Category: iPhone App of the Week

You may have noticed that I’m a fan of Amazon.com. I use Amazon quite a bit for my shopping needs. I like them because they are basically a one-stop-shop for just about anything. The prices are usually competitive and they have been very dependable for me. Now I’ve never tried to return anything or reach customer service, so your mileage my vary.

Needless to say, when I saw that they had an iPhone app, I had to check it out. The Amazon Mobile app is a iPhone/iPod touch version of the store. You can search, price compare and even order all right from your iPhone. I actually used it to order my Logitech Playstation 3 Bluetooth keyboard. It was so convenient because of Amazon’s 1-click feature. I didn’t have to enter any credit card or shipping info. So far, nothing too exciting right?

 

An Amazing New Way to Shop

Take a picture of the item you’re interested in! That’s right! Your iPhone has a built-in camera, so you can take pictures of stuff. Hidden in the Amazon Mobile app is a feature that allows you to take a picture of an item and have Amazon figure out what it is and therefore how much it costs. The reason that I say this feature is hidden is because it’s tucked away under the “Remembers” button. I’m not sure why they call this feature “Remembers” and I would have NEVER thought to look there for it.

 

How well does it work?

Like I said you snap a picture of the item you want and that’s pretty much it. Once you snap the picture and confirm it, it is automatically uploaded to Amazon.com. I have to image that a human on the other end (probably under paid and in a 3rd world country) figures out what the picture is and then replies with a  link to the actual item (provided that Amazon carries it). Although one of mine was so far off that it may not be a human after all. Now they don’t claim to be 100% accurate. As a matter of fact they claim to find the “closest match.” My first 3 pictures were of simple things that were already boxed and clearly marked. It got all 3 within reason. Then I gave it more of a challenge by taking pictures of items laying around that I already owned. One of those items was my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens and what came back wasn’t even close. It wasn’t even a lens. So that makes me think that it may be automated after all.

Out of the six items I threw at it, it got four of them dead on. The two that it got wrong, one was the lens which was not even close and the other was a portable hard drive and it came back with the desktop version. The results are sent back pretty quickly. In my case under 5 minutes (probably closer to 3 minutes). My buddy Dave tried this by taking a shot of something in the Skymall catalog and it came back with the right item. He was floored that it worked with a picture of a picture.

 

How useful is this really?

If you know what you want, then doing simple text search in the app is probably going to be faster and more accurate. However, I’m intrigued by the use of the technology and that’s why it’s my pick this week for the iPhone App of the Week.

Amazon Mobile is a FREE download for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can get it here from the App Store.

Another weather app? What’s my obsession with weather apps?

With all the bad weather we’ve been having this week I’m using my NEW favorite weather app more than ever. Yes it wasn’t long ago that I named MyWeather Mobile as the iPhone App of the Week. After that I got hooked on The Weather Channel app. Now I’m absolutely in love with Accuweather.

Why AccuWeather?

Why not just use the built-in Weather App that’s already included with the iPhone and iPod touch. Anyone that lives or travels near/to snow will identify with what I’m about to say. The built-in Weather App is simply inadequate. Sure it will give the the expected high and low tempurature for the day and even tell me that it’s going to snow or rain, etc. However, what it doesn’t tell me is WHEN? and HOW MUCH? Simply seeing a little icon for Saturday that shows snow is meaningless. I need to know if it’s going to be 1 inch or 12 inches. I travel often, so up to the minute winter weather issue is critical! Now, if you live in, let’s say Florida or Hawaii where the weather is pretty constant, then you probably don’t need this level of information.

AccuWeather is a full featured weather app. In my opinion it’s got the best UI (user interface) of all the ones I’ve tried to date including the one that I paid for (MyWeather Mobile). AccuWeather not only can give me a much more detailed forecast including hourly forecasts, but it can even show me a video of the most recent weather report for my area. Very slick! Very very slick indeed! Of course it’s location based like the others and you can save your favorite locations. You can also see an animated radar weather map. The Risk screen shows you exactly what’s likely to happen whether it be Thunder Storms, Rain, Snow, Ice, Wind, or Fog. 

AccuWeather starts off with a very well designed display of the current conditions. This also includes a nice background photo representing what it’s doing outside right now. Cloudy, Clear, Raining, etc. I not only get to see the current temperature, but also the wind chill factor (feels like). 

 

The Bottom Line

There are several weather apps out there. Some are free, some cost $, however, AccuWeather is by far the best designed one and most stable one I’ve seen and used to date. Best of all it’s FREE! You can download AccuWeather for the iPhone and iPod touch here from the App Store.

Be sure to check back next Friday for my “Top 10 iPhone Apps of 2008”. Of course I think you already know what one of them will be. 🙂 Some come back and see the other 9.

Last week’s iPhone App of the Week was Google Mobile App. The one thing I was intrigued by was the new Voice Search feature. Like I said last week, voice recognition technology usually doesn’t work well for me. I try to speak as clearly as I possibly can and most times I end up repeating the phrase so many times that it would just be faster to type it. So how could I possibly pick another Voice Recognition app so quickly? 

 

Say Who-Dialer Works!!!

I was floored by how well this app works. I haven’t been this excited about an iPhone app since, well, never! Say Who-Dialer brings a much needed voice dialer to the iPhone. The app is simple. You launch it and after a few seconds, it’s ready to find your contacts simply by speaking their names. There is a big button on the screen that you hold down while you say the name of the contact you wish to dial. You can say the first name, first name and last name, nickname even, and you can add the number you wish to dial such as “Frank Jones Mobile.” When I first tried it, I thought “ok, how bad is this going to screw up what I’m trying to say?” I tried my buddy “Scott Kelby” and it came right up. I thought, OK that was a lucky one. Let’s try something a little harder like “Kwesi Aquil.” It WORKED! It actually worked for every name I through at it. If you don’t know the name, but you know the number you can just speak the digits (ie. 5 5 5 – 7 7 7 1).

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was so amazed at how well it worked, I just kept throwing names at it all night. It never missed a beat. Now of course speech recognition is only as good as your surroundings. In a noisy environment, it will likely be less accurate. There is the option of having it auto dial as soon as you speak the name. I have this turned off, because I wanted to verify the results first. Like most search apps, it displays a list of results. Names it thinks you’re trying to say are listed in the order of most likely what you wanted at the top and then less likely names on down the list. I turned the Auto Dial feature back on to see what happens. With Auto Dial on, it displays result for a couple of seconds before dialing it. This would be fine as long as you’re not only speaking the name, but also which number you wanted dialed too (such as mobile, home, work, etc.) Every time I tried this app, the name I was trying to say was at the top of the list. It’s AMAZING! I have over 1,000 Contacts, so this app is VERY HANDY!

 

Room for improvement

I know, what could I possibly have to complain about? It works! Yes the app works well. No complaints on the voice recognition. They nailed it. However, I would like to see a couple of things added to the interface. The Google Mobile App takes advantage of the motion sensors in the iPhone so that when you hold it up to your face, it beeps and is ready for your voice input. I know that Google admitted that they broke the ruleso of the SDK with certain aspects of their app, however, I would love to see that feature in the Say Who-Dialer. I would also like to see it be completely voice driven. For example: I press the button and say “Dave Helmly Mobile”, then it replies “Dave Helmly Mobile” verbally to acknowledge that it’s about to dial the right name. I say “yes” and it dials it. This way I would never have to look at the screen which would be a plus while driving.

Although it works PERFECTLY for me for people’s names, I have not had good luck with business names. It only brought up 1 out of the 5 business names that I threw at it. However, It was smart on the one business that did work. I said “Rose Cleaners” and it did in fact bring up “Rose Dry Cleaning”.

 

The Bottom Line

This app freakin’ rocks! Hands down it’s the most excited I’ve ever been about a 3rd party iPhone app. Rarely is an app so good that it gets a spot on my main Home Screen. This one is so good that I’m even considering putting it in the dock so that it is always one tap away. It works way faster than bring up the Contacts and scrolling or searching. Here’s the other thing I can’t believe, it’s FREE! That’s right, this app is a FREE download from the App Store. So there is simply no reason not to try it out. I haven’t updated my Top 10 iPhone Apps in a while, but this will definitely be on it! Don’t walk, run to the App Store and download it now.

 

Over 10,000 Apps Now Available for the iPhone/iPod touch!

Wow how time flies when you’re having fun! iPhone app development has taken off like wildfire. Although I’m doing my favorite iPhone App of the Week, there are thousands of apps that I will probably never touch. With that in mind, here’s a site that is dedicated to keeping up with ALL the iPhone apps. It’s called 148Apps.com (named after the fact that you can have 148 apps installed on your iPhone or iPod touch). While I do this iPhone app thing once a week, they’re dedicated to doing it all the time. The App Store has only been up since July 11, 2008. It launched with 1,000 apps. In less than 6 months time it has 10 times that many apps. Imagine what it will be like by July 11, 2009? I will certainly enjoy the ride!