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Daily iPhone App: Blur Studio lets you add a touch of blur to personalize your wallpapers
Blur Studio from Taphive is a wallpaper-creating app that uses a blur filter as its primary design tool. It generates creative home screen designs that match the look and feel of iOS 7. Blur is photo-based and allows you to either take a new photo or import one from your camera roll. Once you have a photo on your canvas, you can adjust the blur strength within a range that allows you to apply no blur or so much blur the entire image is a mixture of hazy colors. You can also change the tint of the blur to match your phone, your case or even your mood. One of the handiest features of Blur is the preview mode, which allows you to test out your new home screen while you are still tweaking its look. This Home Screen Test Mode supports Apple's parallax effect so you get a realistic look at your wallpaper before you finalize all your changes. Once you are done with your design, you can tap the "checkmark" button and export the wallpaper to your camera roll. Once it is in with your photos, you can select the exported wallpaper, tap the share button and choose "Use as a Wallpaper" to assign it as your new home screen. The wallpapers are saved at the correct size for the parallax effect in iOS 7. Blur allows you to easily and quickly create new wallpapers. It has an intuitive UI that's easy to master in just a few minutes. My only critique is the lack of basic photo-editing tools. It doesn't have a crop tool or a move tool that would allow you to pick a section of your photo for your wallpaper. For example, I have a nice shot of my daughter holding a turtle and would love to use the colorful painted turtle as the focus point of the blurred wallpaper. Unfortunately, the turtle is on the right side of the photo and it gets pushed off the wallpaper. It would be helpful if I could move the photo a bit to the left and put the turtle in the center. This is a new app, so hopefully this feature will be added in future updates. Despite this drawback, Blur Studio is still worth checking out. It is available in the iOS App Store for US$1.99.
Daily iPhone App: The Fliptastic slideshow maker works like a charm
I've been looking at slideshow apps for some time and have found them all to be pretty useful. Some of the iOS apps I've checked out don't let you choose transitions, and others have no way to let you choose your own music. So I was pleased to get a chance to look at Fliptastic, which comes with a variety of transitions and lets you select music from your own collection. The app also gives you a way to add attractive text to each slide. The downside is that there is a 10-slide limit, and a 15-second maximum length to your show. For a quick share, however, I can live within those limits. Although the app says it's a slideshow maker for Instagram, don't let that deter you. You can save the videos to your camera roll and mail them out, or you can deliver your slideshow to Facebook or YouTube. The app is simple to use. Give Fliptastic access to your camera roll, and choose the images you want. You get a mini-editor that lets you crop the image to your liking, and then you add your text, choose transitions (crossfade, blur, slide and more) and select music from your own library or the supplied clips. One little nit to pick -- the music gets cut off abruptly at the end, disappearing in a quick fade. It's a bit too abrupt for my tastes. Other than that criticism, Fliptastic works -- and works well. It's 50 percent off for a limited time, so US$0.99 gets you into the slideshow arena. Fliptastic requires iOS 6 or greater, and is optimized for the iPhone 5 series of phones. It has a lot of features that most competing apps don't have in one place. I'd love to see the ability to select more slides and make the shows longer, and that just doesn't seem like a difficult feature to add.
Daily iPhone App: LinkedIn Contacts
As a journalist, LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool for managing all my sources, public relations contacts, technology contact and more. And while I've been a user and fan of the LinkedIn iPhone app (free) for years (the iPad app is still horrible), I always lamented the fact that there was no way to easily organize or sort through contacts within the app. That all changed earlier this year however, when LinkedIn unveiled its companion app LinkedIn Contacts, which is our Daily iPhone App. LinkedIn Contacts is a power user's dream. Not only is it a speedy little app for searching through all your LinkedIn connections, it also allows you to sift through them with ease. LinkedIn Contacts allows you to filter your connections by tags, companies, titles, locations or sources. This is much easier than trying to manually find that name of a connection when all you've got is, for example, that he used to work for Apple and lives in London. You can also browse through your connections alphabetically, those you've newly connected with or by those you've had a recent conversation with (meaning, you've sent them LinkedIn messages). The app also has a nice "To Do" function, which shows you the job changes and work anniversaries of your connections. As a journalist, this is very handy because I can easily see when one of my PR contacts changes to representing a different company. Finally, the app also offers a calendar function, where you can import all your events from your iOS calendar and combine them with LinkedIn's data. For example, if you have a meeting set up at 2 PM with Sue and Josh from Apple, you could quickly pull up their LinkedIn profiles to get the latest information about them. LinkedIn Contacts is a free download.
Daily iPhone app: Gym Genius lets you create and track your custom workouts
One important feature of a workout app is ease of use. You are not going to set up and log your exercise progress if the app is difficult to use. It's in this area that Gym Genius shines. Within 10 minutes of installing the app, I had set up three workouts and was ready to get started with my training. The workout plans are your broad goals and can include multiple workouts that are scheduled on different days of the week. I'm looking to do a triathlon next year and have created a workout plan to reach that goal. Within my workout plan, there are different daily workouts with Monday focusing on running, Tuesday on swimming, Wednesday on strength training and so on. Each daily workout has a list of exercises from which I can choose. Gym Genius ships with a medium-sized list of exercises that are organized by muscle group. If an exercise is not on the list that ships with the app, then you can easily add it to the list. The list is just that -- a list. There is no description of each exercise, nor any instructions on how to do the exercises. You can only select an exercise and add in the set and repetition information. This is one major drawback to Gym Genius, especially for someone who may be new to working out and doesn't know all the names of the exercises. One handy feature of Gym Genius is a reporting feature that allows you to track your exercises as well as your body fat and weight. You can see how you are improving in length and duration of your exercises. The app also tracks personal records, which gives your motivation that extra boost when you are less than determined in your workout. Gym Genius is available from the iOS App Store for US$1.99. It is recommended for people who want an easy and effective way to log their exercises and track their workout progress. It doesn't include detailed exercise information, but seasoned fitness trainers don't need these extra details and may prefer the streamlined interface offered by Gym Genius.
Daily iPhone App: Recur! takes the to-do list and turns it around
Recur! The Reverse To-Do List is a list-maker app that turns things around by keeping track of the things you've done instead of the things you need to do. Created by the developer behind CARROT, Recur! lets you create a to-do list for the things that you've done. You can track anything from exercises to the number of books you've read. The app is basic in its features and allows you to add to the counter every time you complete a task. There is no history tracking for each task, so you can only see the timestamp from when you last completed a task. You can also set an alarm to remind you to do the task again. Recur! integrates into the CARROT To-do list, which is handy for those who use that app to track their to-do list. Recur!, though, is not CARROT-enabled and does not have the personality of its list-tracking cousin. Recur! hit the App Store earlier this week with a US$0.99 price tag. It's worth a download if you are a CARROT user or are looking for a basic to-do tracker. If you want something a bit more robust to track how often you complete a task, then you should check out an app like Daily Goals.
Daily iPhone App: Fotor HDR brings some new tricks to iPhone photography
Fotor HDR is a new iPhone app for those of you who like to take high dynamic range (HDR) photos. The US$1.99 app adds some very sophisticated processing options after you take the multiple images required for an HDR image. The main feature Fotor HDR offers is preset styles. Rather than simply providing filters, the Fotor styles are geared to HDR images, and are similar to what you see in the pro HDR apps you see on the Mac, such as Photomatix and HDR Efex Pro 2 from Nik/Google. Here's how the app works: you frame your image on screen, with Fotor offering a grid to help you compose and level the camera. There are two picture-taking modes -- one mode grabs the images and processes them, while the other mode allows you to continue taking photos rapidly without waiting for processing and aligning (you can do that after your photo session). Processing and aligning are pretty quick on an iPhone 5s, and I think it's quite acceptable on older hardware as well. Once the images are done, you have the option to select a style for your photo, or leave the HDR image alone. Some of the styles were a bit over the top, but may appeal to some photographers. Some, like surreal, worked well if there were lots of clouds and a contrasty sky. With each style, you can adjust saturation, brightness, contrast and create a vignette. I was able to turn out some really nice photos using Fotor HDR. In my tests, I found it far superior to the built-in HDR feature of the iPhone Camera app, and similar in quality to one of my favorite photo apps, Pro HDR. Apple's HDR is very subtle, but when there are deep shadows it doesn't do very well. It does work well when faces are in front of a bright sky, brightening the faces while still revealing the great outdoors. When I gave Fotor HDR my "dark room with bright window" test, it did very well, revealing details in the room without overexposing the bright scene outside. What also makes Fotor HDR stand out are the style presets and the ability to adjust within those parameters. Readers can view some comparisons in the slide show above. I'm impressed with what Fotor HDR brings as an iPhone imaging tool. In future versions, I'd like to see the option to combine three images rather than two for greater dynamic range. Fotor HDR is not a universal app, so it's best used on your iPhone or iPod touch. It requires iOS 6.0 or later, but the user interface has a nice iOS 7 look to it.
Daily iPhone App: Knot reminds you of tasks and gives your memory a workout
The iPhone is usually the item you have at hand when you need to make a quick note, and Knot takes advantage of this by making it as easy as possible to leave yourself a reminder -- tying the proverbial piece of string around your finger. Knot goes a step further from basic reminders by utilizing associative memory to prompt you to actually remember what you have to do. You choose where or when your phone will alert you that you have a task to accomplish, type it in and then hit the home button to close the app. When you reach the location or time of the task, Knot will remind you that you needed to do something -- it's up to your brain to supply the missing information. If you actually remember your task, acknowledge it in the app. You can cheat; Knot keeps a list of active tasks you can access at any time. But at the bottom of that list is a memory score letting you know how much you actually remember or shaming you into trying to work those memory skills. It's great for exercising your brain, but Knot is best used when you're busy and need to jot down a reminder for something that will be done in the next couple of hours, not the next few days. Knot isn't good for long-term planning or GTD gurus, but it's great for remembering those little one-off tasks that pop up during the day. Knot is US$0.99 on the App Store.
Daily iPhone App: Argus fitness app uses the M7 to track your steps
The iPhone 5s and its M7 motion coprocessor are opening the doors to a new wave of fitness apps that take advantage of the low-power motion processing available with the motion chip. One of the first apps to use the data from the M7 is the Argus - Motion and Fitness Tracker from Azumio. The big draw of Argus for many people will be the step tracking, which is pulled from the M7 on the iPhone 5s and from GPS with older devices. I've tested the Argus step data on the iPhone 5s, and it compares favorably with the data from the Fitbit Flex -- with one caveat. For the step tracking on the iPhone to be accurate, you have to always have your phone on your person, which can be a big problem for some folks. Besides steps, Argus also tracks your weight, workouts, water consumption, coffee consumption, sleep and more. If there is a parameter that is now shown, you can search for it and add it to your profile. I do a lot of kayaking, so it was very convenient to find that rowing was included in the database, even if it wasn't on the main screen. The app is designed to automate your data collection by tying into your Withings scale and other apps that monitor your sleep, heart rate and so on. You can also enter in your data manually, As you enter data, you can view all your stats at once in a timeline view that has a honeycomb layout. There is also a "Trends" option in the settings that allow you to view any two items that you track. You can compare your steps with your weight or your cups of coffee with your sleep duration, for example. You can also view the history of an individual item by tapping on it in the Timeline view. Argus manages to pack a lot of information into the app, but you have to get accustomed to the UI before you can take advantage of the data that is being stored. I am used to the Jawbone Up and the Fitbit Flex and prefer those apps to Argus. If you've never used a fitness tracker, though, you may be able to jump right into Argus without a second thought. Regardless, it's worth a look for iPhone 5s owners who want to use the M7 to track their steps and overall fitness. Argus is available from the iOS App store for free.
Daily iPhone App: Space out with Angry Birds Star Wars II
The original Angry Birds Star Wars title was a blissful marriage of two iconic IPs, and as a dedicated Angry Birds fan, it remains one of my favorite games in the series. With Angry Birds Star Wars II, Rovio tries to recapture that same magic, and while the core mechanics remain largely unchanged, your enjoyment of the game will depend on how well you stomach in-app purchases. When the original Angry Birds Star Wars was released, its in-app purchase options were limited to a few bonus training missions. Over time, a plethora of microtransaction options were added, giving the experience a bit of a cheap feel. That same emphasis on purchasable upgrades permeates Angry Birds Star Wars II from the very start, and a pulsing shopping cart at the top of the game screen is a constant reminder that the game would love to sell you some overpowered goodies. The gameplay itself is the same time-tested Angry Birds excellence we've come to expect, with a ton of fantastic destruction puzzles, great music and ridiculously gorgeous background art. Rovio really gives the Star Wars characters and locations a ton of flair and attention to detail. If you're a Star Wars fan, there's a lot to love here. The airborne assassins at your disposal range from Jedi-themed birds that wield lightsabers to newcomers like a Yoda character that spins and bounces off of everything in sight. You can also play as the Dark Side (or "Pork Side") characters for the first time, which adds an evil angle to the mayhem. Every level is fun to play, and the boss levels can seriously test your skills, which is a pleasant change from many of the so-called "casual" hits on the App Store. You can absolutely best every level in the game without spending anything on the bonus characters -- and I'd argue that doing so is more challenging, as well as more fun. However, with the game constantly reminding you that there are purchasable bonus characters available, it can be easy to feel like you're missing out on something by not throwing down the extra cash. It's not a deal breaker, but it definitely adds an unwelcome layer of annoyance to the experience. If you love Angry Birds, this one is an easy recommendation, and with so many levels and new characters to play, Angry Birds Star Wars II offers a lot of content for just US$0.99. If you've not played an Angry Birds game before, or if you have, but you skipped the first Star Wars iteration, I'd suggest going back and checking out the original crossover title before agreeing to take on its bigger, darker brother.
Daily iPhone App: Gresham College
Gresham College has existed for centuries in the United Kingdom. Located in London, it has been providing free lectures by some of the greatest minds in the world since 1597. Think of Gresham as the original TED, 400 years before TED was even conceived. Living in London, I go to a lecture at Gresham from time to time when I can nab a seat, but now thanks to a grant from the City of London Corporation and the Mercers' Company, getting a seat for a talk at Gresham won't be a problem anymore as the college has joined the mobile age with the release of the official Gresham College app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The app allows users to browse more than 350 lectures, from some of the world's greatest minds including Bill Bryson, Sir Andrew Motion, Baroness Deech, The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Rt Hon John Bercow (Speaker of the House of Commons), Professor Niall Ferguson and more. More than 150 new lectures are added every year. Users can discover new topics through the archive of knowledge, ordered into 11 subjects such as: art and literature, business, history, law, mathematics, medical science, music, politics, religion, science and unusual, and share or bookmark their favorites. Best of all, the videos can be downloaded for offline viewing. If you're a fan of TED, I urge you to check out the Gresham College app. Though Gresham talks do not have the slick production values that TED talks do, their content often meets or exceeds TED's. But it's not like you need to choose, right? Go ahead and grab them both. The Gresham College app is a free download.
Daily iPhone App: Vert, the beautiful conversion utility
There's no shortage of unit conversion apps on the iPhone. Matter of fact, a unit conversion app was the first app I ever downloaded -- and that app has remained on my iPhone since. That is, until I found Vert. Vert is the most beautifully designed unit conversion app I've ever found. I'll let the screenshots speak for themselves, but as you can see, a lot of care went into the design. Best of all, its flat looks make it a perfect fit for the new iOS 7. But design is one thing. What people want from a unit conversion app is a wide array of categories. Vert has 30 categories with over 700 different units. Not only do you have your normal weight, length, speed, time and volume units, you also get some units I've never seen before in a conversion app including Hats & Caps, Radioactivity, Shirt & Blouses, Shoes, Suits & Dresses, Typography and Viscosity. What is great about each category is you can favorite whatever ones you want so you can quickly just view a list of your most frequently converted items. Moreover, inside each category, you can favorite your most-converted units of measurements. For example, if you only use the Teaspoon US and Ounce UK units, you can favorite them so you don't need to scroll through the entire list of units each time. Other nice features include letting you view your conversion history, support for automatic currency updates for 164 currencies from 249 countries and regions, unit conversion precision up to seven decimals, multiple color themes and sets of unusual units, such as Kardashian, donkeypower, manpower, shot glass, fully loaded 747, Manhattan city block and more. Additionally, Vert will soon be updated with new features, such as the ability to combine units like foot + inch, mile + foot, hour + minutes and pound + ounce; icon view for categories; a new category just for rock climbers; and an organized list of categories (Units of Measurement, Clothing and Other). Vert is the best unit conversion app I've ever used and is available from the App Store for US$0.99.
Daily iPhone App: PhotoPresenter gets your iOS photos on the big screen
PhotoPresenter from Boinx Software is a new US$0.99 app that lets you display your photos from an iOS device to a big screen via a cable or using AirPlay to an AppleTV. At first glance, this seems a silly expenditure, since you can use a cable or AirPlay to do that now, but PhotoPresenter has one very compelling feature in that you can display the photos in any order, rather than having to create a slideshow in advance. When you tap on any photo on your iPhone or iPad, it's displayed until you tap on another one. They can be in the order you choose. While your display device shows your photo full screen, you see all your photo libraries and can move between them while your last photo stays on display for your audience. I can see this being very handy for on-the-fly presentations. If you are using AirPlay you want to be in the mirroring mode. Even if you don't do presentations, the app is great for impromptu photo sharing. You probably won't want everything on your camera roll on the big screen, so you can pick and choose without anxiety. I tried the app on both an iPad and my iPhone. The app ran fine under iOS 6 and iOS 7 beta. One thing to note: The instructions tell you how to invoke AirPlay on iOS 6, but iOS 7 does it differently using the new control center. If you don't know that, and if the instructions aren't updated, you may be stuck waiting for your photos to appear. Other than that, PhotoPresenter is a very good idea at a very low price. I'm going to find a lot of uses for it, and you may too. Boinx has a lot of experience at dealing with photo apps such as FotoMagico 4 and TV production software like BoinxTV. PhotoPresenter requires iOS 6 or later, is universal and is optimized for the iPhone 5.
Daily iPhone App: Radium for iOS is a delight for radio fans
I love the radio. Not internet radio, that awkward bastardization of the format bleating out unending playlists without human interaction. No, I mean actual turn-the-dial-and-find-a-voice radio. If you want news, music or just the sound of someone you disagree with talking about sports or politics, radio is there for you. It's a truly beautiful thing. Unfortunately, the radio game isn't what it used to be. While I'm blessed to live in a city like Atlanta, Ga., that features a host of solid local stations, not everyone is so lucky. That's why the Radium app for iOS was such a joy to discover. Radium is a simple app with plenty of extra features for those who want to dig a little deeper. Upon opening the app, viewers are met with a simple screen offering a search bar at the top and your current list of favorited stations at the bottom. Searching is simple: just type in whatever genre you're looking for and hit done. Radium will offer up a list of station names with their respective content sub-genres listed underneath. The app draws from an international list of stations, reportedly around 6,000, to find exactly what you're craving. You can find rock stations from around the world, stream NPR if you don't have a local affiliate or discover what the kids are listening to in Japan these days. For this news and music fan, the best feature is the ability to stream the myriad different stations offered by the BBC. The BBC produces some of the finest radio content available anywhere, from news to music to in-house dramatic productions. Simply hook up your iOS device to your home stereo and sit back for hours of programing. All for free. Radium also features the ability to stream subscription radio services, allowing you to log in to Sirius XM and stream your favorite stations on your iOS device. It currently also supports subscriptions to CalmRadio, DI Radio + SKY Radio, JazzRadio.com and Live365. Once you decide on a station to listen to, Radium has a number of features available to improve your listening experience. Listeners with picky sound preferences will be happy to find an equalizer setting for optimized sound, including a delightful "auto" button that automatically adjusts the settings to match your current song or station. This feature can be turned off if auto equalization isn't your cup of tea. Radium also allows for Last.fm track scrobbling and iCloud device syncing. For users who have Radium for both their Mac and their iPhone, iCloud syncing is a nice way of keeping your favorite stations updated on each device. Listeners are also able to share what tracks they're listening to via an integrated Twitter function. At US$3.99, the app is might be seen as a splurge, especially given the wide number of free streaming internet radio options out there. However, for obsessive radio devotees or just music fans looking for playlists that are curated by human beings and not algorithms, it's a small price to pay. Radium is an example of how mobile devices and apps can connect you to ideas and voices from around the world. That it can also play dance music on top of those features is simply a scoop of ice cream on an already joyful experience.
Daily iPhone App: PicPlayPost lets you add images and video to your collage
There are dozens of collage apps that let you put borders around your pictures, but PicPlayPost does something a bit different. It lets you place both pictures and video into customizable frames and then share those multimedia creations with the world. PicPlayPost is a collage app, and like any good collage creator, it comes with a decent selection of square and rectangular frames. It has frames for different aspect ratios, which is convenient for folks who are framing a variety of images. Once you've selected a frame style, you can add pictures or video from your camera roll. You then can apply effects using the app's six image filters effects or five video filters effects. You can also free rotate the media to get just the right angle for your design. With your media in place, you can begin customizing the frames by changing their width and applying a color or texture to the borders. If you want to see how your custom photo-video montage will appear to viewers, there is a preview option available when you click on the clapperboard icon and select "Preview." This will render the videos and provide a quick look at your collage. Photos are fun to create and even more fun to share with family and friends. PicPlayPost has got you covered with support for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Viddy, YouTube, email and copy to MMS. If you use video in your collage, you should know that not all social networks will play back the hybrid photo-video clip. Instagram will support the video montage as will Facebook and YouTube. Twitter only supports the photo montage, while Viddy only supports the video. PicPlayPost is for anyone looking to design creative montages using both the photos and videos they have captured with their iOS device. It is is available as a universal app in the iOS App Store and costs US$1.99.
Daily iPhone App: SharpScan for iOS quickly and effortlessly scans your documents
SharpScan is a free (with in-app purchase options) iOS app that makes document scanning a snap. Select your camera to snap a document or choose an image with text already saved in your camera roll, and you'll quickly get a sharp image of your document. The app helps knock out noise, shadows and those inevitable distortions that arise from shooting at a slightly off-center angle. The image can be cropped manually or automatically. Scanned documents are then shareable as an image file or a PDF. The free version is ad-supported, and it also adds an unobtrusive watermark to your scanned images. You can upgrade to the pro version for US$2.99. I ran SharpScan through a variety of tasks, and it worked quite well. I even scanned an address and turned it into a label that I printed and attached to an envelope. Text was sharp, and the app focused quickly on the documents I was scanning. Help is built-in, and there are video tutorials available, but I think most users will never need them. In my opinion, the only negative thing about SharpScan is that there is no optical character recognition (OCR) capability. You're always going to wind up with an image, not editable text. For many users, that will be enough. For those who want more, I suggest a look at Image to Text (free), a clever app that scans documents and performs recognition to convert those images to editable text. I've also been impressed with Prizmo, a $4.99 app that scans, does OCR and can even read a document to you aloud. If you want quick scans, SharpScan is very useful. I didn't mind the small ad or watermark in the free version. If your scanning needs are more ambitious, you will find many alternatives at the App Store. The app requires iOS 6 and is optimized for the iPhone 5. It also ran fine under iOS 7 beta 6.
Daily iPhone App: ProCamera is a best of breed photo app for iPhone
It takes some work for a photo app to stand out from the crowd, but I think ProCamera does just that. The US$4.99 app has assembled a very strong feature set that will give you the best chance of getting excellent photos out of your iPhone. The app includes some anti-shake software, a self-timer, rapid fire shooting, both still and video modes with auto and manual exposure, focus lock, alignment guides, full HD recording in movie mode (1080p at 30fps), geotagging with an extension for the direction your were facing when you took the picture and much more. Not all features will work on every iPhone due to hardware limitations. Obviously full-resolution video recording needs an iPhone 4s or 5. There are some other hardware-based limitations, and the company provides a helpful chart showing which features work on which iPhone. With all the camera features, I was surprised and happy to see full editing features as well. The editing tools are divided into several groups: ProFX with a variety of filters that can be applied; ProLab for brightness, saturation and contrast settings; and auto-adjustment options that are quick and easy. Finally, ProCut lets you crop, change aspect ratio and straighten photos. The app also features a unique Exhibition Mode. It lets you submit your prized photos in the IPA Quarterly Gallery Exhibition. Using the app was a pleasure. Screen controls are easy to figure out without a manual, although instructions are included with the app. The control labels rotate in for portrait and landscape mode, a nice feature many camera apps forget. You can display a live histogram of your image, which pro shooters will like, and there is a night ISO setting for dark environments. The only thing missing is an HDR function, and I'll bet the software wizards who created ProCamera could do that well. When your image is done, it can be easily shared to Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox and Flickr (Flickr coming in iOS 7 update), and of course to the camera roll. Images can be shared one at a time, or in groups. ProCamera is optimized for the iPhone 5 and will run on any iPhone that can run iOS 6. This is an impressive camera app for those who want to go beyond the usual point-and-shoot routine.
Daily iPhone App: Notograph is a photography tool for your important notes
The iOS camera app is handy for taking photos of your memorable moments. It's also useful for grabbing snapshots of important notes, receipts or lunch break napkin scribbles. This usefulness is stymied when you hop into the camera roll and find your important note mixed in with hundreds of photos of your latest vacation. This lack of organization and context is addressed by Notograph, a new iPhone app from Craig Bradley. Notograph is designed from the ground up to be a note-storing app that grabs its content from your camera. It's quick and easy to snap a photo of a note -- just launch the app and tap the onscreen camera button. There are no filters or fancy effects; only the shutter button, a toggle for the flash and the option to switch from the rear to the front camera. Each photo gets saved to your folder of choice and you can move notes between folders with just a few taps. The folders are displayed in a text-based list, while the individual notes are listed as thumbnails. The thumbnails jog your memory and help you recall the contents of a note. The developer behind Notograph realizes people like to store and share notes so he has included support for iCloud syncing, Dropbox storage and Evernote backup. iCloud and Dropbox can be configured to automatically back up your notes, while notes are sent over to Evernote on a individual basis. Though Evernote syncing is manual, it's still easy -- just open the note and select Share > Evernote to send your notes to the note-taking and storage service. Notograph also allows you to send notes via email and messaging as well as share them socially on Facebook and Twitter. Notograph is for the notekeeper who likes to quickly record photos of important documents and organize them outside the iOS camera roll. The app has options for cloud storage and social sharing so your notes can be stored safely and shared as needed. The UI could use some polishing, but it's still a good first effort, and I look forward to future improvements from Bradley. Notograph for the iPhone is available for US$1.99 in the iOS App Store.
Daily iPhone App: CARROT alarm clock uses mild forms of torture to wake you up
CARROT, the beloved personality in the popular CARROT task manager from Brian Mueller of Grailr, is now the star of an alarm clock app that berates you into waking up on time each day. The new CARROT alarm clock is a minimal app with a whole lotta personality. You get a glimpse of what you are in for when you first open the app and you are greeted with a curt "Hello, meat bag" as you're chastised for clicking on the wrong part of the screen. CARROT Alarm is a basic alarm clock with a good-looking, gesture-based UI. It supports one alarm at a time. You set the time for the alarm by sliding your finger up and down the screen until you reach the correct time. As you drag your finger, the time changes in 15-minute increments. You can also tap directly above or below the time display in the center of the screen to adjust the time in 5-minute blocks. Tapping once on the time in the center will let you see the current time and a second tap will show you the alarm. This is handy if you need to set an alarm for 10 minutes from now and you are not sure of the exact time. After you select your time, you can turn the alarm on and off by dragging the big blue alarm button to the left or the right. When the alarm is on, the blue button turns into an alarm clock. It's an easy, visual way to tell whether the alarm is set. Once the alarm is set, you leave the app open, place the phone down on your desk or nightstand and wait. When the alarm goes off, you are woken up by various pleasing sounds and music. Depending on how deep you sleep, you may have to turn up the volume on your phone as the audible part of the alarm is a bit subdued. Once you're aware of your surroundings, you can turn off the alarm by completing your daily chores, which require you to tap, pinch and / or shake your device. If you need some extra ZZZs, you can hit snooze and grab 10 minutes, but I'll warn you --- CARROT won't be happy. When that snooze alarm goes off, CARROT will yell at you, and your daily chores will be harder. The yelling is pretty tame, but it's definitely geared toward adults. There are no obscenities, but some of CARROT's angry wake-up chants, like "Death, Murder, Kill," for example, are not appropriate for children. CARROT Alarm clock is an entertaining way to wake yourself up each morning or alert yourself during the day. It's the abusive drill sergeant that many of us need in our lives. The alarm music is a tad soft for my tastes (I always pick the obnoxious "Alarm" sound for my alerts), but not everyone needs a blaring alert to wake themselves up. The daily chores to turn off the alarm are challenging enough that they wake you up, and the fear of an angry CARROT makes you think twice about turning on that snooze. It's quite effective at waking you on time. You can check out CARROT Alarm in the iOS App Store. It costs US$0.99.
Daily iPhone App: Timeless is a colorful, multiple stopwatch and timer app for iOS
Timeless (US$0.99) for iOS is a heavy-duty timer and stopwatch app with some interesting features and a colorful, clean design (taking some inspiration from the upcoming release of iOS 7). Offering up to 10 simultaneous countdown timers / stopwatches, you'll have no problem keeping track of multiple, timed items to the second with Timeless. Timeless has a simple and stylish interface with a variety of colored themes that can be applied to each timer, so it's easy to keep track of and identify unique timers from a glance. Furthermore, with a double-tap, timers can be labelled as required, like "bread in oven" or "coffee break." To add a new timer, simply swipe to the left. To apply one of those unique colors, swipe up to reveal the theme settings menu and sample the styles until you find one you like and select it. If you can't find a color theme you like, there are additional theme packs available via in-app purchase ($0.99 - $2.99), which you can try before buying. Once you've selected your theme, swipe to the right to navigate back through your other timers. %Gallery-196040% Alongside a unique color theme and label, each timer can be assigned a custom notification tone. There are plenty to choose from (8-bit, done, echo bell, attention, etc.), and like the color themes, additional notification tone packs can be sampled and selected via in-app purchase, including zen, summer and digital. Tones and sounds in Timeless are intuitive and fun, making it easy to engage with and navigate the app from an auditory perspective. Timeless has a few additional and interesting features too. For instance, turn your iDevice clockwise to view all your timers in an easy-to-see list format. Tap and hold on a timer in the list to rearrange them in any order you see fit. Turn your iDevice counter-clockwise to get a large, clear view of a given timer. You can swipe through to other timers in this view, too. Start or stop a timer with a double-tap anywhere on the screen. If you're the kind of person who uses the Pomodoro Technique, saves water by timing your showers or uses a timer when hard-boiling eggs, for example, then Timeless, combining great design and functionality in a utility app, is well worth checking out. If you want to try Timeless before taking the $0.99 plunge, there's a free version of the app here, which has just two timers, color themes and notification tones. The free app can be upgraded to the paid app via in-app purchase at the same price.
Daily iPhone App: 4 Snaps is a free puzzler with a social twist
The first time you play the social puzzle game 4 Snaps you might think it feels a little bit familiar. It's not that there's been a game like 4 Snaps before -- in that respect it's quite original -- but it takes cues from some of the most popular titles on the App Store and melds them into an addictive experience that could be the next everyone-plays-it title. 4 Snaps takes the social turn-based gameplay of apps like Words With Friends and Draw My Thing and crosses it with the insanely popular puzzle game 4 Pics 1 Word. After picking a partner, either by user ID or from a list of Facebook contacts, you and your friend take turns snapping sets of four photos to help the other player guess a specific word. The rules are rather lax and you'll find yourself taking photos of objects, drawings or even your own hand gestures in order to get your point across. However, much like in Draw My Thing, there's an unspoken honor system that, in theory, keeps players from just writing down the word itself on a piece of paper and snapping a pic of it. My one complaint here is that the in-game camera lacks the option to switch to the front-facing lens, though I've been told by the app's creator that this is indeed coming in a future update. You are given the option before each round to choose a word based on three different difficulty levels, with the harder words offering a higher number of coins as a reward. Coins can then be used to swap out your word choices for new options or to reveal hints when solving a puzzle. You can also choose to buy packs of coins upfront using in-app purchasing, but it's not crucial to the experience. 4 Snaps is a relatively new app, having been on the App Store for just a few weeks now, but it's already a great multiplayer offering that is 100 percent free to play. Just nudge some Facebook friends, take some pics and have a few laughs.
