Macgasm

Those familiar with iPhone/iTouch optimized websites might have heard of or seen a jQTouch site. Created by David Kaneda, it was the first and only jquery-based mobile web toolkit to make mobile sites have the same look and feel as native iPhone apps.

A new trend in native apps was to create a mobile web app and use Phonegap to be the native wrapper and submit it to the AppStore. Several apps such as Keypoint , Harmonious , and Beer in Japan are based on jQTouch.

Recently David Kaneda has joined the Ext JS company, and they have renamed the company Sencha and have Sencha Touch, the first HTML5 Mobile App Framework for iOS and Android.

They have three full featured demos, GeoCongress, Solitaire and Kiva, which look outstanding and function very well on my iPhone 3GS and scale perfectly for the iPad.

The assumption is that these apps will still be able to be wrapped up by PhoneGap to produce native apps to submit on the AppStore and Android Marketplace.  While the framework is still in beta, there is no commerical license yet.  There is an open source license, so all web apps and web apps wrapped in a native wrapper must be compatible with the GNU GPL license v3.

As the battle between smartphones continue we will see some fail (ahem, Palm webOS) and some team together to corner the market (currently iPhones and Android – 90% of market). However, no one wants to create multiple versions of their site or application. The universal app across different mobile operating systems is the ultimate goal and one step closer thanks to Sencha.

Key features:

• Flexible Themes
• Resolution Independent
• Animations (Slide, Fade, Cube, etc.)
• Touch Events – swipe, double tap, tap, etc.
• Standards Based (HTML5, CSS3, Javascript)
• Data Integration (JSON, AJAX, YQL)

Below are some screenshots of some examples if you download Sencha.

My prediction is you will see a lot of webapps and even native apps starting to use this framework as it speeds up development time and breaks Apple’s developer strangle-hold!

Canadian iPhone users know that Canadian iPhone banking apps didn’t even exist until this year.  It all started with CIBC coming out with an iPhone mobile banking app (Feb.2010), then advertising it all over the web, TV and with mobile advertising in the popular Weather Network’s app.  Additionally,  this week ING Direct Canada released an iPhone/iPod touch app and a Blackberry app that will revolutionize their business, allowing their clients to use their smartphones to check balances; more importantly, Canadians now have the long-awaited ability to transfer funds. This is only the beginning.  With the iPad and other smart devices coming into households, the desktop online banking paradigm will change and mobile banking will be the defacto standard.

I am quite impressed with both CIBC and ING Direct iPhone apps, both are well designed, full-featured and very easy to use. They both have the check balances, review transactions and transfer funds features.

The thing I like about the ING Direct app is that they show consideration and respect for the Twitter community by including a button to access ING’s Twitter accounts.  Since ING Direct is not a traditional chequing account bank, it doesn’t have the Pay bills or Interac email transfer features that CIBC does. Additional features include current interest rates as well as geolocation of ABMs on a map.

CIBC’s app is very extensive and brings in credit card balances and lines of credit as well. One issue I had with CIBC’s app is that when you go to the ABM locator, it actually opens Safari and provides another mobile friendly site where you can then find your closest ABM. It’s not a good experience for users when you get ousted from an app you are in and moved into Safari (Note to CIBC: Fix this, or just copy what ING did).  The mobile Interac email money transfer service is great to share bills or pay friends.

It is questionable whether or not these apps will actually bring in new business, however it is undoubtedly a great service to provide their existing clients and increase customer retention/satisfaction.

Honorable Mentions go out to RBC for their mobile site. Even though this site is not elaborate, it does the job.  Better than this is Scotia Bank with both an iPhone and Blackberry app (no banking features).

Special thanks to @krusk for the screenshots of the CIBC banking app.

Ok, ok I know I don’t have to convince you that the iPhone is the best gadget EVER! But this app certainly helps to make it even more productive if that’s even possible.

Dictation apps have been around for years, and most people picture someone wearing a big headset and talking into it. Not with this app from the makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking for Windows – Nuance.

The Dragon Dictation app is brilliant.  Tap and speak into your iPhone which comes so naturally to us. After speaking the analyzer does it’s thing, then you can email, text message or copy to clipboard and your voice has been transcribed for you. You press a word and you can get a dropdown of suggested corrections as well. Now I tested this out quite a bit and the disclaimer nothing is perfect applies here, but it comes pretty darn close. I was amazed as to the accuracy that was achieved. Even pretending with a thick Indian accent produced decent results.

People have complained about the iPhone not being able to keep up with the Blackberry in terms of keyboard typing speeds, and if that’s the case for you then this app is a pretty sweet middle ground.  It can transcribe, fix the odd mistake and have that email sent before a Crackberry user thumbs the send button.

The best part of this app is it’s part of the iPhone and therefore portable. Other than lugging around a laptop, I don’t know any other portable transcribing software out there. Doctors, cops, writers and journalists all could benefit from using this app. This has so many purposes and it’s free.

Download from iTunes

Image Credit: tibchris

Lets face it, as much as vcards and iPhone contact swap apps are really cool, we still haven’t eliminated the basic business card.  The hard part with business cards is having the info on hand when you need it. This is where the WorldCard Mobile app comes in. A Business card reader/scanner app that is so simple and accurate to use, that its worth the $9.99 price tag. (If you act now until Dec.31, it’s 40% off a steal at $5.99 USD)

I tried various cards and the results were very surprising that this app could recognize the structured data and put it into the Contact fields ready for editing/correcting and saving right into Contacts on your iPhone. Phone numbers, fax numbers, URLs, emails, and company names, were all properly placed in the correct fields.

Highlights:

• Recognition in 7 languages
• Data export into any desired contact group
• Excellent recognition quality

If you want to throw away that old Rolodex on your table or you have so many business cards you can’t see the bottom of your desk, definitely get this app. Fully worth the money to digitize the contacts in your life. Why pay $40-100 for a dedicated business card scanner when you can pay a fraction of that and have it on your “does everything” iPhone.

Consider giving this as a gift for Christmas to an iPhone user in your life to help them de-clutter their contacts.

iTunes Link: WorldCard Mobile App

Screenshots below blurred to protect the innocent.

Busy much? Then you’re like me and you love a couple tv shows yet have a hard time being able to watch them or keep track of them. Whether you watch tv, record it on your PVR, Hulu, or download – this little iPhone-optimized Web application is very handy – Showtime App. This was developed using jQTouch — a jQuery plugin for mobile web development which makes it easy to make really slick iPhone web apps with simple HTML, Javascript and the jQuery library.

Now back to the Showtime app, you pick your favourite shows with a toggle switch, then…….that’s it, easy! It keeps a listing of the episodes of each show and notifies you with a little yellow star when a new episode is available. In the watch list, you will have a counter of how many episodes are available to watch. The Weekly Schedule screen is a new feature as of this month and gives a nice calendar week view of all your episodes.

The site boasts that it currently tracks 309 TV programs consisting of a total of 50,291 episodes. Not bad for a free app.

To get it, just visit http://showtime-app.com in the Safari web browser on the iPhone and add it to your homescreen for fullscreen mode.

The developer took some time to make this web app easy to use and nice to look at, so you he deserves a buck or two, don’t forget to donate if you can. Honestly, I can’t even tell this is a web app and not a native iPhone app, great job to the developer.

For those who don’t have a car or choose a lifestyle without one, there is the odd time when you really really need a car. Whether it be taking that important someone around the town or running errands one day, there is a car rental service called Zipcar in many US cities, Vancouver, Toronto and London, UK. Fees range anywhere from $7/hr to $68/day with annual membership.

It allows you to basically rent the car, insurance, gas and all and drive it around, drop it off at one of the other Zipcar locations and go about your day. Significantly cheaper than any rental car agency and the all-inclusive pricing really hits the pocketbook lightly.

Did I mention, the variety of cars is top notch:

• Hybrids
• Mini Coopers
• BMW
• Subaru
• Volvo

The iPhone app really makes the Zipcar service user friendly by allowing you to find the Zipcar location closest to you and the cars available at that location. You can filter by car, model, type and time available. You can even, get this, make the Zipcar you’ve reserved beep it’s horn, lock/unlock the car from your iPhone. No joke, now that should be standard in every car, my wish for 2010.

It’s a well-designed, useful and functional app that truly compliments and sells the Zipcar service. I’d like to see more companies out there thinking outside the box like this to make our lives easier, wouldn’t you?

Download from iTunes – Zipcar iPhone App

Image Source: baldheretic

DrinkTracker is the perfect drinking companion when you’re out on the town. Another useful app to save your butt when your having fun and can’t keep BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) stats and drink counts straight.

DrinkTracker has the concept of a drinking session and allows you to add drinks immediately or in the past with a date picker. As you keep on adding drinks (which is totally customizable for your favourite drinks) it calculates your blood alcohol content (based on your profile) and will warn you with a popup that you have exceeded your Target BAC. At this point the decision is yours to keep on drinking or stop, however at least you know you should not be driving back home.

Once you have exceeded it you can tap the “Outta Here!” button to get your current location and intended destination, click method of travel (taxi, walk, bus, drive) and get hooked into the standard Maps app which will serve the tailored info to you. It even has an email button that emails a predefined message with the subject “Come Pick Me Up” and your current GPS location to a designated driver.

Highlights:

• Multiple profiles of drinkers
• Pre-defined and customizable drinks w/alcohol content
• Manage multiple locations
• Send a “Pick me up, I’ve been drinking” message by SMS, Email

Great thing about this app is that it does the math for you and even helps you get home in one piece. Definitely a worthy purchase for anyone from an occasional to frequent drinker.  You can even show the cops that pull you over your drinking session in a nice handy iPhone app!

This app makes a great gift for the holiday season to keep everyone alive and well.

A cheap ticket out of a DUI – on iTunes – DrinkTracker by Slappme.com. Find them on Twitter @drinktracker

Image Credit: burnblue

Do you have lots of ideas? Need a simple and graphical way to organize them? Well then Mind Mapping is for you.  A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing. (Reference: Wikipedia: mind map)

MindNode, the iPhone companion app to the superb Mac desktop software (Freeware and Pro Version available) makes mind mapping so easy that you can rapidly map your ideas or related items within minutes.

Highlight of features:

• Easily flip between graphical view of nodes to hierarchical list of nodes
• Apply different colours to lines
• Email it directly from iPhone in various file formats (MindNode doc, Free Mind doc, PNG, etc)
• Create multiple mind maps

Students, creative types and entrepreneurs (to name a few) can benefit from this crisp, simple and user-friendly app to document ideas, weigh out decisions or to just visualize related data easily.  Perfect for brainstorming sessions or to whiteboard ideas with colleagues. This time-saving tool can really enhance productivity.

The freeware desktop version is a great taste of what the software can do, however if you want to take advantage of the desktop/iPhone/touch sync and a whole slew of extra features, buy the pro version for a mere $15 US.

The price tag is not cheap ($7.99), however the amount you pay for a well designed app like this is priceless. Definitely the best mind mapping iPhone app on the App Store. Hands down!