Nothing’s worse than a really bad day
OK, so maybe I got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Or maybe it was the chocolate cake that my daughter upended onto the kitchen carpet. Or maybe it was the frustration of wading through another couple of hundred applications, new in the iPhone App Store since yesterday. Either way, it’s been a bad day.
Of the 20,000 applications in the store, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that only around two to three hundred are actually any good at all. Add the same number again which are so niche that only a dozen people across the world might want them and you are left with over 19,000 apps which are completely and utterly pointless. Or rubbish. Or both.
But one app caught my eye today: Nothing.
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App Review: myMovies
On the face of it, an application to keep a record of your DVD collection in your pocket seems a bit pointless but I know from experience that it can save time and money. For anyone with more than a handful of DVDs, there’ll come a time when they’re about to buy a DVD only to hesitate, trying to remember whether they already own it. If they’re unlucky, that moment will only come after they’ve paid. Been there, done that. Surprisingly then, it turns out to be very useful to carry a record of your DVD collection around with you. myMovies from Netwalk aims to let you do just that.
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A triple case whammy from Proporta
You’ve got to love Proporta, one of the world’s leading phone accessory makers. Not only are they British(!), they’re great people, they even have their own chatty office blog.
And, for the Apple iPhone, they’ve put together three cases and have kindly sent over samples for review on All About iPhone. In no particular order, here’s a look at their Perfora case, their Maya pouch and the all-conquering Alu-Leather Edge case. All three have their merits, as shown below…
The Quest for the Perfect ToDo App
Ever since the App Store threw open its doors and waved in the general public to have a snoop around, I’ve been on something of a quest. This isn’t a quest for gold, the fountain of youth or a crystal skull. It isn’t even something I would expect to take long enough to be described as a quest. I simply want to find a ToDo app that works the way I want it to.
The usual method I (and, presumably, most others) use to choose apps is to wander around the App Store seeing what takes my fancy. “Oh look”, I might say, “an app to calculate the weight of all my socks. Just what I need.” Or, maybe “Ah, an app to synthetically replicate the expulsion of gastric exhaust – my life is complete.” But this is different. This time there is a very clear idea in my mind what the app should do and how it should do it.
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App Review: Go Go Go! – GPXL’s Guide to F1™ 2009
I’ve never been a sports fan. To my mind, they’re like games shows on TV – you’ll see the same thing each time except that sometimes they win at the end and sometimes they lose. Why would you ever watch it twice?
The one exception for me is Formula One. Even for many sports fans, a liking for F1 is baffling when the sport can often be summed up as “cars going around in circles”. There are Cricket fans who yawn at the prospect of watching it. Even as a fan I recognize that it can very often be a predictable and tedious procession. So what’s the attraction? Well, I don’t really know but, based on my experience, I do have a theory.
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App Review: Pdf+
One of the appealing aspects of the iPhone is having a device in your pocket that can open various types of documents. Whether it’s to check a spreadsheet emailed from the office or to read a PDF file downloaded from the Web, there are numerous times when you’ll want to open a document without carrying a laptop around with you.
This functionality is available on the iPhone ‘out of the box’ so any app whose sole function is to work with PDF files (especially one that charges for the privilege), really needs to offer something special. So how does Pdf+ from mBrain Software shape up?
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App Review: Readello
[A big hello to Gideon, our third new reviewer. Matt]
How do you review an RSS reader? In theory a good reader should not really be noticeable as it is merely a conduit to the information you want to read, and therefore – using my line of reasoning – anything that detracts from you getting to your information can be classed as a negative. You may not agree with my logic, but hopefully, as I give you good and bad points to Readello, you will understand my line of thought.
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All your third party applications broken after iTunes 8.1? Me too. Here’s the fix.
I got a shock today when starting up applications on my iPod Touch. Nearly every third party application was broken. Each quit back to the launcher after a second or so. After a few minutes panic and the usual restarts and soft resets (none of which worked), the penny dropped. I’d upgraded to iTunes 8.1 yesterday and the application problem was only since my sync. In other words, something in the new iTunes had blatted all over my applications.
In my year of owning an iPod Touch, this was my first real showstopping problem. But what to do? I’d be very surprised if this was a Touch problem – I’m guessing this is equally applicable to the iPhone as well. Half an hour’s Googling and I came across a reference to a similar problem encountered on a previous iTunes update by some users. I decided to try their solution – and also to try the iTunes/iPod backup system for real.
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App Review: RSS Player
I was a latecomer to the delights of the iPod. I had several other MP3 players before and was therefore familiar with the benefits of carrying my CD collection around with me. But when I finally got my iPod Touch and started using iTunes, a whole new world opened up to me – podcasts.
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App Review: GeoTweeter & Voilà
[Please welcome Jane Sales as a new reviewer. Jane previously wrote Symbian OS Internals, and is currently working on something location-specific for the iPhone.]
Twitter is becoming a platform, and GeoTweeter is the latest proof of that. It’s the new iPhone app from Schmap, the creators of the iPhone-friendly interactive travel guides and the Schmap.me location sharing service, and it’s a free download from the App Store.
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