iPhone4idiots

Oceanhouse Media lowered the price of its six Dr. Seuss storybooks to $0.99 this week to celebrate what would have been the author and illustrator’s 106th birthday. I have to say “Bravo!” These are the best storybooks I have found on the iPhone! Much longer, with more pages and touchable pictures too. While not an authority on the subject, I’ve read more children’s storybooks on the iPhone than most people. I found Little Red Riding Hood and The Boy Who Cried Wolf to be enjoyable for both my kids and daddy. However, after having read both The Cat in the Hat and Dr. Suess ABC, Oceanhouse Media blows these others away. Continue Reading…

Air Mouse Pro, R.P.A. Tech $0.99, is a cool little app that transforms your iPhone or iPod Touch into a mouse. What’s great is the app works really well as you’ll see in the video below! Features include touchpad or single finger control, keyboard, left and right mouse buttons, a scroll button and more. Before the app will work you must download “server” software for your Mac or PC here. Don’t worry it’s pretty idiot proof Continue Reading…

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. Continue Reading…

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. Continue Reading…

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.

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. Continue Reading…

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. Continue Reading…

I’m going to South Africa in June for the World Cup. I think that qualifies me as a fanatic. That said, while far from perfect, I’d say (ESPN 2010 World Cup, Free) is the best app to put on your iPhone to get a tiny bit informed and start getting pumped. When you launch the app you are taken the screen seen here on the left. At the top is the countdown and in the settings menu you have options for favorite team, chat through myESPN or providing feedback or emailing the app to a friend. The guts of the app lie in the middle. It features news (from ESPN of course – sorry Euros), profiles of all 32 countries, full tournament schedule, World Cup history going back to 1930, bracket predictor (ahh, why is there no prize?) and my favorite, venue and city profiles. It was very nice to read about Rustenburg where the United State’s first game against England will be. Continue Reading…

RedLaser, Occipital $1.99, is only a month old, but has gotten great ratings leading to over $1,000,000 in sales for the two developers already. Use the app for five minutes and you’ll see why. The app is very accurate, quick and simple to use. After scanning a barcode, RedLaser uses Google product search to find online prices. It also keeps a list of your scanned items where you can mark your favorites or email a copy. The app also contains manual entry of UPC barcodes in case you can’t scan the barcode. This would most certainly be due to box damage as the app is impressively quick and accurate as you can see in the one minute video at the end of the post. Continue Reading…

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. Continue Reading…