Anywhere Can Be a Keyboard.
This app turns any surface into an iPhone keyboard. Because a world in which we have one less bulky thing to carry is most definitely the world of tomorrow.
(via fastcompany)
You Know You Want To.
We give you the Romo. Inspired by the Bondi Blue iMac, it’s the ultimate way to make a robot friend out of what is probably already your most intimate companion: your iPhone.
(via fastcompany)
Kahnoodle is Pair meets Groupon. Yes, a daily deals app for couples.
Take two trends, mash them together. What do you get? OH THE HORROR!
This may be harsh on Kahnoodle, a new iPhone app that hopes to be “the fun & effortless way for busy couples to keep their relationship fresh and exciting”.
No, not swinging. Shame on you. This is less about group sex, and more about Groupon. Well, daily deals anyway: a feature to “search every daily deal site in one app to find discounts on awesome dates”.
That, and “give each other virtual pats on the back (‘kudos’) for doing sweet things for each other”. But we sense that’s not the likely lucrative business model that’s being aimed at here.
So, Kahnoodle is essentially the trend for daily-deals apps mixed with the newer trend for social-networking-for-couples apps (see: Pair, Cupple, Between). Perhaps it’ll be as big as swinging was in the 1980s. Place some pampas-grass plants on your balcony if you’re using it.
Grr! WWE gets a second-screen wrestling app
When I was hugely into American wrestling back in the glory days of the WWF, second-screen action was out of the question: if I was distracted from the action, it would only be to try and suplex my little brother into the fireplace, emulating my heroes.
(It’s okay, he’s fine. I wasn’t very good at suplexing. And we didn’t own a fireplace. Actually, this whole intro has rather spiralled out of control…)
Anyway. Rebranded as WWE after a spat with the wildlife folks, the WWE has continued to be one of the biggest sports entertainment brands in the world. And what kids nowadays want to do, seemingly, is second-screen their way through all those televised suplexes. Hence its new iOS app.
You get news and videos – the latter being a mixture of new and archive clips – but the real meat comes with the second-screen features, designed to be used while watching the weekly Monday Night Raw broadcast.
The idea being to foster the community of wrestling fans around the broadcasts, including encouraging them to meet up at official events. And, of course, sell them stuff too, with an in-app shop.
The New Yorker Invades iPhone, Aided & Abetted by Jon Hamm + Lena Dunham
The New Yorker’s produced a snappy new iPhone app that’ll enable users to download all its issues, automatically, every week! (This week it’s free, so snatch that bad-boy up.)
The iPhone app resembles the existing iPad app in terms of functionality, providing complete magazine content and some digital easter eggs. It’ll also be a significantly smaller download (issues on the iPad app were often as big as 100 MB) because the geniuses at Condé Nast and Adobe (who built the app) have finally figured out how to handle “paginated HTML”, meaning text (of which The New Yorker has much) now appears as text, and not as imagery. The same technology will be used to slim down downloads for iPad, thank heavens.
Access is free for print subscribers. Digital-only subscriptions include iPad and iPhone access. You can also buy issues individually.
The choice to avail New Yorker content on iPhone represents a first for Condé Nast, which has historically preferred to confine digital copies of its publications to tablet devices.
Above, a kitschy, rapidly-devolving video promoting the app, featuring Lena Dunham of TV series Girls and Jon Hamm of Mad Men. (TV folks making web videos to promote the mobile version of a print mag! We’ve come full circle, minions.) Try to keep watching until the end, because somebody needs to tell us what Lena was trying to do with that weird handshake.
Breaking Bad: Now With More Egocasting.
If you’re following Season 5 of Breaking Bad as closely as we are, you know the madness hasn’t stopped escalating since Season 4’s twist (yet somehow inevitable) ending.
Now, take your place in BB history. Sony’s Go Fring Yourself iPhone app lets you graft your face — or better yet, someone else’s — onto mild-mannered druglord Gus Fring’s, just in time for the epic face-off at Season 4’s end. Once done, share a video or photo of your nursing-home-wild-west moment with fawning friends who’d never be able sling meth and sell chicken the way you could.
Lionsgate launches Infinite Trailer app for The Expendables 2
Stallone! Van Damme! Schwarzenegger! Those Other Guys Who Might Be Getting On A Bit Now But Could Still Probably Kick Your Arse Or At Least Get Their Stuntmen To Do It!
The Expendables 2 is on its way to cinemas soon, and Lionsgate has just the thing to promote it: an iOS app called The Expendables 2 Infinite Trailer.
Released for free on the App Store, it’s all about user-generated content. “Think you’ve got what it takes to be in an action movie? Here’s your chance,” explains its store listing.
“Upload a short video and improve it with cinematic special effects. You can add yourself to the Expendables 2 movie trailer and share it with your friends! Public voting will let you know how you measure up!”
Yeah!
I’ve never heard of SHINee before, but judging from their promo shots, they may well be a Korean tribute band to the Klaxons. It’s a good look.
But no, they’re an original pop band signed to innovative Korean music firm S.M. Entertainment. Their new mini-album is called Sherlock, and it’s being debuted in an iPhone app that was released this week, promising to “fascinate music fans all over the world”.
The app costs £3.99 and weighs in at a whopping 284.7MB – that’ll be the music tracks and videos preloaded, rather than streamed in.
Sony Pictures is playing with augmented reality technology for its new The Amazing Spider-Man AR app, which is out on iPhone and Android. It’s using technology from Qualcomm.
The app puts Spidey into the real world. “Just locate special movie-themed AR images and scan them to unlock exclusive 3D Spider-Man interactive animations. You can see Spider-Man swing through buildings, crawl up walls, shoot his web at the screen, or engage with nefarious characters on the streets…”
We’re often sceptical of AR apps as short-lived novelties, but this is marketing a blockbuster film, so it only has to be interesting for a matter of weeks. The ability to take photos of the star and share them on Facebook and Twitter may give it a flicker of virality too.
Famed British TV sketch-show Monty Python’s Flying Circus is getting sliced and diced for a new generation, with iPhone app Python Bytes.
Developed by UK firm Heuristic Media, the app costs £1.99 and includes 22 of the best sketches from the show’s first series – more apps will follow for subsequent seasons. All killer, no filler!
The order is randomised – shake the iPhone to cue up another clip – although users can programme their own running order too. We like the App Signing feature too: if you spot a passing Python, it’s designed for them to scribble their signature on the touchscreen, to be saved in the app’s memory.
