Posts tagged iPhone
Uface for iPhone
Aug 24th
Occasionally I like to let the App Store Genius recommend apps to me, based on my past purchases. Some recommendations are very hit and miss, but it can uncover some gems at times. I quite like apps that let you create yourself in cartoon form. These can be useful for using on forums as avatars, or using as Contacts pics on the iPhone.
A few nights ago Uface was recommended to me, based on my WeeMee app purchase. With one touch, Uface Unique Face Maker can make professional looking sketched faces. The interface is very nicely designed and easy to use, with 240 male/female character items, backgrounds, facial expressions and more. Here’s just a few I created of myself…
You can also see one of them that I created in action on my About page. Perfect for people who perhaps don’t want to upload their photo to social networking sites but want to create a profile pic that gives a rough idea of what they look like. You can upload your finished sketched mugshots to Twitter or Facebook, or alternatively save them to your iPhone photo album, assign to a contact or email them.
Uface is a great app – and an absolute steal at just 59p/$0.99 for a limited time only. Grab it on the App Store.
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Switching to o2 iPhone Simplicity
Mar 9th
Today my 18 month iPhone 3G contract with o2 came to an end. For a few months I’ve heard some fellow o2-iPhone friends talk about moving to an iPhone Simplicity tariff with a 30-day rolling contract, leaving them free and single to sign a new contract when the newest and shiniest iPhone hits the streets, possibly in the summer.
So, looking to save myself £10 a month, I called o2 today and switched from iPhone 30 (£30 per month) which gave me 75 mins/125 texts, to iPhone Simplicity 20 (£20 per month) which gives you…
- 300 mins
- Unlimited texts
- Unlimited data and wifi
- Visual Voicemail
The phonecall to 2302 from my iPhone took just a few minutes. Shortly after making the switch I checked Visual Voicemail on my iPhone which was showing as ‘Currently Unavailable’. I assumed that this feature wasn’t available on iPhone Simplicity until a few friends confirmed that it was. 3G was also failing on my iPhone, so I called o2 again and spoke with a girl who really confused matters.
I was told to change the network settings on my iPhone so that I could get 3G and MMS. She also repeatedly insisted that Visual Voicemail does not come with the iPhone Simplicity tariffs. However, it appears she was confusing regular Simplicity with iPhone Simplicity, so there was no need to alter any settings on my phone. I can confirm that you DO get Visual Voicemail on iPhone Simplicity and there is no need to manually change any network settings. Simply reboot your iPhone once you’ve moved to iPhone Simplicity which will bring back 3G and all your current data settings will work correctly without any amendment.
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Challenge your friends with Plus+ Games
Dec 30th
One of the things I love about many of the iPhone apps out there is the way you can interact with others via online multi-player with Cocoto Kart, for example, or games that have Plus+ built in. Plus+ is a social play network for the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing you, your friends and the rest of the world together so you can all challenge eachother.
One of my recently bought games, Skee-Ball by Freeverse Inc., has Plus+ built-in. Skee-Ball is super addictive – a game I used to love playing at the funfair as a child. It’s totally relived in this fantastic game which is just 59p/99c on iTunes. With Plus+ being a feature of this app, I can see what score my friends have on Skee-Ball and compete against them, aswell as check out their Awards and what other Plus+ enabled games they are playing…
With another Plus+ enabled game, Charadium, not only can I once again challenge my friends in a similar way as Skee-Ball, but I can also play against them (and the entire world) as it’s a pictionary multi-player game. If I choose to play against my Plus+ friends only then I can create a room…
…where I can then invite my friends to join me for a game of Charadium…
Charadium is priced 59p in the App Store. Other games that have the Plus+ feature are Rolando 1 & 2, Worms, Topple 2 and many more.
Feel free to add me to your Plus+ friends list: purplelime
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...WhatsApp Messenger for iPhone
Oct 25th
I’ve been trying to find the perfect push notification iPhone-2-iPhone messaging solution. An app that falls between instant messaging and SMS, without the cost of SMS. The two top ones on the App Store are Ping! and WhatsApp. I reviewed Ping! recently, but I just had to try out WhatsApp to see how it compared.
WhatsApp differs from Ping! in that it uses your phone number and your contact list rather than a PIN/username, so there’s no signing up or having to pass a username onto friends – and no need to add new contacts – your whole iPhone contact list is available within the app. If you have friends with an iPhone then all they need to do is download WhatsApp [iTunes link] which is currently absolutely free, then when you open the app you’ll see which of your contacts already have the app installed by looking through the Favourites list. You also have the option to send an invite to your other friends so they can download the app and interact with you.
The advantage WhatsApp has over Ping!, for me, is the timestamps are correct. You’d have to take a guess when a contact had sent you a Ping! message as the timestamps would read whatever they wanted at any given time. The UI in WhatsApp is also far more attractive than Ping! – and the icon is a lot prettier. That matters. On sending a message you get a little notification tone, much like in the default SMS app on the iPhone. You can also see when one of your contacts is online and composing a reply – ‘typing’ will be displayed under their name at the top of the messaging window.
In WhatsApp you can set a status from the ones given as default such as Available, Sleeping, Busy, In a Meeting and many more, or you can create your own such as ‘iPhone docked and charging’ – a status which indicates that I am unable to reply right away…and something I find myself using a lot! In the settings you can switch status notifications on so that you will get an instant push notification when one of your contacts changes their WhatsApp status.
I can see many people using Ping! alongside WhatsApp. Ping! is the better alternative for chatting to online friends who perhaps you don’t feel comfortable about giving your phone number to, but WhatsApp is probably more suited to those that you do know and trust enough to share your vCard with.
WhatsApp is currently free so there’s no excuse for you and your iPhone friends not to check this one out.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The best just got better!
Oct 10th
Tweetie 2 (iTunes) was released to the App Store last night, shortly after developer Loren Brichter announced to the masses on Twitter that it had been approved. The buzz about it on Twitter felt very similar to that which accompanies the release of a brand new Apple product. It was THAT good.
After I wrote a little about Tweetie 2 a couple of weeks ago, I read some pre-release reviews which confirmed that there were no themes in Tweetie 2, just the one simple theme. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to feel about that as Chat Bubbles has been my theme of choice since day one. I didn’t like the thought of having that taken away from me. But, the list of features kept my interest fully there, so I wasn’t going to pass judgement until I had the app infront of me.
Let’s just say I’m now thinking “Chat Bubbles? What Chat Bubbles?”. The simple clean white theme is gorgeous. Simplicity and absolute elegance. The screengrabs of the theme don’t do it justice. See it on your iPhone and you’ll feel the love. I have barely put my iPhone down since I bought Tweetie 2 last night. There’s features I haven’t touched yet – still so much more to play with which is what I love in an iPhone app. Having everything there and fully functional, but still managing to find something even more cool on closer inspection.
My favourite bits of Tweetie 2 so far are the “pull down to refresh” feature which gives that satisfying little pop sound when it’s done, threaded conversations and the little blue neon markers underneath unread tweets, @’s and DM’s. The ‘nearby’ feature is also particularly beautiful. I’m also a huge fan of the new simple silver icon. I think, like the application behind it, it’s simple and elegent. It sits on the opposite side of the same row as my Camera app on my iPhone’s home screen – and looks right at home there.
Rather than do a full review of every feature, I am going to hand you over to the Cult Of Mac who have done a sterling job on that front. One more thing I will say, however, this is worth £1.79 ten times over. I seriously do mean that. I believe fully in supporting developers when they create beautiful applications like this which change the way I use my iPhone and Twitter on a daily basis. £1.79 just doesn’t even begin to cover my appreciation.
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Tweetie 2 – iTunes [£1.79/$2.99]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Cocoto Kart Online
Oct 4th
One of the first apps I bought in the App Store was Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D (iTunes link) and it provided hours of fun. I really enjoy driving games, but the fun karting ones not the serious souped-up sports car ones.
When I read a review of Cocoto Kart Online (iTunes/59p) at Touch Arcade yesterday, the words ‘online multi-player’ was the deal maker for me. At only 59p I felt I had nothing to lose. I played in single player mode and found it much more enjoyable than Krazy Kart Racing that I’d paid five times as much for recently.
Cocoto Kart Online really comes into it’s own in multi-player mode. To play against others, simply go to the games menu and select Play Multiplayer, then choose a character to represent you. Once you’re back in the menu, select Choose Table. This will show you various races, some in progress but some empty. You can join a race with others or create your own by pressing one of the empty available Race 0 Players cells as shown below…
And this is the message once you have entered yourself into a race…
I did this for the first time the evening and asked my good friend Tom to meet me in there. Less than a minute later Tom joined me and we were able to battle it out against eachother. This is the first time I have experienced online racing against a friend and it was terrific fun! I was delighted to be the victorious one in our first race against eachother, but of course I did let him win a couple after that 
For 59p, this game is an absolute bargain. What makes Cocoto Kart a winner for me is being able to race against people you know if you arrange a meet, rather than just random strangers you pick up in the race rooms! I hope Tom and I will be able to race against other friends if they decide to buy this game. If you have already bought Cocoto Kart then let me know your nickname and I’ll look out for you in the race table, or we can arrange a specific time to meet and do battle. I’ll be gentle, I promise.
My Cocoto Kart Online nickname is purplelime. See you there.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Ping!
Sep 29th
Yesterday I downloaded a messaging application called Ping! from the app store, following a recommendation by a friend. Earlier in the day I had been looking at WhatsApp, but since I wasn’t too keen on sharing my phone number with online friends, I gave Ping! a whirl.
Above is a shot of a section of my iPhone home screen. As you can see, Ping! is there. My home screen is reserved for my favourite and most opened apps only. You can see where this review is going.
Ping! is an iPhone to iPhone messaging app, oh and the iPod touch. A cross between IM and SMS. Unlike the latter, it doesn’t incur any additional carrier charges. It works over wifi and 3G on the iPhone and wifi only on the iPod touch. A friend sent me a Ping! notification via GPRS yesterday. Worked a charm. Ping! works with push notifications so that messages can be delivered anywhere in the world, instantly.
The great thing about Ping! is you don’t have to share your phone number with anyone. Once you’ve downloaded the app you simply pick an ID (choose carefully, this can’t be changed currently) then tell your iPhone/iPod touch using friends about the app and once they install it you can send messages to eachother for free.
One of the refreshing things about this app is it’s unique notification tone. A lot of apps out there use the default text messaging sound which can cause confusion, but Ping! gives us a lovely “ping ping” sound which I have recorded especially for you to sample, here…
I’ve been messaging a few of my iPhone using friends over the past 24 hours and it’s a great way to keep in touch or just send a reminder to eachother. Nicky notified me via Ping! when the news about Tweetie 2 broke, since I wasn’t going to be at the computer, so as soon as I heard my Ping! I knew he was bringing good news.
I wouldn’t say the app was perfect just yet, but I expect future updates will change that. I had a couple of app crashes when deleting a typo and the timestamps aren’t reliable. But, all the time I was using it, the server status remained green and OK. There appears to be a character limit per message but at the moment I’m not entirely sure what that is. I sent a message more than around 200 characters to a friend last night but was told it got cut off at a certain point. I’ve e-mailed the Ping! developer to ask what the maximum character limit is and I’ll report back once I get a response. So, to be on the safe side don’t natter for too long, like me
[UPDATE]
The character limit per message is 150. In the absence of a character counter within the app, you’ll have to rely on guesswork. I hope we can expect a character counter in a future update.
Overall I am absolutely and totally impressed with Ping! It’s currently free for a limited time only, so head over to the app store and grab it today.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Tweetie 2 for iPhone
Sep 28th
As a huge advocate of Tweetie for iPhone and Mac, I was excited to hear what developer Loren Brichter was going to announce today, regarding the next version of the iPhone client. Some people were anticipating an update to the Mac version which was released back in April, but I can’t say that there’s anything I’m waiting to be improved on that. It’s already way ahead of the other Mac apps for Twitter, IMO.
Loren has explained in depth what features will be coming in Tweetie 2, including video recording from the 3GS, drafts manager and threaded conversations like the Mac version – a feature I love and have been desperate for on the iPhone client. I’ll let Loren tell you about the whole heap of other features.
Tweetie 2 for the iPhone will be submitted to Apple this week and we’ll impatiently await the approval. Tweetie 2 is a complete rewrite and a whole new app which will cost exactly the same as it does now, just £1.79/$2.99, for new users and old. I have been following mentions of @tweetie on Twitter and have been surprised to see people complaining about having to pay for the new app. I have been using Tweetie on the iPhone exclusively for almost 10 months and I still can’t believe that this, my most used and loved app on the iPhone, cost only £1.79. That won’t buy you much, nowadays, but it will buy you the best Twitter app you’ll ever need on the iPhone.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Wondershare Video to iPhone Giveaway
Aug 20th
Passing on an interesting retweet today (see, they do happen occasionally) for free video to iPhone conversion software. The offer is valid between August 10th and September 10th 2009.
Wondershare Video to iPhone Converter for Mac is an ideal tool that can convert various video formats including MPEG1, MPEG2, MP4, 3GP, FLV, AVI, WMV, AVCHD (MKV, TS, MTS, M2TS, TP, TRP, MOD, TOD), etc. to iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone OS 3.0 on Mac. The output files also can be played on iPod and Apple TV.
You can grab this giveaway, here.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...The iPhone rules Flickr
Aug 18th
From The Next Web, regarding the iPhone now being the most popular camera on Flickr…
The iPhone is now showing us what it means when we combine technology. The camera isn’t ‘just’ a lens stuck to an iPhone. The fact that you always carry your iPhone, it is always connected to the web and always knows where you are makes it far more effective and efficient than ordinary digital camera’s that is isn’t surprising that it is quickly becoming the most popular camera.
I was just discussing this with a friend recently. I’ve been spoiled with the ease of uploading a photo to the internet in seconds with the iPhone without the nuisance of wires or docking that I rarely take my digital camera out with me now. I had recently considered buying a digital camcorder but wouldn’t the ultimate all-in-one device be the iPhone 3GS? Why take two bottles into the shower? Indeed.
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