Tag: iPhone

  • Win a copy of RadioPod

    Yesterday I mentioned that the new App, called RadioPod, from the guys at immedia had been released. I have been reviewing the app for the last couple of weeks, and I can honestly say this is one fantastic app.

    The app showcases the best of South African podcasts, and I love the fact that I can listen to Whackhead prank phone calls a few minutes after it has been played live on air. I also love being able to listen to the Internet Economy with Reuben Goldberg, or Technobyte with Aki Anastasiou

    To celebrate the launch of my new side project, called SAiPhoneApps, and RadioPod, we have 3 copies of RadioPod to give away. To enter simply leave a comment on this post on SAiPhoneApps and tell us what is your favourite South African podcast?

    Competition closes on Friday 25th September 2009 at 11am, and you must have a US iTunes account(see here how to get a US iTunes account) for the promo code to work.

  • Win a copy of SimplyTweet

    The guys over at Simply Tweet have released their updated version on this awesome app. You will remember a while ago, I did a quick look at Simply Tweet and version 2.3 has really upped the stakes in the iPhone twitter app market.
    For me the biggest selling point for this app is the push notifications you get whenever you get a Direct Message or @Reply in your twitter stream. The notification is instant, so you always know whats happening on your twitter stream .I also love that it I can use Posterous for my Picture hosting, as this allows me to upload to all my other services instantly. Another great feature for me, is when you send a DM, even if it over 140 characters it will spilt the DM up into separate DM’s. All in all this is THE best iPhone Twitter client.

    The dev are also fantastic and listen to your requests. Just after I first downloaded it I asked, on twitter,  about possibly changing the date format, and I can happily say, this was implemented in the 2.3 release. for updates on whats happening with SimplyTweet you can follow the dev team on twitter at @SimplyTweet.

    Here are some of the awesome features of SimplyTweet:

    • Push notification support for Direct Messages and Mentions, showing new messages in the application badge
    • Configurable push notification sounds
    • Themes
    • Saved views (create groups of friends, etc)
    • Photos search
    • Saved notes for accounts
    • Multiple accounts support, with quick switch support
    • HootSuite integration: importing of Twitter accounts from HootSuite
    • Support for updating user profiles from within SimplyTweet, including profile picture
    • Bookmarklet Support
    • Landscape drafting mode (both Tweets and DM)
    • Landscape view for builtin web browser
    • Tweetshrink support (both tweets and DM)
    • URL shortening
    • Send direct messages longer than 140 characters
    • Unread tweet indicators for all themes
    • Instapaper Support
    • Posterous Support (multiple photos and video upload) with hashtags converted to Posterous tags
    • TwitPic support (multiple photos)
    • yfrog support (multiple photos and video upload)
    • img.ly support (multiple photos)
    • TwitrPix support (multiple photos)
    • TwitVid support (video upload)
    • Browse conversations – display the reply chain of a message all in 1 screen
    • Browse conversations between you and another person – display the tweets between you all in 2 screen
    • Bigger text option

    Some of the cool new features to be added in Version 2.3 include:

    • UI changes across every theme, including re-arranging the account view
    • Every theme now has (the same) unread indicator
    • Re-arranged settings in Settings app
    • Various screens, including contact pickers, followers/friends lists and tweet/DM drafting views now has a dark background when using Twilight theme
    • Miles instead of km will be used in proximity search if your system-wide setting is as such
    • Better push handling – upon startup, if there is an application badge, meaning there was a push previously and SimplyTweet was not launched), the mentions and DM timelines will be autoloaded
    • Support for Twitvid.com
    • You can now configure a sound to play when you receive a push
    • You can configure a sound to play upon sending a tweet/DM
    • You can now send DMs longer than 140 characters. They get broken up into shorter DMs in reverse order so it reads nicely anywhere. And in SimplyTweet, it tries to concat them together into a long DM. Try it!
    • Post.ly (Posterous) links now display inline if it is short enough.
    • Add support for TwitLonger viewing, similar to inline view for post.ly links
    • Updated icons
    • Favorited tweets are now indicated in timelines
    • When you add a link to Instapaper, the tweet text is now set as the summary
    • You can now delete attachments while drafting a tweet/DM. Hint: press the cancel button

    These are just some of the changes and cool features in this fantastic app. The app is $4.99 in the app store and is well worth the price. You can buy it from the app store here. If you want some more info on SimplyTweet, be sure to check out http://motionobj.com/simplytweet/


    WIN A COPY OF SIMPLYTWEET


    Now for the fun part, the Dev team at MobtionObj have kindly sponsored 3 promo codes for the SimplyTweet app, and you can get a FREE copy of this app, by simply leaving a comment below on this post. The competition will close on Wednesday 23 September 5pm SAST.Winners will be chosen randomly using http://www.random.org/. The codes are ONLY valid in the US iTunes App store (To get a US iTunes account follow the steps here https://www.marcforrest.com/2009/08/06/5-iphone-tips-tricks/).

    If you would really like to show some support, and help increase your chances of winning, spread the word by tweeting the following message as well :)

    Win a copy of SimplyTweet by leaving a comment on @MarcForrest blog -> http://ow.ly/q9Kr. Please RT

  • Top 5 Photography iPhone apps

    The fact that my second favorite hobby, next to my iPhone :), is my Photography, and given that the iPhone has a built in Camera, which albeit, isn’t the best, there are a couple of fantastic apps that allow you to maximise the capability of the iPhone Camera.

    If you want to see some awesome iPhone photography check out JustWhatISee.comwhich is a site by a guy who goes around taking photos with his iPhone Camera. For all iPhone Photography things also check out iphoneography.com

    I have a whole page dedicated on my iPhone to Photography apps, so I thought I would share my top 5 apps  :)

    Camera Genius (iTunes link)
    Price: $0.99

    The app adds all the missing features of the standard iPhone camera, and allows you to zoom in on your subjects, which is a big plus, and the images come out fairly clear. Another nifty feature is the anti shake, which helps you get the perfect shot. The camera will only take the shot when the camera is perfectly still,eliminating the blurry pictures we all used to. Camera Genius also has Sound Capture, so everyone can scream cheese and the pic is taken, Guides, full screen button, timer, and a few other features.

    All in all a fantastic app that is well worth the asking price. My Rating: 4/5

    ColorSplash (iTunes Link)
    Price: $1.99

    A fantastic tool to make the photos you have taken look extra cool. Color splash is a simple app, which allows you take the color of the image out, or add it back into the image. So the app makes the whole image black and white, and then you simple color out the parts you want to be color again. Something like this below

    Great app, that you can spend hours on dollying up your iPhone pics. My rating: 3.5/5

    Photogene (iTunes Link)
    Price: $2.99

    Well well worth the $2.99 you will be spending on this app. This is like Photoshop on your phone. The app is a photo editing app, that allows you to edit the photos you have taken on your iPhone, and then allows you to save them to your phone. These are just some of the awesome things you can do with Photogene

    – Crop. Fixed aspect ratios are optional.
    – Sharpen
    – Levels histogram. Manually or automatically correct color distribution, improving brightness and contrast at the same time.
    – Gamma correction (midtones)
    – Separate exposure and contrast buttons.
    – RGB balance
    – Saturation. Increase or decrease hues intensity in your picture. B/W effect can be reached.
    – Color temperature. Correct unnatural colors by adding warmth or coolness to the image.
    – Straighten for a tilted image
    – Rotate and mirror
    – Special effects, such as pencil, sepia or heat-map
    – Frame effects: Reflection and Vignette
    – Preset and customized frames in various shapes, widths and colors. Selection of shadows – outer and inner glows, gloss, drops shadow.
    – Text bubbles of different styles, colors and fonts (just drag and place them wherever you like).
    – Multiple Undo-Redo and reset buttons. You can use these features to compare between origin and result.
    – Take photos from with in the application

    Cool hey. Really an awesome app, and like I said, well worth the money. My Rating: 4.5/5

    Pano (iTunes Link)
    Price: $2.99

    This is probably one of my most favorite apps on the iPhone. I have spoken about this app before, and I would buy it 10 times over if I could. The app allows you to take a series of photos which it then stitches together. And it just works. Does a fantastic job. This is one of the photos I took recently using Pano

    If you would like to see more of the pics I have taken with Pano, check out my Pano Flickr Set. My Rating: 5/5

    Flickr (iTunes LInk)
    Price: Free

    I have also written about this fantastic app before, but it seriously a great app. Once you have taken all your pictures using the apps above, you can directly upload them to your Flickr Account. On the Go. You can also browse though your Flickr Contacts photo stream, and comment on them. All in all an essential app for your iPhone to help you store your new iPhone photos quickly and easily. My Rating 4/5

    Well that’s my 5 favorite iPhone Photography apps. If you know of some that I may have missed, please leave a comment, so we can check them out.

  • iPhone Home Screen Icon

    apple-touch-iconA cool little tip I came across for the iPhone earlier today was how to get your own personal icon on the home screen on the iPhone. What I mean is if you have a website, that you want your users to view on an iPhone, you can create a customised icon for them to use everytime they want to access your site. It looks like an application button on the homescreen as well.

    So for example, if you visit my site on your iPhone Safari browser, you will see a rendered mobile site, using the MobilePress WordPress plugin. Now if you really like my site (*hint* *hint*), you can add an icon to your home screen on your iPhone, by clicking the plus button at the bottom of the screen, and then selecting “Add to Home Screen”.

    iPhone2

    This will then add an icon to your home screen and  allow you a one touch “click” to my site.

    iPhone 003

    Now if you have a site that you would like this nifty little feature, you need to follow the 3 very simple steps below:

    • Create a PNG file, which is 57×57 pixels big. This can be any image you want.  Don’t worry about the rounded edges and glossy icon. The iPhone takes care of this for you.
    • Save the file as “apple-touch-icon.png”
    • Upload the PNG file to the ROOT directory of your website, and then visit your site on your iPhone to test it out.

    A very simple little trick if you want to ensure your visitors come back to your site over and over :)

  • South African iPhone Apps Directory

    Being Proudly South Africa, and my love for the iPhone, I have decided to keep a list of all locally South African iPhone developed iPhone apps, that will be a static page on my blog. As more SA apps get published to the App store, I will update the list. If you are aware of any apps that should be on this page, that aren’t, please drop me a mail or leave a comment.

    If you would like your app reviewed before launch, or once it has been published, I will be more than willing to do that for you :)

    The South African iPhone apps Directory can be accessed here, or from the menu at the top of the Page