Category: I-phone

At the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, an iPad-toting attendee approached President Obama and asked him to sign his 21st century autograph pad. The President replied, “I’ve done this once before.”

Back in October, President Obama signed an iPad at a rally at the University of Washington. As Dave Caolo noted at the time, this was the first presidential autograph captured with an iPad that we know of.

Click Read More to watch a video of the autograph.

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Continue reading President Obama signs another iPad

President Obama signs another iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We’ve sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier.

?Giving someone a new hard drive can be one of the best gift choices ever. Whether the recipient uses it to store backups of their photos or movies, or wants to be able to boot an aging Mac a bit faster, the gift of storage is always appreciated.

In this edition of the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide, I’ll give you some ideas for inexpensive drives that are a good gift for someone who might need some extra gigabytes in which to store some personal information, up to some expensive arrays that can store terabytes of data.

As usual, this is just a sampling of the many models and sizes of drives that are available from a variety of manufacturers. If you have a favorite drive that you think might be the perfect gift for that special someone, leave a comment below — we’d love to hear about it.

Continue reading TUAW’s Holiday Gift Guide: External drives for every Mac

TUAW’s Holiday Gift Guide: External drives for every Mac originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facelt-3GS, a tweak that lets you enable FaceTime on iPhone 3GS has just been updated to support iOS 4.2.1. You can download Faceit 3GS from Cydia to enable FaceTime on iPhone 3GS via iPhoneIslam repository.

Note: Officially, FaceTime is an iPhone 4/iPod Touch 4G-only feature. Faceit 3GS is a jailbreak tweak available exclusively via Cydia. iPhone 3GS must be running iOS 4.1 How to: Jailbreak iOS 4.2.1

Warning: Some users report that uninstalling the package (Faceit 3GS), brought many problems to the device forcing the user to restore through iTunes.

How to Enable FaceTime on iPhone 3GS iOS 4.2.1

We assume that your iPhone 3GS is jailbroken and running iOS 4.2.1

• Open Cydia
• Add the following repo: http://apps.iphoneislam.com (How to add repo to Cydia)
• Go to search tab, and search for Faceit-3GS
• Install Faceit-3GS and reboot your iPhone 3GS
• After reboot, go to: Settings > Phone and turn FaceTime ON.

That’s it. You’ve enabled FaceTime on iPhone 3GS iOS 4.2.1 with Faceit 3GS.

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iOS 4.2.1/4.1 unlock for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G will drop by Sunday, 28th November, according to MuscleNerd. UltraSn0w will unlock iPhone 3GS/3G on iOS 4.2.1/4.1 on Sunday, however, iPhone 4 unlock will take little longer.
According to Musclenerd:

Good progress today…everything is on track for updated ultrasn0w by Sunday/Funday at the latest (longer for iPhone4!)

This, indeed, is a great news for all those who have updated to iOS 4.2.1 and waiting for an unlock solution. iOS 4.2.1 has already been jailbroken with RedSn0w 0.9.6b4 and now the jailbreak community is eagerly waiting for the UltraSn0w update.

This UltraSn0w update will also unlock baseband 05.14.01 that came with iOS 4.1. We’ll keep you posted as soon as UltraSn0w unlock is out! Stay Tuned! [via MuscleNerd]

Jailbreak iOS 4.2.1

How to: Jailbreak iOS 4.2.1 with RedSn0w 0.9.6b4

AppSync 4.2 – Install Cracked Apps

Save SHSH blobs for iOS 4.2.1

You can follow us on Twitter, Join us at Facebook, and also Subscribed to RSS Feed to receive latest updates.

It could be while you’re waiting at the doctor’s office, during halftime of a sports game, or even while you’re bored. Either way, playing games and using apps is always an entertaining way to pass the time. Here we’ve reviewed the best time wasters for you to use whenever you feel the need to do nothing productive, and just want to waste a little time.

1. Doodle Jump ($0.99)

This classic game is a favorite for all generations. You can waste countless hours jumping higher, shooting monsters, dodging aliens, avoiding black holes, and constantly striving for a new score. Doodle Jump is easily worth only $0.99, and once you start you’ll probably have a hard time putting it down, which might be a problem once you realize how much you have been procrastinating.

2.  The Impossible Game ($0.99)

It is such a basic game, yet it’s so difficult. The Impossible Game has just one control: tapping the screen. A tap on the screen makes your orange block jump as it moves horizontally through the levels. Avoiding the spikes and jumping onto blocks quickly becomes challenging as you move through the long levels, and if you mess up just once you get to start the level over. That alone truly makes this game nearly impossible, as this is another game that you’ll have a hard time putting down. And good luck beating the first level.

3. POW (free/$0.99)

Stupid and simple, POW challenges you to reach all of its accomplishments. All you do is hold your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad and pretend to punch anything in your path! With multiple sound effects, and even more if you upgrade to the ad-free version for $0.99, this app is a great way to waste time. It sounds like it would get old fast, but luckily there are awards you can try to get. Some are simple and you can get them by throwing 100 punches, or 100,000 punches (wonder how long that award will take you). But others are much more difficult: Think you can throw 7 punches in 0.7 seconds? And don’t forget to punch on Friday if you want that award. Have fun trying to get all the awards, and you can even race your friends to see how can get them all first!

4. Robot Unicorn Attack ($1.99)

There’s the original version, which plays feminine music, rainbows, and has a purple color scheme. For those of you who don’t feel comfortable playing that version, they also designed a heavy metal version with metal music, no more rainbows, and a red and black color scheme. Both games are the same and are extremely addicting. You get three tries to get as many points as you can by (depending on your version) galloping through rainbows or bones and dashing through stars or pentagrams. You must jump over the gaps to prevent death from falling, and you must dash through the stars or pentagrams because failing to do so will also result in death. The further along you go the faster the game moves, giving you less time to decide when to jump and dash. Robot Unicorn Attack is a fantastic time waster, so be sure to check the clock often.

5. Angry Birds ($0.99)

Just like Doodle Jump, this game is a classic. With nearly 200 levels, Angry Birds make it easy to waste a whole day trying to beat them all. Each angry bird has different characteristics that you must use to your advantage to destroy the fortresses of the pigs. Launch the birds at the fortress, and you must use only the ones you are given to defeat all the pigs in a given level. Each level brings a new challenge, and with almost 200 of them, that’s a whole lot of challenges. Good luck beating every single one, because it’ll take a long time.

6. Who Wants to be a Millionaire? ($0.99)

Everyone remembers watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but how about playing it everywhere you go? Wherever you have your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad, you can have this game with you as well. This is a difficult game with many tough questions, but seeing how much money you can win is always fun. Play with your friends and see if together you can reach the ultimate goal of winning the million dollars. Too bad they don’t actually send you the money you win, because you’ll be playing this game so much that you will win tons of money overall.

These are some of of my favorite games, please share yours in the comments.

Earlier this week, Apple released the long-awaited iOS 4.2.1 update. Though it added new functionality to all devices, the iPad was by far the subject of the greatest number of changes.

Namely, all the great features that iPhone users have been using for months (folders, multitasking, etc.) are now available on the iPad and working like a dream. Let’s take a look at the new and improved iPad experience!

Folders

First up is my favorite new feature: folders. They were a great addition to the iPhone and an even better one to the iPad. My iPad has more capacity than my iPhone and consequently more apps. It also contains all my iPhone apps in addition to all my iPad apps. This means that before the other day I was drowning in a sea of icons. I lost track of how many screens I had and would spend forever trying to keep everything organized in some logical way.

That’s all fixed now and in its place is a nice group of clearly identifiable folders.

Just in case you’ve never used folders on the iPhone, let’s go over how they work. To create a folder, tap and hold an app until you get the jiggly icons, then drag one icon onto another. iOS is smart enough to attempt to name the folder itself and actually does an admirable job at it.

For instance, if you combine two news apps, it names the folder “News.” If you don’t like the name it chooses, you can rename it whatever you wish (tap the folder in jiggle mode to rename).

As you can see in the shot above, each folder’s icon is a convenient preview of what’s inside. To open a folder, simply tap it. The screen will break apart and slide down revealing the apps inside.

Adding and deleting apps from a folder is as simple as dragging them in and out. In my testing, it looks like folders max out at twenty apps and you cannot create nested folders.

Multitasking

The iPad’s multitasking system is the same as that of the iPhone. Functionally, it’s pretty simple. If you’re listening to Pandora and want to check your email, simply switch apps like you always would and your music stays running. From a technical point of view, it’s a lot more complicated.

Closing an app that supports multitasking pauses or “freezes” the app while allowing one of seven different types of background services to remain active: background audio, voice over IP, background location, push notifications, local notifications, task completion and fast app switching. This system allows the illusion of true multitasking while theoretically saving on battery life (some users report otherwise). If you’re interested, Gizmodo has a great write-up of how it all works.

Control Panel and Recent Apps

Along with multitasking comes a new control panel that pops up at the bottom of the screen when you double tap the home button from any application. The first thing you’ll see when you do this is a list of recent apps (notice that even apps that don’t support multitasking show up here). This panel is great for quickly switching between applications while bypassing the home screen.

Most people understandably get the impression that the apps in this menu are open and draining battery life. However, several sources report that this is simply not the case. It’s a list of recent apps, plain and simple. If you don’t like seeing all those apps, tapping and holding one will bring up the option to remove them one at a time.

To the left of the recent apps menu is a control panel. Here you can quickly access the controls for whatever audio app is currently playing in the background in addition to adjusting your screen brightness and orientation lock (the physical orientation lock button has been repurposed into a mute button).

Other New Goodies

In addition to the new features above, 4.2.1 also includes AirPlay, giving users the ability to wirelessly stream content from an iOS device to an Apple TV.

Airprint is also included but only works with a limited number of HP printers that allow wireless printing. Apple dropped the ball on allowing users to print with their iOS devices to any printer via a wireless connection to any computer. You can bet this feature is still in the works but it’s a big disappointment to see that it didn’t make the cut in this version. For now, just stop by the App Store and search for “print” to find a number of apps that will get the job done.

Finally, cruise over to the Mail application to see a number of great improvements. You can now see messages from all of your accounts in one unified inbox just like in the Mail desktop app. There’s also a really great implementation of message threads that I like a lot better than the desktop version.

What Do You Think?

If you’ve downloaded the latest iOS update on any device, leave a comment below and let us know what you think. Are you satisfied with AirPlay? Does it upset you that AirPrint is so lame? Have you found any bugs? We want to know!

Want to book a stay at an amazing destination directly from your iPhone? The Airbnb app brings thousands of rental properties around the world to your mobile device, so let’s look at how you can use it to find a great place to stay or rent out your home directly from the app.

Airbnb is an increasingly popular service to cheaply rent places to stay in prime locations around the world. You can find a place to rent or list your home for rent from their website, but they’ve recently released a beautiful iOS app to let you browse and list locations right from your iPhone or iPod Touch. This is a great way to book somewhere to stay no matter where you are.

The Airbnb iOS Experience

When you first launch the Airbnb app, you’ll be presented with a beautiful animated collage of popular Airbnb destinations. Unfortunately, this animation can get annoying if you use the app frequently, as it runs every time you launch it. After a few seconds, you can choose to browse properties, get more info, or sign into your Airbnb account.

If you’re new to Airbnb, the How it Works tab will give you more info about renting with Airbnb. Even if you’ve never used Airbnb before, it’s quick and easy to figure out. Then you can browse to the main page where you’ll be presented with featured sets of the best properties Airbnb has to offer.

Once you select a featured set to look at, you’ll be presented with high quality photos of the avilable properties. Many of the featured properties are amazing, so you can go on a virtual vacation just by flipping through the pictures even if you’re not ready to take a trip. From Paris to a remodled plane, there’s a destination here for everyone.

If you’d like to find where the featured destinations are located in the world, just tap the Map button. Then, tap a pin to see the place’s name and get more info about it. Most locations offer additional pictures and descriptions, as well as ratings from previous guests that can help you decide if this is the perfect place for you to stay.

Browsing through popular destinations can be fun, but often you’ll need to find something at a different location or price range. Tap the search button on the bottom toolbar, and enter the city you’re going to. You can then browse places to stay in that area, or tap Filter to get a more advanced search. This will help you narrow down the properties and find the perfect place to stay.

Once you’ve found the perfect location, you can schedule your stay in just a few taps. Sign in with your Airbnb or Facebook account, or create a new one, and then enter your stay details. Within seconds you’ll have your arrangements scheduled and ready for your trip. You may even find it’s quicker to book from your phone than from your desktop browser!

Want to get in on the Airbnb renting action? You can quickly list your home for rent right from the Airbnb app. Just step through some questions about your house, apartment, or other lodging, and you’ll quickly get an estimate of what you can make on your house. If you’re ready to list, just sign in with your account and you can list it straight from the app. Then you’ll be able to manage the rental schedule and messages all from your iPhone.

The app’s also great for finding hot deals. Just check the Deals button in the Featured tab, and you can schedule an amazing place at a great deal right from your iPhone. And if you need more help, you can always get more info and hotlines from the app, even if you’re offline. This lets you manage your whole trip right from your device.

Conclusion

Whether you need to find a place quickly to stay this weekend or want to plan an exotic getaway on a budget, the Airbnb app makes it fun and easy. We loved the beautiful UI and found the app to be a fun way to look at amazing locations around the world even if you’re not planning an upcoming trip. But if you are planning an Airbnb stay or are renting out your property, Airbnb helps you stay in control. In fact, you can manage the entire trip or rental directly from the Airbnb app.

Freelancers are constantly on the move. Not being tied to a specific office often leads to working anywhere we have an Internet connection. What better way to manage your freelance business on the move than with your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad?

Below you’ll find over 90 apps that will empower you as a freelancer to get more done when you’re away from your computer. Whether you’re a designer, writer, consultant or anything else, you’ll find tons of helpful tools.

iPhone & Universal Apps

Shoeboxed Business Card Reader and Business Card Scanner – “Digitize business cards and auto-share your contact information with your new contacts. Simply snap pictures of business cards with your iPhone and Shoeboxed does the rest. Important contact details are extracted with OCR and human-verified for accuracy.”

iSlips – “Are you a Timeslips user who needs a fast and simple way to track your time and expenses on your iPhone? Then iSlips is the solution for you. iSlips is a stand-alone iPhone application that allows you to take your key Timeslips data with you while on the go.”

Freelancer Mobile – “Take benefit from mobility! Freelancer provides main functionality to work with world-famous freelancer.com service (formerly GetAFreelancer).”

iFreelancer – “Get freelancer jobs on your iOS device with push notification now.”

Freewallet – “Freewallet is a very simple app to make monitoring your income very easy, intuitive and most importantly, FAST. Take your iPhone out of your pocket, add your new job and you are done in less than 10 seconds. Despite being a very simple app, it can make an impact on your wallet by seeing detailed statistics and this way making it easy to plan your expenses.”

Time Tracking & Invoicing:

GetPaid! – PDF Invoice & Time Sheet – “Instantly produce professional invoices and time sheets, right on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. With the GetPaid! – PDF Invoice & Time Sheet app, you’ll save time, money and work as you speedily bill your customer and move on to the next job. You can even track your time, inventory and the payments that come in.”

Omni Invoice – “No more downtime spent writing up quotes back at the office, or catching up with your backlog of invoicing causing delays in payment. Omni Invoice enables you to create quotes whilst on site, delivering them by email in seconds. Generating invoices from your quotes is an equally simple process.”

Invoice Robot – “Invoice Robot was developed for small businesses, non-profits and innovative people that want to create invoices, proposals, receipts and quotations better and faster than large teams of strategic consultants and administrative staff. Get paid sooner by creating and sending PDF documents with the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Your accounts receivable department is in your pocket.”

Invoice2go – “Invoice2go is the fast and easy way to invoice, estimate, bill, collect and report. With 10 built-in invoice styles to choose from it’s actually fun going through and choosing your template and designing your invoice. Even better if you install the Desktop Version all these templates can be customized to your own needs. Add logo’s, move fields you can even create your very own business forms. No other solution available gives you this flexibility. ”

Quick Invoice – “If you freelance or own a business, you have probably faced the tedious task of creating and sending invoices while away from the office. Now, with Quick Invoice that nightmare is over. Quick Invoice allows you to easily generate and send invoices. You only have to choose your customer, the service, tax, numbering and pay option and, in less than 5 seconds, your customer will be able to receive the invoice via e-mail.”

MiniBooks for FreshBooks – “MiniBooks puts the popular web invoicing software FreshBooks in the palm of your hand. Manage your clients, send invoices, run timers, and record payments, all while on the go. Plus, MiniBooks fully synchronizes with your FreshBooks account, so you have access to your account even when you’re off the grid. All this for less than FreshBooks’ monthly subscription fee.”

Billings Pro Touch – “This application is part of a unique time tracking and invoicing solution called Billings Pro and requires Billings Pro Server. Billings Pro consists of native Mac and iPhone applications for managers, a web interface for staff, and a server component to enable synchronization.”

TimeTracking – An extremely simple time tracking utility.

HoursTracker – Time Sheet – “HoursTracker is perfect for hourly workers that need to turn in a time card or time sheet, contractors who bill for jobs or projects separately, or those who simply just want to keep track of the hours they have worked. Features a streamlined, easy-to-use interface great for use on the go!”

Time Master + Billing – “The best, most powerful, comprehensive, easy to use time keeping app on the Apple Store is now even better. Time Master has the highest average rating of all the time management apps. And the other apps don’t come close to our new optional billing module. Our invoices are totally professional.”

Time Flies – “Time Flies is designed with simplicity and purpose: use it to keep track of how long it has been since you did something. When did you last clean the house? Wash the dog? Call your parents? Buy flowers for your girlfriend? Time Flies has all the answers.”

Tick (Time & Budget Tracking) – “This application integrates seamlessly with your free or paid tickspot.com account, allowing you to log new time entries and check on the status of existing projects. If you don’t have a tickspot.com account, don’t worry. You can create a FREE account from within the application. You’ll be up and running in minutes.”

Easy TimeSheet – “Easy Time Sheet is an application designed for anyone that needs to track time against projects, track billable hours for clients, or simply needs to fill out a time sheet. Easy Time Sheet supports both real-time and after-the-fact time tracking, automatically calculating the billable amount for your projects and time entries. At any point you can email the current project data in CSV format (easily saved and opened in Excel or Google Docs) to any email address. Additionally, any timer started will continue to track time for its project even when the application is closed.”

TimeTracker – “TimeTracker helps you keep track of your time everywhere and everytime right on your iPhone or iPod touch. It is a powerful yet easy to use application for everyone who wants to see how much time is spent on certain tasks and projects. It contains a rich set of features like organization of tasks into projects, filtering tasks by time frames, exporting the tracked data via email, and many more.”

Harvest Time & Expense Tracker – “Track time and log expenses on-the-go with Harvest, whether you’re online or offline. A beautiful flip-clock counts the number of billable hours and minutes you’ve been working. The expense tracker allows you to upload photos of your receipts as you enter expenses so you keep all your records organized.”

Freelancer – Time Tracking – “Freelancer is a powerful time tracking application. If you are working for several customers or simply be on a lookout for an easy way to survey your fulfilled hours, Freelancer should be your choice.”

TSheets Time Tracker with GPS – “Add tasks, track time and view history with maps. Time tracker for business or freelance use. Seamlessly syncs your data to TSheets.com.”

aTimeLogger – “Spending only a few minutes a day on this app you will get daily, weekly and monthly statistics in the form of diagrams and graphs. Using this data you’ll be able to control and manage you time.”

Toggl Timer – “Toggl is a web application that provides an easy way to track time spent on projects. It works well for both teams and freelancers.”

Paymo.biz – “Paymo – The popular free time tracking app is now available on your iPhone. The Paymo app allows you to easily track your time while on the go. You can use it during client meetings or while working on tasks when you’re away from the office.”

WorkTRAKR – “WorkTRAKR is a revolutionary product that allows legal professionals to create billable time entries, make low cost international calls, manage GPS location, calendar, contacts, and much more. WorkTRAKR seamlessly integrates with many of the top legal practice management and billing systems.”

Cube Time & Expense Tracker Pro – “Time is money – so we built an app where you can start tracking your time and expenses in less than 15 seconds!”

Database Apps

FileMaker Go – “View, edit and search your FileMaker Pro 7 (or later) records on your iPhone with FileMaker Go. Whether you’re checking inventory in the warehouse, managing event registration on-site, or updating project status while traveling, you can do it all while you’re on the go.”

Bento – “It’s never been easier to organize all the details of your busy life – in one iPhone application! Manage contacts and club members, coordinate projects and parties – even track vet bills and vehicle maintenance in one, easy-to-use application. Bento for iPhone is the portable version of the popular personal database from FileMaker that’s as easy to use as your iPhone!”

HanDBase Database Manager – “Powerful relational database manager for mobile devices. Track almost anything. Examples: Shopping Lists, DVD Collections, Passwords, Prayer Lists, To Dos, Workouts, Recipes, Checkbook, Weight Loss, Auto Mileage”

Customer Manager – “Need a customer management system that works the way you do? Save time and stay productive while away from the office with Customer Manager for Mobile. Quickly search for contact info, map a location, see past due balances and add/view notes on-the-go.”

StoreIt Database Application – “StoreIt is a simple and easy to use database tool built for the iPhone and iPod Touch. StoreIt allows you use your iPhone to create, amend and populate table definitions to build a database for whatever you like.”

Tap Forms Database – “Securely keep your life organized like never before with the most powerful iPhone database app yet! Customizable up the wazoo and with the newly added Dropbox integration for sharing files you’ll wonder what took you so long to get this app!”

Productivity

Awesome Note (+Todo) – “Awesome Note is an innovative note taking application and to-do manager that allow you to combine notes with to-do flexibility. Awesome Note enables you to customize its look with themes the way you want it to be displayed with different folder icons, colors, fonts and paper backgrounds.”

2Do: Tasks Done in Style – “Leave it to the “Best User Interface 2009″ App Awards winners to make THE ToDo List you’ve been waiting for: Zero complications. Zero frustration. Just a stunning to do list you can finally understand and use.”

OmniFocus – “Winner of the 2008 Apple Design Award for Best iPhone Productivity Application, OmniFocus brings task management to your fingertips. Keep track of tasks by project, place, person, or date. Bring up a shopping list, agenda items to discuss at work, things to do at home, and any other lists you need.”

Pocket Informant (Calendar & Tasks) – “Pocket Informant is an integrated calendaring and GTD-based tasks solution for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Our purpose is to fuse together best-of-class calendaring with best-of-class tasks into one great solution.”

Things – “Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other todo applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Things instead offers the perfect balance between ease of use and powerful features. Effortlessly manage to-dos, notes, due dates, and projects. A smart today list and the scheduling feature allow you to work as effectively as possible – every day.”

JotNot Scanner Pro – “JotNot converts your iPhone into a portable multipage scanner. You can use JotNot to scan multipage documents, receipts, whiteboards, business cards and notes into PDF files; email scans directly; fax scans to US fax numbers; or upload them to iDisk/WebDAV, Evernote, Box.net, Dropbox, or Google Docs where they can be shared with others.”

Calendars – Google Calendar client – “Google Calendar application of your dream is here. Calendars is the most elegant and easy to use Google calendar client available on the App Store. Calendars easily manages your calendars online and offline. It has an unique interface that allows you to move events with simple drag & drop and navigate between days, weeks, months, pretty like in the Calendar application on the iPad.”

File Management

iFiles – “iFiles is a file manager, document viewer, text editor, voice recorder, wifi drive, and more for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch. Transfer files from your computer, carry them around with you, and share them with your friends.”

Flash Drive (View/save with drag and drop/email documents) – “Flash Drive is a file management solution for your iPhone and iPod Touch. It allows you to use your iPhone and iPod Touch as a Wi-Fi flash drive from any Windows or Mac computers. Flash Drive has powerfull built-in file viewer that can be used to view your documents on the go.”

Air Sharing Pro – “The most powerful way to view your documents on the go.”

Documents 2 – “Built on top of the acclaimed documents iPhone suite. Documents 2 is the most comprehensive mobile office suite and file management system for the iPhone. Now with R2.4 Documents 2 also gains native support for iPad making Documents 2 the first and only documents manager that runs universally on all iPhone, iPod, and iPad!”

Art & Design

Intaglio Sketchpad – “Intaglio Sketchpad is a full featured drawing application designed for the iPhone and iPod touch, based on Intaglio, the award winning Macintosh application. With most iPhone sketching apps you paint strokes or erase pixels on the screen. Intaglio Sketchpad is different because it allows you to create and edit shapes and text blocks. These “vector” graphic elements retain their shape and attributes and can be edited at any time. For example, you can adjust color, line thickness, or fix spelling mistakes at any time. To erase an element you simply select it and delete it without affecting whatever might be behind it.?”

SketchBook Mobile – “SketchBook Mobile offers a full set of sketching tools and delivers them through a streamlined and intuitive user interface. Use it to digitally capture your ideas as napkin sketches or produce artwork on-the-go. With the same paint engine as the renowned SketchBook® Pro software, SketchBook® Mobile delivers sophisticated brushes and fluid pencils.”

The Typography Manual – “The Typography Manual is a pocket resource for graphic designers and anyone that works with type. It provides all the essentials of a book reference on your iPhone or iPod Touch! The Type Manual features a 60+ page book covering the history of type, type basics, how to properly set text and special characters, typography on the web, graphic design topics, and more.”

Color Oven – “Color Oven is a great tool for designers out there, especially designers working with CSS. With it you can calculate color schemes based on an initial color and a scheme type. Then you can preview these schemes on different mediums, including a web page. You can also save the color schemes, and e-mail them, as well as their CSS code in case you’re a web designer.”

ColorToy – “Whether you’re a web designer, interior decorator, artist or just a lover of colors, ColorToy can help you find your ideal color scheme. This simple, flexible app lets you generate, modify and store complementary color palettes.”

Access and Control Your Computer

iTeleport: Jaadu VNC for iPhone / iPad – “Supports Mac, Windows, Linux, and AMX Touchscreen Interfaces. See your computer screen and control its keyboard and mouse from wherever: a few feet away, or even halfway around the world.”

Mocha VNC – “Mocha VNC provides access to a VNC Server. Using your iPhone or iPad, you can connect to a Windows PC or Mac OS X and see the files, programs, and resources exactly as you would if you were sitting at your desk, just on a smaller screen. ”

RemoteTap – “RemoteTap is the first and only “Mac Style” remote desktop management solution for Mac’s. Watch the screen, control keyboard and mouse, listen to audio of any Mac in your local network.”

HippoRemote Pro ~ Mac / PC Remote Control & Game Controller – “HippoRemote Pro turns your iPhone/iPod touch into a universal remote for all your favorite Mac & PC apps. Pause iTunes. Fast forward commercials in Media Center. Advance PowerPoint/Keynote slides. Even control web apps like Pandora & Gmail!”

Money

Square – “Quickly and securely accept card and cash payments for your business, service, charity – even to sell your couch. A free Square card reader makes payments even faster. Generate email receipts. With Square for iPad, add sales tax and a beautiful list of items sold. Sign on to squareup.com to manage your sales and receipts with an intuitive web-based interface.”

Venmo – “The official Venmo, Inc iPhone Application. Use the Venmo App to settle up with friends on things like rent, dinners, meals, trips, and tickets. Link a credit card and a bank account to your phone through the App and instantly pay or charge any contact in your phone or any friend you have on Venmo.”

PayPal – “Send money to your friends, manage your account, and more, with the PayPal app. It’s free, secure and more convenient than going to the ATM, writing checks, or sending gifts the traditional way. ”

PayMobile – PayPal Manager – “If you depend on PayPal to run your business, put PayMobile into action and see just how easy tracking all of your accounts can be. With every balance listed right on the home screen, in the proper currency, you can keep track of your finances at a glance. And with two levels of password protection, it’s super-secure.”

iPad Apps

Time Tracking & Invoicing

Invoice Robot – “Invoice Robot was developed for small businesses, non-profits and innovative people that want to create invoices, proposals, receipts and quotations better and faster than large teams of strategic consultants and administrative staff. Get paid sooner by creating and sending PDF documents with the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Your accounts receivable department is in your pocket.”

Ring It Up HD: Invoicing POS – “Ring it Up HD makes the job of tracking your sales and expenses a snap. The simple yet intuitive user interface allows you to easily create a catalog of goods and services which are then added to a sales ticket or invoice with only a few taps on the screen. Collecting payment is just as simple whether you are accepting cash, checks or integrating Ring it Up with one of the 5 supported Credit Card processing apps (see below).”

TimeTrackerHD – “If you are looking to quickly and easily track your time spent on various projects or aspects of your life, TimeTrackerHD is for you. Many time tracking solutions are overly complex and add significant overhead to your life. TimeTrackerHD is designed from the ground up to track time for you and stay out of your way the rest of the day.”

TAPINVOICE – Invoicing Software – “Our company has a long history of developing invoicing software, producing programs since PCs to Internet era, however, iPad emergence, which made quite a challenge for our developers, has shown itself harsher and more stimulating than that we could imagine.”

TimeLogger App – “Timelogger App allows you to track your work times. You can create custom rates for projects, clients and tasks. Great app if you are self-employed or a freelancer.”

Productivity

Dovetail for iPad – “Dovetail is an easy, mobile and stunning invoicing and task management application.”

Pomodoro App for iPad – “Pomodoro App is a beautiful and easy companion for the popular Pomodoro Technique. Use your iPad to stay focussed throughout the work day!”

OmniFocus for iPad – “OmniFocus for iPad combines the in-depth task management functionality of a desktop app with the advanced mobile experience of the iPad. With flexible viewing options, location-aware task lists, and on-the-fly task entry with voice notes and image attachments, OmniFocus for iPad is the trusted system you need for managing everything in your busy life.”

iA Writer – “Simple, efficient and beautiful writing app for iPad.”

Jot! – “Sketch. Share. Innovate. Jot! makes quick sketches and diagrams easy. Take notes in meetings and share them via email or save them as photos. Visualize your thoughts and express your ideas. Stop wasting energy on complex applications. Tap less and jot more.”

PDF Expert for iPad – Annotate, review PDFs – “PDF Expert is the ultimate solution for all your PDF needs. It lets you read and annotate PDF documents, highlight text, make notes, draw with your finger and save these changes being compatible with Preview and Adobe Acrobat!”

Things for iPad – “Things is a beautifully focused and amazingly intuitive task manager. Other todo applications either oversimplify or are too difficult to use. Things instead offers the perfect balance between ease of use and powerful features.”

Bento for iPad – “Organize all the details of your busy life in one iPad app! Bento for iPad comes with 25 ready-to-use database templates that can be easily customized to organize virtually any type of information you have. Manage contacts, track projects, plan events and so much more. Bento for iPad is a new version of Bento, the popular personal database from FileMaker – use standalone or synchronize with Bento 3 for Mac!”

OmniGraffle – “OmniGraffle knows what makes a diagram different from a drawing, so it knows how to help you make superior documents quickly: it keeps lines connected to shapes even when they’re moved, it provides stencils full of objects for you to drag and drop, and it can magically organize diagrams so your ideas come to life.”

Penultimate – “The best handwriting app for iPad. Stylish, powerful, and easy to use, Penultimate encourages you to take notes, keep sketches, or share your next breakthrough idea — whether you’re in the office, on the go, or home on the couch. ”

Noteshelf – with Dropbox & Evernote support – “Noteshelf is a powerful note taking app that provides extremely smooth handwriting and a comprehensive set of notebook templates.”

ReaddleDocs for iPad (PDF viewer/attachments saver/file manager) – “It can catch documents from any source you can imagine: PC or Mac computers, web sites, email attachments, iDisk, Dropbox and other online file storages and even iPhones. All files are saved to your iPad locally so you can enjoy reading them anywhere!”

Design

TouchDraw – “TouchDraw gives you everything you need to create structured 2D vector graphics such as charts, graphs, floor plans, architecture drawings, and logos just to name a few. What makes TouchDraw especially valuable is that it allows you to not only create complex graphics, but to change them easily as well.”

CSS3Machine – “Put the future of web design at your fingertips. CSS3Machine makes the most advanced CSS3 styles simple to implement and fun to experiment with. Easily create stunning gradients, drop-shadows, and 2D- and 3D-transforms. CSS3Machine even builds WebKit animations in seconds!”

SketchPad – Vector Drawing – “You can just draw with your fingers, it’s that simple. Sketchpad is designed to look as a sketchbook and can be treated as such; draw with your fingers and swipe left and right to flip pages. Sketchpad is a pure vector drawing application and this gives you a lot flexibility.”

Freeform – The Vector Drawing App – “Freeform is a vector drawing tool for your iPad. Create quick sketches, mockups, or diagrams with this powerful tool. Export your drawings via email in JPG, PNG, or PDF formats, or save to your photo library. Create new designs whenever or wherever inspiration strikes!”

iDraw – “iDraw is the most feature-packed vector drawing and illustration app available on the iPad”

iDesign – “Create vector graphic designs and illustrations with ease using iDesign’s rich set of features.
iDesign fully leverages the large screen size and power of the iPad with the portability of the iPhone/iPod touch, available as one universal app for both iPad and iPhone / iPod Touch – share designs between your iPad and iPhone/iPod on the go and with other iDesign users.”

Air Sketch – “Turn your iPad into a wireless whiteboard! Annotate PDF documents and images live.”

Office

Pages – “Pages, the powerful word processor for Mac, has been completely redesigned for iPad. It’s the most beautiful word processor you’ve ever seen on a mobile device. Documents look stunning on the bright, vivid iPad display. Use Multi-Touch gestures to lay out letters, flyers, brochures, reports, and more. You can start with a template or import an existing Pages or Microsoft Word document from Mail, your MobileMe iDisk, or a WebDAV service.”

Numbers – “Numbers, the powerful spreadsheet application made for the Mac, has been completely redesigned for iPad. Tap the bright Multi-Touch display to create compelling, great-looking spreadsheets in minutes. With over 250 easy-to-use functions, an intelligent keyboard, flexible tables, and eye-catching charts, all the answers are at your fingertips.”

Keynote – “Keynote, the powerful presentation application for Mac, has been completely redesigned for iPad. It makes creating a world-class presentation, complete with animated charts and transitions, as simple as touching and tapping. ”

2Screens – Presentation Expert – “Best companion for presentation: a full-featured document manager, file viewer, web browser and whiteboard with VGA-out to external projector or LCD monitor. Perfect if you want to show presentation materials stored on local folders of your iPad or on Internet or private web sites. With multi-tab support, you can switch among screens with web content, PDF files, spreadsheets and photos/image files all within this app easily during a presentation.”

Present Pad – “Present Pad is a presentation application that lets you give one-on-one presentations in a nonlinear way. Don’t know what slides you’re going to need? Not a problem.”

Portfolio

Minimal Folio – “Minimal Folio is a simple way to present images, pdf and video on your iPad. The app is unbranded so your folio can do the talking”

UNPRINTED – “Your portfolio is not a static document. It’s a living, breathing, fluid representation of you and your work. At any given moment, it’s a reflection of the best you’ve got to offer. And that can change with the next photo you shoot, website you design, or ad you create.”

Portfolio for iPad – “Portfolio offers a self-contained, brandable presentation tool for your business. Once set up, it will look like a custom app developed exclusively for your business. Lock the interface with a PIN when you’re done and it’s safe for any client meeting without the worry of exposing the management interface underneath.”

LookBook Portfolio – “Have you been waiting for a great way to show off your projects? LookBook Portfolio is the ideal application for designers, developers, entrepreneurs, artists, businessmen or anyone else who has a collection of items to display. Lookbook Portfolio allows you to assemble both pictures and websites resulting in a collection or project. Other apps let you add items, but there’s not a ton or organization or too little information for your items. Lookbook Portfolio allows you to add meta tags, descriptions and titles”

FolioBook – “Foliobook is the clean and minimal portfolio for photographers, designers, models, architects, and anyone who wants a clean, slick way to present their work. ”

What Did We Miss?

The 90 apps above should be enough for just about anyone to work from the road, but there are still plenty of amazing potentials that we didn’t mention. Leave a comment below and let us know what apps are indispensable to you as a freelancer.

I’ve signed up for many loyalty and membership programs over the years and have accumulated a sizable stack of plastic cards. I tend to keep the number of cards in my wallet to a minimum, which inevitably means that I often find myself at the checkout counter without the requisite card and miss out on the benefits. I almost always have my iPhone with me, whether I’m roaming around town or traveling the world. Wouldn’t it be great if I could somehow drop all of those cards onto my phone?

Earlier this year I discovered CardStar. At first glance it seemed to fit the bill almost perfectly. It allows me to store all my cards electronically and is even capable of displaying their barcodes on my iPhone’s screen. How well does it actually perform in practice? Read on to find out.

Entering Your Cards

Getting all your plastic in to CardStar is generally straight-forward and convenient. Begin by tapping the plus button on the main screen and then choose the appropriate merchant from the list. If the merchant you’re looking for isn’t among the hundreds included with the app, select “(Other)”. The next step is to enter the card number, you can either key in the number on the card manually, or if you have a compatible device, use the camera to scan the barcode. I have tried scanning numerous barcodes using my iPhone 4 and this feature worked flawlessly.

If the merchant was on the list, you’re done. If, on the other hand, you chose “(Other)” you’ll be presented with an additional screen where you can specify the title that will appear in your list of cards. You can also specify Barcode Attributes, with the goal of generating an onscreen barcode that matches the one on the physical card. If the card you’re using doesn’t have a barcode, choose a Symbology of “N/A”. As more merchants are added to CardStar’s database this extra step will become less of a necessity. Merchants pay a one-time setup fee as well as a monthly charge to be a part of the CardStar merchant network. The cost varies depending on the number of locations.

On a side note, I recommend hanging on to your plastic cards, or at least checking with merchants before you discard them. I’ve discovered that most merchants are more than happy to allow me to accumulate points using CardStar, but some require the physical card when redeeming points.

Get a New Card

When you add your existing cards to CardStar you’ll notice an option to “Get a new card”. As the name implies, this new feature allows you to apply for a card from within the app. Selecting any of the items in the “Web sign up” section simply brings up the merchant’s online web form. Convenient, but hardly revolutionary.

The “No sign up required” section is where things get more interesting. Selecting an item from this list and tapping “Next” instantly adds a new card to your CardStar list. For now, you’re limited to choosing from Honest Discounts, a card for saving on prescription costs at over 60,000 pharmacies in the United States, and Peekaboo, a mobile coupon provider, currently limited to the Boston area.

This feature shows promise. Making the sign-up process as simple as possible will encourage more people to participate in loyalty programs. CardStar plans to expand this feature over the next year and will be adding merchants beyond the borders of the United States.

Pick a Card, Any Card

With your cards entered into CardStar, it’s time to witness CardStar in action. When you arrive at the checkout or sign-in counter simply tap on the appropriate card and your card number, and in many cases a barcode will appear. A convenient Favorite Places feature, available through the Extras tab alongside a foursquare check-in facility, allows you to store frequently used locations. When you launch the app at a location designated as a favorite, CardStar will automatically display the appropriate card. A nice touch.

Ideally, you’ll run your phone past the barcode scanner, hear a satisfying “beep” and you’ll be on your way. In practice, it’s not always quite this simple. Successful scans are hit and miss in my experience.

As a general rule, handheld scanners are much more likely to work than flatbed scanners and keeping your screen clean and avoiding screen protectors will increase your chances of a successful scan. According to CardStar, imaging scanners can always successfully read a barcode from CardStar on any iPhone. Laser scanners tend to be be problematic and don’t work well with the iPhone 4′s Retina Display. The folks at CardStar are studying this issue and looking at the possibility of developing a software solution.

I have successfully used the barcode feature, but in practice find that I often resort to reading the number to the cashier. I encourage you to experiment with this feature and post your experiences in the comments. To help increase your chances of a successful scan, I recommend reading the tips that CardStar offers on the Support page of their website.

What’s the deal?

One major advantage to using CardStar over traditional plastic cards is that, in addition to being able to access your membership number, you also have information on merchants, including a convenient Store Locator, at your fingertips. Members of the CardStar merchant network can also promote deals through the app. A tag icon to the left of the merchant name indicates that one or more deals are available. Tapping the Deals tab for a specific merchant provides list of deals and the specifics of each deal.

Syncing and Backing Up

By signing up for a free CardStar Connect account and enabling the Backup feature, you can rest assured that your data is safely backed up to the cloud. Equally useful is a Sync feature that allows you to keep two devices in sync. I primarily use the iPhone version of CardStar, but occasionally fire up the iPad version, and appreciate being able to access and edit my card information from either device.

I found the distinction between Backup and Sync a bit confusing at first. In a nutshell, if you only have one device it’s sufficient to simply enable Backup. If you have a second device that you want to keep in sync with your main device then you would enable Backup on the main device and Sync on the secondary one. Lastly, if you have two devices that you want to keep in sync with each other, select Backup and Sync on both devices. Got that? All of this seems needlessly complicated.

What’s Missing?

CardStar is a genuinely useful app in its current form, and still has some room to grow. Support for merchants not listed in the database could be stronger. For example, it would be nice to be able to store a phone number and a link to the organization’s membership page.

The Member Login feature, available when using CardStar merchants is handy, but would be far more useful if CardStar auto-populated the login fields and gave one-touch access to the account. An option to password-protect the CardStar app would also be a welcome addition. Though, the iOS Passcode Lock feature, available in the General section of the Settings app, can be used to safeguard all of the data on your phone and is highly encouraged.
Lastly, hopefully CardStar will be able to come up with a clever software solution to improve reliability with laser scanners, especially where the iPhone 4 is concerned.

Summary

The most authentic measure of an app’s value is whether it’s actually used on a regular basis. I first installed CardStar over six months ago and it’s an app that I use frequently. Minor quibbles aside, it works as advertised. It’s convenient and makes life easier while allowing me to leverage the value of loyalty programs.

I look forward to the day when plastic cards, and maybe even wallets, are a thing of the past. Having all of this information stored on a phone could prove to be a viable alternative to universal smart cards. Emerging technologies, such as NFC (Near Field Communications) that enable exchange of information over short distances, may well make their way into future generations of the iPhone, making it even easier to access merchant services. In the meantime, CardStar helps usher in the era of the digital wallet.

This time of year we seem to do a lot of thinking about weather. Will it snow for the holidays? How is uncle Milton doing with those high winds?

Seasonality Go at US $9.99 is a very powerful weather app for the iPad. It works in more than 200 countries, and lets you customize the screens and the information displayed. If you aren’t at one of the 30,000 pre-defined locations, you can use the iPad’s location services to get current weather where you are.

Features include:

• Current conditions
• A 7-day forecast
• Sun and moon rise and set times
• Graphs showing temperature, wind speed, precipitation, humidity, cloud cover and surf heights
• Radar and cloud cover maps with animated history

The app features excellent customization tools. You can completely design the weather info, even customize the size of each display to your taste. You can pick what data you want to display, and eliminate stuff you don’t want. Surf conditions for Iowa, for example probably aren’t needed. Plus, you can have several pre-defined templates, all for one location or for several. It’s all very versatile.

Continue reading Seasonality Go is an iPad weather app with a lot of promise

Seasonality Go is an iPad weather app with a lot of promise originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Angry Birds creator Rovio has announced that the game has fetched a whopping 36 million downloads so far, including ten million paid downloads on the iOS platform alone. Those are some pretty incredible numbers — there’s no question at all that Angry Birds is as legendary an app on the iPhone as they come. In the larger mobile picture, Rovio still has a way to go — the company itself wants to do 100 million downloads on the Android platform (where the game is a free download, and allows for premium purchases within the app), and even then will have to go a bit further to match up with Tetris’ 100 million paid downloads on all mobile platforms.

But the game has definitely found its place in mobile app history already. Not only is there still that Christmas version planned for the coming holiday season, but Rovio has also announced that it will be releasing versions of the game for the Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii sometime in 2011. Next year will bring another smartphone version, not a full sequel, but one where the pigs will apparently get a little more of the spotlight than the birds have given them so far. Talk about a bulldozer of an IP — as big as this game has gotten, we haven’t seen the last of it yet.

Angry Birds hits 10 million iPhone downloads, coming to gaming consoles originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tech blog Cosby Sweaters noticed something interesting at the recent LA Auto Show: Apple was there in force. Not officially — there is no iCar being sold just yet. But iPads and iMacs were used for a surprising amount of the kiosk displays by manufacturers. Lexus even had a 15-iPod touch display (as seen above) set up to demonstrate features and functions of its new cars.

When it comes to functionality, security, and usability, Apple’s devices are actually relatively cheap to set up, create as a kiosk and then use at a show. This is probably far from the last time we’ll see iPod touches and iPads used in this way at conventions.

Apple devices seen everywhere at the LA Auto Show originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It must be “iPad publishing by billionaires” week but I think they forgot to notify me so I could prepare my own app. British entrepreneur Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Atlantic airlines and the burgeoning commercial space travel program Virgin Galactic, will formally announce next Tuesday that he is releasing an iPad-specific digital magazine named “Project.” Just the other day media magnate Rupert Murdoch announced his plans for a News Corp iPad app, “The Daily,” which is rumored to have a press event introduction on December 9th featuring Mr. Murdoch and Steve Jobs himself. Could the announcement of these two major publications be a foreshadowing of Apple announcing newspaper subscription plans for the iPad?

While Virgin has dipped its toes into the app creation business before with Flying Without Fear, “Project” will cover entertainment, travel, business, design, and international culture. Will Virgin Atlantic now replace their seat-back media centers with iPads? Velcro the iPads to passengers to avoid any zero-G incidents during space flight? We’ll find out soon enough.

[via Engadget]

Richard Branson launching Project magazine for iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve heard about this before, but a new patent illustration hints again at a second dock in a future version of the iPad, one that will enable you to both charge and sync your iPad from a landscape setup. Honestly, it seems a little redundant to have two dock connectors on there, since you’ll never use more than one at a time anyway.

Still, competitors are already making use of a landscape charging setup, and Apple’s been hinting about switching to a landscape charging display for a while. Could be that when we do see the next version of the iPad announced (likely next January), you’ll have your option of which way to display it while charging.

iPad patent suggests landscape dock connector … again originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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