Archive for category iPhone Apps

An iPhone App to Cure Your Acne? AcneApp!

Mar 16

Posted by John Hawkes in News, iPhone Apps | No Comments

Tired of using ointments and creams to cure your acne? Why not use your greasy bacteria-laden iPhone screen as an alternative? AcneApp ($1.99, link) attempts to cure your acne by using “blue and red light treatments” emanating from the iPhone’s screen. These “light treatments” supposedly eliminate p-acne bacteria (a major cause of acne). The official app description claims the app is part of a scientific study done by Baylor College of Medicine. The app actually has more 5-star reviews than 1 star, so maybe there’s something to it.

Official app description:

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Chevy Volt Getting Its Own iPhone App

Mar 14

Posted by John Hawkes in iPhone Apps, iPhone Car Apps | No Comments

CNET recently had access to a Chevy Volt, and a GM rep showed off an iPhone app called Chevrolet Connect being developed for the Volt. The app will send push notifications when the car is fully charged, allow you to start the car remotely and turn on the car’s heating system (awesome for cold weather), and lock and unlock the doors.

The app will debut along with the car, hopefully this winter. Versions for the Blackberry Storm and Android will also be available.

Link: CNET “Behind the Wheel of a Chevy Volt”

Poot! 5 Interesting iPhone Farting Apps

Mar 4

Posted by Tanya Menoni in Fart Apps, Funny iPhone Apps, iPhone Apps | No Comments

Everyone loves a good farting app… right? While I sometimes fail to see the attraction, there’s no doubt that fart apps are very popular. By my count, there are at least 300 fart apps in the iTunes store, and that’s probably a conservative estimate. Needless to say, they’re good for a laugh and if you have kids, these apps will entertain them for hours.

1. Fart Piano Deluxe

You can’t discuss fart apps without mentioning a farting piano app. Fart Piano Deluxe ($0.99, iTunes link) lets you play different songs on the fart piano, including Ode to Joy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and The Chicken Dance. There’s also a weird food tie-in, as choosing a specific food before your song (taco, hot dog, cheese, etc.) will “influence the tonality of your farts.”

2. iFart Mobile

iFart Mobile ($0.99, iTunes link) includes the standard farting noises, but the developers should get some credit for their very, uh, creative names. With fart names like Brown Mosquito and Burrito Maximo, the descriptions themselves are good for a laugh. iFart Mobile also has some unique features like social networking where you can make your friend’s phones “fart on demand,” and a 30-second timer for sneak fart attacks. You can also record your own farts.

3. Bluetooth Fart

For practical jokers, it’s hard to beat Bluetooth Fart ($0.99, iTunes link). The app includes more than 30 fart sounds and has a “stealth mode” so you can make your iPhone fart from a distance of up to 60 feet. To use the stealth mode, you’ll need to download the app on two phones, and it works only with the iPhone 3G or 3GS. Of course, you don’t have to be stealthy and can choose to play the farts directly on your phone as well.

4.  BaconFarts Free

Yes, the BaconFarts Free app (free, iTunes link) has a piece of bacon making fart sounds. How do people come up with this stuff? Most free farting apps get horrible reviews on iTunes, but BaconFarts Free fares better than most. It includes 27 fart sounds and each of the names ties in with the bacon theme, including Swine Flu, The Sizzler, and Angry Bacon. As one reviewer describes it, the app is “disturbing and awesome at the same time.” The website is worth checking out too—it’s pretty funny.

5. Atomic Fart

Atomic Fart ($0.99, iTunes link) includes more than 30 different farts, with some of our favorites being Dangerously Painful, What Just Happened!?, and The Open Door Classic. While I’m sure you can waste hours just listening to the fart sounds or playing “fart drums,” the best part of Atomic Fart is the movement detection. With this feature turned on, the app will automatically sound your selected fart when it detects movement—perfect for practical jokes. There’s also a free version that includes ads.

MLB.com At-Bat 2010: Listen To and Watch Baseball Games on the iPhone

Mar 3

Posted by Alan in Baseball, Radio Apps, iPhone Apps, iPhone Sports Apps | No Comments

MLB.com At-Bat 2010 ($14.99, link) streams every radio broadcast of every Major League baseball game to the iPhone. And it features both the home and away radio streams, so you’ll be guaranteed to listen your favorite local announcer. The app also streams video of select games to your iPhone. It’s unclear exactly how many games will be shown for the basic $14.99 price; the 2009 version featured one or two select games a day, which ain’t bad. But if you subscribe to MLB.tv ($100-$120), you can watch every game on the iPhone (blackouts apply).

Toward the end of last season, live video of individual games became available for $0.99. It’s unclear if that’s the same deal this year.

This year’s app has added background audio streaming. A lot of other iPhone radio apps have added this feature as well, which launches the audio stream in the iPhone’s browser and allows you to multitask (use other apps while the stream plays).

I had the MLB At Bat 2009 app and found it excellent. If you’ve seen the MLB website during the season, you’ll know they do statistics better than anyone else, and their live GameDay is awesome. But the killer feature is being able to listen to your local announcer—very cool when you’ve moved out of range of local stations. The video quality last year was not very good, I often found it a little too pixelated to pick out details (the score was sometimes too diffiult to read), but maybe they’ll find a way to improve it this year. The pixelation may be too much for iPad users.

MLB At Bat 2010 is a $14.99 download from the iTunes App Store.

App Review: Pastebot, Excellent iPhone Clipboard Manager

Mar 2

Posted by Alan in iPhone App Reviews, iPhone Apps | No Comments

Pastebot ($2.99, link) is probably the world’s best designed clipboard manager. It’s clear that a lot of thought and refinement went into making the app. Even though the audience who requires its features is likely narrow, the app is currently the best way to store and manage chunks of text and move them in and out of the iPhone’s clipboard.

At the core of Pastebot’s functionality is a simple action: open the app and whatever is in your iPhone’s clipboard will be automatically stored in the app. From there, you can name, organize, and edit the entries for later use.

The app can store plain text and images (but not both at the same time). It offers some basic texting editing of entries as well as advance features like find-and-replace, auto wrapping with html code, even translation (requires Internet connection).

Pastebot can work in conjunction with a free desktop app, Pastebot Sync (Mac only), that allows users to move text and images from the desktop onto the iPhone using a home WiFi network.

The app is not only for storing clips but recalling them as well. Tap any of your clippings, and a “blue light” will appear signaling it is in your iPhone’s clipboard. You could use this feature as an easy way to store and recall form letters or logos.

Overall, the app is incredibly slick, with nice animations and sound effects for the various features. Best of all, it’s incredibly easy to use (simply open the app!), with the app’s most important feature up front, and the multitude of complementing features supporting it underneath. Recommended.

Pastebot is a $2.99 download from the iTunes App Store.

5 iPhone Apps That Password Protect Your Photos

Mar 2

Posted by Alan in iPhone Apps, iPhone Security | No Comments

There are plenty of good reasons why you might want to password protect photos on your iPhone, from protecting family photos from falling into the hands of strangers to keeping sexy photos from prying eyes. Here are 5 apps that can password protect photos on the iPhone.

ePhotoChest

ePhotoChest (free, link) locks your private photos with a password. The app requires a password before granting access to photos. You can add photos from the iPhone’s Photo Album or via the camera. (For complete privacy simply delete the photos outside of the app.) The app supports multiple folders, landscape viewing, slideshows, and shake-to-lock.

PhotoFolders

PhotoFolders ($0.99, link) is a powerful little app that not only lets you protect your photos with a password, but also allows importing of photos from your computer via home WiFi network. Other features are drag-and-drop file support, email photos, slideshows, optional upgrade to video support.

My Eyes Only Photo


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Stream Cable TV and DVRs to Your iPhone With SlingPlayer Mobile

Feb 5

Posted by Alan in News, Streaming Video, iPhone Apps | No Comments

The SlingPlayer Mobile ($29.99, iTunes link) app is now available in the iTunes App Store—SlingPlayer having just received permission a few days ago for video streaming over AT&T’s 3G network. If you’re unfamiliar with SlingPlayers, they are devices that let you stream video from your home’s TV and/or DVR over the Internet to any device that supports SlingPlayer software. You could be on vacation in another country and sign on to watch your local news through the iPhone. You can also use the app to control your DVR, setting it to record shows, browse through TV listings, etc.

Of course, to take advantage of the app you’ll also need a SlingPlayer device, which range in price from $150-$250 on Amazon.

SlingPlayers can control your TV and other devices. It supports a wide range of devices, including:

  • Cable set-top boxes and DVRs
  • Satellite set-top boxes and DVRs
  • Tivo
  • Telco / IPTV set-top boxes and DVRs
  • Basic cable
  • Digital Over-the-Air broadcasts (Slingbox PRO-HD only)
  • Apple TV
  • Home security cameras

While this makes for a sweet iPhone app, it’s going to be an even better iPad app thanks to its larger (and more comfortable) screen.

SlingPlayer Mobile is a $29.99 download from the iTunes App Store.

‘This American Life’ Gets an iPhone App

Feb 3

Posted by Tanya Menoni in News, iPhone Applications, iPhone Apps | No Comments

This American Life is one of the most popular public radio shows around, and now fans of the show can bring the show to their iPhone with the This American Life app ($2.99, iTunes link). This American Life is produced by Chicago Public Radio and heard on over 500 radio stations. Editors aim to cover “true stories of everyday people,” and they’ve produced episodes on everything from infants who were switched at birth in 1951 to a humorous look at life aboard a modern aircraft carrier.

The This American Life app provides access to every episode broadcast since 1995, and new episodes are added automatically. Streaming is free, but you’ll have to pay $0.99 per episode to download. The app includes search functionality so you can browse previous episodes by title or contributor. In addition to This American Life episodes, the app also offers behind-the-scenes audio and video, a favorites list and the ability to send episodes via Facebook, Twitter or email. From the app description:

This American Life is mostly true stories of everyday people, but it’s also really hard to describe. Here’s what it’s not: It’s not a news show or a talk show or a call-in show. Instead, it’s stories that are like little movies for radio. There are funny moments and emotional moments and moments where the people in the story say interesting, surprising things about it all. It’s a public radio show for people who don’t necessarily like public radio.

There’s little doubt that This American Life will be a popular iPhone app—it was just released yesterday and it already enjoys a five-star rating from nearly 60 reviewers at the iTunes store.

This American Life is a $2.99 download from the iTunes store.

Pocket First Aid & CPR Was iPhone App That Saved Man’s Life in Haiti

Jan 25

Posted by Alan in News, iPhone Apps, iPhone Medical Apps | 1 Comment

CNN has confirmed that Pocket First & CPR ($3.99, iTunes link) from the American Heart Association was the app that Haiti aid worker Dan Wooley used to help treat his wounds and perhaps save his own life after January 12’s earthquake.

Wooley, who was bleeding from his head and leg, wanted to be sure to treat his wounds properly in order to get home to his family. Because he only had rudimentary first-aid knowledge, he turned to Pocket First & CPR for instructions to prevent mistakes in his “disoriented state.” Wooley told CNN:

I had an app that had pre-downloaded all this information about treating wounds. So I looked up excessive bleeding and I looked up compound fracture”

….Trapped in the ruins of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, he used his shirt to bandage his leg, and tied his belt around the wound. To stop the bleeding on his head, he firmly pressed a sock to it. Concerned he might have been experiencing shock, Woolley used the app to look up what to do. It warned him not to sleep. So he set his phone alarm to go off every 20 minutes.

Once the battery got down to less than 20 percent of its power, Woolley turned it off. By then, he says, he had trained his body not to sleep for long periods, drifting off only to wake up within minutes. “

Wooley was trapped in rubble for more than 60 hours before a rescue crew pulled him free.

From the official app description for Pocket First Aid & CPR:
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Haiti Earthquake Victim Uses iPhone App to Survive

Jan 21

Posted by Tanya Menoni in News, iPhone Apps, iPhone Medical Apps | 2 Comments

There are undoubtedly hundreds of amazing survival stories that will emerge out of the earthquake devastation in Haiti, but I doubt very many of them involve an iPhone. As MSNBC.com reports, Dan Woolley, an American missionary in Haiti, used an iPhone app to help him stay alive while he was trapped in the rubble.

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Woolley was trapped for 65 hours with a broken leg and a head injury. He used an unnamed first-aid app to teach himself how to fashion a tourniquet and to avoid going into shock (he set his iPhone’s alarm to go off every 20 minutes so he wouldn’t fall asleep). Dan Woolley was eventually rescued by a French search-and-rescue team.

We don’t know what app Woolley used, but here are some first-aid apps that might come in handy when you least expect it.

The American Heart Association’s Pocket First Aid & CPR app ($3.99, iTunes link) includes first aid procedures for a variety of medical emergencies, including choking, burns, seizures, and cuts. You can also save your medical profile and enter your emergency contacts and allergies.

American Medical Aid ($2.99, iTunes link) includes how-to instructions and pictures to illustrate first aid techniques that are approved by the Red Cross. The app also includes information on common drug interactions and how to survive in extreme situations.

The First Aid Pocket Guide ($0.99, iTunes link) also includes basic first aid information, including how to respond to an unconscious person. You can also enter your emergency contacts.

Several iPhone game developers are donating their proceeds to the Haiti relief efforts, and you can contribute $10 directly to the Red Cross by texting Haiti to 90999.