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Posts tagged with "iPhone"

Folio, Universal PDF Reader - 3 Codes Up for Grabs

When the iPad came out, GoodReader sold like hotcakes. It was one of the very few apps that allowed iPad users to read .PDF documents on their new device, and it was priced at $0.99. It still is, actually. GoodReader was full of features, maybe too much for an app that didn’t really care about having a “plesant” UI and user experience. For weeks, people were forced to use GoodReader - there was no better alternative.

Eventually Apple shipped iBooks with PDF support, and a couple of new interesting 3rd party readers were released in the market. Fast PDF, for example, is the app I’ve been using all along to transfer documents on my iPad (and iPhone) and read them.

Folio, universal for iPhone and iPad, aims at becoming your default choice for importing documents, read them and organize them.

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Notified Reinvents Notifications on iOS

With iOS 4, hardcore iPhone users and bloggers (including me) expected Apple to dramatically improve Notifications. Notifications (either push or local ones) are those translucent-blue alert boxes that pop up in the middle of the screen when something happens. SMS? Alert box. Twitter DM? Chirpy notification, and so on.

Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Android or WebOS, but notifications on those operating systems are less intrusive and, at the same time, more useful than iOS’ ones. iOS notifications appear once and you have to do something to dismiss them. Once they’re gone, they’re gone: there’s no way to view all your past notifications, or undo a dismissal to get the last alert box back. As I said, they’re intrusive: a notification can get in your way when playing a game or watching a movie, and there are no settings to tweak to make notifications work for you. They’re just alerts going on and off when something happens.

Apple didn’t implement a new notification system in iOS 4, and that won’t happen in 4.1 either. There’s an app available in Cydia, though, called Notified, which is reiventing notifications on iPhones and iPods. Does Notified really bring to iOS the notifications Apple should have made? Read more

The iPhone Floating Forecaster

This is supposed to be some sort of 3d display for weather information, but I’m not really sure how it works. From what I see in the video though, there’s an iPhone running a custom application which lets you control a panel with 30 air guns and ping pong balls on it.

You touch a spot on the grid, the corresponding air gun raises a ping pong ball on the panel. Isn’t this uber-cool?

I know, I know - it’s also pretty useless. Still, we had to post this. [via TUAW]

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World’s Fastest Texting on iPhone 4 [Video]

Can you imagine writing the phrase:

“The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human”

on the iPhone 4 virtual keyboard in 20 seconds? That’s Gumball Tech’s blogger Brian Sweet did, becoming the world fastest texter. I’m pretty sure that there’s someone faster than Brian out there, so if you’re reading - you just have to record a video of your performance and tip us.

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Squirrel 2: Elegant Financial Management App. Reviewed.

I have a problem with financial apps for iPhone, and it’s not just that I can’t stick with one. It’s that none of them has managed over time to support my needs and change its core structure according to them. See, it’s easy to keep track of expenses: I can either create a text file or a spreadsheet and start putting data in. But when it comes to an application, I want more. Ok, there are developers who clearly state they’ve built a lightweight tool to keep track of your finances. But when you advertise your new app with the “manage your finances on the go” catchy line, I expect more than a simple list packed inside a nice UI.

Sadly, that’s what seems to happen every time. The iPhone 4 came out and I thought, hey - maybe this is the right time for developers to focus on creating a full-featured and flexible financial app for iPhone. New iPhone, new creativity - right? Not so fast. Remember the word flexible, because more on this later.

Two weeks ago I bought Squirrel 2, a new and beautiful app for iPhone which aims at becoming your weapon of choice for “managing your finances”. I gave it a try. It also comes with a Mac companion to sync with, but when I say I want to manage my finances on the go (out of the computer I use to write stuff), I don’t want sync or backups or companions or whatever. So, these are just my impressions of Squirrel 2 for iPhone.

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Simplenote: Still The Best Note Taking App

A few apps changed my workflow the way Simplenote did. Soon after John Gruber’s public endorsement of Simplenote for iPhone, I decided to give the app a try, as I needed a fast and reliable solution to organize my notes.

I remember those days. In the early days of MacStories there was no team behind the website you see now, and I didn’t know back then I would need a cloud solution for my posts someday. Heck, I used to write posts in Pages.

Eventually I realized I needed to be able to start a writing session on my Mac, and finish it at my girlfriend’s place if I had time. Or, I could just jot down a few ideas while on the go and turn them into posts later. As I realized that, I tried Simplenote.

See, I try many new apps every week. Sometimes I think that it’d be interesting to keep on refining my worfklow (thus changing my app setup) and see what happens. You know my problem with financial apps, right? I can’t stick with one. I used to have the same problem with Twitter clients, but after many reinstalls and downloads (“I’m gonna delete it from iTunes, so I won’t be tempted to install it again.” Sure.) I found my way with Twitterrific on the iPhone and Osfoora on the iPad. Like I said, sometimes I think that this is just an interesting experiment a blogger can keep on doing just for the sake of it. If the results are good, even better.

I never switched from Simplenote to another note taking app. I never, never thought of deleting it and trying something else. Some applications are developed with the precise intent of letting them evolve over time. Despite the updates released in the past months, Simplenote was a complete app from the start.

Some apps are made to stay. And last night, Simplenote for iPhone and iPad got a lot better.

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The New Simplenote, Now Available

Great news, iPad and iPhone users: the all-new Simplenote is now available, together with a complete new webapp, full support for iOS 4 and tags. I’ve been beta testing the new version, and it’s awesome. Really, a great update now live in the App Store. For free.

The new version (labelled 3.0.3) introduces brand new features that make Simplenote a fresh new experience. A new icon (lovely), a new UI, tags for posts (a much requested feature), fullscreen mode and easy note sharing. It’s very easy, and a killer feature for users like me, who need to share notes and documents with a team.

Simplenote is available here for free. A premium subscription is available as in-app purchase at $11.99. Check out the first screenshots and changelog below, and stay tuned for our full review coming tomorrow.

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It’s More Than a Time Log

There’s a few of us who enjoy a bit of personal data analytics. As I revamp my personal life style to fit in with a bustling third year workload in college, I’m always interested in where I can cut corners, or if I can find a way to improve my note-taking habits (which are quite slow) by getting some insight into how much time I actually spend/waste on doing things. More Than Time Log is something I’ve had on my iPod touch for a while: initially launched for iOS 4, the developer has made it compatible with older devices running 3.1.3 and beyond while ensuring a usable experience on the speed front. But as for how easy it is to track information, let’s dive in.

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