Category: Apple

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Tuesday Tidbits

I have 3 tidbits for today:

Apple is slated to unveil iPhone 3.0 today

Apple is holding a press conference today to unveil their newest iPhone OS. Nothing is for certain and the rumors are sure flying about what’s going to be in it. So far I haven’t heard anything too exciting. Sure, Cut, Copy, and Paste would be welcomed, but that’s hardly worthy of a full dot release and press conference. So I have to imagine that there are going to be some features that no one is thinking/talking about. I’ve give my take on what they announce after they announce it.

Check out Scott Kelby’s Review of the New Elinchrom BXRI-500 Strobes

My buddy Scott Kelby has posted a review of Elinchrom’s new midrange strobes. As an Elinchrom 600RX owner, I’m very interested in these because they have the Skyport Wireless system built-in. Although I’m totally happy with my two 600RXs, I would consider getting one BXRI-500 as a 3rd light. Scott recorded a cool short video showcasing the new system. Check it out here.

Spend “An Evening with Terry White” tonight!

Happy St. Patricks Day! Tonight’s the night that I will be doing a live Photoshop Essentials demo via the web. Check out the details here.

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iPhone App of the Week – Upcoming Events

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If you’ve ever forgotten someone’s birthday or worse an anniversary, then you’ll appreciate this app. Upcoming Events has a basic function and that is to keep track of upcoming birthdays and anniversaries. The cool part is that it picks up the birthdays from your Contacts automatically. However, you can still make manual entries too. So it’s the best of both worlds.

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I’m a visual guy! So I really like that it uses the contact photo instead of just a list of names like other apps. It also shows you how old the person will be and how many days away their birthday (or anniversary) is. When you tap the app icon to load it, it takes a couple of seconds to come up with the list of upcoming events. This time delay will be dependent on how many contacts you have. I have over 1,000 so I expect it to take a second or two to go through that list.

Once you tap on a particular upcoming event you are then taken to the contact’s record in Upcoming Events so that you can call the person, send them an email or SMS message. Very convenient! I wish it had a tie in directly to 1-800-flowers so that I can just order the flowers too. 🙂

The one draw back

The app works exactly as advertised. However, the one missing piece is that although the app can show you a numeric badge of upcoming events that are less than 7 days away, it has no other way of alerting you. That number is only updated each time you launch the app.

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This problem is the same with all iPhone apps. It’s not the fault of the developer. Apple doesn’t yet allow for background processing or background notification in 3rd party apps. For example, Apple’s built-in Mail app can check for new messages in the background and update the badge with a new email count without having to actually open the Mail app. This feature is not currently accessible by 3rd party apps. Therefore Upcoming Events has no way of working when you’re not in the app. The badge of “2” upcoming events you see on the screen shot above means that I have 2 birthdays/anniversaries coming up within 7 days. However, that number 2 will not change until I launch the app again. So if I don’t launch the app for 2 weeks, that 2 will never change.

The Bottom Line

This app has a very basic yet important function. Although I would love for it to be free, I also appreciate the fact that time and effort goes into app developement and the developers should be compensated. However, I think $2.99 would be the right price for this app. Nonetheless, it does what I need it to do and I had no problem paying the $4.99 asking price at the time because I simply like the way it works. I will be even happier with it once Apple allows for background processing so that the app can actually alert you/sound alarms when an event is getting closer. Again, this limitation is not the fault of the developer. Their hands are tied until Apple rolls out this important feature. So to really stay on top of things, you need to launch the app and check it on a regular basis.

Upcoming Events works on the iPhone and iPod touch. It goes for $4.99 and you can check it out at the App Store.

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Apple shuffles out a 3rd generation iPod shuffle

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Hey it’s Wednesday! Apple traditionally releases new products on Tuesday so as usual no one saw this coming 🙂

Apple introduced the 3rd generation iPod shuffle. No I don’t have one yet. I just woke up to this news like everyone else. So I’m writing this based on what I’ve read and seen so far. The new shuffle is the smallest shuffle yet. Smaller than a AA battery. The first thing you might notice is that the controls are GONE! Well, they’re gone from the case itself. The controls are now on the earphones cord.

The shuffle now gets playlists

The shuffle never had a display which meant that you never had a way to navigate multiple playlists. So the previous shuffle models could only play songs from a single list of songs. That all changes because the new shuffle has Voice Over! Voice Over announces things like the name of the song, artist and you guessed it, playlists. This is a clever work around for not having a display and it also makes it much easier to use for sports activists because you don’t have to look down to make any changes. You can focus your attention on your run or activity.

Specs and the Bottom Line

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The shuffle has 4GB of memory and comes in Black or Silver for up to 1,000 songs. It requires iTunes 8.1, which will probably be available for download soon. While moving the controls to the earphone cord means that they can make a smaller shuffle, it will limit the number of options for using your existing 3rd party earphones/headphones. The Apple store is quoting a 3-5 day ship period. This would be a great iPod for someone who doesn’t want to spend a lot on iPod, but still wants to easily carry around their favorite music and purchases from the iTunes store. While this is probably the best shuffle Apple has delivered to date, I have no desire to get one. I’m quite content with the army of iPods and iPhone that I already have 🙂

The iPod shuffle goes for $79. Apple has posted this cool video guided tour to show the features.

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iPhone App of the Week – Kindle for iPhone

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Although I’m not an avid book reader, it’s hard to ignore the significance of having an iPhone (iPod touch) version of the Amazon Kindle Book Reader. I never really paid much attention to the Kindle because I knew I would never buy one. If I read books a lot, I could definitely see the advantage of having a single device with a nice big crisp display that you could download your favorite books to and read on the go.

I figured this would be a natural for the iPhone. Also it would mean having one less device to have to worry about. When Amazon announced that the Kindle App for the iPhone was available, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to play with it. Although the app was a FREE download, I didn’t have any books in Kindle format. Although there are free sample chapters you can download to test, I wanted something real! Since I didn’t have any novels in mind that I wanted to purchase, I looked around my own book collection and it hit me! There was a book that I would LOVE to have with me on my iPhone. It was Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book. This was the perfect book for me to buy in this format. Although I’ve already read the book from cover to cover, there’s no way that I’m going to remember everything and every setting that Scott mentions. So I figured it would be great to have this book on my iPhone for reference when I’m out in the field at a photo shoot or headed to one.

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So I logged on to my Amazon.com on my computer and bought the book ($9.99). Then I went back to my iPhone and launched the Kindle App. The Kindle App started the download process. For some reason it took longer than I expected and at times acted as if it wasn’t even connected. I had to work on other things, so I quit out of the app. When I tried it again later it downloaded the book quickly. There it was on my Kindle home screen, Scott’s complete book. I tapped on it and there it was, the first page of the book.

Navigating and reading

I was amazed at how well this actually works. The text is very readable and you can adjust the font size. The pictures were in color, which is an advantage over the Kindle hardware that only has a grayscale display. You can either flick to change pages or use the slider.

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Of course you can also jump back to the table of contents which has links to each chapter. There is also a very handy bookmark feature. This allows you to add a page you’re currently on as a bookmark so that you can immediately jump back to it whenever you like. This is great for reference books. The Kindle app also keeps track of where you left off. So you don’t have to remember or advance the pages each time you launch the app.

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What’s missing?

Besides my iPhone Book LOL (it’s in the works), I was stunned that there doesn’t appear to be a keyword search. Since I’ll likely be using this app for reference books, I want the ability to search for things that I’m looking for. In the meantime I’ll used the bookmark feature.

The Bottom Line

I haven’t really experienced many book reader apps for the iPhone, but this one certainly does the things I would expect. If they were to add keyword search I’d be 100% sold. Although the experience was good and the technology worked, my main concern with doing this on the iPhone would be battery life. The iPhone 3g is already pretty tough on its battery, add an app that keeps the display on for hours (or several minutes at a time) and you might not be able to make any calls after you’ve read that book. Of course this is less of a concern for iPod touch users. The iPod touch battery seems to keep going and going. Check out the selection of Kindle Books here. Download the Kindle App for iPhone here from the App Store.

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More Mac for the Same $$$

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Apple revamped its entire desktop lineup today introducing updates to the iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro. Each new update is awesome. More speed, more RAM, more/faster ports, faster video, bigger, better, faster! Probably Apple’s best and fastest line up of desktops ever.

They also updated both the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule wireless base station and backup devices with simultaneous dual band support (2.4GHz and 5GHz). This means that you would no longer have to setup two wireless networks to optimize for 802.11n and 802.11 b/g traffic.

This is all great news and normally my credit card would have already been out and orders placed, but the problem is that times are uncertain. This is making me hesitant to upgrade. Unfortunately that is one of the major problems with our economy right now. People that have the money to buy things are holding off buying things. This in effect is going to slow the recovery even further.

My normal buying cycle for a Mac Pro tower is every other release. I’m now 3 releases back. I’ve been making due with the Mac Pro I have. Although Apple is certainly providing more bang for the buck with better specs at the same prices, that’s not enough to move me at the moment. I didn’t upgrade last year, because I had other priorities. This year I’m just afraid to spend the money! I could always use faster rendering times, but I can also continue to make do with what I have. Should I take the plunge and help get this economy moving again or hold off?

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iV TruePower iPhone/iPod touch Backup Battery

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Although I certainly get a full day’s charge off my iPhone 3g on most days, there are times that I might not make it a full day if I’m using a lot of apps on it. If I’m near my computer or an AC outlet no problem, just plug it in. However, If I’m on the go like traveling through an airport on in the back of a cab, I don’t always have access to power to charge my iPhone 3g.

iV for iPhone, TruePower

I was introduced to the iV for iPhone at Macworld Expo this past January. Fastmac was one of the vendors showcasing iPhone and Mac accessories. Now this is not the first iPhone battery I’ve seen. However, what makes this one better is simply the versatility in the design of it. First off the iV is a cradle/case for your iPhone/iPod touch. Some batteries actually clip on to the bottom and therefore limit their use to just charging and maybe talking on the phone as long as you don’t move around much.

The iV is also Dock friendly. Because of the design of the base, you can simply Dock your iPhone into an Apple Dock (or 3rd party solution) without having to first remove the iV from your iPhone. This brings me to the next advantage and that is no third party charger required. You can either dock your iV with iPhone into a charging dock or simply connect your existing USB cable to the bottom of its 30 pin connector. The same connector on the back of your iPhone. Since the iV charges using your existing cable, that’s one less thing you’ll have to keep up with.

What kind of juice do you get?

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The iV will charge up an iPhone that is in the red. It has an on/off button on the back so that the battery is not trying to charge an iPhone that is already charged. There are even LEDs on the back to let you know how much juice is left. So effectively the iV doubles your iPhone’s battery life. It’s also not just for iPhones! There’s a standard USB jack on the bottom too. You can use this battery to charge up your other USB powered devices.

An added bonus for iPhone photographers

There’s even a light on the back that you can turn on/off as needed when you’re taking pictures with the iPhone’s built-in camera. Since the iPhone doesn’t have a flash, this light certainly can’t hurt.

The Bottom Line

If you find yourself running out of power before the end of the day on your iPhone or iPhone 3g and want an external battery, this is one of the best I’ve seen. There are a couple of downsides: the first is a basic one and that is with the iPhone in the iV Battery chances are it won’t fit in your existing case. I use a DLO Hipcase and there is no way that the iPhone and iV will fit in it. Also since there is no belt clip on the back of the iV, I’m out of luck there. The next downside is simply the price. The iV retails for $99.95. Luckily for me they were selling them at Macworld Expo for only $59. I didn’t realize how much of a deal that was until now. At $99.95 (half the cost of a new subsidized 8GB iPhone 3g), I’d really have to think twice. However, now that I have one it has become a permanent part of my bag. If you need one, Amazon has them for $99.95.

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iPhone App of the Week – FlightTrack Pro

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I’m a seasoned traveler! I travel for business all the time and last year clocked over 90,000 flight miles. So needless to say I’ve had my eye out for the ultimate travel app for the iPhone. When I travel, I want an App that can keep track of my flights, reservations, and updates if anything changes. Nothing is more frustrating than to break your neck getting to the airport only to find out that your plane has been delayed for an hour anyway. I was pretty comfortable using the mobile version of Northwest Airlines (mobile.nwa.com) and putting my schedule on my calendar. I would also put the confirmation numbers in the notes of those calendar events. My frequent flyer/stay numbers go in the notes of the Contact records. Granted this is a multiple app/entry effort, but I’ve used it now for years.

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FlightTrack Pro is it!

Actually FlightTrack Pro isn’t it all by itself, FlightTrack Pro works in conjunction with the free travel website TripIt.com. It’s the integration of these two pieces that make this a near perfect solution. FlightTrack Pro by itself is an app for the iPhone/iPod touch that keeps track of your flight information. It will stay updated on any delays and gate changes. The information about your flight becomes live 3 days before your flight takes off. FlightTrack Pro also displays the ever important GATE number. It also allows you to check the weather for both your departure location and your destination as well as any airport delays.

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This is all well and good, but it wouldn’t be enough for me to pay for. Again, I pretty much fly one airline and most of the above is available for free on a cool iPhone friendly version of their site. It’s the TripIt integration that makes FlightTrack Pro worth the price.

TripIt.com is the secret sauce

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Like I said, TripIt.com is a FREE site. You can go there right now and sign up and start using it to manage your travel. What I absolutely LOVE about TripIt.com is that I don’t have to manually enter my trip information. They make it so easy! All you have to do is email/forward your itinerary to plans@tripit.com from the email address(es) that you registered with the site. The site automatically converts that email into all the right fields on the site. It takes only a few seconds once you send the email, for the site to be updated. It’s like magic. I was blown away by how well this works. When I book travel for work our travel agent sends the itinerary as a PDF attachment in an email. I was thinking, “this will never work”. However, I decided I had nothing to lose by trying it, so I forwarded the PDF itinerary and IT WORKED! I was floored that the site was able to digest the PDF.

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Once you configure FlightTrack Pro with your TripIt login info, FlightTrack Pro will then pick up your flight information automatically and instantly! You can even email your itinerary to someone (perhaps the person meeting you) directly from FlightTrack Pro. There is also a button that you can tap to take you right to the TripIt site on your iPhone if you want to see more details about your reservation such as hotel, rental car, etc.

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Mac Users: TripIt has an added bonus! It automatically generates an iCal that you (or your loved ones, colleagues, etc.) can subscribe to that contains all your travel details! This feature is outstanding and icing on the cake.

It even tracks the current progress of the flight

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This feature isn’t really that useful for the actual traveler unless you just happen to be on a flight with Wi-Fi. The reason is, in order to show your current flight status such as location on the map, altitude, MPH, etc., you have to be able to get online, which is a no no while you’re in the air on most commercial flights. Now if you enter the flight information of a loved one or someone you’re shuttling to/from the airport, it’s pretty awesome to know EXACTLY where their plane is and when it will land.

The Bottom Line

FlightTrack Pro by itself is not that exciting. FlightTrack Pro combined with TripIt.com ROCKS! While FlightTrack Pro works as advertised, I’d like to see the 2.0 version of the app or maybe a super pro version that incorporates ALL of the itinerary instead of just the flight info. This has the potential for being the ULTIMATE travel app. While the link/button to TripIt is cool, I would much rather have the native app contain ALL of the info. Imagine how cool it would be since the app would know about your entire trip? For example, it would know about your flights like it does now. Once you land it would then display your rental car info or other ground transportation info/confirmation numbers. It could use the iPhone’s GPS to track where you are and direct you to your hotel. Once you arrive at the hotel it could automatically display your hotel confirmation number. How about suggest restaurants in the area?

This app is great, but there is so much more potential! The only thing that I was slightly disappointed in is that in its current incarnation when I landed, it would have been nice for the app to display the baggage claim carousel. Granted, this info may not even be available via the database that the app uses (FlightStats™), but it would be nice! Other than that I think the app is well worth the price for anyone who travels by air on a regular basis.

FlighTrack Pro goes for $9.99 on the App Store. Even if you don’t buy the app, you should head over to TripIt.com and setup an account TODAY!

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iPhone App of the Week – Arcade Bowling

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If you’re looking for a little distraction without having to put much thought into it, then you should check out Arcade Bowling. Arcade Bowling is just like the bowling games in the arcade. You roll the ball down the alley and up into cups to score. Just like the real game it takes a little finesse to get the balls into the cups with the higher scores. The first time I played this game I really sucked at it. The problem was that I was flicking the ball to fast/hard. Then I slowed it way down and started getting higher scores. 

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Arcade Bowling has two modes: Classic and Progressive. The Classic game is just like the one in the arcade. You get a set number of balls and ones you’ve bowled them all, the game is over. The  Progressive game is based on achieving a set score. If you achieve the score then you get more balls to continue playing.

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  • Classic Mode (9 Balls)
  • Progressive Mode – multiple levels of game play with increasingly challenging score plateaus and bonus targets
  • Choice of two background music tracks
  • Accelerometer control of the ball in flight
  • Sound and music volume controls
  • Local high score boards
  • Global High Score boards so you can compete with other players around the globe (pending Apple approval)

Arcade Bowling is a fun game and provides a nice distraction when you need a break in your day or your standing in a line somewhere.  If you like Skeeball, you’ll love Arcade Bowling. Arcade Bowling goes for $1.99 and works on the iPhone and iPod touch. Download it from the App Store here. There is a lite version that is FREE. The lite version only has the Classic game with 9 balls. Download Arcade Bowling Lite for FREE from the App Store here.

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MobileMe – 6 months later…

No company is perfect and that includes Apple, Inc. Apple has been hitting some good home runs lately. No one can argue the success of the iPod, MacBook, iTunes Store, iPhone and Mac OS X. However, Apple’s MobileMe is still, well, um, let’s just say not quite there yet!

MobileMe was launched in July of 2008 on the same day as the iPhone 3g. It was the revamped replacement to .Mac. The main focus of MobileMe was to allow iPhone, iPod touch, Mac and PC users to sync their data wirelessly with the cloud (MobileMe). Of course on launch day there were nothing but problems. Apple’s servers were overwhelmed by all the simultaneous activations of iPhones and MobileMe accounts. 

So let’s fast forward 6 months later and take another look at MobileMe. MobileMe provides its subscribers with email, online storage, data syncing and web hosting. I’ve been a MobileMe user (and before that .Mac and before that iTools) user since day one. So I’ve got first hand experience on what works and what doesn’t. I’ll start by saying that I have no issues with email and data storage (other than the slowness of using the iDisk in the Finder). These services work quite well for me. My issues are pretty much all with the data syncing. 

I love the concept of no matter where you make the changes to your contacts, calendar or email, it will be updated on all your other devices. As an iPhone user this is a really nice thing to have. I was very happy to turn on MobileMe syncing on my iPhone 3g the day I got it. It was like magic to see my phone load up with all my contacts wirelessly. Life was good! 

 

Trouble in paradise

It didn’t take long for the problems to surface. My contacts are probably the most important thing to me on my iPhone. I’m constantly making calls, looking up addresses and looking at contact notes. So if there is the least little problem here it’s going to be magnified for me 10 fold. A couple of days later I went to make a call and my Contacts list was EMPTY! That’s right all gone. Poof! Oddly enough they were still on my Mac in Address Book and still on the www.me.com site. A few minutes later, they were all back on my iPhone. Now other than the obvious inconvenience of them not being there when I went to make a call, there was another issue. My custom ringtone settings were gone. I’m big on assigning ringtones to friends, family members and co-workers so that I have an idea of who’s calling before I even pickup the phone. Well when the Contacts came back, they came back without the ringtone assignments (Apple doesn’t sync your ringtone assignments with the cloud). I timed it and it takes me about 15-20 minutes to reassign them as it has to be done one-by-one. I figured OK, this is probably a one time thing. A hiccup with the cloud perhaps. So I did all my ringtone assignments over again and moved on. Unfortunately this was not a one time thing. It happened at least a dozen times from July to now. There are a few threads on Apple’s discussion boards of people having the same exact problem, so I’m not alone here. I finally gave up!!! That’s right, I just couldn’t take it anymore. One minute they’re there, the next minute they’re not. So I turned off MobileMe syncing of Contacts and went back to syncing them manually via iTunes and the USB cable. I haven’t had a problem since. Now my Contacts are always there and my ringtone assignments stay intact!

 

Calendars

Apple still doesn’t seem to get it when it comes to  calendars. There are several issues that I don’t have the time to go into here so I’ll stick to the big ones.

The biggest problem is that MobileMe still doesn’t handle subscribed iCals. This means that if you use the automatic Birthdays calendar from Address Book, you won’t have this important calendar on your iPhone. No birthdays! At least not without some workarounds. Also if you subscribe to anyone else’s iCal, you won’t have those calendars on your iPhone either. So much for checking your spouse’s calendar before making plans. Another odd problem is that you can’t even select which of your non-subscribed calendars get sync’d. It’s either all or nothing if you sync using MobileMe. So if you have some misc. calendars that you don’t care about on your iPhone, they will be there whether you need them or not. Now if you turn off MobileMe calendar syncing and sync manually via iTunes you’ll be able to have just the calendars you want including subscribed ones. Go figure! Unfortunately I can’t turn off MobileMe calendar syncing like I did for Contact syncing because I also use Exchange syncing for my work calendar. If you sync with Exchange, you can’t sync manually with iCal. It’s either all manual syncing or all cloud syncing for any given category (contacts, calendars, etc.). You can’t mix the two.

 

The Bottom Line

MobileMe is $99/year (or less if you find it on sale). If I wasn’t using the other services if offers, it would be really hard for me to justify renewing this! I keep hoping for a silver lining in the cloud, but after 6 months it’s still a storm cloud. If one of my friends walked up to me and asked me if they should use MobileMe, I would be very hard pressed to say yes at this point. Let’s hope that Apple is hard at work fixing these issues and maybe we’ll see a MobileMe that works by its one year anniversary in July 2009. With all the emphasis on software as a service that most companies are moving towards, Apple needs to get this one right in order to be taken seriously in the future.

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iPhone App of the Week – Lose It!

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This app was recently featured in one of Apple iPhone commercials. I believe the line was "if you want to count calories, there’s an app for that." I was sitting there watching LOST and when I saw the ad, I picked up my iPhone and downloaded it. I was blown away by this app from the start. It’s so much more than just counting calories. This is a complete fitness, diet, nutrition tracking app. I was using Weight Tracker (another fine app) before this one, but Lose It! does everything Weight Tracker does and a lot more.

 

Getting Started

You start out by simply inputting your current weight and then your goal weight. Lose It! then prompts you with number pounds you would like to lose each week to meet your goal. In my case I could have either chosen 1 or 2 pounds a week. Then it tells you the date by which you should meet your goal. Next it figures out a per day Calorie Budget. Whatever this number is, if you stay under it, you should reach your goal. It even takes into account exercises that you do and adds those calories burned back in to your budget for that day. 

 

Figuring out how much you can eat

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I was also blown away by the extensive database of foods that are already in its database. You simply tell it what you have/had for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and it will subtract those calories from your budget. Of course it can’t possibly know the calories for everything. So you can easily add your own custom foods or foods that aren’t in its database. Many restaurants now have their nutrition information on their websites. This has been very helpful for me. I was surprised to see how many calories there were in some of my favorite foods at like P.F. Chang’s vs. some of the other foods I eat at the same restaurant! It was really eye opening. 

 

Tracking your progress

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You enter in your weight each day (or as often as you like) and Lose It! will track your progress with a nice graph. It will also tell you how much you are under or over your calorie budget each day and for the week.

 

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It even has one of my favorite activities/exercises…… er, um Scuba Diving! 😉 

 

The Bottom Line

We are all trying to live a little healthier these days and having this app has really made a difference for me! I much more conscious of calories than I ever would have been without. I’ve already lost 7+ pounds since I’ve been using it. The most amazing thing to me is that this app is FREE! That’s right, there’s no charge. I’m stunned by how well this app is designed and that it doesn’t cost a dime. It works on both the iPhone and iPod touch. Download it today from the App Store.