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iPhone4idiots App Review – Flowers

hirtme — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:34:42 +0000

Just in time for Valentine’s Day I thought I’d do a review of Flowers, Just2Me $0.99. There is a free version of the app which is the same other than it includes ads and limits you to three downloads and one email per day. When you launch the app you are taken to the first picture which then rotates every few seconds. At anytime you can double tap to pause so you can look at the current picture longer and double tap again to proceed. All pictures can be pinched to zoom. Tapping once brings up the control panel where you can set the photo refresh interval. As seen here on the right, the single tap also gives you three green buttons on the bottom with the options to “thumbs up” a photo, download to your camera roll or email. When you tap the email button a pop-up appears where you can type your name and a message. Now, I think this is great for friends and maybe relatives, but I’m not sure your wife or girlfriend will appreciate eFlowers as opposed to the real thing. At least not on Valentine’s Day. So you’ve been warned. I like to live dangerously so I’m sending my wife these with the line, “Real flowers die in a week, but like my love 4 you, digital ones last forever!” This can be seen as romantic, cheesy or my wife will probably interpert it as my typical B.S. Anyway, after you tap send you exit the app and the Mail app launches. It sends the email with a link that when the recepient opens shows the picture and message in full monitor size. It looks even better there.So if you forget to do something Sunday or some other special day like maybe her birthday, download this app and maybe just maybe get yourself out of the doghouse and into the garage – it’s cold and snowy out there lately.

iPhone4idiots App Review – Breathalyzer 5000

hirtme — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:34:07 +0000

Breathalyzer 5000, Nerdtown $1.99, is one of the many blood alcohol content measuring apps out there. They all are about the same and of course only for fun as none of them really work. This app is the only one of those with voice support. It’s very simple and looks real enough to where you probably can fool a drunk person. Whether or not this will help you get their keys is another matter and depends on the person. When you launch the app you are taken to the screen seen here on the left. You tap “Begin Test” and quickly hand your iPhone to your buddy and the voice simulator speaks, “Being Blowing Now”. A few seconds later it says, “Test Complete” and then “Calculation in Progress”. The result it displays depends on your setup. Hitting the calibrate button takes you to the screen here on the right. You can set the app to display a specific number, random result, inconclusive result and also toggle the automated voice on or off. While I really like the voice support in this app, I can’t see why you should pay $1.99 for this when there are so many free ones that are similar. Frankly, I wouldn’t use this app because I don’t want to trust handing my iPhone to a drunk who might drop it in his or her beer. Also, I really don’t want them breathing their germs and spit all over it as well

iPhone4idiots App Review – Excuse Me

hirtme — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:09:40 +0000

Excuse Me, Thomas Schober $1.99, is an app for those not great at lying. Personally, I don’t have this problem, but it’s a little funny nonetheless. There are over 180 excuses listed in the app. When you launch the app you are taken to a screen that gives you buttons for excuse choices for being late, forgetting something, why you were wrong and getting out of something you don’t want to do. Some excuse apps are more for comedy with suggestions like, “Sorry officer, I was leading the Indy 500 and made a wrong turn.” Not this app. All the excuses in this app sound reasonable. For example the one shown here on the right is perfect. My neighbors dog got lost and I had to help look for it. Who is going to question that? Not only would it be hard to verify, but it makes you look like a good person as well. While I like this app given similar apps are free I can’t see why it’s $1.99. Maybe it was a typo when the app was registered?

Firmware 3.1.3 Released – Jailbreakers Don’t Upgrade

hirtme — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:47:06 +0000

Apple has just released new firmware for the iPhone 3.1.3 (7E18), a minor OS update for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, iPhone 2G, iPod touch G1, iPod touch G2, and iPod touch 3G. It includes a fix for the iPhone 3GS battery level reporting, fix for apps crashing with Japanese Keyboard and fix for apps crashing upon launch. None of this is very important which is a little surprising since its been awhile since the last firmware upgrade. A major firmware upgrade will occur on or before the newest iPhone is released this late Spring or early Summer. IMO, I wouldn’t upgrade your firmware yet as none of this seems like anything you’d want and if you have a jailbroken iPhone as always DO NOT UPGRADE your firmware until the dev team clears it. Unless you want to risk losing your jailbreak or unlock, just wait til its cleared. It wont’ be long

iPhone4idiots App Review – The Day I Was Born

hirtme — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:13:53 +0000

The Day I Was Born, Unusual Things $0.99, is a fun little app that gives you lots of information about the day you or your friends were born. I remember getting a baby gift when my son was born five years ago that was a framed paper with facts about that day. Well, this app does the same thing and includes a database of almost 100,000 events. When you launch the app you are taken to the screen seen with the typical options. However, a nice feature I haven’t seen in many apps is the clickwheel at the bottom for options. The main option is Begin which launches the app and takes you to the screen where you pick the date hit “Next” and you are taken to the screen here on the left. Options for the day include births, deaths, holidays and events. There are lots of data in these categories. Other options include elements, numerology, stones and chinese and western zodiac. Now I’ve never been into these later categories so I don’t have anything to say about their quality. The former categories do have lots of data. For example, see the picture here on the right. There are over 60 people listed as dead on the date I selected, January 22. These include Heath Ledger (the actor who played the Joker in Batman) in 2008 and German religious leader I’ve never heard of named Bernhard Knipperdolling in 1536.

iPhone4idiots App Review – Logo Creator

hirtme — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:07:10 +0000

Logo Creator, Laughingbird Software $1.99, gives you a simple way to create a logo for your company or blog right on your iPhone or iPod Touch. When you launch the app you are taken to the screen seen here on the left. When you tap “Create Logo” you are taken to a blank canvas where you can add objects and text. The app features over 30 templates that you can drag your elements to. Objects are scaleable by pinching as well. It is simple to move objects or text around on the canvas or to move items to the back or foreground. Once finished you save the logo to your iPhone photos library where you can email it or use it for wallpaper. While not as many as Photoshop you can see the numerous text editing options in the image below. Editable text attributes include color, glow, shadow and font. So while the app rates high on ease of use and text editing, the app is not worth the price due to one major flaw - there aren’t enough objects to add. I couldn’t find anything remotely related to the iPhone. So whether you are trying to create a logo for a pizza store or coffee joint, you won’t find any images. Unfortunetly, without images to add you really can’t create a cool logo. I assume they will add more, but it would be much better if you could just import the png images you want.

Jailbreaking Update – Redsn0w is out!

hirtme — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:40:12 +0000

For anyone considering jailbreaking I thought I’d give a little update as a few things have changed over the past couple of months. First, to review there are basically two main jailbreaks/unlocks out there. Blackra1n/Blacksn0w by GeoHot (an incredibly smart kid) and redsn0w by the Dev team (a small group). Either one is well tested and works fine. Redsn0w works for all iPhones and 1st and 2nd generation iPod Touches and will soon work for 3rd generation iPod Touches. Also, redsn0w no longer requires you to point to a modified firmware file (recall the PwnageTool jailbreak required you to download an ipsw file, then run PwnageTool to modify it and then point to that file during the jailbreak). Thus, its even more idiot proof Both jailbreaks work on firmware 3.0 or the current firmware 3.1.2 so if you haven’t already updated your firmware I highly encourage you to do so. Now if you have a 3rd generation iPod Touch or bought your iPhone 3GS in the past few months – say since October then it will be a tethered jailbreak. What that means is that anytime your iPhone is turned off – you lose your jailbreak and have to re-jailbreak. You don’t have to restore, but you have to run the jailbreak again. This takes less than a minute for blackra1n and less than five minutes for redsn0w but if you don’t have access to a computer when your iDevice powers off then this is a big problem. Again, tethered jailbreak is only for iPod Touch 3rd generation or newer iPhone 3GS. On your iPhone 3GS check the serial number (Settings-General-About). If the 3rd, 4th, and 5th digits of the number are 940 or higher it more than likely has a new bootrom and it will be a tethered jailbreak. If it is 939 or less you should have the old bootrom; there may be some iPhones that don’t fit into that criteria but most do. If you have the old bootrom (serial numbers with the digits under 940) then you don’t have to worry about this so jailbreak away! If you do however, you should consider this before jailbreaking. Also, if your iDevice is already jailbroken (like mine with PwnageTool), you can use redsn0w you’ll just have to point to the ipsw file you used to jailbreak. Remember you will lose your apps, but if you go into Cydia and download an app called “AptBackup” and select backup, let it run, then plug into iTunes and let iTunes backup your device you will be fine. If you do this then once you restore and rejailbreak, the first thing you do is go back into Cydia and redownload AptBackup and only this time after opening it, select restore and it will automatically redownload all the jailbroken apps you had

Lastly, firmware 4.0 should be released very soon. This summer at the very latest but probably before then. Once its out it will be a little while before there is jailbreak for that firmware. Thus, if you are jailbroken don’t update to the new firmware until you are 100% sure you won’t lose your jailbreak. If you don’t know, just ask. If you want to use redsn0w you can download for windows or Mac here.

iPhone4idiots App Review – iFood

hirtme — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:41:41 +0000

When it comes to the kitchen I bet a lot of you are like me. I can boil some noodles with Ragu, microwave frozen food and heat a can of soup, but that’s about it. Thus, I decided to give iFood Assistant by KRAFT, $0.99, a try. Now there a lot of cooking apps out there, but this is the only one I’ve tried so I have no basis for comparison. I’m just writing this as an idiot in the kitchen that wants to see if his iPhone can help. Overall, it does a pretty nice job whether I’m looking for something to make for dinner tonight or for brunch on the weekend. The amount of recipes in the app probably rivals that of thickest cookbooks. When you launch the app you are taken to the screen seen here on the left. Options include browse recipes (filtered by over a dozen categories such as appetizers, beverages, chicken etc.), dinner tonight, simple shortcuts, snacks and treats and cooking videos. The bottom tab includes options for shopping list, search, recipe box, settings and store locator. Frankly, at first I felt there were too many options and didn’t always find what I was looking for. For example, what is the difference between browse recipes and recipe box? I’m still not sure. Nevertheless, more options are better than too few. What I use most is the dinner tonight option. After work part of my 5:30 phone call to my wife always includes two lines. “Whose getting the kids and what’s for dinner?” Well, this app has been helpful in answering the second question on more than one occasion. When you select the dinner tonight option you are taken picture here on the right which lists many choices complete with pictures, user ratings and estimated prep and cook times. After clicking on a potential meal you are taken to a screen below that gives you a shopping list and directions. I find this to be great to use on the way home to pick up a meal for the family. My only complaint is that I can never make the meal look as good as the picture but that’s operator error. A few nights ago I made the speedy salsa-chicken quesadillas. Simple enough for a clown like me and they tasted great. My red and yellow pepper garnish looked like a rat had been nibbling on it for awhile, but isn’t taste more important that appearance? With the cold front that came through we have tried a few soup options and the chicken chili was great once I added a few shots of tobasco. For $0.99, I’d have to say this is one of the few apps that actually may be worth the price

Biz Cards – Another Crappy App :(

hirtme — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:19:25 +0000

Biz Cards sounds fine, but I don’t see the point. I’m not a big fan of this app, but frankly, I haven’t liked a lot of apps I’ve tried recently (Background Check App, for one, is horrible). Anyway, Biz Cards $3.99 by Senstic, works kind of, but doesn’t really save you time. They market it as a “Business Card Holder/Scanner/Printer” well I didn’t even try the printer because the scan quality was poor. The App Store states, “It will even “scan” your card and extract the text for indexing and contact creation”. Sounds cool, but this feature most definitely does not work. At least not on my iPhone 3G. So basically when you launch the app your are taken to a main page seen here on the left above. You can see the two business cards I scanned in. You can see how these can be sorted by Date or Category and you can search by name/title. For additional cards you tap Add and are taken to the camera to take your rectangular shot. Once taken you can add the Title and Category. Once the business card is scanned into the app you’re supposed to be able to extract the text. Well take a look here on the right. It’s a little hard to see, but what is clear is the extraction of the telephone number is so far off that you are better off just manually typing it in. Given that you need to mannually type most the information I don’t see why anyone would want to bother with this app at all. There are much better apps to store your contacts. You don’t need a picture of the business card. You want contact information and then maybe the most recent communications or something else that might be useful. There is no way this app could ever print and decent looking card given the scan quality. Don’t waste your $4!

Slango – Build Your Street Cred!

hirtme — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:26:38 +0000

Slango, SchroederDev LLC $0.99, the urban dictionary app for the iPhone is sure to make you smile. For example, December 20th’s word was the timely pornament. Yes, as it sounds it is a pornographic Christmas ornament. Did you see one or two over the weekend? Slango has access to 4,000,000 words many of which you’ll have never heard. Of course being slang, you won’t find most of these words in Webster’s dictionary but that’s the point. I like to think of it as a pop culture dictionary or what teenagers are saying guide book. The app has a share button that allows you to easily share any word you want on Facebook, Twitter or email. When you launch the app you are taken to the word of day. There is a definition and example of how its used. Wow, talk about spelling bee flashback! There is a share button I mentioned above and an arrow that lets you go back and see previous Words of the Day for the past week. The bottom tab contains a Search and Bookmark page. I did a quick search for two of my favorite slang words fixin (yes I am a Southerner) and wanker (but I’ve been to dozens of countries). With over 4,000,000 words of course it had the proper definition for both of these words. While I’ve only used this app a few times I’ve found assuming words like wiper beat (when your cars windshield wipers beat to the music in your car) and photobomb (to drop in a picture at the last moment). I’ve had at least one great picture ruined by someone photobombing me with some bunny ears. So if slang and words are one of your things, you should definitely give Slango a look.