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FacePlant brings quick FaceTime chats and video voice mail to the iPhone 4
By now, everybody who owns an iPhone 4 knows how cool FaceTime is. They're also probably frustrated with the fact that a) you need to make a call at least one time in order to verify that a friend has an iPhone 4 and can actually do FaceTime chats, b) you can't see when friends are on Wi-Fi and ready to talk, and c) you can't leave them a video message when they're off a Wi-Fi network or have their phone turned off. An upcoming free iPhone app, FacePlant, hopes to change all of that. FacePlant is from the same folks who brought you 12seconds and Rally Up, so they had the necessary savvy to supply both the video messaging piece and the social networking feel that FacePlant provides. Here's the concept: you sign up for a free FacePlant account, which consists of your name and iPhone 4 number. The app goes through your contacts list, and if there's anyone in that list who is registered with FacePlant, they show up on a list of contacts. If they're ready and willing to talk, their name shows up surrounded by a bright orange bar; if they're offline, their name is outlined in gray. Tapping an active (orange) name displays a dialog that asks if you want to make a FaceTime call, a voice call, or leave a video message.
Zensify, another not-so-hot social aggregator for the iPhone
It's an increasingly crowded category on the App Store: Social Networking. Like several other apps in this category, Zensify (iTunes link) doesn't just tap into one social networking service. The app is an aggregator, taking multiple sites and rolling them up into one app that will, in theory, make your social networking somehow easier. That's the promise of all these aggregator apps. So how does Zensify do? First, Zensify supports Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, YouTube, 12seconds and Photobucket. Unfortunately, I had only moderate success with signing in to some of these. Flickr takes you to the requisite Flickr-based verification pages, but after going through the process I received a warning dialog that an error had occurred, with only OK as my option to continue -- right before the app froze up completely. Then I tried Digg, but there was only a username field, not a password field. I was able to get Delicious to work, and YouTube (after quitting the app, as there was a bug preventing me from typing in the text area). I didn't try Photobucket or 12seconds, as I'm not big on those. I should note that I wound up deleting Zensify, then re-installing it, and something interesting happened -- once I had re-logged into Facebook Connect, my previous logins "stuck." I only needed to type in my username on digg and it said everything was logged in. That was a pretty neat trick, and a re-install appears to take care of some of the initial bugs. I'm assured by the folks at Zensify that several other bugs are being crushed for the next release. While Zensify is pretty in parts, there are functionality issues. These are because, in an effort to do everything, the app winds up a confusing mess at times. Many apps suffer from this, especially social networking apps. Keep reading for my full review. %Gallery-68468%
12seconds, Animoto release iPhone apps for video slideshows
12seconds.tv is a site that started up a little while ago that seems to be aiming at a "Twitter-for-video" kind of idea -- you upload just twelve seconds of video, whether that's you saying something, video of a short scene, or whatever else you want. The site was in alpha but has recently opened up to beta (so anyone can join), and they've also released an iPhone app, available for 99 cents in the App Store right now."But wait, Mike," I hear you saying, "the iPhone doesn't record video!" And it still doesn't, but it does record pictures and audio, and the 12seconds app will combine a slideshow of three pictures you take with any 12 seconds of audio you record, thus creating a close approximation of a 12 second video. You can see my sample upload here, just a few pictures of my apartment's hallway and some Mountain Goats playing from my speakers. You can use pics you've already taken, and the whole process of recording, combining, and uploading works pretty well. You don't have any control over how the images slide across: it's more of a "throw it all into the mix and hope something good comes out" thing.It's an interesting idea, and while you're paying a buck for a social networking video app that can't actually record video (not that that's 12seconds' fault, Apple), you could probably come up with some pretty creative stuff, from the artistic and witty to the requisite cat videos (because no video site is complete without a cute kitty). It's definitely not a video replacement for the iPhone, but for uploading quick and simple snippets of experience from wherever you are, it does the job.For a different approach to photo-based videos generated on your iPhone, you can check out the free Animoto app, released last week by the website of the same name. Animoto will take 8-16 photos from your iPhone or iPod touch, let you order them and select musical accompaniment (from a provided but fairly ample list of tracks; you can't use your own music or record a soundtrack). The app then uploads your images to the Animoto site and cranks out a 30 second, montage-style video for you. You can stream the video back to your iPhone, or send it along to friends. If Techcrunch gushes about it, well, you know it must be just awesome, right?
