Jul 27
MoggyAngry Birds, App Store, iPhone/iPod touch
Currently (as of 27th June ‘10 in version 1.4.0), there are 14 Golden Eggs to find in Angry Birds. This is comprised of 10 new levels, and 4 other eggs.
Screenshots for each are coming soon!
1. Tap a few times on the sun on the main menu level selector.
2. Press the “i” button on the main menu, and watch the credits. At the end is a golden egg.
3. Within any level, go to the help screen. Tap through the different types of birds, and a golden egg is at the end.
4. Level 1-8, tap the treasure chest a few times.
5. Level 2-2, use one of the blue birds to destroy the beachball.
6. Complete all the levels in Episode 1 (Poached Eggs) with 3 stars. This will earn you a golden egg.
7. Level 4-7, zoom out, and use the yellow bird to hit the egg which is hiding in the top right of the screen.
8. Level 5-19, zoom out and hit the egg which is hiding high in the air above the rocket.
9. Complete all the levels in Episode 2 (Mighty Hoax) with 3 stars. This will earn you a golden egg.
10. Level 6-14, using the ‘boomerang’ green bird, burst the gold coloured balloon in the bottom right.
11. In the Episode 3 level selector, scroll as far left as possible, as to the right of the Theme 8 levels is a golden egg.
12. Level 8-15, zoom out, and you’ll see the golden egg hiding beneath the catapult on the bottom left of the screen. Use a ‘boomerang’ bird to get it.
13. Complete all the levels in Episode 3 (Danger Above) with 3 stars. This will earn you a golden egg.
14. Level 9-14, zoom out and hit the golden egg hiding underneath the yellow helmet on the far right. See this post.
Jul 25
MoggyAngry Birds, App Store, Mobile Phones, iPhone/iPod touch
Golden Egg 14 is found within the latest Angry Birds update with Theme/World 9.
Head over to level 9-14. The level looks like this:
Zoom out:
The golden egg is found underneath one of those yellow helmets to the far right of the screen. The picture above shows you where it is.
Use the green ‘boomerang’ bird to hit it, as the two red ‘fat’ birds can’t travel that far.
And this is the 14th Golden Egg level:
If you are struggling to complete it, hit the structure next to the second horizontal wooden pole up on the left of the structure. That should take the whole thing down.
Enjoy!
Not a clue what this post is on about? Angry Birds is a hugely popular game for iPhone, Nokia Ovi phones and the iPad. The game contains a number of hidden ‘golden eggs’ or the gamer to find, unlocking hidden bonus levels – typically with impressive designs! The first 9 golden egg locations can be found out here.
Jun 24
MoggyMac, Software, iPhone/iPod touch
The iBooks app is something I feel the iPhone has needed for a long time, and in this how-to post, I’ll be showing you how to make your own PDF iBook’s for the iPhone.
Ok, the first thing you’ll want to do is create your TEXT (.txt) file. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to start off by using a pre-made eBook (To Kill A Mockingbird) that can be downloaded from this website.
Open the file in Pages.
Once the document has opened, the first thing you want to do is open the Inspector panel. If you don’t have it open, use shortcut: Option + Command + I
We need to change a few things here. Observe the BEFORE and AFTER stages here:
The highlighted areas are those that need changing. Firstly, press the Page Setup button. This will bring up the dialog box below:
Select the Paper Size drop-down, and choose 3 1/2 x 5 (it’s near the top of the long list)
Hit OK and that’s that.
Going back to the Inspector window, change all the values of 2.54cm in the four margins boxes, to 0.5cm.
Lastly, uncheck the two tick-boxes next to Headers and Footers.
Now that is done, go to the main document and use these two shortcuts: Command + A, which will select all the text in the document, and then Command + T to bring up the Font dialog box.
The default font for .txt files is Helvetica, which is okay, but I prefer changing it to something more readable, something like Georgia. Also note that I have bumped down the font size to 10:
That’s the formatting done!
Your document should look something like this…
All that remains now is to export it, and sync it to your iPod touch / iPhone. To export, go to the File menu, and select Export…. This will bring up this dialog box. Select PDF, best image quality, and Next…
Save it to somewhere (it doesn’t matter where!) on your Mac, and then go ahead and drag the PDF file into iTunes. If you have the iBook’s app, next time you plug in your iOS device, the PDF will automatically sync. Done!
This is what it the book will look like on your iPhone:
May 29
MoggyApp Store, Apple, Technology, iPad, iPhone/iPod touch
Given that Apple announced the iPad in January, and it is now late May, and the shiny device has only just reached the UK, I am pretty irritated with Apple’s incompetence there. Despite this, I am very happy to finally see the iPad, and delighted that people can actually go use one, rather than just talk about them.
I have been rather quiet about my opinions on the iPad. Since it was announced, I have always said that the iPad has huge potential when the developers get their hands on the SDK, and will only do significantly well with the public at the right price. Now we can finally review those two things. Horrah!
I’ll start with addressing the many things people dislike about the iPad.
- Lack of flash support – In my opinion, this is something that I, if anything, am glad about. Flash is buggy and becoming a dead technology.. and I congratulate Apple in bravely progressing forward with the move. From a personal point, I honestly don’t use many flash sites these days – even I, as a web designer – don’t use flash in my designs.
- “Too much like an iPhone, just larger” – They have the same software operating system (to an extent), but thats about it. If anything its probably more like a MacBook than a iPhone. When you look closer – they are worlds apart, mostly because of the interaction element, just you wait to touchscreen full, non-mobile websites on the utterly gorgeous 9″ screen.
- “Not a computer” - I’ve said this time and time again. That’s because it’s not meant to be a computer. It’s a multimedia device, and in that, there is no need for USB ports, physical keyboards, massive speakers, etc. Too right, if it’s software was not iPhone OS, but Mac OSX and designed to function as a computer, then yeah, I’d be annoyed… but it’s not a computer!
- No phone function – well what are you going to do!? Hold the damn thing up to your ear? Yeah, you’ll look cool. If you are really desperate… there is a Skype app for you.
Talking of apps, I am very pleased to see some great names out there. My favourite iPhone game, Angry Birds, now has an Angry Birds HD for iPad. Newspapers such as the Guardian (free) and Murdoch’s Times (a tenner a month) are making their content available on the iPad. And this free IMDb app, sums up the whole 9″ touchscreen format, and I think if developers go down this route, the iPad has a very promising future.
But there are flaws, and annoyances. I am annoyed about the lack of camera, I would have liked to hear of better sound quality, and I am irritated by Apple’s constant going on about “HD movies on the iPad”. The iPad has a terrible 4:3 screen resolution of 1024×768, when the minimum for a HD quality video is 1280×720. Not good enough, Apple! Only say that when you give the iPad 1280×960 screen, please.
But my biggest gripe of all, the one that really matters – the price. Thanks to the clueless American mortgage lenders who initially started this whole mess, the dollar to the pound is terrible, and while many thought my price predictions were too high, they were for the most part, pretty accurate (give or take a few tenner’s). The cheapest iPad will set you back £429 (which is roughly the same as an iPhone 3GS on pay as you go) – and If you don’t already have an iPhone, I know for sure which I’d get first.
So would I get one? Put it this way – If I was given one, I would be delighted, use it to it’s potential and love it. If I had to buy one at my own expense from hard earned cash? Not at that price I wouldn’t…
And after all, this summer I intend to buy myself a new iMac. Money needs to be saved for that!
Mar 07
MoggyApple, Keynote Event, Rumor, iPhone/iPod touch
In today’s strain of boredom, I had a look at Apple’s iPad pricing, and decided to work out what the most probable prices for the device will be when it gets released here in “late April” (cheers, Steve, you promised us late March back in January).
For starters, these are the confirmed US Dollar prices in America:
And then, I did a bit of Maths.
- Firstly, taking a direct exchange price into GBP at today’s exchange rate
- Then adding 17.5% VAT
- Then adding an average inflation based on other Apple products and their UK pricing
- Then making a logical decision of UK price points.
You can see all my working out in this PDF document.
And then, I finally came to these 6 price points. Lets see how close I am when the real prices get released 
Update (9th April ‘09): It’s been a month, and since then, the exchange rate has changed (for the worse!) from 0.661 to 0.651, meaning the prices could be a bit more that this. Having said that, I doubt it will make too much difference…!
Feb 03
MoggyMe, Mobile Phones, Technology, iPhone/iPod touch
In this post, I want to summarise the phones that I have had over the past few years. It’s amazing to see how things change over time!
Nokia 6100
This was my first ever phone. I was so excited! It was a hand-me-down from my mother, and after slipping in a cheap T-Mobile (just after they had changed from one2one!) pay as you go sim card – I was on my way! The phone was pretty decent too – colour screen, games, endless ringtones, etc. I was in love… until it dropped into a water bucket, and died.
Nokia 5140 (blue)
After my incident with the 6100, I decided to get the 5140. It had just been released, and was really popular because of it’s really durable body and strength. It was also marketed out at people who enjoyed outdoor activities (which, incidentally, I was at the time…). In terms of features, it had basically everything the 6100 had, but with a camera. I could only get the phone on the Orange network, so I got a new PASG sim from them.
Sony Ericsson K750i (silver)
After a good few years at Orange, we switched to Vodafone because they had a great business plan deal on that would suit the whole family – incidentally, we are still on the same contract today. Because of the new contract, we could pick virtually any phone, and naturally, I went for the best at the time – the 750i. I was mostly lured in my the insane 2MP camera (the best in 2005!), but about half way through the 18 month contract, the phone turned from being the best thing in the world, to the worst. Everything, and I mean… everything, just stopped working correctly – and I had to put up with this for at least another 8 months!
Nokia N95
This was the phone someone would dream about… and after becoming sick of Sony Ericsson’s dire reliability, I went back to Nokia and got wowed by the flippy screened N95. The specs and details with the phone simply were awesome – but it was just simply too big. It was actually a brick, the same materials used to build houses… I had an 18 month contract with the phone, but got so irritated half way through, I shoved the SIM card into my at-the-time girlfriends old phone, which I think was a Nokia 6000 series phone, similar to the 6100 and 5140 – but a bit weird looking!
Samsung Tocco
The third phone I got with Vodafone on the same contract was the Samsung Tocco. This thing was pretty nice – although it was a pity that the touchscreen wasn’t as responsive as I had hoped. This was my first touchscreen phone, and I was amazed by the concept… but let down a little. I had this little over a year, and just two weeks out of warranty, accidentally took it with me in my wetsuit when I went surfing. Not good!
Vodafone 521 (white)
Phone-less on holiday was becoming hell, so I had to buy myself a new handset quickly, and preferably cheap! I owned an iPod touch at the same time, and didn’t need any other functions other than the ability to send messages and make phone calls! The cheapest phone Vodafone had in their shop, was this, the 527 – a Sagem phone branded ‘Vodafone’ to match the network. It was all of £25. Why so cheap? Well, I’ll just put it out there for you – THIS IS THE WORST PHONE IN THE WORLD, EVER.
And that concludes my phone history. Until a few weeks time, when I’ll be getting an…
Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB (White)
The most epic phone ever. But my question is this – now that I’ll be switching to the iPhone, will I ever move away to another phone company? Or will I be iPhone outed for the rest of my life!?
Jan 24
MoggyApple, Keynote Event, Mac, Rumor, iPhone/iPod touch
On Wednesday, Apple will be holding a media event in San Francisco to release a “new creation”. It’s very exciting news in the world of Mac-fans and alike, they all have one thing in mind… a shiny new touchscreen device from Apple… somewhere between the iPhone and a Mac.
It sounds pretty cool… but I’m not so convinced.
First of all… every single tablet that has ever been released has been, to say the least, shit. Low battery life, big bulky things, little point or use, etc. Then there is the eBook, such as the Amazon Kindle… and every single one of those has been… er… shit, and lacking the functionality a standard computer would have.
Next, what will the point of this device actually be? There is nothing I can’t do with the aid of my MacBook Pro and my iPod touch. Both have internet. Both have email. Both have Mac applications and App Store apps, respectively. The thing that differs, really, is the hardware. My MBP is 15″ in size, well beyond 4 times the size of the 3.5″ we seen in the iPhone. I also have a physical keyboard, mouse, trackpad, webcam, etc. It just makes more practical sense, so long as you don’t mind the size, to have a laptop… and if size is the problem, a netbook. The success of the iPhone and the iPod touch is because of the ecosystem and environment of apps, touchscreen, 3G networking and elegant looking iPod, all in a pocket.
My worry is that because of the “ecosystems”, as I have labelled it, around the Mac and the portable iPhone/iPod… is there really room for another ecosystem like that in the middle? This brings me on to what sort of operating system this device will run. So far, people have said either iPhone OS or Mac OS X. Of those two, I would much, much prefer OS X, but it seems I am not fitting the majority of opinion. Though I think we will see a clever integration of both. It makes me wonder if there will be an almost “dumbed down” version of OS X for this device – but still with support for Mac applications, or even iPhone apps. I wouldn’t like to see the latter, personally, as screen resolutions, mixed up features, etc. will all go horribly wrong along the line somewhere.
Oh god, then don’t get me started on the name. iSlate? iPad? I’d rather not… I’d much prefer the “Apple Slate” or “Apple Pad”… since the “i” has been so overused… and the Apple TV device doesn’t have an obligatory “i”.
So what actually are we going to see? Well, who knows. I guess we’ll find out in under 96 hours time. Will I be watching? Probably. Will I be amazed? Possibly…
And here is one of my past tweets to sum up what I expect…
Update: Ok, it seems like I won’t be getting my full OS X, judging by what everyone is saying… bugger. Therefore I will bet any money that it will run a more advanced iPhone OS with a compatible version of iWork and iLife on the device. It’s either that… or the tablet will be a flop.
Jan 11
MoggyApple, Me, Software, iPhone/iPod touch
Today was mostly spent trying to simply… work… my iPod touch. It’s a year old now, I’ll give it that, and it has been through a lot… but it should still work fine.
Firstly, it died while I was listening to a great tune on my new bad ass headphones. The iPod then decided to rid itself of the volume controls… and the speaker wasn’t working. No music at all. Turns out it thought it was connected to an iPod dock and trying to work likewise. Plugging it into a computer then did something… shock, it worked, only to find it didn’t every time I unplugged it. I managed to fix the problem by tricking it when restarting the device, unplugging it in the process.
So I’m on my way home, and the next problem occurs. Volume. The device is down in my pocket, and I reach down to press the exterior button for up-volume, only to find it goes up… way up. It maxes out, and every time I tried to pull down the volume down it just went back up again. Rather irritated, I rebooted it again.. for about the 5th time today.
When I’m actually at home, something bizzare happens. Turns out after and during all of this, the speaker built into the device wasn’t working. Not just in the music functions, everything, all the apps. After a bit of wondering, it turns out something was wrong with the headphone socket… it was trying to tell me headphones were plugged in all the time, even when it had the headphones unplugged.
Numerous reboots, syncs, charges and restores later… it stayed completely the same. FML.
At this point, I gave up and upgraded the iPod software. Turns out it had 3.0 and 3.1.2 was available.. which I’ve now upgraded to… and surprise surprise, everything now works!
This post is not a ‘FML’ post, nor a dig at Apple or the product… but I am actually offended when the iPod, a lifeless inanimate object tries to tell me I’m doing something wrong.. like that theirs a dock connected. Or my headphones are plugged in. NO, they are not. Now, fuck off and get working again.
Sep 09
MoggyApple, Keynote Event, iPhone/iPod touch
I am SICK and TIRED of logging onto my Twitter page or YouTube account and simply seeing an endless stream of bollocks about a coming up Apple event. Ok, I know I used to get excited about events like these in the past, so I’m not going to take the piss, but that was the old Apple that used to introduce Mac computers at Media events. Now it’s just the iPhone, something about the App Store, and for this media event today – iPod’s.
I’m happy that Apple is a strong company and whatever they may release today will be some cool new product (probably a new iPod touch and iPod nano with cameras judging by rumours…), but seriously, WHY THE FUCK ARE WE GETTING SO EXCITED.
A NEW IPOD TOUCH. WOW. As you already know, I already have one, and I have no intentions of getting a new one. This is not to mention that every other Apple devotee around the world probably has either an iPod touch or an iPhone… so they don’t actually need a new one. People have to realize that what Apple is announcing today is a big announcement for the music industry, not for Apple fans – unless of course you are brand new to the Apple world, and you want to buy yourself an iPod… but, for the most part, those people are found few and far between.
So when, I see people tweeting “I’m looking forward to the Apple event today”… and this is not a stab at anyone in particular, it’s bollocks, you’re not! You have an iPhone already, and none of these iPod’s you’re gunna buy. You are only excited because you are attached to Apple that much, and to you, I say, get a life.
My opinions. As I say, this post, and all my other posts are aimed at absolutely noone in particular, this is just me voicing my opinion. If you disagree, feel free to comment – I won’t mind at all.
Feb 22
MoggyApp Store, iPhone/iPod touch
Hey guys,
Many of you iPhone & iPod touch users out there will have heard of the app X-Plane, released in September of last year. It is a really awesome flight simulator app that allows users to fly planes using the built in accelerometers and touchscreen. However, with every first app, there was a couple of bad things – cost, for example, it’s £5.99 here in the UK which is a lot for an app. The simulator, too, was a bit sluggish, had reports of crashing, limited number of flying locations and only 4 relatively unheard of aircrafts.
Well, the folks down at Laminar Research, decided to fix some of the issues customers were having by releasing two awesome new apps just before Christmas:
X-Plane-Airliner, and X-Plane-Helicopter. Both are much the same as the original, but, these versions have:
- More commonly known aircraft (in ‘Airliner’ you get the choice of a Boeing 777, 747, 787 and an Airbus A380, while in ‘Helicopter’, you get helicopters… obviously… which is cool)
- LOADS more airports
- Larger flying areas
- And, most importantly, at half price. Thats from $9.99 to $4.99, or £5.99 down to £2.99 where I am.
The app looks awesome. As a result, as soon as I heard the news of the app becoming available, I raced to the app store, read a couple of reviews, brought the Airliner version, and downloaded it.
The app is brilliant. After a couple of months of playing, I can safely say I’ve had no problems with it crashing or anything. The gameplay is fantastic – the accelerometer is very precise, and it’s got all the features of a desktop flight simulator, such as MS Flight Simulator X. I am also getting frequent free updates that are adding new features such as new locations, new planes and other fixes.
More recently, Laminar Research have also produced a fourth app to the X-Plane series, X-Plane-Extreme, that focusses of precise mobility and flying with aircraft such as a B-1 bomber and the F-22 Raptor. On release of this application, the prices of all four games were moved to £5.99 or $9.99 – Annoying for those who wanted to get in on the half price versions.
Later guys.
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