Category: I-phone

One of the nicest things about Apple’s iOS mobile operating system becoming ubiquitous is that accessory manufacturers are coming out with some wonderful devices that work with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. The latest is one that new parents are going to love: the iBaby Monitor (US$199.95) from iBaby Labs.

Of course, you don’t have to use the iBaby Monitor to look after a baby. The iBaby Labs website asks the question “Who’s your baby?,” pointing out that you might want to keep an eye on your dog or cat, an elderly relative or friend, or your house while you’re out and about.

Design

The iBaby Monitor is a Wi-Fi connected webcam with built-in microphones, infrared LED night lighting, and a swivel base. The device is attractive — made of white plastic, it’s relatively unobtrusive and fits in just about anywhere.

Once it is set up, the Monitor can be placed anywhere there is a power outlet. The company includes a mount that can be used to place the camera out of reach on a wall if desired.

Functionality

I’d rate the setup of the iBaby Monitor as “somewhat easy.” What I mean by that is that it isn’t as drop-dead simple to set up as the Stem Innovations iZON camera, but it can still be accomplished by just about anyone using the Quick Installation Guide that comes along with the device.

To start the setup, you must be near a Wi-Fi router with an open Ethernet port. There’s a small white “rubber duck” antenna that is plugged into the back of the Monitor to give the device relatively good range. The iBaby Monitor comes with an AC power adapter that is plugged in prior to setup, and then you run the included Ethernet cable between the router and the device.

While the iBaby Monitor goes through a set of warmup exercises, you download the iBaby Monitor app to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. This free app is used for the rest of the setup process. It was at about this point that things went a little awry in the setup. I have a Foscam Wi-Fi webcam set up in our house, and the iBaby Monitor app kept finding it, but didn’t seem to be able to find the iBaby Monitor. I canceled out of the setup, and then noticed that the app had found both the “iBaby 1” and “RubyCam 1” Wi-Fi webcams, so I switched it over to iBaby 1 to continue the process.

From there, things went swimmingly. As soon as I had a Wi-Fi connection from the device to my iPhone, I could see the image and the app asked me to disconnect the Ethernet cable. After the initial setup, you can pretty much move the camera to any location near a power outlet and plug it in.

The iBaby Monitor, like my old Foscam webcam, can be swiveled over a wide range. Unlike the Foscam, which didn’t come with any Mac or iOS software, the iBaby Monitor is controlled by just swiping the screen in the direction you wish to move the camera. The camera has a 350° pan range, and can also tilt up and down over a 70° range. That’s great for coverage of a complete room, and with the wide-angle lens that’s built into the camera, you see everything.

There are also infrared LEDs built into the camera for illuminating a dark room without waking the baby or Grandma. The lighting has a range of about 16 feet, so you won’t want to set up the iBaby Monitor too far away from your intended subject.

If you’re watching baby and babysitter from work, you might want to hear what’s going on as well. The camera has two nice little microphones that pick up sounds and transmit them to the app. My favorite feature? You can plug speakers into the speaker ports on the back of this camera and actually talk to the person on the other end. This would be perfect for yelling at your new puppy just before she’s about to relieve herself on your nice imported Turkish rug.

You’re not going to be able to connect to your iBaby Monitor via 3G; it’s just too slow. You can also view the video feed via a PC app or on the web. The website instructions were supposed to be in the Owner’s Manual that was not included with the device, and the links to download a PDF version of the manual were not working at the time of this review. The device has a default DDNS address, user name, and password listed on it, but I was unable to attach to the device via a web browser. If the Owner’s Manual becomes available before I return this device to iBaby Labs, I’ll see if I can use a browser to view the feed.

One final feature set to talk about: the app has toggles for two alarm types — a motion alarm and a sound alarm. I liked the way that the motion alarm worked; small motions didn’t set it off, but somebody or something walking into a room was enough to make the iPhone start chiming. I never could get the sound alarm to chime, but it might be more attuned to the sound of a baby screaming.

The app was definitely made in China (along with the device itself) as the built-in FAQs use a charming mishmash of Chinglish to explain how to use the iBaby Monitor and app. (Note to iBaby Labs: you can hire me to do a proper English translation of the FAQs for the next version of the app.)

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a really nice baby shower gift for a friend, or if you’d like a webcam that will work well with your iOS devices, then pony up the $200 and buy the iBaby Monitor. It has very few flaws, and the control provided by the free app is very good. The microphone and speaker ports are really the icing on the cake, though. This would be great for someone who was out of town on business but wanted to talk with the person or animal on the other end of the monitored connection.

For absolute ease of setup for a non-controllable baby monitor and the ability to monitor via 3G, I’d recommend the less expensive iZON Remote Room Monitor ($129.95). But if you want the ability to pan and tilt the camera, want to see what’s going on in a darkened nursery, or want the two-way sound capability, drop the extra $70 for the iBaby Monitor. You’ll be very happy that you did.

iBaby monitor: Keeping an iOS eye on your little one originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 29 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The big feature in the iPhone isn’t the better camera or the faster processor, it’s a piece of software called Siri, and it’s very popular. Just by hitting a button you can speak whatever you want into the phone and get your answers in just a few seconds. “What time is my next appointment?” “How do I get to mom’s house?” “Where can I get a piece of pizza?” It’s quite the amazing piece of software.

But with any type of new technology, there are a few hiccups in the road. Siri isn’t perfect at answering every question, but that’s not even the most important part. Frankly, you can kind of look like a douche using it.

So how do you avoid looking like a jerk while still using the service? And is it useful enough to use every day? We’ve lived with Siri for a few weeks now, and we’ve got some answers.

Proper Phone Etiquette

Remember when the Bluetooth headset first hit the market? People were walking around all day seemingly talking to themselves, causing awkward moments in conversations and fodder for comedy movies made in the last five years. Even though the technology was really cool (and required use in some states) it’s still hard to have one out in public without looking like a jerk.

So we have Siri, which has the same issue as the Bluetooth headset. Just push the button and talk to Siri, and she’ll answer out loud using the iPhone’s built-in speaker. Do that in a crowd and just wait for the eye rolls.

Fixing that problem is pretty easy, and all it takes is changing a setting.

Adjusting Siri for non-jerk status.

First, navigate to Settings > General > Siri. There’s a little switch on the bottom of the screen labelled “Raise to Speak.” By enabling this switch, all you have to do is lift the phone up to your ear and hold it there until you hear that familiar Siri tone. Ta-da — now you’re no longer a jerk.

Being Appropriate

Now comes the other big part of the whole Siri equation, figuring out when it’s appropriate (and more importantly, not appropriate) to use Siri. Just like FaceTime, there’s a right and wrong time to use it.

In Private

It’s 5 am, no one is around and you want to ask Siri where the nearest coffee shop is because your Friday night has turned into your Saturday morning, and you’re starting to feel like a hangover is looming. Feel free to whip out your iPhone 4S and get some java, because there’s nobody to embarrass yourself in front of, and no fear of someone thinking you’re a jerk.

With a Friend (or Friends)

You’re with your good buddy from freshman year, his brother and a mutual friend, talking about the good old days. You want to put on a special playlist from your iPhone, and show off at the same time. Do you use Siri?

Sure, why not. If you’re among friends, there really is no reason not to pull out Siri. It’s the strangers part you have to look out for, because douchiness creeps around every corner. You don’t want to be “that guy.”

In Public

You’re at the local hardware store and you’re trying to find a specific type of mortar to use in a tiling project you’re working on at home. You can’t find it there, so you need to find the nearest store. Out comes the iPhone, and now you ring Siri via speaker. Cool or no?

If you’re anywhere near someone who’s a stranger, don’t use it. You’re just going to look like a jerk who’s trying to show off their fancy new iPhone, and nobody likes that. The only exception to this rule comes to play if you’ve activated the Raise to Speak feature, and even then you should probably either talk quieter or try to be stealthy about it.

Learning the Ropes

Once you’ve figured out how not to look weird talking to yourself, the next step is to start figuring out how to use Siri and how to make it work for you. Again, this thing isn’t perfect; Siri doesn’t know the answer to everything, and it will probably be a bit before it does. But the best way to learn how to use it is just to give it a shot.

Let me give you an example. The other day I wanted to take a nap, but I didn’t want to wake up 4 hours later wondering where my day had went. I figured I’d ask Siri to set an alarm for me, but instead of asking it in a traditional way like “Set my alarm for 1 hour” or “Set a timer for one hour,” I just asked it what I was thinking. “Wake me up in an hour.” Here are the results:

Oh look, it set an alarm for me.

Now I’m not going to say that Siri is perfect, not by any means. More often than not, Siri doesn’t get when I’m trying to tell her to do something, and I’ve never gotten her to successfully play a song or album. But point is, try it out and see what happens.

Final Thoughts

Siri is an amazing application with a lot of promise for the future. But as with all new pieces of technology, it’s going to take a little bit of time for the world at large to catch up. In the meantime, use your Siri carefully, and get to know her slowly, just like you would a new pet. Make sure to try new things every so often to see what happens, use the app in private or among close friends, and try not to be a douche.

Huh. Now that I think about it, those are pretty much words to live by.

Travel Blogging is great in theory, but often hard to actually accomplish. After a long day of sightseeing abroad you dutifully sign on to your hotel’s patchy Wi-Fi and try to upload images and correlating text for your travel blog — or you are like me, and after sightseeing you “dutifully” patron the hotel’s bar instead. Suffice it say, your travel blog (and mine) is not what you had hoped for.

But it can be. TripColor, a new social travel blogging app has made it mind-blowingly simple to create and maintain a legitimate travel blog.

Learn about the app that will make you a travel blogging pro after the jump.

Your Trip

TripColor is pretty straightforward; you set up an account and start adding photos. Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that, but not by much.

TripColor is extremely easy to use

First photo

After creating an account, you can start blogging. To set up a new trip, simply tap My Trips in the center of the toolbar. A new page will open and you can name your trip, write a brief (250 characters max.) description, set your privacy level (public or not), and choose a category that best represents your trip. You have to choose at least one category in order to create your trip. The given categories are: Adventure, Outdoor, City, Family, Exotic, Relax, Culture, and Romance — too bad there isn’t a debauchery category, since quite a number of my vacations tend to head in that direction.

You must select a category for your trip

After you have set up the basics for your trip, you can add photos by tapping the add symbol in the top corner. Easy, right? You have two options; Take a Pic or From Album.

You can create content while offline, which will post as soon as you are connected again.

It’s nice to have the option to add a photo at a later time, because let’s face it, when you’re in the moment, it’s sometimes hard to talk about the moment.

Your trip details change to reflect added content

If you are connected to the Internet (and have allowed TripColor to use your location) when you are uploading your photo, then your location will be recorded via GPS on the map. If you are not connected to the Internet, then you can zoom in on the map and drop a pin marking your exact, or general location. When you are offline, you can still add photos, descriptions and manually map your location; the information will remain pending until you are online again.

Available categories for feed specifications and an uncategorized Feed

You can add the name of the location to the photo title, date (the app will load the current date/time) and your “blog” or whatever it is you want to write about the photo. When you are finished, your trip will update accordingly.

A Featured Feed

In addition to creating a running feed of your own trips, you can browse other user’s travel blogs. By tapping the Browse icon, you will be directed to a page featuring two different types of feeds, the Featured Trips and your Feed. Both feeds are sorted by the categor(ies), or lack thereof, that you determine through the Filter option. The Featured Trips are the envy inducing trips, which tend to feature photos that look like they are straight out of Travel and Leisure. The Feeds option features trips that match your filtered categories; some trips look truly amazing, and some … don’t.

Sharing is Caring

Tripcolor creates a travel blog webpage with your uploaded app content

Every time you post a photo, you have the option to share via Facebook. Unfortunately, you can only share via Facebook, except when you tap the Profile tab. Your Profile is your iPhone User Page, aka your more traditional web travel blog. This page shows you a preview of your Trips Webpage and gives you the option to launch an application to visit that webpage, or email the link to someone.

Final Thoughts

I love the simplicity of the design used throughout TripColor. It is exceedingly easy to use and I love the idea of creating a webpage as well as a social feed. What is truly my favorite feature is the amazing ability to load photos and add descriptions while offline — they will remain pending until you are able to connect to the Internet again.

There are a few things that I believe can be improved upon. For example, I would like the option to follow certain people and regions on my feed. I think it would be a worthwhile component, rather than choosing a category that doesn’t always produce the most enviable content. I would also think a search function would be relevant. This goes along the same lines as wanting to follow certain people or regions in order to avoid trips that I don’t find interesting.

Regardless, this is my favorite social travel app that I have come across and I am looking forward to documenting my upcoming adventures with it.

Now that the new iPhone 4S is out on the street, it’s no surprise that many acclaimed iOS developers are releasing updates and new titles to make sure we’ve got great games to show off with.

We’ve gathered a few of these titles for you, so hop in and have a look!

Scribblenauts Remix

Creative gamers everywhere should rejoice at the presence of Scribblenauts on their iOS devices. This innovative title broke out of the mold of using set in-game objects to accomplish goals by encouraging you to draw your own solutions to the game’s puzzles — and use your drawings as they came to life to succeed. This is the same principle, but the iOS version has you typing in your solutions instead using the built-in keyboard.

The mechanic was incredibly fresh and the game’s critical acclaim made it just a matter of time before it showed up here. The touch screen offers an even more direct way to interact with the game, and the iOS-only levels bring something new to veterans of the series as well. The Playground mode exists to let you experiment outside of the main puzzles, and as more levels get added, it will be interesting to see how the existing Game Center integration evolves.

In the meantime, the game feels a bit on the short side, if only because you’ll be so inexorably glued to your phone until you finish the 40 or so levels. If you haven’t spent time with the protagonist, Maxwell, yet then this may well be the ideal introduction to the series.

Price: $4.99
Developer: Warner Bros.
Download: App Store

Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots

So … there’s a new Fruit Ninja game! I’ll just wait while you go buy it.

Alright then, now that we’re on the same page, let’s see what Halfbrick’s geniuses have brought to the table with this latest franchise-friendly installment.

The gameplay is familiar and just as addictive as always, but this time around there are several special minigames built into one of the game’s modes: Bandito Mode. Essentially a series of challenges leading up through four stages, this mode is a terrific extension of the main fruit slicing mechanic that introduces a number of tricky new scenarios for slicing fruit — usually within a tight time limit to keep the pace up.

You’ll also find the usual extras to unlock, achievements to strive for, and  an amusing sense of humour (especially with Puss’ commentary on your playing), but what’s missing is an equivalent to the mighty Arcade Mode. I guess they need something for future updates though, so expect it soon. In the meantime, have fun slashing fruit, and don’t forget to deal some extra damage to the tomato.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Halfbrick Studios
Download: App Store

Siegecraft

Siegecraft is a deep and beautiful tower defense game with multiplayer support, 3D graphics, three races, a ridiculous assortment of catapult ammunition, and an immersive system of earning rewards to spend on upgrades.

Though it really shines on the latest hardware, Siegecraft is a gorgeous game all around and should become a new favourite for strategy gaming fans on the go. The upgrades that allow you to develop your weaponry are, of course, priced just high enough that you’ll want to make an in-app purchase to get them faster, but the good news is that it’s not mandatory to enjoying the game, and there’s so much personality in the gameplay and visuals that patient gamers won’t mind spending time earning their progress.

Some of the controls could be tightened up, especially the aiming, which becomes difficult as you reach more challenging encounters. That aside, Siegecraft is a strong and well developed strategy game with lots of continuing expansion potential and a good level of challenge.

Price: $0.99
Developer: Crescent Moon Games
Download: App Store

MetalStorm: Wingman

In the blossoming flight genre, MetalStorm: Wingman has recently entered the fray with an update that brings a single-player campaign, improved 3D graphics, more customization options, a higher level cap and an unbeatable price.

The game is a tilt-based flight sim, with responsive controls and a good differentiation between aircraft. Bombers and fighters handle differently, so you need to keep sharp to fly both without dying. Although primarily a multiplayer experience, MetalStorm: Wingman introduces a single-player campaign mode to help you polish your skills, and a Survival mode that will test even the best pilots.

Perks like an in-game chat system and the ability to use your TV as an AirPlay mirror are icing on the cake, and even though there are optional in-game purchases that get you more money to spend on upgrades and things, you’re still getting an amazing value for free here — definitely worth playing.

Price: Free
Developer: Z2Live, Inc.
Download: App Store

Squids

Last up this week is one of the most extraordinary titles we’ve seen in a while. Squids is an oddball hybrid between a fling-creatures-at-baddies game and a standard turn-based RPG structure.

While it sounds strange, the gameplay is rewarding and easy to pick up, so you’ll be assembling your squid army and launching them about in no time. The environments and character art are truly marvellous and the attention to detail that’s evident throughout the game’s design is remarkable. The amount of variety in the gameplay helps set Squids even further apart: impressive boss battles and environments that you can use to your advantage in a fight help bring the game to life.

Now go forth and raise an army of squid — the underwater kingdoms are in need of saving!

Price: $0.99
Developer: The Game Bakers
Download: App Store

What Have You Been Playing?

There are hours of entertainment in that list, so we hope you’ll be enjoying the next week with them. If you have a new 4S and have been showing it off to your friends with other titles, make sure you drop us a comment and mention which — we have friends to impress too!

Have you ever given much thought to the designs that end up on a T-shirt? No, not the standard T-shirt that everyone and their dog owns but the unique designs that make you think, “Dang, why didn’t I think of that?” If you have, then Threadless is going to be the app for you.

The app, which allows you to vote on designs submitted by the Threadless community, gives you the power to determine which designs get printed, as well as some of the power. You can also browse the online store, order something from the shop and have a bit of fun with the Doodle Pad and the Festasizer. I’ll cover all these features plus some of the less exciting in-between bits after the jump.

Getting Started

Threadless is a community-based company that prints designs that have been created and voted on by fellow community members. In the past you had to go to the website if you wanted to rate the designs, but with the Threadless app you can now do this wherever you happen to be.

You’ll know the app has loaded when you see the home screen, which features Mr. Milk Carton and Mr. Chocolate Chip Cookie. If you have plans to spend hours of your day scoring designs, then you will also need to create a Threadless account. This is done via the website, and then you can then use the account details in combination with the Threadless app.

The Threadless app homescreen

Score Some Designs

One of the core functions behind Threadless is the scoring system. Users submit designs to Threadless, which are then voted on by Threadless community members. The designs that have the highest score at the end of the voting period are the ones that are then printed. You can take part in the scoring process online or via the app. Selecting either the Score Designs icon on the homepage or the Score button on the bottom menu bar will take you to a list of the current open challenges.

Vote in a Threadless challenge

Choosing one of these challenges will show you an overview of the challenge, followed by the designs that have been submitted. These designs will appear one by one and you use the scoring scale on the right of the screen to score the designs (5 is high, 1 is low). You can scroll down to see extra images of each design.

A submitted design with scoring scale on the right

You will only be able to score a couple of designs before being asked to log in, so make sure to sign up for an account if you want to do more with the app.

Log-in to continue scoring

Get Ready to Shop

If you are in the mood to do a little shopping, then you’re in luck because the Threadless app offers you that opportunity. You can either tap on the chocolate chip cookie holding a Shop Our Stuff sign located on the home screen or tap the Shop button at the bottom of the screen to head over to the shopping arena. No matter which way you come into the shop, you will be greeted with a screen that has the shop broken down into a number of categories, including guys, girly, babies, kids, other stuff, the monthly club, gift certificates and art prints.

Browsing for a T-shirt

The actual process of shopping is similar to any other online clothing shop — you find your shirt, select your size, adjust the quantity and add it to your shopping basket. If the size you want is currently out of stock, you can request a reprint directly from the app. To checkout, you select your shopping cart at the top right of the screen and then follow the checkout instructions. The Threadless app does allow orders from international customers, a welcome sight to see.

Going a Little Wacky

Threadless wouldn’t be Threadless without a little fun and that spills over into the app. Under the Wacky Stuff tab on the menu bar you will find a Doodle Pad and a Festasizer. The Doodle Pad gives your inner T-shirt designer a little space to be creative by decorating a template. You can change the colour and equipment via the pen icon to make your masterpiece that extra bit more special. The More button let’s you save your piece of art to your photo album and/or send it via email.

A little design I whipped up earlier

The Festasizer helps you to spice up your photos by adding a number of different funny, quirky and weird overlays to your camera. Each of the photo overlays has a small description accessed via the question mark at the top left corner of the screen.

Example Festasizer overlays

The Less Exciting Buttons

I promised you that I would cover the less exciting stuff and I never go back on my promise, so here is all you need to know about the Home, About and Settings sections.

Home

To return to the home screen at anytime, you can just click the house icon in the bottom left corner of the screen. You’ll quickly be greeted again by Mr. Milk Carton and Mr. Chocolate Chip Cookie.

About

The About button takes you to a short, three-screen tour about who Threadless are, what they do and the scoring process. From the last screen you have a direct link to the current challenges open for scoring.

Settings

Less is more seems to be the theory behind the Settings page of the app. You can login using your Threadless ID (if you have one), set-up your sharing settings, view the official challenge rules and keep track of the number of designs you have scored and your average score.

Conclusion

The Threadless app has a simple and fun design. I love that international orders are accepted and that the app continues with the Threadless ethos of supporting designers by ensuring that the designer’s name appears at the top of their design. The primarily landscape orientation of the app does drive me insane and I wish the developers would at least allow me the option to change to portrait view. It saves me from fruitlessly turning my phone around in all directions hoping that it will change.

All in all, the Threadless app isn’t going to change your life but then it wasn’t really built to do so. Think of it as a handy addition to the Threadless community or a resource to entertain you when you just missed the bus and the next one doesn’t arrive for 10 minutes. Plus, it’s free. So, if you end up not liking the app you can always remove it without a twinge of guilt.

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Fast Analytics. The developer describes Fast Analytics as the premier app for viewing Google Analytics™ data on your mobile. We make it fast, simple and fun to see the numbers you need, when you need them.

We give you easy access to headline visitor data, with the most intuitive Google Analytics™ app on the market. It really is a pleasure to use and built by a team that values your feedback so we can make the app even better!

Read on for more information and screenshots!

Screenshots

Fast Fwd

About the App

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

• Easily switch between multiple Google Analytics accounts and websites.
• Fantastic dashboard for fast access to common stats.
• View stats over 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year time periods.
• Traffic sources and search engine keywords report.
• Visitor browser and country report.

Requirements: iOS 4.3 and above

Price: 0.99

Developer: Fast Fwd Multmedia Ltd.

Vote for a Review

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

Would you like to see Fast Analytics 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.

ELC Technologies is hiring!

At ELC we are proud of more than 100 years of combined application development experience including dynamic languages like Ruby, JRuby, Python, as well as strongly typed languages such as C and Java. Our knowledge of the Cloud lets us build true scalability into products. This experience, coupled with our creativity, has led us to build some of the largest, most used apps out there. We are experts in AGILE development, delivering working software in weeks, not months or years.

Our customer list includes Fortune 500 companies, major professional sports leagues, and universal media conglomerates. We have successfully completed sophisticated Ruby on Rails solutions, innovative interactive tools, trend setting mobile technologies as well as business critical applications. This has earned us the trust of some of the world’s largest companies.

We offer all the usual benefits… and if you’re located in Portland, an office with the world’s greatest espresso machine, a team of Kung Fu masters, Eight Ball champions, Nerf Gun Assassins, and world authorities on Dungeons and Dragons.

We’re passionate about many things here at ELC, such as:

• Creating cross-platform, enterprise level mobile applications with awesome UI/UX.
• Building software, mainly in Ruby on Rails but have been known to find the right tool for the right job (Scala, Erlang, and Clojure come to mind).
• Having fun, we believe that going to work should carry the same anticipation as that 10 minutes leading up to elementary school recess.
• Being Agile, we don’t force-feed one specific process, but pick and choose what is going to work on a per team/per project basis.
• Solving real world problems without compromising creativity.

Here’s what we look for in our hires:

• Strong problem solving skills.
• Have at least 1 year experience building iPhone/iPad applications.
• Proficiency in Objective-C.
• Understand when something should be extracted to an API, and how to leverage existing ones to make your life easier.
• Not afraid of trial by fire.
• Interest in learning and using new languages in real world situations
• Up to date on the latest Internet Memes and Animated GIFs or it didn’t happen.

Contact
Please send the following to:   [email protected]

1.  Links to sites you’ve worked on including a brief description of your contributions.
2.  Code samples. Anything you feel like best represents your capabilities / strengths.

Company Website URL
http://elctech.com/

Attention East-coasters and anyone who develops iOS apps! You’re probably already aware of the wonderful Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference that is held in Boston, Massachusetts. The upcoming conference is scheduled for November 12-13, 2011, and you can get an exclusive discount from TUAW.

Just enter TUAW444 as the priority code when you sign up for the conference, and you’ll get $150 off of the normal $745 cost of the registration. The conference is going to be chock-full of some amazing speakers. Here’s what conference manager Barbara Gavin has to say about this year’s event:

Learn all about the new functionality and tools in iOS 5 at the Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference. Don’t miss sessions like Designing a Creative Process for iOS Development from Jason Festa of Disney Mobile or Mike Ash’s Defensive Programming in Cocoa. You can hang out with the folks you read and follow, like Erica Sadun, Aaron Hillegass, Erik Buck, Chris Adamson, and Daniel Jalkut. Join us in Boston, November 12-13, 2011 and learn how you can leverage Apple’s commitment to the iOS platform.

Conference registration includes admission to all education and networking sessions, continental breakfast, lunch and breaks, a conference guide, and access to speakers’ slides. The price of the conference is normally $745, but Pearson Education (Erica’s publisher) has been good enough to offer a $150 discount to TUAW readers. To take advantage of the discount, go to the conference registration page and use the code TUAW444.

You’ll also be able to meet up with TUAW’s Victor Agreda and Dave Caolo at the event in addition to my writing buddy (and conference Technical Chair) Erica “Aunt TUAW” Sadun. It’s a great conference and this is a nice discount to take advantage of.

Voices That Matter: iOS Dev Conference offers exclusive TUAW discount code originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW,

So here’s the deal. There are 8-terabyte drives on the market now which, unless you are working for a production company or shooting buckets of RAW, you are never going to use. That’s just extra space, which is great!

Except, what is the lifespan of those drives? Will they fail on the average user before they even get close to capacity? If so, what would you recommend for the average user as the best value?

In other words, if I do minor photo and video editing, keep a lot of photos, download a few movies and have a decent iTunes collection, will my need for storage hit 1TB or 2TB before they fail?

Your loving nephew,

Phillip

Dear Phillip,

Although Uncle Chris is snarking quietly about “640 K should be enough for anybody” jokes, Auntie is going to ignore him and try to do her best to answer seriously, because one’s drive space never exceeds one’s grasp.

As a rule, Auntie recommends replacing hard drives (especially those used for Time Machine backups) every eighteen months. There is absolutely no science or engineering behind her answer, only a lot of frustrating experience. Of course, you can say that any machine with moving parts is technically prone to failure at any moment…

Eighteen months is about long enough for each new generation of storage to appear on the market and to ensure that fresh storage will meet your ever-growing data needs: it’s never just about RAW images. There are home movies, TV shows (hello rapacious EyeTV recordings), audiobooks and more.

The minor photo and video editing that you’ve described, plus a few movies and a decent iTunes collection can happily live on 1-2 TB for a while, and you’ll know when you’re about to burst at the data seams. Just make sure the age of your drives and backup system doesn’t put your data at risk.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: What is the lifespan of a large-capacity hard drive? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Popular social music network SoundCloud released its iPad app on Thursday and we took the app for a quick spin. For those that have never used SoundCloud, it’s an online service that lets you upload and share audio clips with other SoundCloud members. The clips can be short sound bites, music tracks or even audio books you create yourself. It has a strong social component that lets you promote your tracks or discover new tracks. It launched in 2007 and has rivaled MySpace as a place for musicians to distribute their music and interact with fans.

The iPad app does a nice job of combining the social aspect of SoundCloud with the music discovery and playback features. The app uses a multi-pane interface with a left-side tool bar that has four selectable items. There’s a profile section that lets you see your account information, a track section that lists new music in your stream, a comments section that lists the feedback you’ve received on your tracks and a search section that lets you find new music and new people to follow.

This multi-pane interface makes it easy to view multiple layers of information at one time. You can click on the profile icon which opens a pane containing your account information. You can then click on a link to “Your Likes” which displays the tracks you have favorited in a second pane. A click on one of your favorite tracks opens a third pane that lets you control music playback, share the track on twitter, and more. You can only display two panes at a time, but you can swipe between these panes to select the ones you want to view. This layout makes it easy to use the app in portrait as well as landscape view.

The SoundCloud app does a nice job with the social features of the service. You can comment on a track right from the app and share the track on Facebook, Twitter and tumblr. The app also does a good job interconnecting members and music. You can listen to a track and view that member’s profile. You can see their followers and the music they like and so on. You can spend a lot of time travelling from one profile to another, adding new tracks and new follows along the way.

The one thing missing from the iPad app is the ability to view other people’s comments on a track when it is playing. On the SoundCloud website, other people’s comments will pop up when a track is played. You can read the comments, read responses and add your own. On the iPad, you can add a comment at any point in the track, but you can’t see what other people have said on the fly. This isn’t a deal breaker and I imagine it’s a difficult feature to implement on a mobile device like a tablet.

(Good news! SoundCloud reached out to me and the ability to view comments as the track plays back is there. You just have to fullscreen the track to see them. I never used the fullscreen view because I love the multi-pane view so much. I was happily tapping away, finding new follows and looking at new tracks that i never checked out the fullscreen view. If you want to find the comments for a track, just start playing it back and click the fullscreen button. Voila! There they are, and they pop up just like the SoundCloud website,too.)

The app is very responsive and music streaming is quick, with minimal buffering over a WiFi connection (I did not test 3G). Music plays in the background, so you can launch SoundCloud, fire up some tracks and move on to another task. Track information also appears on the lock screen, but there are no playback controls that’ll launch SoundCloud when you unlock your device. Besides listening to music, you can also record sounds using the iPad and its built-in microphone. When you’re done recording, you can upload the clip to your account.

The iPad app is a nice addition to SoundCloud and is a must have for iPad owners that use the service. The SoundCloud app is available for free from the App Store. The service is also free, but does require a login and account.

Daily iPad App: SoundCloud originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A holiday weekend is upon us, and that means there are sales all over the App Store. Both Sega and Gameloft have already offered up some deals, and here are several more for you to check out on your iPhone or iPad.

• Polarbit’s Reckless Getaway is still free (grab it while it lasts) while the rest of their games are available for just a buck.
• Namco Bandai is supposedly launching a sale, featuring titles like Pac Man and Puzzle Quest 2 discounted by a dollar or two, but I haven’t seen those prices on the App Store yet. It’s possible that the company is waiting for the weekend.
• 2K Games has an ongoing sale featuring Civilization Revolution and Sid Meier’s Pirates for just a buck or two, depending on your platform. Civ Rev is a great game if you haven’t grabbed it yet.
• Pixelmator’s Flapcraft game is on sale for just a buck.
• Legendary Wars HD (which I’ve been enjoying quite a bit) is down to 99 cents.
• Capcom’s got Resident Evil Mercenaries VS, Ghosts N Goblins Gold Knights,\ and Resident Evil 4 Platinum on sale for just a buck each.
• Plants vs. Zombies HD is on sale, but everyone in the world already owns PvZ, right?
• The turn-based RPG Companions is on sale until 11/1.
• Descend RPG is half price this weekend.
• Sparkle looks a lot like Zuma, but it’s only a buck this weekend, and Zuma’s a fun game anyway.
• Coladia has their apps all on sale for the holiday as well.
• Flight Control HD is just a buck, as is Real Racing HD. Real Racing 2 HD is $1.99.
• EA has most of its games on sale, including NBA Jam, Command and Conquer, Mass Effect Galaxy and many others.
• Finally, strategy game master Reinier Knizia has taken a few bucks off most of his official games on the App Store, including Kingdoms, Modern Art, High Society, and Money.

Whew, that’s a lot of cheap games to pick up and play, and I’ll bet there will be even more as the weekend goes on. Enjoy!

More Halloween sales on the App Store originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since the iPhone 4S was released, several customers have reported sub-optimal battery performance. Not only in standby time (Apple’s iPhone specs comparison chart notes that the 4S offers 200 hours of standby time, while previous models offered 300), but in daily use as well. The UK’s Guardian newspaper reports that some users have been directly contacted by Apple engineers (!) who are trying to suss out the issue.

Today, Erick Schonfeld reports his experience at Tech Crunch. Despite moderate use during an 8-hour work day — about two-and-a-half hours of Internet and email and roughly 30 minutes of calls — his iPhone’s battery had died. If the iPhone saw hands-on activity for about three hours, according to Erick’s anecdotal observation, it spent about 5 hours sitting idle.

As Erick notes, the phone was “…constantly bleeping with notifications and emails. And that may very well be the problem.” Often a “resting” iPhone is in fact doing something, and it’s possible that very frequent notification alerts can contribute to battery drain. Per the Guardian story, problematic contacts may also be to blame (see Chris Breen story below).

While we wait and see if anything official will come from Apple on this apparently widespread problem, here are a few general tips you can use for preserving battery life on an iOS device. You won’t suddenly run 12-hour days after trying these things out, but every bit helps, right?

1. Lower screen brightness. A blazing screen equals a blazing battery. Move that slider a bit to the left.
2. Reduce alerts you don’t need. Yes, push notifications are wonderful as are their corresponding beeps. Just look at how many you’ve got enabled and whittle it down to the essential.
3. Enable quick screen locking. You can typically let the display go to sleep when you aren’t actively using your iPhone.
4. Enable Airplane mode when offline. It kills Wi-Fi and data dead. Plus it’s polite to whomever you happen to be talking with.
5. Reduce email checking. Do you really need to see a new message every five minutes?
6. Make sure you’re not synchronizing massive mail folders you don’t actually need on the go, like Sent, Drafts or Junk.
7. Try de-synchronizing your Exchange, iCloud or Google contacts and seeing if that improves matters — you may have a corrupt contact record in there.

Admittedly these tips are common sense stuff and probably won’t address more specific issues others are reporting. For example, the folks at iDownloadBlog suggest that the Time Zone setting could be a problem and describe a way to test your own device (note that they tested the iPhone 4 and 3GS, not just the 4S), while Christopher Breen discovered that an errant contact was causing a battery-draining crash loop while trying to sync to iCloud.

If you’ve found any helpful tricks, please share in the comments.

iPhone 4S battery concerns and tips for better performance originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Sande and I have been collaborating on “Talking to Siri,” an ebook that just recently hit the Kindle store. It’s a how-to that will help you get the most done with your Siri intelligent assistant. We’re sharing some of our favorite tips with TUAW readers.

Today, we’re looking at Siri’s Wolfram Alpha integration. You can force Siri to use Wolfram by prefixing your request with “Wolfram.” For example, you might say, “Wolfram, what is the square root of 2?” or “Wolfram, graph x-squared plus three.”

But there’s a lot more that you can do with Wolfram than just math. Here are ten of our favorite Wolfram searches. These highlight the flexibility of this amazing information resource.

1. Roll a Random Number. Say “Wolfram, random integer.” Wolfram returns a random value between 0 and 1000. “Wolfram, random number” provides a 0 to 1 floating point value.
2. Look up nature facts. Say, “Wolfram, what is the scientific name of a mountain lion?” It’s Puma concolor. Rabbits are Leporidae, and Peacocks, Galliformes.
3. Check upcoming holidays. Say, “How many days until Thanksgiving?” This returns both the number of days as well as a helpful calendar so you can chart out the time until then.
4. Create a secure password. Say “Wolfram, password.” Wolfram generates a difficult-to-crack 8-character password. Scroll down for alternates. If you need a longer password, you can append these together.
5. Convert text to Morse code. Say, “What is Morse code for horsefeathers?” You’ll see the entire sequence laid out for your tapping pleasure.
6. Check your diet. Say, “How many calories in a small apple?” Wolfram will tell you that there are 75.
7. Ask out about time zones. Say, “Wolfram, what is the local time in Jakarta?”
8. Query about your chances. Say, “Wolfram, what is the probability of a full house?” For a random five-card hand, it’s apparently 1 in 694.
9. Have fun with pop culture. Say, “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” or “Wolfram, who shot the sheriff?”
10. Visualize colors. Okay, I’ve saved the best for last. If you work with colors, this can save you a lot of time. Say, “Wolfram pound sign E 9 7 4 5 1” (for Burnt Sienna / Tangerine) or “Wolfram pound sign 2 9 A B 8 7” (for Jungle Green). This will also convert the colors to RGB values and look up closely-matching brand colors from Benjamin Moore. Make sure to scroll down to catch all the helpful information.

10 cool things you can do with Wolfram Alpha and Siri originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a happy day all over the world today, with a second wave of international iPhone 4S sales starting up. Even better, all of the phones that are going on sale today are unlocked, unlike American compatriots. Who says America is the land of the free?

So where can you pick one up? The new countries are Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Just visit your favorite carrier and you’re free to sign up and begin using your new iPhone 4S.

The pricing on the unlocked iPhones is a bit steep. In Spain, for example, the 16 GB model goes for a cool €600 — about $850. The 32 and 64 GB models are €700 and €800 respectively. This is a bit more than the unlocked pricing for Canada, which is running between CD$650 and CS$850 depending on which model you purchase. Things are even more expensive in Italy, as you can see in the screenshot at the top of this post.

Still, it’s good to see that the iPhone 4S is in distribution in all of these countries and that the supply of the friendly phones (hey, I love Siri…) is in excellent shape. It should be interesting to see if Apple releases sales figures for the iPhone 4S next week after this massive distribution push over the weekend.

International unlocked iPhone 4S sales begin today originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday, our lead editor Mike Rose sidelined me to ask, “Could we tell Siri to control Apple TV?” Just as a thought experiment.

After a bit of investigation, I had an answer for him, which was “Yes, you could, but no, you probably don’t want to.” That’s because the degree of hacking necessary to make this happen, versus the actual real-world performance, really isn’t worth the effort. It might make a cool demo, but not an effective remote control.

The best and most obvious approach would have been to have Siri use URL schemes to trigger a local application on the iPhone, which would then coordinate with a Mac client or directly with Apple TV over Bonjour. Unfortunately, Siri does not allow you to open web pages — yet. She’s quite apologetic about this, but my hope for a URL-based solution was a no-go.

Moving on, I investigated an AppleScript/email-based approach. Cory Bohon wrote up a series of tutorials a while back on TUAW demonstrating how to use mail rules to trigger scripts. You create rules (Preferences > Rules) that match message subjects and contents, and use the “Run AppleScript” choice to choose a script to trigger based on your rules.

This was a much more promising avenue, but Mike and I agreed that the complexity of sending emails via Siri felt more complicated in practice than using SMS texting. I started investigating ways of triggering email rules by SMS. Fortunately, a simple solution quickly popped up: Google Voice.

GV offers the option of forwarding text messages and provides the bonus feature of tagging subject lines with the incoming phone number. This makes it especially easy to authenticate and match incoming requests to Mail rules.

In order to create the control scripts, I would use AirFlick rather than iTunes. I shall spare you the messy details, but I would extend the app to support external pause and play requests.

Finally, you have to set up a contact on your iPhone using the Google Voice address. No big deal. Just make sure you use a name that Siri can easily recognize.

The operational path then works like this: “Siri, text AirFlick ‘pause’.” You wait for Siri to compose the SMS message. You then send it. The iPhone texts Google Voice. Google Voice forwards the message to your inbox. The mail rule triggers and runs the AppleScript, which causes AirFlick to send a pause command.

The whole latency from your spoken command to your Apple TV actually pausing? Probably under a minute.

As I said, this is a not an optimal approach, but if I wanted to invest a couple of hours I could get it up and working today.

So how close are we now to extending Siri control to our world and to third-party apps? Well, Siri can already pour you a beer and trigger any SMS-based Arduino set-up. But beyond using it for simple triggers, we’re still pretty far away from fine-tuned control.

Apple really needs to release a developer API that will provide third-party rules and vocabulary for Siri to follow before we can truly jump into “build your own remote with Siri” scenarios. Of course, by the time that happens the company may simply release a Siri-savvy TV of its own.

Thought experiment: hacking Siri to control your TV originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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