasant black border surrounding their content. Well, you can now take that issue off your list of cons for this otherwise delectable tablet as our buddy JKK has figured out a way to overcome the scaling problemo. Using Spare Parts, a free app available in the Android Market, and a couple of reboots, he was able to convince the Engadget app to run in full screen on the Tab. He's right in guessing that we'd be happy about that, though we imagine owners of Samsung's slate will be the ones with the biggest grins on their faces right now. See the how-to video after the break. [Thanks, Mani]
myTexts for iPad, distraction-free writing to go
A while back, I shared my discovery of myTexts, a robust distraction-free writing application ... well, as robust as a stripped-down, no-frills editor would want to be. Now, myTexts has shown up on the iPad, with iTunes syncing of your text files between your iPad and the desktop version. To make the deal sweeter, if you pick up the US$2.99 iPad app, you can get the Mac version (normally $19) for free. The iPad app is good-looking, and has two different editing modes. The first one you're presented with is a more illustrated interface, with faux-paper and a wooden desktop background. If you'd rather be completely undistracted, there's a full-screen mode that has nothing but your text and a keyboard (and a nearly-invisible button to go back to the menu). In the main menu mode, your files are presented on the left, and your text is on the right. You can switch files quickly, and flip from writing to the file's attached notes with a button at the top. You can export files on the iPad, and it's necessary to do so before syncing a file back through iTunes. When you export a text or myTexts format file, it shows up on your Apps screen in iTunes, where you can add and transfer files of either type. The latest version of myTexts on the Mac can read the original-format files from the iPad, maintaining any notes as well as the text. The desktop version can then interpret any Markdown, and output PDF, Word, Rich Text, HTML and more. While we're waiting for Writeroom for iPad to be finalized/approved, myTexts has swept in and offered an alternative with some great functionality and a clean interface. There are a few glitches, mostly related to attaching and detaching an external keyboard, but it's safe to assume they'll be smoothed out quickly. It's a pleasure to use as it is, and quite useful for writers. Combined with the desktop version, it's pretty powerful as well. If you pick up the iPad version, be sure to head over to moApps to get your desktop version for free!
Swap full-screen Cover Flow and video in iTunes
Here comes the community at Mac OS X Hints with yet another cool trick which, in this case, should help us waste just a little more time in iTunes 7.1.1. I specify that latest version because this hint concerns Cover Flow's new found ability to run in full-screen mode: as it turns out, you can command-tab between a full-screen video and Cover Flow. This is enabled by the apparent fact that that cmd-tab doesn't toggle Mac OS X's app switcher when in iTunes is full-screened; you have to hit Escape to get out of this environment for cmd-tab to get back to its normal duties. This is a slick, very eye candy feature that, in a way, I am surprised Apple didn't do at least a little bragging about with the latest iTunes update.
Think 1.0
Applications that offer 'full screen' modes are all the rage now a days. The idea is that if you run one application in full screen mode you won't be distracted by all those other things that fight for your attention on your Mac.The good people at Freeverse are savvy to this, but they figured why bother creating individual applications with a full screen mode when you can create an app that'll let any app have a full screen mode of sorts. Thus Think was born.Think has a very cool Illumination Panel that allows you to pick from any of your currently running applications. As soon as you pick an app, Think throws up a backdrop (the color is up to you, though it defaults to black) that covers up the rest of your desktop (on your main monitor as well as any secondary monitors you might have) though the Dock remains visible. Think goes one step further and displays the icon of the currently focused app in its Dock icon, just in case you forget.It is obvious that Freeverse spent some time thinking about this application. Now, what would you expect to pay for such an application? If you said nothing, not only are you cheap but you're also correct! That's right, Freeverse is giving this gem away (Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later is required).Check out the gallery below for some screenshots. %Gallery-1471%
Scrivener - the word processor with a cork board
Scrivener is a new word processor made for the messy, non-linear and notecard-slinging writers out there. Merlin Mann has been raving about it, and I can understand why: Scrivener's entire UI and workflow is designed around managing the pieces of whatever you're working on, allowing you to organize things like thoughts, outlines, pictures and dialog snippets with folders and keywords. The most interesting organizational feature, however, is a unique cork board UI on which you rearrange virtual notecards that contain summaries of whatever is in the document they represent. Hopefully, this allows many a college student and screen writer to stop jamming real cork boards in their bags when meeting for group projects. Scrivener doesn't stop there: multiple document editing, full-featured outlining, full-screen editing and format-friendly exporting all round up quite a v1.0 debut. A 30-day demo is available, and a license runs $34.99.
QTAmateur does full-screen playback, batch exporting, more
QTAmateur brings a lot of the handy QuickTime Pro features to the table without having to pay the $30 upgrade. Full screen video playback (with a more streamlined, iTunes 7-like video window) and batch exporting of any format QuickTime can read and write make for a handy little app.QTAmateur is free, Universal and available from Mike Ash, a Rogue Amoeba programmer.
Trans Lucy 2 is Universal and freakin' sweet
My friend Clark, who seems to be my only resource for anything, pointed me in the direction of an incredible little app called Trans Lucy 2. It's a video/DVD-player that actually lets you modify the transparency of the video window and then overlay it on your screen, so you can watch whatever's playing while working/chatting/surfing in the background. Perfect for people with small screens, or folks (like me) who hate constantly moving around windows depending on what they want to do. Right now I'm watching a Thomas Jefferson biography (thanks, Netflix!) while talking via iChat and writing this post in Camino. Depending on what task I wish to focus on, I just change the focus of my vision. And it works really well.A registered version of Trans Lucy 2 is $15, but you can download a demo version at www.translucy.com.Update: seany explains the best benefit of Trans Lucy over other apps with similar functionality: "The nice thing about this is that you can 'click through' the movie and work as normal. In other apps, their windows are selected when you click anywhere. To all intensive purposes [sic], the app disappears except for the video. I find it great for following video tutorials as I can track the actions in real time without swtiching between windows."
