Evernote for iPhone [Free, iTunes Link] has received a major update to version 3.2.0, which went live late this evening in the App Store and should be arriving in App Store updates soon. According to our contacts at Evernote, the new app is much faster, with speed improvements in launching, searching, syncing, creating new notes, and browsing.
As TUAW heard during a November interview with Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, the updated app provides local caching and searching. Any note that is created or viewed on the iPhone is cached locally for viewing and searching, even when offline. Premium users can choose to have any or all of the notebooks they’ve created fully downloaded to their devices, once again enabling offline usability. Rich text notes can be converted to plain text for editing, and a copy of the original note is moved into the trash for future recovery.
HBO has released their very own app for the iPhone, and it’s surprisingly deep for an app released by a premium cable channel. There’s the obvious stuff — you can view schedules and watch clips and previews of HBO shows as well as behind-the-scenes and other content. But there’s even some cool iPhone-specific stuff, like creating SMS reminders when your shows come on, some hidden object games to play, and even the option to buy some shows with hooks straight into iTunes. The app is designed pretty well, too, and for an app that’s basically promoware, there’s a lot of content and features included.
It’s very well done — if you don’t have HBO, you probably won’t need the app, but if you are a subscriber with an iPhone or iPod touch, it’s well worth the free download.
‘Tis the season shop until your brains melt (or skip it all entirely, depending on your interpretation of the term holiday). In that spirit, for the next few weeks we’ll be rounding up a dozen daily deals courtesy our friends at DealNews.com. Each afternoon tune in to TUAW for this handy summary. Keep in mind that while our posts will live on, the deals won’t. Each is lovingly generated by the deal-bot every day, so get ‘em while they’re hot. Enjoy!
iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] App Store Freebies: Super Santa, Roller Uberball, Enso-Dot, BuddyFeed, more
What a crazy 10 years, right guys? It’s really flown past; the highs, the lows, the stuff in the middle that didn’t seem very impressive one way or another. For our final Engadget Show of the decade, we asked site founder Peter Rojas to join us for a look back at our picks for the most important and / or interesting gadget developments since 2000. A hardcore crowd came out just after a gigantic snowstorm to witness the proceedings, and now you get your chance to see how it all went down. This is a long one folks, so grab some popcorn and settle in for the show!
Note: The HD download below is on its way, so hold tight. The iPhone / iPod version and RSS versions are all fine.
It’s a problem worthy of an episode of Intervention. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that my wife is addicted to the Live Cams app on her iPhone.
It all started when she was searching for new apps in the App Store, and she noticed a little app called Live Cams [US$0.99, iTunes Link]. It sounded innocuous enough — the app provides a way to search, browse, view, and in some cases, control live web cams all over the planet. At a price of less than a buck, Live Cams couldn’t harm anything or anybody, could it? We were both sure that the developer, Barry Egerter, couldn’t have any evil intentions, so she bought Live Cams and installed it on her iPhone.
As we reported last week, Apple is again rolling out their ‘12 Days of Christmas’ promo for almost all of Europe. From December 26 to January 6 anyone with a iTunes account in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ireland can download a free song, music video, app, television show, or film from ’some of the biggest star performers’ on iTunes.
To help you remember to download the daily giveaway, Apple has created a ‘12 Days of Christmas’ iPhone app [UK iTunes link]. It uses push notifications to alert you when the new download is available and also allows you to connect to Facebook and recommend the download to your friends. So if you live in Europe, get downloading! The promo starts December 26th, but the app is available now!
Once again, talking about Apple’s future as a multichannel video distributor is all the rage. But people familiar with the discussions between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and video programmers over a possible subscription package say the talk is far ahead of the action, one reason why details are still murky. If the subscription package could be pulled off with an announcement from a single player, I have no doubt Disney (NYSE: DIS), which isn’t commenting about this but multiple sources tell me is open to the idea, would be first in line.
Not because Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a major shareholder in Disney but because Disney liked the publicity—and the results—from being first in the iTunes store with prime-time episode sales and movies. And because Disney CEO Bob Iger is a pragmatic experimenter, open to finding new ways to make money from programming but careful to avoid destroying core value. That’s why you don’t see ESPN full programming offered in a way that might damage its high value to multichannel distributors.
Empire is a venerable British movie magazine that has amassed quite a library of film reviews since it was first published more than 20 years ago. Their reviews tend to be aimed at the enthusiastic film buff, rather than academics. I have always found the reviews entertaining and a worthwhile read.
Now, the entire Empire archive has come to the iPhone and iPod touch with the Empire Movie Guide [iTunes link]. The US$4.99, 8.9 MB app puts all of the reviews on your phone without need for a data connection. As a nice bonus, Empire grabs the most recently published reviews over the air when you are connected and launch the app.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure to write about iPhone / iPod touch apps from Tapbots. First there was Weightbot, a beautifully designed app for tracking your weight. Next came Convertbot, a unit converter calculator that featured an innovative and extremely useful interface. Now Tapbots has introduced a third app to their stable of products; Pastebot [US$1.99, iTunes Link], which is a combination of clipboard storage and (with a companion Mac app called Pastebot Sync) inter-platform cut and paste.
Launching the app brings you directly into the Clipboard. As with all of the Tapbots apps, the user interface is not only functional, but a treat to the eyes. To add items to the clipboard, you simply use the iPhone’s copy and paste function to copy something. It can be text or a graphic, a URL or a photo. When you copy the item, then launch Pastebot, the item is automatically added to the Clipboard. The Clipboard items have a frame around them with a small circle up in the top right corner. When that circle turns blue (it looks like a blue LED), the clipboard item is selected and ready to perform some action on. Tapping again slides a small toolbar out of the bottom of the frame.
Our friends at LateNiteSoft sent word that they’ve updated Sketches, one of the first iPhone apps I ever picked up, to version 2.0. The app has been released [iTunes link] as an entirely new download, so even upgraders from version 1 will have to pay the current price of $1.99. LateNiteSoft tells us that upgrade price is temporary — they plan to keep the original app on the store as “Sketches Classic” for 99 cents, and eventually the price of the new version will go up a few more bucks. If you want to upgrade, go grab Sketches 2 as soon as you can.
Tthe new app offers a number of improvements, including a completely revamped UI designed to quickly run through large collections. The new UI also keeps tools handy, but out of the way, as you use them. As you can see in the screen shots above, all the tools are stashed at the bottom of the screen instead of covering up your picture while you’re working on it. Sketches 2 now lets you paint using brushes, which makes for some nice choices in terms of marking pictures, canvas, maps, or whatever else you choose as a background in the app. The zoom functionality has been updated, with new gestures and a smoother shape adjustment interface. As with the original Sketches app, you can share and export your work however you like. You can use the app to create a masterpiece and then tweet about it, or just mark some notes on a map and send it off to a friend.