It’s rare to find an app so good that you can use it to replace a staple on your iPhone. In this case, we’re talking about Panamp, an intuitive music app that’s stable enough to replace the Music application on your iOS device. Panamp takes a step back to figure out how people are listening to their music and although creating playlists within your device is now a built-in feature (and has been for a while), Panamp takes this a step further now by making the GUI so much more intuitive to navigate through. You basically are given the same tabs for browsing your music, audiobooks and podcasts but can now slide your music to a playlist you can create on the fly.

So it’s not everyday you want to listen to the same thing, and with a 20GB music library, there’s going to be a lot of music you’re going to miss out on. So rather than remove you from the browsing experience, simply flipping the songs to the right of the screen will add them to a new playlist. From there, you can drag songs up or down. Panamp also allows you to cascade your albums making it easier to browse your long list of songs without having to scroll all the way down. Also, unlike the native app, once you play the song, a small player pops up at the bottom of the screen, keeping you in the same window to browse other tracks. Remember that on the native iOS app, you’re brought to a “Now Playing” screen that’s honestly a huge waste of space and you’d need to do a button press just to get you back to the navigation.

Panamp is definitely a good investment. It’s not the cheapest thing out there, but the $2.99 investment can make your music browsing much easier on your device.

Panamp costs $2.99 [DOWNLOAD IT NOW]

To make things a bit more fun, we’re throwing out some promo codes out on the Internet. No contests. None of that. Here are two free codes up for grabs!

HE4LRLH4TKHF
AYN7E4XWEPR9

There you go! Good luck and have fun!

Apple’s many products are huge sellers and bring a lot of attention to the company. One way, Apple has made Apple products more ubiquitous at the consumer level are the many Apple Stores that operate in many major cities all over the US (and in the rest of the world). Apple Stores are hip places where you can get your desired Apple product in an environment that celebrates all things Apple. Unfortunately, not all cities have Apple Stores. This means people who want to buy Apple products have no choice but to either online or shop at electronics stores and malls.

If you’re still hankering for that “Apple Store” experience even without an actual Apple Store in your area, you may be in luck. There are talks that Apple will begin opening up small Apple Stores inside the premises of Sam’s Club.

Sam’s Club is a member’s only warehouse club, and even if the image it evokes is bulk shopping, it does have a very nice electronics department that sells Apple products – iPhones, iPods, and iPads. With rumored negotiations with Apple, what consumers will see are store-in-store setups that will also begin selling Macs and Apple computers. Reportedly, a backup to the store-in-store concept would be for Sam’s Club to sell Apple laptops and desktops even without the mini stores.

Even though this is still officially just a rumor, there are a lot of evidence that suggests a partnership between Apple and Sam’s Club is not totally far-fetched. Apple already has a similar setup in many Best Buy outlets so the same setup in Sam’s Club is perfectly feasible.

At first pass, you might think that The Wonders of Geology exists purely to show off the incredible photography of Michael Collier. While that’s certainly a good reason, it also functions as an excellent textbook, sure to instill enthusiasm for geology into any student.

Michael Collier is more than a photographer. He’s a geologist, too. Read his words or listen to him speak, and you’ll hear the kind of passion that a cook might use to talk about their favorite recipes.

The bulk of the app is made up of a slideshow of Collier’s photos, which are jaw-dropping on the iPad. The lighting, composition, saturation, and crystal-clear resolution on each one is perfection. You can pinch-to-zoom on all of the photos (without losing resolution), and each one has a tiny caption in the top left corner so you always know what (or rather where) you’re looking at.

If you choose, you can switch on narration, in which Collier himself gives talking points about each geological feature, often with visual pointers appearing so you can focus on exactly what he’s referring to, and sometimes even animations. You can swipe to turn pages at your leisure, or let the app move on autopilot, providing you with a guided tour of everything it contains.

There’s high-resolution cross-sections of prominent mountains and canyons, and there are wide shots of some of America’s best known ranges, but this is only the beginning. You’ll find bird’s eye views of tectonic plates and faults, as well as fascinating looks at volcanoes, glaciers, and areas of erosion. For each photo, you can click on a “Map” tab, which pops up a full-screen map and shows you exactly where in the world the photo was taken. There are also diagrams, a table of contents, thumbnails, and more.

Touching on all corners of North America, The Wonders of Geology is a wonder itself. It functions perfectly well as a beautiful coffee table book, but plumbing its depths reveals far greater riches. It’s a must-own for educators, or anyone interested in the majesty of nature. The price is probably steeper than you’re expecting, at $12.99, but this level of quality doesn’t come cheap. It’s worth every penny.

That is why it has become the ultimate tool for the business user, as phones are able to increase productivity, put various resources into one device and even boost work performance. That is all thanks to the many apps that have been created specifically to improve the work experience of the owner.

Here are 10 must-have apps for anyone who is business oriented in their iPhone use.

1. Dropbox

If you wish you could always take your important files with you, whether to work at home, at the local Starbucks or anywhere else, now you can,. Dropbox is a very useful syncing program that allows you to move various files from your desktop into their folders. Those can then be accessed in real time on the website, through any other computer you link it up to, on your iPhone or iPad, or through other authorized user accounts. So not only can you take files anywhere you need to go, but you can share them with anyone you need to, as well.(Free)

2. Evernote

Considered one of the best apps ever created, Evernote is the perfect application for anyone who has a bit of a memory or a productivity problem – or just people who could use a little bit more note taking and organization in their lives. From concepts to ideas to reminders, you can put them all here and sync it with all of your devices all at once. You can even use them to store photos. (Free)

3. FuzeMeeting

Want to host a conference or meeting without going into the office? Whether it is local or international, you can do it with this app from anywhere, and with high resolution picture that is as clear as day. You can control all attendee requests and other information from the dashboard. (Free)

4. Skype

Possibly the most popular communication program on the web, Skype is available on your iPhone. You can use this app to hold video conferences, chat, keep track of your contacts or reduce your phone bill by loading up on credits and making calls. There is also now an iPad optimized version now. (Free)

5. Quick Sale

Keep track of sales, invoices and payments, all in one place. You can even apply discounts per sale, globally or by percentage, and save your favorites for quick access and repeated use. Quick Sale has unlimited space for inventory and non-inventory items, and categories for easy organization. ($0.99)

6. Online Payroll

If you have been looking for a way to create checks outside of the office, you know have it. Put together payment information, stubs and actual checks, pay by direct deposit or prepare paper checks for printing. You can even access information on past and present employees or contractors from anywhere. (Free)

7. QuickOffice

Do you use Microsoft Office almost continuously in your work? Then you can save, share and open your work with QuickOffice, keeping a smaller version with you anywhere you are. ($19.99)

8. Things

This is basically your all-in-one to-do list and calendar application that has worked to make it all much easier to use. You set reminders and make notes, lists and more. Everything is run through a very simple interface, making it better than probably any other app out there on the iTunes market. ($9.99)

9. Numbers

Charts, bar graphs, infographics…all of them can be built easily on this amazing spreadsheet app. You enter dates, numbers, provide photos, set durations or type in formulas, and it does the rest based on your specifications. There are more than 250 functions, and they are all easy to use thanks to a basic interface that is clear even for new users. ($9.99)

10. Streamtime

Use the digital whiteboard for ideas, leave yourself notes, set deadlines or track time with this fantastic productivity tool. It is easy to use, but very thorough in features. (Free)

Conclusion

If you have an iPhone and work in any kind of business sector, you can benefit from these handy apps. Most are free and the others are well worth the cost. What are some of your own favorites that you would hate to go without? Let us know in the comments.

Sonia Tracy is the content editor for PsPrint and editor of PsPrint Printing and Design Blog. PsPrint is an online printing company, which you can follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Bats! Furry Fliers of the Night

for iPad
Price: $4.99
Interactive storybook for kids that teaches all about bats.

Blot

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $.99
Clever side-scroller where you help a blot of ink get across a page.

Disneyland Explorer

for iPad
Price: FREE
Terrific interactive simulation of Disneyland, which you scroll to explore and tap objects and characters to view photos, watch videos, or play minigames.

Doodlecast Pro

for iPad
Price: $3.99
Easily create PowerPoint-style presentations.

Dream PetHouse

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Yet another time management game along the lines of Farmville and Cityville.

Fly With Me

for iPhone
Price: $.99
Simple arcade game from EA.

Game Your Video

for iPhone
Price: $99
Changes the process of editing and adding fun effects to videos into something akin to playing a video game.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE ($9.99 to unlock full game)
Bestselling Nintendo DS adventure game comes to iOS.

Gorilla Gondola

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $1.99
Colorful, attractive side-scroller game that looks like a lot of fun.

Guess Who?

for iPad
Price: $2.99
Children’s book where you try to guess who’s on the next page by seeing just a small part of their face. Also includes songs, games, and the ability to create your own story with your own pictures. By illustrator Kyoung Kook.

Hamlet! HD

for iPad
Price: FREE ($2.99 to unlock full game)
Tongue-in-cheek game about the famous play. The game’s subtitle is, “Or, the last game without MMORPG features, shaders, and product placement.” That probably tells you all you need to know about its tone.

Hotels by Orbitz

for iPhone
Price: FREE
Book hotels easily with this intuitive app.

JetBlue

for iPhone
Price: FREE
Book a flight, check in, and get real-time updates on your itinerary.

Jigsaw Mansion 2

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $2.99
Explore a mysterious mansion where the paintings come to life and must be pieced together like puzzles.

LED Ticker Pro

for iPad
Price: $.99
Program your own rolling marquee messages. Great for street-level marketing.

Longform

for iPad
Price: $4.99
Sort of like Flipbook, but entirely curated with hand-picked quality content that’s presented in complete form — not excerpted.

Reckless Racing 2

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $4.99
Sequel to the bestselling top-down racing game.

Remarks

for iPad
Price: $4.99
Take notes, draw, and even annotate PDF files.

Robokill 2: Leviathan Five

for iPad
Price: $.99
Top-down arcade fighter with RPG elements.

Rogue Racing

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE (w/ in-app purchases)
Great-looking car racing game with customizable vehicles.

Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $2.99
Use a balloon to fly the main character through various dangers in this side-scrolling adventure.

Spice Invaders

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Very well made tower defense game with multiplayer.

Sticky Bees

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $.99 & $1.99
Slide through waves of bugs while forming chains to increase your score.

Student Muscle System

for iPad
Price: $5.99
Reference tool and study aid for anatomy students. Swipe to peel away seven layers of muscle and change your point of view.

Super Bowl XLVI Commemorative App

for iPad
Price: $2.99
The ultimate accessory for Super Bowl fans. Before the game it details both teams’ road to the game. Post-game, it will provide recaps and video highlights.

Super Bowl XLVI Official NFL Game Program

for iPad
Price: FREE
The official game program for Super Bowl XLVI, infused with tons of multimedia content.

Terra Noctis: Free Dreaming

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Retro platformer with lovely 8-bit graphics.

Wunderkit

for iPhone
Price: FREE
Organize your life with this attractive list-maker.

Apple may be cooking up something that will potentially add to their list of must-have products.

According to Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray, Apple is currently communicating with various component suppliers and this is leading to speculation that the much rumored Apple-branded television set is going to be released this year.

Munster’s information was contained in a letter he sent to investors last January 31. In that letter he claimed that he was able to speak to a “major component supplier” who claims that Apple talked to him about the possibility of making a connected HDTV.

But even if Munster thinks that this is another proof that Apple has big plans to release a smart TV to the consumer electronics market, there are those who doubt Apple will actually release an Apple TV without offering consumers a revolutionary feature or take on the television. Offering a brilliant innovation has always been the trademark of Apple when releasing a new product and veering away from this formula seems unthinkable. Munster himself agrees with this view, saying that even if there are signs that Apple is going to make an Apple TV, the lack of an innovative feature may make the company decide not to push through with its plans.

Munster went on and outlined three kinds of scenarios where Apple can offer a smart TV to consumers.

• Apple can offer a DVR or TiVo like system for managing programming that will also incorporate iTunes movie and series rentals directly on the TV.
• Apple could offer live network television and also include web-based services like Netflix and Hulu Plus that can be accessed through video apps. The interface could include many other apps including stuff that can be downloaded from the iTunes Store.
• Apple could offer monthly subscriptions depending on the kind of content users want, which is somewhat similar to what cable providers do.

With speculations about Apple’s moves about a possible TV running rampant and without any kind of really tangible evidence to support such a move, an Apple TV release this year is highly doubtful, if at all for real.

Steve Jobs comic book from Bluewater Productions

First there was the authorized biography. Then we got the eerily realistic action figure. A gazillion self-published, cheapo ebooks about the supposed inner workings of his mind. Now, there’s actually a Steve Jobs comic book.

Bluewater Productions, a comic book publisher that specializes in rags based on real-life figures (along with a line of fiction-based comics) bio-ing everyone from Jon Stewart to Taylor Swift, has just published Steve Jobs: Co-Founder of Apple. The 40-page tome claims to give you “the inside scoop on what drives [drove?] him to create and where his first need for intelligence came from.”

(What the heck is a “need for intelligence,” anyway?)

Presumably the book gives you a quick overview of his life and accomplishments, mixing in some “troubled soul” descriptions along the way. I haven’t seen any of the interior art or writing, but the cover art makes him look constipated.

I’m trying to find a way to be generous here, to give Bluewater the benefit of the doubt. I don’t want to dislike them. But like everything else that’s been produced so quickly after Jobs’ death, this reeks of cashing in.

Mac app maker MacPaw is teasing a major new release called Gemini with this intriguing teaser video. What does a new Mac app have to do with glowy, floaty eggs? I have no idea, but it sure piques my interest.

Gemini is expected to drop sometime in the next week, no doubt available from the Mac App Store. I questioned the good folks at MacPaw about their new app, and they made a vague reference to it being a kind of duplicate finder — a powerful one — with a novel interface. They promise more details as the launch approaches, and they’ve been talking about it in their blog lately, too. The screenshot below comes from their blog.

If you head over to the Gemini website and sign up to be notified when it becomes available, you’re automatically entered for a free download; every 100th subscriber wins.

Gemini screenshot

If you’re in the mood for Dungeons & Dragons style gameplay for your iOS device, Dungeon Crawlers is a cell-shaded offer you can’t refuse for a USD $1.99. Unlike other game that offer a lot of customization for your dungeon-crawling party, this game takes a more cookie cutter approach to traditional dungeon games by letting you into the depths with a set party of four classes: a tank class, a damage dealing mage, a thief and a white mage / healer class. With this in mind, you can already tell that the crawl will involve a lot of strategy in planning out battles to mitigate each class’ weakness and augment their strengths in different situations.

The turn based combat brings me back to the sweet 90′s where tactical RPG’s like X-Com: Enemy Unknown, Betrayal at Krondor, Fallout: Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics reigned the gaming scenes. In these games, the AI was usually a b*tch to play against as you move along a grid, positioning your characters in order to deal the most amount of damage while protecting your healers. Your characters progress through different levels with a boss battle at the end of every area. They are rewarded with new gear and abilities. As I said, it’s pretty much embedded into a deep classic tactical RPG experience. When one of your party members dies, you proceed without him until you finish the level. And really, that’s just nearly impossible (and that’s why you should always protect your healer).

Another old school element was that the environment was unforgiving: unlike current RPG’s that reward you with random loot, the treasure chests are, as far as I can tell, pretty much set with the rewards in each. So if you miss out on a treasure, it’s basically gone forever. Just like real life.

For USD $1.99 you can’t go wrong. The game will bring you on a nostalgia trip back to the days when gaming was unforgiving, yet still immersive and fun to play because of its smooth cartoon graphics and humor. This game is single player only

Get Dungeon Crawlers for USD $1.99 [iTunes Link]

The 27th annual Macworld just ended a few days ago in San Francisco, and while there weren’t a ton of big headlines to come out of the event, it’s still quite the mecca for our fellow faithful brethren. Take a look at some of the weird and wonderful pics that Twitterers shared during Macworld.

Macworld has shrunken in recent years, but it’s still plugging along, serving and networking accessory makers and fans alike. It also underwent a name change this year to “Macworld/iWorld”; I don’t know what the thinking is there.

As messy as the artist is, I have to assume this was a speed painting of the late, lamented Steve Jobs. [Image source.]

Clever means of advertising on the show floor. [Image source.]

A really extreme promotion for iPhone insurance. [Image source.]

Not sure why you’d need an oxygen bar at Macworld, but hey, why not? [Image source.]

This company promoted headphones for athletes by bringing a trampoline to the show floor to wow the crowd. This guy was riding a snowboard while jumping. [Image source.]

Yum! [Image source.]

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jonathan Frakes put in a celebrity appearance in an odd bit of art imitating life. A web series was being filmed at Macworld for a show called Beckinfield, and Frakes’ speech was part of his participation in the series. [Image source.]

Any guesses what this is? It’s actually some kind of audio speaker. [Image source.]

At the conclusion of Macworld, a huge “drum circle” was set up in the lobby, where almost 500 attendees banged on very low-tech drums together. Supposedly, it was something about promoting the sense of community that Apple engenders among users. Looks like it was a lot of fun!

[Collage header image courtesy of InstaBG.]

But a newly discovered patent filed by Apple may mean that the company may just eschew the 30-pin connector with a totally brand new connector that will be similar to the Magsafe adapters the company introduced in 2006 for use with the Macbook Pro. The Magsafe adapter is a well thought out innovation. It easily pops out of the Macbook in the event someone tripped on the cord. I’m pretty sure the Magsafe has helped save a countless number of Macbooks from dropping on to the floor.  The usefulness of the Magsafe adapter may be the primary reason Apple plans to abandon the 30-pin connector and use the technology for its mobile devices as well. The same patent also indicates that Apple is planning to use a similar technology and apply it to the headphone port.

The new patent indicates that Apple wants to use coded magnets that will be placed on both the device and the adapter. These magnets will help facilitate data transfer. With magnets, Apple will effectively solve one problem with the 30-pin connectors, its susceptibility to water damage and the common mistake of people trying to jam the connector into the device and eventually discovering the connector is not properly oriented (it’s backwards). The same plan with the headphone port will mean the device will be better sealed but this will also mean new headphones and connectors, which will definitely not be appreciated by third party accessories manufacturers.

There’s still no timeline on when Apple plans to implement this, or if it will actually push through with it. But the patent was filed in July 2011 so if does plan to change the connectors it will probably happen in about a couple of years.

It’s hard to believe, but this picture-perfect recreation of an iPhone 4 seen on the web, was created with no images. It’s nothing but pure HTML. CSS 3.0, to be exact.

Vasiliy Zubach created this amazing demonstration of CSS3 technology (part of the underlying code that powers most webpages) without the use of any images, graphics, pictures, or whatever you want to call them, whatsoever. Every icon, every curve, bezel, gradient — all of it was made using nothing but written code. 3,395 lines of code, to be exact.

If you know nothing about HTML code, trust me: that’s a heck of a lot.

The most amazing thing about it is that it’s not static. The slide-to-unlock feature works, the icons slide into view when you unlock it, you can turn it off with the power button, and you can turn it back on with the Home button. So not only has Zubach equaled Photoshop with his coding prowess, but he managed to make it interactive, as well.

You really have to see it for yourself. Online visitors checked it out more than 370,000 times in the first month alone, after he posted it to his website. And if you don’t mind a little broken English, you can find out more about how Zubach did it right here.

And To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, by Dr. Seuss

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $2.99
Interactive version of Dr. Seuss’ very first children’s book, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

Atlantis Quest

for iPad
Price: FREE ($4.99 to unlock full game)
Attractive match-3 game with 76 levels.

Baseball Superstars 2012

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Crazy popular sports team management game.

Dungeon Crawlers

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $1.99
A turn-based RPG with loads of depth and a witty sense of humor.

iMob 2

for iPhone
Price: FREE
Sequel to a popular “social MMO RPG” game.

Jurassic Park: The Game, Episode 3

for iPad 2
Price: $6.99
The third chapter of Telltale Games’ interactive movie. So high in quality it only runs on iPad 2.

NFL Flick Kicker HD

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $.99
Multiple football kicking game modes themed around Super Bowl XLVI, with eye-popping graphics.

Number Bonds

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $2.99
Teaching tool for young children to learn about the relationships between numbers.

Onyx

for iPad
Price: $2.99
Build color palettes intuitively.

Oscars

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Must-have annual app from the Academy Awards, this year featuring loads of interactive, behind-the-scenes video and other live content from the broadcast.

Paper Monsters

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $.99
Good-looking side-scroller game that uses an “everything’s made of paper” aesthetic.

Parking Simulator

for iPad
Price: $.99
It’s a game. Where you simulate parking. In a parking lot. That’s pretty much it.

PDF, DOC, XLS Reader HD

for iPad
Price: $.99
Easily view document files of virtually all kinds.

PGA Tour HD

for iPad
Price: FREE
Official companion app to the PGA Tour, with up-to-the-minute statistics and interactive content.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, Episode 1

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $6.99
The high price matches the quality of this madcap adventure series filled with wry commentary on pop culture.

Season Match HD

for iPad
Price: $2.99
Wildly popular match-3 game set in a colorful fantasy world.

Spirit of Wandering: The Legend

for iPad
Price: FREE ($4.99 to unlock full game)
Hidden object adventure game with detailed, high-res graphics.

Totally Amp’d

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE ($4.99 in-app purchase for full season)
A hybrid tweener music/sitcom made exclusively for iOS that includes 3 built-in “studios” for fans to personalize aspects of the show for themselves.

Viggle

for iPhone
Price: $.99
Earn real-world rewards for checking in to your favorite TV shows.

Illustration from Apple's latest patent

Is this it? The illusive secret of Steve Jobs’ much-hyped iTV?

A patent filing discovered today describes an intuitive, touchscreen, handheld device that will replace your entire pile of TV-related remotes.

The patent, “Apparatus and Method to Facilitate Universal Remote Control,” describes a touchscreen device of unknown size that solves the main problem with TV, DVD, Blu-ray, DVR, and all other AV remotes: too many buttons. Replacing all of those buttons with a more intuitive gadget, a gadget that adapts itself on-the-fly to whatever device you’re using and whatever content you’re viewing… I mean, that sounds like every guy’s idea of absolute euphoria.

But the patent doesn’t stop there. It also claims that this potential device will be able to discover all of your AV devices and set them up entirely on its own. No more programming your universal remote, no more six different remotes. It’s all done in one, and the process is completely fluid and invisible to the user. When a device becomes unavailable, it will vanish from the remote. The filing also suggests that the remote could be used to control the multimedia content on your iMac, including music and video.

Apple fanatics will remember that Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs quoted Jobs as saying, “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.” It certainly sounds like he’s describing this universal touchscreen remote to me, although many pundits have speculated that iTV could also make use of patents that have been found for motion sensing controls similar to Xbox’s Kinect game controller, or even Siri.

With Apple known for holding onto its secrets so tightly, I’m sure it kills them to have to reveal biggest ideas this way, but their policy of patenting every part of everything they create makes it impossible to have things both ways. If I was them, I’d hold on to those patent applications until the 11th hour before a new product reveal.

But that’s just me. This particular patent was first filed in September of last year.

Are we nearing the release of iTV? One thing’s for certain: Apple won’t unveil it until they’re absolutely certain that they’re ready to reimagine the entire paradigm of the modern television.

Presenting: the untold, little-known story of one of Apple’s earliest and most influential artists. Susan Kare’s place in history is among its most important and foundational, yet her body of work is comprised of something that most people take for granted and never give a second thought to.

I have to be honest: I’d never heard of Susan Kare before I picked up this book. And once I did, I flipped through its sparse, white pages with lots of empty white space thinking, Okay, so it’s icons. What’s the big deal? It turns out, it is a mighty big deal. You may not have heard of Susan Kare either, so let me give you a quick history lesson. Stay with me, it’s worth it — it ties directly into Apple history.

In 1983, when Apple was designing the first commercial Mac, they hired Susan Kare to come on board and design various parts of their operating system’s user interface. Her first job was the creation of several of the Mac’s earliest fonts, including the classic typefaces Chicago, Geneva, and Monaco — fonts that had characters that were, for the first time ever, spaced according to the width of the character, instead of every character width being identical. But the work she is best known for is what came next: designing the sublime and inviting icons used in the Macintosh OS.

Susan Kare Icons collects many of these original pixelated icons in generously-sized formats that let you best appreciate their lovely simplicity. Her earliest prototypes, as the book explains, were drawn with an ink pen on graph paper, with each graph square representing a pixel. Kare designed each icon to be as something as instantly recognizable as a traffic sign, and this design philosophy is evident in all of her earliest works.

One of her most recognizable icons is the Mac command key icon, and the book provides its fascinating backstory, which also demonstrates the lengths to which Kare went in looking for inspiration. The command symbol was first seen at Swedish campgrounds, designating points of interest for sightseers. It was made to look like a stylized castle as seen from above. She’s also responsible for the “Happy Mac” icon that Apple fans know so well (and which is featured on the cover of her book), as well as loads of UI elements, file icons, and even some of the earliest program icons.

Over the years, she moved on with Steve Jobs to NeXT, and eventually worked with Microsoft and IBM on many of their interface elements. More recently, she’s crafted the images used in Facebook’s popular “Gifts” feature. Thumbing through Susan Kare Icons, you may be stunned at just how many of its eighty icons you recognize.

The genius of her work is how she’s able to distill complicated functions down to simple, instantly-understandable images. Take her tortoise and hare icons, for example; they were placed on opposite ends of a slider in the first Mac control panel to indicate a range of speed settings. It’s simple, elegant, and everyone understands it.

Jobs gets the majority of the credit for ideas that changed the world, but this book makes it clear that Susan Kare is an artist who changed the world in her own right. Every one of us still use her thousands of designs daily — or modern designs that build off of her work and would not exist without the foundations she laid. Susan Kare Icons should be required reading for any student of iconography — particularly those interested in 8-bit pixel art. Because Kare might just be the inventor of the entire genre.

Each copy of the book, which is available exclusively at the artist’s website, is personally signed by her. Selected icons from her library are also available to buy as art prints, including a pair of pixelated representations of the ultimate Apple icon himself — Steve Jobs.

Carcassone

Carcassone is considered the classic Euro themed game that gamers play to wean non-gamers into the flock. The game is relatively simple: you compete with other players to assemble and connect different types of structures to earn points. The game allows for up to 9 players including playing against the AI of various difficulty. It also includes support for online play + pass and play. The core game costs USD $9.99 and is well worth it compared to the physical board game price of about USD $ 39.99 or more. You also have the option of two expansion as in-app purchases.

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Monopoly

OK a classic game of Monopoly brings us back to the 80′s. It’s quite fun to introduce this game to the new generation, especially on the iPad. You can pick this up for 0.99 cents — for either the Classic Edition aka “Monopoly” or the “Here and Now Edition” which is basically a spruced up “skinned” version with renamed locations. I honestly prefer the classic. You can’t go wrong with Monopoly.

iTunes 0.99 Classic Monopoly
iTunes 0.99 Monopoly Here and Now

Bang! The Official Video Game

This is the second update for Bang! The Bullet (renamed as Bang! The Official Video Game) for iOS. It used to cost USD $4.99 but the price is now at a more attractive 0.99 cents. We previously made a thorough review of the game when it was updated last year.

iTunes 0.99 Bang! [HD]

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is again one of those family-friendly board games that has the potential to amount to tons of fun in the living room. Now, instead of setting the whole game up on the floor, why not just play on your iPad or iPhone? The game is very easy to learn. You can spend 5 minutes on the core rules and get going with your friends. Although the game isn’t a universal release, you can download both versions (priced differently) and play via WiFi / Bluetooth.

iTunes 4.99 Ticket to Ride

Caylus

Stunning graphics and beautiful implementation. This is one of the most respected board games and for $4.99?, you definitely can’t go wrong. Gameplay mechanics include huge strategy elements as you try to earn points by building things for your king.

iTunes 4.99 Caylus

Settlers of Catan

Who doesn’t love Catan? Well, unless you can’t bear the fact that this game can take forever, you can always take it with you if you really need to go. The franchise is pretty solid and lives up to its cardboard roots allowing you to purchase expansions and even choose between card art sets. The game also comes with multiplayer and the option for AI controlled opponents.

iTunes USD $4.99 Settlers of Catan

Puerto Rico HD

Definitely another classic, Puerto Rico HD (there are versions for both the iPad and iPhone) brings you back to the days of colonization and exploration. In Puerto Rico, you choose a role and from there gain certain perks to vanquish your enemies through trade, battle or depending on what your personality dictates. You can play with friends or up to three other AI opponents. If you’ve never played this before, the game comes with a built in tutorial

iTunes USD $7.99 Puerto Rico

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Ascension was designed by Justin Gary, one of the pro Magic the Gathering players (check out our interview with him). Ascension stands pretty solid in the deck building genre and is definitely a must have considering it is quite affordable. Last month, the Return of the Fallen Expansion was released for USD 2.99.

Congratulations to the talented folks at Moonbot Studios for their first Oscar nomination! One of our favorite storybook apps ever, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, was also created as an animated short film. Today that short was nominated for an Academy Award. Watch it here!

Moonbot recently made the entire Morris Lessmore short film available to watch for free online, via Vimeo. (Previously it was viewable only after purchasing it from the iTunes Store, as well as streamable from the Morris Lessmore app.) I’ve embedded it below for your viewing pleasure.

This marks the first Oscar nomination for Moonbot’s William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg.

Update: Moonbot has made the Morris Lessmore short film a free download from the iTunes Store in celebration of their Oscar nomination. It will remain free until the Oscars air in late February.

It’s not like news like this would still surprise us.

Apple has released their sales report for the first quarter of 2012 and as expected the company has exceeded its own projections and has broken sales records. Apple is reporting its largest revenue period yet – a whopping $46.3 billion.

According to the Apple report, the Cupertino, Ca. company has posted a revenue of $37.04 million in iPhone sales, an increase of a whopping 128 percent from the same period in 2010.The company also reported on its other products:

iPad – Sales of $15.43 million or a 111 percent year on year increase

Macs – 5.3 million, or a year on year increase of 26 percent

Only the iPod failed to post an increase in sales. In fact, sales went down 15.4 million, which means a 2.1 percent decrease, year on year.

Apple’s take is considered the largest quarterly revenue posted by any company in history. And not just that, the fourth quarter earnings was a 73 percent increase from third quarter earnings.

Apple has attributed the company’s success to a convergence of factors that ultimately helped its bottom line – the release of the new iPhone 4s, the increase in iPad sales over the holiday season and more traction among consumers in choosing iPads and iPhones over other products have all contributed to the record sales. Apple has even said that the release of the iPhone 4S last year (which drew criticisms because it was just an incremental upgrade from the iPhone 4) was the right move all along.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed confidence about Apple’s market leading positions in the smartphone and tablet markets, saying that the “ecosystem of the iPad is in a class by itself.” Cook further shared that the success the company is enjoying will only spur them to innovate “like crazy.”

Textbooks in iBooks 2

Apple’s inexpensive new textbooks were downloaded 350,000 times in their first three days. Take a second and let that number sink in. The education revolution is in full swing.

Global Equities Research announced this number today, along with the news that Apple’s new Mac app, iBooks Author, was downloaded 90,000 times in its first three days. That translates to 90,000 potential authors of new books for the iBooks store.

I remember how right after the news was announced on Thursday, reactions were all over the map. True believers — including myself –were ready to jump on the digital textbook bandwagon, while plenty of naysayers declared that “Apple did not just reinvent textbooks.” Well, sorry to say, told you so!

Wait, that’s wrong. I’m not sorry to say it. How is it not a complete no-brainer that of course students and teachers are going to jump into digital textbooks when the printed versions can typically cost upwards of $100, while Apple’s versions max out at $14.99. And Apple’s textbooks come with built-in interactivity, videos, tools, audio, and more. It’s learning for the 21st Century, and it’s long overdue. Here’s hoping this is only the beginning, with a full-on overhaul of the entire education system on its way.

I’m thinking a lot of those naysayers must’ve been college campus bookstore owners. Because they’re pretty much the only people who stand to lose out in this new ecosystem. (Even the textbook publishers are on board with Apple’s new hotness, so you can’t say they’re hating it.)

Of course, this is an unofficial estimate made by GER, so Apple’s actual download numbers could be different. Don’t expect Apple to announce their sales numbers anytime soon; the Cupertino-based company is notoriously secretive about such information.

AntiCrop

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $.99
A clever app that smartly and quickly creates a “content-aware fill,” so you can un-crop any photo. Could be a life-saver!

Biobots Under Sea Rescue

for iPad
Price: $2.99
An intriguing educational tool, where you learn about sea creatures by building a rescue robot based on their physiologies.

Caylus

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $4.99
In the tradition of Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, this German-style board game has you build up a castle and a village surrounding it.

Earth Now

for iPhone
Price: FREE
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory created this little app that gives you current/recent data about the global climate.

Fingle

for iPad
Price: $.99
A 2-player game that’s like Twister for your fingers. Some of the finger positions are a bit suggestive, so it’s recommended only for adults.

GroupShot

for iPhone
Price: $1.99
Photography app that lets you combine the best parts of multiple pictures, with the intention of creating the perfect family portrait.

iTunes U

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Apple spun-off iTunes U into its own app this week, adding the ability for teachers to create courses of any kind and offer them for free. Comes with extensive study tools.

LEGO App4+

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Fun adventure game for kids with buildable LEGO objects.

Niko

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE ($1.99 in-app to unlock full game)
Combines the mechanics of Angry Birds-style slingshot action with a traditional platformer.

Order Up! To Go

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
Build your restaurant empire — one dish at a time. Cook in your kitchen to serve customers, and then move on to a different restaurant and a bigger challenge.

Puzzlejuice

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $.99
An inventive, frustrating, wildly addictive puzzler that combines Tetriswith word-building.

Smash Cops

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $2.99 (unlock full game in-app)
Chase down bad guys and crash into everything around you in this simulation of TV-broadcast cop car chases sporting incredible graphics.

Soul Caliber

for iPhone & iPad
Price: $11.99
A great port of the classic fighting game, but the price tag is mighty steep.

Triple Town

for iPhone & iPad
Price: FREE
A unique match-3 puzzle game where you’re charged with building the biggest city you can while outwitting giant bears who want to stop you.

TurboTax 2012

for iPad
Price: FREE
The annual release from Intuit that makes filing taxes without an accountant easier.

WikiView

for iPad
Price: $.99
Attractive Wikipedia viewer designed for the iPad.

What groundbreaking game would you expect to come next from the makers of Scribblenauts? Their answer might surprise you, but in a way, it’s every bit as innovative.

Run Roo Run assigns you a single task: getting a kangaroo from one side of your screen to the other. Along the way, you’ll encounter all sorts of obstacles that must be jumped over, as well as some fun twists to the game mechanics that come along after every set of levels.

But let me back up a bit.

The minimalistic story presented at the outset has Roo, a mother kangaroo, chasing her kidnapped baby Joey across Australia. It sounds pretty heavy for a cute  little platformer, but 5th Cell presents it like a lighthearted Wile E. Coyote cartoon. All that really matters is that you’re a kangaroo hopping your way across the screen. The game has the feel of a side-scroller, but it’s not; the screen never moves. Instead, you simply try to guide Roo across the screen and avoid the traps and obstacles along the way, so every level is a single screen.

The controls are a study in the simplicity of design. Roo will move forward on her own, you just have to tell her to start, and when she needs to jump. Both of these actions are activated with a single tap on the screen. You don’t even have to touch the area of the screen where you want her to jump from or to; a single tap anywhere on the screen will instantly make her jump.

As you advance through the game’s many, many levels, the obstacles multiply and become ever more complex, with different kinds of obstacles, double jumps, elastic materials to spring from to jump further, anti-gravity, and so on. Ultimately, the game comes down how well you can strategically time your jumps. There’s a time clock running every time you start a new screen, and medals are awarded based on how fast you pass that screen; the time is cumulative, though, so each time you restart a screen, it adds to your final time, resulting in a lower score. (An easy cheat for this is to simply restart the screen, which restarts the clock.) There are the usual leaderboards through Game Center, which let you compare scores against your friends.

Progression through the game is marked with a map screen, which shows the line you trace through Australia. Screens are grouped into chapters, each of which includes a few added “extreme” levels, that are just as hard as they sound. There are twenty chapters that come with the game initially, but what gives the game some of its innovation is that once you buy the app, it automatically delivers a new chapter to your device once a week (for ten consecutive weeks) — at no additional cost or effort from you. Downloadable content is certainly nothing new for gaming, but it’s nearly unheard of for arcade or puzzle games, and having it auto-delivered gives Run Roo Run the feel of 5th Cell trying something new — and possibly revolutionary.

Many an iOS puzzler or platformer can be played once or twice, and then forgotten about in favor of something new and different. By design, Run Roo Run has a built-in way of guaranteeing that players will keep returning to the game, and it could herald a whole new way of gaming on portable devices.

Fortunately, it’s fun enough to give you a good reason to keep coming back. It has a high degree of polish and perfectly hits the sweet spot between “easy to play” and “hard to master.”

Textbooks in iBooks 2

Today’s big announcement from New York City is out, and it’s exactly what everyone was expecting: a new kind of textbook. But the real news comes from the big-name textbook publishers already on board, and the free and simple new book creation tool for OS X.

Today at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Apple today attempted to make history once again by reinventing yet another facet of society. In this case, it was textbooks and entire courses, for the entire range of learning, from childhood to college and beyond. Most of the courses are free, which really could revolutionize learning for students of all ages. The new textbooks are priced at $15 or less, and as Apple rightly points out, ebooks are a far superior platform for textbooks, because they can include interactive content like videos and graphs, and teachers working with students who have iPads will be able to do things like assign homework digitally, leave e-notes for specific students, and more.

iTunes U app

To buy and read these iOS textbooks, you’ll need to download the new iBooks app version 2 (seen above), a free download. These new kinds of textbooks won’t weigh down your backpack, can be kept dynamic with always up-to-date content, and never have to be returned or traded-in. This initiative to overhaul the education system was reportedly one of Steve Jobs’ greatest desires, and has been in the works for a very long time. Launch partners include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and E.O. Wilson.

The new iTunes U app is the ultimate tool for teachers and professors, because it gives you the power to easily create and manage courses, including lectures, assignments, books, quizzes, syllabi, and more. And not only can teachers create these courses for their own students, but they can make them available to anyone with an iOS device, the world over. Already major universities such as Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford have full courses available, but any K-12, college, or post-graduate school can offer full courses through iTunes U — and all for free. I’m genuinely excited about this, because if it lives up to the hype, it’s an incredible gift to the world. We’re talking about free, easily-accessible education for anyone with an iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone. (Granted, lots of people can’t afford any of those devices, but the day is certainly coming when they’ll be able to. And in the meantime, lots of schools are providing iPads for their students to use in class.)

iBooks Author app for OS X

The biggest news for non-students is iBooks Author, Apple’s innovative new way of quickly and easily creating interactive iBooks that are specifically suited to the iPad. It may have been made with textbook creation in mind, but as Apple pointed out at their press event, it can be used to create ebooks of any kind — novels, picture books for kids, cookbooks, encyclopedias, you name it. You can import content from MS Word, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, and more. For authors, this is huge. Never has there been so user-friendly and feature rich a platform to publish ebooks. And the best part is, iBooks Author is a free download from the Mac App Store.

Apple hasn’t yet been able to make any serious inroads into Amazon’s market share of the ebook business (nor has anyone else), but iBooks Author could change all that. Anyone can publish an ebook at Amazon, but their publishing tools are notoriously cumbersome and tedious to use. No one has created an ebook publishing tool on par with Apple’s new app, and not only is it easy, it changes the entire paradigm of what a book can be, with embedded videos and interactive content.

The minds of writers everywhere (including this one) are spinning like mad as we speak.

A few weeks ago, Apple made an announcement that it is planning to unveil something on January 19. The cryptic invitation mentioned that it will be an education related event that will be held in New York City. As is customary with any announcement Apple wants to make, everything is shrouded in secrecy and this is the perfect environment for the kind of rabid speculation that has become part and parcel of all things Apple.

Different entities have begun to make their own theories about what Apple is planning to announce. One theory making the rounds is that Apple will be releasing an app or software that will allow for the easy creation of digital textbooks. The software will make it easy to make interactive digital textbooks. This software is even being likened to Garageband, the popular music creation software developed by Apple.

Matt MacInnis, the CEO of Inkling, a digital textbook company, supports the textbook creation software theory. But he also said that Apple is not going to get into the business of content publishing. MacInnis said that turning itself into another Amazon.com is not what Apple is after. Apple will be more intent in creating tools that will make it easier to create interactive textbooks that will be carried on Apple’s products. This is the same formula employed in the hugely successful iTunes/iPod synergy.

The concept of “digital destruction” has been bandied about along with this textbook theory. The source for this is a quote from Steve Jobs lifted from his biography written by Walter Isaacson. In that quote, Jobs said that he believes the textbook industry is “ripe for digital destruction.” People see this as Jobs setting his eyes on the textbook industry and making it obsolete. But even with Jobs’ rather controversial statement, there are no indications that it is the same path Apple will take moving forward with this new product.

It’s quite interesting to look back at Apple’s old marketing strategies. FOr a time they were big on endorsers and testimonials and this one from 1994 catches the eye because of the Chips Ahoy box that Tim Girvin (of Girvin Design) is holding up like a spyglass. Nabisco was one of their clients.

This was an ad for the Power Macintosh with a selling proposition to be able to run Aldus Pagemaker faster than ever. Tim Girvin is the founder of Girvin Inc and he’s definitely gone a long way since the Apple ad. These ads were proofs of concepts for “thinking different” — putting outliers, creative people, artists into Apple’s brand proposition (in this case a design outfit that uses Aldus PageMaker on the Mac).

Apple has long shelved the ambassador strategy, with the last product tie up having to do with the U2 Edition of the iPod classic. They really don’t need to do that anymore when the iTunes music store became a tremendous success. That was the jumping point for many of Apple’s successes as a digital distribution company for music, movies & TV shows, apps and books.

[image source]

Numberlys screenshot

It’s magical the way that Moonbot Studios, creators of The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore, imbue brilliant creativity and pure joy into everything they create. I have no idea how they do it, but I hope they never stop. Numberlys is a perfect melding of their glorious animation and the inventive ways they make the reader part of the story.

Imagine the world of Metropolis, if it were inhabited by adorable little round-headed creatures with big, expressive eyes, who know nothing of letters or words. In this invented world, there are only numbers. Numbers are used for everything, including names, objects, and places.

Numberlys screenshot

In this drab but fascinating world, we’re introduced to five characters who grow tired of their humdrum existence and decide that they need something better than numbers to express themselves. It’s a pivotal decision that inspires them to create the first alphabet, an action that will have major ramifications for their world.

Numberlys screenshot

As the app plays, the action switches between silent movie-style “caption cards,” which narrate the Numberlys’ tale, and the animated scenes. You can turn off the curiously Russian-accented voiceover for the narrated segments, should you want to read it for yourself or aloud to someone else. The animated scenes — and Numberlys is probably made up of a good 50-60% CGI animation — are utterly euphoric, on a Pixar level of quality and expressiveness. Our five little heroes are a delightful crew who have a tendency for pratfalls and a talent for creativity. When they go rogue from society and commandeer a massive factory to build their new alphabet, the viewer is invited to join them in their work.

Numberlys screenshot

Using crazy and clever tools of their trade, they bend, twist, hammer, and bounce on huge metal beams until they arrive at the desired shape — actions that you control. A few letters are created in pairs, but for the most part, your objective is to build the entire alphabet, a single letter at a time. You can go through them one by one, or pull down an index menu (an artistic marvel in its own right that’s designed as spinning gears) to select a letter or scene to jump to.

Numberlys screenshot

Moonbot’s insistence on crafting Numberlys in a stylized way works on every level, right down to the grainy, black and white aesthetic. The color red is inserted at opportune moments, representing the things that you can interact with. Numberlys also gives Moonbot an opportunity to playfully change the perspective, switching to portrait view instead of the landscape view that Morris Lessmore used. These little shifts tell me that Moonbot isn’t interested in tying themselves down to one way of doing things, that they love trying new methods, and that they make serving the needs of a story (or an app) among their top priorities, regardless of what those needs may be. The app also comes with a lovely original soundtrack that plays non-stop throughout the story.

Numberlys screenshot

Numberlys is a storybook in structure, even though it feels more like an interactive short film. It beautifully conveys a child-like wonder as each new letter is completed — a thinly veiled reference to Moonbot’s passion for words and storytelling. It’s a passion they do a marvelous job of passing on to their fans.

I did experience one glitch: the app crashed on my first generation iPad every time I reached the mini game for the letter B, no matter how many times I tried to access it. I assume this will be fixed in a future update; Moonbot has been great about updating and patching their apps in the past.

Numberlys screenshot

There simply aren’t enough positive words I can heap upon Numberlys. It’s that good. But thanks to the little guys in the app, we have an infinite supply of letters and words to build and weave together in wonderful ways. Numberlys is a masterpiece that every iDevice owner must have.