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Beta iCloud site briefly appears along with developer's site (updated)
TUAW editor Dave Caolo noticed that the iCloud beta site briefly featured icons for Notes and Reminders. The good folks over at MacStories and developer Steve Troughton-Smith spotted the same thing. It was up long enough for a quick screengrab then disappeared. Is this a teaser for WWDC? As a certain archaeologist would like to say, "Spoilers!" It's interesting to note that the screengrab Dave managed to get is different from the ones that the MacStories crowd got, so it looks like Apple is messing around with the layout. It also appears that a beta version of iOS 6 will be required to use Notes and Reminders via iCloud, MacStories states. Notes and Reminders are logical extensions of iCloud, ones that should have been there from the beginning. It's good to see that Apple is adding them now. As Dave notes, there's plenty of room behind the iCloud sign-in for a seventh icon. What else do you think Apple could be adding to iCloud? Let us know in the comments Update (1 p.m. ET): It looks like someone at Apple is flipping switches, as a developer's site became active, disappeared and is now showing again.
The Repopulation's end-of-April update includes genetic engineering, bug fixes, and lore updates
Last month, we got our first look at the gameplay of Above and Beyond Technologies' upcoming sandbox title, The Repopulation. Today, the studio released its end-of-April 2012 update notes for the game, giving players a look at the ongoing tweaks and changes being made as Above and Beyond slowly ramps up to the beta stage. For the most part, the notes are your standard patch note fare: bug fixes, quality-of-life improvements, some UI tweaks, and so forth. But there are a couple of gems that stand out among the rest. For instance, players with the Genetic Engineering skill can do some gene-splicing to create their own unique pets. Currently there are 40 different hybrid and pure-species pets that can be genetically engineered, so the mad scientists in the crowd should have many options when it comes to playing God. The site's lore and bestiary sections have also been updated for the lore junkies out there. The full, rather expansive April update notes can be found on The Repopulation's official site, so if you're interested in all of the minutiae, just head on over there and check it out. [Thanks to Halldorr for the tip!]
Daily iPhone App: Drafts lets you save short snippets of text
Drafts from Agile Tortoise is the ideal digital notepad for the person who wants to capture a thought before it's gone. It has a simple UI that doesn't get in the way of its primary function, which is jotting down notes. The app opens to an empty draft that's ready for you to record your latest thoughts, type out the draft of a tweet or prep some markdown code. Drafts's emphasis is on quick and easy notes that can be shared on Twitter, email, or copied to the clipboard. It also supports markdown so you're not limited to plain text. Drafts has several small but handy features. The app keeps track of both your word and character count, which is extremely useful when you are composing a character-limited tweet or a text message. There's also a search function that'll help you find the important note you created last month. If you own the companion app Terminology, you can highlight a word in Drafts and easily look up its definition and usage. Drafts is available in the iOS App Store for US$0.99. It works on the iPhone and requires iOS 5.0.
Taposé brings Microsoft Courier to the iPad
Want to get a taste of what the split-screen Microsoft Courier would be like if it was released? No? Me neither, but your disinterest in the Courier shouldn't stop you from checking out Taposé from Zanther, Inc, a unique and exciting split-screen productivity app that just hit the iOS App Store. Taposé lets you split your iPad screen in half and use each side for different activities. One side can be a journal-style document editor and the other can be a web browser. You can pick any combination of journal, maps, web browser, contacts and calculator. The two sides of the app are independent, but, here's the interesting part: they can also share information if needed. For example, you can lasso an image on a web page on one side, copy it to the clipboard and then paste it in your journal on the other side. The panes are adjustable so you can tweak the size of the two sides as needed. It supports AirPrint and has a cloud component that lets you store your journals in the cloud and share them across devices. There's also a variety of smaller features and customizations that let you create eye-pleasing documents with lists, different backgrounds, various pen styles and more. Taposé debuted after a long approval process which is chronicled in a post by CNET. I've been using it since it became available and can say that it's an excellent first effort. Because it's an early product, the app has its share of flaws. The app did crash a few times and sometimes the user interface was a bit sluggish. Copying content didn't always work and page turning was a bit glitchy. Despite the bugs, I'm impressed with the concept and believe we will see more apps like this hit the iOS App Store in the future. If you're interested in checking out something new, then I wouldn't hesitate to purchase Taposé. It's worth the US$2.99 to support the developer. If you want a polished app without any glitches, then you should hold off until version 2. If you do buy it, be prepared to spend some time learning Taposé, as the user interface and feature set is slightly more complex than your average note taking app.
Apple unleashes OS X Mountain Lion Preview to Mac Developer Program
You may still be purring your way through our in-depth preview, but Mountain Lion is now officially out of the bag, with Apple releasing a preview version of its latest OS X to the members-only Developer Program. If you're up to date on those $99/year dues, you can head on over to the Member Center to get your OS 10.8 fix, and start checking out those shiny new Messages, Reminders, Notes and Notification Center apps. Or kick up your feet and bring your desktop to the big screen with AirPlay Mirroring. If you have the Apple-approved credentials to proceed, you can find all that and more by making your way over to our source link just below.
OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 in-depth preview
Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review Apple's OS X Lion USB sticks now available online for $69 Apple updates EFI firmware on 2010 Macs: offers Lion internet recovery, not much else You can bid farewell to the days of Apple's theatrical OS reveals -- at least until OS 11 rears its head, anyway. In the meantime, the outfit has seemingly been content to strip away more and more pomp and circumstance with every subsequent big cat release. Lately, the company has settled into an evolutionary release schedule, eschewing full-fledged makeovers in favor of packing in lots of smaller changes, many of them quite granular indeed. It's a trend that can be traced as far back as 2009's OS X Snow Leopard (10.6), a name designed to drive home the point that the upgrade wasn't so much a reinvention of the wheel as a fine tuning of its predecessor, Leopard. The arrival of Lion (10.7), though, marked a full upgrade. With features like Launchpad and Mission Control, it seemed like it might be the last version Cupertino dropped before finally pulling the trigger on operating system number 11, and perhaps transitioning to something with an even stronger iOS influence. Right now, at least, the company's not ready to close the book on chapter X, but it is giving the world a first peek at 10.8. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mountain Lion.
Daily iPad app: OneNote for the iPad
After years of developing mobile tools for its own platform, Microsoft has finally released a series of apps for the iPad including Lync, OneNote and Kinectimals. Hands down, the most anticipated of the bunch is OneNote, Microsoft's popular desktop app for taking and organizing notes. It's the premier solution for the desktop, but, unfortunately, it falls short on the Apple tablet. The app pulls OneNote documents down from SkyDrive and lets you both view and edit the documents on your iPad. Unfortunately, most of the document formatting is not available on the iPad. I had some beautiful OneNote documents with colorful text, tags, tables and different-sized fonts. You can see an example document below and compare it to the iPad version above. When I viewed the documents on the iPad, tags were missing, and all the text appeared in a small, bland, black font. Even worse, tables were formatted as images and not editable. Creating new OneNote documents is also very limited on the iPad. You can't create new notebooks or pages; you're only allowed to add new notes. Notebook security is also an issue as you can't view notes or add notes to a notebook that has a password. Overall, OneNote for the iPad is disappointing. I was hoping for additional editing options and better support for some of the basic attributes of a document. It's not like these features can't be edited on a mobile device. Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system supports OneNote document editing and it gives you excellent access to most of the document properties. If you only need an app to view plain OneNote documents, you may want to download and try OneNote for the iPad. It's free and it does let you view simple documents. Syncing on the iPad also works well, and changes were uploaded almost immediately. Reliable syncing, though, doesn't make up for an app that's only half as capable as it should be. If you want to try OneNote for the iPad, you can grab it for free from the iOS App Store.
Daily Mac App: Memo
I've written about quite a few note-taking apps in my pursuit of the best one. Most shy away from the Post-It note paradigm because OS X comes with Stickies, a pretty decent representation of the repositionable note, but Memo takes it head-on. Memo is basically Stickies with iCloud and password support. Create a new little yellow note, write yourself a reminder, text snippet or love-letter to your Mac, and move it to where you need it. Like many other programs, the note sits behind the active window and can be easily resized to accommodate more text. The notes can be password protected by clicking the little padlock icon, which keeps prying eyes out of your business if you're letting someone else use your Mac. You can change the font used, size of text and all the standard paragraph formatting you might expect. Unfortunately you can't change the colour of the note itself -- it's yellow for offline memos, blue for cloud memos and green for private memos, which are secured with a password. The blue "Cloud Memos" sync with iCloud to any Mac or iDevice with your iCloud ID and the free Memo app for the iPhone or iPad. If you're looking for a Stickies replacement for just text, Memo has a couple of advantages that might make it worth looking at. It's free, available in the Mac App Store and has free companion apps for the iPhone and iPad.
Phone Arts shows off original works created only with iOS
This is one of the more interesting art projects revolving around Apple's touch devices -- Phone Arts is a series of works that highlights pieces made specifically with the iPhone or the iPod touch. We've seen art made with iOS apps and devices before, but this is a little different. Rather than using the phone to create some version of an oil painting or a sketch, these pieces strike me as art that you can look at and know right away that it could only have been created on the iPhone's screen. The picture above is one example of how this is done, using the Notes app on iPad and some symbolic text, but all of the works in the iPhone Arts gallery looks like they were created with a digital surface. As the page says, these pieces "explore the boundaries of the phone to create graphic illustrations and designs." Really interesting. I'd love to see more experimentation like this. [via Today and Tomorrow]
Daily Mac App: Quick Note
Lots of people still use notepads to jot down quick reminders, even when they're in front of their Macs. Quick Note is a note taking utility that gives you the simple, quick writing experience of a pad of paper on your desk, but on your Mac. Simplicity and speed are key in this kind of app and thankfully Quick Note delivers. It's super simple. Click the "+" for a new note and type away. It gives you a pleasing yellow lined paper-style note pad, complete with a black leather textured top, that reminds me of some of the A4 "refill" pads I chewed through when I was a kid revising for exams. Type your note and it's saved in the pop-out drawer to the side complete with a search tool for easy access. Simple and efficient. If you want your notes synced to different Macs, currently Quick Note has support for cloud syncing via Diigo.com, but support for Google Docs, Dropbox and some other cloud services are "coming soon" according to the developer. Quick Note is a simple, straightforward note taking utility that can replace that paper pad you still keep next to your Mac for scribbling down notes. If you're not after the complexity of something like Evernote, and alternatives like QuickNotes or OS X's own Stickies are too simple for you, then Quick Note could be the app for you. It's free, but ad-supported -- thankfully you can quickly close the advert so it's not intrusive in its current implementation. Checking it out if you're still looking for that perfect note taking app for your Mac.
Myriad's Remarkz HTML 5 web annotation app hands-on
W3C tests HTML5 browser compatibility, crowns IE9 the champ Myriad Dalvik Turbo hands-on: Android apps just got fast Myriad 'Alien Dalvik' runs Android apps on any phone... starting with MeeGo (video) It wasn't that long ago that Myriad gave us an exclusive sneak peek at its platform agnostic Android app emulator, Alien Dalvik 2.0. While we were there, the company gave us a glimpse of another project, called Remarkz, that piqued our interest. Remarkz is a slick little HTML 5 application that lets users annotate web pages with text and drawings and share the marked up pages via email, Facebook and Twitter. As opposed to using screen grab programs like Skitch or Jing, Remarkz keeps the web page links live and only requires adding a bookmark to get started. Additionally, a timeline feature lets you see when new notes are made on a page and who made them -- giving it greater potential for use as a collaboration tool. True to Myriad form, it works on any platform (tablets, PCs and Macs) using any browser that supports HTML 5. It's still in beta for now, but the app works pretty well despite a small bug here or there. Plus, given its egalitarian nature, Myriad hinted that we may see it on more screens (think big) in January at CES, which would up its cool quotient considerably. Interested? Check out a video walkthrough of the app after the break, and hit the source to start using it yourself.
Put a whiteboard on your laptop with DrawTop
I love this idea. The DrawTop is a sticker that goes on top of your laptop and basically turns it into a whiteboard surface. The one, ahem, drawback that I can see is you might pretty easily wipe off any designs you happen to have on it just by sliding your laptop into the usual protective case or holder, so the company's suggestion to use it as a makeshift notebook or reminder board probably won't work all that well. Nevertheless, I can still see some good uses for this, like putting information on the back of your laptop at a conference or convention, or using it as a quick and portable collaborative sketch surface. The DrawTop itself is $10 for one or $14 for two, and it even comes with markers and stick-on accessories. Sure, you'll be covering up that Apple logo, but that's a small price to pay for a more useful laptop surface, no? [via Make]
Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard patch notes are up!
Denizens of Middle-earth, the big day is almost here! Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard goes live tomorrow, and Turbine has prepared a fresh, pipin'-hot batch of patch notes for your perusal. So what do players have to look forward to? Well, there are three new zones -- the Gap of Rohan, Dunland, and (duh) Isengard -- as well as 10 additional levels of content. Lore-fiends will be able to play through one of the largest Book questlines to date, while those of a more pugilistic persuasion can square off with the gargantuan Draigoch in a 24-player raid. All nine classes have received updates as well, so no matter what you play, there are plenty of goodies in store. Free players can now take part in monster play, which should hopefully bring a bit more conflict to the Ettenmoors. Crafters aren't getting left in the cold, either, as the update introduces tier 7 crafting and a "slew of new recipes." For the full, unabridged patch notes, head on over to the LotRO official site and take a gander. See you folks in Isengard!
Daily iPad App: Ghostwriter Notes
Ghostwriter Notes for the iPad is a note-taking solution that'll let you scribble your thoughts or jot down the highlights of a lecture on your tablet device. The app uses the idea of a virtual notebook to store your writings and lets you create an unlimited number of these notebooks. You can customize these notebooks and the pages within by naming them and changing the backgrounds with paper templates or background images. Writing on each page is simple and easy - all you need is your finger or a stylus. The text is predictably large when you use your finger, but it can be scaled down to normal size using a magnification view (shown above) for writing. When you choose a pen, a box appears at the top of the page and a magnified view of that region appears at the bottom of your display. You can write in this zoomed-in region and the text appears at the top. It's a little awkward but it does help you write more clearly and lets you use the entire page of the notes. This magnified view only works with the pen. If you choose the text box, markers or highlighters for writing, then you will write on the full page without any magnification. Ghostwriter also supports PDF files, so you can easily annotate and save these files. When you are done writing or editing, you can sync your notes to Dropbox or Evernote. You can also send them via email or print them wirelessly. Ghostwriter Notes is a great replacement for the traditional notebook. It would work well for students, work meetings or conferences. The magnification view is helpful for writing and its nice to have a variety of tools to use for writing, highlighting and drawing. The only negative is the interface which is good, but could be better. You get used to the controls quickly but I had to search to find the eraser under the "Pens" menu and was surprised when the up/down arrows at the top let you import and export your notebooks. I expected to jump to the top or the bottom of the page. There's also no support for the swipe gesture to turn the page. There's a little slider to move back and forth through pages, but it's not as natural of a motion as swiping. These few drawbacks take away from the experience but they don't diminish my enthusiasm for the app. The developer has a support page and is very responsive to customers so hopefully these quirks will be addressed in future versions. This responsiveness, in my opinion, means the developer is serious about the app and will work hard to improve any deficiencies and add new features. Ghostwriter Notes is available for US$4.99 from the App Store.
Kokuyo's CamiApp brings paper back to note-taking (video)
Between Samsung's Galaxy Note and the Boogie Board Rip, a mini-trend emerged at IFA last week with companies attempting to bridge the gap between paper notebooks and digital devices. Japanese office supply manufacturer Kokuyo is looking to get in on the action, utilizing devices that consumers already own. In August, the company's CamiApp was released for iOS, with an Android version coming later this month. The app scans and digitizes handwritten text, letting users edit, highlight, email, tag and share the information with apps like Evernote and Dropbox. The apps are specially designed to work with forthcoming "smartphone-friendly" paper notepads from the company. According to Kokuyo, the notebooks have "special features" that make digital capture easier. Eight different notebooks will be made available tomorrow. The company is also working on making the CamiApp notebooks available overseas.
Evernote hits Windows Phone 7, marches steadily toward complete device domination
Evernote this week announced that its eponymous note-taking software has finally hit Windows Phone 7, the latest in a long line of platforms that includes everything from webOS to Google Wave. Like the dozen or so other versions, the app is all about saving ideas and syncing them across compatible devices. This one, however, was built around WP7's UI, with pivoting panels devoted to Notes, Notebooks, Tags, and Recent Notes. The app is available now for free from the App Hub, so take note -- by writing the information on your hand or something.
Patch 4.2 PTR patch notes updated for June 10
Blizzard has once again updated the patch notes for patch 4.2, which will introduce the Firelands raid and the Molten Front and the Regrowth questing areas. The most recent versions of the patch have been marked "release," and PVP Season 9 is ending soon, which means we should see patch 4.2 drop in the next couple of weeks. Get your shoes on, kids -- we're almost at Grandpa Ragnaros' house. The most interesting change in these notes is the effective nerfing of raiding for valor points. The maximum number of valor points one can achieve weekly has been lowered to 980, down from 1,250. The number of valor points you could earn through heroic dungeons and the new Zandalari heroics were 490 and 980 respectively, and raiders could earn an extra 270 points on top of that. Now, it is possible to get the maximum amount of valor points from just doing Zandalari heroics. We do not yet know why this change was made. Raiders will understandably be perplexed, as one of the raid game's main draws was faster valor point gear. In addition, the prices for valor point gear have not changed, so certain pieces of gear that used to require two weeks will now require more collecting. Hit the jump for all the new changes.
Patch 4.2 PTR updates for June 7
The patch 4.2 PTR was updated today with some pretty fun updates. Zul'Gurub is getting some quality-of-life convenience fixes, including turning off the tiki-fire gauntlet and poison gauntlet when their associated bosses are defeated. The 8 new hunter rare taming challenges got two extra new friends, bumping the taming challenges up to 10. We will have to see if these two new unique rares are going to be spiders, but I'm guessing they will be something different, as per player feedback. Another interesting point of fact is that during the valor point conversion for the new tier of raiding, all existing justice points above the 4,000 point cap will be turned into 47 silver per point. Any valor points you had will be reset to zero and will either be added to your justice point totals or turned into silver, depending on how much overage you have. All in all, it will be nice to see how the first point reset works. I am a big fan of point resets and am glad Blizzard went this route with the new point system Hit the jump for all of the changes.
Evernote offering developer competition, conference
Evernote has announced two big events for its developer community coming up later this year. First, the company is holding a competition with over $100,000 in prizes available to win. To enter, all developers need to do is build an app, service, or device that works with the Evernote system by July 15. The submissions will be judged over the subsequent week or two, and then in August, Evernote will announce six finalists. Some of those finalists will win some money, with a chance at a grand prize of $50,000. That's a nice payday for anyone willing to put some development time into extending Evernote out even further. To help developers put their apps and services together, Evernote has also announced the first-ever Evernote Trunk Conference, going on August 18 in San Francisco. The conference will offer a day of workshops and sessions designed to help developers hook their own apps up to Evernote, and learn how to parse the API, make use of best practices, and lots more. This same conference is where the winners will be announced for the developer competition, so if you're hoping to be in the running, you should plan on being there. Both of these are just for developers, of course, but if you're an Evernote user, you hopefully can look forward to all kinds of ingenious additions to the service and its extended universe, which is what both of these events are of course intended to bring about.
Livescribe Connect upgrade lets you share doodles in several ways, just not wirelessly (video)
Pen pushers who took a chance on Livescribe's note-recording smartpen have benefited from some nice apps, hacks and upgrades along the way. Now the company's latest productivity-booster is a software update called Connect, which lets you share your scribbles via Email, Google Docs, Facebook and Evernote, as well as through Livescribe's own Pencast platform. Some of these sharing options were already available but Connect tries to speed things in an interesting way: by letting you set sharing instructions even as you jot down a note. Simply draw a double line and write, say, 'Facebook' or 'Google Docs' somewhere on the page, and the sharing will take place automatically the next time you sync to your Mac or PC. Most of the sharing options are free, but if you own an older Pulse model or the new entry-level $99.95 2GB Echo you'll need to buy a $15 upgrade before you can share via Email or Google Docs. Heck, we'd pay way more than that if only Livescribe would come up with a way to sync and share wirelessly -- docking this thing feels about as cutting edge as a quill. Video and full PR after the break.
