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The iPillow is cheaper than an iPhone, cuddles better, still no Flash
There's something about Apple's products that just makes people want to cuddle them -- we've talked about lots and lots (and lots) of Apple products turned into pillow form. Here's another: Drew Olanoff's (from Blame Drew's Cancer) mother made this iPhone pillow for him while he was recovering from chemotherapy. It's handmade and super cute -- I especially like the stylish icons, including the textPlus icon, which is Drew's own iPhone app. There's also a stitched Home button (which you can see in the full picture), and there's even a pocket on the side, sized just right for an actual iPhone of course. Awesome. [via Unpluggd]
Rumor: Steam coming to the Mac?
Telltale Games recently held a Mac revolution, and that was a nice piece of news for Mac gamers, but this would be a "game-changer": Valve may be considering bringing their Steam platform over to the Mac. They released the beta version of the new UI for their digital game delivery system, and a few users found some "OSX" icons hidden in the game files. Unfortunately, that makes this just a rumor (it's certainly possible the icons were simply included in some stray bit of code, as they appear to be simple window controls, not actual game code), but if there's anything to this at all, it would be huge for us Mac gamers: Steam comprises a gigantic library of present and classic PC games, and bringing even a portion of them over to the Mac would be terrific. CrossOver Games has been working with Steam in the past, and they already have most of Steam's biggest games up and running on the Mac platform through emulation. If there's a partnership between the two companies, or if Steam is planning to take advantage of the demand for their games running on OS X, that would be great. We'll keep our eyes open. Ever since Apple switched over to Intel, there's been more potential than ever for Mac gaming, and Steam on the platform would be amazing.
Steve Jobs featured in Icons art exhibit, wins award at MWC
His Steveness was honored twice recently. First, he showed up in a piece of art featured in a New York exhibit. "Icons" is a set of portraits that shows off Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and of course our own iCEO. The art itself isn't that original (a takeoff on the old Warhol pieces), but the idea, I guess, is to enshrine the modern icons of the Internet in the same way we did back in the 60s with movie stars and musicians. Jobs also won an actual award at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. He wasn't actually at the conference (don't you know Apple only does their own thing these days?), but he was still dubbed "Mobile Personality of the Year." Show host Stephen Fry didn't have anyone from Apple handy to give the award to, but he'd promise to get it to the right place. Two more achievements for Jobsy to place on his already crowded mantle.
iPhone icons in felt keychain form
Unfortunately these guys are already sold out (though maybe there'll be more soon), but I'm still posting them here just to gaze on their awesomeness -- Etsy user Rabbitrampage put together these six iPhone icon keychains (well, five iPhone and one Finder) out of felt, thread, and fiber fill. I think they look great, though it would be nice to have even more custom icons available. I guess if you want a special icon keychain made of your own app (ahem), you'll have to make it yourself. This same Etsy user also enjoys wrapping your iPhone in felt recreations of old retro items like Game Boys and even a VHS tape. I've already got a case on my iPhone, but if I didn't have one yet, I'd definitely pick up one of these. [via iPhone Savior]
BumpTop offers a 3D desktop on your Mac
I've never really gotten into the whole 3D file navigation thing (ever since "It's a Unix system! I know this!", it's seemed pretty corny), but BumpTop might be the exception I've been waiting for. It's a 3D overlay for your OS X desktop that turns files into 3D objects to move around, pin on the walls, pile up or break down as needed. It's not too shabby -- with all of these things, there's a fine line between adding in graphic splashes for the heck of it, and making sure everything has a real function, and it seems like BumpTop walks that line pretty well. Most of the graphical flair does actually help with a function also. The app also supports the multitouch trackpad on MacBooks, so there's a little bit of innovation to play with as well. Mashable says BumpTop is planning even more integration in the future, piping content from sites like Facebook and Twitter straight to one of the desktop's walls, and more involvement with the touch interface, even as we await the tablet's announcement. I don't know if it's quite enough for me to leave behind the 2D icons and filenames that have worked well so far, but BumpTop is an interesting experiment in adding that third dimension into your normal workspace. The app is a free trial download, with a Pro version available (multitouch support, unlimited stickies, instant search) for $29.
The iPhone app showdown
This was an intriguing experiment undertaken over at Minimal Mac: Patrick decided to play a little Homescreen Survivor with his iPhone app icons -- he cleared everything off his homescreen, and then only let those apps back on which he used more than once throughout the course of a week. The result? You can see here which ones made it back on. Contacts, Calendar, Camera all showed up, not surprisingly. Photos did as well -- I don't use that one much, but I can see why. Everything else seems to be his own personal use: Tumblr's app, two different Twitter apps (Birdhouse and Tweetie), and then Simplenote and so on. But the real point here isn't what apps he used, it's just how different his homescreen looked when he only put what he used on there. I'll admit it: my iPhone is a mess -- I've got icons all over the place, and they don't seem to stay organized even when I try to organize them. But organizing according to actual usage is a great idea, and undertaking the same experiment on your iPhone might actually clear some things up for you. It's also worth pointing out all of that empty space on his homescreen: he has four more slots there that aren't used at all. Apple, are you listening? I'd guess Patrick's usage is more common than Apple may think -- there's plenty of room on the homescreen for other functions and information.
SlipCover helps make case icons for your media
Here's a cool app we haven't mentioned yet here on TUAW -- SlipCover is an app that will help you put together some beautiful icons for your Mac's media files, from DVDs to video games or anything else that needs a cool looking icon. The app itself revolves around "case" files, which are basically templates like the Blu-ray, PS3, and Xbox 360 branding on their DVD cases, to which you can then drag and drop other media on to (for example, put a Watchmen movie poster on a Blu-ray "case," and you've got an icon that looks exactly like a Blu-ray version of the DVD), and then your media files on there to apply the icon automatically. No more hunting around through file names or weird previews of your media -- you can just browse through a Delicious Library-style set of thumbnails to find whatever you want to watch. Now, you may say that you just get all your media from iTunes, and that those come with thumbnails and covers already, and that's a fair point. But for those of us who obtain media from all over the place, it's nice to have a way to make it look all professional and purty. Slipcover is a free download over on their website. [via Lifehacker]
More options for party communication
Our buddy Rufus from the WoW LJ brings word of a sneaky change in the recent patch: raid warnings (those warnings that pop up in the middle of your screen, created by typing "/rw" while leading a raid) no longer work in parties. Apparently you have to be in a raid to actually toss off a warning. Of course, that could have happened before this patch, but at any rate, it's in the game now. No more /rw in party chat. Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.
Creators of Epic Advice working on Epic Plan encounter planner
Now this is interesting. Our old friend Jesta, who made the EpicAdvice.com site not so long ago, is working on a new project at EpicPlan.com, and while it's still hidden away in pre-alpha, you can see what they're up to in this thread on EA. It's a slideshow/diagramming web app, basically -- you can take maps of the game's instances, lay out icons and symbols on them as you wish, and then animate and caption boss fights and encounters. The end result is a very clear way to show off different raid strategies, and we're told the slideshows are embeddable on other sites as well (you may even see some here eventually on WoW.com). Unfortunately, they're only taking signups for the beta of the service right now, and while you can watch a show in action on the technology demo, you can't make your own quite yet. But it seems like a very impressive tool for raidleaders, both to share plans with the public and players seeking help, as well as your own raid members. It'll be great to be able to make a quick and easy visual display of where to stand and what to do during boss fights and instance encounters.
The beautifully detailed art of Mac OS X app icons
Over at his blog Cult of Mac, writer Leander Kahney published a post this morning featuring full-size 512 x 512 pixel screenshots of Mac icons. As he notes, the highly detailed icons are part of a move to make the OS resolution independent, but they're also an indication of Apple's attention to detail.Many of the icons are works of art when viewed at their full size. The TextEdit icon, for example, is actually a note from "John Appleseed" to "Kate" featuring the text of the "Here's to the crazy ones" ads of the late 1990s. The Jar Launcher app, featuring a cup of hot Java sitting on a paper napkin, reveals miniscule bubbles on the side of the coffee, as well as real Java code written on the napkin. All of these icons are indications of the fanatical attention to detail of Apple designers. After looking at Kahney's gallery of art, I gathered my own collection of icon goodness from both Apple and third-party apps. Click the gallery icon below to see what I found. If you have found any 512 x 512 icons that are incredibly good, send 'em to us at http://tuaw.tumblr.com/submit. %Gallery-71952%
Breakfast Topic: Iconography
I don't know if you've noticed, but Blizzard's been inserting new icons in every patch. You know those little square graphics that appear next to spell or item descriptions? They've been revising some that were shared across several items and gave them entirely new icons. It doesn't appear on the patch notes, but some spells got new icons - such as the Black Tabby, which got a new icon back in Patch 3.1.Here in Patch 3.2, we see two new cooking icons which are probably going to be related to some world events - the Bread of the Dead and Cranberry Chutney. Both have new, unique icons. Personally, I think spell and item icons are a small but important part of what makes the game feel unique. Some icons are funny, some are really colorful, and some are even plain sexy. Some icons were actually confusing - remember when flying carpets all looked like Runecloth? That was dumb, but Blizzard got around to setting things right.There are cool spell and talent icons, too. Some icons look exactly like the item they represent, some icons are totally generic, and some icons are hard to make heads or tails of, although that's probably what Blizzard is slowly trying to eliminate. Did anybody notice how they changed icons for the Cockroach and the Magical Crawdad Box? Blizzard didn't have to, certainly, but I for one appreciate the little things. Like I said, small parts of the game that give it its unique feel. Are there any icons in particular that stand out for you? What are your favorites? Dislikes? If anything, I'll take this opportunity to give a shout out to the amazing art team at Blizzard responsible for those little square things. Oh, and if you can name all those icons pictured above... you probably need professional help.
iPhone icons all over the place in version 3.0
But not the right place, and that's the problem. Apple support boards are seeing increasing message traffic about icons that vanish, or attach themselves to the wrong app. This seems a problem with iPhone 3.0. Older versions seem unaffected.I saw this myself yesterday. My AT&T Navigator app which I am testing for a forthcoming review, somehow acquired my Reuters News icon.I deleted the AT&T app and re-downloaded it, but that didn't help. I reset the phone and that didn't help either. Finally I did a sync with all the apps turned off in the iPhone apps tab, then did another sync with my apps on. That restored the proper icon, but some of my apps acted like they had been downloaded for the first time and I had to set them up again.This is clearly a real bug that Apple will have to address. There are some other solutions floating around on the Apple message boards, such as deleting the app, downloading it again, and restarting the phone. If you have the problem, I'd suggest you try the easiest solutions first. Some other users are seeing icons turn white, while other app icons simply disappear. One developer said this was a common issue before the final release of the 3.0 software, and he was surprised to see it now.Let us know if you've got this affliction and what you did to fix it, and be sure to let Apple know.Thanks to Steve for the tip.%Gallery-66911%
Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map
We've heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don't know anyone that didn't still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent "east" to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you'll have it marked on your map the entire time.Larisa waxes nostalgic over at the Pink Pigtail Inn, and says that this is just farther down a sliding slope that leads to a ravine where we all just have two spells and need to kill three boars to level to 100. Kinless Chronicles straight out says "Patch 3.2 will play for you" with some funny tongue-in-cheek analysis. But since I do it so much anyway, I'll play the Devil's advocate here: let's face it, we all used the addons and coordinates while leveling up alts, if not even while leveling mains. It's easy to be nostalgic, but I never did like hunting around for that little pixel of brown you had to click on to finish a quest, and if you really do want to stumble around in the dark the old way, just don't look at your map and/or close the minimap down. I've recently played two other console games, Fable 2 and Dead Space, that also offer glowing line navigation straight to your quest targets, and I did feel a sense of exploration in both -- if I wanted to wander off the path, I was welcome to (and usually rewarded for it), while if I just wanted to get to where I was going, I could do that, too.
Feitan offers up even more WoW icons for your enjoyment
Feitan has posted another terrific set of WoW-related icons over on WoW LJ. Combine all of those with the first set, and throw in all of the other ones we've collected for you in the past, and you've got a really nice set of perfectly-sized choices from World of Warcraft to use as your icon on whatever service needs an avatar.Like, for example, our own comments. While the cartoon Ogre we've got as the default is quite cute, you might want to make yours a little more personal -- all you've got to do is click your name after commenting, and you'll be taken to a page where you can log in and edit your profile, see your comments so far, and yes, update a new profile picture. If you're still using the default commenter icon with our brand new commenting system, now is definitely the time to make the upgrade.
What I'd like to see in iPhone 3.0 (but probably won't)
Yeah, I know we haven't seen it yet, but based on what we do know, here's some things I'll bet Apple missed that I'd like to see ASAP. Unified mailbox as an option: This works great in OS X. I sure am getting tired of checking 3 email accounts with hundreds of extra finger swipes every day. Even an icon to get me to any inbox I want to see would be an improvement. Some people don't want this. A simple software switch would be fine. Louder speakerphone: I have no idea why this as been such a problem since day 1. The volume of this phone is just not loud enough in a noisy environment. Maybe this is a hardware thing, maybe it's software. Whatever. Just fix this! Getting to Bluetooth and location manager: These settings are just buried too deep. How about a switch in the top level of settings? Once again, save me all that tapping. Consistency of app settings: Sometimes they appear in settings, sometimes within the app. I shouldn't have to scrounge around trying to guess which app works which way. Moving icons around on the desktop: Have you ever tried to organize icons by type, or popularity? Gee whiz, what a nightmare. Maybe this could be done by dragging apps in iTunes, or some easy method on the phone itself would be even better. As it is now, it's like one of those old plastic puzzles where you had to get things in order. Every drag of an icon on the iPhone often has unexpected or at least unwanted results. This is not one of those 'it just works' things on the iPhone. Apple might surprise me and sneak some of this stuff in. Or not. You probably have your own list. Let's hear it. C'mon Apple, we're counting on you to get these things right. For the rest of us.
Mac 101: Supersize your icon views
Welcome back to Mac 101, our occasional series of tips for new and novice Mac users. Over the past 25 years, icons may have become ubiquitous almost to the point of fading into the visual background; still, the little pictures that began in 32x32 black and white format have grown up quite nicely into the massive 512x512 icons we enjoy in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Although the list and column views are more utilitarian for most file management tasks, there are times when icon view is the way to go. You can control whether or not a particular Finder window displays in Icon view via the View Menu ("as Icons," or ⌘-1), and then adjust the display size of the icons via the View Options inspector panel (⌘-J). You can get up to 128px square icons in Finder windows, which is plenty big, but what if you want to see all the graphical power of those fully operational battle icons? One way to see the full-size icons is via Cover Flow -- simply switch your Finder window to "as Cover Flow" (via the toolbar button, the View menu, or with a quick ⌘-4) and you can scale your icons at will by adjusting the window size. If you prefer not to have that black background around your icon, however, what is there to do? Thanks to Rob Griffiths at Macworld & MacOSXHints, here's a great tip for getting the maximum size out of your icon previews in the Finder without resorting to Cover Flow. To view icon previews up to 512x512, hit the Spotlight search field at the top right of the window; search for a null string (two quotation marks next to each other, no space in between, like so ""), then change the search target from This Mac to Current Folder and the search type from Contents to File Name. Switch to icon view and you'll see, at the bottom right corner of the window, a scaling slider. Push it to the right to maximize your icon size. It's just the thing for appreciating the fine detail on your bottle of unicorn tears. (If you're looking for the CHOCK LOCK and Rick Astley icons above, they're in the QuickPix 2008 pack from the Iconfactory.) Rob also hazarded a guess that we might see a more accessible version of this feature in future Mac OS X versions. If you watched the Snow Leopard stealth preview video posted earlier, you know he may well be right.
We [heart] Icons really does [heart] icons
One of the most common ways to customize your tried-and-true desktop is by changing the wallpaper. While easy and effective, the wallpaper switcheroo is not the only trick up the sleeves of the customizers among us. For some, the most rewarding customization results from replacing icons. There are many reasons to do this, including replacing system and application icons to create an overall aesthetic, easing the identification of a particular external hard drive by using its product image as an icon, or even replacing poorly-designed icons entirely (we're looking at you, Adobe).We Love Icons aims to make it easy for icon lovers to discover new icons from around the web that are free for personal use. In their own words, designers Dan Wiersema and Nando Albuquerque started We Love Icons because, well... they love icons! The site itself is very well designed and easy to navigate; there is even an easy-to-spot option for filtering icons based on type: Mac-compatible, PNG file format, or Windows-compatible.Further adding to the greatness of this site, the How-To page is a great resource for those new to the icon-customization game. There are links to external content on the history of icons, tutorials on changing icons, and even design-related icon articles. The How-To area also features an Apps section which lists several useful programs for replacing and creating icons. Each application list item includes a one-sentence summary, the application's platform (web, Mac, or Windows), and also the application's price.Overall, I am impressed with the content of the site and the quality of its presentation. We Love Icons has secured a bookmark in my "Icons" folder right next to the link to InterfaceLIFT's icon section. Dear readers, I present this question to you: in my never-ending search for the best icons, do you have any favorites that you have either designed or found? Hit up the comments and share the love.
Sprucing up your commenter icon on WoW Insider
I have to say, it takes a lot for you commenters to hurt me, but I was a little hurt that no one, as far as I've seen, has noticed that you're all Ogres now. Our own Zach Yonzon created some fun little Ogre art, and all of our default commenter icons (if you haven't yet changed yours by clicking on your name after commenting and logging into Blogsmith) are now grinning cartoon Ogres. I thought people would be shocked when we first put the change in about a month ago (we also considered turning everyone into Murlocs and/or Peons), but it doesn't seem like anyone noticed at all.Hopefully you have noticed now that we've pointed it out, and if you'd rather not be an Ogre, I'll remind you that there are plenty of Warcraft icons out there -- we've posted some from LJ before, and now Sarah has posted another set of holiday-related icons to choose from. Of course there are the official icons, and we've even got our own gallery of commenter icons for you to look over, not to mention that you can always take a screenshot in the game and upload a 64x64 crop of that as your own icon.As I said, if you want to change yours, just click on your name after you make a comment, and then you can login on that page with the password you normally use as a "Returning Member" in our comments (and yes we know the system is lame -- if you have issues, usually the best thing to do is to leave a comment as a "New Reader" again, and use a new email address if you haven't ever gotten the email that gets sent to you). Maybe you all just like being Ogres, but if you want to show a little personality with your icon in our comments section, feel free.
TapTapTap creates 10,000 iPhone apps mosaic
This is awesome. TapTapTap, in order to celebrate over 10,000 apps in the App Store, has created a mosaic of (what else?) an iPhone loaded up with apps -- out of the icons of App Store apps. It's crazy. You can see the entire thing full scale over on Flickr, and World of Apple is selling a poster of the image for $50 if you want to jump right over all the trouble of printing it out yourself..There are quite a few Apps I don't recognize in there, but I did notice the WebMD app, the Warcraft Characters app, Pyrus, NetNewsWire, and a few others I've got installed on my own iPhone. Very cool idea, and very neat way to show off just how many thousands of apps have arrived in the App Store already. Thanks, Alex!
What's in an icon?
Gedeon Maheux has an post about how an icon is designed from the aptly-named Iconfactory (specifically the Frenzic app icon), and while I don't have any design skills to speak of at all, it's an interesting look into how those little snippets of art are made. Icons are increasingly important, especially on the iPhone and OSX, as Apple leverages icons more and more in their interfaces, from the Dock to CoverFlow to the iPhone's home screen. He sounds a little sheepish that they obsess over icons, but why shouldn't they -- every time you decide whether or not to buy or use an app (some might say the most important part of an application's lifeline), you're likely looking right at the icon.There are a few things to take away here: they designed the icon not by itself, but right alongside all the other icons on an average iPhone screen -- in context, where people would see it. And they walked a thin line: while they wanted it to stand out as something you'd chose even among the apps you've already purchased, they didn't want it to be so bright or flashy that it broke the UI. Truth be told, Frenzic's icon still looks a little bright to me, but the lesson is good: the UI comes first.Ged closes with a sentiment I've agreed with for a while: while there's a disturbing trend of adding "On Sale" or "New!" to icons in the App Store (not to call anyone out, but ahem) that doesn't serve the developers or their customers. An icon, just like your app, should be subtle and simple and beautiful. After all, isn't that why we're all using Macs in the first place?
