Earthlapse is a beautiful US$0.99 app for iOS that gives you an International Space Station view of the earth moving below. There are 8 time lapse scenes of weather, docking spacecraft and aurora in high resolution that is almost lifelike.

You can control the speed of the movie, superimpose current weather for your location, show the current time, and information about each scene.

The app was developed by the folks who did the striking Magic Window app with compelling landscape scenes, and now we get to see our landscapes from space instead of on the ground.

I think this app is best on an iPad, and when your iPad is not in use it makes it a pretty effective piece of art for your desk or a nightstand. The app supports a selection of ambient music, but I actually like the effect better when I am free to contemplate the scene in a quiet room. The app supports the full Retina display on the iPhone. For some knotty technical reasons, the developer says the GUI is full Retina resolution on the iPad, but the images are not. Nevertheless, the images are terrific.

As was done with Magic Window, I'd love to see more scenes become available, but the app is quite nice as it is. It's just been released and is worth a look. I think you'll like it. The app is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

Gallery: Earthlapse

Earthlapse is a window on the Earth from space originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 20 May 2012 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While the world seems to be beating a path to the door of manufacturers of noise-canceling earphones, inventor Tammy Erdel has a much better idea that could save some lives.

AIRbudz replace the removable earbuds on your favorite set of earphones and allow the sound around you to mix with the tunes you're listening to. You probably don't want to use the AIRbudz in the comfort of your home, but they're designed to work when you're outside cycling, walking, skateboarding, or otherwise in a situation where you need to be aware of what's around you.

I personally love this idea. I don't know how many times I've been cycling or walking and seen other people who are exercising with earbuds jammed into their ears. They're usually oblivious to anyone who is trying to get their attention, and more than once I've startled someone by passing them after I've tried unsuccessfully to warn them two or three times.

Erdel is trying to raise $22,000 for her Kickstarter project, and has only raised $3,385 with 21 days to go. For a $10 pledge on Kickstarter, you can support the project and get yourself a set of 9 AIRbudz (3 sets of each size -- small, medium, and large) in your own choice of colors. I think the glow in the dark version is my personal favorite.

Check out Erdel's pitch video below for the full story.

AIRbudz: A safer way to listen to your tunes originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 20 May 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The march of technology amazes me. Yeah, I'm an old guy, but it still surprises me when I realize that the amount of storage that used to fill a data center can now fit in my pocket. G-Technology's G-Drive mobile (made by Hitachi, US$199.99 MSRP for 1 TB) is the perfect example of mass storage in a small, silent box. Read on for a review of this mobile companion and a chance to win one!

Design

There's not much too say in terms of the design of the G-Drive mobile -- it's a slim metallic box 5 inches long, a little over 3 inches wide, and about 3/4 of an inch high. There's no power port; the G-Drive is bus-powered by either FireWire (400/800) or USB 2.0. The device comes with cables for each connection. A single white LED on the front of the drive indicates when it is powered up and in use.

On the inside, there's a 5400 RPM 1 TB drive with an 8 MB cache. For speed, I'd much rather see a 7200 RPM drive, but that would most likely drive up both the cost and power requirements of the drive. However, as you'll see with the benchmarks, this is still a pretty fast drive despite the slower rotation speed of the disk.

The G-Drive mobile also comes in 500 MB ($149.99 MSRP) and 750 MB ($159.99) versions, although I'm at a loss why someone wouldn't want to double their capacity for just fifty bucks more. I found the drive to run a bit hot -- I had placed my iPhone on top of the drive at one point, and when I answered a call I wondered why the phone was so hot...

As with other drives of this ilk, the G-Drive mobile is almost completely silent.

Benchmarks

TUAW uses a standard industry benchmark to compare the I/O capabilities of disks and arrays. The benchmark uses the AJA System Test, which simulates reading and writing video. The specific test I used was the Disk Read/Write test, also known as the DiskWhackTest, set at a video frame size of 720 x 486 8-bit and a file size of 128 MB.

The drive read speeds were surprisingly fast in our benchmarks, matching almost every FireWire drive that we've tested (only one is shown below for space considerations). When it came to USB 2.0 read speeds, the G-Drive mobile was slightly faster than the competition across the board. Write speeds were slower for the G-Drive when connected via FireWire 800, while almost identical to other drives with a USB 2.0 connection.

Conclusion and Giveaway

If you're the owner of a MacBook Pro and have an available FireWire 800 port, or have a FireWire-equipped desktop Mac you'd like to back up while keeping a lot of available desk space, then the G-Drive mobile will fill your requirements. Those who only have USB 2.0 ports on their Macs should spend their money on less expensive USB-only drives that offer read/write speeds in the same range as the G-Drive mobile.

Thanks to G-Technology and TUAW, you now have a chance to win one of these sweet little drives. Just fill out the entry form below (only one entry per person, please) and we'll pick a random winner next week. Here are the rules for the giveaway:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter, fill out the form below completely and click or tap the Submit button.
• The entry must be made before May 20, 2012 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected and will receive a G-Technology G-Drive mobile valued at $199.99.
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

G-Technology G-Drive mobile: Rugged, pocket-sized, and fast originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been almost four years since Apple debuted its App Store platform for iOS (and then the Mac), and MacStories has an in-depth look back at that time. In just four short years, Apple has gone from saying that all we'd need on iOS are web apps, to a millions of dollars a year industry that supports almost half a million jobs. Needless to say, that's phenomenal growth.

But what's most interesting about the growth of the App Store is how the apps themselves have changed. MacStories writes about that initial push -- in those early days, the quality of the software was very low, and there were a lot of "speculators," for lack of a better term: Developers who just released quick and dirty apps (honestly, fart apps is what most of them were) to try and make a little bit of money. App branding, too, has come a long way. In the early days it was all about search and gaming the system, and these days, there are more ways to find good apps than ever.

At the same time, it's also harder for developers to make their mark in an increasingly crowded market. Apple's own success may be its biggest problem. The App Store has grown in a huge way over the past four years, and that may make it harder for both developers and Apple to figure out how to best run it going forward.

MacStories looks at four years of the App Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Subscribe via RSS

Daily Update for May 18, 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The battle over the nano-SIM standard is heating up with Apple on one side and a group that includes Nokia, Motorola and RIM on the other. In the latest series of developments reported by The Verge, Motorola and RIM are countering Apple's nano-SIM proposal with a revised design of their own. This newest design is a compromise which includes elements from both their design and Apple's. It's about "80 percent Apple and 20 percent RIM / Motorola" writes Chris Ziegler for The Verge.

We should hear more about the nano-SIM standard when the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) meets at the end of this month in Osaka, Japan.

Motorola, RIM offer Apple a nano-SIM compromise originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has announced some details on the 2012 iTunes Festival in London. This 30-day music event will take place at The Roundhouse and feature free performances by Usher, Emeli Sandé, Jack White, Norah Jones and One Direction among others.

Tickets will be distributed via lottery, and fans in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands can vie for a seat. Apple will stream performances to computers running iTunes and iPhones, iPod touches and iPads with the iTunes Festival app installed. The fun starts on September 1 and runs for the whole month.

Apple's iTunes Festival scheduled for September originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

All the little fishies
in bottom of the sea
wish that they were swimming
in my G5 Mac PC

Or for the geekier devs among you: Joy to NSFishies in the G5 PC, @selector(joy:) to you and me...

Video of the case conversion follows for your delectation.

[via Gizmodo]

G5 Mac "Pro" (sic) receives Macquarium treatment originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WellRed Apps launched its DropKey file encryption app for Mac last month, but realized that there's one issue with gaining widespread acceptance -- it takes two to tango, and it takes two copies of DropKey (one each for sender and recipient) to send files securely. The company had been giving away one free license with each purchase of DropKey, but is going all-out through Sunday by making the app completely free.

DropKey pairs 2048-bit keys with 256-bit encryption for incredible security. The app, which requires a Mac running OS X 10.7 or later, is integrated with Address Book and makes encryption drop-dead simple.

When you launch DropKey for the first time, it generates your public and private encryption keys. You can email your public key to a trusted recipient from the app, which adds the key information to your address book card on the recipient's Mac. Prior to that time, a shared password is required; after the keys have been shared, you no longer need the password.

DropKey is a useful app if you need to send encrypted information to co-workers on a regular basis, and there's no better time than now to download a copy for free from the Mac App Store.

DropKey app encrypts Mac files, free through Sunday originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple's march to world domination continues, this time with a new Apple Store planned for the UK seaside city of Plymouth. What's surprising about this store announcement is that Apple apparently made managers of a successful Zara fashion store at the Drake Circus Shopping Centre (above) in Plymouth "an offer they can't refuse."

The Zara store, which fills a 21,045 square-foot space in the mall, has about ten years to go on a fifteen-year lease. Zara is out; Apple will assume the lease for the remainder of the time. ifoAppleStore notes that this space is almost double the size of the standard Apple Store, so Apple may just occupy the ground floor and sublet the upper level.

26 Zara employees are losing their jobs as a result of the announced closing, but there's a good chance that more jobs than that will be created when the Apple Store opens. The Drake Circus store is about 45 miles from the Princesshay Apple Store in Exeter, and fills in coverage for the Devon and Cornwall region of the country.

Apple assuming retail lease, plans to open new UK Apple Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 May 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.