Text a taco to friends with new app
Those of us who rely on food emoji symbols to accurately show what we're eating and what we want for dinner know all too well that tacos seem to be missing from the lineup. Now every text you send can be enhanced with Mexican food thanks to Taco Text app from XOXCO, Inc. Related storiesTaqueria vending machine? Say hola to Burrito BoxIs this burrito graph the silliest Kickstarter project ever?Burrito Bomber drone drops non-weaponized meals Pick from four different taco images: Breakfast Taco, Fish Taco, Everyday Taco and the yet-to-be-seen Mystery Taco. The reviews for no-frills Text a Taco show both hilarious pros and serious cons from users. "Ever since humans started scratching messages into cave walls they have wanted to communicate 'taco' to others," iTunes reviewer pbausch wrote. "Over the years we have tried in vain to realize this dream only to fail time and again. It's what makes us human. But now, thanks to Taco Text, it is our time to transcend our earthly shackles and grasp the crunchy, delicious dream our ancestors. A++ would text infinity taco again." Of course,more savvy taco-lovers don't necessarily need an app to send their friends a pixilated image of a taco. "This app lets you send one of four (ugly) images as an instant message or other social media message," iTunes reviewer Lance E Sloan posted. "Despite its name, there's no text involved here at all. It just sends PNG images." If you want emoji-style images of tacos, you'll need an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.Tacos arenow available for Android users too.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Tethering app pops up on iTunes, then gets pulled
Tethering app pops up on iTunes, then gets pulled
The $14.99 app allowed iPhone customers to use their smartphone data plan to power the Internet connection for their PC or Mac through a USB cable. The app comes from Tether.Tether later released a statement confirming that Apple had pulled the aap because of concerns over the potential burden to the carrier networks. "Our team is very disappointed in Apple's decision; as we strongly believe we help carriers better monetize their data stream by pushing customers into new data tiers further increasing their bottom-line," the company said in a statement later posted on Macrumors. The company confirmed that those who downloaded the app can continue to use it. Its own website is down. Carriers have traditionally frowned upon these kinds of applications, which encourage heavy data usage. In times when they have offered these capabilities, usually in the form of a hot-spot feature, they charge a monthly fee. The iTether app was designed to work after just a onetime fee.Past tethering applications have either been rejected from the App Store or pulled quickly after they launch. The latter happened today to iTether, which is no longer available via the Apple service.The carriers have gone as far as to send warning notices to heavy users. Many of them have policies in place to slow down the connection of a user who is deemed an excessive bandwidth hog. The application was initially spotted by Engadget.Updated at 9:21 a.m. and 11:39 a.m. PT: to note that the application has since been pulled from iTunes and to add a statement from Tether.
The $14.99 app allowed iPhone customers to use their smartphone data plan to power the Internet connection for their PC or Mac through a USB cable. The app comes from Tether.Tether later released a statement confirming that Apple had pulled the aap because of concerns over the potential burden to the carrier networks. "Our team is very disappointed in Apple's decision; as we strongly believe we help carriers better monetize their data stream by pushing customers into new data tiers further increasing their bottom-line," the company said in a statement later posted on Macrumors. The company confirmed that those who downloaded the app can continue to use it. Its own website is down. Carriers have traditionally frowned upon these kinds of applications, which encourage heavy data usage. In times when they have offered these capabilities, usually in the form of a hot-spot feature, they charge a monthly fee. The iTether app was designed to work after just a onetime fee.Past tethering applications have either been rejected from the App Store or pulled quickly after they launch. The latter happened today to iTether, which is no longer available via the Apple service.The carriers have gone as far as to send warning notices to heavy users. Many of them have policies in place to slow down the connection of a user who is deemed an excessive bandwidth hog. The application was initially spotted by Engadget.Updated at 9:21 a.m. and 11:39 a.m. PT: to note that the application has since been pulled from iTunes and to add a statement from Tether.
Tell the world what you're listening to
Tell the world what you're listening to
An iPhone app called Cardinal, released in March, can help. (It also works with the iPod Touch if you've got an active Wi-Fi connection.) Whenever you stumble across a song on your iPhone that you want to share with the world, Cardinal lets you create messages like "Listening to...," and automatically fills in the song and album title. Then you can post these messages to Facebook and Twitter with a few clicks. You can also select a favorite canned message, and as long as you have Cardinal open, you can simply shake your device and the app will fill in the appropriate song and artist info and post the resulting message automatically--no clicks required. A planned update coming soon will automatically add hash tags such as #musicmonday and #nowplaying to messages if you have enough character space left in Twitter. Cardinal is well-designed, looks good, and works exactly as advertised. The only problem is the $1.99 price. That's not expensive, but an iPhone app called Serenade, which came out earlier this year, does more or less the same thing for free. Serenade also lets you copy and paste song information into an e-mail message, control music playback, add songs from your iTunes library from within the app, and display lyrics. The posting process is a bit more complicated than Cardinal's--every time you post to Facebook, a screen pops up asking you to edit your message and confirm that you want to post it--but that's a minor annoyance. I'm not sure the shake-to-post feature of Cardinal is worth $1.99.
An iPhone app called Cardinal, released in March, can help. (It also works with the iPod Touch if you've got an active Wi-Fi connection.) Whenever you stumble across a song on your iPhone that you want to share with the world, Cardinal lets you create messages like "Listening to...," and automatically fills in the song and album title. Then you can post these messages to Facebook and Twitter with a few clicks. You can also select a favorite canned message, and as long as you have Cardinal open, you can simply shake your device and the app will fill in the appropriate song and artist info and post the resulting message automatically--no clicks required. A planned update coming soon will automatically add hash tags such as #musicmonday and #nowplaying to messages if you have enough character space left in Twitter. Cardinal is well-designed, looks good, and works exactly as advertised. The only problem is the $1.99 price. That's not expensive, but an iPhone app called Serenade, which came out earlier this year, does more or less the same thing for free. Serenade also lets you copy and paste song information into an e-mail message, control music playback, add songs from your iTunes library from within the app, and display lyrics. The posting process is a bit more complicated than Cardinal's--every time you post to Facebook, a screen pops up asking you to edit your message and confirm that you want to post it--but that's a minor annoyance. I'm not sure the shake-to-post feature of Cardinal is worth $1.99.
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