Apps

UiRemote: The Universal Infrared Remote for iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ January 6, 2009

Ever since Apple launched the App Store and the ability for developers to create applications for the iPhone, I thought about creating an application that would act as a remote for all your electronics such as TV, DVD, cable, etc... The problem is that I am not a developer and I don't know anyone that could develop such an app, especially because the iPhone doesn't have an IR (infrared) port...

Well it seems like my wish for a remote for iPhone has come true with UiRemote, an application developed by Canadian students.

With the help of this small accessory, you will be able to use your iPhone to control your TV, DVD, Cable box, Projectors, Digital Photo Frames, AC, Fans, & Backyard evil robots, whereever you go. Not only does it send out the remote control signals, you can easily teach it to learn any button on any standard Remote, or even a sequence of button clicks as a macro.

Take note, this is not some bulky infrared remote boxes that you have to connect using Wifi, and cannot be moved around. This standalone accessory, in its final prototype form, is only the size of a finger tip, and require nothing but your iPhone to control devices and learn new remote commands. We are going to make it even smaller after further adjustments. You can conveniently slip it into your pocket and take it to your friends/bars/meetings/work/etc. and impress them with this new thing you can do with your iPhone.

This is still a prototype at the time and these guys are obviously still tweaking it but they say they plan to release the actual Infrared Module and the Application in the next couple of months. Now that's an app that I'm really looking for. Check out the video below and tell us what you think about it.

THe Hidden Menu Of Google iPhone App

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated August 1, 2018

It takes a little bit of effort to find the "Bells and Whistles" hidden menu in Google Mobile but it's here. When you launch the Google iPhone app and go to settings, you’ll see a few options to configure the app. While it may not look like there is anything below the “About” selection, swipe your finger upward to go below. Keep swiping for a while and you will see the secret menu.

So, what is so cool about these bells and whistles? Not much to be honnest... You can replace the default sounds with chicken or monkey noises. You can also change the color of the Google Mobile theme and see a live waveform when you talk.

There is one nice feature though: the "open links in app" option. I guess this should have been there in the first place but later is better than never as we say in French.

Animoto Is My New Favorite iPhone App

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 18, 2019

Maybe some of you already know Animoto, this website that let's you upload images, music, and creates cool slideshows in a matter of minutes. Don't misunderstand me, Animoto is not one of these cheap slideshow thing like Rock You or Slide. Using their patent-pending Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor & director, the resulting video has the emotional impact of a movie trailer and the visual energy of a music video.

Animoto [iTunes Link] is now available in the AppStore, letting you create animated slideshows directly from your iPhone, and believe me, this app delivers!

You can start creating a new slideshow right after launching the app as no registration is required. Select 8 to 16 photos from your library, arrange them at your liking, select a song from Animoto's library and tap "create". It takes about 15 second to upload each image to Animoto's servers. Once all the images are uploaded, Animoto will start creating the slideshow, which takes a few minutes. At this point, you can quit the app, make yourself a sandwich and come back a few minutes later.

The newly created video slideshow will be available for viewing. You can then edit it or share it with someone, which is the whole point of this app. It will send an email to whoever you want to share the slideshow with, with a link to your video on Animoto's website. From there, you can do a bunch of things such as embedding it, uploading it to YouTube, etc...

I love this application but I do have a few feature requests... First, I would like to be able to login to my Animoto account so the videos are saved in my account. Right now, Animoto doesn't allow you to login from your iPhone so you won't be able to save these videos to your existing Animoto's account if you already have one. My guess is that this will come in the next update.

My second request is that it should be able to let you upload a song from your iPhone. The website let's you do it. You can just choose a song you have on your computer and upload it so you can use it in your slideshow. Now I believe that Apple won't let anyone access the music library on the iPhone. Besides, uploading music directly from your iPhone would take forever.

At any rates, Animoto is clearly my favorite app of the week! I was already sold on the website, so it wasn't too hard to make me an adept of the iPhone app... You can download Animoto from the AppStore for free here.

Here is a slideshow that I quickly made for demo purposes. If you have created your own slideshow, share it with us in the comments!

Flash Finally Coming to Your iPhone With iMobileCinema

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

It's completely unofficial and still very buggy, but yes, you finally can get Flash on your iPhone... kinda. iMobileCinema is a new app available for free in Cydia that aims at being the "Flash for iPhone" application.

iMobileCinema is in fact a Safari plugin for playing internet videos on your iPhone or iPod touch. I personally gave it a try on several websites and it worked pretty well.

After installing iMobileCinema, simply visit any webpage that has Flash content and it will show you a big "play" triangle on top of videos so you know you can play it.

Is iMobileCinema a Flash Player for Safari?

The answer is no. Even though iMobileCinema acts like a Flash plugin, it can't play Flash content such as Flash games and ads. It only plays Flashvideos that are embedded in a webpage.

iMobileCinema can't decode Flash files (.swf) but it ca decode Flash Videos (.flv). It decodes and plays the flash video in real-time while it's buffering.

According to iMobileCinema's blog, they are also coming up with some cool new features...

Some live broadcast sites are using rtmp protocol to deliver videos, e.g., mtv.com, hulu.com. We'll try to support the protocol later. And playing embedded mp3, like singsbox.com, is a good idea and we'll try to support it too.

iMobileCinema is available via Cydia. You will have to add this source to Cydia: http://d.imobilecinema.com

Here is a short demo of iMobileCinema in action...

Fuzzyshot – Photo Uploading & Sharing

Guest Author ∙ Updated February 15, 2018

I admit it - I'm an iPhone photo-holic. I'm addicted to taking photos with my iPhone. And the site I use to upload to from my iPhone is Flickr. However, Flickr does not have a full-featured iPhone app and many apps that can upload to Flickr are very basic.

That's where Fuzzyshot Photo Blog [iTunes link] comes in. Although users of Fuzzyshot will definitely benefit, new users can easily create an account right on your iPhone. And the app can do just about anything the web version does. You simply snap your photo, set your post title and comment, select public or private and whether you want your photo geotagged or not. You can also easily e-mail your photo straight from the app.

Browsing other people's Fuzzyshot pictures is also easy in the app. The most recent pictures are featured in your feed (so if you don't want your family's pictures spread across the internet, you should select private) and you can also check out the most viewed and most discussed pictures in the last 24 hours. You also get a unique web address as well as an RSS feed for your photos.

I had never heard of Fuzzyshot before reviewing this app, but it appears that it has a well-established photo blogging community. If you want EASY photo uploading take a look at Fuzzyshot. It's free to download and free to sign up.

Find Text On Any Web Page With “Find In Page” App

Sébastien Page ∙ December 13, 2008

On my daily browsing of new Cydia applications, I came across an app called "Find In Page". Reading the description of the app, I wasn't really sure what was the purpose of it. But then, I saw a screenshot and it totally made sense. Now that I think about it, I'm kinda retarded for not figuring out what this app was about just by reading its name...

As its name suggests, Find In Page is an application that will help you find any text on any web page in Safari. This is a feature I've been expecting for a while so I didn't think twice about installing this application and putting it to the test.

Installing Find In Page will not add any icon to your springboard but instead, it will add a bookmark called "Find In Page" in your Safari bookmarks. Now every time you visit a page in Safari and you're looking for a specific word, simply open your bookmarks and tap "Find In Page". This will bring up a window asking you to type the text you're looking for.

In this example, we're looking for the word "ringtone" in the post that I wrote yesterday about Audiko. Tap OK and it will then tell you how many results were found.

Again, tap OK to acknowledge the amount of matches found and it will then give you a version of the page you're looking at with all the words you're looking for highlighted in yellow.

This is a very powerful feature when you're looking for a specific word on a long web page. No doubt that I will be using this app from time to time.

However, I wish the developer of this app had pushed it a little further and added the ability to go to the "next" match found or "previous" match found, just like your web browser (or any text editing software) can do on your computer.

Have you downloaded this application yet? If so, please tell us what you think in the comments.

Forget Fring, Use TruPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 22, 2017

Ok, don't forget Fring yet as it is a pretty good "all-in-one" app. But if you are using Fring solely for the Skype calls feature, then you might want to give a try at TruPhone, a VoIP app that was the first of its kind to be approved in the App Store.

So, what's so good about TruPhone? Well, I guess the best feature of this application is that it allows you to make VoIP calls from your iPhone to any phone in the world over wifi, and most importantly you can make calls even if you are not in a wifi zone. Now I have to admit this part is a bit shady. I had a look at Truohone's website and I can't figure out how this works exactly. It doesn't say anything about 3G or Edge but it does say that you can make calls even if you don't have an Internet connection. It's confusing but it still sounds great!

Fring allows you to do pretty much the same (and actually more) but the problem with Fring is that the app doesn't let you make VoIP calls over 3G or Edge, unless you implemented my Fring hack, of course... It seems that TruPhone is making this possible, without having to hack anything.

Let's have a look at what TruPhone can do for you:

Cheap international calls

The Truphone iPhone app routes iPhone calls over the Internet which can save you loads of money on international calls from your home country and on calls when you're abroad. You can look at the rates here. Calling a landline in my home country (France) is $0.06/minute but calling a cellphone there is $0.30/minute. All calls in the US are $0.06/minute.

Use Truphone Anywhere

If you're not online Truphone Anywhere can still route your call over the internet. So now you can make cheap VoIP calls even when you're not connected to a Wi-Fi network. How does that work? I'm not sure...

Free calls worldwide

Calls to other connected Truphone users are FREE, worldwide. So if you and your friends all download Truphone, you can call each other for FREE, wherever you are in the world!

Know who's online

A new feature lets you know which of your Truphone contacts is online. It's great news if you want to make FREE Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi calls on your iPhone because calls between connected users are always FREE Worldwide.

Receive calls for free

You can receive FREE Truphone calls whenever you're connected to a Wi-Fi network.

iPod Touch users for once shouldn't feel left aside. If you have a headset with a microphone you can also use this great app on your iTouch, which means that you can turn your iPod Touch into a phone!!!

Truphone is free and you may click here to download Truphone for iPhone or Truphone for iPod Touch.

One question still lingers in my mind though... Is AT&T ok with that?

Live TV On Your iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 25, 2016

We already know about Orb, the app that allows you to stream TV to your iPhone. Although very impressive, Orb requires some extra hardware and seems more like a pain in the ass than a truly practical application. Here comes LiveStation, an application currently being developed by UK company Skinkers and that aims at making live TV on your iPhone as easy as it should be...

In the following video, CEO Matteo Berlucchi talks about Livestation and confirms it is currently being worked on. But most interestingly, Matteo shows a demo of the app and it is astonishing! Apparently, Livestation will only work on wifi to be in total compliance with the carriers TOS but I suspect a hack to become available as soon as Livestation is available, to make it work over 3G as well.

Check out this video. Skip the first two minutes if you want to go straight to the point.

FontSwap Changes The Font of your iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ December 3, 2008

Well folks, FontSwap finally made its way to firmware 2.x and let me tell you right off the bat that it's better than ever. Custom fonts on your iPhone are the cherry on top of all your customizations and I had been waiting for that for a while.

Before updating to 2.2, I had some custom fonts on my lock screen and in my notes but to get there, I had had to manually edit some files on my iPhone, which doesn't come without risk... When I restored, updated and jailbroke my 2.2 iPhone, I really didn't want to go through the whole process again but thankfully, FontSwap is now making it easy for us to change every font on the iPhone.

So let's have a closer look at FontSwap... After installing and launching the app, you are given four different font customization options: dialer fonts, lockclock fonts, notes fonts, and system fonts.

The dialier font, like the name says, is the font of your phone dialer. You only have one font option for your dialer, and it's NeoTech, the font that I had previously installed on my iPhone.

You can also customize the font of the clock on your lock screen. To do so, simply go to LockClock Fonts and you will have the ability to choose from five different fonts, plus the default one.

Getting rid of the ugly notes app font has never been easier... Simply choose this option from the menu and you'll be able to change the notes font to either Calibri, or Notec.

Finally, you can change the system font, which is pretty much everything else on your iPhone. Changing the system fonts will change the font of your SMS and Mail apps. The System Fonts option offers the largest variety of fonts with no less than 10 fonts for you to choose from.

When you choose a font, a message will pop up giving you 3 options: install & respring iPhone; install & relaunch FontSwap; or cancel. I recommend installing and respringing every single time. That may avoid some problems.

I do have a few remarks about this great app. For one, I really would like to see Arial ported to the iPhone. Along with Helvetica, Arial is the easiest font to read, and most agreable to look at, in my opinion anyway.

Second remark is that FontSwap should give you a preview of every font, a la Photoshop, so you don't have to try every font to see if you like it or not.

Finally, there is no check mark indicating which font you're on which is kind of stupid as 2 days from now, I won't be able to remember what font is on my lock screen or in my notes. Gosh, I can't even remember now and I installed the fonts 10 minutes ago...

All in all, it's a great app if you want to push your iPhone or iPod Touch customization a notch further. I forgot to mention that this app is available for free in Cydia, which means you're iPhone has to be jailbroken. That might be reason number 1,643,894 for jailbreaking your iPhone!

iPhone Apps Pirate Gets Pirated

Sébastien Page ∙ November 28, 2008

Crackulous is a software that allows you to easily crack any iPhone application, without having to pay a dime to the developer or to Apple. No need to say that this is illegal... In what seems to be a very ironic story, a beta version of Crackulous was pirated and leaked on the Internet before it could enter a full open-source distribution.

Erica Sadun wrote a good article about it over at Ars:

SaladFork, the author of Crackulous, called the leak "absolutely disgusting, and downright insulting." He writes about his pride of development, saying, "[I] have released a new version of Crackulous almost every day or two, fixing all the bugs that had been reported up until that day. I was proud of Crackulous, and put a large majority of my free time into ensuring it will be the best application it possibly could be. I responded to beta tester feedback, and each version of Crackulous was better than the last."

Did SaladFork learn his lesson? Obviously not as he wrote:

Several of you had noticed the irony in me complaining that a tool used to steal from other developers was stolen, but I hope you realize the difference in situation. iPhone developers almost always (99% of the time) develop applications for the App Store in hopes of getting money.

iPhone Works With Toddlers Too

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 29, 2016

Adam's Game [iTunes Link] is just amazing. I love simple apps, I love apps that needs no explanation, I love apps that you can make your own, but this one simply tops it all... provided you are one year old or younger.

A voice asks you to point at one of three figures; if you do so a cheering noise congratulates you; otherwise you have a nice “Hu-ho”, not so praising, but not too negative either. Anyone old enough to buy an iPhone might find it limited — but who said children have short attention span?

How do I know it is so great? I am a single, toddler-hater with no nephew-turned-tester at hand. I saw the app, didn't really paid attention at first, but like Joe Biden I do take the train often, and unlike him, I'm always seated next to the nastiest one-toothed ear-drump-blaster-of-a-child that starts yelling for no reason. Thank you 3G, I had the app up and running in no time. The best dollar spent in my life, I'd say. I'm not sure my headset was his size, though.

Adam's Game is fully customizable, so all of you overworked parents can let your better half share his or her iPhone with the little wonder, with your voice on it. I know this might sound like a detail, but many workaholic might end up being slightly better parents with that.

The only problem: you might want to use bactericide swipe on your phone after that. And a solid casing: gravity is still an fascinating experimental interest at that age.

Rip Dev releases Hood 1.0. Strangely looks like SBSettings…

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated September 20, 2016

Rip Dev developed a new tool called Hood, an application that allows you to toggle AirPort, Bluetooth, and also kill active applications. Hood also allows you to monitor the memory usage of your iPhone in real time. Hood is available through Installer.

Of course, this application reminds us of BigBoss' SBSettings but you might prefer the user interface.

If you're considering installing this app, I highly recommend you read at the comments first, especially this one.

That is the second application released by Rip Dev over the weekend as they released Pusher on Saturday. It seems that the goal here is to have as many people as possible use Installer vs. Cydia. My point of view is that it's too late for Installer. It was doing very good until firmware 2.0 came out. The team was not quick enough recoding Installer to make it work under 2.0 when Saurik released Cydia, which is now installed on 99.99% of jailbroken iPhones.

As usual, if you try this app, please share your experience with us in the comments :-)