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Dice games to go with all the iPhone dice apps

dice games iphoneThe App Store, so far, has seen a number of duplicate apps. One group of dupes we're seeing: dice rollers. Makes sense if you twist an old saw to say "if your input involves shaking, everything starts to look like an accelerometer." Or something.

My personal favorite for randomness is MotionX Dice. It has polish and allows you to roll one to five six-sided dice at a time. I also happen to use Dice Bag (iTunes link), but that's because my nerd blood runs deep. Still, there are plenty to choose from.

So what to do with all those dice-rolling apps? On the next page I've got a roundup of games you can play with dice. Some involve a pencil and paper for score keeping or whatnot, but all use dice as the basis for the game mechanics. Next time you're stuck in the doctor's office, don't just give your kids DizzyBee, play a "real" game with them!

Continue reading Dice games to go with all the iPhone dice apps

Learn a language with the Finder's Desktop

Here's a nifty little application. DesktopLyrics is a free utility that displays the lyrics of the song that's currently playing in iTunes on your desktop. You can position it where ever you like, choose your font and then just let it run. Pretty neat, right?

Here's the catch. The lyrics must be in iTunes already, as DesktopLyrics doesn't fetch them. You could use an application like GimmieSomeTune (which we've written about before) to do this, or, if you're a masochist, enter them by hand. But I've thought of a better idea.

I'm teaching myself Japanese with the fantastic podcasts at JapanesePod101.com. Something I like about them is that they embed each lesson's transcript in the file itself. So, tapping on my iPhone's screen as I listen brings up the text of the lesson.

Now, I can launch DesktopLyrics and follow along with the transcript, both the Japanese and the English translation, on my desktop as I listen. I love it. Check it out, and happy learning!

[Via LifeHacker]

Microsoft and FrontLine Release Solver for Excel 2008

If you've been miffed with Microsoft since Excel 2008 hit the stores due to the removal of Solver from the popular spreadsheet application, it may be time to lighten up. You can now download Solver for Excel 2008 for free from the FrontLine Systems Web site. FrontLine developed the original Solver for Excel 2004, and developed the Excel 2008 version at the request of the Microsoft Mac Business Unit (Mac BU).

Solver is a linear programming / analysis tool for Excel that was included with Excel 2004 as an add-in, but dropped from Excel 2008 since it required Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The Mac BU has noted that VBA is going to return in the next version of Office. In the meantime, Mac Excel users who rely on Solver's powerful analysis capabilities are now able to use the free download to perform their linear programming tasks.

[via MacRumors]

Favorite iPhone apps: Schramm's take

As you might imagine, my iPhone is more littered with games than useful stuff like Steve's or Victor's. Sure, I've got Twitterific and NetNewsWire, but my most-used apps are of the video game variety.

The game that's most grabbed me so far is Aurora Feint. When it was first released, I didn't get much out of it, but since it's been updated a few times, Aurora Feint has turned into a pretty deep puzzle/RPG. There have been some security scares, unfortunately, and the game's "MMO" promises haven't yet come to fruition. But for sheer matching puzzle gameplay (it's similar to the great Poker Smash on Xbox Live), it's probably the most addictive game on the App Store.

My second favorite is Characters (I originally wrote about it on WoW Insider). If you play World of Warcraft and have an iPhone, this is the closest thing you'll find to an official Blizzard app. It lets you see every bit of information on the Armory in a very nice-looking iPhone app format. We're still waiting on Blizzard to provide us with an iPhone version of the in-game Auction House or mailbox, but until then, this is a great way to look up the WoW characters of folks you meet.

And finally, I've been really impressed with Midomi (and also the similar Shazam), a music recognition app. Hit the app, let it listen to a song you're hearing (or even you singing the song or saying the lyrics), and it'll tell you exactly what that song is. And once you've find it, you can listen to it, find it in iTunes or on Youtube, or see band pictures and reviews. Midomi is the kind of app I've never had on any other devices I've owned, and yet I've put it to great use a few times.

Honorable mentions go to Freeverse's (renamed) Moto Chaser, which is consistently the game that most impresses people playing with my iPhone; Trism, which turned out to be an excellent game, and Frotz and Sketches, both of which I've written about here before.

And I'm still waiting for two things: some great persistent pet gameplay (Wil Shipley, what happened to all of those ideas?), and some great location-based MMO gameplay as well. There's good stuff out there, but we're still just getting started in the App Store.

Go Hollywood with a free "In a world" ringtone



You know those movie trailers that begin with the narrator intoning the familiar words "In a world...."? Beau Weaver, a Hollywood narrator and diehard TUAW reader who does a lot of those trailers, was asked by his friends to create an iPhone ringtone that played on the same phrase. He did, and he'd like to share it with TUAW readers for free.

Just pop over to Beau's website at http://www.spokenword.com/ringtone/, listen to the ringtone, and if you like it, follow our TUAW tutorial on how to create an iPhone ringtone from an MP3 with GarageBand. To download the MP3 for slicing and dicing in GarageBand, just Control-click the link and select Save Link As.

Thanks for the fun freebie, Beau!

Frotz brings text adventuring to the iPhone

We've already seen text adventures on the jailbroken iPhone way back when, but now Craig Smith has brought the z-machine interpreter (the engine that runs classic text adventure games like Zork, Planetfall and all the Infocom titles) to the iPhone officially with Frotz, available right now in the App Store.

It comes with a few games to begin with, and there's also built in access to the Interactive Fiction Database, so you can grab as many text-based adventures as you'd like -- hours and hours of text-based good times. Whether you're an old hand at GET LAMP or new to the surprisingly vast world of IF, Frotz seems like a perfect portal to all the adventuring there is to find out there.

[via Joystiq]

Freeware Find: Karelia iMedia Browser 1.1.1

It's easy to get spoiled using Apple's Media Browser, that little tool that pops up in many of the iLife and iWork applications and provides access to photos, music, graphics, and movies. But what about those cases where you want to use Media Browser and the application you're in doesn't support it?

Karelia Software, makers of the popular website creation tool Sandvox, has just shipped an update to iMedia Browser. iMedia Browser 1.1.1 works with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). It provides all of the functionality of Media Browser, but for just about any application on your Mac. This update adds international support and new media sources.

iMedia Browser now supports the following media (information from Karelia's website):
  • Browse Photos: iPhoto / Aperture / Lightroom library, Pictures folder, and other predefined folders.
  • Browse Music: iTunes library, GarageBand songs, Music folder, etc.
  • Browse Movies: iTunes and iPhoto libraries, Movies folder, etc.
  • Browse Links: Bookmarks from Safari, Camino, OmniWeb, etc.
  • Drag and drop any folder into the source list to add to your library.
As the really old song says, "the best things in life are free", and iMedia Browser is no exception. Download it and start enjoying your media in almost every application you use.

Maperture brings geotagging to Aperture


Maperture is a nifty little plugin for Aperture that lets you geotag photos in your library. We've covered quite a few different geotagging apps for the Mac, but this is the first one that works so well with Aperture as a plugin.

Basically, Maperture integrates an interface to Google Maps which allows you to easily place your pictures on a map, saving the location information as metadata in the photos. Since it's a front end for Google Maps, you get its built-in features like the satellite and hybrid views, etc. In addition, Maperture will automatically place images already containing location information on the map for you. Now the only problem is remembering exactly where you were when you took the picture!

Maperture is a free download from Übermind and requires Aperture 2.

[via Macworld]

Lenovo Olympics 2008 App

Do you want to keep up with Michael Phelps and his quest for Olympic gold? Are you Interested in seeing photographs of women beach volleyball players competing on the sand (nudge nudge, wink wink)?

Lenovo, the Chinese manufacturer of ThinkPad and IdeaPad notebook PCs and other electronic devices, is providing the free Lenovo Olympics 2008 App [iTunes link] in the App Store now. You can download it from your iPhone or iPod touch by going to the App Store and searching for Lenovo; the same app is available for Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices via lenovo.zumobi.com.

While the app is filled with advertising for Lenovo and Intel, it also provides you with photos taken at the Games, news (a bit behind the sports websites), profiles of random Olympic athletes, and blog entries by anonymous athletes. The latter is particularly frustrating, as the blog entries feature the sport and country of the athletes, but not their names!

The app will be available for the duration of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and was developed by Zumobi.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

Google Translate ported to iPhone

You know if the App Store has been out for a month and we're posting about a web app, it has to be a good one. Google announced late last week that they've brought the terrific Google Translate service over to the iPhone. Of course, whenever you travel internationally, roaming charges (sometimes huge ones) can come into play, but if you find yourself tooling around Spain and need more phrases than ¿Dónde está el baño? or Tú eres mi chica, Google's web app will do the trick fast and easy.

And there's some nice coding in there, too -- the phrases translated get stored on the client side of the phone, so if you've already translated something, you don't have to reload the page to see it again. To use the service, just point your MobileSafari to translate.google.com. Folks in other countries probably still won't care too much what you have to say, but at least they'll know what you're saying.

Beta Beat: Glims for Safari

If you're looking for a Safari plugin with the usefulness of Inquisitor and then some, then look no further than Glims for Safari. This (currently in beta) plugin gives you the same search functionality as Inquisitor, plus some extra and useful features like full screen viewing.

Actually, the current feature list is quite impressive for this free little plugin:
  • Generates thumbnails for Google/Yahoo search results
  • Full screen browsing
  • Add favicon to tab labels
  • "Undo close tab" option
  • Reopen last Safari session on start
  • Auto-close download window
  • Set focus on the search field on opening a new window
  • Adds max window size for window resizing
Glims does take a cue from Inquisitor's revenue plan as the developers get a referral fee for Amazon links in searches. Overall, Glims looks like a good alternative to Inquisitor, and hey, it's free! You can download beta 6 of Glims from the developer's website.

Gallery: Glims for Safari: Preferences

AmazonWatcher looks for Amazon deals

AmazonWatcher is a simple application that, well, watches Amazon. After putting in the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) for whatever you want to watch, the application can be set to alert you whenever the item is in stock (if you're still waiting for a Wii, for instance) or when the item drops below a certain price. In addition to sounding an alert AmazonWatcher can send you an email or even automatically order an item if you have Amazon's 1-Click active for your account.

AmazonWatcher is a free download for Mac (or PC). The website does not indicate whether or not this application makes use of Amazon's affiliate program when ordering.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

Sun offers StarOffice 9 beta for Mac

Sun has released a beta for StarOffice 9, which brings native Mac support to Sun's commercial version of the OpenOffice suite of applications (finally bringing to fruition Sun's joining the Mac porting team back in 2007). The new version is a regular Aqua application and no longer requires X11. In addition, it integrates with "the address book and other system tools" including Spotlight, and allows importing the new XML-based Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac file formats (.docx, .xlsx etc.).

StarOffice9 is Intel-only and requires OS X 10.4+. The beta expires on August 17. It is a free download from Sun Microsystems (registration required). The regular price of StarOffice 8 is $69.95.

[via MacNN]

The Numbers Game

Tap Tap Revenge - One Million DownloadsIt's a week of superlatives for Apple content providers!

Tapulous announced that their free game for iPhone 2.0 / iPod touch, Tap Tap Revenge (click opens iTunes) should reach the one million download mark sometime this weekend. Tap Tap Revenge joins Facebook in the million-download club, with Facebook being the first app to reach these lofty heights last week. A visit to the Tapulous website shows a counter ticking off the downloads (less than five thousand to go as of 10:42 AM ET today).

Tap Tap Revenge uses soundtrack music by indie artists and over 2.5 million song downloads have been counted so far. Tapulous is now approaching the major labels on a "Pro" version of the game that would feature music by top stars.

On Wednesday, Walt Disney Co. announced that they have sold over 5 million movies to viewers through the iTunes Store since the company started offering their releases online. While Disney CEO and President Rob Iger noted that although the company doesn't achieve the same margin on online sales as they do through traditional channels, it's the increase in online consumption of movies that the company is focusing on.

[Disney info via Marketwatch]

The strange economy of the App Store

A few App Store apps have already gotten the public browbeating for tweaking their prices, and here's another: as Johnathan notes, there's a new app on the top of the heap in the paid pile, and apparently the only reason "Units Convertor" (sic) is there is because it used to be free.

We can't necessarily call them out for switching just to sit on top -- what would you do if you had a free app that was being downloaded like crazy and decided you wanted to make some money from it? But being that free apps far outweigh paid apps in terms of distribution, even the #21 free app can quickly jump to the top of the paid pile. We've already posted about how developers might be getting a raw deal out of the App Store (and some publishers have told us personally that they agree), but the economics are very interesting in there right now -- you've got a basically free economy, and considering that most of the apps out now are easy to make, it's just as likely that you'll see a free version of an app that does the same thing as a paid app.

Of course, what's happening in there actually mirrors what's happening out here with software: some of the best applications around are actually being given away for free. We're still in a strange place with the App Store and its pricing, and you have to think that eventually things will settle down and the developers who deserve to get paid will.

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