On Gear Live: 2024 Nissan Z Nismo Review

Sparrow for iPad

Sparrow, the ridiculously popular email app for Mac and iPhone, is set to receive the iPad treatment in the very near future. When visiting the Sparrow homepage, you're now greeted with the cryptic message "We are preparing something bigger". When you sign up for an email update, an iPad slides in to view, sporting the Sparrow app icon. A larger, native iPad version of Sparrow is something that many an iOS user has been clamoring for, and it's nice to see the company has heard those cries. Now, if they can just get push working...

Read More | Sparrow

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Facebook Camera

There are plenty of apps that allow you to share photos on Facebook, including the Facebook app itself. However, if you want something that'll let you share multiple photos that you can tag on the fly, look no further than the new Facebook Camera app for iPhone and iPod touch. Facebook Camera is an Instagram-ish app that allows you to snap photos (or choose from photos you already have in your camera roll,) edit them with crop, rotate, and filter tools, tag them, and get them posted on the world's most popular social network. In addition, Facebook Camera also lets you browse the image posts of all your friends, allowing you to skip all the links, complaints, game requests, and other stuff.

You can get Facebook Camera for free on the App Store, and you can find a video demo after the break.

Click to continue reading Facebook Camera launches, allows for direct Instagram-ish photo sharing


Decide for iPad

We're always on the hunt for a good deal, which is why we're fans of Decide. The site finds the best deals on electronics and appliances, and through its algorithm, predicts when you should buy things based on price trends. Recently, Decide launched its "Got Your Back" feature, which suggests 10 products at bargain basement prices. If you buy one and the price drops within the next two weeks, Decide will pay you the difference, for free.

Today the company continues its roll with the release of the Decide iPad app. It's basically everything you already love about Decide (and if you don't use them, you should,) optimized for the iPad. Yes, that includes high-resolution Retina display graphics as well. It's a beautiful app, and it's available now on the App Store for free.

I spent some time at the Decide offices earlier this week--great people over there, and we look forward to what the future holds for the company.


Draw Something updated

You knew that when Zynga acquired Draw Somthing creator OMGPOP that we'd start seeing some updates hitting the app with the quickness, right? Well, the firstpost-purchase update has arrived, and it brings a quite a few welcome features to the drawing game. Let's run them down.

First comes the addition of commenting, which allows you to type short messages to your opponents along with your drawings. This makes it easy to give a compliment (or a WTF) in response to a work of art, or a horrible guess. The app also picks up an undo button that will remove your last-drawn line without you having to suffer through using the eraser. iOS users can also save drawings to the Camera Roll, and also share them to Facebook and Twitter with ease.

The update is available now for iOS and Android users.

Read More | Draw Something

Lumia 800 Purity Headphone Giveaway

If you've been checking out the Gear Live Twitter and Facebook pages, then you've likely been looking forward to our next giveaway, featuring the Nokia Lumia 800 and Monster Purity Headphones. Well, the time is now!

The Nokia Lumia 800 is a super-sexy Windows Phone device for AT&T that features a 3.7-inch 800x480 ClearBlack AMOLED display, 1.4 GHz processor, Carl Zeiss 8 megapixel wide angle lens with dual LED flash, and a seamless, curved glass one-piece body design.

The Purity HD stereo headphones from Monster feature Windows Phone playback controls, as well as ControlTalk Universal. This means you can control both your media and phone calls hands-free. It's also got a tangle-resistant cable, and comes with a hard shell carrying case. The best part? The headphone color matches the color of your Lumia 800!

Microsoft only sells the Lumia 800 as part of an $899 bundle here in the US, but we're giving you the opportunity to win the smartphone and Purity HD headphones right here, for free! Here's how to enter:

Do that, and you're in! Now here is the fun part - you can enter as many times as you'd like by including the hashtag #PuritybyMonster in your tweets next seven days. At the end, we will pick a winner randomly from all valid entries. If you use Twitter regularly, just throw #PuritybyMonster into your tweets over the next week, and you could walk away with this awesome prize. The winner must be over 18, and must have a mailing address within the US to be eligible. Contest ends at 12:00am on April 12th!


MAD-iPad-App

MAD Magazine is now available on an iPad near you. The iPad app will allow users to interact with the standard magazine content, as well as access to exclusive stuff specific to the app. The app is free to download, and has free teaser content from the current issue.

MAD Editor John Ficarra jokingly stated, “We’re delighted to bring MAD to the iPad. We think the MAD app may be just the thing to turn the struggling iPad around and make it successful –though most experts think it may be just the thing that kills it altogether.”

The MAD app will feature interactive and animated versions of all currently issues, along with a library of back issues and books. Prices of the content will range from $1.99 for back issues to $4.99 for the current issue--however, if you subscribe to the magazine, the price drops to $1.99 per issue, or $9.99 for a full year (six issues.) Aside from the actual magazine, the app will allow users to access MAD’s blog “Idiotical.”

Read More | MAD Magazine

Hey, all you Angry Birds lovers out there. We know that it's been a while since a new version has dropped, and that you've probably moved on to Draw Something, but it's time for you to take a another look, because Angry Birds Space is now available on multiple platforms. Space? Yes. The confines of the gravitational pull of the Earth no longer apply here, so your birds can get their space physics on while trying to destroy evil pigs. Here are the links to grab your copy:

Hit us with your thoughts in the comments. Oh, and if you're wondering what the heck the birds are doing in space in the first place, the video above should do a fine job at explaining that one.


iWork iPad Retina Display

To go along with the new iPad, Apple has been hard at work updating nearly all of its apps to support the new Retina display of the tablet, and that includes all three iWork apps. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are all now available in version 1.6 in the super high 2048x1536 resolution. Pages also brings new 3D bar and charts, Keynote has new animations available, and Numbers is largely the same aside from the new Retina support. You can download all the app updates now, or buy them for $9.99 each.


GarageBand Smart Strings

Yesterday, after its iPad event, Apple released an updated version of GarageBand for iOS that includes a few new features. First is Smart Strings. Similar to the other smart modes, Smart Strings makes it easy to control a set of string instruments and to have them work together to create music on the fly. There's also a new note editor, as well as iCloud integration that allows you to push a track to iCloud so you can then access it from your other iOS devices. Lastly, Jam Sessions allows multiple iOS devices to all play together, mimicking a live jam session. Pretty neat. You can download the update now from the App Store, or buy it for $4.99.


iPhoto for iPad iPhone

At yesterday's iPad event, Apple unveiled the final piece of the puzzle as it pertains to bringing the full iLife suite to iOS with the release of iPhoto for iPad and iPhone. Similar to GarageBand and iMovie, iPhoto is available now as a universal app for $5. So, what's the draw? Well, iPhoto lets you use your iOS device's multi-touch display to perform basic photo editing function like simple one-tap white balance, red-eye removal, and exposure adjustments. You can also crop and straighten images, and remove blemishes with ease.

You can pull up your photos that are stored on your device, including the camera roll and Photo Stream, and compare images side-by-side. Edits are non-destructive as they save a copy rather than editing the original. You can process images that are up to 19 megapixels, which should be fine for the vast majority of people out there, but for those of you shooting with a Canon 5D Mark II in RAW format, you may wanna look elsewhere for your photo processing software--but in that scenario, why would you be using an iPad for that function anyway?

You've got a bunch of sharing options, including Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. You can also export photos to your Camera Roll and to iTunes and email them to contacts. One new feature is Journal, where you can select a group of photos that iPhoto then puts together in a unique gallery with dates, weather information, maps, and more. It's like making a diary out of photos relating to an event or range of dates.

For $5, you can't go wrong with iPhoto for iOS. You can get it now on the App Store.


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