Posted by Emilio Solorzano on December 17, 2011
There are very few items in the known universe that come without an instruction manual. Socks, puppies and toilets can be lumped into that category, and now we can add another, Flipboard for iPhone. When the geniuses behind Flipboard began laying the foundation, they envisioned an app that you could pick up and begin using right away, without having to refer to a manual or help file. Well, I’m happy to report that the team at Flipboard, Inc. have managed to bring media consumption to a whole new level. And by new level, I mean I can now catch up on the latest news with the grace of a simple flip, I have tiles that update automatically as new content is pushed from the servers and a specialized tile that curates the most shared content from all my feeds into one simple, intuitive tile.
If you’ve been a long-time Flipboard for iPad user, then you’ll have no problem setting up services such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. on the iPhone version. Flipboard offers many recommended sources (although TheMacFeed is still absent, *hint hint*), and numerous topics (Travel, Entertainment, etc.). You can still search for RSS feeds manually if they aren’t in Flipboard’s repertoire however. (more…)
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Posted by Daniel Feeney on December 17, 2011
Heckler Design is a firm known largely for its OneLessDesk and Office, however after a successful KickStarter campaign earlier this year, it introduced the OneLessDrop, a weighted tool to keep the power cord off the floor and on the desk. Roughly three months ago, Bluelounge, a company known for its Apple-related accessessories, released the Sumo a tool which dirrectly competes with the OnelessDrop in terms of its function. Determining the better soluction comes down to form and price.
Heckler Design’s OneLessDrop –which now serves as Heckler Design’s logo– was officially funded on KickStarter on March 2, 2011 as a very simple solution to a problem almost everyone has with cords; the second a cord is unplugged it falls behind the desk. With the OneLessDrop, the cord stays put. In addition to power cords, one can use the OneLessDrop with iOS adapters, and various other wires so long as they are not “orca fat.” It’s design is basically an “H” with slots for wires above and below the center bar as well as rubber feet for grip. (more…)
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Posted by Matt Bonney on December 14, 2011
As my fall semester comes to a close, and I look forward to having a few weeks to focus on something that doesn’t involve classwork and lectures, I felt it was an appropriate time to pay a tribute to a set of fantastic iOS and Mac applications that have been an indispensable part of my collegiate success thus far.
The app that I give so much credit to? iStudiez Pro. This wonderfully designed an executed application by the aptly-named iStudiez Group offers a powerful set of class-scheduling and assignment-tracking tools that help people like me – who are generally bad at remembering due dates or remembering exam dates – get a grasp on their scholastic career.
iStudiez Pro aims to be a digital student planner, letting you track which classes you’re taking, your Professor’s and T.A.’s contact information and office hours, your homework assignments and due dates, and even your grades. (more…)
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Posted by Matt Bonney on December 11, 2011
As a celebration of the second “birthday” of Angry Birds – the ultra-popular and wildly successful game that so many people know and love, Rovio has released Angry Birds version 2.0. While the update is mainly evolutionary, rather than a full-fledged “Angry Birds 2″, it continues Rovio’s commitment to delivering new content to players.
Angry Birds 2.0 brings 15 new levels to the game, along with modifying how the player progresses through the game. Now, all the “episodes” (sets of levels) are unlocked from the start, allowing new players to jump right into any of set of levels rather than playing them in strictly sequential order.
Angry Birds is available on a multitude of platforms, including all iOS devices (with an appropriately-scaled “HD” version for the iPad), along with Android devices and even a web app available for the Chrome web browser. Angry Birds for iPhone and iPod touch is available for $0.99, and Angry Birds HD is $4.99.
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Posted by Emilio Solorzano on December 11, 2011
In my previous review of Instapaper, I covered what the service can do for you, such as saving web pages and long emails for viewing at a later time. However, what I failed to expound on was just how extensively the service has been implemented in other popular applications. Twitter clients, news apps, feed readers and others have succumbed to Instapaper allure and embedded a way to save articles to your account in their code base.
Twitter client TweetBot has Instapaper’s service executed in a way that harks back to Steve Jobs’ vision of a multi-touch UI. A simple tap and hold brings up a menu, in which the option to “Send to Instapaper” is at the very top. Osfoora for iPhone also executes Instapapers service in a similar manner, except all it requires is a single tap on a link you’d like to save for later. Chances are your favorite Twitter client supports Instapaper.
Feed Reader Pulse has earned its spot in Apple’s Hall of Fame by offering a beautiful and engaging way to catch up on recent events. Instapaper enriches the experience by allowing you to quickly skim over lengthy news articles, save them and then go over said articles with a fine-toothed comb later. (more…)
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Posted by Emilio Solorzano on December 10, 2011
How often do you find yourself checking your “Maps” application to see where the nearest Starbucks or bank is? If you answered “daily”, then our friends over at Cynapse have an app for you, and its called LocalScope. What Localscope does is pull data from social networks and geo-search engines such as Twitter, Foursquare, Wikimapia, Bing and the ubiquitous Google and puts it into one, easy-to-use, gorgeous app.
Instead of querying in one app to no avail, and opening a different one hoping for better results, you can query once in Localscope and with the swipe of a finger, swiftly switch between search engines and social networks all without having to re-type “Starbucks”. Could it get any more convenient that that? I think not.
Localscope offers an Augmented Reality view, which is welcome when you are walking around. When selected, the camera activates, and the app superimposes your target destination on the live feed from the camera. It goes without saying of course, that for the safety of yourself and others, this view should not be used while driving. In addition to the augmented reality view, you can also choose from a list and map view, which each offer their own unique benefits. The List view for example gives you a quick rundown of all the results your search engine provided and features real-time direction pointers and distance meters. And the Maps view is tightly integrated with Google Maps, therefore adding a three dimensional compass to point you in the right direction. (more…)
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Posted by Daniel Feeney on December 9, 2011
We are well aware of all your poll fetishes and luckily –for you all– we have a question for you! With the rapidly growing digital content becoming available with Netflix, App Stores, and online music stores (iTunes), CDs are becoming ever less popular –like book stores. What is going to happen to them? (more…)
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Posted by Matt Bonney on December 9, 2011
Today, Twitter announced a major redesign of its mobile and web apps. According to the overview of the new Twitter at fly.twitter.com, the new apps are supposed to promote “A faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about.” This new web redesign brings with it drastically overhauled and simplified iOS and Android apps, which are available right now.
Upon launching the app, you will immediately notice the much simpler (and much bluer!) user interface. Twitter has radically simplified the app from it’s previous incarnation (including the demise of my favorite iOS app shortcut ever, the old Tweetie swipe-to-access-shortcuts gesture), and indeed the app feels fresh and light.
With this new design, it is really focusing on 4 core areas of the Twitter experience, and those 4 areas live behind the tab bar buttons on the bottom: “Home”, which is your traditional timeline view; “Connect”, “Discover”, and “Me.” (more…)
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Posted by Emilio Solorzano on December 8, 2011
Flipboard, a social magazine app loved by millions of iPad owners the world over has finally arrived on the small screen, the iPhone and iPod Touch to be exact. Released in 2010, it quickly gained traction with the iPad user base due to its beautifully designed interface that behaved like a magazine, requiring users to “flip” through their feeds. The iPhone version thankfully retains all of the features that made the iPad version such a success, while also adding something new to the mix with Cover Stories. The Cover Stories interface collects and displays your most recent photo uploads, status updates from Facebook and Twitter and shared articles all in one place, and is conveniently placed at the top, so its the first thing you see when you open the app. The service did launch with a few hiccups, but they’ve all been sorted out by the hard working devs. Download it today and see what all the fuss is about.
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Posted by Matt Bonney on December 7, 2011
In my review of Minecraft: Pocket Edition, I mentioned how the game focused more on the free-building a creative aspects of the full Minecraft experience in order to create a game that was perfect for 10-15 minute stretches. While I still think that launching a creative-mode-only game at first was a smart move, I was left with a sense of wanting more out of the Pocket Edition of my favorite PC/Mac game.
I was understandably very excited when, yesterday, Daniel Kaplan, head of the mobile version of Minecraft, made a post on the official Mojang blog giving an overview of what his team will be working on for future versions of Minecraft: Pocket Edition. Kaplan is quoted below… (more…)
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Posted by Matt Bonney on December 7, 2011
iPhone game development studio Chair has recently released the sequel to one of the most impressive and visually stunning iOS games, Infinity Blade II. Picking up where the first game left off, Infinity Blade II is a beautiful and action-packed hack-and-slash game that runs on the very powerful Unreal Engine.
The first Infinity Blade was praised for having truly amazing graphics for a mobile game, but also criticized for it’s overly simple and repetitive gameplay. With Infinity Blade II, Chair set out to change up the battle mechanics while also delivering even better and more detailed graphics for devices packing an A5 processor. Some of these gameplay changes include being able to swap the standard sword-and-shield equipment setup for setups that consist of dual-wielding swords, or using two-handed heavy weapons. You can also augment your weapons with special elemental crystals, which add new effects to your blades.
The new graphics engine on the iPhone 4S absolutely blew me away. The graphic fidelity seemed to me to be on-par with some console games. The lighting engine in particular is spectacular; streaks of light will spill through tree branches or from behind a castle wall, and the effect is gorgeous. (more…)
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Posted by Matt Bonney on December 5, 2011
Stamped is a great new social network that really nails the formula of sharing the products, businesses, and services that you like. Stamped is similar to another new iPhone-only social network, Oink, in that it aims to simplify the experience of telling the world what you like. In the end, though, I’m tempted to say that Stamped is an even better service than Oink.
Stamped reminds me a lot of Instagram. Both are simple social networks that exist only on the iPhone, and both have very simple, focused uses. The premise of Stamped is simple: if you like something, you can apply your digital seal of approval on it that declares to the world, “This is really awesome.”
Stamped has a beautiful UI, with tall, thin fonts and a lightweight white motif. Stamped also allows you to customize the color of your digital stamp, a nice touch that makes the entire experience that much more personal.
Stamped has some limitations imposed upon the user that stop you from simply stamping everything under the sun. Upon creating your account, you’re given 100 digital stamps, and once those are used up the only way to obtain more stamps is for someone to give credit to you for their stamping (meaning they discovered something cool based on what you stamped), or to get 3 likes on an item you’ve stamped. Time will tell if this system works well or not, but I like the idea of being forced to only stamp the things that you rate highest. (more…)
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Posted by Emilio Solorzano on December 1, 2011
Are you one those people that constantly scours the internet looking for the best deals? If you answered yes, then please allow me to make your day easier by pointing you to a sale a group of developers are putting on (here). For today only, select apps normally priced at $9.99 will be reduced to only $0.99! Granted, this is a one day, limited time only sale. Apps include Ensoul, Hider, Focus, VirusBarrier Plus, and more. Check out all the apps here while time lasts!
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Posted by Emilio Solorzano on November 25, 2011
Tapbots, the group behind amazing apps such as Pastebot, Calcbot and Weightbot have managed to craft yet another masterpiece with their Twitter client, TweetBot. TweetBot is a full-featured Twitter client that manages to stand out from the others with its meticulous UI that utilizes smart gestures, support for multiple timelines, customizable tab bar and much more.
At its core, Tweetbot has three gestures which can make your life easier. The first being the Double-tap, which when used on a Tweet, Link or Avatar will open their respective details. The second core gesture is the Tap and Hold, which will open an option menu for whichever element you select. And the last core gesture, and my personal favorite, is a configurable Triple Tap! You can configure it to automatically open a reply-to Tweet, favorite, retweet and even translate a Tweet.
In addition to TweetBot’s core gestures, you also have to ability to quickly swipe to the right of a Tweet to view a conversation thread, and swipe to the left to reveal any replies. This might not sound groundbreaking, but it’s one of those little feature that makes Tweetbot truly a pleasure to use. (more…)
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Posted by Daniel Feeney on November 25, 2011
With Thanksgiving comes Black Friday, a day of deals, chaos and impulse buying. MacPaw, the folks behind CleanMyMac, have put up a deal offering the software for 50% off regular price. This makes a lifetime license just $15! Check out the deal here or just remember coupon code ‘BKF11′.
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Posted by Emilio Solorzano on November 21, 2011
Have you ever stumbled across an interesting, albeit lengthy, article on the web that you’d love to read, but don’t have the time necessary to dedicate to it? Well tech writer and coffee enthusiast, Marco Arment, has the perfect solution with his app, Instapaper. Instapaper is a service which allows you to save long articles, emails and blog posts for later viewing, even if you’re not connected to the Internet. It is supported by over 150 iPhone and iPad apps and has been critically acclaimed by highly respected newspapers, magazines and top blogs. Instapaper offers a clean, streamlined UI that is indicative of Marco’s attention to detail.
Instapaper has the required API’s to allow you to save web pages as text-only for optimized viewing on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad at a later time. It takes a few steps to get it set up in the Safari browser –mostly due to Apple’s limitations– but once you do, saving content is as easy as riding a tricycle. Instapaper includes the ability to adjust fonts, text sizes, line spacing and even margins. A Dark mode and brightness control is added in for any night reading you may want to do. And to top it off, everything you save is then available offline, so you can read whenever you want, including on WI-FI-only devices and wi-fi-less transcontinental flights. (more…)
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