Category: I-phone

This is our second special week here at iPhone.AppStorm, and now we want to know what you, our readers, think. Do you like these special theme weeks? Would you like to see another? Let us know in the poll to the right, and we’ll get it handled!

As the holidays get under way and traveling becomes hectic, TripIt allows you to keep your sanity with an organized view of all your travel plans. Itineraries are available at your fingertips and are easily shareable with friends, family and co-workers.

And now, TripIt has an iPhone app to make your life that much easier. If you are ready to spare yourself from the nightmare of holiday travel, follow the jump.

Getting Started

TripIt is a godsend for those who travel frequently, or set up travel plans for others. TripIt’s travel itineraries aren’t limited to flights, but keep track of meetings, dinner plans, maps and directions. Launched in 2009, TripIt is not a new app, but its most recent release has yet again propelled it to one of the top Travel apps on the market.

To get started on TripIt, you need to create an account. To be most effective this account needs to be linked to whichever email account you primarily send your travel itineraries to, however, you can also forward your travel itineraries to [email protected], input individual details on TripIt.com or in the app itself.

Taking Care of Business

TripIt makes it extremely easy to keep track of all travel plans.

Once you receive travel confirmation, whether it be a flight, car rental or hotel booking, the next step is sending it to [email protected] (it usually takes less than a minute for them to send a follow-up email telling you that the details have been added), manually inputting the information on your phone or allowing TripIt to scan your inbox. Then the trip will appear on the Trips page, the main page of the app. On this page, TripIt will show all upcoming trips in chronological order.

You can quickly edit a trip or add another.

There is an Add button on this page which will allow you to manually add a new trip. When you tap on any of the listed trips you will be taken to a new page that offers more details. The location and travel dates will be listed at the top of the page.

In addition to making your complete itinerary accesible, TripIt will also provide you with directions or a map view of any location that you enter.

Immediately following is a day-by-day itinerary of your travel plans. Times and icons pair up with the corresponding bookings. If you tap on any of these bookings a new page will open up, offering more details on the specific event. When addresses are tapped on, maps and directions will be offered. When website links are tapped, the website will launch in your browser. When phone numbers are tapped, I assume it launches in your phone app, but when I tried, all links were broken. You can also edit all booking information in the app itself, which is nice in the instance when you need to change a time or add a note.

You can also add events to your trip such as meetings, concerts, dinner reservations, etc.

Back on the detailed trip itinerary page, you can share the trip via email, edit the trip and add plans (this is where you would add meetings, concerts or anything else that you can’t forward to the TripIt email).

TripIt allows you to view your Connections' itineraries.

This page also has a People icon that when tapped, opens a new page showing all individuals in your network that are taking part in this trip — obviously, a perfect way to keep track of all the family or co-workers you’re flying with.

The four main tabs featured on the app are Trips (covered above), Points (only available in TripIt Pro), Network and Refresh.

Network shows all of your TripIt friend’s public “itineraries.” You can look up connections via city or date. The City tab will open up a new page listing all cities that your connections will be visiting. The Date tab opens a new page that categorizes your connections’ itineraries by month. The Network Updates is a running feed of people you have connected with.

Other Options

TripIt in its free form is very useful. The paid version of TripIt only offers an advertisement-free app. TripIt Pro is where all the bells and whistles come into play.

With TripIt Pro you will receive a live status of your flight and options for alternative flights.

TripIt Pro will also also you to view refunds and keep track of your frequent flier miles and rewards.

TripIt Pro ($49 per year) offers a myriad of useful features including the ability to track all frequent flier points, the ability to find alternate flights, and instant alerts regarding cancellations, gate changes and flight delays. TripIt Pro also offers a complimentary 1-year membership to Hertz #1 Club Gold and Regus Gold with VIP car rental and access to numerous business lounges

Whichever version you choose to use, TripIt offers a complementary website where you can export all travel plans to iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook 2007 and Lotus Notes 8.5. On the website you can also view past trips and add connections.

Conclusion

Honestly, TripIt is one of the most useful apps that you can directly benefit from this holiday season, and really, any time you are traveling. Voted as one of the “Best 5 Apps for Business” by Fortune and featured as one of the “Best Travel Websites & Apps” in 2011 by Travel + Leisure, TripIt is a useful addition to anyone’s travel app arsenal. It works offline and is one of the most efficient ways to view and revise travel plans out of any apps out there. This app is also incredibly useful for anyone making travel arrangements for groups of people such as co-workers or family members. And, while I wish more of the TripIt Pro options were available in the app (and that TripIt Pro didn’t cost $49 a year), I think even in its most basic form, TripIt is completely worthwhile. Consider this an early present — a gift that will keep on giving (and keep your sanity intact).

CodeCanyon has long been a source of great iPhone apps. One of CodeCanyon’s strengths is that you can often find great tools for mobile development alongside cools apps. In fact, it’s pretty packed with timesaving tools that will make your next iPhone website or mobile development a snap. Today, we’re going to do a rundown of some of the best selling iPhone apps on CodeCanyon.

1. Create Your Own App (No Programming Skills Needed)

Create your own iPhone/iPod Touch application with no code at all! Let customer find you in the Apple AppStore and improve your communication potential.

2. DOLPHIN – XML iPad/iPhone Slideshow&EBook Template

Dolphin, XML Driven App Template, compatible with iPad and iPhone with many exciting features, gives you flexible for colorful Ebook/Slideshow creation.

3. iRadio iPhone App

Just copy/paste your streaming link and it works! Play directly when you open the application. Tested on Wi-fi and 3G.

4. QR Code Scanner App Template ( Scanner / Reader )

The QR Code Scanner App Template makes it easy and simple to integrate QR Code reading technologies into your app. Setting up your app to read QR Codes can be a long, difficult, and painful process, involving countless hours of debugging. Eliminate that waste of time and get to the real core of your app, with this simple QR Code reading template.

5. HTML / PDF Viewer – iOS Xcode Project

HTML / PDF Viewer (also known as Document / Website Viewer) is a plug-and-play iOS application.

6. Create Your Own iPad App (Without Code)

Create your own iPad application with no code at all! Let customer find you in the Apple AppStore and improve your communication potential.

7. PhotoGallery – iOS Xcode Project

Photo Gallery is a plug-and-play iOS application.

8. Multi iRadio – Unlimited Radio

Unlimited streaming radio! Make money with the iAd system already instaled.

9. Advance iOS APNS

This script is for pushing notifications to iOS devices. e.g. It does what the twitter app does when you get messages.

10. Native Contact / Feedback Form

Native Contact / Feedback Form is a plug-and-play iOS application.

11. iRSS Reader Application for iPhone

iRSS Reader is a native iphone application. It is a template RSS Reader that you can customize to meet your needs. You can use any RSS compliant v2 feed.

12. Async Image Loading for RSS/Atom feeds

This application connects to a user defined rss or atom feed, (in this case Apple store’s top 25 free apps for Greece), and displays the information of the top applications.

13. Twitter Feed

Twitter Feed is an iOS XCode project which illustrates the versatility of utilizing the built in URL request objects along with the XML parsing objects to perform GET transactions against the Twitter API in order to allow for retrieval of Tweets from a user’s timeline.

14. JukeApp: An iPhone Music Player Plugin

JukeApp is a plug-and-play music player for iOS SDK applications. It is perfect for bands or musicians who wish to bring their music to a mobile audience. It is also a great plugin for demoing audio books or other sound clip collections.

15. MyPlistMap for iPhone & iPad

MyPlistMap allows you to add hundreds of pins to your Map, in just a few seconds per pin!

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Organidoc. The developer describes Organidoc as a powerful file management app to manage docs, pics and videos saved in your iPhone or email. It provides a way for you to browse docs, pics and videos in different user interface. A protected area is designed to save private data and keep it safe. OrganiDoc even integrates popular Internet cloud disks. So now you can manage all your files scattered across different storages into one app.

Screenshots

About the App

Here are the top five features you can expect to see in the latest version:

• Easily save your attachments within email to OrganiDoc. You can export an entire folder to to PC via cable or Wi-Fi.
• Manage your docs, pics and videos in both public and protected mode.
• Use Dropbox, Google Docs, MobileMe iDisk, Public iDisk, box.net, Soonr or and WebDAV services for backup remotely and download them on demand to your iPhone.
• Tightly Integrated with iCloud: Just tag files, photos or videos with the iCloud icon and then they will be automatically stored to iCloud and pushed to iPad’s OrganiDoc HD for sharing.
• Compression files such as ZIP or RAR can be extracted in OrganiDoc. Password protected ZIP or RAR are also supported. Multiple files and folders can be compressed to a zip file.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Price: $4.99

Developer: Wenjoy Technology Inc.

Vote for a Review

Would you like to see us write a full review of Organidoc? Have your say in our poll:

Would you like to see Organidoc reviewed in-depth on AppStorm?

Quick Look posts are paid submissions offering only a brief overview of an app. Vote in the poll if you think this app is worth an in-depth AppStorm review! If you’re a developer and would like to have your app profiled, you can submit it here.

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If you’re tired of looking at that stale Mac OS desktop, think about adding Magic Window to your visual bag of tricks.

Magic Window, available through the Mac App Store for US$2.99 (on sale) comes with 14 striking landscapes that change over time, so you see the skies change and the sun might rise or set. You get to control the speed, and you also can make the images black and white or sepia. Each loop contains about a thousand images.

The high-resolution scenes support my 30-inch monitor without looking blocky. Once you have the app, you have an option to download more scenes at no additional cost. There are a total of 40 scenes you can choose from. They are grouped by themes such as mountains, beaches, sunsets and so on.

This app is reminiscent of Sundial from Aladdin Systems, which was a pre-OS X Mac application. It’s long gone, but the novelty of Sundial was that it tied the scene to your system clock so as the sun was rising locally, your screen was displaying the same thing. Magic Window doesn’t do that, darn it, and most of the loops don’t run 24 hours. Josh Michaels, one of the creators of the app, tells me that the app will eventually have that feature, which is most welcome. I’d love to see that.

I like Magic Window. It gives my desktop some much-needed variety. It supports multiple monitors and you can have different scenes on each one. You also get the option to use Magic Window as a screen-saver, and you can randomly shuffle the scenes.

Magic Window is also available for iOS devices, and we reviewed the iPad version last year.

The sale runs until Dec. 29 when the price returns to $9.99. I’m hoping Magic Window will be updated with new scenes and features over time, but it’s very nice as it is.

Check out the gallery for some samples from the image collection.

Daily Mac App: Magic Window originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ron Wayne is the man who missed out on the fortunes of Apple. He was one of the three co-founders of Apple, along with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Shortly after he signed the contract (which sold last week for almost $1.6 million) that founded the company, he sold his share for a mere pittance — $2,300. Engadget’s Brian Heater spent a couple of days talking with Wayne about his brush with history, and tells the story in prose, photos, and video.

Heater notes in the intro to his post that the 77 year-old Wayne seems genuinely puzzled about why people find him to be fascinating. From his small pre-fab home in Pahrump, Nevada, Wayne now makes his living buying, selling and trading coins and stamps. He’s also written a couple of books: Insolence of Office, which is a treatise on morale and economic collapse, and Adventures of an Apple Founder.

Wayne was the designer of the original Apple logo, an ornate Victorian-looking drawing of Isaac Newton underneath the proverbial apple tree. That logo was quickly replaced by the now-classic Apple “byte” logo, erasing one of the few traces of Wayne’s time as an owner of the company. Wayne still has a stack of drawings of Apple I case concepts he designed, as well as a photocopy of the contract that sold last week for millions. He sold the original contract to a collector in the early 1990s for about $500.

Heater’s interview is a rare look at the man who was so close to becoming a billionaire, but says he has “no regrets.” Be sure to visit our sister site Engadget for the full interview, and enjoy the video clip below.

Engadget interviews Apple co-founder Ron Wayne originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you — the readers — and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We’ll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often!

TUAW is asking for your vote for the best iPhone game app of 2011.

The apps that made it into our final voting have provided hours of fun for millions of iPhone users. The first app on the list is Jetpack Joyride (currently free) from Halfbrick Studios. Barry Steakfries, the protagonist of Jetpack Joyride, would love your vote. This app has a 4.5 star rating out of 5 possible with over 15,500 ratings on the App Store, so it is an incredibly popular iPhone game.

Next in the lineup is the popular word game W.E.L.D.E.R. (US$3.99). This app has been a past iPhone Game of the Week on the App Store, and according to Tested.com, it “takes Bejeweled, Boggle, and Scrabble and smelts them into one mining-themed word puzzle.”

Want a board game in your pocket? Ticket to Ride Pocket ($0.99) has sold over 2 million copies, achieved Apple Game of the Week in Europe, and was #1 in the strategy games category in 32 countries. I’m betting that we’ll see a lot of votes for Ticket to Ride.

Scribblenauts Remix (currently on sale for $0.99) is another big hit in the App Store, gaining a 4.5 out of 5 rating with over 10,800 total ratings. It’s one of the few games out there — perhaps the only one — where you can create just about any sort of object. The latest update even supports creating objects using voice dictation on the iPhone 4S.

Our last entry in the voting for the best iPhone game app of 2011 is Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing ($1.99). It’s an app that made it into an iPod touch ad, and it features Sonic the Hedgehog and a bunch of other SEGA characters racing in cars, monster trucks, bikes, planes and bananas…

Be sure to vote for the iPhone game that you think is the top for 2011. The winner will be announced in a few days.

View Poll

TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best iPhone game app originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those wanting to upgrade to a DSLR might find there’s a steep learning curve involved. Instead of relying on automatic controls, you’re faced with a slew of new tools and concepts. And while you can get decent photos with a DSLR’s automatic settings, it’s nothing like learning to use the manual controls on a camera.

The new $9.99 Master Your DSLR Camera from Open Air Publishing is an absolutely luscious interactive book with video tutorials, an in-depth look at how your camera works, how to fix common image problems and answers to just about any question you have about using a DSLR.

The app, built using Inkling, is geared toward beginners, but I can see professionals using this as well. It allows you to take notes and saves highlights and bookmarks. All of these are accessible from anywhere in the app. You can set up an account to share highlights and notes, useful if you’re a teacher and want your students to have this book. I really enjoyed the detailed shooting guide for taking pictures of everything from pets to forests. It doesn’t just teach you what the camera controls are for but how to use it in real-life situations.

Even if a DSLR isn’t in your immediate future, this book teaches you basic photography principles. Most point-and-shoot cameras have a few manual controls, and you can learn how to use to get the most out of the camera you already have. If you have an interest in photography and want to know more, Master Your DSLR Camera is the best purchase you can make.

Daily iPad App: Master Your DSLR Camera originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Although relatively few people voted in this category, we have a winner in the TUAW Best of 2011 voting for the best Mac music app!

At the top of the heap for Mac music apps with 46.2 percent of the votes was Reaper (free to download, US$225 for a commercial license, $60 for an individual license), a powerful digital audio workstation. Readers love Reaper’s capabilities, which include being able to record audio and MIDI from multiple inputs at the same time, layering recorded tracks and takes, incredible editing tools, hundreds of audio and MIDI processing effects, and the ability to use thousands of third-party effects.

The runner-up, quite close in terms of total votes, was the popular GarageTunes ($4.99). This app is a replacement for iTunes that is fast, lightweight, and plays all MP3 and M4A/AAC music files on your Mac. It can also stream songs to the second-generation Apple TV and other macs.

Many thanks to the TUAW readers who nominated their favorite Mac game apps and then voted in the competition. Congratulations to the team at Cockos for winning this category in the TUAW Best of 2011.

Don’t fear Reaper: It’s the TUAW Best of 2011 Mac music app originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lot of Apple fans are sure that the next iPhone will support the true 4G LTE networks now being deployed by major cellular carriers. Apple has repeatedly said that the iPhone will get LTE when battery life is not an issue, but the Houston Chronicle’s Dwight Silverman notes that if the 4G Android devices hitting the market are any indication, that could be a while.

How bad is that battery life? Bad enough that in Engadget’s testing of the device, they noted “Using Google Navigation with LTE enabled? The battery drained so fast our in-car charger couldn’t keep up, leaving us unsure of which exit to take off the 101.” Other LTE devices also seem to have similar issues, so it’s not just the Galaxy Nexus to blame.

Sure, the speeds that LTE networks provide are tempting. Silverman’s own testing in the Houston, Texas area shows broadband-like download speeds in the range of 30 – 45 Mbps (Megabits per second), while uploads are commonly in the 15-16 Mbps range. But when streaming a Netflix movie draws down the battery by 50 percent in 30 minutes, it’s obvious that those speeds come at a price.

Silverman notes that he’s “not optimistic” that Apple could get iPhone 4 / 4S-like battery life, even with newer-generation chipsets and an operating system tuned for battery longevity. He also hopes “that any LTE phone Apple offers will come with a setting that turns it off and allows users to drop back to 3G when battery life is more important than raw speed.”

What do you think? Would you be willing to trade battery life for raw speed? Leave your comments below.

Thoughts on an LTE iPhone originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

No Flash? Click here to listen.

Daily Update for December 19, 2011 originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s that time of year again: Snow is in the air, presents are underneath the tree, and Apple is about to shut down the developer’s side of App Store for its yearly freeze. The New York Times has done some solid coverage on the shutdown this year, which will start this Thursday, and run for a week and a day after that.

Apps will still be for sale, of course, but developers won’t be able to release new apps or updated released apps. Every year, developers have to rush to not only, as the NYT says, get their apps out on the store and available before the freeze, but also to try and get their apps in the top 25 paid and free lists, which is where many post-holiday new iPhone and iPad owners start their app shopping.

Electronic Arts, which the NYT quotes in its piece, has probably been the most public beneficiary of this App Store break — a few years ago, the company dropped all of its apps on sale to 99 cents in the days before the freeze, which enabled it to grab most of the real estate in the “top apps” lists, and that big bump has even dictated company mobile policy until now.

There’s no doubt there is plenty of money to be earned on the App Store this holiday again (and we’ll likely see some developers reporting big bumps next week), but I’d suggest that things are changing, soon, if not already. Back in the early days of the App Store, there weren’t too many ways to find good apps besides those top 25 lists. But these days, there are a lot more resources, both for users to find the apps they want, and for developers to promote their own apps. So I don’t know that we’ll see as big an effect from the top 25 lists this year as past year. We’ll still see big sales, I’m sure, but I think those will be more spread out than last year.

And of course the App Store freeze has one more benefit for Apple: In addition to allowing the company to do maintenance and updates on the store and its infrastructure, it also allows the review and support staff to take a much-needed break for a few days. We’ll have to wait and see how it works out for the company and 3rd-party developers this year.

Developers eager to submit apps before App Store vacation originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Large cameras meant for kids to use have been around for years, but Sakar’s AppClix appears to be the first to be aimed at those whose parents own an iPad. The colorful camera, adorned with your choice of several Disney characters, is nothing to sneeze at with a 7-megapixel sensor and 4x zoom. However, instead of a USB cable, there’s a 30-pin dock connector.

The AppClix plugs into the iPad for kids to upload their photos and use the free Disney Pix app to edit them. For those who don’t own an iPad, the camera has an SD-card slot for saving pictures. With the default card being a meager 32 MB, parents might want to swap it for one with a larger capacity.

If you feel comfortable letting your child tote around a $60 digital camera, the AppClix appears to be a good buy. However, it’s out of stock at the moment, which means you’re better off waiting until after the holidays to order one. As Gizmodo theorizes, this is most likely the first of future cameras to come with 30-pin connectors.

Kid-friendly camera sports iPad 30-pin connector originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you watch enough Sci-Fi movies, you’ll start to crave technology that lets you talk to your device and say things like “Computer, make me a cup of coffee.”

An early implementation of this voice control is the Bluetooth headset which lets you make calls by speaking to your phone. Now we have voice assistants like Siri and TellMe that give you control over features besides calling. Companies are aware of the potential for voice control and are working hard to develop and improve the technology says a report from the New York Times.

The report provides initial details on futuristic, wearable devices that would interact with Apple’s Siri voice assistant. One example is a glass iPod nano-like device that you would wear on your wrist. It would interact with your iPhone and let you share information between the two devices. According to the New York Times, a “very small group of Apple employees” are working on Sir-enabled prototypes that you wear as part of your everyday clothing.

These wearable devices would establish a network of sensor-filled devices that send and receive information from your smartphone. Everything will connect to your smartphone, and it will become the center of your digital existence. It’s not hard to imagine a hands-free system that would track your activity level, start your coffee pot and read you the morning news using sensors embedded in your sneakers and shirt.

Apple reportedly working on wearable, Siri-compatible devices originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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