Posts in reviews

Verbs For IM Launches But It’s Not Quite There

It’s not every day that a beautiful, elegant, new app comes out on the iPhone and I’m willing to spend $2.99 to purchase it. When I saw Verbs available in iTunes a few minutes ago, though, I couldn’t help but play Apple’s game and hit the Buy button. I wanted Verbs, for a reason: I know the first version wouldn’t support AIM, the chat system I use on a daily basis in iChat, but I really wanted to see how a nice Google Talk client would fit in my workflow. After all, it’s not every day that a Google Talk client for the iPhone is released, and it’s even got a UI to lay your eyes on.

So I bought Verbs. Is it beautiful to look at? It sure is. Is the ultimate Google Talk experience? More on that below. Read more

Airfoil 4 Streamlines Audio, Video Experience

Apple may have introduced AirPlay, but that doesn’t mean Rogue Amoeba is out of the game. In fact, AirPlay is rather limited unless you enjoy hacking your way out of a paper bag, and by no means can it expand its territory outside of iTunes. If you ever wanted to sit back on the couch and watch CNET TV on your 27” Cinema Display through your iPod’s headphones, you’re out of luck. But with Airfoil, streaming audio anywhere allows one to achieve a state of wireless bliss.

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Daisy Disk 2 Public Beta Available

We previewed the new version of Daisy Disk for Mac back in November and I’ve been running the app on my computer since then. At regular weekly intervals, I’ve found myself using Daisy Disk 2 to take a peek into my Mac’s hidden and mysterious locations and see what was eating up all that space. Sometimes it was an iTunes backup. Sometimes it was a folder full of new apps to try. Most of the times it was just junk. Daisy Disk 2, with its gorgeous “sunburst” interface and file deletion functionality, provides a great way to “visually” know what has to be trashed on your machine. Read more

Disk Drill Is An Amazingly Simple Recovery App For HDDs

When we lose deleted files on our hard drives we tend to think of this information as unrecoverable. On a Wednesday afternoon it’s easy to forget that those nightly cleanup scripts aren’t going to do you any favors when you’re looking to reuse some stock images for an updated web template. And those deleted music files? It turns out that you liked that dirty ol’ garage band after all. In times of panic we resort to Google and often extreme utilities to scrounge our Macs for every last bit of recoverable data possible before sifting through the garbage of unreadable file names and Quick Look previews. We not only advise that you read John Gruber’s advice on the matter and keep consistent backups, but we’ve reviewed a brand new Mac utility that’s not only free during beta, it’s really (really) slick.

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Friends, Social Contact Manager for iPhone - Review & iPod Nano Giveaway

How do you keep contacts from your local iPhone address book, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks in one single, unified place? That’s the question Taptivate aims at answering with its latest app for the iPhone – the much anticipated Friends.

In the era of social networking, social graphs and Twitter trends, it’s not easy to keep up with the stream of information. We all know that. But at a wider level, it’s not simple to keep up with the people behind those information, either. Sometimes, we struggle to find a person’s contact details because we don’t know where to look. The iPhone’s address book is a thing of its own, even if Apple managed to deploy sync for contacts in MobileMe. Sync alone, however, doesn’t come to the rescue when it’s about integration with all the social services we’re subscribed to. Nor do giants like Facebook and Google help, continuously fighting with each other over contact exports and proper email access.

If most of our social connections happen online nowadays, what’s the best way to make the pieces come together in a single package? According to Taptivate, that would be an iPhone app. Friends is a beautiful contact manager and aggregator for iPhone, an app that picks contacts from your local address book and integrates them with the online services you use on a daily basis. Read more

Webout Enables AirPlay Video Streaming From The Browser

We don’t know what’s the secret behind webout, a universal app for iPhone and iPad, and we don’t know if Apple is going to remove this soon from the App Store – but it works. As you may know, you can’t stream video using AirPlay to the Apple TV with Mobile Safari. Only native Apple apps have the video functionality enabled, and if you try to open Youtube.com in the browser you’ll notice that the AirPlay icon doesn’t show up. Read more

Trickle: The “Passive” Twitter App That’s Perfect On Your Desk

Twitter clients for iPhone and iPad, in spite of their substantial UI differences, are basically all geared towards the Twitter power user who wants to be able to do a lot of stuff with his Twitter timeline: check on users’ profiles, retweet, save to Instapaper, search, access lists, and so forth. Most Twitter clients for iOS are aimed at enabling you to enjoy the full Twitter experience.

Trickle, released a few days ago, is different. It runs on the iPhone and iPad as a universal app, but instead of bringing many of Twitter’s features to mobile devices, it focuses on turning your Apple device into a minimal, Helvetica-based, constantly up-to-date Twitter widget. Perfect for your desk, possibly with your iPhone or iPad in a dock. Read more

Gazaro Protect Saves You Money Post Best Buy Purchase

I hate having to wait for a good deal. Take a good pair of headphones for example – you absolutely shouldn’t sacrifice the miracles of good sound pumping through your ear holes for Apple’s ear buds (sorry my little white friends). A hundred bucks can pick you up a pair of in-ear Shures that are leagues beyond those tacky ten dollar gel buds you’ve gunked up with pocket lint, and it’s better to just pick up the damn things now instead of shortening your life span through another lousy teeth grinding music session. But what if a Christmas deal comes along a week later? You could have saved a Jackson or two! Not to worry savvy consumers, Gazaro Protect continues to save you cash after the fact, ensuring you’ll get the best deals out of your Best Buy purchases.

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