iPhone Blog

I admit it - I’m an iPhone photo-holic.  I’m addicted to taking photos with my iPhone.   And the site I use to upload to from my iPhone is Flickr.  However, Flickr does not have a full-featured iPhone app and many apps that can upload to Flickr are very basic.

That’s where Fuzzyshot Photo Blog [iTunes link] comes in.  Although users of Fuzzyshot will definitely benefit, new users can easily create an account right on your iPhone.  And the app can do just about anything the web version does.  You simply snap your photo, set your post title and comment, select public or private and whether you want your photo geotagged or not.  You can also easily e-mail your photo straight from the app.

Browsing other people’s Fuzzyshot pictures is also easy in the app.  The most recent pictures are featured in your feed (so if you don’t want your family’s pictures spread across the internet, you should select private) and you can also check out the most viewed and most discussed pictures in the last 24 hours.  You also get a unique web address as well as an RSS feed for your photos.

I had never heard of Fuzzyshot before reviewing this app, but it appears that it has a well-established photo blogging community.  If you want EASY photo uploading take a look at Fuzzyshot.  It’s free to download and free to sign up.

Many of us remember back to the days of Yore. When first person shooter games like Wolf 3D and Doom were taking the PC market by storm. These games completely changed the video game market and have been reproduced on nearly every gaming platform there is. It’s funny to think how Doom in particular was so revolutionary for its time, and continues to be that way to this day as it makes its way onto the iPhone via always groundbreaking Cydia. Now, groundbreaking usually means stability issues, which those who have read previous articles of mine know how much I despise, but I decided to give it a run.

After a quick splash screen, I’m thrust in the middle of a dark, alien crowded room. Simple, but different on screen controls, make for easy maneuvering. At first it seems as though the game has you in continuous forward motion, then you’ll notice if you tilt your phone towards you, it uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to stop or move backwards. After trying to laugh off an awkwardly dumb moment, I decided it was time to kick some monster butt. Negative. It took several minutes to locate my first monster. The motion sensing seems off, and that tends to make for a frustrating time (maybe it’s something you have to get used to). Combine that with an already boring and hard-to-distinguish-objects, 2D graphics, and it makes for an overall negative experience. Now ZodTTD did get a few things right. The game was actually extremely stable for an iPhone port, didn’t crash on me once. And the control system is one of the better ones I’ve seen, with large left and right arrows placed perfectly for your thumbs.

Maybe it would be better if there was a different way you could move forwards and backwards. Maybe the actual playing screen needs to be larger with smoother graphics. Maybe old school ports like this just aren’t my cup of tea. I’m sure many of our readers love this game. ZodTTD is definitely one of the most respected guys in the community, and I’m sure that Doom will continue to evolve. Is this game going to be deleted from my springboard due to low level of playability? Yes. Does that mean it’s doomed? No. I will continue to watch for future updates and hopefully some things will have been revamped.

Update: I always try and make sure to cover all the bases when posting opinions on software people work really hard on. Upon submitting this article, I stumbled across a ‘mouse sensitivity’ setting in the ‘Options’ category of my Doom menu, I know, who woulda thunk it. This did improve some of my movement issues, however be cautious when tweaking your settings, as this caused my once crash-free app to well, crash. Bottom line, it still did not change my opinion of the game, but as I stated before these old school ports really aren’t my bag.

Is the concert to your favorite musical artist sold out?  Or maybe you HAVE to go to this week’s NFL game but all of the tickets are gone.  Well, a new app called Tiggits [iTunes link] allows to purchase those tickets right on your iPhone.

Just so that there is no misunderstanding, Tiggits is a ticket RESELLER.  That means you are probably not going to get the face value of the ticket.  This service is for those who are willing to pay the extra money for tickets and were either unwilling or unable to stand in line when the tickets initially went on sale.

The best way to find tickets in your area is to do a search.  You can search for a city, venue or performer.  I just typed in Honolulu and chose whether I wanted to see a concert, sporting event, theater event or “other.”  The screenshot posted is the Gloria Estefan concert at the Neal Blaisdell Center next January.  The one thing I immediately noticed is that there are almost no single tickets sold.  They usually come in pairs or larger.  You can also browse the Top 25 events in each category and there is a “Featured” section.

The way you pay for your tickets is with a credit card.  Here’s a screenshot of the billing page:

Look toward the bottom of the page and you will see “Secure Page: SSL-encrypted.”  This is important ANY time you make a credit card purchase over the internet to make sure no one other than the merchant sees your credit card number.  I, personally, cannot vouch for the security of this service as I have not used it.  This review is not an endorsement of the service, but rather an overview of the app.

Tiggits also gives you a coupon code to save 5% on your ticket purchases, which is good incentive to download this app.

Before using this app, make sure you carefully read all the terms and policies.  All sales are final and there is no refunds, exchanges or cancellations.  However, if the event is postponed tickets will be honored for the rescheduled date.

Ever since the iPhone came out in June 2007, one of the main criticisms of its hardware is the less-than-impressive specs of its camera. These days, a 2 megapixel camera with no auto-focus or flash doesn’t cut it for a smartphone. Pictures taken at night or in low-light especially suffers from blurs, despite my best efforts to hold it still, like in this photo:

The app Night Camera [iTunes link] helps with this specific problem.  The program uses the accelerometer to figure out if you’re holding your iPhone steady enough to take a picture.  When it knows the iPhone is steady, it automatically takes a picture.  Check out the result:

For only $.99, night pictures and pictures in low-light are greatly improved.  I also think this is one of the most useful and innovative ways to use the iPhone’s accelerometer.  Just keep in mind that this program does not fix the iPhone’s deficiencies which could be rectified with flash or auto-focus.  Still, for a buck’s upgrade and as an avid iPhone photographer, this app is well worth it.

This review of the OrbLive [iTunes link] iPhone app is at least two weeks in the making.  As soon as I saw OrbLive in the App Store, I knew it had to have it.  OrbLive streams pictures, video, music and documents over your cellular or Wifi network.  But, the REAL gem of the app is its ability to stream LIVE television!  But, I had a couple of hurdles to overcome:

1. I did not have a cable television connection available for my computer.
2. I did not have an MPEG-2 encoder that was compatible.

So, first I had to get a cable connection into my bedroom where my computer is.  I went to Radio Shack and spent $50 for a really good 4-way splitter (yes, we have a bunch of TVs in the house) and a really long cable.  That was the easy part.

Next, I went shopping for a new TV tuner card/MPEG-2 encoder.  I decided to play it safe and get hardware I knew for sure is compatible with Orb, the PC desktop software that streams media to your iPhone.  There was none in stock at the local stores, so I bought the WinTV-PVR USB2 off of eBay for $46.  It’s an external MPEG-2 encoder that can run more than $100.

After installing everything, I have to say that live streaming television iPhone through OrbLive is AWESOME!  The picture doesn’t looks as good as a digital copy of a movie on your iPod, but it’s quite good for streaming TV over 3G and Wi-Fi.

Here’s pictures I captured of live TV on my iPhone on 3G and Wi-Fi.  Can you guess which is 3G and Wi-Fi?:

For the record, the top is Wi-Fi and the bottom is 3G.  I have heard on message boards that the Wi-Fi picture used to look better but I cannot confirm that.  Using EDGE for live television is not good at all.

To use OrbLive on the go, just make sure that your desktop PC running Orb is on.  If you have an external encoder/tuner you need to make sure that is on as well.  As far as I know, Orb does not make software for the Mac.

So, the money I spent on a cable connection, MPEG-2 encoder and a $9.99 app came out to a little more than $100.  Was it worth it?  I’d have to say that it’s a resounding YES!  But, like the MasterCard commercials, being able to watch your favorite live program on your iPhone when you’re away from home is indeed PRICELESS.

Pros: The Motorola Pure H15 bluetooth headset for iPhone has a stunning design, a unique flip boom mic, and a comfortable fit. As for audio quality, it does cancel out background noise, though see below for what we didn’t like.

Cons: The voice quality on the Motorola Pure H15 sounds robotic and unnatural, and you’re sometimes plagued with crackly static.

Overall: The Motorola Pure H15 is an attractive and comfortable headset, but the audio quality could be improved.

Friday - an anxious wait for google voice app,  Saturday - frustration over it not being out,  Sunday - the big question whether apple is deliberately holding back the release,  Late Monday - the revolutionary product from Google is finally out! This pretty much explains the Google Voice App wait saga. The long wait process was indeed killing and with every passing minute, the rumor that Apple would nip Google’s cool voice app in the bud was annoying me. I couldn’t help but remember the fate of netshare, podcaster, castcather and a galore of other apps which had to face the axe from Apple. But a voice in me kept whispering that Apple couldn’t be naive to just turn down the Google Giants voice app especially when they have Google CEO, Eric Schmidt as a board member. So despite the rumours that Apple had killed the Google Voice application, I carried on my wait with bated breath. Was it worth it? Oh Hell yeah!

Before I mention about its fascinating features, an important thing you need to know is that you won’t find the voice feature the moment you open the updated Google mobile app. It’s turned off by default so go into the settings option and there you will find a Voice search on/off button. Besides this you also get to decide whether you want contacts, previous searches and websites to be included in your Google search. Then ofcourse there is a gallery of various Google Apps which we all love. (Wish these Google apps launched in an inbuilt browser instead of safari!).

Leaving aside all the features which come packed with the app, the real icing on the cake without a shadow of doubt is the Voice feature. I was a little skeptical as to how effectively it would work but I was fascinated with its easy usage and almost spot on voice recognition capability. However, it may get annoying some times and also there is an issue of lag in the recognition process. But one cant deny the fact that this is a giant leap in voice search and Google will only make it better from here.

All said and done, this truly is a brilliant app which deserves to be on your iPhone!

After reviewing the 2 previous voice recognition iPhone apps by Excuse me Services rather harshly, I knew Google’s new voice recognition option in their mobile app was up against a wall of skepticism. But, of course, you can never underestimate Google, who have literally taken the software industry by storm in the last 8 years.

I’m going to make this review short and sweet, like my experience with the app. After of course downloading from the App Store, I was ready to give this thing a shot. Needless to say I was anxious to see if it was going to live up to all the hype.

You’re first greeted with a search screen, here you can type in any question, any address, any search query, and Google’s advanced search engine goes to work, bringing you the most accurate results. To search via voice, you just hold the phone up to your ear like you are talking on the phone, and say whatever question or search topic you would like to google. The software senses the phone is rotated in the ‘talk’ position, and beeps, to alert you it is ready to receive your voice instructions. Using your voice or typing, both prove to be quick and effortless. Voice recognition is on par with similar applications, and at times is a lot better.

And that’s about it. Google’s mobile app is easy to use whether you are talking or typing, and with only 1 screen, (a settings screen and a screen with links to google’s other softwares) proves to be the least tedious of the other search softwares that recognized user voices.

I would like to see the speakerphone voice recognition be more accurate, handset recognition is almost dead on. I would also like to see voice commands for other applications. But that may defeat the application’s ’simple’ purpose. Although maybe not living up to quite all of the hype, this application does prove to be the best in its class, and that Google is still cutting edge when it comes to software development.

The weather app that comes with your iPhone is usable, but it doesn’t provide much information.  Sometimes an icon doesn’t tell you exactly what you can expect weather-wise.  Heading into these autumn and, eventually, winter months we’ll need more information about the weather.

Even with the advent of the App Store, there hasn’t been a free weather app that just knocked my socks off.  Perhaps I am a bit tougher to please than the average iPhone user because I have been a weather producer at the television station I work at.

Well, the must-have free weather app is finally here and it’s no surprise that it was created by The Weather Channel [iTunes link].  It features the current conditions, an hourly forecast, a 36-hour forecast and a 10-day forecast.  I really like the hourly forecast.  Today, I see that the rain is going to start to pick up at around 6 p.m.  Very useful.

The “Explore Map” option (pictured, above) features doppler radar, which shows you exactly where it is raining, snowing or both.  Another extremely useful feature.

There’s also an updated video of the forecast for the major city near your area.  And finally, there’s a “Severe Weather Alerts” tab.  ”The Weather Channel” can detect your location using your GPS if you allow it.

So, if you haven’t bought a full-featured weather app already, get “The Weather Channel.”  It’s free, and I highly recommend it.

I love my iPhone. It is the best device I’ve ever owned but every single day, I find a little and annoying flaw to it. One of the latest one is the poor control you have over your SMS. For example, have you noticed that your iPhone doesn’t always display the time you received or sent an SMS? It’s a detail but it would sometimes be helpful. You also cannot sort your SMS by “received” showing you all SMS you received in a list; or “sent” showing you all SMS you sent in a list.

These times of frustration are over thanks to a simple, yet efficient application called mySMS. This Cydia application let’s you do everything you can think of with your SMS.

You can sort your SMS in 4 different ways:

• SMS received/sent list: instead of showing SMS conversations per contact, you can see a full list of your received/sent text messages
• SMS received: shows you all incoming text messages
• SMS sent: shows you all outgoing text messages
• Conversation: like the native SMS app, it shows your SMS in a conversation style

This feature alone is worth downloading mySMS, but there is much more to it…

Have you ever had your friend ask you to text him the phone number of one of your contacts? It’s a pain in the ass to do that as the iPhone SMS app won’t let you easily text message a contact info. Well, mySMS will! Simply create a new SMS, tap “contacts” and select what contact you would like to send by SMS and it will automatically add it to your text message. So far, this feature only allows you to send phone numbers but I assume it will also let you text email addresses in future updates.

Want more cool features? Fine. What do you think about writing your SMS in landscape mode? Yep, mySMS does that too. As if there were not enough great features loaded in one little app, mySMS also allows you to protect your SMS with a password and to delete/forward individual text messages.

This is clearly the best application I’ve seen for iPhone SMS and to be honnest, this app shouldn’t exist if Apple had done its job correctly. All these features should have been available on the iPhone since day 1 but that’s not the case, so let’s rejoice someone developed this application.

As mentioned above, mySMS is available on Cydia and it is free with limited features. There are 2 registration levels: $5 or $25. I am not sure what the benefits are for these prices but the free version worked perfectly for me. Highly recommended!