Tag Archives: App Store

News Reading with Doppler – FREE until July 20th, 2010

I like using a NewsReader on my iPhone (or iPod Touch) and one of my favorites is Doppler. It’s easy to use and it synchronizes with Google Reader so it makes off-line reading easy to do. So this means that when you read an article it marks it as read on Google so you don’t end up reading it again.

doppler.175x175-75.jpgIt caches all your RSS feeds for off-line reading so it’s pretty fast when you’re going through the news since it cached it in advance; but this means you do click to click on the link a minute before you’re ready to read since it doesn’t download in the background. I usually tap it before I leave the house since it’s faster on the WiFi, even if I don’t read it soon, it’s cached most of the recent articles so that when I do sync over 3G it’s already got most of the new news…

TIP: When configuring to sync with Google it lists all your individual feeds at the top of the list, but if you scroll to the bottom of the list you can choose your “folders” as defined in Google Ready

I’m mentioning this software today because it’s free for download until July 20th, 2010. It’s worth the money, but free is better, isn’t it?

Photo Friday: The Coast

This is for Photo Friday and this week’s theme is “The Coast”. This is actually just a series of photos (7 or 8) taken with my iPhone 3gs and stitched together with the AutoStitch Panorama app.

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This photo was taken north of St. Pete Beach, FL. Possibly Medina?. Click it for a 1200 pixel wide version. A few stitching problems due to everyone not standing still but still a nice photo considering I was shooting into the sun during the evening.

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The second photo is the same photo, but just before cropping.

Everyday Looper App

I don’t even know how to describe the Everyday Looper application for the iPhone. It lets you makes loops live and you sing along with them. I can’t sing along, but maybe you can.everydaylooerapp.png

Hmmm… Here’s a better description: Remember in elementary school when you sang “Row, Row, Row your boat” and someone else would chime in so they were singing the previous sentence at the same time? This seems like it would let you do that, but with yourself (and do it live). If you still don’t get it, just watch the video.

Direct link to the video.

Looks like a complicated interface to learn but a very impressive video! I do not have this app but I thought it the video was very cool

Scrabble for the iPhone: Now with PUSH! – Review

If you’ve thought about Scrabble for the iPhone (or iPod Touch) it might be time to try it, if you play Scrabble on Facebook it’s past time to try it!

scrabble-push-sm.pngI’ve always been a Scrabble fan and on my Palm Treo I used to play Scrabble all the time. While this version by Electronic Arts is excellent, I think the Palm OS was a little better; I think because the stylus made it easier to play, on this version they zoom you in and then you have to zoom back out (which works much better than it sounds).

They advertise that you can play with someone on the same WiFi network, but that’s no big deal to me, if they’re that close, just set up a board! The amazing part of this program is how it interfaces with Facebook, you can have multiple games going and it keeps track of them all and you can invite people to play and all that stuff, it works great. I did not play Scrabble on Facebook previously but I liked the idea of playing someone from a distance. I haven’t challenged anyone that I haven’t played in real life, but I will. The problem is that I don’t spend that much time on Facebook it’s inconvenient to keep checking to see if it’s my turn?

scrn_iphone_scrabble02.jpgFor a while the game has been popping up with a tip saying it works with push notifications (but it didn’t). I’ve only been using the app for a week and the latest version (that I think came out yesterday) now supports push when it’s your turn. At least when it’s your turn on Facebook they’ll send a push alert to your iPhone or iPod touch (I’m not sure about playing someone on the same WiFi network). I also noticed if that it’s alerted you that it’s your turn when you launch the app it takes you right to the game board!

This is great but it’s a little odd, there are three kinds of push notifications: alerts (text pop-up), sound and badges (alters the app icon, see below) but they chose to not to implement the text alert; while they may have had a reason to think you don’t need them you do have on/off options for all the different notifications. I can see how it would be overwhelming for those who are playing 20-50 games at a time, for me, I’d like the text alert since if I don’t hear the sound (not likely) I have to keep peeking at the app icon/badge (which is way better than having to launch the application). The push alerts aren’t perfect (they don’t always show up), but I’m think that might be an Apple thing and not a Scrabble problem.

scrabble-badge-notification.pngI’ve not played with the computer much, but some people complained that it’s too easy (the Palm OS version had 3-5 levels) and I’ve had no one to play with on WiFi but I suppose it’s probably similar to Facebook play.

Available on SCRABBLE

Fring does one-way video Skype. The WRONG way.

So Fring lets you do video calls via their Skype connection. The software is free so it’s worth trying out.

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The problem is you can only receive video. They say it’s because the iPhone doesn’t have a camera on the front, but I’d rather send video to the other person. I’ve got the portable device, I’m probably somewhere more interesting then they are, right? (Unless they are on their phone too).

I could still be filming where I am while watching their face (or whatever their camera is pointed at) so it seems silly to me. Or send my video when I’m talking (and vice-versa).

The other downside is that it only works over over WiFi, not cellular (no surprise there) another reason to consider a MiFi instead of paying AT&T for tethering.

Here’s the direct link.

Two other things:
If Apple has the API open, it seems like they could check the sensor that detects if the phone is near or away from you (the one that checks if the phone is by your face and turns the screen off) and figure if the camera is facing you or away.

The Fring App uses my BlueTooth headset (which also does A2DP) for sound effects but when a call starts it only uses the regular phone part.

CoPilot Live GPS iPhone app for North America – Review

So I tried out CoPilot Live North America GPS turn-by-turn software. First off let me point out it’s on sale for $24.99 through December (and then it goes back to $34.99) and it appears to include free quarterly updates (with no time limits listed as of today). Secondly please note that North America is defined as USA and Canada. FYI, if you don’t have an iPhone and you’re hoping to get one for the holidays, buy it now! It should work later just fine (at least all the sale and free apps I bought before I purchased worked fine.

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It’s awesome! You can use it in spoken turn-by-turn mode with or without the street names, only one voice (Frank) does the full street names, but I don’t like that on GPS devices (I get long names like “turn right at next exit Grand River / US-5 / 10 mile road”) and it’s too long for my attention span so I use Lisa (or John). In short mode I think it should speak the highway exit numbers though, it actually sounds truncated the way they do it.

It’s really easy to pick addresses from your address book and save as favorites, it did give me a little problem with my home address the way I had it in my address book but not any of my others (I’m not sure why). If you’re typing in an address it’ll let you use zip codes which I like. You can also search by business name (such as Detroit Science Center) and it’ll add to favorites or even make a call for you. It’ll also show routing for cars, walking or biking. It’ll let you play back your tracks, which would be great for hiking but this has got to eat your battery though.

copilotappsettings.jpg

My biggest complaint is that while it integrates the iPod player into the application, it doesn’t pause the iPod part of the iPhone when it’s speaking; but this is listed as one of the next upcoming features. My second biggest complaint, is that sometimes I don’t feel like they followed iPhone interface guidelines and you have to think sometimes when picking out and typing things (mostly in the search areas).

The 2D maps will let you pinch / zoom like many iPhone map programs will. And it works in landscape or portrait modes. While I like portrait better, the fonts of turns show up bigger in landscape.

It’ll give you live weather for where you are too!

It’s probably the biggest app I have, it’s 1.3 GB, that’s a 1/12 of your 16 GB phone! You can get more info here: http://www.copilotlive.com/iphone/

CoPilot Live North America

Bottom line: If you don’t have a turn-by-turn GPS for $34.99 this is a great deal. For the $19.99 sale price (for only a few days) it’s an even better bargain.

Accessories: I’d recommend a car charger or external battery to charge your phone when walking or biking.

Beautiful colors on Hines Drive today

Great day outside on Hines Drive today. Lots of great colors as fall approaches. Here’s a panorama I took with my iPhone (and stitched it on my iPhone with the AutoStitch Panorama app on the phone too!).


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I think it took eight or nine images to build the whole thing and it came out to 4000×506 pixels. This program works quick: I took the photos with the camera app, ran the AutoStich program, clicked the photos, it built a tiny thumbnail, I clicked the stitch button and few minutes later I’ve got the panorama on the screen!

Click to enlarge panoramic image, if it doesn’t load correctly, here’s a 1024 wide image.

iTunes Application Managment – We really need it…

So the rumors this week are that in iTunes 9 that Apple is going to add Application Management. My iPhone would be a lot more useful for me if it had that, I’m always installing and trying apps and it messes with the order of everything. Here’s a concept that someone ut together a few months ago.


View iTunes App Management on Youtube

It’s very Apple-ish but some of it’s pretty complicated for what Apple likes to do.

The above is pretty close to what I’m looking for. But I’d take something way more primitive…