We’ve covered a lot of apps which let you control your Mac from afar. Well how about being able to ‘see’ your Mac from anywhere in the world, using only your tiny iPhone! VNC is something that has scared me for a while now, but I thought I’d have to take the plunge and have a look at one of these apps at some point of time.

The first name that pops up when you ask about VNC on the iPhone, is Jaadu VNC. But at $25, it’s a little too expensive. Looking around, I was pleased to find a much cheaper app, RemoteTap. Looking through the specs, it seems to be a very capable app, with a pleasant UI.

Installation

Considering that I had already set up my router and Mac to have a permanent IP address, the setup was super simple. At first, I couldn’t get the connection to work, but then ReadPixel’s prompt support told me to just change the port number, and things were fine after that. RemoteTap 2.0 (yet to be released) is supposed to have auto router configuration, so you won’t need to do a thing.

On the iPhone end, you can add multiple computers for VNC. Means you can control multiple Macs (yes, it’s Mac only) with just one copy of RemoteTap, as the server software is a free download. To set up your iPhone, all you need is the IP address, and the password if you have assigned one in the RemoteTap preference pane. 

Seeing your Mac from afar

Once set up, getting into your Mac desktop is just a tap away, always. I’ve tried this on multiple internet connections, and it has always worked. The output quality is astounding, especially when you go to 1:1 pixel mode. The refresh rate caught up fairly quick on my 256k (64k up) connection, so I’m guessing it will be super fast on a real broadband connection. I haven’t used it on EDGE yet.

Day to day use

To move around, you simply drag your finger across. Pinch to zoom in, and double tap to go 1:1 or zoom out. If you want to click something, tap on the mouse icon and you can click and drag stuff. Fairly simple to use and navigate around. I would still prefer to use Air Mouse for direct mouse movements, but otherwise the mouse is fairly functional. 

The keyboard is also feature rich, including all the modifier keys like Cmd, Opt, as well as arrow keys. RemoteTap also features a slim keyboard, as well as a presentation keyboard with a laser pointer!

New in 1.6, RemoteTap has an application control view. Tap the app control, and it overlays a list of all your apps. You can then launch, hide, or quit them with a single tap. Very useful and very efficient.

Coming in 2.0

• Autofocus: A way by which the zoom automatically changes according to the window size of the current active window. Should be interesting.
• Magnifying Glass: Tap and hold to get a magnification loupe, which you can then use to make precise mouse clicks.
• A much better icon (what were they thinking!)

More for info and screenshots of 2.0, visit the app homepage.

My Recommendation

If remote management is your need of the hour, RemoteTap will not disappoint. At $7 at the App Store, it is very affordable for what it can do (there are a lot more features than I’ve mentioned here). The support team is very helpful, and they have a lot of guides prepared for setting up your router. I haven’t used Jaadu VNC so I can’t say whether it is better than RemoteTap, so if you have an opinion about that, please share. 

Get RemoteTap from the App Store, or visit the RemoteTap homepage for more info.

Want to make your iPhone browsing experience even more awesome? Bring it closer to some of the functions of your desktop browser? Similar to Pastebud’s solution, iPuhelin has introduced a bunch of bookmarklets that allow your mobile Safari to do a lot more things that it could, without any jailbreak. 

The biggest feature in my opinion is the Find function. You can search for a word, and it tells you how many matches along with highlight all those words in your web page. They also have bookmarklets for ‘scroll to bottom’, ‘find similar sites’, ‘display all images’ and a bunch of translation options. I’ve tried most of these bookmarlets and they work just as advertised. Highly recommended for all iPhone or iPod Touch users. 

To add them all you need to do is visit Safari+, bookmark the pages, and then remove some text as specified by the instructions. I’d highly suggest you do this on the desktop and then let MobileMe sync them over, as it will be much quicker that way.

8 hours behind schedule, the iPhone Dev-Team has finally announced the sources for the iPhone 3G unlock. 10 days after the unlock was demoed on Qik, millions of iPhone 3G users around the globe thronged to the team’s blog, waiting for an announcement. To their dismay, it was announced (albeit in a cryptic message), that the unlock would only work on the 02.28.x baseband version, something which the team had originally advised not to update to.

If you’ve been waiting for the gods of unlock to shower some love on your iPhone, here’s what you’ll need.

» An iPhone 3G with 02.28 baseband version (Goto the Settings app » General » About ; then scroll to the very bottom). If it’s not, update your phone to the latest software using iTunes. 
» Your phone should be jailbroken. You can either use Pwnage Tool or QuickPwn for this.
» Launch Cydia or Installer.app and add the following sources:

Cydia source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/
Installer repo: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/

» Download and install yellowsn0w, return to Cydia and reboot.

As always, the team maintains that this is a beta release, so proceed at your own risk. They are updating the original blog post with new information as they receive it from users who’re trying the unlock. If you’re the over cautious nerd, we’d advice to wait a couple more days before they iron out the tweaks. Of course, we want to hear your story, so irrespective of success or failure, let us know how it goes!

[More details on the Dev-Team’s Blog]

As the year 2008 nears its end, the Smoking Apples team decided to go back and take a quick look at the apps that made a difference. While Milind has already listed out his choice of five apps that he discovered in 2008, here’s a list of the five apps that are definitely worth a mention. In this profession, you come across a ton of applications that you probably didn’t even know they existed. It’s only when you try them out, you realize what you’ve been missing all this while.

Mac

Mailplane »
As a freelance writer who also has his own business, I need to manage multiple email accounts. Mailplane gives the power to manage those with ease. Gmail + Mailplane combo is the best thing that happenned to me in 2008.

Coda »
Coda is the gem that every developer should possess. Editing files for multiple sites that you manage is pleasantly simple with Coda.

NetNewsWire »
As a freelance writer, you need to keep up with the news. This job had me subscribe to over a 100 feeds and I’m thamkful to NNW for making it so easy. Its syncing capability with newsgator online is a boon and the iPhone app is amazing.

CoverSutra / Boxee »
Coversutra, is without a doubt, the best iTunes extender out there. In fact, it was Milind who enlightened me about it and I’ve been using it ever since. Boxee, even though it is still in alpha, is a remarkable piece of software and I hope the year 2009 proves great to the ream behind Boxee. There are no better music / multimedia managers like these.

Littlesnapper »
Littlesnapper is to screenshots as Aperture is to a photographer. If you take enough of those, you need this brilliant app to manage them. And my job requires me to take multiple shots of every app I review.

iPhone

Mail »
The Mail app, that comes default on the iPhone, is one of my most important and frequently used apps on the phone. I’m really hoping we get email search soon.

Tweetie »
There is a reason I crowned it the Supreme Champion among the twitter clients for the iPhone. It gets better in version 1.2 which is still in beta.

Things »
Task Management couldn’t be any better. Even though it has a desktop counterpart, the iPhone version can well be used to get your things done.

iPhoneModem »
Not available on the App store, but certainly something you’d need if you’re a frequent traveller. (Jailbreak)

Qik »
Who says you cannot record video through your iPhone? (Jailbreak)

Originally published in the Smoking Apples Magazine, Issue 2 (December 2008). Free PDF direct download.

After putting Tweetie through its paces, we had to get to know the brains behind the application. Loren Brichter, the guy behind Atebits Software was kind enough to share with us some thoughts on the whats, whys and hows of Tweetie, the App Store and how it all affects Atebits software.  

Atebits as a company, what can you tell us? What’s your set-up like?
Atebits started in December of 2007 when I released my first app, Scribbles. It put enough food on the table that I figured I could run with this indie developer thing.  It’s just me and my 2 Macs, iPhone and iPod touch. I work from a home office a lot of the time, but carry a laptop and work wherever I happen to travel.

So Tweetie is finally out in the App Store. What has the response been like? Has it made you proud or disappointed?
The response has been fantastic. Everyone I’ve talked to loves the app, they tell me it’s changed the way they use twitter on-the-go. Many have said it’s the best iPhone Twitter client, a few have even said it’s the best Twitter client on any platform.  I couldn’t be happier.  At the same time I’m working like mad to make it even better.  As I write this I’m putting the finishing touches on 1.1 (now out in the App Store) which adds some really great new features like an inline image viewer, location aware features and beautiful new themes.

We’re very excited about 1.1. Now your previous app, Scribbles was a mac application. What made you decide to move to the iPhone platform?
Part curiosity, part tales of success.

There were already so many twitter clients for the iPhone. Many of them free. What made you think adding another twitter client in the lineup would make a difference?
It’s a crowded space, no doubt.  You could call it a brief fit of madness, where I convinced myself that I could write something better. There are some solid apps out there, I just couldn’t find one that meshed with the way I use twitter.  I like following conversations, so being able to navigate “reply-chains” was really important. I didn’t have a particularly long list of things I wanted to see: fast, polished and full-featured enough that I didn’t have to go to the twitter website *all the time*.  Some apps were really polished but lacking in features, others could do everything but they looked like some sort of missile control panel.  If Apple’s products prove anything, it’s that power and simplicity aren’t mutually exclusive.

Given the current trend of devs pricing apps at $0.99, what are your thoughts on the pricing of Tweetie? Was it always going to be $2.99?
Coming up with a price was really, really hard.  On the one hand, yes, you have all of these free Twitter apps, some of which are pretty decent.  On the other hand, your target audience is iPhone users, all of whom you know will pay for quality.  I think Tweetie at $2.99 is vastly undervalued, but I wanted it to be very accessible during it’s initial release.  I have been planning on raising the price slowly as I add features (so go buy it now while it’s cheap!).  It’s also better to start with a lower price because it’s hard to start high and drop it without insulting early-adopters.  I’m not a fan of ads, so the thought of doing an ad-supported version never really crossed my mind.

How long did it take you to get tweetie from brainstorming to final product? Was it hard work?
I did the bulk of the programming over the course of two weeks.  I had already written some code that vastly simplified a lot of nitty gritty stuff like URL loading and XML parsing, and some convenience classes to wrap UIKit in cases where I think Apple made the wrong API decisions. It wasn’t too much work to get a basic twitter bridge and UI up and running.  I built it for speed from the beginning and never let the app get slow, so I didn’t really have to spend any time optimizing (call me crazy).  Where I did spend a lot of time was making sure I handled low-memory situations gracefully.  When users see an app crash, a lot of the time it’s not a crash at all, but rather the system killing the app because it’s using too much memory.  A ton of work went into making sure I was as stingy with memory as possible.

The speed optimisations really show! Tweetie is not only the most feature rich, it’s also the fastest.

So tell us how it is working with Apple. We’re so used to hearing that Apple is a closed door. Did they help out in most of your issues or did you just have to fend for yourself. Were you in any way worried about rejections?
I wasn’t worried about rejections, but I should have been.  The first version of Tweetie was rejected.  The folks at Apple disagreed with my use of the standard “bookmarks” icon for the saved searches button.  The annoying part wasn’t having to resubmit because of a UI nitpick (in fact I wish Apple was a lot stricter with UI/HIG violations), it was being kept in the dark about how long the resubmitted review process would take.  I think I have the same set of nitpicks regarding the App Store as every other developer, mainly that the process is too much like a black box.

So that’s the real story! We were wondering why it took so long for Tweetie to show up on the App Store. 

The NDA removal. Did that help you in coding Tweetie or was it anyway going to be so awesome?
It didn’t really influence Tweetie’s development, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.  I know it’s been said before, but for as much as the App Store gets wrong, it gets far, far more stuff right.  It’s a clumsy process to get on the store, but once you’re there it’s incredible - think about it: sanctioned third party apps are available with a single tap from the home screen of any iPhone.  Independent developers have never had this kind of opportunity or exposure on any platform.  I think Apple has good intentions, and they’re probably working as hard as they can to make the App Store even better for users *and* developers.

Seeing the success of your first iPhone app, what’s your status with regard to Mac applications? Is it going to be iPhone only or do we see some apps for our beloved Macs?
Absolutely. For the past year or so I’ve been working on a big Mac graphics app - I’m definitely going to continue working on it, but it might get delayed a bit considering the huge potential for success on the iPhone platform.

That’s great news! (Psst. We’d love to be your guinnea pigs for early alpha testing! )

  (Loren’s first mac app was a simple drawing tool ‘Scribbles’)

So now that you have an application each for the iPhone and the Mac, what according to you has more potential as a platform? What are you more looking forward to develop for?
iPhone. No question. Mobile computing is the future, and the iPhone is the face of it. From a business perspective the sheer potential for growth is really exciting.  From a developer perspective the constraints of a 3.5” screen and less than 100M of memory are downright fun to work with.

Now that the iPhone platform has been great for you, are you eyeing the Andriod market?
No… at least not any time soon.  I saw a G1 in person the other day and was thoroughly unimpressed.  It’s going to be years before any other company catches up to where Apple was even with iPhone 1.0.  The thing that other companies don’t “get” is that it’s not about the features, it’s about the whole user experience.  I saw an ad for a Blackberry Storm recently that touted the fact that it had copy-and-paste.  Sure, it’s something that the iPhone lacks, but it gives me the impression that the people working on the Storm just came up with this big checklist of features, and decided that if they could check them all off, somehow they could “beat” the iPhone.  Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.

But back to Android, it’s not great now, but it does have potential. And I think it will keep Apple honest.  If Apple starts getting too insane with App Store rejections then I know a whole lot of developers (myself included) who would seriously consider moving over to a more open platform.  But I really do think that Apple has good intentions with regard to independent developers.

Thank you so much for giving us an insight into Atebits. We hope we see some more awesome software out Atebits. We’re watching you!
Thanks, some great new apps are definitely in the works.

To find out more about Loren you can visit Atebits.com, or follow him on twitter. You could leave him a nice comment here telling him how much you love Tweetie!!!

It’s list time! It’s the end of the year, and we need to make some lists. Here’s mine listing out five apps that I have discovered in 2008. Writing for SA has got me in touch with so many awesome Mac apps, that I seriously had a hard time limiting myself to five apps. In no particular order…

Mac

Pixelmator »
This is the first image editor that has made me slowly move away from Photoshop. The quick performance, the slick UI and the overwhelming satisfaction of using something that Adobe didn’t make, gets this app a +1 from me!

Frenzic »
Age has caught up with me (23 is old isn’t it?) and I just can’t find myself playing games anymore. Except for Frenzic. This is one of the most engaging games I have played since Warcraft III on the PC. iPhone and Desktop versions highly recommended.

CoverSutra »
In my opinion the best iTunes extender out there. The killer feature? Music search. I’m not a QuickSilver user so playing music using Spotlight doesn’t quite cut it. Of course, CoverSutra features all of the other features of an iTunes extender, and at the current low price of $11, it’s a damn good deal.

TextExpander »
In fact, I almost forgot to mention this app, being that it is so transparent to the user. TextExpander has saved me a ton of screenshots over these two months of using it, and I don’t know how I worked without it. 

EventBox »
So far my best discovery of 2008. EventBox is the best twitter client on the Mac, and more. You can stay connected on Facebook, reddit, Flickr, and it even acts as your RSS reader. Buy it if you haven’t already. To get a 20% discount, use the coupon code from our magazine.

iPhone

Things »
The best task management app for the iPhone. Syncs beautifully with the desktop client, and really helps you get things done

Tweetie »
Hands down the best twitter client for the iPhone. It’s got everything, including a slick UI!

NetNewsWire »
I don’t realise how much I use it, but NNW for the iPhone has made things a whole lot easier for me. 

Favorites »
Quick access to my most important contacts has been a great help. Favorites has a well thought out interface, and is easy on the wallet. 

Mail »
It may be built into the iPhone OS, but this is one of the most important apps on my iPhone. I never thought a portable device could do email so well (I’ve used email on a CrackBerry previously). Still, it could be better. 

While the rest of the team hustles up behind the scenes getting their lists ready, what’s your favourite app you discovered in 2008?

Continuing onward from our last week’s look at Puzzle Games on the App Store, we’re going to take a look at Word Puzzles on the App Store.  Word Puzzles have long been popular, making appearances in newspapers, children’s fun books, magazines and now they’ve paved their way onto the App Store.

WordsWorth

WordsWorth comes from a team of Indian creative minds called 99Games Online. Based out of Mangalore, India, [Milind: hey! That’s my native land!] 99Games has a bunch of puzzle games available in the App Store, WordsWorth being their latest offering. But, what exactly is WordsWorth?

WordsWorth is a fun, interactive word puzzle game wherein the objective of the game is to find words from a collection of letters scrambled in the form of a honeycomb looking grid. Although this sounds simple, it is quite difficult to find out and trace the words from the grid. You may either tap each alphabet to form a chain forming the word, or you can trace out the word chain by dragging the path. You are awarded points based on the length of the word and the alphabets chosen. The top of the game tells you how much a word formation will reward you before the submitting. Continue Reading »

Mac mini rumours and mockups aside, we’re seeing an increase in iPhone nano rumours. First we see the report on TUAW, where a chinese case manufacturer is seen offering a case for an iPhone nano. 

Now a source that has accurately leaked information about the iPhone 3G and 4G iPod nano has jumped into the fray. XSKN began selling iPhone 3G cases in mid-May of 2008, almost 2 months prior to the release of the 3G. In early September, XSKN was showing off new 4th Generation iPod nano cases. - Steven Sande for TUAW. 

Next, we have macrumours with an anonymously submitted press shot of the iPhone with it’s smaller brother, the iPhone nano. I do have the strange feeling that it’s a fake though. It’s not too difficult to attain that kind of an image. Besides the strange feeling there are so many areas where you can tell that the pictured nano is just a shrunken iPhone 3G.

Macrumors wants to think of this as a concept design for the sake of discussion and debate. I think, it’s something nice to look at this holiday season. 

That said, I think an iPhone nano would do great. Apple could decrease the screen size to 2.5” while keeping the same resolution, and have the same features across both models. Or, they could reduce the screen size even further, along with the resolution, while excluding the App Store from the equation. I can see how the keyboard will be a tad bit difficult to tap on, but one of those dual-key intelligent keyboards could be implemented. The iPhone nano is definitely possible.

Of course, I’m sure you know that I’m just speaking out of my head, which is so far yet to accurately predict anything out of Apple. So considering I’ve spoken about this (and the fact that Apple won’t make an iPhone nano), the probability of the iPhone nano seeing the light of day is next to zero. Your thoughts?

We are getting closer to Christmas everyone! What does that mean in the Mac world? Why it’s mac mini fakes and layoffs! Oh joy!

AT&T Now offers the iPhone to buy online »
Well for me seeing as I’m not American this doesn’t matter to me but I’m sure plenty of others will make use of this. Now if only they would bring back the online activation from the first generation.

Aspyr Media confirms layoffs »
Famed Mac and PC game publisher is tightening their belt and sources say they have layed off 30 or more people. Aspyr Media was the publisher that brought Sims, Call of Duty and a variety of other games to the Mac.

Mac kicks PC’s butt in a Transformers Mac vs. PC parody »
Yeah, it’s not exactly Apple new but it’s cool nonetheless. I mean who doesn’t want to see a fight between Mac and PC tranformers?

Steve Jobs Sets His Priorities Straight »
A brilliant piece by Joe Wilcox about Jobs giving his health a higher priority than Apple, and how it is okay for him to do so.

A Mac mini (fake) product image appears »
I mean, Apple would never use a straight quote for an Apostrophe.

Intel seems to have fired their icon designers »
Seeing as they are plainly copying icons from Apple’s iPhoto, Final Cut and Script Editor for their new Intel Convertible Classmate, I can make no other assumption.

Did you know that the App Store got more than 20 new farting applications in 1 week? See for yourself [iTunes link]. I remember when everyone was complaining about how Apple was being ‘selective’ about App Store approvals, and that were making a decision based on ‘taste’ rather than on the technical quality of the apps. Well this is it folks.

The problem is, that not only are these apps coming in droves, they are also making it to the top 10 lists! Number 3 and 4 are occupied by two such apps. Cheap as they are, The problem is that Apple is powerless in this regard. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t kind of scenario.

The only solution as I see it is Apple introducing something like an App Store Elite. Apple could be very choosy about this store, and only approve what they feel are good apps without allowing duplicates to enter. That way no one can complain about Apple being choosy, nor can they complain about it being more of a CrapStore. Of course, this will mean Apple admitting that their App Store is full of craps, and adding a whole lot of confusion in the process, which is why I’m not the CEO in the first place. 

Personally I’ve had the displeasure of using the iFartz Mobile [iTunes link], which I must say it is extremely disgusting and repulsive. I particularly like the ‘security fart’ feature, which makes a noise the moment someone touches your iPhone. All of my friends found this very amusing, which also made me realise the quality of my friends. If it’s a disgusting, repulsive, obscene and feature rich fart application that you’re looking for, you can’t go wrong with iFartz Mobile. If it’s not, I understand how you feel.