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You can keep an eye on hurricanes from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with the help of an assortment of App Store offerings. But which app should you choose for your storm watch? Jeff Merron rates five contenders.

If you’re like Jobs you’d say “who wants a stylus?” If you’re not Apple’s CEO, then you may want to check out Just Mobile’s Alupen. It’s crafted from premium, long-lasting alu-min-ium (Ive style) and looks awesome. It’s as tall as your iPhone, and slightly thicker than ye olde’ number 2 pencil.

The stylus works great as a… stylus (didya guess?) and if you were thinking about getting a stylus for your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, it’s never been a better time now that the Alupen has met light. You can get your own for like 20 bucks at Just Mobile’s online store. And hey… we just might give a few of these away sometime, we just might.

Spam has already started to pop up on Apple's new Ping social network. There are built-in tools to report it, but can't we have just one spam-free online service?

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Gamasutra cornered Epic Games' Mike Capps (he of the very impressive Epic Citadel demo yesterday at the Apple special event), and Capps confirms that what you see running on your iPhone is the real deal -- Unreal Engine 3, with all of the bells and whistles that it has on the major HD consoles. The actual game that Project Sword will become is being designed by Chair (which is the same group that did the popular Shadow Complex game for Xbox 360), and we'll see the full project soon. Capps also confirms that UE 3 needs at least an iPhone 3GS to run, but he says that in terms of hardware, Apple's devices are right where they need to be. High-resolution textures are an issue (you can't install a 15gb game on an 16gb portable device), but the memory and speed are actually there, says Capps. "You've got 16 gigs of flash memory," he says, "which is way better, faster memory than what most people have generally on a home PC. So that stuff works really well." The biggest issue holding handheld gaming back is larger environments, but game developers are getting better and better at designing worlds that render quickly and well to all kinds of platforms. And Capps looks into the future, and sees even more possibilities for Apple and their product lines. "It doesn't take a whole lot of leaps of faith to say, 'Right now, I can display from my iPad to my Apple TV on a big screen TV.' How far away are we from 'that's my game console, and it's displaying wirelessly to my television set?' It's not far away." That's kind of a trippy thought -- that Apple had to finally move away from the Mac to earn a larger foothold in gaming. It's very heartening, as a gamer and an Apple fan, to hear Capps as excited as he is about the possibilities for iOS and the App Store. [via Joystiq[

TUAWEpic's Mike Capps talks about Epic Citadel and the future of iOS gaming originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every time there’s an Apple event, there’s fallout. Big, nasty, mutate-ants-into-monstrous-rampaging-creatures fallout. With Apple’s media shindig on Wednesday, there’s no shortage of rejoinders and responses from media executives, smartphone rivals, and even…a golf company?

Even if you are commenting on an ODB song, you can’t use profanity…

If you jumped into Ping as soon as it was available, like we did, you were able to connect to your friends with Facebook.  That capability soon disappeared, making everyone wonder what happened.  AllthingsD got the story:

[Facebook] essentially denied Apple’s Ping access to application programming interfaces that would allow it to search for an iTunes user’s friends on Facebook who also had signed up for Ping.

Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission.

That is, unless some entity wants to access it a lot. In that case, Facebook requires an agreement for reasons primarily centered on protection of Facebook user data and, of course, infrastructure impact.

With 160 million iTunes users, that could mean a possibility of a lot of impact.

Sources said Apple (AAPL) and Facebook conducted negotiations about an agreement, but could not come to terms.

So did Zuck rain a world of hurt down on Jobs?

Not really.

Facebook knows that Ping not only looks like Facebook but it carves a large chunk out of what Facebook does and plans to do.  They have no intention of easily allowing Apple to use their social graph to replicate their capabilities on Ping.

You think Facebook has any plans to sell music using reccomendations?  I’m sure it is on the agenda.  Therefore, Zuckerberg isn’t going to just give away the store to Apple.

But does Apple really need Facebook to sign up users and make?  Judging from the fact that Lady Gaga has a couple hundred thousand followers less than 24 hours after Ping was released, I’d say not.

Even if Apple and Facebook never agree to terms to the API, Apple can go in the backdoor.  For instance a “Share” my profile link with your friends accomplishes the same thing.  Look for that button in Ping and your friends’ Facebook feed.

Okay, I might be a little bit fangrrlish about the new Xcode 4 IDE. But seriously, it's really an awesome update to the existing Xcode tools. Yes, it's still majorly buggy and yes, there are still many features missing in action -- but it's such a treat to see how the new tools are evolving into their final form. Today, Apple has released developer preview 3 of the new Xcode 4 suite, which you can download by heading over to the developer.apple.com site. You will need to sign in with your online or paid developer credentials to access the page and the preview dmg. I'm a little iffy about what the NDA situation is with regards to the release (I believe it is under NDA until it leaves beta) so I'll leave finding out about the details (there's a Readme and release notes) to you.

TUAWApple releases preview 3 of Xcode 4 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has released a third preview of Xcode 4, the latest set of developer tools for Mac OS and iOS platforms. Version 4 transitions to a single-winder interface, combining a navigation toolbar, which offers search and list content, with a Jump Bar that can be used to quickly switch between various levels.... Video Games - Games - Apple - Xcode - Platform

These days, the consumer-oriented iMacs stand on their own against (and in some cases, surpass) the Mac Pro in day-to-day performance. Does that mean that the Mac Pro has lost its relevance in today’s work environment? Hardly.

Toshiba has revealed new SDHC memory cards with the Ultra High Speed I (UHS-I) standard that enables them to reach maximum data read rates of 95MBps and write speeds of 80MBps. This makes them the fastest SDHC UHS-I memory cards in the world. The cards can thus far only use these speeds in USB 3.0 readers, as no camera can fully use their performance.... Toshiba - Laptop - Hardware - Operating Systems - Linux

One of the most popular iOS Apps of all time got its biggest upgrade yet, moving to version 3.0 and adding prime iOS 4 status. The app got some mad fast-app switching skillz as well as support for that hott iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4 retina screen.

Shazam also gets a fresh new look that adds features while simplifying the controls. Hit up the full release notes above, check out the new interface after the jump, and download the update here.

In Wednesday’s media event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the audience that his company was seeing 230,000 iOS device activations a day, a number that put it ahead of the competition (read: Google), and that some that competition (read: Google) was including upgrades when touring its own activation numbers. On Thursday, Google released a statement saying, in essence, “Nuh-uh.” Google - Steve Jobs - Apple - statement - IOS

Compal president Ray Chen told those at an investors' meeting that he expects the fledgling tablet industry to undergo a major thinning effect for all but Apple's iPad in 2011. He saw the entire competition moving just 10 million to 12 million tablets next year where many expect Apple to reach those numbers in 2010 with only eight months of sales. The poor results will likely see some companies quit the market after just a year, DigiTimes heard, because they falsely assumed they would automatically succeed.... Taiwan - Compal Electronics - Reuters - United States - Laptop

Deutsche Telekom AG will lose exclusivity for Apple Inc.'s iPhone in Germany...

Additional details regarding Facebook's dispute with Apple have emerged, suggesting that Apple attempted to connect Ping to the social networking service before both sides negotiated a deal. Although the Facebook Connect APIs are typically open for free use, the company requires an agreement when usage will have a significant impact on infrastructure.... Facebook - Apple - Social network - ITunes - Steve Jobs

Mac Life notes that Apple has removed the create your own ringtone feature from iTunes 10. The feature introduced after the launch of the original iPhone in 2007 allows users to download a song from iTunes for 99 cents and then turn it into an iPhone ringtone for 99 more cents.

At a later Fall Apple music event, Apple added a new section to the iTunes store for both Mac and iOS devices that allows for the purchase of pre-cut iPhone ringtones. It seems that Apple may have gotten a bit greedy and wants you to go for the pricier, pre-cut tones instead. They have to make up for that Apple TV price drop somewhere, right?

Game Center is almost out in consumers' hands, but that hasn't stopped the folks at OpenFeint from pushing forward on their unofficial social network for gamers. PlayTime is a newly-announced feature of the third-party social networking software that will allow players on both iOS and Android to play in real-time with each other, and even use voice chat while doing that. OpenFeint is splitting its multiplayer services into two different paths: "Casual" games will use highscores to offer up multiplayer and even co-op challenges, while "Core" games will actually run real-time multiplayer, in conjunction with a system from a company called Exit Games. Sounds interesting -- the new features are being tested by developers right now, and will be available in OpenFeint sometime later on this year. Game Center will definitely make a big splash in iPhone gaming when it gets released next week, but OpenFeint is still planning on sticking around and innovating where even Apple hasn't yet dared to go. iOS game players will be glad to have both around when all is said and done.

TUAWOpenFeint announces PlayTime, real-time multiplayer with voice chat for iOS and Android originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has just released their 3rd preview/beta of their upcoming Xcode 4 software. Hot off the heals for iOS 4.1′s golden master release, this new preview of Xcode for includes iOS 4.1 compatibility and a few new features. As always, bug fixes are included.

New features include a new activity interface for developers as well as a completely fresh user-interface for the new code completion technologies in Xcode 4. The second preview of Xcode 4 was issued to developers in late July and the first preview was provided exclusively to WWDC 2010 attendees in early June.

When we interviewed Tweetie developer Loren Brichter in June, he made two things clear: 1) Tweetie (now branded simply as "Twitter" after the company was acquired by the microblogging service) would definitely be coming to the iPad, and 2) Loren was really looking forward to exploring the larger screen touch interface.

Now, the official Twitter client for iPad is finally out in the form of a universal app. The team has clearly put some effort into utilizing parts of the multitouch experience in ways that third-party Twitter apps have not, and the app is certainly feature-rich. However, the interface can be confusing at times, and many of the features are not easily discoverable without some help.

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