The OS X boot image epitomizes the simplicity and elegance of the operating system itself, showing a basic Apple logo set against a light grey background. I’m a huge fan of this simple layout, but was very interested to hear about BootXChanger, a tiny application that can alter the boot image to anything you’d like.

BootXChanger comes with an excellent set of PNG images already at a boot-screen-appropriate size and resolution, along with a set of instructions for creating your own. It makes this Mac customization, which would otherwise require some fairly complex digging around, remarkably simple.

Installation

Installing the application follows the standard “Drag to Applications” process and, after double clicking the BootXChanger icon, you are presented with a very straight forward interface.

BootXChanger

You’re able to drag-and-drop any PNG file into the window before clicking “Apply” and entering your administrator username and password. If you’re unhappy with the outcome, reverting to the default image only requires one click.

Available Images

BootXChanger comes bundled with a range of nostalgic Mac icons, bound to recreate a few memories.

Included Boot Images

It also has a range of limitations, put in place deliberately by the developer. The most notable is that BootXChanger will not change the background color of the boot screen (it remains the standard #BFBFBF hex color). This is done so as not to damage the appearance of the loading spinner, displayed as your computer boots. It means that the background of your images must be the same if you’d like them to blend in with the background.

Other limitations center around the number of colors that can be used in the image. The developer suggests that you keep it below 100, and stick to using GIF or PNG-8 image formats.

Intel Macs also have further limitations as images must be compressed to fit inside the boot file. Images that are overly complex may not be suitable for use. BootXChanger checks all these possibilities for you, and will refuse to alter your system if the chosen image is an incorrect format.

Examples

Here are a variety of different examples, showing the outcome of various BootXChanger images:

Backup First!

As with any software that alters system or boot files, I would certainly recommend making a backup of your system prior to experimenting. If anything goes wrong (and your Mac won’t boot), insert your OS X installation CD and select your hard drive as the startup disk for the subsequent restart.

BootXChanger is a fantastic, simple application to make adjusting your boot icon a straight-forward process. It’s likely to automatically prevent you from making any problematic changes, so have fun experimenting!

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Earlier this month, Dare to be Creative announced MainMenu 2.0, an update to its system maintenance utility for OS X. This lightweight application allows you to clean up your Mac, improve system performance and free up hard disk space — all directly from the system menu.

The new release offers a range of improved functionality, an informative system menu icon, and integration with the Growl notification service. This review will offer an overview of MainMenu’s key features, and explain how the software can assist with running a fast, healthy Mac.

The Interface

The Main Menu

MainMenu resides in the OS X menu bar as a small icon, offering a compact drop-down menu when clicked. This details the various categories of maintenance functions that can be performed, relating to the system, network, user, disk, and applications. It is also possible to run pre-defined batches of tasks together.

The final item in the menu provides access to MainMenu’s preferences, covering options such as whether the application should launch automatically, the appearance of the menu bar icon (several options are available), and whether the application should display a visible log as maintenance runs.

Improve System Performance

A number of options within the menu can help cut back on clutter and speed up your machine. These include the ability to re-build your Spotlight index for faster searching, and repair disk permissions to improve disk access speeds.

None of these are guaranteed to provide a dramatic increase in system performance, but can certainly have a noticeable impact when combined with clearing temporary files and caches (see below).

Re-claiming Disk Space

A variety of operations aim to delete unnecessary temporary files eating up hard drive space. These include the ability to remove Logs, Temporary Files, .DS_Store Files, and various system caches.

Clearing Browser Cache

Usefully, the menu also offers a central point for cleaning up your browser cache — across any (or all) of the web browsers you may have installed on your system.

Regular Maintenance Scripts

OS X has a variety of scripts (cron jobs) built-in for performing system maintenance, set to run automatically at a particular interval. Main Menu offers an easy way to execute these maintenance operations manually.

Time Savers

A degree of the functionality offered centers around quicker access to operations that would otherwise require running commands in the Terminal (or deep within System Preferences). A few of my favorite time-savers are:

• Showing or hiding invisible files in the Finder
• Relaunching various services such as the Dock, Finder, Airport, or Menu Bar
• Disabling Dashboard (a great way to speed up older machines)

You’re also able to Force Quit or Force Restart any application currently running. This is particularly useful if, for some reason, you are unable to Force Quit an app through the Dock.

Batch Mode & Growl Support

Another useful feature allows you to create a batch of several commonly performed tasks. A batch can be executed with one click, not requiring you to select each maintenance operation individually.

Batching Tasks

The limitation apparent here is that only one “batch” can be created. It isn’t possible to create several different sets of actions, each with a different name — a feature that could be particularly useful.

The latest release of MainMenu adds one final feature: Growl integration. This is a useful way to notify you when a maintenance task completes, and can help to streamline all your system notifications through one central system.

Conclusion

After experimenting with MainMenu for a few days, I can see it being an application I continue to use regularly. Although it seems a little unnecessary to run maintenance operations every few days, I certainly appreciate the in-built shortcuts for restarting services and adjusting Finder display preferences.

Whether you’re a seasoned Mac user who understands the need to flush your DNS cache, or a beginner looking for a simple utility for keeping your machine clean and tidy, MainMenu is certainly worth looking into.

MainMenu costs $20, and a trial is available as a free download from the MainMenu website. It runs initially in a 15-day trial mode with all features active — more than long enough to experiment with the utility and determine whether you use it enough to purchase a license.

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Since last year, Apple has allowed all iPhone developers to request 50 promotional codes for their application when first added to the App Store, a policy that makes it easy to offer free applications for trial, review or a competition. It allows easier initial promotion of an app, removing the need for a more complicated process of ad-hoc distribution or offering iTunes gift cards.

A few weeks ago, Apple stopped offering promotional codes to developers of applications rated 17+. This decision sparked controversy, with developers angry that they were no longer able to easily offer promotional copies of their software to reviewers.

The change was particularly difficult to stomach for many developers due to the already ambiguous interpretation of the 17+ rating. According to Apple, the guidelines for this rating category are as follows:

Applications in this category may also contain frequent and intense offensive language; frequent and intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence; and frequent and intense mature, horror, and suggestive themes; plus sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs which may not be suitable for children under the age of 17.

Although the statement seems fairly definitive, in practice, various other applications are being awarded a 17+ rating. For instance, any app that offers access to the Internet also falls into the 17+ category as it could be used to access objectionable content.

Developer Response

Various news agencies picked up on the change, putting pressure on Apple to re-consider its decision. It seems that Apple has responded and, unusually, reversed the change in policy to now offer promo codes regardless of age rating. The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting that various developers have this functionality re-enabled, though no official comment has been made by Apple.

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

To date, the approval and rating system for the App Store has remained somewhat of a mysterious frustration for many developers. Although it is understandably difficult to operate a consistent process across the thousands of applications submitted, developers have voiced frustration at the lack of dialogue with and information coming from Apple.

As John Gruber eloquently expressed:

I can imagine that for the developer on the other end the experience must be like that of speaking to a wall. A monolith.

While no official comment has been made by the company, this turnaround — seemingly in response to developer criticism — could mark the beginning of an improved back-and-forth process. It will be interesting to see whether, as the App Store grows, developers and technology publications find their voice valued by Apple to a greater degree.

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Aperture is a great photo management application, but may not be suitable for everyone. I recently made a decision to move back to iPhoto in order to use some of the features in the latest release. Several of these, such as face recognition, are not present in the current version of Aperture.

This decision posed a problem. How do you move several thousand photos out of Aperture and back into iPhoto, without tearing your hair out in the process? This how-to will outline a few different possibilities, along with the process I found to work best.

Why Move?

Before exploring the different export options, I feel the need to answer the question of why you would want to move away from an advanced application such as Aperture:

1. You could be switching to a different workflow, with a different “pro” tool such as Lightroom.
2. You may desire the faster performance of iPhoto, which feels much quicker than Aperture on lower specification machines.
3. Or, like me, you may want to switch to access iPhoto-specific features.

Although you can access Aperture images in iPhoto, this isn’t the same as moving them all across from one application to another. If you’d just like to access Aperture images, you can do so by clicking File > Show Aperture Library:

Show Aperture Library

A solution is needed for exporting all of your images in a useful folder structure, ready for importing into another application of choice.

Drag-and-Drop

The simplest way to move photos from one application to another is by dragging and dropping them out of Aperture, then back into a new iPhoto event or album. Providing you’ve set Aperture to export full-resolution versions when dragging out, this method can work well.

The problem with this solution is simple: time. If you have a few hundred photo albums, exporting each one separately can be a very long winded process, and take far too long to be practical. A better solution exists for exporting all the photos in your Library with one click.

Bulk Exporting

Fortunately, Aperture comes with a fairly advanced set of export preferences allowing you to specific exactly how a folder structure will be created, along with how files are to be named.

First, select the images to export (this is likely to be all the images in your Library). Click File → Export → Version (or Master, if you’d like the original images). You can then look for the “Subfolder Format” section, and choose “Edit” to define your own export structure.

Edit Folder Structure

This will launch a simple interface for defining a folder structure for export. This is particularly user friendly and easy-to-use.

Export Settings

The options chosen here will reflect how you have chosen to organize your Aperture library. You may have a different Project for each shoot, or prefer to use Folders to structure photos. Either way, you can select from a few of the following:

• Project Name
• Folder Name
• Year/Date/Time (both the current time, and that of shooting)
• Various Custom Numbers/Fields

Using a combination of these options should allow for a flexible export structure, and result in a well organized set of photos on your hard drive.

You can also adjust how files themselves are named using a similar process under the “Name Format” menu.

Importing into iPhoto should then be as simple as dragging the resulting folders of photos into the application. Appropriately titled events will automatically be created.

Other Solutions

A few other solutions exist for simplifying this process and automating it further. You could try this Automator script which, while a little dated, could do the trick.

It’s also possible to approach the problem with AppleScript, though this is a slightly more advanced solution.

Either way, I hope you no longer feel unduly concerned that you are “locked in” to Aperture. The export process can be fairly simple and, while you may lose some meta data, it isn’t too difficult to move a structured set of images out of the application.

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Although Safari improves with every version released, it remains difficult for one browser to cater for everyone’s needs. Firefox has successfully approached this problem through the use of Add-Ons, but Safari continues to lack any widely promoted form of plugin or extension functionality.

Despite this, I still remain a huge fan of Safari’s simplicity and speed and am reluctant to switch to another browser. Fortunately, several different methods remain for enhancing and “supercharging” Safari. Today I’ll be taking a look at six applications and tweaks for getting more out of Apple’s latest browser — from saving passwords more effectively to downloading video content.

1. Banishing Flash

Flash is a web technology that can be used to great effect for enhancing design, displaying video, and offering better typography. Unfortunately it is commonly abused and over-used, leading to a frustrating browser experience.

Click to Flash is a plugin for disabling Flash on every webpage by default, providing a simple placeholder instead. If you’d like the Flash content to display, just click the placeholder. You can also right-click and add a site to your white-list, always automatically displaying Flash content in the future.

Although this may seem like a fairly unusual plugin, it can dramatically speed up the loading times of websites. Flash content is commonly used for advertisements or unnecessary animation and, the small number of times you do actually want to view the Flash content, it’s only one click away.

2. Saving Passwords

The default password saving functionality built into Safari is fairly good, but far from perfect. First, it isn’t all that secure — anyone using your computer can login with a saved password. Second, there’s no way to automatically store a password when creating a new account on a website.

1Password is a Safari plugin which can help enormously with password storage, and remains incredibly secure. It allows you to store multiple logins for a site, set a “master password” to unlock all your saved details, and will automatically fill and submit login forms for you.

It’s priced at $39.95, but can save an enormous amount of time. A companion iPhone application is also available, so you can keep all your passwords with you on-the-go.

3. Glims

Glims offers a wide “cocktail” of different features to Safari and can improve many different aspects of the user interface. After using it for a few weeks, you may wonder how you ever managed without it. A few of my favorites are:

• The ability to add thumbnails to Google and Yahoo search results
• The addition of full-screen browsing capability
• Auto-closing of the download window (how many times have you needed to close that pesky window!)
• Automatically organize downloads by date
• Adds website icons in each Safari tab

Each feature can be turned on or off as you require. The only downside is that you may notice a slight slow-down in Safari performance. Nothing too critical, but it can be slightly frustrating at times.

4. Easy Tweeting

Although a plethora of desktop Twitter clients are available for OS X, there’s no harm in adding a simple way to tweet in Safari itself. After all, it’s probably where you first encounter a link or website worth sharing with your followers.

Safari 140 adds a basic plugin to Safari, which will auto-fill a new tweet with the current URL (automatically shortened, of course). After setting it up with your Twitter login credentials, it can save a huge amount of time. Safari 140 won’t replace a dedicated desktop client, however — it’s purely for posting quick links.

5. Block Those Ads

Many of us would enjoy browsing the Internet far more without the presence of advertisements. Sure, they’re a vital way for websites to generate income, but occasionally we all need an ad-free day.

Safari AdBlock is a simple, free plugin that aims to strip advertisements from websites as you browse. It works surprisingly well and can lead to a far less cluttered web experience.

AdBlock: Before and After

One welcome feature of AdBlock is its ability to clean up a page’s layout after removing the advertisements. This means that a site is not left with large, gaping spaces where sponsorship slots used to be.

6. Easily Download Videos

Much of the web’s video content is served through Flash and can be difficult to download for later viewing. Few plugins are better at assisting with this process than CosmoPod, which works with almost all sites serving video content.

Not only will CosmoPod download video content, but with one click the plugin can download the file, convert it to an iTunes/iPod compatible format, and place it in your iTunes library. Everything integrates with the Safari interface for a seamless downloading experience.

What do you use?

I would be interested to hear any plugins or tweaks you use for enhancing Safari. I firmly believe that it’s the best browser available for OS X, but am enthusiastic about finding ways to make the app perform better and make my life easier!

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For both iPhone users and developers, a new service from Amazing Mail pushes the envelope — quite literally — of what a mobile device is capable of. The on-demand printing company is offering an integration service for iPhone developers, allowing for the creation of applications that are able to send physical postcards or printed photos.

Two applications have already put this feature into production — Postino (free) and PicCard (99 cents). Both offer the ability to print and send physical copies of photographs taken on your iPhone, priced at between 99 cents and $1.99, depending on where you’re shipping to.

AmazingMail’s CEO Chris Lynde notes:

Postino and PicCard are fabulous examples of how developers can generate margins of 100 percent or more with our web-to-print engine. We’ve already seen both of these apps evolve their feature sets in a matter of weeks based on iPhone user feedback.

For iPhone Users

Postino is a good example of how the service can work. You snap a picture with the iPhone camera, select a frame, draw an accompanying message or signature, and enter the address details of the recipient. The app can also send cards via email, if you’d prefer not to pay for the physical service.

Postino

For Developers

The ability to easily integrate physical printing with the iPhone allows developers to exploit a new revenue stream, particularly with the recent addition of in-app purchasing to the iPhone software.

Key features of this new web-to-print service include:

• Print and mail the next business day to any country
• High quality card printing
• Automatically standardize recipient addresses for maximum deliverability
• Easy-to-use HTTP submission method
• Wide flexibility in terms of the content able to be printed
• Environmentally friendly mailing options

A range of potential uses present themselves, both for personal use (sending family postcards or photos to friends), and for business. The relatively low cost of shipping is appealing — $1.50 to send a postcard internationally is certainly acceptable. It will be interesting to see how the model is adopted, and how developers look to merge their applications with a physical printing service in coming months.

From a slightly different perspective, the addition of dock connector APIs in the latest iPhone 3.0 software may further the ability to print directly from the iPhone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see accessory manufacturers produce a portable digital photo printer, as so many have already done for digital cameras.

A Step Backwards?

Part of me feels that this is a move back to a traditional postal medium and unlikely to work long term. The very notion of a “postcard” is beginning to feel slightly antiquated in the modern age, when you can upload images and video to services such as Flickr as you travel.

That said, I’ll certainly be taking one of these applications with me on my next trip, and hope to impress a few friends back home with some unconventional postcards. Work colleagues may be comfortable with Flickr and YouTube, but I know for a fact my grandparents will still feel excited to pick up a customized iPhone postcard from the letterbox.

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Laptop stands are widely heralded as a great solution for a more ergonomic workstation and better positioning of your computer. They come in all manner of shapes and sizes, from the downright awful to very slick and stylish.

I recently took the plunge and purchased the Rain Design mStand. This particular stand is designed specifically for aluminum MacBook laptops, matching the anodized metal finish wonderfully. Like the latest Apple notebooks, mStand is made from one solid piece of aluminum.

While not the most cost-effective solution (mStand costs $50), it certainly goes a long way towards offering an ergonomic and stylish accessory for any MacBook or MacBook Pro. This review will take a look at the design, stability, ergonomic design and limitations of the stand.

Design

Right from removing it from the box, the mStand looked comfortably at home in my Apple setup. The aim was to elevate my MacBook Pro to the same level of a Cinema Display and transform it into a more usable second monitor.

The design almost identically mimics the stand present on Apple’s Cinema Display and iMac computers — even down to the inclusion of a circular cable hole at the rear.

According to the documentation, the aluminum finish also assists with cooling your laptop through acting as a heat sink. While a solid metal block might not seem the best candidate for a heat sink, I found that it certainly did not cause any problems. My MacBook Pro remained cool and quiet.

Stability

Obviously if you’re going to entrust a small piece of metal to raise your precious MacBook 6 inches above a desk, stability is a major consideration. The mStand shines in this department due to a remarkably well-designed construction. It supports all MacBook and MacBook Pro models, along with any other laptop up to a 15″ widescreen.

Pressing, knocking and shaking the stand didn’t once instill a sense of fear for my laptop’s safety. If you’re using the stand on your lap (which works well), it’s perfectly capable of supporting even the most vigorous typing activity.

Pads cushion both the underside and front of your laptop where it comes into contact with the stand to ensure there’s no chance of scratching.

Ergonomics

The stand’s accompanying leaflet makes it clear that “all ergonomic guidelines recommend placing the screen at eye level, and keeping your back, forearms and wrists straight.” Coupling the mStand with an external keyboard and mouse is a far better solution than using a laptop directly on your desk:

mStand Ergonomics

I can’t see myself lugging all this gear to Starbucks for an afternoon, but it can work extremely well in an office environment.

As mentioned below, at times I felt that the stand may be elevating the screen a little too high. It could be that I’ll just need a few weeks to adjust to looking in a slightly different direction.

Limitations

The main limitation with this product is the non-adjustable height. While this is a common problem with many laptop stands, it could really make the mStand a perfect solution. I found that the stand elevated my MacBook Pro a little too high — almost to the top of my Cinema Display. I do, however, appreciate that this is likely the perfect position from an ergonomic perspective.

The only other niggle (and I’m really splitting hairs) is that the cable hole in the rear cannot accommodate the width of an external monitor connection. It’s a slight inconvenience for keeping cables organized, but certainly not a deal-breaker.

Conclusion

So far, I’ve been remarkably impressed with the mStand. It seems perfectly able to match Apple in terms of design, ergonomics and build quality — no easy task.

Is it worth the asking price of $50? The answer depends very much on whether you require a design that’s able to match the aluminum look and feel of an existing Mac setup. If appearance isn’t a major concern, the Logitech Alto Express may be a better (and more budget-friendly) alternative.

Whichever stand you go for, it’s definitely a move I would recommend for a more comfortable workspace.

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I’m pleased to say that my sentiments echo the rave reviews the game has received on the App Store. It pushes the boundaries of third-person action games for the iPhone, bringing innovative concepts such as an intuitive “cover” system, various enemies and vehicles, and an excellent control mechanism.

The iPhone game was released shortly after a “leaked video” hit YouTube demonstrating the game in action. Whether a PR stunt or not, it serves as an excellent overview of what to expect in the game — both in terms of graphics and gameplay.

Graphics

Terminator Salvation is visually impressive from start to finish, making full use of the iPhone’s processing capability. Environments are rich and detailed, recreating the atmosphere of the film as well as can be expected on such a small screen.

Post-Apocalyptic Graphics

Cut-scenes are rendered using the same engine, with narrative provided through speech bubbles. (There’s no angry commentary from Christian Bale, unfortunately.)

Controls

The game adopts a natural-feeling control system. A virtual direction pad sits to the left, allowing you to walk forward, back, left and right. Dragging the screen allows you to look around the environment and set your targeting reticle on a suspicious-looking enemy.

Move and Look Controls

An excellent cover system responds automatically if you move towards an item which the character is able to crouch behind or peek around. You can continue to aim while in cover, firing immediately as you move. This is a first for an iPhone game and really adds to the app’s realism.

A separate control system is used for mini-games, adopting a similar approach to the popular Labyrinth iPhone app. It makes use of the accelerometer, requiring you to solve a puzzle, thereby “hacking” a device in order to use it. Unfortunately, there is no way to calibrate the iPhone — you’ll need to play these puzzles with your device horizontal to stand any chance.

Gameplay

The game follows the storyline of the upcoming movie in which John Connor leads the human resistance against Skynet and an army of Terminator robots. You play as both John Connor and Marcus Wright at various points, each with their own unique abilities. Unfortunately, the plot of the game is somewhat difficult to follow, twisting and turning to the point where I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on.

Drive!

Whilst playing through the nine levels on offer you’ll encounter 11 different types of enemy (each of which is overcome in a specific way) and drive a variety of futuristic vehicles. The choice of weapons is equally impressive and includes an assault rifle, a shotgun, a grenade launcher, a chain-gun and a surge cannon. Not for the faint of heart!

Each level offers a set of mission statistics upon completion. If you find yourself hooked on the game, it provides a good way to monitor your improvement when replaying a level.

Mission Statistics

For the asking price of $9.99, Terminator Salvation is a fairly short-lived affair. Blasting through the nine levels can be done in a couple of hours, after which you’re rewarded with a new Terminator character. You can replay the game at a slightly harder difficulty level with the new character, though it doesn’t add a great deal in terms of new gameplay experience or variety.

Conclusion

Terminator Salvation for the iPhone is a solid release that makes great use of the iPhone’s touchscreen and accelerometer. Graphics are outstanding, with gameplay that feels natural and is a lot of fun. Areas lacking include a fairly short, convoluted storyline and no audio commentary to better explain what exactly is happening.

If you enjoy gaming on the iPhone, Terminator Salvation is definitely worth a try. It may not be able to offer hours and hours of re-playability, but the time you do spend saving the world from various mechanical enemies is remarkably enjoyable.

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“Top Gun” is widely regarded as a classic film, one which seems to retain a sense of timeless prestige as the years pass. Fans of the film — or iPhone games in general — will be pleased to know that a “Top Gun” game is now available for the iPhone. Fast-paced and action-packed, it is an excellent example of game development for the iPhone done right.

The story line picks up where the “Top Gun” film left off, with Maverick and Iceman now instructors at the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, where you learn to fly. The game can be picked up quickly, is easy to dip in-and-out of, and doesn’t require any advanced flying skills.

Story & Missions

Cut scenes and a story line are provided in a cartoon style. This looks appealing and is easy to skip through if you’ve already seen the dialog before (this is likely, as it appears every time you replay a mission).

Story Scenes

I won’t give any of the story away, but it’s a fairly simple affair! Missions are selected through choosing one of the available briefing folders. There are 10 in total, and you can replay them to unlock certain medals and achievements if desired.

Selecting a mission

Gameplay & Audio

There are two ways in which to play the game, either in a linear “Story Mode,” or by quickly replaying previously completed missions. Gameplay, in terms of flying, is fairly simple; you don’t need to worry about taking off, landing or navigating. These are handled for you, keeping your fingers free to focus on the combat and action. While I crave an application capable of mixing the realism of xPlane with the combat of a game such as this, I fear I may be asking a little too much!

Thick of the action

The game requires you to evade enemy attacks (achieved through keeping clear of shifting “danger zones”) while simultaneously firing upon the enemy with a combination of your missiles and machine gun. Action is fast-paced as the levels progress, but remains fun on account of unlimited ammo and few complicated controls to master.

Avoiding the Danger Zone

Unusually, Top Gun calibrates the position of your iPhone automatically at the beginning of each level. This can be frustrating if you don’t remember to hold the phone in a good position as the level commences. Re-calibration can be instigated through the in-game pause menu, and is as simple as tapping a button.

Various environments are used, from open deserts to the glistening sea. The graphics used in the game look excellent and plane models are reasonably detailed. In an interview with IGN, Senior Developer Bruce Morrison outlined the elements of the game that he felt worked well:

From a technology side, our real-time lighting. From a gameplay [perspective], I like how we incorporated elements from the movie that fans can really identify with, while keeping the experience fresh.

The lighting is indeed excellent and creates a compelling environment in which to play. Even more fun, however, is the in-game audio, which uses a range of songs from the original film soundtrack. These offer a remarkable nostalgia and go a long way towards making the game feel linked strongly to the movie.

Developing for the iPhone

When asked about the experience of developing for the iPhone, Bruce noted:

The iPhone is great. It’s like a tiny little Mac. It’s running OS X, so a lot of the Mac code we’ve developed over the years has come right over. A lot of the same underlying code we’ve used for other projects is running natively on the iPhone.

I’m continually impressed with how such a small device is capable of creating an immersive gaming environment and capturing your full attention. Top Gun is no exception, representing a very well-rounded game. I’m looking forward to seeing future releases from Freeverse, already well-known for games such as Big Bang Board Games and Days of Thunder.

Areas for Improvement

While Top Gun is a fun game to pick up and play, it does have a few limitations. I would appreciate a way to invert the accelerometer settings, as it felt unnatural to tilt the iPhone the opposite way to which you’d like to move. In addition, the interface can start to look a little confusing as you progress to the later missions. Multiple “danger zones,” targets, commentary, and other aircraft can quickly fill up the iPhone’s screen to a frustrating degree. Missions are relatively short, and the game does become repetitive after a few plays.

That said, the price tag of $4 is a good selling point for the app. It offers an impressive demonstration of the iPhone’s graphic capability, and is a good game to quickly “pick up and play.” If you act fast, it should be possible to take advantage of a 50 percent discount, which is running for a few more days (bringing the price down to $2). For more information, take a look at Top Gun in the App Store.

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Today, FileMaker announced the release of Bento for the iPhone and iPod touch, a companion to their popular personal database software. Priced at $4.99, the mobile application can synchronize directly with Bento 2 running on your Mac to keep information up-to-date.

If you’re unfamiliar with Bento, our review is a good place to start. Essentially the application helps you to stay organized through creating a personal database. It offers a great deal of flexibility and is suitable for anything from managing a list of recipes to tracking home inventory.

Bento is renowned for three characteristics: simplicity, elegance, and ease of use. All of these are present in the Mac software with virtually no learning curve required in order to start organizing your information. The same experience has been ported across to the mobile application with great effect.

Creating a New Library

Bento for iPhone is separated into four main sections, which remain consistently present at the bottom of the screen: Home, Search, New Library and Sync. Upon opening the app for the first time, you’ll be asked to create a new library.

Adding a New Library

Two options are available for creating a new library. You can either select from one of the 25 pre-designed templates, or design your own set of fields from scratch.

Flicking through the default templates is done through a cover flow-style animation, though it seems to behave in a slightly different manner. While the functionality is fine, flicking through the various options is slightly sluggish and template icons take a short while to load.

The pre-designed templates available cover a wide range of options — everything from expenses and time billing, to an exercise or charity donation log. Each template has a wonderfully designed icon, and there’s a good chance you can find a library that meets your requirement.

If you’re in need of a custom solution, selecting ‘Blank’ will allow you to design a new library from scratch, right on your iPhone or iPod touch. A simple interface guides you through adding and editing fields, some of which are able to interact with iPhone features (taking a picture, for example).

Home Screen

Two views are available for the home screen allowing you to either flick through libraries in cover-flow mode or view a detailed list of libraries and collections. When browsing in cover flow, tapping the “i” icon will flip the current icon around and display further information about the records/collections within.

This provides a clear and simple way to quickly browse or edit the desired library. I appreciate the inclusion of a list view, as performance is notably quicker than loading the high-res icons for cover flow.

Browsing & Searching Libraries

After opening a library, a list of the collections (groups) and individual records contained is displayed. Various sorting and display options are available to adjust how the list appears. You can either add a new record, or drill down further to edit each item:

Viewing an Item

Searching is powerful, and is performed across all available libraries. Results update in real time as you type, and are broken down by library:

Searching Your Library

It will be interesting to see whether Bento information could be tied into the Spotlight search planned for iPhone 3.0 — this could offer a very useful addition to iPhone-wide search.

Syncing with Bento for Mac

Synchronizing your information with Bento for Mac is a simple process provided both devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. After instructing both the iPhone and Mac version to search for other devices, connecting involves authorization through a four-digit security code:

Syncing with Bento for Mac

After connecting, the iPhone should display as a ‘Device’ in the left pane of Bento. You can then select which libraries you would like to sync (in a very similar fashion to managing your device via iTunes).

Connecting to Bento for the Mac

Performance & Limitations

There are a few areas of Bento for iPhone that don’t synchronize with the desktop version. These include any media over 10MB, iCal events and tasks, file list fields, automatic counter fields, and smart collections. In addition, it isn’t possible to modify calculation fields from the mobile app. I would also like to see a table view which displays records side-by-side, making use of the iPhone’s landscape display. That said, these limitations are certainly acceptable, and don’t stop the iPhone application being incredibly useful.

Unfortunately, the stability and performance of the app was, for me, a major sticking point. Bento was prone to crashing every few minutes and there was a noticeable delay when opening the app and browsing in cover-flow mode. I’m fairly confident that these issues will be rectified through an update shortly.

Performance aside, Bento for iPhone represents a powerful and worthy mobile companion. I’m pleased to see that FileMaker has offered an application fully capable of creating a database, not confined to act as a viewer for existing desktop libraries. At the price of $4.99, Bento for iPhone represents one of the most powerful and affordable database tools available. As soon as stability is perfected, I’m confident I shall be a regular user.

More information can be found at the FileMaker site, or via the App Store.

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