Macgasm

Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes it seems like the worst part about having to cook isn’t the cooking itself. It’s figuring out what I feel like eating, what I have in my pantry, and what I need to buy. Cookmate tries to solve that problem by suggesting recipes based on the ingredients you have at home, and automatically making a shopping list with the everything you need to buy.

How does it work?

When you first open the app, you’re faced with a virtual pantry with several groups of ingredients like meat, dairy and vegetables. By clicking on each one, you can select the specific ingredients you have available in your kitchen. When you’re done you go back to the main screen and click search.

Cookmate will now list all the recipes — ordered by the ingredients you have available. You can then click on a recipe to see it in detail and to see a list of the ingredients you’re missing. From there, it automatically adds the ingredients to the grocery list with the click of a button.

The Good

One of the things I love about this app is that it’s several apps in one: a recipe app, a shopping list app and a kitchen inventory app. It helps keep my iPhone homescreen slightly less cluttered. Another great feature is that you can share your favorite recipes by email or Facebook, and you can email or text your grocery list to someone else if you don’t have the time to do the shopping yourself.

The Not So Good

One of my main concerns is that I can’t add my own recipes or edit the existing ones. Apparently, in the next version, you will be able to buy more recipes via in-app purchases, but I would still like to add my own. I would also like to be able to add other ingredients to the app. Another thing that bothers me is that the app only considers ingredients, but not quantities. So if I have 2 eggs at home, and a recipe asks for 6 it won’t warn me that I need more (and I can’t add them manually to the grocery list).

Overall Cookmate has a brilliant concept, gorgeous design and great functionality. It does have some limitations, but it’s expected since it’s currently a 1.01 release. I will definitely keep an eye on its development since it shows a great deal of promise. In the mean time, I’m going to whip up some yummy recipes.

Follow me on Twitter for more great apps recommendations.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter might remember this little gem of a tweet I posted a couple of months ago:

You probably thought I was crazy, right? Some of you might’ve even stopped following me. Well guess what? Some people are even crazier than me! No, really!

Seriously, you can stop laughing now.

Apparently someone thought of an even weirder “stylus” for the iPhone, very useful when it’s freezing cold and you don’t want to take off your gloves to tweet your daily ramblings: snack sausages. These sausages from CJ Corporation are, electrostatically speaking, close approximations of the human finger and as such can be used for input on the iPhone’s touchscreen. And if you think this is just something gimmicky that nobody actually uses check out this report: sales of Max sausages in convenience stores have surged a full 39 per cent over the same period last year, presumably because of how popular they are becoming among iPhone users.

So I end this post with a little challenge: what else can you find that works as a stylus for the iPhone?

Via kottke.org and The Register.

Apple just released iPhone OS 3.1.3 Software Update for the iPhone and iPod touch addressing several bugs as well as fixes for a few security issues.

This update for the iPhone and iPod touch contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

- Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS
- Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances
- Fixes bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard

More detailed information on the changes of this release can be found in this support document.

According to TechCrunch the official “Google Phone” is currently being tested and expected to launch as soon as January 2010. This new phone will be an actual “Google branded” device (even though it’s made by HTC) in which every aspect of the OS will be designed by Google, to create a more solid user experience, unlike their other Android phones which have some input from the manufacturers.

Some of its highlighted features

• Will be sold as an unlocked GSM phone and distributed directly by Google
• Android 2.1 (unreleased at this point)
• Uses Snapdragon chip which is “really, really fast”
• High resolution OLED screen
• Thinner than iPhone (battery life anyone?)
• Two mics, one on the back to reduce background noise
• “Weirdly” large camera
• Touchscreen keyboard
• Voice to text for dictation

Honestly, I don’t see how an official “Google Phone” can be that much different than all the other devices that are currently running the Android OS. Supposedly it’s a big deal that they designed the whole software behind the phone to every last detail, without being limited or influenced by the manufacturer in terms of features and UI like with their other phones, similarly to what Apple does with the iPhone and their other products. But there’s one big flaw with that concept: it’s still one more Android device, different from all the others available now, with slightly different software limitations and capabilities.

Why is that a problem?

One of the things, in my opinion, that truly made the iPhone a big deal was the App Store and the fact that apps run pretty much the same way on each device running the iPhone OS is a big part of that experience. The fact that there’s only one device made by one manufacturer (with slight changes on each generation, of course) with the same native OS means developers don’t have to fix bugs that are particular to one device, they don’t have to modify their apps to work on different handsets and they don’t have to choose to invest their sometimes scarce resources on the device that’s more popular. A “Google Phone” just makes the Android app market ever so slightly more fragmented, makes the developers job a bit more complex with one more device to support (or possibly not support) and it’s one step further from the seamless experience offered by Apple and the iPhone.

I don’t think this will be a bad device, far from it. I just don’t think there’s anything truly remarkable that sets it apart from all the other devices running Android. Actually I think the only true advantage of the “Google Phone” is the fact that it will be carrier-free and unlocked from the start. Am I the only one?

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the “Google phone” has an official name of “Nexus One”.

HootSuite is a web-based Twitter client and statistics tool aimed mainly at hardcore users (although regular users should find it simple enough for normal tweeting).

Today their brand new companion app, HootSuite for iPhone, just went live in the App Store ($1.99 for a limited time) and it does not disappoint: it’s very quick, it has a gorgeous UI and it includes some popular features (lists, multiple accounts, columns for different streams…) along with some exciting new functionality that will make it that much more useful for businesses and people who rely on social media for networking:

- Tweets scheduling: In HootSuite, when composing a new tweet, you have the option to pick out a date and time for publishing it. This is very useful if you have a lot to say but don’t want to overwhelm your followers with too much tweets at once, by easily spacing them out throughout the day. It’s also a great way to maximize how many people you will reach since you can schedule them to be posted at a time when there’s more Twitter traffic so you’ll get a bigger response.

- Analytics tool: If you use Twitter for business, and not just as an outlet for your daily ramblings, the ability to analyze how many people click on your links and how that traffic is distributed is essential for figuring out the best strategic course of action to leverage Twitter to improve your social media presence, drive traffic to your blog or just to get some following for your own very important self.

- Sync: Last but not least HootSuite for the iPhone syncs seamlessly with the web client. That means that all your scheduled tweets and your shortened links (with the analytics graphs that go with them) are always up to date whether you’re using the iPhone app or the web version. Also this makes it extra easy to set up HootSuite on the iPhone if you already have an account: just login and all your Twitter accounts will be instantly set up.

I definitely will keep an eye out for HootSuite’s development, since it has some interesting possibilities, but I don’t think it will ever completely replace Tweetie for me (although some of its features might complement it nicely).

That being said, even though I really like this app and its features I’m not sure if I’ll use it for much more than just scheduling tweets. Why? Because for link shortening and tracking of traffic StumbleUpon’s su.pr format is still my favorite since it has the huge advantage of also sharing your content with the StumbleUpon community, which can potentially improve your social media presence by exposing it to a larger audience.

On the other hand the HootSuite iPhone app makes it that much easier to track and analyze your stats on the go, which can be very useful for busy people who might need instant access to all this information in order to make quick decisions and changes as they’re needed. Plus HootSuite has the cute owl icon.

Decisions, decisions…

Here’s a quick video demonstrating some of HootSuite’s features on the iPhone:

Have you tried HootSuite? Will it replace your regular Twitter client?

Are you bored with the typical dull Christmas cards that you can find everywhere? Want something fun and unique for your loved ones? Well, if you have more money than sense, and a knack for arts and crafts, here’s a fun little project that is sure to make someone very happy:

Not only is this a fun video and a genius idea but it’s a great way for the author to get his Christmas app Bauble noticed. Well done!

One of the biggest complaints about the iPhone is the camera quality and even with the new and improved 3MP camera of the 3GS it seems that this feeling still stands. I have to say I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment because not only I believe the iPhone’s camera has a lot of hidden potential but also because there are numerous apps that unleash its true capabilities. Here are 5 of my favorite photography apps:

1. Photogene ($2.99) is basically a mini Photoshop for the iPhone and a must-have app, in my opinion. It comes with a full range of editing features like color correction, cropping, special effects and customized frames and when you’re done you can email your photos from the app itself. This application is very intuitive and makes it extremely easy to edit your photos and have some fun with some of the silly frames and text bubbles included.

Similar apps: PhotoForge

2. Camera Genius ($1.99) expands the iPhone’s camera capabilities with quite a few options that help you take better control of how you take your shots: timer, digital zoom, anti-shake (very useful for taking better pictures in the dark), alignment guides and even location and timestamps. But one of my favorite features is probably that the Camera Genius saves your pictures in the background so that you can immediately start snapping, without having to wait for each picture to save, like with the standard camera app.

Similar apps: Night Camera, Darkroom Premium

3. Panorama ($9.99) makes it very easy to take beautiful panoramic photos by overlapping your shots so that you can align them properly. The app then stitches all of your shots together, while doing some adjusting to make everything seamless, and outputs them full size creating breathtaking landscapes that will be sure to impress your family and friends.

Similar apps: Pano, AutoStitch

4. The Best Camera ($2.99) is one of the elements of the three part eco-system (the app, the book and the community) based on the concept “The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You™” created by renowned photographer Chase Jarvis. The app includes a set of gorgeous filters that you can apply and reorder to your heart’s desire to get the best possible effect. When you’re done you can share your creation on Facebook, Twitter or with the online Best Cam community. For some inspiration you can check out the book, a beautiful celebration of iPhone photography.

5. Perfectly Clear ($2.99) is a great app to get your photos clearer and brighter with just a touch of a button. The app applies a number of automatic corrections to your pictures making them look more vibrant and it lets you easily compare the the results by seeing the “before” and “after” side to side. If you’re still not perfectly happy with the results you can then adjust all the parameters yourself and make sure you get your photos looking perfect. The fact that you can get gorgeous results so effortless makes this app a winner for me.

Do you know any other good photography apps not listed here? Let me know in the comments.

One of the things I love about the iPhone (and Macs in general) is that it seems to push people to be creative: from an iPhone photography book to a cover for The New Yorker there’s some incredible stuff being done with iPhones.

This is a version of Weezer’s Pork and Beans music video in which the whole song is played entirely with iPhone instruments. Not only that but also the iPhone is a big part of the video itself. Check it out:

If you like this video you should check out GuizDP‘s other videos. His version of Twist and Shout is one of my favorites.