Browsing apps in the App Store isn't quite criminal, but it's definitely not optimal for finding fantastic apps. Besides Giz's own iPhone app coverage and roundups, there are four other ways to find buried goodness.TheAppleBlog lays out four different sites that make it way easier to find the quality app gems that are wallowing, helplessly, in the toxic cesspool of utter crap that makes up most of the App Store.
First up (and most highly recommend of the bunch) is AppBeacon, which requires an account, and you track what apps you own, like and dislike, filtering out the crap you're not interested in (or that's just crap) and bookmarking what you might wanna check out. Unfortunately, there's no recommendation system built-in yet based on what you do like, but that's the next logical step.
AppShopper is from MacRumors' Arn Kim, and it shows you the newest and mostly recently updated apps, which you can filter by pricepoint and even price changes, so you can see when an app you want gets cheaper.
Apptism is similar to AppBeacon, but has deeper, more customizable filters to get really specific about what you're looking for. The killer feature is its Preview listings, which encourages devs to post screenshots and other info about upcoming apps they're working on.
iPhonexe is apparently pretty crappy and ugly, but the value is that it lists apps for jailbroken phones too.
AppSniper tracks app prices and when they get cheaper, from your iPhone, no less.
Showing posts with label 10 Most Awesome iPhone Apps of 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 10 Most Awesome iPhone Apps of 2008. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Finding Supercool iPhone Apps
Monday, February 2, 2009
‘Duck Hunt’ iPhone game pulled at Nintendo's request
Lawl Mart’s Duck Hunt, an iPhone and iPod touch game that has been available at the App Store, can’t be found any more. The developer says that the game came down at the request of Nintendo, which alleges copyright infringement.
That SUCKS!
Released in January, Duck Hunt made it through Apple’s App Store vetting process and was available for purchase for 99 cents. The game mirrors a title that Nintendo originally released for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, its 1980s-era video game console, and one of the first to support Nintendo’s Zapper, a light gun peripheral.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
iPhone apps: Sports Gambling
Several new additions to the App Store promise to see sports fans through this barren stretch with an oasis of information about their favorite sports and teams.
Prolific app maker GP Apps has spent the past few days ramping up its team-specific iFan offerings for folks with a college basketball jones. The iFan app offers the latest news, scores, and schedule information tailored to your favorite team.
Finally, fans of other sports can turn to a pair of programs from iApp Ventures. Horse Racing Live delivers horse-racing headlines directly to any iPhone or second-generation iPod touch while Nascar Live offers to do the same for stock-car racing. Horse Racing Live costs $10 while Nascar Live costs $5.
FULL ARTICLE
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Casino Slots doubles traffic thanks to iPhone
It's not just mobile games firms getting hot under the collar about smartphones nowadays. Mobile gambling companies are equally keen on taking their products to new mobile handsets."Since Spin3 launched its casino games for the iPhone last year, we have doubled the expected amount of players visiting our mobile casino," says David Brickman, VP of player affairs at All Slots Casino, one of the companies using Spin3's GameWire platform.
It's interesting that Spin3's titles are web apps for iPhone and Android, showing that it's still unclear whether play-for-cash mobile gambling will take off as downloadable applications on either platform.
Monday, January 26, 2009
iFu Kung Fu for iPhone
Yesterday on Bytemarks Cafe, Russel Cheng of local tech company Oceanit unveiled a new application they’ve developed for Apple’s iPhone (and iPod Touch): iFu Kung Fu. The app is simple and fun, tapping the iPhone’s accellerometer to trigger kung fu sound effects with each movement. After launching iFu — which introduces itself with a cryptic phrase in Mandarin (that’s really a motto of Oceanit CEO Patrick Sullivan) — users can imagine themselves in a kung fu battle, wielding their iPhone as it converts jabs and swings into whooshes and battle cries.
Russel noted that the iFu Kung Fu app was inspired in part by PhoneSaber, an app that played lightsaber sound effects from “Star Wars.” That app was a resounding success, but was withdrawn after the developer was notified of trademark and infringement issues. Fortunately, it later came back as an official “Star Wars” app.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Gun-Mount and Sniper Software for your iPod
IPod Touch as deadly sniper accessory? Awesome. This is the Knight's Armaments M110 iPod Touch mount, a clip-on case designed to hold your iPod Touch in easy reach while you draw a bead on the enemy.FULL ARTICLE HERE
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Slacker Brings Free Music to Your iPhone
The race to make the best mobile internet-radio app is on. Smartphones like the iPhone provide an excellent platform for their services, which let users sculpt their listening experience in ways that are impossible with terrestrial or even satellite radio.Slacker's iPhone app, announced Wednesday, lets you create radio stations by entering the names of artists you'd like to hear in that station. It's super simple yet surprisingly powerful, with a couple of advanced features not available elsewhere.
This free application (iTunes link) essentially replaces Slacker's own $200 device, giving you access to all of your Slacker channels whenever you have an internet connection, and the iPhone has better controls. I say "essentially" because Slacker's portable is capable of caching interactive channels for playback, while the iPhone version only plays when it has an internet connection (via Edge, 3G or Wi-Fi). This rules out subway use, but as long as you don't enter into areas with poor coverage, the iPhone version does just fine — better than fine, actually.
Full Article
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
iPhone Opens to Some 3rd-Party Web Browsers, But Not Mobile Firefox
Apple appears to have reversed its policy of rejecting apps that compete with the company’s own iPhone web browser, Mobile Safari. A slew of alternative browsers have suddenly popped up in the App Store offering iPhone fans some new ways to browse the web.
The new applications include (all links are iTunes links):
The new applications include (all links are iTunes links):
- Edge Browser — a free, chromeless browser that eliminates the address bar to offer more screen real estate to the actual webpage.
- WebMate — an almost tabbed browsing experience on the iPhone. WebMate can open new pages in the background, rather than automatically switching to them like Mobile Safari does. WebMate costs $.99.
- Incognito — an anonymous browser that covers your tracks and erases your session when you close the app (AKA porn browser for the iPhone). Incognito sells for $1.99.
- Shaking Web — uses an algorithm to compensate for bumpy commutes, claims to make webpages easier to read on the bus or subway. Shaking Web is $1.99.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
LG watch phone - Video
Check out LG's new Watch Phone:
James Bond and Dick Tracy fans are likely to queue up for this soon. The new watch-phone from LG is one of the coolest gadgets at CES 2009 show.
At a press event today, LG USA President Michael Ahn showed a working demo of the device. It's a surprisingly slim watch that has a touchscreen phone and 3G and Bluetooth capabilities. It also has a camera that can do photos and small videos.
Worn on the wrist, the phone looks like any ordinary watch displaying the time but when a call comes in, the screen changes. Just raise your hand a little closer to your mouth, press a button and you can talk into the watch through the speaker phone capability.
The watch-phone is expected to go into production mid-year though the company did not offer any details on pricing.
James Bond and Dick Tracy fans are likely to queue up for this soon. The new watch-phone from LG is one of the coolest gadgets at CES 2009 show.
At a press event today, LG USA President Michael Ahn showed a working demo of the device. It's a surprisingly slim watch that has a touchscreen phone and 3G and Bluetooth capabilities. It also has a camera that can do photos and small videos.
Worn on the wrist, the phone looks like any ordinary watch displaying the time but when a call comes in, the screen changes. Just raise your hand a little closer to your mouth, press a button and you can talk into the watch through the speaker phone capability.
The watch-phone is expected to go into production mid-year though the company did not offer any details on pricing.
iChalky - iPhone Application
iChalky is an iPhone application that make use of the device's accelerometers, openGL and microphone.
Chalky is a simplistic stick figure whose posture and behavior result from the mechanical constraints that define him. He consists of a set of 8 masses connected to one another through a series of damped springs with various coefficients. Gravity and instantaneous acceleration are estimated from your iPhone's X and Y accelerometers and transferred onto Chalky's virtual world.
Friction was further added to the edges of his frame along with some rudimentary stepping heuristics to give him a fighting chance to maintain his balance as you rotate your phone around or take him on the bus with you. You can also grab, stretch and throw him with your multi-touch screen if you feel he's not getting enough abuse.
Chalky also thinks he can dance and he'll start busting his moves if he detects music though your phone's microphone... so crank up the tunes!
Chalky is not artificially intelligent and none of his gestures are choreographed. He illustrates the fact that humble perceptual measurements and simple constraints set in a physically meaningful environment can lead to interesting and sometime unexpected behavior.
Monday, January 5, 2009
10 Most Awesome iPhone Apps of 2008
The iPhone alone is an amazing device. But it's the phenomenal App Store that's made the iPhone truly revolutionary, by giving thousands of independent developers the ability extend and transform the device with their creativity.
Not even half a year old, the store has surpassed a milestone of 10,000 pieces of software available. Since the beginning, Wired.com has paid close attention to the gems that shine among the dross.
We've plucked out a list of 10 apps — from mapping software to musical instruments to games — that deserve applause for their quality, innovation and breakthrough achievements. Here they are — Jay Leno style — with our top pick at the very bottom.
10. Stanza
A book reader that grabs free titles from public domains, Stanza has soared in popularity — making the iPhone a worthy competitor to Amazon's Kindle. And if those free books aren't enough, Stanza recently expanded to incorporate a store to purchase commercial titles. The app did a good job pleasing Wired.com's Charlie Sorrel, who modified his Moleskine notebook so he could embed his iPod touch in it. (That way, he could read e-books at the cafe while exuding an aura of pretentious artiness, instead of pretentious geekiness.) Download Stanza (Free)
9. SayWhere
You get used to typing on the iPhone after some time, but punching in addresses to look up directions is by far the biggest drag. DialDirections was the first to introduce speech-recognition capabilities to the iPhone with SayWhere, which translates users' speech into queries for Google Maps, Yelp, Traffic or Yellow Pages. It's a nifty app, especially for keeping drivers' eyes on the road rather than the iPhone's virtual keyboard. Download SayWhere (Free)
8. Tweetie
Twitter, a new form of micro-blogging, became more legitimate when it broke the news of the deadly Mumbai attacks. And Tweetie is the best app we've found to follow your Twitter friends. The app neatly separates Twitter feeds into categories, and the interface resembles the bubbly iChat interface that most of us have come to love. It even lets you search Twitter and save those searches for later. A must-have for Twitterholics. Download Tweetie ($3)
7. NetShare
This app is so cool you can't have it anymore. Nullriver's NetShare, an application that turns your iPhone into a wireless modem, disappeared from the App Store shortly after its release. Later, we learned Apple banned the app because NetShare violated AT&T's terms of service agreement. So only a lucky few (including some Wired.com staff) got the benefits of unlimited iPhone tethering, which normally costs about $30 a month, for a one-time price of $10. Bummer!
6. Shazam
Everyone's familiar with this scenario: You hear a really catchy, unfamiliar song on the radio and you have no idea what it's called. You hum it to yourself repeatedly and attempt to memorize the lyrics, only to forget it after slamming a few shots at the bar. Shazam will never leave you struggling to recollect these thoughts again: Hold the iPhone up to a speaker playing the unknown tune and the app will identify it — album, artist and song title — just like that. Download Shazam (Free)
5. Ocarina
The hottest music app in the App Store, Ocarina thought beyond the iPhone's touchscreen and found a unique way to use the handset's microphone. Blowing into the mic simulates the experience of tooting into a flute; you play around with four virtual "holes" on the screen to change the note. Ocarina users around the world can even hear what you're playing in a globe mode. It takes a while to get a hang of it, but Ocarina gives away just how creative iPhone apps can get so long as developers have enough imagination. Download Ocarina ($1)
4. TapTapRevenge
You'd have to be living on a different planet (or a retirement home) if you haven't heard of Guitar Hero, the game that gets players to twitch their fingers compulsively along with the beat of their favorite songs. Developer Tapulous took the same idea to make an extremely addictive rhythm game called Tap Tap Revenge. Tapping blinking lights on a screen to catch tunes isn't exactly the same as rocking out on plastic guitars and drum pads, but it's still highly addictive. And Tap Tap Revenge is so popular it's even offering the option to download new tracks to tap to, similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band's music stores. Download TapTapRevenge (Free)
3. Trism
Trism is such an addictive and appealing game that it blessed its developer Steve Demeter with $250,000 in profit in just two months. And deservedly so, because the game's really well designed and plays something like a Bejeweled with an accelerometer to move around the puzzle pieces. It wouldn't be fair to call it one game, either: There are three different modes to keep you hooked. Download Trism ($3)
2. Pandora
Whoa whoa whoa — free downloaded music on a portable device? You don't say. Pandora's alternative music distribution made this happen, and the app is cool as hell on the iPhone. Add a station for an artist you like, and the app will play that artist's music as well as similar tunes you might like. What better way to find new music with the wealth of new bands out there? Download Pandora (Free)
1. Google Earth
When Steve Jobs called the iPhone "Your life in your pocket," he probably didn't expect Google to deliver the world in your pocket. Well, virtually. Displaying satellite imagery around the world in a 3-D globe, Google Earth is one of the most intense, mindblowing apps that truly shows off the powers of the iPhone. If you want to impress your grandmother with a demonstration of just how far technology has come since she was a girl, this ought to do the trick. Download Google Earth (Free)
Not even half a year old, the store has surpassed a milestone of 10,000 pieces of software available. Since the beginning, Wired.com has paid close attention to the gems that shine among the dross.
We've plucked out a list of 10 apps — from mapping software to musical instruments to games — that deserve applause for their quality, innovation and breakthrough achievements. Here they are — Jay Leno style — with our top pick at the very bottom.
10. Stanza
A book reader that grabs free titles from public domains, Stanza has soared in popularity — making the iPhone a worthy competitor to Amazon's Kindle. And if those free books aren't enough, Stanza recently expanded to incorporate a store to purchase commercial titles. The app did a good job pleasing Wired.com's Charlie Sorrel, who modified his Moleskine notebook so he could embed his iPod touch in it. (That way, he could read e-books at the cafe while exuding an aura of pretentious artiness, instead of pretentious geekiness.) Download Stanza (Free)
9. SayWhere
You get used to typing on the iPhone after some time, but punching in addresses to look up directions is by far the biggest drag. DialDirections was the first to introduce speech-recognition capabilities to the iPhone with SayWhere, which translates users' speech into queries for Google Maps, Yelp, Traffic or Yellow Pages. It's a nifty app, especially for keeping drivers' eyes on the road rather than the iPhone's virtual keyboard. Download SayWhere (Free)
8. Tweetie
Twitter, a new form of micro-blogging, became more legitimate when it broke the news of the deadly Mumbai attacks. And Tweetie is the best app we've found to follow your Twitter friends. The app neatly separates Twitter feeds into categories, and the interface resembles the bubbly iChat interface that most of us have come to love. It even lets you search Twitter and save those searches for later. A must-have for Twitterholics. Download Tweetie ($3)
7. NetShare
This app is so cool you can't have it anymore. Nullriver's NetShare, an application that turns your iPhone into a wireless modem, disappeared from the App Store shortly after its release. Later, we learned Apple banned the app because NetShare violated AT&T's terms of service agreement. So only a lucky few (including some Wired.com staff) got the benefits of unlimited iPhone tethering, which normally costs about $30 a month, for a one-time price of $10. Bummer!
6. Shazam
Everyone's familiar with this scenario: You hear a really catchy, unfamiliar song on the radio and you have no idea what it's called. You hum it to yourself repeatedly and attempt to memorize the lyrics, only to forget it after slamming a few shots at the bar. Shazam will never leave you struggling to recollect these thoughts again: Hold the iPhone up to a speaker playing the unknown tune and the app will identify it — album, artist and song title — just like that. Download Shazam (Free)
5. Ocarina
The hottest music app in the App Store, Ocarina thought beyond the iPhone's touchscreen and found a unique way to use the handset's microphone. Blowing into the mic simulates the experience of tooting into a flute; you play around with four virtual "holes" on the screen to change the note. Ocarina users around the world can even hear what you're playing in a globe mode. It takes a while to get a hang of it, but Ocarina gives away just how creative iPhone apps can get so long as developers have enough imagination. Download Ocarina ($1)
4. TapTapRevenge
You'd have to be living on a different planet (or a retirement home) if you haven't heard of Guitar Hero, the game that gets players to twitch their fingers compulsively along with the beat of their favorite songs. Developer Tapulous took the same idea to make an extremely addictive rhythm game called Tap Tap Revenge. Tapping blinking lights on a screen to catch tunes isn't exactly the same as rocking out on plastic guitars and drum pads, but it's still highly addictive. And Tap Tap Revenge is so popular it's even offering the option to download new tracks to tap to, similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band's music stores. Download TapTapRevenge (Free)
3. Trism
Trism is such an addictive and appealing game that it blessed its developer Steve Demeter with $250,000 in profit in just two months. And deservedly so, because the game's really well designed and plays something like a Bejeweled with an accelerometer to move around the puzzle pieces. It wouldn't be fair to call it one game, either: There are three different modes to keep you hooked. Download Trism ($3)
2. Pandora
Whoa whoa whoa — free downloaded music on a portable device? You don't say. Pandora's alternative music distribution made this happen, and the app is cool as hell on the iPhone. Add a station for an artist you like, and the app will play that artist's music as well as similar tunes you might like. What better way to find new music with the wealth of new bands out there? Download Pandora (Free)
1. Google Earth
When Steve Jobs called the iPhone "Your life in your pocket," he probably didn't expect Google to deliver the world in your pocket. Well, virtually. Displaying satellite imagery around the world in a 3-D globe, Google Earth is one of the most intense, mindblowing apps that truly shows off the powers of the iPhone. If you want to impress your grandmother with a demonstration of just how far technology has come since she was a girl, this ought to do the trick. Download Google Earth (Free)
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