iPhone App Reviews

PhotoSync

Michael (Admin) | Jan 5, 2012 Photo & Video

User rating: (3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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PhotoSync ($1.99) by touchbyte GmBH

Available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

I just made the leap back to Mac after about 13 years of suffering with PCs! Thank you, thank you… please hold your applause. One of the first things I did after firing up my shiny new MacBook Pro was to go hunting for apps to install (yes, PC users, Apple also has an App Store just for Mac users), and I grabbed PhotoSync right away because I’m constantly moving photos off my iPhone to use on my desktop computer. In the past I’ve always relied on WifiPhoto to do this job but I wanted to see what, if anything, PhotoSync could do better.

Bottom line? PhotoSync does *almost* everything better, and it does way more! I still plan to use WifiPhoto for getting screenshots off my iPhone (I’ll explain why later) but if you’ve got a Mac (or PC) with PhotoSync installed and an iPhone or iPad with PhotoSync installed, the whole thing is just ridiculously easy. The desktop app isn’t mandatory, but it’s free so hey why not.

So far I’ve only moved photos back and forth between my iPhone 4 and MacBook… that’s right kids, file transfer here swings both ways… but you can also send your photos to other iDevices, to Dropbox, to a whole bunch of social places like Facebook, Picasa, and Flickr, and you can even go with FTP if you’re a SuperNerd.

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Tags: social networking

FacebookBirthdays

Michael (Admin) | Nov 17, 2009 Utilities

User rating: (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Here’s the good news on FacebookBirthdays: it does what it says it does by listing all of your Facebook friends by month and showing when their birthday is. I just installed this app yesterday so I can’t speak to how well the push feature works, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt in that area and assume it works.

Here’s the bad news on FacebookBirthdays: it doesn’t do anything else! There are several other apps that also display Facebook birthday info plus a little more, and I think that’s ok if this app would just be the best at it… but gosh darnit, it doesn’t even have an options panel, and the “Today & Upcoming” only shows birthdays from my Contacts instead of Facebook. I like that it shows birthdays from my Contacts, but that’s not the main purpose of this app.

If my name were Konstantinos and I had the ability to make this app way better than it currently is, here’s what I’d do…

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Tags: $.99, social networking

Flit

T.J. Brumfield | Jul 17, 2009 Social Networking

User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)

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OpusApps has put together their second offering called Flit. Flit is a new social networking concept with an interesting proposition. You have something to say, but you don’t have an audience. You’re not Ashton Kutcher, and you don’t have a million Twitter followers. Maybe you are Ashton Kutcher and you’re looking to take over every social network on the planet. Frankly, who is going to stop him?

Flit’s concept is that messages are simply thrown in the cloud for anyone to see. Except in this case, messages are pretty butterflies. Each butterfly has a color which denotes the category of the message. If I want to view a message, I tap the butterfly. Upon reading the flit, I am prompted to vote the flit up or down.

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Tags: $1.99, social networking, T. J. Brumfield

Q&F: DoGood

Chrisa | Jun 27, 2009 Lifestyle, Quick & Free, Social Networking

User rating: (6 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)

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Ah, to be young and full of hope.  I remember being like that, before I got cynical and exhausted.

But three young college grads in Michigan are still hopeful, and they’ve created DoGood, their first iPhone app under their collective moniker of Mobil33t LLC.  Now, normally on a free app, I’d give you a few sentences about it and go on with my weekend.  But DoGood has inspired me to put in a bit more effort in the hopes that a few more of you will try out the app and be motivated to pay it forward, so to speak. 

The app is pretty simple.  Every day there is a suggested “do good” task, like thanking a teacher, or use less water.  If you need some inspiration to do the “do good,” read short posts from others around the world who have done it.  If you do it, great!  Share how it made you feel or what you did, and get a running tally of all the “do goods” you do.  You can even post them to your twitter account, automatically.

It’s a simple idea, but it does reinforce the notion of one small gesture a day making a difference in the world.  And, with it right there in the palm of my hand, staring me in the face, I have to admit, I felt a little guilty if I didn’t at least try to do the daily “do good.” 

If I had to make one suggestion to the Wolverines, I’d have some way to screen the feedback.  Some of it was downright raunchy (see the comments on the ‘do something you love’ DoGood), from losers who think it’s a joke.  I’d definitely rethink your “appropriate for 4+” rating until you have this filter in place. 

Other than that, bravo, my fine young chaps.  I hope you change the world, one iPhone user at a time.

Tags: Lifestyle, Q&F, social networking

Tweetion

Chrisa | Feb 4, 2009 Social Networking

User rating: (1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5)

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Hi, my name is Chrisa, and I’m a twitter-er.  It’s pretty much an obsession, and I should be in a 12-step program for it, but I can’t help it.  I lovemicro blogging, and I don’t care who knows it!  I’ve used another iPhone Twitter app for some time now, but it was a free app (you’ll have to search for it yourself), and while it works fine and does what I need, I figured there must be a more full-featured Twitter app out there, even if I have to pay for it.

Along came Tweetion, from Joggame.  I guess you pronounce it “twee-shun”.   And it does seemingly have more features than the freebie I had been using.  You can have it automatically set your location based on where you are when you Twitter, automatically update your Facebook status from Twitter (although, Twitter itself can do this, without having to set it here), retrieve past tweets, update your service delivery (IM, SMS), and even edit your Twitter bio information.   Don’t know about you, but I usually set that and forget it on the Twitter website, so I don’t know how often you’d use the setup, after your first time entering your login info.

Then, of course, you can read tweets from those to which you subscribe, add a tweet, add a twitpic, reply to a tweet, search for trends, etc.  All the things you’d expect. 

But, there are some downfalls.  In the settings, you use standard iPhone “dials” to pick how far back you’d like to pull tweets, but it doesn’t work as a dial.  In fact, it’s infuriating as all hell to figure out how a dial ISN’T a dial (see below).  In fact, the entire setup menu is either a little blurry, or I need a prescription change on my glasses.  Recent Tweets are in HUGE boxes, which I found hysterical, since the avatar/bio pic for each tweet was so small, I could barely make out what it was.  Oh – and if you want to view your profile, all you get is your tiny bio pick – can’t even read your own bio to be sure it was edited correctly in settings. 

Then there’s adding a tweet.  It takes no less than 4 clicks – minus what you type – to add an entry.  Why?  Seems like there are 2-3 clicks to many and when you’re an addict, you need to get delivery of your fix fast.  4 clicks wasn’t fast enough for me.

I tried to give Tweetion a fare shake – I used it to Twitter for five straight days, and in the end, I went back to my free Twitter app.  Maybe I’m just used to the free one, but I get more tweets on a page, bigger bio pics, faster tweets, and easier searching on the free one.  Seems that Tweetion slaps in a lot of stuff you don’t really need to justify charging $4.99.  My advice – slim it down, make the bio picks bigger, and charge $1.99.  You’ll probably end up making more dough in the end.

Tags: $4.99, social networking