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jOBS actor Ashton Kutcher to headline Macworld/iWorld next week
Ashton Kutcher is portraying Steve Jobs in the indie -- and worst inter-capped name ever -- film jOBS later this year. Now Macworld has announced the Hollywood star and his costar Josh Gad, who is playing Steve Wozniak, will headline a session at Macworld|iWorld next week. The duo will talk about portraying Apple's iconic co-founders. The session, titled "Playing Steve & Woz," will take place on the main stage, room 2005 on Thursday, January 31 at 9:00 AM local time. And just as important as the two Hollywood stars, many of us from TUAW will also be at the event (perhaps doing our best Steve and Woz impressions), so be sure to stop by and say "Hi!" Macworld|iWorld 2013 runs from January 31 to February 2 at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, Calif.
Macworld | iWorld Asia event begins in Beijing
The second annual Macworld | iWorld Asia event has begun in Beijing this week. IDG has hosted the conference twice now to serve the growing number of Mac, iPhone, and iPad users in China. It sounds a lot like San Francisco's version of Macworld | iWorld, with dev conferences, a big keynote event, and an open exhibition floor, with exhibitors like LaCie, Macally, and Logitech showing their wares. One thing San Francisco doesn't have that Macworld | iWorld Asia does is a "Macworld Girl" beauty contest, which apparently is a common happening at conferences in China and that area. But other than that, the event sounds just about as popular as the one in San Francisco, with about the same stuff to see. Macworld | iWorld Asia, in case you're there or want to go over there (good luck with that), continues through August 5. [via TNW]
Nomad brushes with wide strokes at Macworld | iWorld 2012
Don Lee, CEO of Nomad Brush, was kind enough to meet with us for a few minutes on the floor of Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week to chat about his creation, which is one of the nicer brushes available for virtual painting on Apple's devices. Nomad's got a few different makes and models for various uses, but Lee says his goal for them is all the same: To provide a "good bridge between analog and digital painting." The brushes all do that -- they're solid brushes that respond well to the iPad's screen. But what they don't do is what all brushes and styluses can't yet do, and that's invoke pressure sensitive information onto Apple's glass screen. Lee says that it's actually a choice on Apple's part. He says that the software can determine the size of a touch on the screen -- in other words, if your finger touches it only slightly, that's a smaller screen space than if your finger (or a capacitive brush) is completely pressed up against the glass. But Apple doesn't allow developers to take advantage of that information with their apps. "If they were to let that open," says Lee, he'd obviously be able to sell more useful brushes, but until then, brushes are basically finger substitutes, not the full tools they could be. Now developers, being developers, have come up with lots of little tricks to get around this lack of pressure information. The app Zen Brush, which Lee says makes a nice example for his brushes, actually uses the speed of your finger swipe (along with "projected" virtual ink on the screen) to make a more realistic representation of how the brush would interact with an actual page. Nomad doesn't have its own app, but Lee says the company "would love to talk to some developers" about possibly making an app built to work with its brushes. In the meantime, of course, they work just fine with almost any drawing app. As for the brushes themselves, Lee says the biggest difference between them is basically just the size of the tips -- some are wider and better used at painting bigger strokes, and some are better for closeup work (only in the feeling, of course -- again, the size of the brush's contact on iOS' surface doesn't really matter, and all of the various brush settings have to be worked on in the actual software). But one thing Nomad is thinking about doing that customers have asked about is creating brushes with interchangeable tips, so that users can customize their handles with whatever brush they'd like to use. There are a few different choices in terms of brush styli for the iPad and iPhone, but Nomad seems like a good option, and it was interesting to talk to Lee, who's actually an architect by trade. All of Nomad's brushes are available on its website now.
Avatron soldiers on with Air Sharing after removing Air Dictate
Avatron's Elliot Chase just shrugs when asked about Air Dictate, an app his company had to remove from the App Store after Apple discovered it made use of Siri that they didn't approve of. "There's no good news," he said while talking to us at Macworld | iWorld 2012. The main issue is over Air Dictate's interface. Instead of using the standard, tiny Siri button on the native keyboard, Avatron hid the keyboard and used its own button. Apple would rather it used the standard UI, however unfitting. "If we make some changes, they might put us back," says Chase. But outside of that issue, Avatron is continuing to update its popular Air Sharing and Air Display apps. In fact, the gang was showing off Air Sharing's beautiful new PDF viewer in San Francisco last week. It features an iBooks-style page flip and a scrubber for quickly scanning a document's pages. Chase said that many users are reading PDFs with the app, and his company saw an opportunity to create a better PDF viewer. The next update, which should be out soon, will add Egnyte to the list of cloud services that Air Sharing is compatible with. Avatron is also working on Air Display updates. An Android version is in development, as is a Mac update that will allow it to work on older versions of Mac OS X . The current version requires the latest version of the Mac OS, but Avatron will release a downloadable version on its website that will work with previous versions, so you can share a display screen with your iPad from nearly any OS X build. There's a beta available now, but the software should be finalized in the next month or so. Air Dictate was certainly a setback (Avatron even had the software's picture marked out on its booth at Macworld as "not available"), but it sounds like Avatron is keeping busy nevertheless.
Talkcast tonight, 10pm ET/7pm PT: Post Macworld-iWorld Edition!
Here we are again, another Sunday. What remains of our TUAW crew after covering Macworld | iWorld 2012 (and more importantly, all of the ancillary events associated with MWiW) will be around tonight to chat about the show and whatever else we can come up with to fill out the hour. What's left of Kelly's voice will be hosting this evening, so you might have to listen closely. What's left of Paul Kent has said he will make every attempt to join us, but if he can't make it this week he said he'd join us next week. Your calls and questions help us make the show the best it can be, otherwise I'm just talking to myself! To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cellphone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo, X-Lite, or Blink SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!
Take a tour of the Macworld | iWorld 2012 show floor
Just as soon as the show floor opened at this year's Macworld | iWorld 2012 in San Francisco, we grabbed a camera and did a run through the exhibitions on display. You can see all of the various booths and their vendors and showcases in the gallery below (everything from Mac and iOS accessories to app developers and even content producers), as well as shots from the "Macworld Midway" displays and the registration area. Things are hopping on the first day of the conference. There are some big names missing from the show floor; Apple obviously isn't officially here, and some of the big vendors from previous years aren't around. But as you can see below, there are plenty of exhibitors here, both big and small. We'll have lots more coverage from Macworld | iWorld all this week, from most of the exhibitors in the gallery below and even more. Stay tuned! %Gallery-145729%
