Macgasm

I’ve been reading about (and hearing about) a ton of Grocery applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, and none has stood out for me until I saw Grocery IQ ($0.99). Grocery IQ is a simple yet extremely powerful grocery shopping list that is elegant and professionally done (the company behind it is Coupons.com). Easily add items to the list by clicking the “+” sign. Start typing your product name and watch as Grocery IQ checks what you’re writing against its database — if it’s in the system, you can click and have it added. If it’s not in the system, you can click “Done” and it will be added for you.

Once the item is on your list, click on it and you’ll see what kind of store you can buy it at (e.g. the Grocery Store, of course, though you can add other stores — which become separate lists — as well) and the aisle you’ll likely find it in. There are also user inputs for quantity, unit price, description, and notes. If you find yourself buying the particular product regularly, you can add it to your favorites so that you can reuse the item on a new shopping list.

Access your Favorites on the bottom of the screen, and click on them to add them to the current shopping list. When the item is bought, click on it and then Check Out so it gets removed from your list. (You can also swipe and delete if you choose.)

Each screen features a detailed Help menu that lets you learn a little more about the features available to you, so working with this is a breeze.

I’m going to have to say that Grocery IQ is going to give Groceries a run for its money. In fact, it’s $4 cheaper and seems to be laden with features including a database of over 130,000 items and a graphical user interface that can’t be beat. I don’t think you can go wrong with the Grocery IQ application; it is truly the best in its class. If you don’t want to write down what you need to buy and want help with what you do feel that you need to purchase, the Grocery IQ application is excellent, and with an extremely detailed database, this application is definitely the answer to your prayers.

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In this episode, we talk about Photoshop.com Mobile.

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If you like word games, you’ll love Wordology ($2.99). In this game, the object is to create as many words as possible, using up as many tiles as possible and leaving as few tiles possible on-screen. At first, you can leave a handful of tiles, but that number gets smaller and smaller as you progress through the levels, all of which are not entirely too difficult. You’re awarded bonus points by using certain tiles, granted extra lives by using colored tiles, and given a faster timer with the presence of other tiles. But all in all, with so many tiles to choose from, this never really seems to be a problem. In fact, some of my longest words exceeded 10 letters (which I felt was great; most word games don’t let you think about long words at all).

As a word game enthusiast, I could play just about any type of word game, but I really enjoyed and appreciated the great graphics of this game. You can tell by Wordology’s polished look that the development team really took pride in making an aesthetically pleasing game to be enjoyed for hours. If it’s any indication by how much I really liked the game, it certainly delivered. Of course, the actual game itself was fun and addictive, and it’s one of those games one who loves word games won’t tire of. There are just so many opportunities to make great words and beat your high score.

How does one lose, then? You need to run out of all of your lives. This can be done by having the timer run out at any given time or by misspelling a word. But even 2 letter words are good to go here, so it’s hard to really mess up.

If there’s any gripe I had with this game, it’s probably trying to figure out how to rid myself of 20 lives once I had the letters D, X, and W on my game screen. There’s not much I can do with those, and it didn’t look like it was possible for me to end the game then and there. I had to wait until the timer ran out on every life before I got a “game over” screen. That’s not so much a big deal; I could have accelerated the process by faking words “W,” “X,” and “D,” all of which would have cost me a life. But there should be an option that says “end game” or something when it’s clear there are no move remaining.

But that gripe aside, Wordology is incredible fun, and at this point, it’s my favorite word game for the iPhone.

I have been an iPhone user for just over a year. It has been my link to have the “world” in my pocket. The applications and ease of use has always been a phenomenal experience on the iPhone. Since apple introduced the iPhone back in 2007, it has been like a status symbol for people. Everyone has wanted an iPhone. Like always though, when apple brings something revolutionary to the game, everybody tries to go after it and beat it. Over the last couple of years we have seen several companies try to compete against the iPhone. The most promising though has always been Google’s Android platform. The first Android handset was set to go head to head with the iPhone. Unfortunately the hardware is what held the G1 back. But now things are about to change. I have recently become an android user with the HTC hero.

So let me tell you about this great device that has won me over. The HTC hero runs the HTC version of android called “Sense” The UI is absolutely beautiful. Instead of using push for services, they actually run in the background. This is super handy for little things like google latitude or loopt for location services. But benefits for running in the background get much better. If you have to leave an app for something, when you go back it is where you left off. Another great part is if you are a last.fm user, when listening to your music on the device, the last.fm app scrobbles live! I don’t have to sync and wait for my computer to do it’s thing. The Android Market place is simple to use and again, after you purchase your app (free or paid) it downloads in the background while you do what you want to do. Purchasing music couldn’t be easier either. Android uses amazon mp3 for music purchases and downloads directly to your device. To get the music on your computer just hook up the phone through USB and mount the disk, then just drag your songs out of the music folder. But the biggest thing is expandable memory and replaceable battery. The HTC hero uses Micro SDHC cards, it comes with 2GB but I recently just replaced it with a 16GB.

The android platform in my opinion blows the iPhone OS out of the water. I really enjoy using it and the customization is fantastic. Unlike with the iPhone, the android platform is not locked down, I can do what I wish with my hero and not have to worry. I can stream video too and from the phone, and most the apps from the apple app store are actually in the android market place. So in closing, if you are thinking of leaving your iPhone, or you have never purchased an iPhone and are just looking for a new phone, look into the android phones. More are coming out, and android is gaining momentum. Android is a true competitor to apple.

I grew up playing the LIFE board game. There was nary a weekend that I didn’t play it with my younger sisters. Now, the experience is available on the iPhone/iPod touch. For $4.99, the Game of Life is great family fun for all ages.

If you’ve played this board game before, almost identical game play is afforded on the iPhone or iPod touch. And if you haven’t, don’t fret. The game mimics your “life,” in that you specify what kind of career or schooling choices you must make before retiring (hopefully as a rich person to live in Millionaire Estates). If you don’t choose a college path, for example, you might be a hairdresser with a $30,000 salary. On the other hand, if you actually spend that time going to school, you might see more appealing careers, like an accountant making $70,000 or a doctor making $100,000. Spin the wheel (it’s fun!) and make your moves, then decide what kinds of paths you want to take.

As you progress through the game board, you face several pay days (you get paid every time you pass one of these spots), get married, and if you choose, have kids. In one experience, I ended up with twin girls:

My opponent, on the other hand, didn’t care to have any children. He also didn’t have an as-fulfilling life as me and lost the game.

Here’s what I loved:

• The game is fast (when I used to play as a kid, the game would take 20 minutes to a half hour). You can enjoy this game in as little as a few minutes. There are options to play the game at normal speed and fast-forwarded speed, and to skip through to the next turn.
• You don’t always have to spin. You can also explore the game board and see what kinds of moves are available to you at any given time.
• Game graphics are elegant, and you can tell that EA Mobile did a phenomenal job polishing this application for hours of enjoyment. While the games themselves are short, once a game is over, you’re going to want to play again and try another career path (and even a family path).
• You can play against opponents, but at this point, there’s no wifi connectivity.  That’s fine — I don’t know if I’d trust someone to actually stay with me throughout the game if playing over wifi.  This is a viable alternative to having a game that has a lot of loose and small parts.

In other words, little goes wrong here. In fact, it’s a really great imitation of an incredibly solid and fun board game. I honestly can’t wait until my son grows up to play this with him. He’s got a few years, though.

If you’re a big fan of The Game of Life, you won’t be disappointed with this realistic representation. It’s still challenging, exciting, and a joy to play.

There’s been a barrage of Verizon news already this week, and the funny thing is that they’re on completely differing ends of an invisible spectrum that has Apple being happy at one end, and Apple being extremely annoyed on another. It’s pretty funny.

First it came out that Apple’s testing a 4G iPhone on the Verizon network. This in and of itself would be excellent news for consumers. It would mean the end of exclusivity in the US and it would also mean another step forward technologically. Who couldn’t get behind that? Here’s a quote from the blog.

My sources have confirmed that Apple and Verizon have been testing a CDMA iPhone on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Yes, you read that correctly, Verizon and Apple have been testing the first 4G phone on Verizon’s 4G network.

Now this could be huge news if it were true, but I have my skepticisms about it. Not because this couldn’t be possible, but because today it was also announced that Verizon is about to release a pretty big advertisement campaign that pokes fun at the iPhone and promotes an Android phone, which is a pretty hilarious video by the way.

See how something doesn’t jive here, or am I the only one?

I don’t see Verizon slapping Apple in the face if they’re really working on a deal to bring the iPhone to their company, especially if it’s still in the precarious negotiation stages, that would be ridiculous.

I’m calling FUD on the 4G testing.

Did I mention that Apple’s testing a 5G iPhone on the Sprint network?  That should get some extra traffic.

Via 9 to 5 Mac and Electronista

Image Credit: LafayetteBeacon

It’s no secret that Apple’s Camera application sucks the big one.  It’s laggy, it’s slow, it doesn’t respond well in low light, and it certainly takes ‘meh’ pictures.  I get that it can be used all artfully and take some nice abstract photos, but sometimes you want to take a simple and clear picture.  Given the tools available in the phone I’m left scratching my head trying to figure out why the application isn’t better.

Thanks fully 1Shoot has done quite a bit of work and solved some of the problems that are currently plaguing the device.  For instance, in the world of life-casters taking photos of one’s self is a must, and the iPhone doesn’t exactly make that easy.  1Shoot solves this by making the whole screen a button you can push, instead of forcing you deduce where a button is on the screen.  Kinda makes sense.

The second really cool thing it does is helps you take focused photos.  Instead  of forcing you to push a “button” to take it picture, it gives you a nice little heads up display that turns green when you’re holding the camera steady.  Once the display turns green it automatically takes a picture, thereby eliminating some of the focus issues.

Finally, it takes a pretty big next step in mobile photography that Apple has seemed to overlook in the development of their iPhone application.  Write times to the phones storage space is slow, and severely hampers your ability to take a candid shot on time with Apple’s Camera application.  1Shoot solves this little problem as well, instead of writing your pictures to the photo application space, it keeps them in a cache, so you can decide what photos to save once you’re done trying to get that kiss on camera.

I’m pretty impressed that a development company has taken the three biggest gripes about Apple’s camera application and tried to fix them all, in a creative yet effective manner.  1Shoot has become my camera application of choice, and it’s certainly worth the price (free for now!).

If you’re taking a lot of images on your phone, you need to check this out.

Photo Credit: cubicpt

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In this episode, we talk about the growing divide between Google and Apple.

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