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Angry Birds Star Wars Now Available

Angry Birds Star Wars is now available for download on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Mac & Windows 8. The game is the fifth installment in the Angry Birds series from Rovio (following Seasons, Rio and Space) and is a collaboration with Star Wars creator Lucasfilm.

“It’s a banner day for us,” said Peter Vesterbacka, CMO of Rovio Entertainment. “This is our best Angry Birds game yet, and we’re excited for our fans to finally meet Luke, Leia, and the rest of the gang! But it’s more than just a game launch: we think fans are going to just love the new animated trailer and the Angry Birds Star Wars products, sure to be a big hit this holiday season.”

The game features more than 80 levels at launch including bonus levels that let you play as R2D2 and C-3PO birds. According to Polygon, which has a great review of the game, Angry Birds Star Wars currently “track the events of A New Hope, while a soon-to-be-released free Hoth level pack will dig into the beginning of Empire Strikes Back”. There’s also an in-app purchase for an additional level pack that is set in Dagobah that is available at launch for $1.99.

The makers of Angry Birds Star Wars have imagined how the the original Star Wars trilogy might have looked if performed by their coterie of birds and pigs — truly, a bizarre undertaking. Angry Birds Star Wars succeeds, though, because it is more than just a Star Wars tie-in. Polygon

Rovio and Lucasfilm also held a Google+ Hangout a few hours ago where they counted down to the launch whilst discussing the game and chatting with fans - that video is available to watch now.

Angry Birds Star Wars is available on:

“We can’t wait for fans around the world to experience the fun of launching the Angry Birds characters into the Star Wars universe,” said Colum Slevin, Vice President, Head of Studio Operations for Lucasfilm Ltd. “This is the kind of creative partnership that has helped Star Wars remain vibrant and beloved for over 35 years.”

Clear for Mac Review

Like Tweetbot, Clear for Mac is a good indication of what the future of mainstream OS X software will look like: consistent with iOS, and powered by iCloud.

I was given a preview of Clear for Mac last week; the app is launching today on the Mac App Store at $6.99 (depending on your time zone, Clear will be available after midnight). In my preview, I wrote:

Clear for Mac works like Clear for iPhone: you can create lists, and tasks inside lists. Tasks are color-coded (according to the theme you’re using) to show a darker tone if they’re at the top of a list, and thus have higher priority. Gestures play an important role in Clear for Mac: you can swipe with two fingers to complete or delete a task, swipe up or down to move between “levels” of the interface, pinch to go back, and so forth. From what you can see in the first promo video (embedded below), almost everything that made Clear for iPhone simple and great has been ported to the Mac version, including sounds.

After trying Clear for over a week, I feel like there’s a distinction to be made about how the app works per se, and how the app works on a Mac. Read more

Micro Audio Converter→

Micro Audio Converter

Developed by Aaron Smith, MicroAC is a nice GUI for afconvert. In case you’ve never heard of afconvert, it’s a command line tool that Apple describes as a utility to ”convert a source audio file to a new audio file with the specified file and data types”. Rather than forcing you to set parameters by hand in Terminal, MicroAC provides an elegant and simple interface that makes it easy to convert audio files from one format to another.

MicroAC can convert “Core Audio compatible formats” such as 3GP Audio, 3GP-2 Audio, MPEG-4 (both for audio and Apple audiobooks), AIFF, WAVE and CAF. The app lets you drag & drop files to convert into the main window, and you can choose types, data formats, extensions, channels, rates, and destination in the lower section of the app. In actual usage, I was able to convert MP3 files to MP4 in less than 2 seconds.

If you’d like to rely on afconvert without going through Terminal, MicroAC is a nice option. $2.99 on the Mac App Store.

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PopClip Extensions→

PopClip Extensions

I first wrote about PopClip last year. Developed by Pilotmoon, it is a simple utility that brings an iOS-like popup menu for text selected on OS X. From my original coverage:

PopClip, a $4.99 app from the Mac App Store, takes a page from iOS’ playbook and overhauls the Mac’s default copy and paste actions with an iOS-like popup menu.

With PopClip, you can select text and a popup menu with options to copy, paste, cut and look up in Dictionary will appear, just like on your iPhone or iPad. PopClip is also capable of opening links contained in selected text, and it’s got support for spelling corrections.

I recently found out (thanks to a Systematic episode) that it’s possible to extend PopClip. Version 1.4, in fact, brought support for extensions. Pilotmoon has posted a dedicated page showcasing some examples of extensions already available. The best part? PopClip extensions can be made with AppleScript, shell scripts, system Services – it’s very easy to adapt existing scripts to PopClip’s syntax for selected text (literally one word). Extensions can have custom icons, names, and requirements, and to put one together you’ll need to create a .plist file for the extension’s settings. For developers, Pilotmoon has also posted instructions on how to create and package extensions.

Personally, I have already installed some of the extensions linked on PopClip’s page (such as Evernote, Title Case, and Paste and Match Style), as well as an OmniFocus one by Marc Abramowitz and a set by Andy Guzman. To prove it’s really simple to update existing scripts for PopClip, I’ve created a version of today’s Mail > Evernote AppleScript that works for text selected with PopClip in an email message; it’s very simple, but you can find it here.

I’m looking forward to seeing more people playing around with PopClip extensions. It is an interesting combination, as these extensions mix the power of scripting with the visual aspect of “seeing” commands, rather than remembering dozens of keyboard shortcuts. In a way, it reminds of a Services menu for iOS, which I hope we’ll get, eventually.

PopClip is $4.99 on the Mac App Store.

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Facebook 5.1 Released with Improved Messaging, Photo Sharing

Facebook today released version 5.1 of its iOS app, which adds a new way of messaging friends and sharing multiple photos at once. The updated Facebook app now comes with a friend list on the right that you can use to easily start a private conversation. You can swipe left to access the chat panel, and add friends you contact the most to the top of the list. To customize the Favorites list, you can hit an Edit button to start “pinning” your friends in the Favorites section. Read more

Instagram Profiles Now Let You View and Share Your Photos On the Web→

Instagram Profiles Now Let You View and Share Your Photos On the Web

Just announced on the Instagram blog, a long awaited feature is finally hitting the web. Instagram Profiles allow you to share your Instagram photographs online, allowing anyone to comment and like photos from their favorite web browser.

Instagram web profiles are a beautiful new way to view and share Instagram on the web! Your web profile features your photos along with your profile photo and bio, giving others a look at the content you share on Instagram.

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You can share your own profile with anyone you want to see your Instagram photos. In addition, web profiles provide an easy way to follow other users, comment & like photos, and even edit your profile directly from the web.

The address for your Instrgram profile is ridiculously simple (For example, Federico’s profile would be instagram.com/viticci). You can make your photos public so that anyone can view your profile, or make them private so that only Instagram users you’ve allowed can see your photographs. However, not all profiles are available yet. According to Instagram, online profiles will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks.

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Apple: 3 Million iPads Sold In 3 Days

With a press release, Apple just confirmed it has sold over 3 million iPads (iPad mini + iPad 4th gen) in three days. Interestingly, Apple is not separating sales figures of the iPad mini from the regular iPad; in the press release, Apple simply says it is a new record doubling the previous milestone of 1.5 million weekend sales of the iPad 3 in March.

Apple today announced it has sold three million iPads in just three days since the launch of its new iPad mini and fourth generation iPad—double the previous first weekend milestone of 1.5 million Wi-Fi only models sold for the third generation iPad in March. The Wi-Fi + Cellular versions of both iPad mini and fourth generation iPad will ship in a few weeks in the US and in many more countries later this year.

Apple notes how “demand for iPad mini exceeded the initial supply”, confirming that some pre-orders (which began on October 26) will be shipped “later this month”. Tim Cook was quoted in the press release:

Customers around the world love the new iPad mini and fourth generation iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We set a new launch weekend record and practically sold out of iPad minis. We’re working hard to build more quickly to meet the incredible demand.

To put these numbers in a better context, here’s how iPad sales evolved over time since the release of the original model in 2010:

And here’s a visualization of the iPad’s growth every quarter since launch, based on Apple’s Q4 numbers (which don’t include sales for the new models).

In today’s case, however, the comparison is different as Apple is accounting for two models (iPad mini and iPad 4th gen) in a somewhat clear intention to report iPad sales as a single category without specifying models – similarly to how they do for iPod sales or iPhone sales without differentiating between device models. It’s also worth remembering how the new iPads’ rollout has been one of the largest ones for Apple to date: the iPad mini went on sale on November 2 in 34 countries, whereas the 3rd generation iPad launched in 10 initial countries, and then rolled out to 25 more a week later; both WiFi and WiFi + Cellular versions of the 3rd generation iPad were available at launch.

The iPad mini launched to positive reviews, but saw fewer and shorter lines around the world with online pre-orders quickly sold out for every model.