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Yahoo! A first look at the official Flickr iPhone app
At long last, the official Flickr iPhone app is in the App Store. This free app allows Flickr users to upload their iPhone photographs to their Flickr accounts as well as view photostreams that have been created by themselves and others. The app has the following features: Shoot, upload and share photos and videos Geo-tag photos or add to a set View photos by set and tag View photos from friends and family Search and view photos by contact Make comments on photos Search by subject, people or places I'm not a big Flickr user, but decided to give the app a quick look today. There were several things that I wasn't thrilled with. For example, geotagging in the Flickr app has to be done at the time that the photo is taken. If you try to add a geotag to a picture that's already in your photo library, the Flickr app adds your current location -- not the location where the photo was actually taken. Flickr does the same thing for the photo date -- if you wait a few days to upload a photo, it marks it with the upload date, not the date that the photo was actually taken. In addition, the Recent button is supposed to show recent activity and uploads, but even after 30 minutes it still didn't show that I had uploaded several photos. I'd also like to see the app offer the ability to look for photos taken near your current location. While this is a long-awaited addition to the App Store, the app doesn't appear to be very well thought out or executed. At least it's a first release, so we can expect upgrades in functionality down the road.
First Look: CheckOff 4.0 for Mac OS X
I'm one of those people who "Gets Things Done" the old-fashioned way. I've tried just about every To-Do list manager for the Mac and iPhone, and I still end up resorting to writing lists in my Moleskine notebook and then crossing off the completed items. Still, when I saw that an upgrade to CheckOff had been shipped by Second Gear Software, I decided to give it a try. CheckOff 4.0 is not the latest navigator and weapons officer for the USS Enterprise. It is a compact and easily accessible to-do list for Mac OS X, and it runs both on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. CheckOff 4.0 is shareware, and requires that you purchase a US$12.95 license to use it for more than ten to-do items. After installing and launching the 4.4 MB application on your Mac, a check mark icon appears in the menu bar. To add or delete items from your to-do list, you click on the check mark to make the CheckOff menu appear (below): What you see is the complete user interface for CheckOff 4.0. Those five icons are used to add a new item, add a new folder, delete an item, change the color or category for an item or folder, and to delete checked (completed) items. There's a place for notes down at the bottom of the the window.
First Look: Watermark your iPhoto pictures with Impression
Blue Crowbar Software is a small Belgian Mac development firm that is quickly making a name for itself for its innovative iPhoto and Aperture plugins. We've previously covered iPhoto2Twitter here on TUAW, and now Blue Crowbar has announced a new iPhoto plugin for adding watermarks to pictures in your iPhoto library. Watermarks are those faint, transparent designs that websites often use to mark exclusive photos when breaking a big story. For example, many of the great fake iTablet "photos" that we've received during the past few weeks have been emblazoned with a watermark for one Mac site or another. Impression (€9.90 -- about US$14.10) works in iPhoto to put watermarks onto your iPhoto pictures. If you're worried that a watermark might ruin a perfectly good picture, don't be. Impression makes a copy of the picture, then creates a watermarked version which is also saved into your iPhoto library.
First Look: Keymote for iPhone / iPod touch takes control of your Mac
There are some applications out there that never cease to amaze me. We're always looking for shortcuts and ways to make our lives (and our computer use) much easier. Iced Cocoa's new Keymote [iTunes Link] for iPhone and iPod touch is sure to do just that! With Keymote, you'll never again have to remember a shortcut. Keymote creates single buttons out of complicated shortcuts and groups them by application, speeding up your productivity and boosting your workflow. Basically, Keymote acts as a remote for your Mac and can control almost any application. The developer notes that you can "Easily control Front Row from across the room, refresh your Twitter stream wirelessly, or play a song from iTunes without even touching your computer, the possibilities are endless." Some highlights of Keymote include: Simple and intuitive user interface that makes using Keymote easy and fun. Easy to connect and operate over a Wi-Fi connection. Organizes your keystrokes, keeping the ones you use close at hand. Highly customizable with different key colors, the ability to add tactile feedback with vibrations and more. Built-in store for purchasing keystroke sets for almost any Mac application. Don't worry, most of these are free. Customize and share your keystrokes and layouts with other users easily. I found the Keymote interface to be simple to use, and the commands are snappy, happening almost instantly. The in-app store is great too; I was able to download keystroke sets for Tweetie, Coda, iTunes, Safari, Firefox, Photoshop and so much more. I'm also a sucker for a beautiful user interface and Keymote certainly has that. The menus are easy to use and the keystroke pages are downright gorgeous. The application is available in the iTunes App Store for $3.99 and is well worth the price. In addition to the app, you'll need to head over to Iced Cocoa's website, download the free Keymote receiver, and then pair your iPhone or iPod touch with the receiver application on your Mac. Here are a few shots of the application in action: %Gallery-70140%
First Look: iDisk app
Apple's long-awaited free iDisk (iTunes link) program brings some great new features that makes MobileMe more appealing. But, there are a few holes and the program certainly doesn't do everything. Basic layout When you launch the iDisk app, you'll see most of folders that you normally have access to in your iDisk, plus any other folders that you might have created. What you won't see are the Backup, Sites, Software and Web folders that are normally in your iDisk. You can access these folders by enabling them through the software settings. Pressing the edit button will allow you to delete any user-made folders you've added to iDisk, but you can't create new folders. Along the bottom are buttons for the iDisk itself, recent files viewed, files that you've chosen to share and public folders you've subscribed to. The settings screen is pretty basic, but leads to one of the gems of this piece of software -- an extremely documented help section that goes over every aspect of the app. %Gallery-69001%
First Look: TweetDeck for iPhone
There's been no shortage of Twitter app reviews on TUAW. We've even covered TweetDeck once or twice. But now, another Mac app and iPhone app have intersected in the Twitter world and I, for one, am ecstatic about it. Until now, Tweetie had been my Twitter client of choice on both my Mac and my iPhone. I was pretty content with the set up, but had one issue: If I were out and about all day and checking Tweetie on my iPhone, I'd have to re-read all those tweets when I got home because the two programs had no way of communicating what had been read and what hadn't. TweetDeck has finally found a way around this issue, offering syncing between your iPhone client and your Mac client. %Gallery-66162%
First Look: Documents to Go for iPhone
Documents to Go from DataViz has been known for years to the Palm and Blackberry community, and it finally comes to the iPhone -- filling in the need for a built-in Word (and soon Excel) editor that truly turns the iPhone into a mini computer. There are currently two versions of Document To Go. The $4.99USD version [App Store link] features Microsoft Word editing alone and the $9.99 version adds Microsoft Exchange support. You can also view and synchronize Excel and PowerPoint documents, PDFs, HTML pages and iWork '08 documents ('05, '06 and '09 are not supported at this time, though I do imagine that iWork '09 support will be added later). A free upgrade is part of the deai; when purchasing Documents to Go now, you net the ability to create and edit Excel documents when that feature becomes available. For an in-depth look of the app itself, click through. Please note that this review covers the $4.99US version of the app sans Microsoft Exchange. %Gallery-66042%
First Look: Bento for iPhone and iPod touch
iPhone owners who are searching for an easy-to-use database management app for their iPhones can stop looking. Today, FileMaker Inc. announced the immediate availability of Bento for iPhone and iPod touch (click opens iTunes), a US$4.99 portable edition of Bento for Mac.The app comes with 25 built-in templates for business or personal use, plus a blank template that can be used to create your own customized templates. Some of the included business templates can be used for issue tracking, time billing, and expenses, while personal templates include a diet log, recipes, vehicle maintenance, and home inventory. Like the Mac app, Bento for iPhone and iPod touch is integrated with Contacts, Safari, Mail, and Google Maps. Additionally, Bento can be used to dial an iPhone. Databases can be synchronized wirelessly (via WiFi) with Bento 2.0v4 for Mac. This new version of Bento 2.0 for Mac is a free update that is available for download to all existing users today. The video below features Ryan Rosenberg, VP of Marketing and Services for FileMaker, describing and demonstrating many of the features of Bento for iPhone and iPod touch. TUAW will have a full review of Bento for iPhone and iPod touch in the near future.
LG GC900 Viewty Smart gets coddled, previewed
After being officially unveiled (twice) for the European market last month, LG's GC900 Viewty Smart has finally arrived into the loving hands of those at GSMArena. The unit you see above is actually a pre-production unit, but it was baked enough to warrant a full-scale preview until review units start to ship. One of the biggest reveals was this line: "It's not a smartphone or anything, no matter how much we would have liked that; instead, it's a regular full touch feature phone, but one with a really polished UI and top-notch imaging capabilities." Critics spent a good bit of time checking out the still-novel 8MP camera, and while they were generally pleased with image quality and color, they weren't so stoked about the phone's ability to capture video. Overall though, they couldn't help but gush about the "gorgeous display" and "best-of-class user interface," which definitely leaves us even hungrier to wrap our own digits around a finalized unit.
First Look: Airfoil Speakers Touch
I'd never gotten the opportunity to use Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil prior to today, and then I found out about Airfoil Speakers Touch (link opens iTunes). Airfoil allows you to stream audio from your Mac to other devices including Apple TV, Airport Express, other Macs on your network and now the iPhone and iPod touch. We looked at a similar application not too long ago, but the definite upside to Airfoil Speakers Touch is that you don't have to go through the mess of installing a separate server application -- especially if you already own Airfoil.Using Airfoil Speakers Touch is extremely simple. I opened Airfoil on my Mac for the first time and it showed my laptop and Apple TV on my network. I then launched Airfoil Speakers Touch on my iPhone and it added the iPhone as an available streaming device. I selected iTunes as the source of my audio and clicked on the icon next to the iPhone on the Airfoil application. A quick restart of Airfoil (its Instant Hijack plug-in will bypass that) and I could stream music from iTunes through the iPhone. On the iPhone, a small image of my MacBook (complete with an image of my current desktop) appeared.The application works beautifully. I left the laptop in my bedroom and carried my iPhone around both inside and outside of the apartment until I left the range of my wireless router. The sound is crystal clear and it turns the iPhone (and 2nd-gen iPod touch) into a great portable speaker.However, there are a couple of drawbacks. If you exit the application on your iPhone, it will cut off the streaming. Because of this, there's no way to jump over to the Remote application and remotely control iTunes. So if you want to utilize your device as an Airfoil speaker, you need to have a playlist set up in advance since you can't change tracks from within the application itself. I'm hoping remote features will be added some time in the future. It would really make this a killer app.Airfoil for the Mac is $25, and a free demo is available. It requires OS X 10.4 or above. Airfoil Speakers Touch is a free download through the iTunes App Store.
TUAW First Look: Gas Cubby 2.0
With more than 25,000 apps in the App Store (as of this writing), it's not easy to find the standouts. One such app is Gas Cubby from App Cubby (we're written about it before), and I'm very happy to have spent a week with version 2.0. It's in my top five iPhone applications (along with its sibling, Trip Cubby. But that's another post entirely). My day job requires me to keep track of automotive expenses. Before I found Gas Cubby, I was unsuccessfully trying to do so with pen and paper. I'd either take the pen out of the car and forget to return it or do the same with the notebook. I'd end up scribbling on anything I could find and promptly lose whatever it was. My accountant wasn't happy.Gas Cubby solved the issue and actually made it fun for me to keep track of my expenses. That's right, fun. You can collect data on gas and service. First, I'll look at gas.Update: Yes, this will be a free upgrade for current owners. %Gallery-49955%
First Look: Convertbot
Last October, we posted about another iPhone app -- Weightbot -- written by Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad at Tapbots. Now the company has shipped their second app, an iPhone conversion calculator called Convertbot (iTunes link).Like Weightbot, Convertbot is a classy-looking and extremely functional iPhone app. Every detail of the user interface shows obvious thought, resulting in an app that is easy to use and look at. As with Weightbot, Convertbot also features sound effects that provide an extra level of fun.What can you convert with Convertbot? Temperature, time, volume, work, angles, area, currency, length, mass, power, pressure and speed. How do you do it? There's a rotating selector wheel on the Convertbot screen to choose the type of conversion (temperature, for example), and a button to select the units (degrees Fahrenheit, for instance). To enter the known unit, you tap the converter display to bring up a keypad for tapping in numbers. As you tap in the numbers, Convertbot is busily converting the units. If you're an aspiring developer and want to see a well-designed app, or if you're an iPhone or iPod touch owner who just likes cool apps, check out this US$0.99 app. There are tons of conversion apps in the App Store, but Convertbot is just too nice to pass up. See the gallery below for screenshots. %Gallery-48634%
First Look: Transactions for iPhone
First they wowed us with Handshake for iPhone, now the same developers are back at it again with Transactions [iTunes link] for iPhone. Transactions gives you the ability to charge a credit card from anywhere! This application is excellent for small business owners who need to process credit cards away from an office.Transactions interfaces with PayPal and Authorize.net and allows you to easily type in a credit card number, expiration date, CCV2 code, amount, and zip code. Once you have that information, you can select a contact to automatically auto-fill the purchaser's address and phone number. You can also enter in the name, email address, and additional notes about the transaction. When all of these fields are completed, return to the main screen and tap "charge" -- the information is whisked away using 128-bit SSL encryption to the appropriate service (either PayPal or Authorize.net). If the information was correctly entered you receive a message telling you the transaction went through. Transactions gives you the ability to easily import your PayPal and Authorize.net account information using a useful tool on their site. They send an email to your device with a special URL that inputs your account information when opened. The application allows you to view all of the transactions completed, and allows you to export them as a a CSV file that opens in Excel, Numbers, and other applications that can read comma separated files. All of the information stored within Transactions is kept safe inside of Apple's Keychain, and you can password-protect the application to enable even more security. Transactions is now available on the iTunes App Store, and comes in two flavors: paid and free. The free version is limited to 2 credit card transactions per 12-hours, while the paid version removes this limit. If you use the free version and plan to upgrade to the paid version, you have the ability to transfer all of your settings from the free version to the paid version -- a first on the iPhone. You can visit the Transactions website for more details about this iPhone application. You may also want to note that Authorize.net or PayPal Website Payments Pro account is required, and that some fees may apply.%Gallery-47696%
First Look: Fliq Docs
In early January, TUAW featured a face-off between Fliq for Mac and Mobile DropCopy. At the time, I noted that Fliq for Mac and Windows was better in terms of moving content created on the iPhone (address cards, notes, photos) to a Mac or Windows PC, while Mobile DropCopy was better for viewing or moving other content such as Microsoft Word documents or PDF files.About six weeks later, Mark/Space has responded by not only updating Fliq to version 2.0, but also releasing a new free iPhone application called Fliq Docs (click opens iTunes). Fliq Docs requires Fliq 2.0 for Mac or Windows (US$19.95, free upgrade for registered users of Fliq 1.0, or US$9.95 to owners of any Mark/Space Missing Sync application), and is a full-featured document viewing and transfer application for iPhone. Click the Read More link to find out more about Fliq Docs.
Ustream viewer makes it to app store just in time
There has been quite a bit of excitement over the last few weeks with the announcement that Ustream would be offering a live video viewer so people could watch the Obama inauguration on their iPhones and iPod touches. It didn't look like it was going to make it, but the free application [app store link] slipped into iTunes today with just hours to spare. While the Joost app should also allow streaming of the festivities, the Ustream viewer is unique because it allows live TV streams, and registered viewers can join a chat room creating a community around any video stream. Video can be viewed horizontally or vertically, but many of the sources are not 16 by 9 so it won't make a great deal of difference. The app appears to be WiFi only, which is a bit of a drag. My cell reception here in the wilds of Arizona is not too great, but I got an error message trying to run the video streaming under 3G.With WiFi most of the channels looked pretty good. I even got a quick look at Chris Pirillo doing his live bit from his desk at home. The real test will be tomorrow with the swearing in ceremonies. It will be a good test of the Ustream distribution system. Ustream wants lots of players out there, because they are creating a content network and are actively courting people who will create videos on their home computers and laptops. The firm says they will soon have an app that allows live streaming of video and audio from the iPhone, in the same vein as the Qik tool currently running on jailbroken phones. If so, that will be a very big game changer for the iPhone. The big question is, will Apple allow it into the app store?Looking toward the future, Ustream will need more and better content deals, and streaming via the 3G network. Tonight is a great first step, and I expect by swearing-in time a lot of iPhones will be tuned in, if you'll pardon the archaic term.Here are some screen shots hot off the presses (thanks AppleUniverse):%Gallery-42695%
First Look: Witch's Workshop
I'm addicted to Diner Dash, and I greatly enjoy other time management games. The basic gist of a lot of these is that you're given a setting and you must complete a task (usually fulfilling an order for a customer) in a certain amount of time before the customer gets angry and leaves. As time goes by, the tasks either become more complex or your time speeds up. Witch's Workshop [link opens iTunes] is a new game for the iPhone from Spark Plug Games that combines the best aspects of Diner Dash with Bejeweled. Your task is to fill potion bottles for your customer by swapping the various potions around on the screen until they form a horizontal or vertical line of three or more potions. The same-colored potions then fill the bottle and you drag the full bottle over to the customer. A small dragon is placed in the bottom right corner and can be charged up and used to help fill orders. As time goes by, the customers become more and more impatient and more potion is needed to fill the bottles, so it becomes quite challenging. Game play fluctuated between very smooth and some of the potion bottles being hard to drag -- but I'm betting on that being more operator error than a flaw in the game. Graphics are simple, but clear and well-executed for what is needed with the game. Various options include the ability to toggle hints when you get stuck.There's also some nifty tricks. During the course of the game, I managed to get something called a Cauldron Crash and had to shake the iPhone to unstick it. Then, I happened to turn the phone onto its side. I heard the sound of glasses hitting each other and noticed that the potions themselves had swapped into the horizontal position, but the rest of the game remained vertical. It made for an interesting screenshot, as seen in the gallery. Witch's Workshop is currently available for $1.99 through the App Store.%Gallery-42645%
First Look: LogMeIn Ignition
This post is a first for me in that I'm typing (or tapping) it in on an iPhone using our Blogsmith CMS. No, there's not a Blogsmith iPhone app that I'm aware of, and I'm not using Safari on the iPhone to pull up our web portal. Instead, I'm controlling my office iMac from about 16 miles away using my iPhone and LogMeIn Ignition.LogMeIn is a remote access and control application for Macs and PCs that creates a secure connection between two computers by having each logged into a secure server. LogMeIn Ignition adds the ability to control a Mac or PC from your iPhone. To test Ignition, I set up a LogMeIn Free for Mac account and then loaded the app onto my iPhone 3G. How did it work? Read on for more details.
A Lethal app for your iPhone
OK, the headline is a bit misleading. This app won't kill you; in fact, it's designed to inform you about dangerous situations in your vicinity. Lethal (click opens iTunes) from Elany Arts takes a location from either the iPhone's built-in location services or a list of 300 cities or parks throughout the USA, then provides you with a "lethal index" number. This number ranges between 0 and 400, with 400 being an extremely dangerous location. The ranking comes from a composite of four scores based on lethal wildlife, crime, disease, and disaster probabilities in each area. The About screen for Lethal notes that the app is designed for informational and entertainment purposes only, so you should use common sense to guide your use of Lethal. When I let Lethal determine the index for my home, I was surprised to see that it was 207 out of 400, or "somewhat dangerous". The wildlife index was rather high based on black bears and mountain lions in the area. Yes, we do see them on rare occasions in the area, but I'd be much more concerned about a neighbor taking a potshot at me than getting chewed on by a mountain lion.Still, Lethal is fun (many comments are obviously tongue-in-cheek) and educational. Whether it's worth the US$1.99 introductory price is up to you. Check out the gallery below for screenshots of Lethal in action. %Gallery-42207%
First Look: Health Cubby for iPhone / iPod touch
App Cubby announced that a new iPhone app, Health Cubby (click opens iTunes) arrived in the App Store today. Health Cubby (US$4.99) is a personal fitness tracking app with a difference -- it adds a social networking element for working with friends and family members to keep motivated to exercise more and eat less.The social features connect you with up to 7 other people, share your progress in achieving fitness goals, and even send motivational messages. To do that, you set up a private account with App Cubby for data syncing and sending messages. Health Cubby has a great online user manual complete with screenshots. Instead of tracking meals with points or calories, the app has you enter a 1 to 5 rating. Rating a meal a 1 means you put the all-you-can-eat buffet out of business, while a 5 is a low-calorie, healthy meal. You also set goals for strength, cardio and...vices! While the first two involve exercise, the third item makes you set goals to reduce the number of times you indulge in a vice. My goal is to reduce my beer drinking to one a day (yeah, right...).I've put Health Cubby on my iPhone right next to Weight Watchers Mobile. It'll be interesting to see which app I use most often. Check the gallery below for screenshots of Health Cubby in action. %Gallery-42198%
Warner and Paramount sign up for movies on SD cards
If you've ever wished out loud for movie distribution on solid state memory, a glimmer of a speck of hope has just popped on to the radar thanks to a partnership between digital media delivery system company MOD Systems and movie studios. Anchor Bay, First Look, Image Entertainment, and -- wait for it -- Warner and Paramount are among the studios signed up to set 4,000 titles loose at a kiosk near you. The bad news is that only standard definition titles are going to be set loose to devices or SD cards. That standard def limitation is a whine, we know -- we like where this is headed.
