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Daily iPhone App: Recall helps you remember that recommendation
Recall is an app that we were shown at WWDC last year, and it actually came out on the App Store last month, in a US-only release. But this week, the company behind the app has released it to a worldwide audience, and it's available now to everyone for a launch price of 99 cents. The idea behind the app is a simple one: It's an app that helps you remember various recommendations for media that people give to you, sort of like a to-do list for listening to music, watching movies, or reading books. As you can see in the video below, you simply click a button to add a book, movie, or a CD, and then the app provides you with all sorts of links and information based on that piece of media, as well as an option to remind you of that recommendation at a later point in time. The app's super simple and very well-designed -- it wisely gets right out of your way and lets you use it as needed without a lot of bother. It's currently available at a launch price of just 99 cents, and that's worth the buy. Some may scoff at this a bit -- perhaps you don't really need a whole app just to remember what books or movies you want to look at later. But I find it pretty useful, especially when I sit down on movie night and can't think of the last five movies friends have told me I should watch. Recall's a simple service that can help a lot with that very specific problem.
Daily Mac App: Tic Toc
Tic Toc for Mac (US$4.99) from Overcommitted is a simple task timer that sits unobtrusively in your menu bar while you work. It's a great option for those who must monitor time spent on a task. There are no client records, project management features or support files. Simply create a task, start the timer and get to it. Here's how Tic Toc for Mac works. Once installed, Tic Toc places an icon in your Mac's menu bar. Click it to create your first task. A slip appears. Give your task a name and click Save. The task then appears in a list which shows its title, most recent modification date and time spent on it over the last day and the last week. Click Start to begin timing. The task's title appears next to the menu bar icon (you can turn that off). Finally, set the idle timer to watch for periods of inactivity between five minutes and one hour, so that Tic Toc won't record time accrued while you're away. What's nice is that you can maintain several timers simultaneously (you double-dipper you) and export your data to XML or CSV. From there, simply import with your favorite financial software, project manager and so on. Tic Toc isn't for everyone. For as much as it does, there's a lot missing. As I said, you won't build projects with Tic Toc or manage client information. But that's really not the point. Those looking for a simple, reliable task timer that works as advertised ought to consider Tic Toc. At five bucks, it's an easy investment.
37signals buys Ember, kindles an official Campfire iPhone app
Campfire, from 37signals, is a web-based group chat tool that uses secure chat rooms to allow groups to collaborate from wherever they are. A little over a year ago, the developers at Overcommitted came out with an iPhone client for Campfire. That app, Ember, cost $9.99, and was an excellent tool for remotely joining a Campfire group and getting work done on the road. Well, the app was so good that 37signals announced today that they've purchased the app from Overcommitted, renamed it to Campfire for iPhone, and they're giving it away for free in the App Store. According to the 37signals blog, the company was so impressed with Ember that they approached Overcommitted about purchasing it, and the developer was happy with the idea. A deal was cut, a few changes were made to the app, the app made it through the Apple vetting process, and as of yesterday, Ember is known as Campfire for iPhone. If your team uses Campfire for collaboration and file sharing, be sure to grab Campfire for iPhone as soon as possible. The app works on devices running iOS 3.1.3 or later, although it is not optimized for iPad. [via Mashable]
