Screenfeeder is a gorgeous new app for the iPhone, iPad or TV (via Apple TV’s AirPlay), which displays your social feeds on the screen from services like Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and Dribble. But the interface doesn’t use columns like TweetDeck – it just flashes the updates as they arrive against an ever-changing background of images and colors. The idea may not be as practical for serious news watchers who follow thousands of accounts, sorted into multiple lists, but for the everyday user whose tweets flow a bit slower, Screenfeeder offers an attractive interface to view them in.

The app uses the background images and color schemes from your Twitter friends’ own Twitter profile pages to help you associate the tweets with who they’re from, and it even lets you track or mute hashtags as they appear by tapping on the link in the tweet. This latter feature could make the app ideal for conferences, perhaps, but the other tweets continued to flow even when you begin tracking a tag. So for that to work, you would have to use Screenfeeder from a dedicated Twitter account that wasn’t following anyone else. However, one of the app’s creators, Gernot Poetsch, tells me that in a future update, you’ll be able to deactivate all your streams and only show the hashtag streams.

For the Foursquare checkins, Screenfeeder displays a map in the background to show your friends’ vicinity, and its zoom level is dependent on how close you are to the checkin. Instagram and Dribble images are shown on top of a blurred backdrop copy of the same photo, which makes for a nice visual experience.

My only complaints are that you can’t use the app for viewing Twitter lists, and the updates sometimes seem too fast. Poetsch says that the minimun display time is five seconds – which seems like long enough – but with the ever-changing background images, which requires your brain to adjust to the new content and layout, it would be nice to slow the pace a bit. We’re told they might add a mechanism for slowing the pace in a forthcoming version.

The app was built by German design agency Edenspiekermann, and nxtbthng an app development shop in Berlin who makes the official Soundcloud iOS apps.

You can grab Screenfeeder from here in iTunes.

Whilst many Spotify users’ focus is on when the company will launch its new iPad application, the Swedish company has today announced that it has completely overhauled its Android application, incorporating support for Ice Cream Sandwich, a complete redesign, more social and other new features.

Spotify says that it’s still a work in progress but has made the app available to its users in the form of a beta download, rolling out its new slide-out navigation, support for users to visit their friends’ profile pages and playlists from their Android device.

Cover art and artist imagery has been given a visual boost too and will be displayed in high resolution, with Spotify also pushing its new related artist view (which the company says is available for the first time in its mobile apps).

If that wasn’t enough, the company says the overhaul hasn’t just affected the look and feel of the app, it is now a lot faster.

Moving on, Spotify will add further new features, including folders and Last FM scrobbling, before the final build is pushed live on Google Play.

The company hasn’t said if it will roll out an updated design for its iPhone application. As for its iPad application, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek can only say it’s coming “soon”.

➤ Spotify for Android (Beta)

Add Pinterest to the list of services that is in dire need of a native iPad app. I’m also standing in line for the official Spotify app for iPad, otherwise I’m going to use this unofficial one.

Today, Pinterest pushed a release for its iOS app, which fixes some nasty bugs it had with profiles. Also, the company has appeared to have solved problems with image quality, which has kept me from using it entirely.

This update includes important bug fixes such as:

Image quality issues.
Profile loading issuse.
and the old favorite “Pin not Found” dialog box.

Be the first to update and make your friends green with envy!

During an interview with the New York Times last month, now-CEO Ben Silbermann said that an iPad version was “in the works”. Unfortunately, today wasn’t the day for its debut.

We know that Pinterest has been on fire lately, and I even wondered out loud what it would look like if Amazon were to purchase the site to build an affiliate network. One thing we do know is that the site has a massive following, so an iPad and Android version of the service would be well-received to say the least.

➤ Pinterest for iOS

The amount of leaks, rumors and hype around the Samsung Galaxy S III are reaching iPhone-ish proportions. Consumers obviously want this phone. The latest set of alleged pics show a phone clearly born of Galaxy S pedigree but there’s no way of knowing if they’re the real thing.

The picture quality is of course a bit bad. It looks like it was taken with an iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab. Either way, the phone in question arguably matches up with the design cues of current Samsung devices albeit one a bit farther down the evolutionary trail.

It shows a larger screen — it might be bigger than the Galaxy Nexus — along with a front facing camera and slightly different bezel design. Gizmodo Brazil also notes that the upcoming phone will have a 12MP rear-facing camera — we heard 8MP previously.

So is this the real McCoy? I sadly have no idea, friends. As Jordan pointed out last week, there have been a large number of supposedly Samsung Galaxy S III leaks over the last few months and none of them look the same. That said, these pics look the most legit yet.

When Jonathan Izak graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, he decided to put his new degree in Computer Science to very good use. In an effort to help his 10-year old autistic brother Oriel communicate and learn new tasks, he developed a new iPad app called Autismate to try and simplify the process.

I got the chance to speak briefly with Izak, and he told me that Autismate came about because existing hardware solutions available on the market weren’t getting the job done.

“They’re big, bulky, and expensive,” he said. “Some of them can be between $9,000 and $12,000, and provide only limited functionality.” So what makes Izak’s solution any better?

The big thing, he tells me, is that it strives to dial down the navigation process into something more manageable. His little brother Oriel, like many people with autism, can have difficulty when it comes to making generalizations and lumping things into categories. That can be problematic by itself, but other apps and devices meant to facilitate communication do exactly that — they lump concepts into categories like emotions, actions, desires, objects and expect the user to sift through them all.

Autismate takes a slightly different approach. Instead of laying out a grid of categories that when pressed yield sentences and sentiments, Autismate lets teachers and caretakers define their own spaces — think My Room, or the Kitchen — and then layer actions on top of the image in the form of brightly colored icons.

Tapping on an icon in the Bathroom space could pop up a video demonstrating how to brush one’s teeth for instance, while an icon in the Kitchen space may bring up images of foods the user may want to eat. The app includes 12,000 usable images and voice recordings right out of the gate, and all it takes to add more is a few seconds of fiddling within the app. People can even record multiple variations of the same sentiment so the user can get a feel for generalizing similar statements.

Those spaces are also tied to physical locations thanks to some thoughtful use of the iPad’s GPS, so the My School space will only appear when the device itself is within range.

Beyond easing communication, Izak’s plan with Autismate was to help people like his brother get comfortable with performing everyday tasks. As he sees it, the more comfortable they are, the more responsive they tend to be with others, even if it only manifests in small actions like eye contact.

Priced at $49 in the App Store, Autismate may seem a bit steep compared to some of the other options available, but it certainly seems to be proving itself in the field. While Oriel seems to be getting plenty of mileage out of Autismate, Izak has already managed to get the app into use at a handful of autism-oriented schools in New York.

Following the publication of a leaked screenshot, Spotify has confirmed the long-awaited iPad app is definitely on the way.

Speaking at a not-so-special 'special announcement' of a marketing link-up which will see Coca-Cola-branded playlists, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirmed the pending iPad arrival.

iPad 3
Apple new iPad 3 review
Does the new iPad have an overheating problem?
Best new iPad apps

With Ek prepared for questions about the newly-minted Coke deal, the audience instead quizzed the Swede about Apple's tablet, but other than to say it is "in the works" there were no further details.

A full iPad overhaul

Monday's leak showcased a layered app that looked more like Twitter for iPad than Spotify for iPhone.

The attractive tabbed design appears to show easy navigation between albums, playlists and songs, while also integrating the service's relatively new social focus through Facebook.

A Spotify for iPad app has proved somewhat of a holy grail for Apple tablet owners.

While the two-year wait has been somewhat puzzling considering the company's race to embrace other platforms, it looks like we won't have to wait much longer.

iOS: The warm weather is upon us in these parts, and that means higher energy bills as we struggle to keep our homes cool and comfortable. If you're looking for a way to save some money on your power bill this spring and summer, Verde is a free app for the iPad that takes into account how much you pay for electricity, and then runs the numbers for you to let you know how much you can save by making small—or large—changes in your home and habits. More »

As Spotify continues its march to becoming a $1 billion-revenue company, the music streaming service is launching a battery of new products to increase the amount of time that people spend on the site: There is an iPad app that could launch as soon as tomorrow; and there is the ability to play Spotify tracks on third-party websites, launched last week. Another development in Spotify’s stickiness has been the rise of third-party, web and mobile apps, which have been planting themselves on its platform and growing in use.

One of the more popular has been Soundrop: a jukebox-style app coming out of Oslo, Norway that lets users create playlists or listen to “rooms” of music created by others, adding their selections to the mix — similar to Turntable.fm, except that it works in more countries (everywhere that Spotify does; currently 13 markets compared to Turntable’s U.S.-only limit).

It’s not only users who are finding Soundrop popular: Inge Andre Sandvik, the co-founder and CEO, says the company is weeks away now from closing its first round of funding from “leading VCs.”

Soundrop’s growth is what first caught my eye: In January after being live for 20 days, Soundrop reported 2.4 million tracks played. By February, that number rose to 15 million. And now Soundrop tells me that in March the number more than doubled, to 34.2 million tracks played. Inge Andre Sandvik, the co-founder and CEO of Soundrop, points out that March alone saw more tracks played than Turntable had in a period of three months.

The company is hoping to better those numbers yet again with the launch of a new version of its app, out this week. New features include the ability to search for a specific room; find rooms where your Facebook friends are; create your own private rooms; a new layout; and the ability to edit and bookmark rooms once created.

Much like Instagram’s early bet to develop only for iOS until it got things really right, Soundrop has put its money on Spotify rather than extend to work with other music services.

For now, Soundrop’s service offers a way of getting around one of the big opportunities/challenges with Spotify: You can play whatever you want, but as Sandvik puts it, “That is also part of the criticism of Spotify: it’s just too difficult [for most users] to get started.”

And even among those already using the service — those who Sandvik calls “heavy music listeners” — there are already tendencies to be less adventurous. There is apparently enough music already on Spotify to listen continuously for the next 100 years and still not hear the same track twice. But a recent study at the University of Oslo found that even with a wide catalog, most people stick to a very narrow selection of music on services like Spotify.

In addition to Sandvik, other founders include Ali Sabil, CTO; Johann Prieur, running product management; and Ole André Vadla Ravnås who is responsible for client development. Their backgrounds span the range of Norway’s tech scene: they are ex-Opera (the mobile browser that could), ex-Tandberg (now Cisco), and the CEO, Inge Andre Sandvik, sold his last company (Mobile CTI, a mobile search and apps company) to the country’s biggest carrier, Telenor.

These four have been funding the company up to now but Sandvik says Soundrop currently has offers on the table from “leading VCs” and is likely to close its first round “within weeks.”

Soundrop also has other plans on the horizon that point to some interesting ways of combining music, social and a user’s physical location.

Soon, users will be be able to find “music rooms” based on their physical location. Why? The plan, says Sandvik, is twofold: to let users listen to music from other locations, and to extend the market of legally played music to public places.

“We have reason to believe that the license model for streaming music players will change and that it will be legal to use a streaming music player in bars, cafes, restaurants and shops. Soundrop is a perfect tool for all of these businesses to engage their guests and customers with. You can imagine checking in with your phone to your favorite cafe and be able to either vote on the music that is upcoming or add your favorite tracks.”

And just as other companies like Foursquare want to offer data management to retailers, so plans Soundrop: “We will offer professional customers a CRM tool that they can use to understand who their customers are and a tool for them to communicate with them.” He says this is the same tool that Soundrop offers labels and artists so they can understand more about who their fans are and how they can build stronger relationships with them.

The other area where Soundrop hopes to create revenue, especially as it continues to add users, is in the area of contextual music ads. “More recommendations of tracks than ads,” explains Sandvik, with the ads relevant to the type of music in each playlist room.

In what I suspect will be an increasing trend, cartoonist Bill Amend has released three “packs” of his popular FoxTrot comics for the iPad. He built the books by himself using iBooks Author and proceeds go to the Help Bill Amend Eat Food Fund (I suspect).

He’s selling three titles including a special issue — number 3.14 — featuring geek strips. Each book contains 100 strips and is optimized for the new iPad.

Amend is another in the long line of legitimately popular artists self-releasing their work. Jim Gaffigan just released a comedy special on his own and I expect others to give this a try as the means of production is placed back into the hands of the artists.

You can pick up the books in the iBooks store for $1.99 each.

This week on the Ask Lifehacker podcast, we're learning how music affects your ability to work, getting great deals on mobile apps, and protecting your passwords on public Wi-Fi networks. Also, Facebook blows a billion dollars on Instagram, terms of service contracts are no longer the ironclad documents companies wanted them to be, and a whole lot more. More »