By Mike Riley
With the iPhone 4's built-in GPS features, navigating as well as selecting music to play while driving can a dangerous proposition. Fortunately, iPhone accessory maker LUXA2 has created a car mount that makes such a task much less risky.
By David Averbach
As the app store grows, apps are being developed to fill all areas of our life. From astronomy to hunting there's now an app for that. This is the first of what i hope will be a regular column looking at apps for niche markets that may surprise you. This first blog will look at a niche market that's near to my heart-- Ultimate Frisbee.
Ultimate is the fastest growing sport in America. For those of you who have never heard of ultimate, here is a brief description from the USA ultimate website.
By Jim Karpen
TextNow is currently available for free, and if you'd like to do free texting on your iPad or iPod touch, this app certainly deserves consideration. They actually give you a free phone number that others can use to send text messages to your iPad or iPod touch. It also can be used to send picture messages. It does have ads, but you can use in-app purchasing to upgrade to a version without apps ($5.99 per year). Here's a video demo.
By Werner Ruotsalainen
(Note that a cleaned up and extended, easy-to-digest version of this article – without the lengthy section on the chart – will be published in the iPhone / iPad Buyer's Guide. Go buy it ;-) ).
The iPad offers an excellent way of reading PDF files. While you can do this right in Safari (with web based PDF's) or can freely download Apple's own iBooks, it may be still worth checking out how almost all (!) the currently available PDF reader solutions. Knowing what the alternative PDF readers are capable of is essential as reading online PDF's with Safari lacks any kind of features like in-document searching. In addition, iBooks lacks some essential features too.
MultiSearch is a free app that lets you search multiple search engines simultaneously. These include Google, Bing, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Flickr, iTunes, AppStore, Last.fm, Panoramio, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, and FriendFeed. You can choose which engines you want to search, and all the results are displayed in a single, browsable view. Plus, you can enable geolocation such that the search results are related to your current location.
By Jim Karpen
The free Karate Kid app includes five mini-games that test your Kung Fu virtues: courage, endurance, patience, perseverance, and will. You start out as a white belt and try to become a black belt and achieve martial arts mastery.
By Jim Karpen
GameFinder (free) is a new app that helps you find games in a variety of ways. According to the press release, you can check out games that were recently reviewed on Slide To Play, a website that focuses on reviewing games and that has developed the app. You can also explore games by genre, or browse through lists such as STP Games of the Month, zombie-themed games, Match-3 puzzles, first-person shooters, games under a dollar, and more.
Okay, we won't get into an emotionally charged discussion of whether genetically modified food is bad for you. But if you're inclined to think that it might be, then you might be interested in ShopNoGMO, a free app that gives you a database of hundreds of brand names in 22 food categories that are free of genetically modified content. And if you're not sure how you feel about genetically modified food, the app also has an About GMOs section that gives you more information. Also in the app is a section that offers four simple tips for avoiding GMO.
By Jim Karpen
Even though you have Voice Memo on your iPhone you might also be interested in the free Pocket Dictate, which lets you make recordings and then tap the send button to e-mail it to your typist from within the app. You can also send it via ftp. The app automatically compresses the WAV file. There are other useful controls, too, including the ability to overwrite and insert. A voice activation feature lets you set it so that it only records when you're speaking. And while it's designed to emulate — and replace — a dictaphone, obviously it could be used for other purposes, such as interviews.
Spyglass ($0.99) is yet another creative use of your iPhone's camera. You can view your environment via the iPhone camera and digitally zoom in in up to 5x. In addition, the app uses augmented reality to superimpose compass and GPS information as well as horizon tilt right over the live camera feed. You can also enable the maps feature and have the same information superimposed on a map.You'll need an iPhone 3Gs plus an Internet connection to use the maps feature.
