Kitty Code

The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your votes for the best iPhone navigation app of 2011. The readers have spoken, and the nominees for best iPhone navigation app are (in no particular order) Motion X GPS Drive (US$0.99), Navigon ($29.99 for Navigon USA), the popular and free crowdsourced nav app Waze, and TomTom ($39.99 for TomTom USA). All of these apps have one thing in common -- they provide point-to-point navigation to points of interest. Another app that uses the iPhone's GPS capabilities but doesn't provide directions to anything except virtual treasure gathered a nomination as well. Traveler's Quest ($0.99) is a virtual treasure hunt that has been around for a few years but is constantly adding in-app purchases for new maps and treasures. And now, let the voting begin! The results will be announced on December 27, 2011. What is the best iPhone navigation app of 2011? Read More

If you're in the path of Hurricane Irene and you haven't gone through the App Store already looking for the best sources of info on the storm, there are others who have done it for you. Information Week, Appolicious, and MSNBC's Technolog have all made lists of apps for various flavors of smartphones. Virtually all the lists of apps include the free Weather Channel App for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and Blackberry*. The application description doesn't clearly state if the free app (there's a paid version) has push notification for weather alerts, but the $3.99 Weather Channel Max app does include them. Aside from TWC's contributions, there's also the paid Hurricane for iPhone or Hurricane HD for iPad which shows up in multiple lists of suggested apps. You may want to try searching for an app for a TV station in your area; a lot of them have notifications for breaking news or weather alerts which you can set up. CNN has a few apps listed alongside Twitter feeds to watch and things like a multipurpose radio which includes weather band information, a flashlight, a USB port for charging, and a hand crank to make the whole thing go. Google has set up a crisis response map with a wide variety of layers including power outages, shelters, forecasts and loads more. Here are some basic tips for maximizing battery life on your smartphone/tablet/laptop/e-reader in case of power outages: Turn the screen brightness down as low as you can, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and if you can run multiple apps at once, quit anything extraneous. That way you'll get the most out of your battery before you have to hook it to that Axis radio and work the hand crank till your arm gives out. If you do need this list of apps because you're in Irene's path, all of us at TUAW (who aren't battening down our own hatches) are thinking of you and wishing you well. *Irene doesn't care what smartphone you use. Read More

As Hurricane Irene makes its way up the East Coast, you may be tempted to hunker by the TV or computer with your three-day supply of batteries, water and MREs to track the storm’s progress. But you can feel free to go out and test the tensile strength of your umbrella thanks to a number of phone and iPad apps that will keep you current on Irene’s position. At the top of the list has to be Hurricane Express, a recently released 99-cent iPhone app specializing in – what else? – hurricane tracking. With information from the National Hurricane Center, the app provides lots of raw data for wonky storm chasers, but also moving radar maps, maps showing the forecasted storm track, wind maps and others as well. You can also check the curated Twitter feed from weather organizations and weather pros, or check the news feed with bulletins and videos. An upgraded version, called Hurricane, also gives historical data on past storms, which you can compare to current conditions. Usually $4, it is on sale for $2. The one real drawback is is that the maps are a little hard to see in detail on the phone. For that reason, it may be worthwhile to try Hurricane HD for the iPad ($4), which is easier to read, includes historical data, and can also show multiple storms simultaneously. Like Hurricane Express, iHurricane HD is dedicated to tracking storms, but unlike that app, iHurricane is free and runs on the iPhone and the iPad. The app shows the current and forecasted path of a storm on an interactive chart. Touch the line and you get details of the eye of the storm at that position, how far away it is from where you are and the speed with which it is approaching. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts to get news of bad weather in advance. The iHurricane app also has several predictive charts and bulletins, but those can be hard to read on the phone’s small screen. This app is best seen on the iPad. Serious weather geeks will revel in the raw radar data displayed by the $10 Radarscope app. The app shows feeds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and lets you see the sweeps from specific radar stations. If you know how to spot a “hook echo” that indicates a mesocyclone – often the precursor Read More

Neil Ticktin (Editor-in-Chief, MacTech Magazine and MacNews) interviews Ilene Jones of Kitty Code at WWDC 2011. Ilene was kind enough to tell us about their thoughts on the announcements on WWDC, and how it will affect their plans moving forward. Kitty Code makes Hurricane HD, among other iOS apps. TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC 2011 about the keynote announcements and how Apple's new technologies will help them and their customers. We'll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Read More

Traveler's Quest is an oldie but a goodie in the App Store -- it's a GPS-based treasure hunting map that will send you searching around your own area for virtual treasure with a game layer on top of it. It's simple to play and learn, but there's an addictive quality to hunting down and finding a certain location with your iPhone's GPS that will keep you playing while out and about, whether you're wandering around a vacation spot this summer or just exploring your own neighborhood. The app just got updated to version 3.0 as well, and the new version adds a whole list of interface improvements, along with a "Message in a Bottle" feature (allowing you to leave virtual messages along with any treasure you happen to claim -- kind of like virtual geocaching, and very fun) and some new Game Center achievements to chase after. Great app -- Traveler's Quest is a free download on the App Store, with various features available for an extra in-app purchase price. Read More

Hurricane for iPhone allows users to track hurricanes in real time. Not only can you track speed, direction, pressure and your distance from a current storm, you can also browse historical hurricane data all the way back to 1851. Additionally, text bulletins give you all the latest warnings about storms in your area. Hurricane costs US$3.99. Hurricane HD is the iPad version of the Hurricane app. It's just been updated to version 2.0 and sports a major UI change with added features, including the ability to plot multiple storms (past and present) on interactive tracking maps, track hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones world wide, and it offers push notifications for newly formed storms. Hurricane HD 2.0 is $3.99. Read More

As the Atlantic storm season heats up and US East Coast residents warily eye Hurricane Earl's projected path, the team at Kitty Code has put their flagship iPhone app -- Hurricane 3.3 -- on sale for US$1.99 through September 5. The separate iPad version, Hurricane HD, remains priced at $3.99. We've checked out both the mini and mega versions previously. There are scores of hurricane-related apps on the store, so if the Big Kahuna isn't to your liking you have some other options too. Stay safe! Read More

Traveler’s Quest, by Kitty Code, is a very interesting app that brings the virtual world into the real world – through virtual treasure hunting.  I’ve been a player of this game since about January, and can’t go a day without checking on this app.  The play of this game is quite simple:  You detect treasure using the Treasure Detector or go into the Store in the app and “buy” treasure maps for hidden treasures with Gold (the game’s currency). Then you find virtual treasures hidden throughout cities using the in-game map and GPS locations.  The closer you get to the treasure, the more bonus gold you get. The minimum distance to be able to “dig” the treasure is 1 Mile. The cool part about the app is, you don’t only get to FIND treasure, you also get to bury it.  You get a certain amount of gold per day your buried treasure is not found, which is where most of your income will come from.  You can also buy and sell treasures in the store.  Each city has it’s own stores and own maps, and own treasure.  What is also cool is that each treasure has an original starting city. If you hide or sell a treasure far from its original city, you get more gold for it than selling or hiding it in its original city.  You can also view all of your buried treasure locations in the Maps room either in a list or a Map. So, this app is more than just an iPhone traditional game.  This game gets you off of your duff, and into the real world to go virtual treasure hunting. It takes a little while to get used to the interface and the exact object of the game, but overall it is a VERY addictive game if it is your style. Traveler’s Quest is available from the iTunes Appstore for $2.99. *** This app was independently purchased by the post author in the iPhone App Store. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page. Read More

Apr 1st 2010 at 11:00AM Erica: Thank you for posting the video! To your question about price, Hurricane HD is listed at $3.99, the same price as our current Hurricane App for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For those wondering about updates to our original app Hurricane, we are working to get the update out as soon as possible. Mr. Applebaum: Thank you for the suggestions. We are looking into some of those already. Suggestion for the Developer: The tracking, beginning at about 2:00 would be much better if: 1) the current point, prior points, and forecast points were displayed with a different color that has greater contrast with the background (bright yellow, red or green). 2) you add a manual tracking option that uses the finger to move the points rather than buttons. 3) you add a loop play option in addition to the manual advancement. With options to set the loop speed and direction (forward) 4) for the above, the entire screen need not be redisplayed as it is now (causing a blinking screen). Rather, the map could be displayed in the background and a transparent layer with semi-transparent tracking points and data displayed on top of the background. Intermediate points could be computed and displayed-- giving the effect of continuous movement rather than jumping from point-to-point. This would give a much more pleasing user experience, and is well within the capabilities of the iPad. TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple. © 2011 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved. We value our readership, especially when we receive tips which help us write compelling content. Use this form to send us a tip. Note: Some fields are required. Read More

Some time ago I reviewed Geocaching – an app for enthusiasts of the likewise named sport. Geocaching is an activity centered around finding caches hidden by other enthusiasts. Participants use hints and the GPS coordinates to uncover the loot. This is a wonderfull hobby which even deserves to be named a sport. At the same time it has its limitations. The most important of which is: caches have to have been hidden by someone in the first place. And in some parts of the world it’s quite difficult to come across them. But now there is way for them to enjoy almost the same experience with virtual geocaching – Traveler’s Quest. The basic idea of Traveller’s Quest is the same as in geocaching – finding stuff hidden by other people. But all of this is done using augmented reality. That is – though the maps are real, the treasures buried are virtual. This has both its ups and downs but more about that in a minute. To find a treasure in Traveller’s Quest you first have to buy a map. This will give you a GPS location somewhere in your general area together with the depth the treasure was buried at. Once you are sufficiently close to it you can tap the location on the map and dig up the treasure (you are given a bonus if you nailed the spot as close as possible). As you start the game you can only dig up treasures close to the surface, but as you earn cash you can spend some of it to obtain upgrades to get to the deeper stashes. And don’t worry if there are no people in your city that have Traveller’s Quest – the devs have added bots that will act almost like real live people and bury the treasures for you to find. Once you dig up the stash, it’s up to you whether to keep the treasure for your own collection or to sell it to get the cash for more maps and upgrades. The other side of geocaching — hiding the stash — has also not gone without the developer’s attention. You can bury treasures you own to increase their value (which goes up at a fixed rate per depending on the depth of where you hid it) and later make a mint selling it. For the social side Traveller’s Quest has global leaderboards on Read More