If you’ve ever designed for iOS in Photoshop, you know how long it can take to go from concept to Xcode. You work with Retina and non Retina resolutions for the iPhone and the iPad and you need to save files differently and keep track of quite a few different sizes for different elements. The guys at Ui Parade have created an Adobe Photoshop plugin that will make your job much simpler. DevRocket is a plugin for iOS app developers who use Photoshop.

DevRocket has you covered on almost every base when it comes to UI elements on iOS devices. You start off by choosing your orientation and device and it has a layout ready for you. This layout has rulers, guides, a navigation bar and a tab bar as separate layers. The best part about this plugin is that you work on one single canvas and it takes care of both resolutions for you. There is a layout guide button that is immensely useful while designing something. You can also create Ui Snips easily with a click of a button. My favourite feature of the plugin is the auto appending of @2x to a filename for retina displays. I love how it allows you to create canvases for every icon size you would need including corner radius clipping guides. It also takes care of naming every small element correctly depending on its resolution.

After using this for a few days, I can’t imagine working on any iOS app layout without it. This is one of those things that will change the way you work and allow you to get more things done faster. I recommend DevRocket to every app developer and anyone working with app layouts. DevRocket is compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and above available for $10 here.

Here’s a video demonstrating DevRocket:

Weather apps are dime a dozen on the App Store today. There are literally hundreds of weather apps available for both the iPhone and iPad. So it’s very difficult to pick out the apps that are not only beautiful and gorgeous, but also have the information that you need. Weather 2x by McLean Mobile Solutions is a once such app that packs the perfect combination of beautiful pixels and insightful data.

Weather 2x displays gorgeous, animated, fullscreen real-world visuals on the screen, based on the weather in the selected city. These are absolutely stunning to look at, and look great on their own. Weather 2x displays the temperature, name of the city and the weather status on top of these visuals. A single tap on the screen toggles between the weather state and information like the amount of precipitation, visibility, humidity, wind speed and pressure levels.

Double tapping the screen reveals a 5-day forecast of temperature highs and lows, along with neatly crafted icons for sunny, cloudy, rainy states. Swiping left-to-right reveals the cities that you can track and the app lets you add as many cities as you’d want. This list contains mini-previews of the weather visuals of each city, which is a very nice touch. When you enter the Edit more here, these previews start jiggling just as the icons on the homescreen, with little X in the corner to delete one. Swiping right-to-left instead reveals the daily forecast in steps of 3 hours for the five days — again, containing some excellent icons of the sun and the moon.

Weather 2x supports On/Off toggles for Metric & 24 Hour Time in the settings, and also the ability to turn the subtle sound effects off. A recent update to the app (v1.3) brought iCloud sync, so your choices are maintained across your devices. At just $0.99 on the App Store, Weather 2x is one of the best looking weather apps I’ve come across on the App Store.

Screenshots

Flight+ is a beautiful tool for tracking your flights in real time. There are a few other apps that do the same but Flight+ adds that extra bit of elegance to the category. International Airport Flight Track Technologies have put in the effort of making an app that is immensely useful, intuitive and beautiful.

When you launch the app you are immediately reminded of Apple’s reminders app with the textures. The airmail envelope border is a very nice touch. The app has an overlapping panes UI that is gesture driven (reminiscent of Path and Sparrow) on the iPhone and a document folder layout with tabs on the iPad to make use of the larger real estate. You can add flights by entering flight details (all optional) and searching for flights in the online database. The app lets you configure alerts for the flight and shows you information about the aircraft and seating map. You can also add custom notes for each flight in the respective tab. The information available is staggering and there are flight boards for over 16000 airports. The second tab has the airport search that lets you add airports to favourites and shows you information about the airport including a beautiful flight board, 10 day weather forecast and a map that shows all flight paths from the airport. Realtime weather and local time and are displayed with each airport in the search. The feature I really liked here was the Average Delay bar that lets you know what to expect in advance. The airlines tab lets you do the same things for an airline and also see the twitter feed for that particular airline if available.

I absolutely love the maps layout in this app. Each airport has a nice widget above it that has all the information available on the airport page and this is the kind of thing that makes you want to use this app more. The maps tab lets you view all your flights, favourite airports and the major airpots all over.

The settings tab has some nifty features like minimal data traffic mode that saves you some data usage by disabling updates for maps, weather and images. The auto delete option removes flights after they have completed the journey. You can customize the notification settings like alerts for scheduled and actual times along with status changes. There is an option to import your flights saved on TripIt as well. The support section has a detailed guide on using this app since it may overwhelm some with the abundance of information available.

This app is easily the best flight tracking app on the App Store but as with most apps it is not perfect. I don’t like the fact that it has to be purchased separately on both the iPad and iPhone and there is no iCloud sync for flights. Flight+ outclasses similar apps by a long shot. Compared to other apps in the category the pricing for Flight+ is fine since it is available for $2.99 on the iPhone and $4.99 on the iPad.

Our thanks to TeleTweet for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.

Don’t just tweet, TeleTweet! Turn a mundane, everyday Twitter update into a nostalgic trip back to a simpler time. Instead of wondering how to navigate an out-of-date relic like the Qwerty keyboard (c. 1878) and its confusing array of rows upon rows of keys, use a classic, straightforward communication instrument, the telegraph key (c. 1835), and an infinitely simpler keyboard based on Morse code’s two keys: dit and dah.

Life is hectic, busy, rushed, and filled with unnecessary distractions. More and more, people are shunning today’s digital lifestyle, going “off the grid,” and attempting to eliminate the stress associated with being constantly connected.

What if you could have both? If you could return to a bygone era of simplicity and sanity, where choices were limited and the notion of speed was driven by steam locomotives, the pony express, and horse-drawn carriages? What if you could simplify your life while still keeping a firm grip on your iPhone and iPad?

Now you can, with TeleTweet! TeleTweet offers simple, two-way Twitter communication via Morse code, right from your iPhone and iPad. It’s steampunk for Twitter!

* For outgoing tweets, simply tap your message in dits and dahs and TeleTweet’s steam-driven algorithm instantly translates the simple, binary Morse code language into a complex string of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.
* For incoming tweets, TeleTweet automatically converts a tweet’s nearly indecipherable combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks into the simple, easily understood dits and dahs of Morse code.
* For both incoming and outgoing messages, you’ll be delighted with TeleTweet’s solid craftsmanship of yore, demonstrated by the reassuring clanks and clacks of a 19th century telegraph key.

In addition to saving you a long, dusty trip to the nearest telegraph office, TeleTweet offers these other amazing benefits:

* Learn Morse code, or use it to teach Morse code to others
* Tweet with one finger, freeing your other fingers to multitask
* Give yourself a good reason to keep your tweets incredibly brief
* Eliminate unnecessary confusion caused by the typical Qwerty keyboard’s use of a different button for each letter and number
* Feel comfortable using the word “STOP” at the end of every thought
* Save the cost of a telegram and use Twitter’s free messaging service
* Works in any language

You can purchase TeleTweet for your iPhone or iPod touch from the App Store here: http://itunes.com/apps/shackedsoftware

eBay pushed out version 2.0 of its iPad app a few days ago. This update adds tons of new requested features and a complete overhaul of the UI including support for the retina display of the new iPad. Most users have had to use the mobile version of the site for certain functionality which wasn’t present in the app like editing listings, etc. Using a mobile website is never as good as using an app as we all know. This update changes everything.

You are prompted to sign in after launching the app and after you sign in, you are greeted with a homescreen that can be customized with the sections of your choice. You can also see recent items and popular items in addition to what you’re watching, buying or selling on the top half of the homescreen. There is a small green tab on the top left that makes the control panel visible. The effect on the rest of the page when you tap this is a very nice touch. The control panel lets you see the same things as the home page with a few more items and settings. The settings page feels a little boring compared to the rest of the app but then again it is just a settings page. The overall app is very smooth, responsive (are you listening Facebook?) and supports both portrait and landscape mode. The app is full of pleasing subtle textures that make you want to use the app more and more.

I am really glad to see some big brands putting an effort into the UI of their apps and not just doing a mobile website container like others. eBay for the iPad will hopefully make more organizations want to improve their own apps. It is available on the App Store for free.

In today’s world when most people listen to music on their devices digitally, the vinyl record is making a comeback with increased sales year after year. Not many people remember or know about the 8 track tape format that existed alongside the vinyl record. For many years it was considered a viable replacement for vinyl with portability and the ability for car playback. With apps like Air Cassette and Vinyllove doing well on the App Store, it is clear that retro nostalgia inducing apps have a market. Most people would see the 8-track stereo as an anachronism but Blue Boxen, two brothers that build apps, want to take you to the 70s on your iPad with Eight Track Stereo.

Eight Track Stereo has a nice 8-track stereo player interface with interactive controls just like the real thing that was quintessential for the music lover back then. Every button has been designed carefully and the amount of detailing in the small reflections and shadows during interactions is something I absolutely love in apps. The tuner on the main front panel view has your song length and song name with a small twitter button that lets you tweet the current song. Once you turn the stereo on, there is a small backlit blue section on the tuner that is one of those things that makes you appreciate the effort that was put into this app. Tapping the song title reveals the album track list or the track list for that particular artist. I encourage you to listen to music album wise for the complete experience. There are easter eggs hidden almost everywhere. When you plug your headphones in, there is a small wire that gets plugged into the headphone slot on the stereo in the app which was the icing on the cake for me. Hitting the eject button reveals an iBooks-esque bookshelf with 8-track tapes with the album art from your iTunes library. The app also works with songs in the cloud/iTunes Match. Scrolling down also reveals a nice blue shag carpet and I think it is a crime to only show this when you scroll down.

The App Store description for the app has an amazing line that I love:

When the best in portable music players of today just isn’t quite good enough, just add in a little bit of rich mahogany, shag carpeting and tacky wallpaper, it doesn’t get much better than this!

I would love to see a portrait mode that features a front view of the stereo with a shelf below and the shag carpet visible at all times and also some sounds for the buttons you press. The only let down to this app for me is the icon. It looks like it was designed for some other apps and completely ruins your first impression when you see this on iTunes. I hope they have a better icon for future updates as I really love what they have done with this app. There is a slight lag while fast-forwarding songs but then back in the day no one fast-forwarded songs so I could let that one slip. If you want a good dose of 70s nostalgia or just love attention to detail and want to add a physical feel to your music, you should buy Eight Track Stereo. It is available on the App Store for $2.99.