iOS App of the Week After taking some really rubbish photos at a friend’s birthday recently, I decided I needed some sort of timer app for the Camera on my iPhone.
Besides timed capture, Camera Prime offers a framing aid
There are a number of very simple timers – most of which are free to download – but then I started to think about some other features that might come in useful too, and I ended up forking out the princely sum of 69p for Camera Prime. Read the rest of this entry »
iOS App of the Week Apple’s iBooks Store is as slick – and expensive – as you’d expect any Apple product to be, but it’s not the only source of digital books for the iPhone and iPad.
Alongside apps from commercial rivals such as Amazon’s Kindle, I recently discovered an app called OverDrive that gives you online access to the UK’s public lending libraries – or “idea stores” as they are moronically referred to these days.
OverDrive lists the books you’ve borrowed (left) and presents them for reading (right)
Many of Britain’s public libraries allow you to borrow e-books and MP3 audiobooks – who’d have thought it? You’ll need an existing library membership, but then all you have to do is locate your library in the app’s ‘Library’ menu and use your membership details to log in. Read the rest of this entry »
iOS App of the Week I decided to avoid last week’s royal rave-up by engaging in some retail therapy. We’ve seen a number of shopping-related apps recently, but this price-comparison app is the one I’ve found most useful when I’m in shopping mode.
Sccope helps you compare prices online and on the high street
Available as an app on iOS devices and BlackBerry smartphones, and as a widget for a number of phones on the T-Mobile and Vodafone networks, Sccope maintains its own database of price and barcode information. It’s focused primarily on electronics, books, games and DVDs. Read the rest of this entry »
iPhone App Review Yes, the iPhone has its Notes app, but with its notepad-lookalike graphics and mock handwriting font – which you can’t easily change – it was always more a showcase for the Apple graphic design team’s talents than a tool you’d want to use.
It has one advantage, though: it’s just about text. It’s not concerned with presentation or formatting, tables of contents or making sure your boss doesn’t realise you can’t spell – it’s just for jotting.
WriteRoom: simple text editing with no distracting UI
WriteRoom attempts to right Apple‘s note-writing wrongs by giving writers a more utilitarian user interface that allows you to focus entirely on what you’re writing not what it’s being written on, or how.
Tap a document’s name to open it, or hit the + button to create a new file, and you get a plain page ready for writing. No lines, no double-ruled margin, no artful torn-out-page-stubs graphic. Use the iPhone’s ‘part two fingers’ gesture and even what little UI there is vanishes to leave you with a literally blank page. Read the rest of this entry »
Android App Review With the launch of HTC’s Hero, and with other Android phones from the likes of Samsung looming on the horizon, it seems the perfect time to take a gander at ALK’s CoPilot Live 8 satnav software, which is now available for Android and the iPhone.
Despite costing just over £25, CoPilot has all the features that you’d expect from a modern satnav. Mode of travel can be set to either car, bike, motorbike, RV – which presumably will take you across someone’s lawn in case of a traffic jam – or foot, while the maps can be viewed in either 3D or 2D. You also get a feature called ClearTurn which displays “realistic” 3D representations of motorway junctions.
ALK’s CoPilot for Android: good feature set, good UI
Finding a location is straightforward and can be done be keying in an address, a post code, co-ordinates, points of interest, geotagged photographs or by manually selecting a point on the map. The postcode finder is particularly easy to use and comprehensive.
The bundled maps include the position of all know speed cameras and you can alter the distance at which you’re warned about them. The extent to which you can exceed the speed limit before being warned is also adjustable – or you can just the turn the function off. Read the rest of this entry »
