Yes, it's time again for the TUAW Talkcast! We'll be live on our usual TalkShoe meeting place, podcast gods permitting, starting in just a couple of hours at 10 pm Eastern time.

It's been a modest week for news, so we'll be diving into the biggest shift in digital music since the Moog synthesizer: iTunes Match What's working well, what not so well, and what not at all? Come on by with your experiences, tips and tricks and we'll run them down -- plus the usual gang of reprobates will be there.

To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. We'll get started as usual around 10pm ET, which is 7pm PT.

If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Blink or X-Lite SIP clients. Talk to you tonight!

Talkcast tonight: One week of iTunes Match originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

No cited sources for this tidbit -- not even the usual "a person close to the production" -- but the UK's Now magazine sparked a rumor wildfire this week when it suggested that two veterans of NBC's ER are both interested in playing Steve Jobs for the upcoming film version of Walter Isaacson's biography. George Clooney and Noah Wyle (50 and 40 years old, respectively) are the two leading men in question; if you guessed Anthony Edwards and Goran Visnjic, sorry.

The younger Wyle has two advantages in this horse race; for one, he's played Jobs before in the TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. For another, he's younger -- if the producers hope to have a single actor portray the Apple co-founder from his Reed College & Cupertino garage days all the way forward through his life, they'll either need an actor in the middle of that range or some serious help from the CGI wizards at Pixar.

If I were the one casting this film, I'd forgo the high-wattage but aging Clooney and the been-there-done-that Wyle for something different. Maybe a performer with a legitimate claim to Jobs's Middle Eastern heritage (Alexander Siddig?) or a credible indie favorite with an edge (Sam Rockwell). Of course, if we want the perfect combination of Steve-esque looks and fan favorite, there's always Justin Long.

[hat tip to CNET]

The All-ER lineup: Clooney and Wyle look to (re)-tackle Steve Jobs film role originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Another day of the holiday season brings a whole lot of great downloads from the App Store. What we saw yesterday was mostly new releases, but here's a list of free games (and free updates) you might want to check out.

• A whole bunch of great games have gone free for the weekend, including Baby Monkey, Redlynx's 1000 Heroz, Battle Slugs, Burn the Rope Worlds, Crystal Soul, Gem King, and Ragdoll Blaster 2. Every single one of those is worth a download if you don't have them yet.
• More free apps: Legends of Alekham, Sarge, Rise of Atlantis, Doomsday 2: Legions of Hell, and AtlantiSub.
• There are also some really great new freemium titles to play; Cosmonauts is one, and I've really been enjoying Battle Nations (you can friend me in that one -- I'm "toucansamurai").
• Freemium title Tiny Tower has gotten a big update that adds missions, the ability to share stock with friends, and new floors and costumes to play with.
• Bungie's Crimson Steam Pirates is free on the iPad right now to celebrate the new 99 cent iPhone version, and there's a new Chapter 3 update with more content to play with.
• Zombie Gunship has added a new unlockable scenario, as well as full AirPlay support.
• Freemium title Rocket Chimp recently got an update for iCloud and iOS 5.

Once again, there's more there to play than you'll need all weekend. Things are picking up as this holiday season gets into swing. Stay tuned, because I'm sure we'll see lots more of this over the next few weeks.

Free games and big updates this weekend on the App Store originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Mobile credit card transaction company Square updated its iOS app this week to include several new features for merchants and customers. Perhaps the biggest update to Square 2.2 is the ability for merchants to reward their regular customers with customized loyalty programs. The app now allows a merchant to define what a "regular" customer is (ie: five visits a week, twelve visits a month, etc) and assign an automatic discount to their tab when they check out.

Another big feature of the latest update is the ability to print physical receipts. Now the app can communicate with receipt printers so the customer can walk away with printed proof of their purchase instead of having to rely on an email or text message. Plus, the app has added the ability to wirelessly open the merchants cash register when the merchant taps "tender" on the app -- a small but nice feature at, say, cafés where a person might pay by card but want quarters in exchange for a dollar bill to get a paper. The feature also makes it easier for the cashier to store paper coupons in their cash drawer as some cash registers will not open a drawer unless the transaction is tendered in-register. Additionally the 2.2 update also allows merchants to create a "tips" field on the checkout screen.

Square recently surpassed US$2 billion in payments per year an usage by both customers and merchants is sure to increase as more people become comfortable making transactions on their mobile devices. Square is a free download from the App Store.

Square adds customer loyalty, printable receipts originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tic Toc for Mac (US$4.99) from Overcommitted is a simple task timer that sits unobtrusively in your menu bar while you work. It's a great option for those who must monitor time spent on a task. There are no client records, project management features or support files. Simply create a task, start the timer and get to it. Here's how Tic Toc for Mac works.

Once installed, Tic Toc places an icon in your Mac's menu bar. Click it to create your first task. A slip appears. Give your task a name and click Save. The task then appears in a list which shows its title, most recent modification date and time spent on it over the last day and the last week. Click Start to begin timing.

The task's title appears next to the menu bar icon (you can turn that off). Finally, set the idle timer to watch for periods of inactivity between five minutes and one hour, so that Tic Toc won't record time accrued while you're away.

What's nice is that you can maintain several timers simultaneously (you double-dipper you) and export your data to XML or CSV. From there, simply import with your favorite financial software, project manager and so on.

Tic Toc isn't for everyone. For as much as it does, there's a lot missing. As I said, you won't build projects with Tic Toc or manage client information. But that's really not the point. Those looking for a simple, reliable task timer that works as advertised ought to consider Tic Toc. At five bucks, it's an easy investment.

Daily Mac App: Tic Toc originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While geared toward kids, National Geographic's Weird but True! is a treat for anyone with an iPad who enjoys perusing random trivia. Shake or swipe the iPad within the app to get a random interesting fact, then rate it based on how weird you think the fact is. You can bookmark facts you like, email them to someone or use a fact finder to look for something specific. You also can see weekly top weird facts as rated by users.

Weird but True! has 300 facts, and I can see future updates adding more. The type is large and easy to read, and the graphics are catchy and have the same professional quality as National Geographic magazine. If you want an educational trivia app for the iPad, Weird but True! is a good deal for US$1.99.

Daily iPad App: Weird but True! originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I tried the original GeoMaster app from French mobile developer VirtuaMobile a long time ago, but the HD version is well-suited to the bigger iPad screen. GeoMaster Plus HD is a geography quizzing game. It is simple enough, flashing text on the screen and asking you to tap the appropriate location. You battle against the clock but only to beat your times. This is a basic learning tool, and is fun yet relaxed, lacking really flashy or annoying elements. As such, it is perfect for kids learning geography. You can choose from states, countries, capitals and French departments, and players need only tap the appropriate spots on the screen to register answers.

GeoMaster Plus HD adds a few things for the iPad. The larger screen makes it somewhat easier to tap the maps. Still, you can pinch to zoom and swipe to pan around if you can't hit Rhode Island with your giant fingers. The graphics are crisp and attractive, and the app really nails the chalkboard look. The drawstring on the pull-down map (which accesses the Atlas) even interacts as you tilt the iPad. The Atlas is a basic factoid lookup tool for the geography used in the game. It isn't that detailed nor is it as fun to browse as the game is to play. There are much better atlas apps, so consider this a somewhat weak freebie.

Still, GeoMaster Plus HD is a fun, accessible and useful educational game for learning geography. Even at full price I can recall paying much more for flash cards which weren't nearly this enjoyable. Pick it up if you have a friend or relative who needs to learn some basic geography fast.

Daily iPad App: GeoMaster Plus HD originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yes, it's time again for the TUAW Talkcast! We'll be live on our usual TalkShoe meeting place, podcast gods permitting.

We're looking ahead to the holidays, to the new year, and to a future where we're not constantly being asked "Yeah, but does your iPad run Flash? Huh? Does it?" With Adobe's move to end development of the mobile Flash plugin and focus more resources on HTML 5 tools, the mobile web landscape changed this week (presumably for the better, but you'll let us know what you think, no?).

To participate, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. We'll get started as usual around 10pm ET, which is 7pm PT.

If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Blink or X-Lite SIP clients. Talk to you tonight!

Talkcast tonight: A flash in the (tablet) pan originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apple has released a third beta of iTunes 10.5.1 to members of its developer program. According to Apple, "iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 includes a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match, and is a required update for all subscribers to iTunes Match beta."

This beta update comes just after developers' iTunes Match libraries were wiped "as we prepare for the launch of iTunes Match," Apple said in an email to developers. This latest beta comes less than two weeks after the release of iTunes 10.5.1 beta 2, while 24 days passed between the release of the initial iTunes 10.5.1 beta and its successor.

Accelerating beta releases from Apple are usually indicative of an imminent public launch, but it remains to be seen whether 10.5.1 beta 3 has shaken out enough of the bugs to warrant more widespread release.

Once the service goes live to the public, users who pay US$24.99 per year will have access to virtually all of their music, anywhere, and anytime.

iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 released with more fixes for iTunes Match originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Today is indeed Veterans Day (and we do honor all of the men and women who have served for the United States of America -- thank you!), but the sales on the App Store this weekend haven't really been labeled as such. As far as I can tell, they're on sale just because. Nothing wrong with that!

• First and foremost, Scribblenauts is just 99 cents for the weekend. This one's a must buy -- it's an amazing game with a terrific iOS port that you should totally check out for that price. No question.
• EA's having a big sale with up to 80% off titles like Need for Speed, Dead Space, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
• Gameloft's sale is continuing, with lots of games, including Rainbow Six, HAWX, and the great Dungeon Hunter 2 down to just a buck.
• Little White Bear Studios' puzzler Tanzen is free for a limited time.
• Spirits for both iPad and iPhone is on sale for just a dollar.
• Street Fighter IV Volt is on sale for just 99 cents for the first time.
• Digital board game New World Colony is free to download.
• Kairosoft's Grand Prix Story is down to 99 cents as well.
• Contre Jour HD is just a buck -- this one is a really amazing title as well, grab it if you haven't yet.
• Peggle is also a dollar, as is Madfinger's really impressive looking Shadowgun.
• Finally, the non-HD version of World of Goo is just a buck.

Holy moly, there are some great sales in there. Scribblenauts and Contre Jour are definitely two you should grab now if you haven't, and some of those others are steals as well. Enjoy the weekend!

Weekend sale on lots of iOS games originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.