Category: iPhone

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iPhone App of the Week – MyWeather Mobile

The iPhone has a built-in weather app. So why would anyone pay $9.99 for another one? I was very hesitant at first to try MyWeather Mobile. After all $9.99 is on the high end of iPhone app prices. Although the built-in weather app does a good job of letting you know the current conditions and the highs and lows, it does nothing for showing you forecasts, trends or precipitation. 

 

Is it going to rain/snow today?

If you live somewhere that has mild climates or weather that doesn’t change much, then you can probably be quite content with the built-in app. However, if you live in the North or Midwest, then you know weather can change at the drop of a hat. Here in Michigan it could be 70° and sunny, raining and cloudy, snowing with sleet and hail all in the same day. As a frequent traveler, I want to know what I’m heading into. Will there be a chance that my flights could be delayed or cancelled due to weather?

 

MyWeather Mobile

This is where MyWeather Mobile comes in. This app goes way beyond the features of the built-in weather app. The big feature for me is forecasts! Not just what it’s doing outside now. Like the built-in app, you can add multiple cities. However, in addition to enter the city, you can actually use your contacts list.

So for example, rather than putting in Scott’s city, I can just use his Contact info as a location and it will show me the weather where he lives. Also instead of having to put your current city in all the time, it’s location based and will always show you the weather of where you currently are located.

The graphics are great in this app. Very detailed and well done. It also supports a widescreen view of the trends screen. Just rotate your iPhone or iPod touch.

The bottom line

If the built-in weather app leaves you wanting more, then MyWeather mobile is worth a look. Do I think it should cost less, absolutely. However, if you need/want these features, then $9.99 is worth it. Otherwise, keep looking. After having it now for a few weeks, I don’t regret spending $9.99 on it. Works with the iPhone and iPod touch. You can check it out here on the App Store.

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iPhone App of the Week – Sportacular

Admittedly I’m not a huge sports fan. In other words unless it’s something special, I don’t plan to watch sports on TV. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have favorite teams and like to engage in conversations with friends about who’s winning and who’s losing. Speaking of losing, no cracks about the Detroit Lions. Enough said.

Sportacular gets it right

Sportacular is a FREE app for the iPhone and iPod touch that allows you to keep track of your favorite teams. The interface is brilliant. You simply select your favorite teams across national and college leagues and Sportactular will give you up to the minute scores, schedules of upcoming games, and stats.

Just last weekend I was in a workshop and someone mentioned that the Lions were playing. So I pulled out my iPhone and tapped Sportacular and in a few seconds I had the score (they were winning by the way at the point). Scores are updated every 30 seconds as long as the app is running. Every year my buddy who graduated from Ohio State likes to come over and watch the Ohio vs. Michigan game. I have no vested interest in either team, but it’s fun watching him get all worked up. With Sportacular I can keep track of Michigan’s college games too including the schedule of upcoming games.

Sportacular is another example of a well thought out app that just works! That’s why it’s my pick for the iPhone App of the Week. It’s free and has minimal ads. Download it from the App Store.

 

Congratulations to the winners of the iPhone Photo Contest

I want to take a moment to congratulate and thank the Winners of the iPhone Photo Contest. Lot’s of great entries and it was certainly hard to pick winners. Luckily the public helped out in a big way by voting!

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iPhone App of the Week – SuperBall 2

Time to have some fun! 

While I certainly love picking from the hundreds if not thousands of iPhone apps (there are now over 5,000 apps on the App Store) that increase my productivity, I do like to have fun every now and then. That leads me to my new addiction: SuperBall 2! This game is like crack. Once you start playing it, you just won’t be able to stop. This game is like a mix between the old pong games and Breakout. You control it using the built-in iPhone (or iPod touch) accelerometer. So you move the paddle side-to-side by tilting the device.

I started with the FREE version: SuperBall 2 Lite. This free version has 10 levels. Not bad at all for a free game. I must say that I absolutely SUCKED at this game at first. It took me a long time to even get pass the first level. Then I finally got the hang of it. After I got the hang of it, I wanted MORE! So I didn’t hesitate to head over to the App Store and buy the full version which sports 300 LEVELS plus a dozen two player levels! I was also pleased to see it on sale for only $1.99. Game play is good and the variety of activities/levels is also good. The sound effects are well done. Also no crashes. 

With an iPhone, you never have any reason to be bored. Now I won’t mind waiting in long lines on November 4th to cast my vote in the general election. I’ll have something make the time fly. I better start reviewing some of those external batteries 🙂

You can download the FREE version of SuperBall 2 Lite or the full version of SuperBall 2 for $1.99. These work on the iPhone or the iPod touch.

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Last day to vote!

No, I’m not talking about the election for those two guys (although you should be getting ready to vote for one of them too!), I’m talking about the finalists in the iPhone Photo Contest.

We received an overwhelming number of entries and Scott and I have made our picks for the finalists. It’s now up to you to cast your vote for the winner in each category and from those winners Scott and I will pick the grand prize winner! Today is the last day to vote, so head over to the iPhone Photo Contest page and cast your vote right now! We will announce the grand prize winner on November 3rd! Also if you haven’t gotten your copy of The iPhone Book 2nd Edition you can order that today as well.

 

AT&T Now offers FREE Wi-Fi to iPhone Users

In other iPhone news, AT&T now offers FREE Wi-Fi internet access in thousands of locations such as Starbucks, Airports, Hotels, Convention Centers, Bookstores, etc. See details here.

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iPhone App of the Week – PhotoBuddy

While I didn’t make it the PhotoPlus East tradeshow in NYC this week, I have been spending some time with one of my new iPhone apps. PhotoBuddy aims to be your Photographer Assistant. The main purpose of this app is to help you calculate things like Exposure changes, Flash timing, DOF (Depth of Field) and can even measure the distance of objects (this feature only works on the 1st gen iPhones).

However, it has other useful features too. For example, when I captured the shot below in Spain, the one thing I didn’t know at the time was what time sunrise occurs for the area I was in. The hotel staff looked it for me on the internet.

However, had I had PhotoBuddy back then, I would have simply been able to use the built-in Sunrise calculator. The Sunrise calculator is location based and tells you the sunrise, sunset and next full moon. I used to use a separate “Sunrise” app for this. It even displays your current longitude and latitude which is handy for noting and geotagging your photos later in post production. You can also advance to a date in the future to see what time the Sunrise/Sunset will be on a specific day.

One of the other features I was happy to see is the “grey wedge” to help white balance your shots. Now you have to keep in mind that this feature is not totally accurate because your iPhone’s screen is not color calibrated. So the displayed tones are not neutral. However, they are off by a constant value, so you can use it to color calibrate images.

There are a ton of settings. One of the things that helps you quite a bit is that you start off by telling PhotoBuddy which camera model you have. This gives PhotoBuddy the important information that it needs about your sensor. If your camera is not listed, you can choose an “undefined setting” or choose the film equivalent. 

 

The Bottom Line

There are a few apps with similar features on the App Store. I’ve tried a couple of them so far and I like PhotoBuddy best (a close second would be PhotoCalc, which has a better Sunrise/Sunset calculator). Most of these apps do the same things. However, PhotoBuddy offers a couple of nice little extras and fit and finish. Also PhotoBuddy is only $1.99 so it’s hard to go wrong. You can download PhotoBuddy here for your iPhone or iPod touch.

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iPhone Photo Contest – DEADLINE is TODAY!

Today is the last day to submit your iPhone photos for the iPhone Photo contest!

In celebration of my new book,  The iPhone Book 2nd Edition we’re kicking off an iPhone Photo Contest! That’s right, you could win valuable prizes by submitting your best photos taken with your iPhone’s built-in camera.

  1. You can enter up to three photos (total) taken with your iPhone (doesn’t matter if it’s the original model, or the new 3G).
  2. There are five different categories; Friends, Pets, Family, Fine Art, and Office. The winner in each category gets a $100 iTunes Gift card and a copy of “The iPhone Book” 2nd edition.
  3. The Grand prize winner gets a $500 Apple Store Gift Card, and a copy of “The iPhone Book” 2nd edition.
  4. From the photos submitted by the deadline of Oct. 24, 2008, Scott and I will choose three finalists in each category, and then the public gets to vote for the winner in each category (the one getting the most votes wins). Then, from those Winners Scott and I will choose a Grand Prize Winner on November 3, 2008.
  5. This may seem obvious, but of course, the photo has to be taken with your iPhone’s built-in camera.
  6. You can edit your photos using any iPhone application available from the iTunes Apps Store, or any other image editing application, but no other non-iPhone photos may be included in your entry (so you can’t take your iPhone photo and composite it with a photo taken with your DSLR, point-and-shoot, or a stock photo).
  7. You may not give your iPhone to Jay Maisel, Joe McNally, or Moose Peterson. Not even to make a phone call.
  8. There is no entry fee, and the contest is open to everyone; You do not have to buy “The iPhone Book” to enter, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. 😉
  9. Whining of any kind, about anything, is strictly prohibited.
  10. You can submit your photos, and learn more about the contest at the official contest site (here’s the link).

I can’t wait to see all of your cool shots. Good luck and happy shooting!

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iPhone App of the Week – AirMe

I’m a big fan of geotagging my photos. I love the fact that now the iPhone can automatically put in the longitude and latitude of where you are when you take the shot. Even if you’re not outside or you have the older model iPhone that didn’t include the GPS, you can still get pretty close using the cell towers and wi-fi hotspots. When I upload my shots to Flickr using the iPhone app Flickup, the GPS/location information is honored and the image is automatically added to My Map. (note that you have to turn this preference on in the Flickr Privacy settings: http://www.flickr.com/account/geo/privacy for your account). While this is cool, I also upload photos to Facebook and unfortunately Facebook doesn’t honor this info, nor does it have a built-in map feature. 

 

AirMe to the rescue

Luckily there is a FREE iPhone app called AirMe. AirMe can upload your photos to Flickr, Facebook, Picasa or send to Twitter. So far, no big deal right? Here’s what makes AirMe special: It not only has the ability to upload the shot with the GPS data, but it’s Location Aware and translates your location information into tags that appear in the photo description when someone clicks on the photo on the site you’ve uploaded it to. It not only tags the photo with the location, but also other things like the weather (optional). 

 

Tagged photo in Facebook, uploaded by AirMe

Tagged photo in Facebook, uploaded by AirMe. As you can see, AirMe added the tags 17°C (it will use Fahrenheit in the US), Sunny, Spadina, Canada, Ontario, Toronto. I added the optional tag of travel.

 

When I uploaded a photo to Flickr, the tags appeared as well as the name that AirMe used on the photo:

 

Shot taken in Toronto uploaded to Flickr using AirMe

Shot taken in Toronto uploaded to Flickr using AirMe

 

Although I really like AirMe, there is room for improvement. I have two issues with this app. The first issue is that after you authorize your Facebook account to use it, you are still required to login each time (at least once a day). I wrote to the developer about this and he said that there used to be a checkbox on the Facebook page to keep you logged in or remember your login. Now that it’s gone, they will try to accommodate a work around in their next update.

The other issue is that switching from one site to another, for example, going from Facebook to Flicker, requires you to authorize the app again (even though it will tell you on the site that the app is already authorized). Again the developer promises to fix this in the next update. However, this is such a pain that for right now I’ll just use it for Facebook uploads and continue to use Flickup for Flickr Uploads.

 

AirMe needs to remember my login info

AirMe needs to remember my login info

 

The Bottom Line

AirMe has been a blast use and I do really like it. Once the app has the ability to remember me on the various sites I use it on, I’ll like it even more. It automatically provides the location information for my shots in an intelligent way (using tags) that saves me the work of having to do it all manually. This free app is definitely a keeper. You can download it for your iPhone here for FREE!

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The iPhone Book 2nd Edition is Now In Stock!

I’m very pleased to announce that my NEW BOOK, The iPhone Book 2nd Edition is now in stock at Amazon.com. I’m really excited about this new edition co-authored with my buddy Scott Kelby. We really sought out to improve this book from cover to cover. We’ve added a brand new "Killer Tips" chapter that is PACKED with tips and techniques for all users, whether you’re new to the iPhone or been using one since day one you’ll get some great tips on how to really take advantage of your iPhone (or iPod touch).

 

Reminder, submit your entries for the iPhone Photo Contest

In celebration of our new book we’ve launched an iPhone Photo Contest. There are only seven days left to submit your photos before the October 24th deadline. You could win a $500 Apple Store Gift Card among other cool prizes. See the details here.

 

So don’t wait, run out and buy a copy of the iPhone Book! Buy two. It’s only $13.59.

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iPhone App of the Week – i.TV

I never thought I would get excited about a TV guide app on my iPhone. However, if it’s well done and FAST, then I’m all in and that’s exactly what you get with i.TV. i.TV answers the question: "what’s coming on tonight?" The app is pretty straight forward. You start off by telling it where you are. Although the App supports location services, I still ended up putting in my Zip Code. Once I did, I got the choices for the providers in my area including Comcast Cable which is what I use most. As soon as a I made that my choice, that app started downloading the guide. I was on Wi-Fi at the time so the guide only took a few seconds to download. Once It was there, I could not only see the channels, but also little thumbnails for the shows that were currently on.

Great customization options

The one thing that is a must have in an app like this is the ability to narrow the list of channels down to just the ones YOU care about. I could care less about what’s on HGTV or the QVC channel. One quick trip to the "My Media" screen and I was able to edit down the list of channels to just the ones I watch.

 

But wait, there’s more

Not only do you get the listings for the shows, you also get a synopsis of the upcoming episode as well as a listing of upcoming episodes. If you register for an account on their site (free and optional), then you also get the ability to write reviews and give ratings.

Although there currently is no way to watch the show live on your iPhone, you can watch previews as well as see available photos from the show. There’s also a great search feature and the ability to see your listings by genre.

 

There are a couple of bugs

The first thing I noticed is that a few of my channels were missing! For example ABC HD in my area is on channel 231. NBC HD is 232, etc. Channels 231-234 and channel 300 (HBO) were simply not there. This wasn’t a big deal since the non HD equivalents were there (except for HBO). It was just weird that it choose not to show these channels. Perhaps on the next data update, they will appear.

This app also has a Movies/Theater option. Although my Zip Code and Country have been entered correctly, i.TV insists on showing me movies and theaters in Puerto Rico. I already have a great movies app (One Tap Movies), so I really don’t care about this feature not working, but it would be nice if this app could do both TV and Movie listings for me.  These aren’t show stopper bugs, but let’s hope the developer gets this stuff worked out soon.

 

My wishes for the next version

Other than fixing the bugs I noticed, I would pay money if this app could also schedule recordings on my TiVo HD. I know that the developer has no control over this, but I wish that either TiVo would release their own app or partner with these guys to add this functionality since their app already does everything else I would need.

 

The Bottom Line

i.TV is FREE. It’s got a couple of minor glitches (at least I ran into a couple, your mileage may vary), but they are definitely off to a GREAT start! It’s also faster than going to web based TV listing especially for jumping to a specific time or day, so it’s definitely worth a try. i.TV works on both the iPhone and iPod touch. You can download it here.

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iPhone App of the Week – EmailContact AND vCard Mailer

It never fails for me. I’ll ask one of my friends something like, "do you know a good carpenter?" Of course the answer usually is something like "yeah, I got a guy." Well I get asked for recommendations all the time. If you have someone that’s good enough to recommend, chances are that person or business is in your Contacts list. My problem with the iPhone since day one is that there was never a way to easily share a Contact with someone. So needless to say, I was pretty happy to see some apps on the App Store that actually allow you to email a contact to someone. That leads me to this week’s iPhone App of the Week:

 

 

EmailContact

This app allows you to select one of your contacts and email it to someone. That’s pretty much it! It converts the Contact’s info into text and puts it into the body of the message. What’s nice is that you also have the option of turning on/off various fields that you want sent or don’t want sent. For example, I sometimes put notes on my Contact records that are personal to me. So I wouldn’t want the Note field to be sent. No problem, just turn off the Note field. Or maybe you want to send the work phone number, but not the home phone. That’s not a problem either.

Like I said and show above with the first screen capture, EmailContact sends the Contact information for the Contact that you select, as text. So the recipient is going to receive the information as text in the body of the email. It would be nice if this app offered the option to also send the Contact info as a vCard.

 

Sadly it doesn’t, but I do have an app that does. So this week you get two iPhone app recommendations for one. I also use an app called vCard Mailer. vCard Mailer works very similarly to EmailContact, except that it sends a vCard attachment instead of text. So it really depends on what you want to send (text or vCard)? For me it depends on why I’m sending the info and who I’m sending it to. Just the other day one of my friends needed the phone number for someone that we both knew. Since the iPhone doesn’t yet have Cut/Copy/Paste, I wasn’t able to just copy the phone number to an email. So I used EmailContact to send the info that he needed. Next my wife asked me for the address of a friend of ours and I knew that she would want to put all of this particular friend’s info in her Address Book, so I sent her a vCard using vCard Mailer. This way she could just double click on the attached vCard and automatically import it into her Address Book.

 

The Bottom Line

Both of these apps are necessary because neither app does what the other one does. Could you get by with one or the other? Sure. However, if you want the option to send text OR vCards then you’re gonna need both. The good news is that they are both economically priced. EmailContact goes for 99¢ and vCard Mailer goes for $1.99. Both apps work on either the iPhone or iPod touch.

 

 

 

Bonus App of the Week – Obama ’08

OK, so now I’m going to recommend a 3rd app to take a look at. Let me start by saying that I recognize that you may or may not support Obama for president. So please don’t respond with comments on how much you love or hate him (I’ll just delete them anyway). I’m not interested in your political views just like you’re probably not interested in mine.

My point for talking about this app is that I’m impressed with the use of the technology! This app allows you to get news about the Obama campaign, see videos and even find your local Obama headquarters based on your current location (it uses Location services). There’s even a feature (Call Friends) that displays YOUR contacts in order by the battleground states (that they are in) that Obama needs to win the most so that you can call your friends and persuade them to vote. Pretty innovative, although I’m not sure that I would feel comfortable calling all my friends and trying to tell them "how" they should vote (just like I don’t want them trying to tell me how I should vote), but it’s a cool feature nonetheless. Republican or Democrat, this app is cool and very well done. Whether you support Obama or not, you should check it out from a technology stand point. I think this app could be the model for a lot of other apps that could provide similar info/features for celebrities and organizations. Get the Free Obama ’08 app here. Works with both the iPhone and iPod touch.

Although I don’t care which way you vote, I do encourage EVERYONE to get out and VOTE! This is one of the most important elections of our time!