6 Applications that I love

I thought I should share some applications that I love to use on my iPod touch. Currently I have 57 applications, but there are only about 6 that I really use everyday. These applications are not in any order.

Band- $9.99

This is an application that I really enjoy and use everyday. I think almost everyone knows what you do in this application because, it was shown at WWDC. This is one of the games for the iPhone that have a very high replay value. If your on a huge road trip and you are bored this is a great application to have because it rarley gets boring.

Facebook-FREE

This application so far is great. I know there are somethings that they could certainly improve on and add more features but I think it is a good start for Facebook on the iPhone. One feature that I was glad to see in it was chat. But there are numorous things they can add to this application. One of the big things that stands out to me is Groups. There is no support for groups what so ever, I hope they add this soon.

Twinkle- FREE

Twinkle has just recently come out, and I love it. For those of you that don’t know, it is a Twitter client. This is an application that I use all the time everyday. I have also used Twitterific for the iPhone and I think that Twinkle is better. If your looking for a Twitter application for your iPhone I would go with Twinkle.

Weather Bug- FREE

This is a great application, and it’s FREE! I wouldn’t pay for any application for the iPhone because this one is fabulous. The only thing that this could have that it doesn’t, is moving radar but that isn’t really needed.

Aqua Forest- $7.99

This is an app with a great replay value. This game is very hard to explain to people but it is a ton of fun. Everytime you play it you can do somethig new and different! This is another game that is great for road trips because it is so much fun and so entertaining. Chris Pirillo talked about it in one of his videos if you would like to see it.

AP Mobile News- FREE

If you want to know about any news that has recently happened this is a great application. The one thing that I really like about this news application is the ability to save and email stories. It is very easy to find the stories that you have saved and share them with others.

So what are your favorite applications? I would love to hear about them and check them out. If you have any feedback you can leave a comment or send me an email at gadgetsandtech@gmail.com

Now with Vitamin MM and 2.0 Goodness

When you take out the complete and utter disaster that can only be labeled as the worst product launch Apple has ever seen on not one, not two, but three highly anticipated products (or could be sheer genius, I mean look at the press they’ve gotten) and look at what these products are and how they meld together, Apple has really hit a home run. Lucky for Apple the iTtention span of the internet is a few days at most and once all of the kinks have worked out and people are plugging along with the great products life will once again be calm amongst the fanboys.

Of the three products released this week, MobileMe, iPhone 2.0 firmware, and the 3G iPhone, I was, as you know, anxiously awaiting the first two. MobileMe was a tease on what was supposed to be day one but in the few seconds (literally) that I did get one and play with the slowness that currently is MobileMe, I knew that my patience would be rewarded.

I was also lucky enough to install the 2.0 firmware on my iPhone and download and play with some good third party applications, but I still wasn’t able to play with the two services until MobileMe finally got to a stable state. Now I have played with both and did some very unscientific testing to see how they work together and if you are currently in some level of iHell rest assured that your patience will be rewarded.

MobileMe: this is the web-based service that replaced .mac, it features a whole bunch of stuff but what is the most important (for this review) is the ability to have true PUSH email, sync your contacts, calendar, (and bookmarks should you desire) from your Mac to another Mac or to a PC or to a iPhone, or to a iPod Touch and back again without physically needing to sync with a cable. I currently have only tested the iPhone, web-based, and Mac syncing and let me say WOW!

When you look at the web-based version of Calendar it looks very similar to iCal and you can drag appointments from one place to another and within seconds your iPhone’s calendar has reflected that change, seriously seconds! The same is true for adding a contact, if you add the contact on the web-based address book or the iPhone within seconds it is available in the other place. The web-based Contacts looks very much like Address Book and like Calendar it is completely divided up into subsections (or categories) like your desktop applications are. I have seven calendars in iCal and four contact groups in Address Book and on the web I am able to display those groups just like I can on my desktop. I’m not sure what PUSH is powered by but I can only come to the conclusion that the forces of black magic are at work and I kind of like it.

Over the next few weeks you’ll read what everyone likes and dislikes about the service but I can honestly say that it met or exceeded my already high expectations.

I did however notice a couple of things that I wish it had:

- The ability to choose which calendars or group of contacts I could sync. Currently you can only sync everything or nothing.

- The ability to have iCal or Address Book PUSH the information immediately instead of waiting for the next sync cycle.

I know the speed of the web-based applications will work itself out over the next few days as soon as the “newness” wears off and not every single MobileMe user is trying to view its goodness. The wait however agonizing it appears right now is worth it I can assure you.

Halo Wars Preview

 

Bungie’s Halo franchise has been a huge hit on the Xbox and the Xbox 360. The shooter has sold millions of copies and has captured the fingers and thumbs of almost every Xbox 360 gamer. Now Bungie has set their minds on a new type of game. An RTS. I love Halo 3 but I never thought that Halo would turn into an RTS/Strategy game. 

Even though I never thought this would happen doesn’t mean that it won’t be a good game. The game will take you 20 years before the Halo 1 but you will still be fighting the Covenant aliens. In order to supply your army there will be no villagers like in Age of Empires or Farms like in Battle for Middle Earth. Instead Bungie approached this for more like modern times. You will have to wait for you supply drive to come in. So in order to get more supplies you must stay in the game long enough. You also must command you troops more interactively. As an example you have to tell you troops when to take cover, when to fire, and when to do everything.

The A button is the basis for the game. If you move the cursor over a unit and press A that unit will be selected. If you double press A then you select every one of those units on the battle field. Lastly if you press and hold A you can do a ‘click and drag’ to select all the units in the box. The game will feature a circle menu that come up when you click a building or a unit. The game is focused strongly on combat but you can use the D pad to jump back to your base for a quick defense build up.

This game looks very promising and i will hope to have a full review of the game when it comes out on October 1, 2008

iPhone 2.0 and App Store

I woke up this morning to quite a surprise. The past few days I have been obsessively checking the App Store on my iPhone 2.0 software beta, and I have been constantly greeted by “The App Store is not supported in your country”, but today was different. I was half asleep on the couch and I saw none other than the app store, ALIVE!!! At first I thought it was a dream, so I downloaded a couple apps and realized that I was, infact, not dreaming. 

So after recovering from my initial shock, I checked MacRumors to see the scoop, apparently Apple had released iTunes 7.7 while I was in slumber and launched the app store along with it (though not officially). I can proudly say I was the 7th person to download the iPhone AIM client (as of this writing there are over 43000 downloads).

Well now the App store is officially launched, and the final 2.0 software is available for those who dare, so let’s see what we’ve got. I love free software, so I’ll review some of the free apps that I’ve had the pleasure of playing with today (all links go to the App Store):

Twitteriffic: There are two versions of Twitteriffic on the App Store, a free version and a “premium” version. From what I can tell they’re pretty much the same except that the free version has ads. Anyway, it’s a Twitter client for the iPhone, great for Twittering on the go. 

Zenbe Lists: A great to do list app. It’s very simple, like any to do list should be. Manage multiple lists, check off stuff with a tap, and sync with the Zenbe online to do list service.

AIM: Does exactly what you’d think it would, lets you send and receive IMs using your AIM, .Mac, or MobileMe screen name. If you have multiple conversations, don’t worry, you can just swipe between them.

Remote: This little app from Apple is a really cool way to control iTunes or your AppleTV. The interface is setup just like the iPod app that’s included on the iPhone, and it works great with AirTunes.

Rotary Dialer: A fun little app if you want to dial someone’s number old school style. Totally pointless, but totally retro. 

That is but a taste of the App Store, there are many more apps currently available, and there are many more to come, prices varying from free to “oh hell no”. 

MobileMe (so far)

Well finally it has arrived, looks amazing…but…

This could possibly be the worst Apple product launch ever, it is up and down more than a roller coaster and I was able to get in and play a bit. Very pleasing to look at and I really hope that it is as good as we all want it to be…more to come as soon as it is up for a while.

The New Guy

Hello everyone! I am pleased to welcome the latest addition to the Gadgets and Tech writing team: me! I think we’ll get along great!

Anyway, the of this entry is sort of misleading, I am not completely new here. Scroll to the top of the page. It’s okay, nothing bad will happen. See that banner? Yeah, you guessed it. I made that!

Anyway, my name is Graham. I love Macs, my girlfriend, and cake. In my spare time I read, play video games, aimlessly browse the web, and engage in activities inappropriate for young children. I hate spinach, annoying people, and 3 day old BLT sandwiches. 

If you’re a complete nerd like me, you can follow me on Twitter, check out my iUseThis profile, or friend me on Facebook. 

See you around.

Too Human Set For Release!

Silicon Knights has announced that the highly anticipated game Too Human will be released on August 19, 2008. The game will be coming to only the Xbox 360. Silicon Knights also has a Too Human sequel in in the planning set to release around 2010. I will hope to have a full review of Too Human 1 when is comes out on the 18 of August.

Floort- Express your Opinion!

Recently I found a great web application for the iPhone and iPod touch, it is called Floort. Floort is a application designed so that people can share their opinions with everyone else that goes on the site. When people go to see your “Floort” they can either say they agree, disagree, or that they are not sure. I have been using Floort for a coulpe of weeks now and I have really enjoyed it.

But even if you don’t have a iPhone you can still join in on the fun. Just go to Floort.com, sign up, and start telling the world how you feel about the topics that you love. Floort has also been on Apple’s list of staff picks a couple of time.

I would highly suggest this application! I have had a lot of fun with it in the past few weeks.

Firefox 3.0

I’ll be honest, not a huge fan of Firefox, maybe it is the fanboys that try to shove it on everyone they meet, but I’m not a big fan, never have been. I respect what the fine people at Mozilla are doing and I applaud them for offering it for free, I enjoy splinter Mozilla/Firefox projects like Camino and I’m quite impressed with Flock.

That being said I decided that I’d check out the 3.0 version today and see if I could put their tagline “Can a browser really make the Web better?” to the test. And I’ve got to say, while I still don’t like the Firefox fanboys, I enjoy 3.0. I like the new interface, it seems much speedier than the previous versions and I hope that all of that new goodness trickles down the Flock sooner than later.

Will I make the switch over to Firefox full time? If I was still a PC user I most definitely would, I’d switch between that and Flock. On the Mac though I’m a big fan of Safari, sure it isn’t as customizable as Firefox but it is fast and I really enjoy using it, I use it 85% of the time, Flock around 10-15% and I’ll occasionally play around with Firefox. I’ve got it set up as my daughters default browser because it is so customizable and they use Linux at school and it is what she is familiar with.

While I might not have appreciated it fully in the past, my hat goes off to the people at Mozilla for putting out a great product like Firefox 3.0, great update and I’m sure more and more people will download and enjoy it, I’ll continue using my setup when I use the Mac but I’ll definitely use Firefox as my default when I run Windows or use my wife’s laptop. If you haven’t updates or haven’t tried Firefox yet, what are you waiting for?

The dust has settled…

Well the WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs was Monday and Apple really shocked quite a few fans, to say that release wise it was a bit of a downer for almost every excited little MacHead would be a pretty big understatement.

First, the much anticipated iPhone 2.0 firmware was announced and much to everyones surprise was not released that day, instead we will have to wait until the vague day of “early July”, some speculate it could be more late June but official word from the man was early July. Free for iPhone owners, $9.99 for Touch owners who want it.

Second, the new iPhone or iPhone 2, or iPhone 3G that like the firmware everyone thought would also be released that day was announced and will release July 11th. It was announced with a slightly new design, a different back material, 3G as expected, and assisted GPS (or aGPS), no front mounted camera, no lasers, no 32GB size, but at a lower price, $199/$299 (8GB/16GB), but that was met with the rise in data plan, old plan $20 unlimited data and 200 text messages, new plan $30 unlimited data and no included text messages (as of yet). The data increase wasn’t to be unexpected, but the omission of text messages was and the fact that if you live in a non-3G area (like a good part of the country) you still pay the 3G price. The $199/$299 price was ushered in by the “subsidization” of the phone and the fact that you won’t walk in and walk out and activate at home like the original (what I like to call iPhone Classic) but you will instead activate it at point of purchase with a 2 year contract. This little nugget was not widely accepted by the hacking community.

The gem of the entire WWDC keynote for me was not the 3G phone, I already knew that 2.0 was coming bringing 3rd party apps, granted I didn’t expect it to be delayed, but was the announcement of MobileMe. I used to have a .mac account, it was nice having that space and the connective service but it really wasn’t $99 worth of nice since you could get nearly everything that .mac offered for free minus the native interaction…but MobileMe kicks that up a notch and just became something that I could see actually paying $99 a year on. The fact that I can update something one place and have it auto update another place is phenomenal, if I go weeks without syncing my phone it isn’t going to be a problem when I don’t have a number or appointment that is sitting in iCal or Address Book…WOW!

And of course the little Mac that could the mini was once again neglected (not really unexpected).

For me personally, I’ll keep iPhone Classic and welcome the 2.0 applications and keep the old $20 data plan, but it will cost me a cool $99 for MobileMe. More to come on MobileMe when it releases in, yep you guessed it, early July.