iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

They say you can never have too much money. I don't know if that's true. Shakespeare had King Richard shouting "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" I don't ride a horse, but I do have a couple of old convertibles that have had the battery die on occassion, so I can relate. All the money in the world won't help you if your car and phone batteries are dead and nobody is around to help. That's why I was very excited to see the JumperPack mini from Cyntur.

Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, How to Unleash Your Inner App Developer, I will take you, the non-programmer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure, and you will experience how much fun turning your ideas into reality can be! This is Part 12 of the series. If you're just getting started now, check out the beginning of the series here (this post has been updated to Swift 1.2, iOS 8, and Xcode 6.3.)

One of the best software development books of all time is Steve McConnell's Code Complete. Whether you are a seasoned software developer or a brand new programmer, regardless of the platform or language in which you write code, I highly recommend checking out this book. It will change your way of thinking and vastly improve the quality of the code you write.

IK Multimedia made the iRig 2 ($39.99) product available last week and sent us a review unit to test out. The iRig is a guitar interface that allows you to process signals from any electric guitar and listen to the output on your headphones. It now can send signal out to an amp or PA. I tested the iRig with several of my guitars running into a Line 6 Flextone and a Roland guitar amp, as well as with headphones. I also tested it up against the iRig Pro HD model, and have to say it performed nearly on a par with the fancier iRig model!

Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, How to Unleash Your Inner App Developer, I will take you, the non-programmer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure, and you will experience how fun turning your ideas into reality can be! This is Part 11 of the series. If you're just getting started now, check out the beginning of the series here. (This post has been updated to Swift 1.2, iOS 8 and Xcode 6.3)

Now that you have some of the basics of Swift programming under your belt, it's time to dive into some deeper coding territory. To get the latest version of iAppsReview, select this link. 

This is the follow-up post to our first edition of the Indie Project corner, where we talk to indie product developers who are crowdfunding and implementing a new project related to iOS. In Part 1, we interviewed Gene Aikens of the Power Company on the early success involving his recent campaigns on Indiegogo. In this edition, we are following that up with a product review of his iPocket Drive.

This is the first Indie Project Corner post, a regular feature we will be undertaking to showcase noteworthy indie development efforts (mostly iPhone-related). It's not easy to get a crowdfunded product off the ground, as any who have done it will tell you, and iPhone Life wants to help by interviewing entrepreneurs and getting the skinny on what makes their products the best. In this first edition, we interview Gene Aikens of The Power Company, maker of the Smart Card, and the iPocket Drive. Gene sent us an early review sample of the iPocket Drive to check out. If you are looking for an alternative to network or cloud-connected storage, you will want an iPocket Drive! Gene shares some great insights in part one of this edition.

Out of all of the thousands of mobile games available to gamers, few if any have generated a buzz in the core gaming community like Vainglory has. Vainglory is an unapologetically core game, built from the ground up for the mobile touchscreen platform. I had the opportunity recently to sit down and chat with Vainglory's COO Kristian "EdTheShred" Segerstrale and former pro League of Legends player George "Zekent" Liu who now serves as Vainglory's Video Community Manager. What follows is an essential and informative read for anyone who is a core gamer in this day and age where touchscreens are increasingly becoming the dominant gaming platform.

In my reporting on iPhone and iPad news, I constantly rely on a range of Apple-related websites. But rather than having to visit each one individually, I gather all their news feeds into a single web page, using the personalization feature of My Yahoo. At a glance I can see all the latest Apple news. These news feeds from websites are called RSS feeds. ("RSS" stands for "rich site summary," though some people say it stands for "really simple syndication.") There are RSS apps you can download that let you gather these news feeds. But you can also subscribe to news feeds in Safari.

Do you have an idea for an app but lack the programming knowledge to begin building it? In this weekly blog series, How to Unleash Your Inner App Developer, I will take you, the non-programmer, step by step through the process of creating apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Join me each week on this adventure and you will experience how fun turning your ideas into reality can be! This is Part 10 of the series. If you're just getting started now, check out the beginning of the series here (this post has been updated to Swift 1.2, iOS 8 and Xcode 6.3.)

In my previous post, you learned the basic mechanics of calling methods on an object. There's very little you can do in Swift, the language of iOS development, without calling methods. In this post, we're going to put into practice what you have learned about calling methods and integrate social media into the iAppsReview app we've been working on in this blog. I'm also going to introduce a new Cocoa Touch Framework concept known as collections. You can get the latest version of iAppsReview from this link.

How to Use Call Waiting in FaceTime

Can you get incoming calls while on FaceTime? Yes! With FaceTime call waiting, accepting incoming calls and putting your FaceTime call on hold is easy. When someone calls you while you’re on a FaceTime call, you have two options: End & Accept or Decline. If the calls are both FaceTime Audio (FaceTime without video) or one is a regular phone call, you'll be able to Hold & Accept. This fast tip will show you how to answer calls and place calls on hold using FaceTime call waiting, so let's dive in.

I saw Fugoo's speakers at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Recently, Fugoo gave me the opportunity to try its Sport Wireless Speakers ($199). Fugoo offers a wide variety of speakers, with different materials, textures, colors and capabilities, but they all have one thing in common. They are substantial both in weight and sound quality. And these speakers are waterproof, not just splash proof. At CES, Fugoo drenched their speakers in water and they kept on rocking!

Before the Apple Watch was announced, when we learned that Nike was abandoning its Fuel Band, there was speculation that the Apple offering might be more of a fitness band and less of a miniature iPhone. However, that didn't happen and the Apple Watch is indeed bulkier than most fitness bands. Potential customers looking for a smaller band may want to consider the Microsoft Band. Not only is the Microsoft Band smaller, but it's cheaper too, at $199.

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