Apps

Sneak peek: FlightTrack for flight status

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

This is a guest post from Ben Kazez, developer of iCal Events. Ben is telling us more about his upcoming application called FlightTrack.

Hey everyone!

Some of you may know me from my popular Dashboard widget, iCal Events. Today I'm happy to be showing off a sneak preview of an up-and-coming iPhone app, FlightTrack.

It's a flight tracking and status app that's going to hit the iTunes App Store this fall. We're very excited about some awesome features and user interface innovations we've got up our sleeves. We're also excited to be partnering with FlightView, a professional-level flight tracking company that powers the US government and several of the world's largest airlines and airports.

While the app is still in development, now's your chance to comment on what awesome features you'd like to see in FlightTrack!

Ben Kazez

Trapster alerts you of police speed traps

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 14, 2018

Trapster is an iPhone application I was really looking forward to as I think it may save me a few hundred (thousands?) dollars every year in speeding tickets... I had signed up for a Trapster account a couple weeks ago to be alerted of when the app would officially be available and I'm glad to learn that you can get it now for free from the App Store.

What is Trapster?

Trapster is a mobile application that lets you see and log the location of police speed traps directly from your iPhone (note that it also work with other mobile and GPS devices). Once installed, Trapster [iTunes Link] combines technologies such as GPS and wireless location, voice transcription, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and SMS, with a central database server. It communicates in real time, using the Internet and alerts you in real-time of any reported speed traps in your area.

How does it work?

Stay away from iDontCrash

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

BigBoss posted a warning about iDontCrash, and its developer Brandon Rose.

A week ago, a developer tried to send me an app called iDontCrash to host. Being curious, and a developer myself, I asked a few questions about this app before hosting it. The answers proved to me that it is total fraud on the community. It should be called iDontWork or iAmFake. This app gave me hours of enjoyment while we were picking it apart. In short, do not trust this app or its developer Brandon Rose. It is upsetting when someone tries to harm our community, therefore, I decided to post all about this app and its pseudo developer.

What does iDontCrash claim to be? It claims to be an app that prevents crashing due to low memory. Sounds great right? It sounded pretty dubious.

iDontCrash claims to run and close instantly then putting a daemon onto the system that monitors memory usage. This does not happen. Instead, the app crashes because it is an invalid binary for the system.

Although the application is harmless, BigBoss recommends to beware of this Brandon Rose guy.

Find the name of your baby with your iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 15, 2018

Expecting? Forget lugging around a stack of baby-names books: Finding a name for the new arrival is as easy as shaking an iPhone, thanks to Name That Baby [iTunes Link]!

Created by Shona Killoughery-McKenney, a stay-at-home mom of two kids under five years old, Name That Baby! is a new iPhone application that lists thousands of baby names. Parents-to-be simply choose a gender and a starting letter, then give the iPhone a shake. Name That Baby!, which makes a gentle baby rattle sound when the iPhone is shaken, delivers a scrollable list of baby names, complete with origins and descriptions, in whatever quantity the user chooses. Another shake produces additional names, until the perfect name is found.

The app is currently available in the App Store for $3.99. Next step might be Name That Dog!, Name That Cat! I don't know, I'm just wild guessing...

Ads pay for your free iPhone apps

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

An article on CNN Money today highlights how mobile devices, with the iPhone leadng the way, have caught the attention of advertisers. According to this article, the mobile ad market is expected to grow to $12 billion by 2013, up from an estimated $1.72 billion for 2008.

It's interesting to see how the iPhone changed forever the way we're getting apps. Before the iPhone, you most likely had to pay for an app that you would have downloaded from your carrier. Now, many apps are made available for free, but follow the ad-subsidized models.

What does that mean for app developers?

Using Backgrounder to Speed up Categories

Guest Author ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

I love Categories and use it to organize my apps on my iPhone but it takes forever to load a folder, especially when it contains a lot of apps. Two recent application upgrades have really helped with this problem.

Backgrounder allows you to run processes in the background and the new version of Categories(2.2) takes advantage of this new functionality. By using the Background feature, you can set up folder by folder background loading. This makes it lightning fast to open folders. In normal iPhone mode, open the folder you want to speed up. Press and hold the menu button until you see the message, "Backgrounding Enabled". It will exit the folder but opening it again will be really fast. Press and hold the menu button again while the folder is opened to turn it off.

Finally a good TV guide application

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 27, 2019

I've been waiting for this since June 29, 2007; a good, useful, TV application for iPhone! It seems that i.TV [iTunes Link] made my wish come true, and even more...

Before i.TV (pronounce "i dot tv"), I used the mobile version of TVGuide.com and although it served its purpose, it was a very unpractical web app. Then came What's On, for which I had big hopes. My hopes just remained hopes as What's On wouldn't have some basic features such as setting channels as "Favorites".

All my past frustrations are now long gone thanks to i.TV. I downloaded this FREE app this morning from the App Store and instantly fell in love with it. According to the company's website:

i.TV is a TV and movie guide for the iPhone and iPod touch.

i.TV helps users discover entertainment options by providing up-to-date information on television shows and movies. Users also benefit from feedback and information provided by other i.TV users who utilize i.TV’s community-focused features. These features enable customers to write reviews and give star ratings to visual media. In addition to this, i.TV allows users to directly access entertainment such as television previews and movie trailers through their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Let's see how it works...

iBowl: For those Can-your-Phone-do-this-ers, and that’s it

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 29, 2016

From the makers of iGolf comes iBowl, the game that promises that you can "take the lanes with you wherever you go." But before you hang up your real bowling shoes, there are a few things you should know. I myself got excited when doing my daily browse of the Top 25 Free applications in Apple's App Store. After reading through several raving reviews, and considering its #2 position on the Top 25, I decided to give it a go.

The first thing you see when the application is loaded is a set of very simple instructions. Select what side of the lane you wish to throw from, and hold down the "bowl" button strategically placed in the middle of the screen (so you can cradle your phone in your hand) and bowl. Let go (of the button, not your phone), and watch your ball soar rather randomly down the lane and knock over pins. Their description on the App Store claimed it detected spinning your iPhone to spin the ball but I have yet to experience it.

Now, some of you might be thinking, it's free what did you expect. Well, I didn't really expect anything, after all, I wasn't a fan of iGolf when it was released. I have to admit this game does have a few nice features such as the ability to play a full 10 frames, and a high score board to keep track of the 'king pin'. But don't let the "challenge a friend" option fool you, it just opens a new email with an inserted link to download iBowl.

A few suggestions from this lowly iPhone gamer would be to tighten up the acuracy on the ball movement down the lane, or even to explore other options like using touch instead of the accelorometer. Some realistic physics, or at least random pin action would help out.

Also, SGN could consider selling cases with adjustable wrist straps to lower the amount of iBowl related damaged iPhones. Changing the fake "challenge a friend" option into at least 2 player mode just goes without saying.

So although it is a descent presentation and a neat idea, this thing is about as useful as the apps iLighter and iBeer, mostly for those "hey can your phone do this"ers. I found that this application sat unused on the springboard unless I was showing it to people, and even then could only muster up a few frames before it got tiresome.

SGN seems to have some great ideas going with these iSports apps, and I'm excited to see what updates and future apps they bring us.

Backgrounder runs multiple apps at once

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 22, 2022

Backgrounder from Lance Fetters is a new Cydia app out that promises to turn your ordinary iPhone into a multitasking machine. And after a quick download I'd have to say it delivered it in style.

Upon install you'll get a hard respring. But don't get caught looking for an icon, because there is none. You activate the app by opening up any legally downloaded Apple App Store app, (I haven't gotten it to work with cydia apps), and holding down the home button until a prompt pops up and lets you know backgrounder is enabled.

Now, for those of you who use a music app like Pandora, and want to listen to your Pandora music while you browse your photos or do something else on your iPhone, be excited. I personally use it when I am playing a video game. I hit pause, run backgrounder and quit the game, send a text, and re open the game and voila! No loading time, and I didn't lose my progress in my game.

I haven't tested the battery usage, but I'm assuming it makes a noticeable difference if you leave it on. And it will stay on until you restart/respring or disable it manually the same way you enabled it.

Bottom line is, this application will help make light work of those once tedious app switching jobs. I am cody lee, and I approve this message

Fring is out! Officially

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

A few months ago I talked about Fring on my personal blog. At the time, this app was just being released for jailbroken iPhones. Six months and 3 firmware upgrades later, Fring made its way to the App Store.

What is Fring?

Fring is a mobile internet service & community that enables you to access & interact with your social networks on-the-go, including make free calls, live chat and seeing your contacts online presence with all your fring, Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo! and AIM friends using your iPhone’s Internet connection rather than costly cellular airtime minutes.

So far, Fring is the only VoIP app available in the App Store, along with Truphone, althought other similar apps are coming soon.

I haven't tried Fring yet but expect a review from us within the next few days. In the meanwhile, if you try it, please let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

Save web pages for offline reading with Instapaper

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 18, 2019

You're at the San Diego airport just about to get on this flight to Chicago for a conference you really don't want to attend when you come across this looong article on the New York Times website about how the Senate finally passed the bailout bill. You'll never have time to finish this article before the usual "please turn off all electronic devices".

In the good old days, you would have had to wait to land in Chicago to read this article. Thanks to Instapaper, these times are over.

Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them.

Let me explain you how to use Instapaper.

First, you have to download the free version of Instapaper (or get the paid one). Registration takes about a second as it doesn't require much information from you (you don't even have to give your email address!). The app uses a JavaScript bookmarklet, which you have to manually tweak to make it work on the iPhone. I imagine later versions will be easier to install. Basically, it creates a bookmark on your iPhone.

When browsing the web and finding an interesting article, simply go to your bookmarks and use the Instapaper bookmarklet. It will instantly save it so you can read the text offline later.

Additionally, you can use it on your own computer by adding a bookmarklet in your toolbar. Every time you click this bookmarklet, it saves the article for offline reading. Then you can go back to your iPhone and sync your computer activity with your iPhone. In other words, you can save web pages from your iPhone or your computer and sync them.

At this point, I am not sure why you would need the paid version. The free one is just perfect. I was able to save over 30 pages for offline reading (it was supposed to save only 24!).

You can view the saved article as text or as "web". The "web" version is very buggy and caused the app to crash every single time I tried to use it. The text version is just as good as what I would expect anyways.

Your queue of saved articles Reading a saved article

This app is a must-have for anyone slightly interested in saving web pages for later reading. It is simple, yet efficient, and... it's free! Don't you love free?

Mind Maker Mindmap application for iPhone/iTouch

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Although many people I work with use mind mapping software, i am much more of a "draw it out on paper" person and it has never felt spontaneous to capture my thoughts using such a tool. I don't like to lug my laptop to every meeting and when I got spontaneous ideas while walking or working out, paper always seemed to be the best approach.

So as I was browsing through new apps in the App Store, I saw the Mind Maker [iTunes Link] app developed by Ultravague, and the idea of having mind mapping software that is a lot more portable and always accessible might make the difference in usability for me. So I decided to give it a try.

So for two days now I have had it installed on my iPhone and I have tried to use it for all my meetings (which are considerable these days!). It takes some time to reorient yourself from linear written notes to the relationship-based tree concept but I like the end product. Much easier to navigate through when you are trying to drill down and go back and add more detail later.

The tool is pretty intuitive. It was easy to make new branches and nodes. I kept trying to connect a node to more than one parent and I guess you can't do that. I think that one of my problems with these types of tools is that my mind doesn't always link things in an hierarchical fashion.

But my personal issues aside, I was able to create a tree really quickly and and organize it the way I wanted to. I couldn't figure out how to export it so after a quick browse at the web site I found out that the next version 1.1 (which they say is almost ready to submit to Apple), will support exporting mind maps to images and the following version 1.2, will allow mindmaps to be published to the web and exported in a variety of formats.

Features that I would like to see added:

The ability to associate a text, images, or url's with the nodes, this will be especially useful when version 1.2 comes out and I can publish my mind maps to the web. The ability to create cross associations (a node has more than one parent) so that I can map more complex relationships The ability to name the relationships because connections are sometimes the most important thing to remember.

All in all it is a good deal at $4.99.