Archive for category iPhone Websites

Gmail Webapp Adds Swipe to Archive Feature

Jun 27

Posted by Alan in Gmail, Google, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Gmail’s excellent webapp for the iPhone received another feature recently: swipe to archive. To use, simply swipe your finger across any email message and a red Archive button will appear. Tap it to archive the message.

Archive in Gmail is way to remove a message from your Inbox without deleting it. It has the effect of uncluttering your inbox visually while still being able to access old emails through the All Mail folder or Gmail search.

Link:

Google Mobile Blog “The Iterative Web App: Swipe-to-Archive and Expanded English Language Support”

iWeathr.com: Animated Radar (iPhone Webapp)

Feb 12

Posted by Alan in Weather Apps, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Here’s a case where a webapp may outperform App Store apps, both paid and free. If you’re frustrated by poorly designed animated weather radar in iPhone apps, try pointing the iPhone’s browser to iWeathr.com.

iWeathr features 4 different kinds of animated radar to choose from, including reflectivity short range, reflectivity long range, rainfall, and velocity short range. The site gets its data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is where most of the App Store weather apps get their data from as well. iWeather even features special radar maps for Aviation.

You can bookmark the site to your home screen, and it will have its own icon that makes it look just like an App Store app. The greatest thing about it is that it launches faster than any native app!

For more iPhone webapps, check out our A World of iPhone Links page.

Google Books Gets iPhone-Optimized Website

Feb 5

Posted by Alan in iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Google Books has received an iPhone-friendly version of the site, which can be accessed on your iPhone via books.google.com/m. There are currently 1.5 million public domain books available on the site that can be read in the iPhone’s browser.

The home page lets you search for books or browse by category. I searched for Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and was reading in just a few seconds. The site loads the books a few pages at a time, and there are controls for turning pages or skipping around to different chapters.

If you’re logged in to your Google account, the site will remember where you last left off and will load the correct page the next time you access the site. Reading via Google Books is, however, an online experience, so there’s no support for offline reading…yet.

Links:

Official Google Books Blog.

Via Andy Ihnatko at Celestial Waste of Bandwith.

Google Announces Tasks Webapp for iPhone and Android Phones

Feb 2

Posted by Alan in Google, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Google added Tasks to its Gmail service not too long ago. Tasks is essentially an online To-Do app and list manager that works with Gmail. Now they’ve made Tasks accessible as a mobile webapp for iPhone and Android phones. Just navigate to gmail.com/tasks, and a mobile-friendly version will appear. You can bookmark it to the iPhone’s home screen, and it will have its own Tasks icon.

You can create and edit new tasks, check them off, delete, clear completed tasks, and organize tasks into different lists.

Link:

Announcement on Official Gmail Blog.

Google Reader iPhone Webapp Updated

Jan 30

Posted by Alan in Google, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Google Reader is one of the few iPhone webapps I still use on a day-to-day basis. According to the Official Google Reader Blog, they added a few minor tweaks to the mobile version, including a more compact header, visual enhancements, and faster load times.

You can check out the new version by pointing your iPhone to google.com/reader.

iPhone-Friendly ESPN Mobile Site for Fantasy Football, Basketball, and Baseball

Oct 19

Posted by Alan in iPhone Fantasy Sports Apps, iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

If you want to check your ESPN Fantasy League scores, ESPN has an iPhone/mobile-friendly version. You can view team scores and individual point totals for players, get news, and look ahead at the schedule, but you can’t change your lineup, post to message boards, or anything else that would involve user input.

ESPN Fantasy Football on the iPhone Mobile Friendly Site

Here are the links to take you directly to the fantasy main page or individual sports. Bookmark them on your iPhone’s home screen for quick navigation:

ESPN Fantasy Sports main page

ESPN Fantasy Football

ESPN Fantasy Basketball

ESPN Fantasy Baseball

For more iPhone-optimized websites, check out our A World of iPhone Links page.

Kelley Blue Book Gets an iPhone-Optimized Website

Aug 30

Posted by Alan in iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Kelley Blue Book is the standard in the car sales industry for pricing information on new and used cars. Car buyers and sellers use it to confirm they are getting a fair price on cars. The KBB website now comes in an iPhone-friendly version.

The iPhone version of the site offers three areas: new cars, used cars, and research. The new car section allows you to look for cars via a search box or a menu system of makes and models. Each car features MSRP price, invoice price, the Blue Book “new car” value, and EPA gas mileage for the car.

The used car section starts with the selection of the year going back to 1988. After selecting the make and model, there is pricing information for both buyers and sellers of the car. It even lets you enter in the car’s mileage to see how it affects the price.

The research section allows you to search and watch YouTube videos from KBB featuring car reviews and previews. Searching for Corvette brought up these two (1, 2) YouTube videos, which, when selected, launch the iPhone’ YouTube app. Kelley Blue Book has over 160 videos on YouTube to browse through.

The site is incredibly useful for those shopping for a car, and in a lot of ways the iPhone site’s uncluttered interface is superior and easier to use than the original site’s somewhat cluttered interface.

Link:

Kelley Blue Book’s iPhone website.

Google Translate (iPhone Webapp)

Aug 15

Posted by Alan in Apple iPhone, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

Google Translate is another well-crafted iPhone-friendly website from Google. The webapp offers free translation for 26 languages (see list below). The translation is most accurate for short, common phrases like, “Where is the airport?”, so it’d be a perfect tool for traveling overseas (check your data roaming fees first) or if you ran into one of them strange devil-tongued foreigners you only see in the big city.

The list of languages Google Translate supports:

Arabic
Bulgarian
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hindi
Italian
Korean
Japanese
Norwegian
Polish
Romanian
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Spanish

For more iPhone-optimized websites, visit the A World of iPhone Links page.

NBC’s Mobile Beijing Olympics 2008 Website (iPhone Webapp)

Aug 10

Posted by Alan in iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

The next best thing to being in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics is reading about it on your iPhone. Right? NBC has a mobile friendly site for their 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage. The site shows Beijing time in the banner along with US Eastern standard time for those keeping track of events. The site also offers the latest news, scores, medal count, results, schedules, TV listings, video (works fine on the iPhone), and info on Team America.

It’s not the best put together mobile site I’ve seen, and the info is a little iffy. I tried to track down the TV time for the US vs China basketball game on Sunday, and there was no information. The medal count screen is pretty cool though.

Link

NBC’s Mobile 2008 Beijing Olympics website

Tags: iPhone optimized websites, Mobile 2008 Olympics

ESPN Podcenter (iPhone Webapp)

Aug 9

Posted by Alan in iPhone Sports, iPhone Sports Apps, iPhone Webapps, iPhone Websites | No Comments

There are still plenty of iPhone webapps that are just as good as any native app. An example is ESPN’s Podcenter. The Podcenter is simply an iPhone-friendly site that lets you listen to all of ESPN’s podcasts. Select any episode, and the mp3 will begin playing in the iPhone’s browser. It even works fine over EDGE if you give it a minute to cache.

Sure, you can subscribe to all of these podcasts in iTunes. But if you’re like me, sometimes you just end up with a bunch of podcasts building up in your library that you rarely listen to. Sometimes, you just want to hear what Mike & Mike are saying about recent news like the Brett Favre trade.

The only downside is that the podcasts are usually a day old, so you’re listening to yesterday’s news. But with a show as entertaining as Pardon the Interruption, it doesn’t matter much.

Link

ESPN Podcenter iPhone webapp.

For more iPhone webapps, check out the A World of iPhone Links page.