Yes, you can find old-school RPG games on iOS. Avadon: The Black Fortress is a fine example. Top-down 2D graphics, huge maps, inventory system, turn-based combat, and a long story told by countless NPCs that you encounter are all there. With so many point-and-click games masquerading as RPGs in the app store, it is nice to find something that has real depth to it.
Go into your Applications folder and drag and drop an application on to Preview. Preview will open the app and show you all sorts of graphs stored within: icons, screens, samples, etc. A great way to get icons and buttons for tutorials or prototypes.
“I love my new iPad. It is so tiny and light! I’ll never go back to a laptop again. Now I just need to get a cover, a case, a keyboard and a stand for it.”
Apple news this week was dominated by a Wired reporter’s story of how his iCloud, Amazon, Twitter and Gmail account were all compromised because of the way he had the four tied together. Key to this situation were the fact that Amazon shows the last four digits of your credit card, and Apple allowed those digits to be used for over-the-phone account recovery. Both of those holes have now been plugged by those companies.
The compromise highlighted other issues, such as the importance of backing up your Mac. Look for a MacMost video tomorrow on how to avoid problems like this by using several simple security measures.
With so many apps playing music that you already know you like, it is good to have some apps that let you discover new music. Band of the Day is just such an app. It is like a music magazine that publishes one review per day of a new band. Not every day will feature something you like, but that’s true of anything like this. On top of it, the design is one of those excellent iPad tap-and-explore interfaces that is a pleasure to play with.
In Mountain Lion you can back up to more than Time Machine drive. Go to System Preferences, Time Machine, and set a new drive. You will be able to use the new one in addition to the existing one. If both are connected, backups alternate between each. If only one is connected, it uses that every hour. This way you can have a Time Machine backup for your MacBook at work and at home.
“Hello dear. I’m working late today. Don’t know when I’ll be home.”
“I don’t think you understand what FaceTime is.”
There are hundreds of keyboard shortcuts for Mac users. There are Mission Control shortcuts, Finder shortcuts, system shortcuts, application shortcuts and more. Many you can find by just looking through the menu bar for that application. You can find system ones by looking in the System Preferences under Keyboard.
But some keyboard shortcuts are more useful than others. And some are harder to remember than others.
So MacMost has compiled a list of our top “power user” keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Here they all are on a single PDF page, downloadable and printable: The MacMost Mountain Lion Power User Keyboard Shortcuts. Download it and pass it along!
The creators of Reason have come up with a good cheap music creation app for the iPhone. Figure is a fun toy that reminds you that while listening to music is fun, creating your own music can be even better. You just tap and swipe on colorful screens that make it easy to hit the right notes and beats.
In Mountain Lion, the Dashboard gets a little iOS-like update. The active widgets look the same, but if you go to add a new widget you are taken to an iOS-app-like screen. You can re-arrange the widget icons and even drag and drop them on to each other to create folders.
Two releases this week added two major video providers to Apple devices. Hulu, the service that streams television shows for a set monthly fee, is now available on Apple TV through a system update. The new app requires a paid subscription but goes a long way toward making Apple TV a viable alternative to cable for many people.
On the iPad, a new Amazon Instant Video app beings that service to the device for subscribers. This is a competitor to Netflix, which is also available in the iPad.
The new retina-display MacBook now comes in a greater variety of built-to-order options. There are larger SSD drives, more processor varieties and some memory options as well.
As we move toward fall, more evidence mounts for a possible September announcement and release of a new iPhone. Sharp’s president let slip that his company would start shipping displays for the new iPhone as early as later this month. A new version of iOS, now being tested by developers, is expected to be released at the same time as a new iPhone.
“I’d get an iPad, but it is just too big. I hope they come out with a smaller, lighter version soon.”
