But it has to be a silk robe with a drawing of David Hasselhoff embroidered on the back.

What I really want is to turn on the gas fireplace, and display a looping fireplace background video on the special TV. Why? Because I secretly hope to destroy the Universe one day. [Helex via Bornrich]

If you are into the design, you might be interested to know that it runs on a a Buell 1200, it has a 27-degree rake, 23-inch tires and the gas and oil tanks are fabricated out of glass—which, like a lot of things on this bike, doesn't seem safe. Still, I gotta give RK Concepts credit for pushing boundaries here. [RK Concepts via Cyril Huze via Born Rich via DVICE]

Some of the most important bits of info we extracted (assuming the tipster is accurate, and it seems like he is). Oh, and take a look at our hands on with the device in case you haven't familiarized yourself with it yet.

• Yeah, it's $530 unsubsidized. Google's not going to be selling the phone at cost, like so many people considered. They're not going to save us from the "making money off of hardware" culture we've got right now, so this is basically just another Android handset, albeit a really good one
• If you want it subsidized, you'll have to sign up for a 2 year mandatory contract and pay $180 for the phone
• There's only one rate plan: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 total
• Existing customers cannot keep their plan if they want a subsidized phone; they have to change to the one plan, and this only applies to accounts with one single line
• If that doesn't fly with you, you have to buy the $530 unlocked version—this actually might save you money over two years if you already have a cheap plan
• Family plans, Flexpay, SmartAccess and KidConnect subscribers must buy the phone unlocked and unsubsidized for $530
• You can only buy five Nexus One phones per Google account
• There is language in the agreement of shipping outside the US
• Google will sell it at google.com/phone, which explains what they were doing with that page a few weeks ago
• Google will still call it the Nexus One apparently, and not the Google Phone

And here is a big one:
• If you cancel your plan before 120 days, you have to pay the subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price, so $350 in this case. Or you can return the phone to Google. You also authorize them to charge this directly to your credit card.

One weirdness in the Terms of Sale that we quickly glanced through was that Google made sure you acknowledged that the manufacturer is HTC, and not Google.

For the full directory of Gizmodo's Essential iPhone Apps for 2009, click here. Here are the best of the month, and what we've added to the directory:

December's Best Apps

For a single-page view, click here.

Essential App Directory Inductees

As you can see, it was a hell of a month in the App Store—we're adding a fair few of the month's best to the Essential Directory.

Pastebot, for giving the iPhone the clipboard it deserves, and coming so close to greatness (lack of backgrounding capabilities are the only thing holding it back, and not the dev's fault). $3

N.O.V.A, for finally showing the world how to make a proper FPS on the iPhone. $7.

Mint, because as far as personal finance apps go, things don't get much better than this. With the last few updates, it's become basically perfect. Free.

Dragon Dictation, for getting voice recognition right on the first try, and providing an extremely useful tool for text input. Free.

Gorilla Cam, for offering most of the features of a paid camera app for free.

Ustream, for giving iPhone users live video streaming capabilities they can actually use, and for not neglecting older iPhones. Free.

Bing, for providing decent, well-packaged alternatives to services that Google previously dominated, and even improving on some of them—I'm looking at you, maps. Free.

And that's it! What counts as an essential iPhone app changes all the time, and so should our guide: If we've missed anything huge, or you've got a much better suggestion for a particular type of app, let us know, or say so in the comments. We'll be updating this thing pretty frequently, and a million Gizmodo readers can do a better job at sorting through the app mess than a single Gizmodo editor. Enjoy!

Ping pong—a sport as un-American as Walmart apple pie.

Really nice, Ryan. Though for the drawer, I might have gone with dueling pistols and some sterile gauze. I know, I know. Everyone's a potentially psychotic critic. [Table&Tennis via Core77]

While I'm not quite sold on the idea of pulling apart my entire case every time I need to schlep my machine somewhere, designer and woodworker Brian Kelly's two-piece take on portable protection is certainly easy on the eyes.

In addition to its slidable plywood shell, the case has a cork lining for heat resistance and padding. The designer says the case is only "an exploration into the process of bending plywood," though, so you won't have to decide between form and function just yet. [Behance Network]

And yes, all of the ports are 2.0 compatible. Although, to be honest, I can't imagine why any one person would be using more than say 10 or 12 ports. Unless, of course, you have a thing for Brando. [USBfever via TRFJ]

Like with the Nike+, there's a stride sensor to keep track of your running pace. Additionally, there's a heart rate monitor, and an "audio feedback" unit to aid in keeping track of your workouts. The system will run you between $70 and $140, compared to the $30 or so you'd shell out for a Nike+ kit. We'll compare the two soon, so we'll see whether the price difference is worth it and whether the audio coaching is annoying or useful. [Adidas via Uncrate]

Even after arriving 40 minutes early and waiting in line, the only undefended territory left was right up in front. You may say you'd have stormed out and demanded a refund, but due to work and parenthood, I get a chance to see about three movies per year in the theater, and those have to be slated well in advance. If I didn't see Avatar at that time and place, I'd have had to wait for it to show up on Blu-ray—or at least wait till after CES. And hey, at least the seats reclined way back, to avoid the stiff neck.

I have endured movies in the front row before, and yes, it's annoying. You can't take it all in, you have to look around. But when you add 3D glasses into the mix, it's not just "annoying." It's "cerebrally disruptive." Any shift of your eyes has to reorient your brain, and since you're constantly shifting your eyes, you get a series of fleeting illusions combined with a lot of image jolts and jerks. Taking off my 3D glasses, I realized that the typical crappy front-row experience would have been peaceful and easy by comparison. Get this straight: Front row for 3D is 10X worse than front row for other movies.

There was another problem. I was wearing 3D glasses on top of my own glasses, which I need to see. I am not the only person in the world who chooses to wear eyeglasses instead of getting contacts or Lasik surgery. You'd think the 3D industry would plan for this sizable segment of the population. But the light playing between my glasses and the Dolby 3D glasses created weird holograms, floating text and images. I thought at first it was Cameron pulling a JJ Abrams and throwing a bunch of lens flare streaks into the mix, but no, if I adjusted the relative position of the two glasses, they images would move or disappear, at least momentarily. It was reflections of the movie projection bouncing off of my glasses and back onto the inside of the 3D glasses.

An LA Times story mentioned that Dolby 3D glasses were particularly ill-suited for people who are already wearing eyeglasses—hopefully other 3D providers are smarter when it comes to their four-eyed little friends.

As you can tell, I was encumbered with a lot to worry about besides the film, for which I had paid $15. I managed to sit through it all, and am glad I did, for the sake of having seen Avatar. It was great, and what I got was worth, say, $10 of the money I spent, a testament to Cameron's abilities as a filmmaker, no doubt.

So I don't blame Jim for deliberately making me suffer. All the reports from people who got good seats—including our own Mark Wilson—say that the experience is the best use of 3D ever, and I admire Cameron for pushing the limits. (And also for releasing a 2D version at the same time.) I will say that, like good music producers who listen to a near-final mix from the crappiest boombox they can find, Cameron should be aware of how miserable the 3D experience can be. But he's a busy man, and probably didn't get a chance to sit through two-and-a-half hours of blue people, from the shittiest seat in the theater.

The theater management, a financially challenged group if there ever was one, are probably most to blame. They need to sell as many tickets as possible, and they're not about to tape off the front section. But they should, and there's a precedent for this. To get IMAX certification, theaters rip out some of their seats, reducing the capacity but enhancing the experience. Even though people have criticized IMAX certification as BS marketing, they got results. (I recall something similar a few years back with George Lucas, who used his influence to make sure only the best theaters could show his movies via digital projection.) You would think that Cameron, Fox and Dolby could combined their might to ensure theater-goers a uniformly baseline enjoyable experience—especially in light of the more strenuous technical and physical requirements of watching a film in 3D. Alas, they simply couldn't.

Or didn't. When your goal is to rake in over $200 million in two weeks, you can't be bothered with little things like the asshole who got stuck sitting in the front row.

Yeah, I said it, and you're thinking it. I'm to blame for not marching out, voting with my wallet so to speak. This is America, and corporations have the right to con us, because we have the right to complain. If all the theater, and Fox, and Cameron, and Dolby, and Hollywood as a whole wanted out of me was $15, they got it. (Don't spend it all in one place.) I don't complain in restaurants, I just don't go back. If something cheap breaks on me, I may not call the 800 number on the back of the box, but I sure as hell don't buy another—or anything from that brand. Next time there's an event movie like this, I may skip 3D altogether. Me and every other poor bastard with a pair of eyeglasses and somewhere to be other than the theater two hours before showtime.

Do all you can to guarantee me an experience, and I will gladly pay for it. But leave me to understand that there's only a 50/50 chance I'm even going to like it, and you can play at-home proctologist with those 3D glasses, cuz I won't be needing them.

Update: Apparently at least one theater chain is willing to take a fiscal hit in order to serve a better experience to moviegoers. A Giz reader named Garth just sent me this hopeful note:

I went to go see Avatar IMAX 3D on Saturday at the Regal 16 in Escondido, CA and they had blocked off the first three rows in front and the three seats on the extreme left and right of the front section with specially made seat covers that read "Not for 3D viewing."

Good for Regal! And thanks again, Garth.

Note: The top image is an artistic rendering intended to represent the author's general frustration, not of the specific technical problems he experienced during the viewing, which can't be reproduced in a still shot.

Or, even worse than a delay: New MacBooks could have worse graphic than older MacBooks.

Here's the story: Starting with the unibody MacBook Pros in Oct. 2008, Apple dumped Intel's own chipset and integrated graphics for Nvidia's GeForce 9400M as a combined GPU/chipset, since it wildly outperforms the Intel's integrated garbage, which had hampered previous MacBooks. Since the 9400M is in basically every Mac now, there's a baseline of graphics performance across every Mac—nothing has crappier graphics than the 9400M. Important, because the OpenCL tech in Snow Leopard leverages your graphics card for extra processing power.

Since Oct. 2008, Intel's introduced its blazing fast Core i7 and i5 processors, which use the Nehalem microarchitecture. The problem is that Nvidia can't make compatible chipsets for it. Intel claims that Nvidia's license to make chipsets for its processors doesn't apply to any current or future processor with an integrated memory controller, which all Nehalem and Westmere—the 32nm die shrink of Nehalem—processors do. Nvidia sued and is pulling out of chipsets entirely, at least at the desktop level. (Intel's also cut them off at the Atom level, making what the Ion 2 will look like something of a mystery as well.)

Which produces a question: What are the next set of MacBook guts going to be? The Arrandale Core i5 mobile processors Intel is expected to announce at CES don't just have integrated memory controllers, they have integrated graphics, built right onto the die, too. If the MacBooks were upgraded to off-the-shelf Arrandale processors, it can't, on the face of it, use an Nvidia chipset or more to the point, Nvidia's superior integrated graphics. Intel's integrated graphics still suck. So there are a couple of possibilities from here, it looks like.

• Possibility 1: Some kind of discrete or separate graphics cards for all MacBook Pros. Pre-unibody MacBook Pros, and even the 12-inch PowerBook G4, had discrete graphics cards only. The problem is that it's more expensive, and that now-famed 6-8 hour battery life would take a hit. It's how the latest iMac got away with using a Core i7 on with an Intel chipset, though.

Or maybe Apple will put discrete graphics cards in every MacBook Pro, but use Intel integrated graphics as a battery-saving fallback. Which is sort of the way all but the low-end MacBook Pros work now, with both integrated and discrete graphics. (Though the Nvidia integrated graphics are good enough to be the default option on current MacBooks.) It would rock the boat the least.

• Possibility 2: Suffer the crappier graphics on lower end models. A problem, given that any machine using Intel integrated graphics would result in worse graphics performance than the current MacBook or MacBook Pros. Which sounds counterproductive, given Apple's obvious bet on graphics cards for processing juice with OpenCL.

• Possibility 3: A customized set of hardware of some kind from Intel, either on the processor or chipset level that would let the next MacBooks match the power consumption and graphics capabilities of current models. It wouldn't be unprecedented: Apple asked for and received essentially custom chips from Intel before, for the MacBook Air. (Though Intel later let everybody else play ball with other chips meant for really skinny laptops.)

• Possibility 4: Apple's gonna wait on something else before upgrading from Core 2 Duos. Will people have to wait longer for blazing new silicon in MacBooks than in PC notebooks? Sometimes they do, yes, but sometimes Apple gets Intel's latest first—Nehalem Xeons in Mac Pros, and the ultramobile chip in the MacBook Air.

Something else to consider is that for the first time in a long time, if Apple wants to push new guts soon, it could switch to ATI graphics (which it's using in the iMac) for notebooks because of delays in Nvidia's Fermi architecture that push their truly new graphics cards out until Spring 2010. ATI's got a solid 4 months where it's got the newest graphics silicon around.

Whatever happens, it's a mystery for now. Which is kind of a fascinating point, actually, given that Macs run on PC guts now, yet it's still trying to do something different on the hardware level.

We should mention, the clip comes from an unconfirmed source, but everything about the system is reminiscent to Natal to us—we should say, Natal running a title in early beta. The control scheme seems simultaneously intuitive and awkward in what we're assuming is a proof-of-concept, the user repositioning their view by moving the screen with their hand.

Still, while the verdict may be out on how well Natal will handle first person shooters, it's pretty darn cool to see a player control a complex game without a controller between them and the screen. And if you were playing an FPS involving the manipulation of a variety of objects beyond mere guns (imagine grabbing a key, crowbar or, heck, even a flower) what's now just a novelty could become something much more compelling.

We called in one of our own, and it's quite possible our impressions will differ. But until then...

While the world waits for Apple to release official news about their new tablet computer, a few smaller (and lesser known) companies are releasing their own touch screen tablets. Archos has a few models out, there's the viliv, and then there's the whole CrunchPad thing which is now called the JooJoo. And I've never played with any of them. I have however been (for some reason) drooling for an iSlate for the past year or so. And in my impatience I prematurely ordered a Camangi WebStation and am ready to report the bad news.

First let me do the whole reviewer disclaimer thing. On what can only be described as a moment of weak ignorance, I ordered a Camangi WebStation. That was December 4th and I paid full price. Normally I wouldn't plop down almost $400 for a product that no one has seen or tested yet, one that in the early videos looked quite questionable, and one from a company that I've never heard of before. But I did. Against all common sense I hoped that it would be a decent solution to use until Apple gets theirs out.

At the same time I also contacted Camangi in an attempt to get an early "review unit." We did correspond back and forth a bit but ultimately they decided to not supply me with a "free" unit but rather promised to simply ship my purchased unit to me via a faster method than everyone else's – so that I could review it (hopefully) before they start arriving to the 1000′s of people who ordered them. Therefore the unit I reviewed here is the one I paid full price for, and my buyer's remorse is certainly adding to the sting here a bit. But then again most things I discuss on this site are items that I've purchased. So take that bias in to account if you feel it's relevant.

My Couch Computing Concept

Our previous current couch computer is the hacintoshed Dell Mini 9. It works well, is fairly fast (for an Atom processor running OS X), it's fully a Mac, and cost about $300-$400 retail. And it's small. We mostly use it for quick IMDB look-ups while watching TV and movies, and my daughter plays flash games on it. So in my perfect world, the ultimate couch computer would be a smallish tablet, no keyboard to get in the way, easy to stow between couch cushions, but would be as fast and responsive as the Dell or as an iPhone. It needs to have full web capabilities, support flash video (unlike the iPhone), Hulu, YouTube, and all that. It should also act as a PMP so that my daughter can watch videos on it in the car or wherever. It needs to be multi-useful.

So I've been excited about getting this unit in – and I spent all Christmas watching the DHL tracking reports to see when it would arrive. But on the other hand I didn't have high expectations for it. It has very little RAM and a tiny processor. In my correspondence with Camangi I asked over and over about its capabilities, specifically with regards to playing video – but they would not answer those questions. This made me begin to think that the reason they were avoiding my questions (and didn't want to send me a review unit) was because they didn't like the true answers.

What's in the Box

The package arrived via DHL in a small brown paper box, inside which was the retail box. The box contains the WebStation, a carry sleeve/pouch, a pair of cheap earphones that appear to have a microphone attached, a cloth to wipe the screen, a quick start guide, another booklet containing legal disclaimers, the power supply, and the stand to use it as a picture frame, which is basically a suction cup on a stick.

My first impressions were that the WebStation hardware seemed sturdy enough. It has three physical buttons on the front: home, quick menu, and return. On the right side there are ports for headphones, mini USB, a reset button, a normal sized USB, and DC in. On the left side are physical volume buttons, on the top is a power button, and on the top back is a micro SD card slot preloaded with an 8GB stick.

(same side from the back…)

On major thing lacking in the box is a real user manual. The quickstart guide does tell you how to unlock the device, something you'd probably never figure out on your own. But it's very slim on details and instructions. For example, I still have no idea how to load music on the device. I assume that I need to add a "Music" folder to the memory stick, but that is a complete guess. Another example is that I was surprised to discover that it would charge off the USB cable when it's plugged in to my Mac. But also baffled by the meaning of the "beep-beep-beep" when the screen went to sleep while plugged in to my Mac.

Powering It On

When you first press the power button at the top, it takes about 7 seconds before you see the word "ANDROID." Total boot time is 54 seconds. You are then presented with a lock screen that shows the time/date. Unlocking it takes you to the Launcher, which is a menu of app icons.

Speed and Responsiveness

You have to admit that we're all used to the way the iPhone works and in a way it is the standard upon which all other touch based gadgets are measured. Since the loss of my 3GS iPhone I've been back to using my old original Edge phone and have been struggling with the comparitive slowness of that old thing. But the old Edge phone screams in comparison to the WebStation. Actions like touching and dragging to scroll windows are taken for granted on the iPhone, and the WebStation does do that touch scrolling thing, but seems to skip along the action. One way to describe it is if the iPhone operates at 30 frames per second, the WebStation probably runs at about 5 to 10. I also found myself accidentally triggering buttons when trying to scroll. Something that does happen on the iPhone occasionally, but was happening a lot on the WebStation. And with the overall slowness of the unit, getting into the wrong menu is a pain because then you have to slowly navigate out of it as well.

Here are some speed/usage comparison examples between the WebStation and my old first-gen iPhone:

Photos – First off, it's not a multitouch display, it is a resistive single touch screen. So zooming in and out is done via on-screen zoom icons, not multitouch pinch actions. The fair comparison here is the responsiveness of touch-dragging scroll around on a photo. When you first touch and start to drag it takes several seconds before the unit seems to know that you're dragging. Then it catches up and does it's best to keep up with your finger, updating the screen about 5 to 10 times per second. This sluggishness is generally felt everywhere in the UI.

Typing – When you click on a field where text can be entered, a virtual touch keyboard appears on the bottom of the screen. Typing is best done one letter at a time, making sure that the UI has got your letter before moving on to the next. If you type too fast sometimes the keyboard will just go away. It seems to not be able to keep track of touches faster than about 5 per second either. Of course this kills my couch computer concept as it's sort of frustrating to even enter text.

I'll cover web browsing and video playback in their own sections.

But first I have to say that I was excited about the WebStation being Google Android-based. I don't even mind it NOT being multitouch. I think the overall interface is good, but the processor just can't keep up with a real user. If this was powered with the Atom processor from my Dell Mini 9 it would be a completely different story. But the way it is now the sluggishness is just too much of a factor.

Web Browsing

I think the biggest test should be basic web browsing. After all, the product is called the WEB station, and therefore should be optimized at surfing the web. The first test was to simultaneously launched both the WebStation and my old first gen iPhone to the home page of this website (tomorrowland.com). Both devices were on my home Wi-Fi network. The iPhone loaded the page about 20 seconds quicker than the WebStation. Then trying to test scrolling on the WebStation I touched and dragged the screen and instead of it scrolling it launched a link. In order to ensure that you're going to scroll you have to touch and hold until you see that it's scrolling, then drag your finger. Something that I would find hard to do when going back and forth between using my iPhone and this thing.

The next test is what sites work and what doesn't. Well, just like the iPhone, flash does not work. This wipes out Hulu and YouTube and even my own tomorrowland.com/podcast page, and unlike the iPhone there is no YouTube application. This also wipes out all flash games, which was one of my desired uses for the WebStation.

I've already complained about the typing and the scrolling. But one other thing I noticed is that most apps are web apps. The ebook reader, and the app marketplace both use the web browser to do their thing. So if one is slow they all are.

Video

All my hopes and dreams are crushed when it comes to video playback. It's no wonder the people at Camangi completely skirted all of my questions about video playback. My big question to them was can it play full screen video at 30fps. The answer is a big fat no way! Not even close. With the lack of a user manual to detail the specifications for the most compatible video formats I guessed and loaded a couple of samples. The unit did come preloaded with the promo video from this page, but looks atrocious when playing back. It seems a shame to not make use of that 800 x 480 pixel screen with movie watching.

The first video I tried was a 3 minute, 22 MB H.264 video running at about 1 Mbps. Frame size was 480 x 324 at 30fps. I suppose it was encoded to work on an iPod. The audio played fine but the picture lagged very far behind, causing it to be grossly out of sync. The video frames that played did so at about 5 or 10 fps. Skipping to the middle of the video did catch it up, but it's clear the device is not powerful enough to play video.

The second video I tried was a movie that was encoded to play on a PSP. It also played very slow visually while the audio played normally. It was also very much out of sync right from the beginning. Very disappointing.

Harsh Conclusion

My suspicion is that the unit is basically a digital picture frame loaded with a cell phone version Google Android with a touch screen. It came with a phone headset complete with a mic and answer button. All through the menus there are mentions of things like "baseband" and "ringtones" but it's not a phone. And the weird thing is that I don't think the processor in it is even powerful enough to run a phone. Had they marketed it as a touch screen digital photo frame with a web browser and sold it for about $100 it would be somewhat reasonable. And before you think about complaining about how hard I'm being on it, consider this: The WebStation is $390. For $199 you can get an iPod Touch. If mac made a 7 inch iPod touch it would blow this thing out of the water. Completely. Or for about the same price you could get a Dell Mini 9, or an Archos 7 – which are completely different products, but still something to consider. Or you could save your money and wait for Apple to release the iSlate and I suspect that will be the CE product of 2010.

Of course there is more to the WebStation that I didn't have time to cover, but to be honest the rest really doesn't matter. The weather app is nice and works well. So far I haven't figured out how to load music on it and so haven't been able to try out it's ‘cover flow' mode. But essentially it's about as powerful as a digital picture frame, and that's very sad. Basically my plan at this point is to call American Express and find out what I can do to return and refund. In my opinion the Camangi WebStation is a total fail and I can't recommend it to anyone at any price.

Reprinted with permission from Tomorrowland.com.

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If a deal looks too good to be true, investigate the store and see if it's a good, reputable place to buy. Safe shopping!

[Thanks TechDealDigger, Dealzon, Logic Buy, GamerHotline, Cheap College Gamers, CheapStingyBargains and TechBargains.]

"Thai, salad or ramen?" It's lunchtime on a typical Thursday and it strikes us that millions of people all over the world are pondering the same question. This question is our launchpad, making us part of the thousands of people who wanted to build an iPhone app for "that."

I'm a product and marketing guy with some design and coding skills. Roy is a developer with some business savvy. Combined, we make a great team and complement each other's skills well, but we only started working with Objective-C last year, like many others who are trying out iPhone development. We've already built an app or two, so we're familiar with the language and frameworks. However, as with all new projects, you usually have to do a little research to understand how to approach the different challenges...especially in a world defined by 320x480 pixels.

For the longest time, we've played around with the idea of creating an app for fun. After discarding a couple of good ideas (because they were too complicated or a quick search in the App Store showed that someone else already does it well), lunchtime lands us on a simple, fun idea to help people stuck between decisions.

But while most people want to create a great iPhone app, my friend and I go one step further, making a pact to finish the project within a weekend—or realistically, our app would never get completed.

On a piece of paper, we scribble out two-three wireframes and developed an outline for some basic screens. We decide on an app that offers up to three multiple choices. You can write your own answers—for example, Thai, salad or ramen—and you simply pick a randomized choice to see the answer to your decision. We decide to use playing cards as the theme. Immediately, we circle the "must have" features (first priority), then the "like to have" features (last priority), and finally the features that needed more investigating. We leave lunch on Thursday with a little homework and a plan to get together on Saturday.

My homework includes determining the look, feel and interaction on each screen. Roy needs to research some of the Xcode features we haven't had a chance to play with yet in our "real" jobs, mainly animations and randomization.

On Saturday morning, we meet at a local coffee shop that had free Wi-Fi, claim a large table so we can sit side-by-side and grab the first of many large cups of coffee. Then we create a shared Dropbox folder for this project—a Basic account is free and comes with 2GB of storage. The Dropbox is important because it allows us to multitask on the same project with any/all changes synchronizing in real time. For larger projects, you may want to consider GitHub.

We pull up a more detailed outline of what we want to accomplish for our app as well as basic wireframes. Given that we only have a weekend to complete this app, we decide to focus only on the "must have" features. A developer can always issue feature updates at a later date to include the "nice to have" features.

Going screen-by-screen, we detail the elements on the page, style treatments, layout, timing, etc. We also discuss what Roy learned about animating the card's flip motion, since this was one of the core functionality of the app. We briefly review the Quartz 2D and Core Animation libraries, since we had not previously done any work with those. We even discuss using a UIWebView to render the animation within WebKit's CSS. Ultimately, we find a simple solution using standard UIViews and UIButtons. The UIView class has some animation class methods, and one of the built in transitions is a flip effect. As for the randomization, we knew most languages provide a random function, and Objective-C is no exception. For purposes of this app, all we wanted was a simple method to randomize an array. Roy found a couple of examples of this, but one that stood out was over at Dr. Touch's website. He describes an approach with which to implement a class extension method so you can easily shuffle any array.

We dive into our respective MacBook Pros with a Borg-like focus on our individual areas of expertise. I open up Photoshop and began building screens. The first screen is the default image. This is the very first screen people see when the app starts and begins loading. Apps can be built in either portrait or landscape view. If you choose to build your app in landscape view like ours, you still need to create a default image that displays in portrait view. Simply create your landscape view and rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise (depending on whether you want left or right landscape view). Now the default image loads in portrait view but since your images is rotated, the user will twist the iPhone to landscape view.

I then spend the next couple of hours creating comps, background images, buttons, card (front and back) and info page. I also spend some time focusing on the app icon. This is obviously the "face" of your app—a badge of honor—so you'll want to put careful thought into the icon imagery. Remember, you'll need the icon in both the 57x57 and 512x512 sizes. Once completed, I upload it to Dropbox so that Roy could start using the creative elements.

By the time I glance back to Roy's laptop, he's created a new Xcode project and is already playing around with code to animate green boxes that flip on a click. While he's working on the prototype in the iPhone Simulator, I grab the info.plist file and edit some of the settings - remove status bar, app display name, remove gloss from icon, etc. We then decide it's time for us to add some real images to our prototype. We put in the background image, the front and back of the cards and the navigation buttons. The positioning is off (by a lot) but the cards look good and it's flipping smoothly. We do some bad math, but eventually get the exact spacing and positioning that we want for each card. We play around with the timing of the flip, set the on/off states for the navigation button and now it's feeling pretty good.

Seeing the pieces come together in the app shows me that there are a couple of images that needs fine tuning. I make changes as Roy begins working on the customizing screen and info screen. The customize screen is the place that allows people to type in whatever they want to show on the face of the card. We limit it to 25 characters... anything more than that and it writes over/outside of the card. We talk through this screen a bit more in detail. The interaction in each field, how the keyboard acts, and how we save before going back to the cards. We spend a bit of time in Interface Builder wiring up exactly how we want this page to look and act. The info page is completely optional, but we like to have it because it includes additional ways to reach us.

Wow, seven hours and fours large coffees later, we have a lot done, but there's still lots more to go. What we have now is an app that fires up; displays a default loading screen; gets people to a screen that shows three cards (back of the card showing); they can select any/all of the cards and the cards flips to show the front of the card; they can click on a button labeled "Try Again" to reset the cards; they can click on a button labeled "Customize" that opens a new screen; the "Customize" screen allows you to enter text into 3 separate fields with a max of 25 characters in each field; and you can get to the Info screen. We spend the last hour of the day together cleaning up code and discussing what we have left to accomplish tomorrow.

On Sunday, we meet at another coffee shop with free Wi-Fi. Coffee first. We feel like we're about 80 percent done before we start working again. The major work left for the day ahead is saving the custom text, displaying the custom text on the face of the card, and randomizing the text. We had additional functionality ideas, but we kept ourselves honest, and kept the scope creep to a minimum. One example of this was the method for storing/saving the custom text on each of the three cards. Roy could have created a sqlite database or used Core Data, but the easiest approach was to just use the built in standardUserDefaults object found in the NSUserDefaults class. Using this method stores the values to the app's settings just fine for our needs and saves us a lot of time.

While Roy is working on those items, it's a perfect opportunity for me to prepare some of the things we'll need later that day. When you submit an app to the App Store, it's not a simple upload of a file. Apple requires the following information for every app submission: Application Name, Application Description, Device Requirements, Primary and Secondary Category, Subcategories, Copyright, App Rating, Keywords, SKU Number, Application URL, Screen shots, Marketing Description, Support URL, Support Email Address, End User License Agreement, and Pricing / Availability.

So, I prep all the app submission information while Roy is busy coding away, first searching the App Store for similar apps and their names. We like "Stuck?" and luckily no one else is using it, so we go with that name. I create the app description, add some keywords, set the price and determine where we want to sell this app (just in the USA, certain countries or worldwide). Then I register a domain name (stuckapp.com) to be used for the application URL/support URL and linked it to a newly created Tumblr account. I also created the required support email address. The other items you'll want to prepare in advance are: screenshots (up to five), a large icon (512x512) and, if this is your first time submitting an app, any certificates/provisioning profiles.

Things tend to take longer than you expect, and even though we're basically finished with the app by early Sunday afternoon, we still spend a couple of more hours tweaking it and preparing everything for the App Store submission—cleaning code and fine tuning as we go along. We spend the majority of the day on one computer pushing pixels, formatting, and ensuring the timing and user interaction was exactly as we both wanted. After almost five hours of work on Sunday, we have the app that we both envisioned. We begin testing in the iPhone simulator and then on devices (both iPhone and iPod touch) for stability and functionality. Again, being a simple app, it was easy and quick to test.

After proving its stability, we decide to publish Stuck? to the App Store. My first attempt at publishing another app by myself took two days—attempt, fail, Google, attempt, fail, Google more, etc.—until it finally worked. But the second time around was much easier and faster. We copy/paste all the text prepared earlier and then added the screenshots and images. All in all, we have our app uploaded in about 15 minutes. At this point, we're excited, hungry and tired, but also quite proud that we completed a solid app over a weekend in a coffee shop.

We had our fingers crossed that the App Store would approve our app. And, as amazed as we were that we could finish an app over the weekend, the real surprise came after we submitted to the App Store. We submitted the app on Sunday evening. It changed status from Waiting for Review‚ to In Review, on Monday. On Tuesday, we received an email informing us that our app was Ready for Sale. Approved in two days! That has to be a record‚ especially before the holidays.

Especially after talking about building an app together for so long, like so many people reading this article, I must say, the fulfillment is immense. We finally did it.

TIPS FOR COMPLETING AN APP OVER A WEEKEND

1. You can't do it yourself. You can, but you wouldn't want to. Ideally, you want to partner with someone with a different, complementary set of skills. Partner with someone who knows and respects your area of expertise, but is even more confident and knowledgeable about their own skills. Good communication is implied in an effort such as this so you'll go through periods of rapid fire questions bouncing ideas off each other and then periods of silence as you work on separate tasks. There's a lot to get done and multitasking will be key.

2. Multitask. As suggested above, working with someone who complements your own skills allows you to multitask. What do I mean? For example, in the beginning, once you scratch out a wireframe of an idea, one person can begin coding - putting placeholder buttons and blocks into place. At the same time, the other person can create comps and then cut out each element to use when they get to the right stage. Also, at the tail end of the project, one person can wrap up the project and clean the code while the other prepares all the images and marketing copy for the App Store submission process.

3. Do at least one thing well. Unlike most desktop applications or web project, you have to remember that most good mobile apps fulfill a need that can come anywhere, any time. Your app idea doesn't have to be complicated, but good apps seem to do one or more of these things well:
- Solves a problem; - Is entertaining; - Serves a specific niche; - Engages the user; and/or - Takes advantage of the unique features of the iPhone.

4. Set goals and milestones. Whether your goal is speed to market, just to gain experience, or to build the best damn app that does (blank), clearly state your goals. Initially, it will help you focus on the areas that are important/critical for success. It will also help you later down the road as you face hard decisions about "must-have" features and "like-to-have" features. Remember, you can always issue feature updates so focus on the "must-have" items and do whatever is necessary to meet that goal.

5. Get a Dropbox account. For small- to medium-sized projects, you cannot beat Dropbox. It allows you to store, share and synchronize files with others. Stop sharing files back and forth on your USB memory stick. Get a Dropbox account and share files in real time. We abused the hell out of our free, shared Dropbox folder and it worked flawlessly. For larger projects, you might want to give GitHub a try.

6. Test. Test. Test. When you see the finish line, it's easy to gloss over the important step of testing your app. Test in your iPhone simulator, but also try to get your hands on an iPod touch and of course on an iPhone as well. Depending on the complexity of your app, you might want to create a test plan to make sure all the use cases and functional tasks are covered. The last thing you want is to have an app in the App Store that crashes or doesn't work as expected. You may never recover from all the ego-shattering feedback.

7. Understand the App Store submission process. Apple provides a PDF document detailing to submission process. But that document is only available for registered developers. If you've already registered, read that document thoroughly before you begin the upload process. It will give you a good idea of what's involved, but also what you'll need to prepare in advance. Apple also provides some good tips for app store submission and approval .

Thanks to David Quinlan for sharing his story and advice with us. If his narrative has compelled you to try out Stuck?, it's $1 at the App Store. And, of course, share war stories of your own long weekends writing apps in the comments. [Stuck]

The event looks like a proper announcement party, if not a full launch—demonstrations are on the itinerary, which is unsurprising given that Google has been handing out Nexus Ones left and right. (And that we've already played with one.) The meat of the announcement, presumably, will be about how they're going to sell it. We now know that the phone will be "supported" by T-Mobile, but we don't have a full picture of the rate plans, contract situation (if any) or, obviously, the price.

Also interesting: they've scheduled this right at the beginning of CES. To the tech press, most of whom will be bivouacked in Vegas by then, this is a minor annoyance. To everyone planning on making waves at the conference, this is more than an annoyance, it's a crippling blow: Google could steal the show at this year's CES, like Palm did last year. The difference is, they'll do it without even being there. [AllThingsD]

Price

It's $90, both MSRP and on Amazon.

Verdict

I generally don't like ambidextrous mice. SteelSeries says they spent three years researching the ergonomics on Xai, and while it sounds crazy, it worked. The form factor is so good it feels almost like an ergonomic mouse. Bucking the trend of growing fatter and more bulbous (have you seen some of Microsoft's mice lately?) for a more streamlined, average form factor, it's an amorphous enough shape that most people will like, and no one will hate (or, conversely, truly love). The one flaw is that you're going to hit the two periphery buttons that are on the opposite side of your thumb whenever you pick up the mouse to move it, so I wound up disabling them altogether.

Xai has a monochrome LCD carved into the bottom of its ass, which sounds excessive, but it's actually quite functional: You can adjust any setting, and any of your five on-board stored profiles (which includes macros, CPI settings, etc.), directly on the mouse (bye bye, crappy mouse software). It's supremely useful. Though if you're doing more than switching from one profile to the next, you'll want to wait until you're in between matches, otherwise you're gonna get killed since the whole process of saying, changing your CPI count to slow down or speed up the mouse can take up to 30 seconds.

An issue, though, is that you only have immediate access to two CPI settings—the triangle on top flips between two alternate CPIs per profile, meaning if you want to cycle through several different speeds, you've gotta turn the mouse over and switch to a whole different profile, so if you're an aggressive mouse speed switcher (like if you're a serious sniper), that could be a dealbreaker.

There is a certain amount of spec horseshit you're swallowing with all gaming mice, most commonly couched in terms of dots per inch. SteelSeries attempts to differentiate by more precisely referring to counts per inch, which is basically the same thing—the number of increments the mouse can read in one inch of movement. Real world—well in gaming anyway—it basically translates into how fast you can turn or move your cursor, which speeds up as you ramp up the CPI. As you can imagine, the speed gets progressively more pointless, with the current "standard" of 4000DPI being about as useful as tits on a boar. Xai's money spec, if you will, is that it processes 12,000 frames a second at 5,001 CPI at movement speeds of 150 inches a second using a 10.8MP "high definition" sensor.

Guess what? I didn't test that while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2 or Team Fortress 2, because no one moves their arm 150 inches a second. I will say, though, it tracks as well as—though not noticeably better than—any current generation gaming mouse, both on regular pads, and the 9HD special "HD" gaming pad SteelSeries has released for it.

If you want a gaming mouse you can use with either hand, I'd say you can't do better than Xai, though I might wait until it's a little bit cheaper. Also, I wish they'd drop the stupid, meaningless "HD" spiel. It's a mouse, not a TV.

Awesome ergonomics for an ambidextrous mouse
You can change any setting directly on the mouse
Changing settings on the mouse is a little slow
It's $90!
The HD thing is dumb

[SteelSeries]

The Dixau DX3 seems less cumbersome than the Dixau Text Scanner, which required a PC link-up. It also features text-to-speech to help with pronunciation, a microSD slot card, and stylus pen support. It's available now in Korea, but no word yet on if or when it'll hit the US. [Aving via Oh Gizmo!]

Each image links back to the original post containing the answer.

Hint: Once you find out what it is everything makes sense. Don't over think it. [Click to see the answer]


Doc Brown's flux capacitor? A blinged-out religious relic from the future? A Tron 2.0 prop? [Click to see the answer]


Jellyfish attacking an undersea monster? That would be cool, but the reality is much simpler, and more beautiful. [Click to see the answer]


Ready for some mystery? The answer is... [Click to see the answer]


The engine room of the next Enterprise? A glimpse at the heart of some new particle accelerator? The lens of a new US military laser? [Click to see the answer]


While it may look a bit like Galactica's CIC it's probably older than you are. [Click to see the answer]


It looks like a gigantic bird hunting device but it will actually let you become one with nature rather than destroy it. [Click to see the answer]


Some kind of circuit board close up? No. A nuclear power plant's control panel full of gauges and labels? No, that's not it either. [Click to see the answer]


No, that's not the moon... [Click to see the answer]


A shot from the Iron Man sequel? A costume from a 22nd-century staging of Swan Lake ? My new back tat? [Click to see the answer]


They aren't shiny radio dishes or deadly antimatter arrays in Area 51. [Click to see the answer]


A huge version of Darth Vader's light saber? Close, but not quite close enough. [Click to see the answer]


Is this a cosmic dover over the skies of California? Maybe the aliens are telling us to chill out. Or perhaps the Holy Ghost went to grab some In-n-Out. [Click to see the answer]


Is this the entrence to Jason Chen's secret lair where the Gizmodo magic happens? Maybe a place to lock up anyone with the swine flu? What on Earth requires a HAL 9000 to keep guard? [Click to see the answer]


At first glance I thought this was a NASA image of some sort, maybe a solar flare. I even wondered if I could get a high-res version in turn into a poster. Then I found out what it actually is. [Click to see the answer]


Tattoo under a powerful microscope? One near some feminine naughty bits? No. [Click to see the answer]


This is a tricky one. What's the QR Code on that flag our little Android friend is waving? [Click to see the answer]