Windows has more disc burning apps than we can count, but a few notable programs stand out from the pack. Our favorite is CDBurnerXP for its long list of features and easy-to-use interface.
- Burn discs by dragging files or burning an ISO image
- Burn audio CDs using multiple audio formats with ReplayGain, CD text, and gapless playback
- Burn video CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs, and Blu-Rays with video files
- Spread data over multiple discs with disc spanning
- Drag and drop files using the integrated explorer or from any Windows Explorer window
- Support for multisession CDs
- Simple cover printing for data and audio discs, as well as LightScribe integration
Check out CDBurnerXP's web site for the full list of features.
CDBurnerXP (which, despite its name, is regularly updated and works on current versions of Windows) can burn nearly any type of disc you can imagine, whether it's a simple image burn or you're creating an audio or video CD. Not only is it powerful, it also has a very easy-to-understand interface. As soon as you start it up, you can choose what type of disc you want to create and start dragging files. Plus, it's completely free, and far more lightweight than many of the popular commercial options.
CDBurnerXP is more than powerful enough for most users, but if you're a very advanced user, you might find it lacking in a few tiny features (which you can find in other, less user-friendly programs like ImgBurn). Also, CDBurnerXP is adware, meaning you have to pay attention when you install it to make sure it doesn't install any other bundled programs on your machine. Other than that, though, it's a pretty fantastic program, and will suit nearly anyone's burning needs.
ImgBurn is the most obvious competition to CDBurnerXP. It can do almost everything CDBurnerXP can do (not to mention a few other things CDBurnerXP can't do—mainly in the realm of setting file attributes on data discs), but it's a lot less user-friendly. If you're burning ISOs, it's actually a bit easier—it only takes a few clicks to burn an ISO to a CD—but other disc types can be a bit more confusing. It also doesn't support multisession discs, which is a deal killer for some. Like CDBurnerXP, it also contains some adware. If all you do is burn ISO images to disc, ImgBurn might be a better choice, but otherwise, CDBurnerXP is our favorite.
Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is another great, user-friendly option, and is comparable to CDBurnerXP. It doesn't have as many features when it comes to burning video discs, but it does have a neat focus on backup and restore, if you use CDs or DVDs to back up certain files. Many people prefer it to CDBurnerXP, though it is a bit outdated as the newer versions of Ashampoo are all commercial.
That said, if you're willing to pay $40, Ashampoo Burning Studio 10 has a lot of cool features for burning discs (like menus for DVDs, autoplay options for data discs, and so on). If you need more flashy features than the above free programs can offer, Ashampoo is a heck of a lot better than most of the commercial options out there (I'm looking at you, Nero).
Again, there are a ton of other disc burning programs out there for Windows, but the above choices should fit your needs in nearly any conceivable situation. If you have a favorite program we didn't mention, let us know what it is and why you love it in the comments.
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The Best Disc Burning App for Windows via lifehacker.com
Windows has more disc burning apps than we can count, but a few notable programs stand out from the pack. Our favorite is CDBurnerXP for its long list of features and easy-to-use interface. 
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Hotspot Shield VPN for iPhone Offers Secure Browsing and Email on the Go via lifehacker.com
iOS: Previously mentioned VPN service Hotspot Shield can already encrypt your browsing and keep you safe when using public Wi-Fi on your computer, but this morning the service announced a new mobile app for private and secure internet use wherever you use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Hotspot Shield for iPhone runs in the background at all times when the app is running, encrypting everything from SMS messages to emails and Twitter updates. The app also forces Safari to load sites as HTTPS when available, and protects all applications that use data, even those also running in the background. That protection comes with a price tag however. Hotspot Shield is free for 7 days, so you can try it and see if it works for you. After that, you'll have to sign up for a $0.99/month or $9.99/year subscription. If you're concerned about threats like Firesheep or you know how easy it is to sniff out passwords and cookies, you may want to give the app a try.
Hotspot Shield VPN | iTunes App Store
You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+.
iOS: Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Best Text Messaging Replacement for iPhone
Text messaging is pretty expensive, but fortunately there are a number of great alternatives for your iPhone that will provide the service for free. Of all the options, our favorite is Google Voice thanks to its cross-platform and web syncing plus full control over how you get your messages and who can send them.
- Send free text messages directly from your iPhone
- Integrates with iPhone contacts
- Swipe down to check for new messages
- Push notifications
- Check your texts online, from any browser, when you're away from your phone
- Syncs with Google Voice on a variety of other platforms
- Forward messages to phones or email addresses
- Block unwanted senders
Note: These features only pertain to text messages. For the full feature set check out the official Google Voice page.
The Google Voice app is made great because of the Google Voice service. The app itself is just okay, even though it has some nice touches like swiping down to reload your messages. What's great is that you get your own phone number, you can use that number to replace your existing mobile number, and if you don't like either of those options you can port your mobile number to Google Voice. From there you can text for free, as much as you want, and it works about as well as your paid SMS text messaging service. What really sets it over the top, however, is that you can get a Google Voice app for practically any operating system. Some are official, some are not, but there's almost always an app that will let you text from any other mobile device or computer. All your texts are synchronized so you can respond wherever you want.
Google Voice doesn't have the world's best interface. When you're checking your messages it's actually really nice because you just pull down to reload, but when you're sending messages you have to go to the dialer and then tap the people button just to bring up your contacts. While remembering your phone numbers can be a good thing, realistically it is not your brain's default setting—especially when using an iPhone. Chances are you're going to be browsing through your contacts before you'll be tapping in a number from memory.
What's significantly more annoying, however, is that when you receive a text message notification the app won't be up-to-date. You'll know you have a new message but the app will not, so you'll have to reload your messages and wait for the app to figure it out. If you text infrequently this isn't that important. If you text multiple times per day, or to an excess, this can get a little frustrating. If they need to fix one thing, it's that.
TextFree (Free-ish) is likely the most obvious free text messaging option, and it's also one of the best. Like Google Voice you get a free phone number and can send and receive messages free of charge. You can also send picture messages, which is something Google Voice doesn't really support. Your messages are available online and from any other iPhone or Android device with the app installed. What it can't do is forward your messages to other numbers and email addresses, block unwanted senders, and offer native desktop apps for your computer. Also, it comes with ads which cost $6 per year to remove.
Line2 ($10/month) is designed to provide a phone alternative, which costs a monthly fee, but provides free text messaging. The app is really great and the call quality is excellent, so if you're looking to replace your phone service or turn your iPod touch into an iPhone, it'll come with free text messages too. You can try it free for a month and refusing to subscribe afterwards will often net you a discount.
BiteSMS (Free-ish) is a free app for jailbroken iPhones and it's designed to make your texting experience better. It comes with a lot of nice features, like being able to reply directly from a message notification (without the need to go into the app). It's free to use, but you'll have ads. To remove ads you have to pay $10. If you don't want to use your iPhone's text messaging plan, you can use BiteSMS' service. The cost per message is about 12 cents each and it gets cheaper if you buy additional credits (e.g. $120 gets you 1200 credits). These credits work with local, national, and international numbers alike.
Infinite SMS (Free or $5) is just an interface for Google Voice's text messaging service. If you'd prefer to use it only for texting and don't mind ads (or paying $5 to remove them) then give it a look.
There are plenty of other text messaging replacements for the iPhone, so if you've got a favorite we didn't highlight be sure to share it in the comments.
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.
Text messaging is pretty expensive, but fortunately there are a number of great alternatives for your iPhone that will provide the service for free. Of all the options, our favorite is Google Voice thanks to its cross-platform and web syncing plus full control over how you get your messages and who can send them. 
Friday, November 4, 2011
Oink Finds You the Best Item on Any Restaurant's Menu via lifehacker.com
iOS: New app Oink aims to fill a gap in the location-based review services where, instead of rating places, you rate the things inside those place, so you always get the best experience.
Whether you're looking for the best burger on that restaurant's menu, or the best roller coaster at Six Flags, Oink will find it for you. Oink is a community-driven review service in which reviewers—called "Builders"—can rate the things inside any restaurant or other attraction, so you end up getting the best that place has to offer. You can search by category—e.g. "breakfast" or "sushi"—or just head to a nearby restaurant and see what the top menu items are. If you like it, you can rank it yourself in Oink, thus contributing to the app's accuracy for others. It's a very clever approach to location-based review services, even if—like the rest of them—it requires people to use it before it becomes useful. Check out the video above to see it in action, or head right to the App Store and download it below.
Oink is a free download for iOS only.
Oink | iTunes App Store
You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
iOS: New app Monday, October 17, 2011
Adobe Reader for iOS Now Available via lifehacker.com
iOS: Adobe has released an iOS version of its popular PDF reader for iOS as a universal app for both iPad and iPhone.
Like the desktop version, you can't edit files, but you can access encrypted ones, as well as search, bookmark and copy text to the clipboard. It also lets you share PDF files with other applications, email, and print via AirPrint. It's a free download.
Adobe Reader | iTunes App Store
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
The Best PDF Viewer/Editor for Mac
There are plenty of ways to view and edit PDFs on a Mac, but Apple's built-in Preview application is phenomenal and often overlooked. While Lion didn't wow the crowd with most of its features, it brought some amazing additions to Apple's PDF viewer/editor that puts it over the top and makes it our choice for the best.
Note: There are a few ways you could define a PDF viewer/editor, as features can range from simple form-filling to complete PDF manipulation. For this post we're concentrating on the features the average person would use, meaning viewing, form completion, annotation, and so on.
- View and edit images in addition to PDF files
- Annotate, highlight, and mark up PDFs in several ways
- Digitally fill out forms
- Sign PDF documents with your webcam (read on for more info)
- Super-fast performance
- Super-fast search
- Insert new pages into PDFs
- View and edit PDF metadata
- Add and edit hyperlinks in a PDF file
Preview is fast. Mac OS X isn't exactly known for its speed and efficiency, so Preview's ability to blow through PDF documents is pretty impressive. But among its many handy highlighting and annotating features, which are all solid, its ability to fill out forms is especially impressive. This may seem like a mundane thing, but when you get to the signature line it is hard to eschew at least a little reverence. Preview (in Lion) has a feature where you can sign a piece of paper, hold it up to your computer's webcam, and it'll turn it into a high-quality signature you can place in a form. It can also save multiple signatures so you don't have to continuously repeat this process. Preview is solid all-around, but it's those sorts of features that make it amazing.
As incredible as Preview's webcam signature feature is, it seems kind of strange that there is no ability to sign with your trackpad as well. After all, Apple Stores let you sign for purchases with your finger on an iPod touch. Additionally, Preview wasn't exactly perfect prior to Lion and Lion isn't exactly perfect on its own. It's hard to justify upgrading to OS X 10.7 if Preview is the only draw. If you're sticking with Snow Leopard, your version of Preview isn't bad but it's certainly not the best PDF editor/viewer you can find. Apple fixed a lot of quirks in Lion, which make it a pleasure to use, but if you're not running Lion you're pretty much out of luck.
PDFPen costs $60 but is pretty great. If you need more features than Preview can provide, it'll get the job done. PDFPen makes page rearrangement, editing, multi-document assembly, and more very easy. While it's on the expensive side, consider it a cheaper alternative to Adobe Acrobat ($200). We've never loved Acrobat and it likely provides more features than you're going to need.
Wondershare PDF Editor ($50) is another pricey option, but it has the ability to convert PDFs to Microsoft Word documents. We're not sure how well this works, but you might want to give it a try if that's something you need.
Skim is a great choice if your primary focus is annotation as that's what it was design to do. It has an impressively long list of features to make annotation easy.
Got any other favorite PDF editor/viewer apps for Mac that you love? Share 'em in the comments.
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Square Card Case now available | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Square has released their Square Card Case app today, which allows anyone to open up a tab at a local merchant and pay without having to swipe their credit card. The Square Card Case works by allowing users to enter their credit card details into their Square account.
Once at a local merchant who uses the Square Register app, users can start a tab of things they've purchased. When they are ready to check out, the Square Card Case user speaks their name into the app and their tab is displayed on the merchant's Square Register app where the transactions are tallied and paid for using the Card Case user's credit card on file. Upon completion of a transaction, a digital receipt is sent to the email address on file.
A big plus of using Square Card Case is the ability to pay at local merchants right from your iPhone. However, right now, the Card Case app is only useful if you live in New York City, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Los Angeles or St. Louis. But as more merchants start using Square, the Card Case app is sure to catch on. Square Credit Card users don't have to worry about any extra fees on their end either. Like using a regular credit card, Square charges the merchant per transaction.
Square today also updated their Square credit card reader app. The update offers improved transaction speeds, no signature required for transactions $25 or less and the ability to enter $0.00 transactions (useful for when the merchant wants to keep track of items, but doesn't charge for them -- like a free bottled water when you buy a hotdog). The Square Card Case app and the Square credit card reader app are free downloads in the App Store.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Skype for Linux gets an update after almost 15 months
Skype for Linux gets an update after almost 15 months
by Vlad Bobleanta on April 7, 2011 at 03:00 PM
Proving how much it cares about those people who use its app on Linux, Skype has released version 2.2 for Linux. Don't run towards the champagne though, as this is still a beta version, and, as its minor revision number implies, isn't the much-awaited big new version that achieves feature parity with its Windows and Mac brethren.It's only been what, almost 15 months since the last Skype beta for Linux? Well, during this time, Skype's main focus has clearly been improving its Linux app, since the new version fixes the amazing number of 49 bugs. It also brings 23 'improvements', and yet somehow still manages to have a fair share of 'known issues'. Exciting, no?
What is perhaps the most important feature addition here is the support for Skype Access. This lets you easily connect to paid Wi-Fi hotspots across the globe while paying for them with Skype credit. Skype for Linux has also received support for call waiting and holding, as well as easy conference hosting. Audio and video quality have been boosted (hopefully in a way that's going to be noticeable in day-to-day use), and some of the languages have been updated.
Download Skype 2.2.0.25 for Linux
Tags: apps, audio, call holding, Call Waiting, CallHolding, CallWaiting, conference call, ConferenceCall, Linux, skype, skype 2.2 beta, skype 2.2 for linux, skype access, skype for linux, Skype2.2Beta, Skype2.2ForLinux, SkypeAccess, SkypeForLinux, video, voip
- source: Skype Garage Blog
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Capcom Donating Street Fighter IV iOS Sales to Japan Quake Relief - iSmashPhone iPhone Blog
Sometimes, something so tragic happens that it leaves the whole world in shock. RIght now is Japan's time of need, as they were struck with a powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami that were only the beginning of the indescribable nightmare many of the people must be facing right now. Not only the loss of lives, but the economic impact.
There are many out there contributing to the relief efforts for victims of the tragedy, and one of those is Capcom. A game publisher and developer based in Japan. To do their part, they have dropped the price of Street Fighter IV for iOS to 99 cents. Those sales are all going towards Japan's quake relief efforts. In addition, they are immediately donating 100 million yen to help those affected.
In a short post on Capcom's official blog, the publisher/developer had the following to say:
Thank you to everyone who has sent inquiries and wished us well during this crisis. We want to reiterate that all of our employees in the Osaka and Toyko regions are safe and well, and we thank everyone for their support.
In response to recent events, Capcom will immediately donate 100 million yen to help victims of the earthquake and communities recover from this tragedy.
For one week from today, March 15, Street Fighter IV on the iPhone will be available for 99cents/115yen, and all sales of the title during this period will be donated to support earthquake relief activities.
Capcom will also suspend operations or shorten operating hours as necessary at amusement arcades and other business sites that are located in areas served by Tohoku Electric Power and Tokyo Electric Power. In addition, Capcom will refrain from holding special events.
Again, thanks to everyone who has supported Japan during this difficult time, and please help to spread the news about relief efforts.
You can purchase the game here for 99 cents: Street Fighter IV
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Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Skype Rival Viber Hits 10M Downloads, Poised To Release Android App (Video)
Viber, which debuted its free calling service for the iPhone back in December, says 10 million people have already downloaded its mobile app (iTunes link). Pretty impressive feat when you consider the service is currently iOS-only and the milestone was reached in under two months.
But as MobileCrunch found out last week, Viber is poised to hit the Android platform in March. Consider that confirmed, as we can exclusively show you a video of the app in action:
With the app, Android users will be able to make free calls to both Android and iPhone users, which should make quite some waves upon launch. Users will still be able to dial cell numbers directly without having to register a username or add friends to a contact list, and make and receive calls over 3G or WiFi, free of charge. Quite a compelling proposition.
Next big feature: free text messaging. Can’t wait for that one (should land this month).
Information provided by CrunchBase
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
MobileMe Freebie: Find My iPhone Walkthrough with Screenshots
Apple recently announced the availability of its Find My iPhone service for those who upgrade to iOS 4.2 but do not have a MobileMe account. That’s right. No more $99 annual charge if you want to keep a close watch on your iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), or iPad’s location. This feature has been particularly interesting to me since I was once mugged in San Francisco (surprisingly good timing considering the 3GS became available a month later). And, now that the Find My iPhone service is free from its MobileMe subscription-based clutches, I thought I’d walk you through the ins and outs of locating, locking, and wiping your iPhone from the comfort of your couch.
After upgrading my iPhone 4 to iOS 4.2, I followed Apple’s simple instructions to set up Find My iPhone. Two minutes later I was all set up and ready to start tracking my iPhone on a convenient Google Maps-based map.
If this is your first experience with MobileMe then the above map is what you see after signing in. After selecting your device you have the following options:
- display a message over your current task
- play a sound
- lock the device with a 4 digit code
- wipe (erase) everything on the phone
Below is an example of displaying a message that gets displayed on your iPhone’s display:
Once Apple has confirmed that the message was delivered, a confirmation email is sent to your MobileMe account’s email address. Note: The screenshot below is from a hot new email application named Sparrow.
If you’d rather take things one step further, you can lock your iPhone and prevent unauthorized access.
Remotely locking your iOS device is easy. Just tell Find My iPhone that you’d like to “Lock” your phone. After entering a pin code twice the device locks within seconds. A confirmation email also arrives similar to sending a message.
In addition to the Map view you can also choose Satellite and Hybrid views just like Google Maps.
So, there you have it. The above walkthrough should give you a good idea of what to expect when you fire up the Find My iPhone feature for the first time on your desktop or laptop computer. If you’ve been thinking about buying an iPhone for yourself, you’ll be happy to know that you now get all these phone-tracking features for free.
I presume Apple is trying a new strategy to persuade people to sign up for the full MobileMe service. Releasing the Find My iPhone feature for free should get new visitors to me.com and, in theory, more paying customers. As soon as you begin typing your username and password on me.com, a large set of icons appear for email, address book, calendar, photos, iDisk, and Find My iPhone. It feels like a tease. After signing in you only have one of those features. This will leave newcomers asking the question, “What are those other icons for?”
It also makes sense that Apple make this iPhone-tracking service free, as Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 handsets and select HTC-made Android phones offer similar services for free.
So, we want to know. Does the free Find My iPhone service make you more likely to pick up an iPhone this holiday shopping season? Sound off in the comments below!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Google Voice for iPhone is finally out on the App Store
Google Voice for iPhone is finally out on the App Store
Turns out, when Apple announced it was a day you'd never forget, maybe it wasn't talking about The Beatles. Last we heard, Google Voice was expected on the App Store "soon" ... and now here it is. Apple has relented in the battle to allow Google Voice functionality on the iPhone, leaving Google open to release its own official app for the service.
It looks just as good as you'd expect -- you can sign into the service from anywhere, access your voicemail or even send text messages or Google Voice calls, and get push notifications when you've got a new message incoming.
Obviously, you'll need a Google Voice account to use the app, but those are free and easy enough to set up. The app is only available in the United States, according to its description, so those of you outside the country are out of luck (for now). It's also probably not compatible with the iPad -- the listing only says it's available for the iPhone so far.
Our own Mike Rose & TJ Luoma [TJ comments below that he objects to the iPhone-only restriction on the app, as he would like to use it to send and receive SMS on the iPad or iPod touch] are jumping for joy on this one -- we've got a lot of TUAW Google Voice fans, and having this functionality available on the iPhone is a very nice bonus even with the third-party apps already on the market. What are you waiting for? It's here -- go download!
Monday, November 8, 2010
MacX Video Converter Pro available free until November 15
MacX Video Converter Pro available free until November 15
by Sam Abuelsamid (RSS feed) on Nov 8th 2010 at 4:00PM
There is no shortage of video source material available both on and off-line these days, but not all of it is playable or editable on every platform. Free tools like Handbrake (here's our look at Handbrake 0.9.4) are great for ripping content from DVDs but the number of available output formats are limited.Back in the day, VisualHub was the ultimate tool for converting pretty much any video codec into another. Plus, it allowed you crop, resize, adjust video quality and even stitch files together. Unfortunately, it's no longer available.
There's also good news. Digiarty is currently making its MacX Video Converter Pro software available for free until November 15. Video Converter Pro offers what is probably the widest codec support we've seen in a while including output to FLV, WMV, MPEG4, H264 and more. There are dozens of pre-defined profiles for portable devices like phones, the Sony PSP and even DVD VOB files. It lacks some of the capabilities of Visual Hub, like cropping and ability to define a maximum size for the output video and let it pick the encoding settings.
However, if you have Final Cut (express or pro) you can convert odd-ball formats into files that can be edited and then crop and set export settings. MacX Video Converter Pro is available for free until November 15, 2010.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Skype 5.0 Beta now available for Mac, with group video calling and Address Book support
Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, VoIP
Skype 5.0 Beta now available for Mac, with group video calling and Address Book support
by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Nov 4th 2010 at 11:45AM
Skype 5.0 Beta has finally hit the Mac, bringing with it the group video calling feature that Skype for WIndows users have been enjoying for a couple of months now. The OS X version also gets some Mac-only perks, though, including a nice new single-window UI and Address Book integration.
The contact list (now attached as a sidebar to the main calling window) will grab all the Address Book contacts for whom you've added phone numbers, and let you call, IM or SMS them, even when they're offline. Meanwhile, a new call control bar floats above your other windows, so you can quickly pause, mute or hang up a call, even while you're in another app. Of course, the most-hyped new feature is group video calling, which will work with up to 10 people, but all participants must be running Skype 5 (on Mac or Windows).One caveat about upgrading to 5.0, though: it breaks some Skype plug-ins, so you might have to downgrade again if you're running any hacks or add-ons you can't live without.
Tags: address book, AddressBook, group video chat, GroupVideoChat, mac, os x, OsX, skype, skype 5.0, Skype5.0, voip
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Skyfire for iPhone Approved, Flash Videos Coming
We got a look at Skyfire for iPhone last week and the promise of getting Adobe Flash videos onto our Apple devices was exciting. As expected, though still surprisingly, the app has been approved for the iOS devices by Apple. The Skyfire web browser will go for $2.99 in the app store and will be available some time Thursday morning. We got to play with a preview of the app, and came away impressed. See our Skyfire for iPhone hands-on review here.
How did the company manage to get around Apple’s loathing of Flash? CNN reports:
To get around Apple’s restriction, Skyfire came up with an innovative solution: When users click on a page that contains Flash video, Skyfire’s servers download, render and translate the video into HTML5, which is a Web standard that iOS devices support. Skyfire then displays a thumbnail that users can click on to stream the video from its servers.
Here’s what we said earlier last week about how this works:
Skyfire plays nice with Flash videos and websites (most of them, at least) because it uses a server-assisted browsing experience. Basically, the browser uses big, powerful servers to process all the Flash content on a website and then pushes that data to your phone. This means your phone doesn’t have to be super powerful and also reduces the amount of data that you’re pulling down on your smartphone data plan.
So, technically, your iPhone or iPad won’t be playing straight Flash as videos are converted so that they can be played on your iOS device, but at least this limits your restrictions when viewing the web.
But all is not perfect in Skyfire land. Determining which videos and content are in Flash and encoding it all is a huge task, and some sites have just blocked the browser completely. Hulu, which is huge for Flash lovers wanting videos on their phones, banned Skyfire from encoding its content. Additionally, Flash-based video games and non-video content will not be supported, so it’s not without some major limitations.
At any rate, it’s nice to know that when you browse the web with Skyfire, you’re less likely to see that little blue sorry-no-Flash-here icon.
[Update]
The information from CNN is slightly off-base, as we’ve just learned that Skyfire will be launching on the iPhone AppStore sooner than you think (before Thursday). Keep your eyes on IntoMobile for more info.In the meantime, why don’t you check out our Skyfire for iPhone hands-on video here?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Posterous iPhone App Will Make You Finally Get A Posterous
At least it did me. Touted by co-founder Sachin Agarwal as a one stop shop for all your sharing needs, the Posterous app (now available in the App store) is extremely intuitive to use, and you don’t even need a Posterous to use it to start uploading photos, video and text, which, if you’ve enabled the Posterous “Autopost” feature will also post to your Facebook, Twitter as well as 26 other social sites including Flickr, YouTube, WordPress, Vimeo and Tumblr.
While you might be experiencing iPhone share fatigue (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblrette, WordPress and many others allow you to upload content directly from your phone) Posterous has always modeled itself on providing its pretty fanatical userbase with ease of use, the original idea of the service being that you could send an email to post@posterous.com and get a blog back, to which you the could send any other subsequent posts to post@sitename.posterous.com.
The Posterous mobile app takes off on this basic “no need to log in” philosophy, but supports geolocational tags, category tags and various levels of editing and privacy. And despite being buggy at points (one of my test posts posted twice, which was confusing), it’s pretty impressive how much you can actually do from the app (for example I set up my whole Posterous account) as opposed to WordPress, which has the effect of making you feel immobilized when blogging on the go because it does not allow you to upload media other than photos and lacks social sharing functions.
Winning “Keep It Simple Stupid” product strategy aside, it’s really hard not to root for the YC-backed Posterous; Their recent skuffle with Twitpic solidified them as champions of user portability which is always a crowd pleaser. Their user traffic has also risen accordingly boasting a 40% increase since June.
Currently funded at $5.14 million, Posterous’ future plans for the iPhone app include building the ability to directly edit posts from the app, landscape post viewing, multiple photo selection and showing attachments as actual thumbnails.
Information provided by CrunchBase
VLC For iPhone And iPod Touch Imminent
Good news for iOS users: versatile video app VLC has been submitted to the App Store as a universal app, and I see no reason why it should be rejected. Expect to join your iPad brethren in playing a variety of video files without the need to jailbreak or part with your hard-earned gold pieces.I’ve been using VLC for iPad, and while I’ve come across some interesting bugs (mainly related to audio), it seems to work quite well. The app will only work with a 3GS or better iPhone, though, or an equivalent-generation iPod touch, and they say that 720p videos may not play smoothly due to hardware limitations. Not a big deal, I think. SD files look pretty decent.
[via Gadget Lab]
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