apps — James Poling

Readability vs. Instapaper

March 17, 2012 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Readability launched its iOS app on March 1 and since then has been in the center of quite a bit of sniping back and forth in the tech community. The background to all this snark is that Readability’s main competitor is Instapaper.

Instapaper was developed by Marco Arment in 2008. Before creating Instapaper Arment had been a lead developer at Tumblr. Once Instapaper started taking off however Arment left Tumblr to go to work for Instapaper full-time. Marco has also never taken any outside investment money to get Instapaper up and running which has allowed him to maintain full control over it. Between his work Tumblr and Instapaper he’s pretty much like a geek rockstar as far as creating things that have great function and form.

Readability on the other hand is the result of a technology firm looking for what some may consider a clone of the functionality of Instapaper just to make a buck. Readability originally seemed to support the walled garden approach to the internet wanting to offer $5 monthly subscriptions to its service. “70% of which will be distributed to content creators as compensation for having their work stripped down and repackaged”.

Until we see Marco and someone at Arc90 in a cage match we can compare what the apps look like and how functional they are in the long run.

That’s about as brief and vague as it gets. Now on to the good stuff. Looks and performance.

Readability

Instapaper

One thing Readability excels at is its use of some incredible looking fonts. Aesthetically it looks great but when seen side by side with Instapaper you can immediately see the difference. Instapaper is far better at utilizing the real estate and allowing you to quickly navigate to and choose what article you are looking to read.

Readability looks pretty and all, and I’m sure that will appeal to some people but for the time being, I think I’ll be sticking with Instapaper to handle my read later needs.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: apps, instapaper, ios, News, read later, readability, tools

10 Mac Apps Including Parallels 7 for $49

February 2, 2012 By James Poling Leave a Comment

I’m not sure how or why this deal is happening but Cult of Mac is bundling 10 apps worth $471 for only $49. The deal is good for 8 more days so if you’re a new Mac owner or just need some great apps this is a deal you’ll probably want to jump on.

Click here to see the bundle.

Filed Under: Mac Tagged With: apps, cult of mac, flux 3, istat menus, little snapper, windows parallel 7

Fix for Android Apps Disappearing into Folders

July 7, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

One of the most frustrating things I’ve run into since making the switch to Android is that, quite often, when I go to move an app on one of my screens it just disappears. I eventually figured out that, for some reason, these apps were disappearing into seemingly random folders located on other random screens.

I’m currently using the Nexus S 4G and running the latest version of Gingerbread but from what I’ve read the issue may not be limited to Gingerread or the Nexus S.

The first work around I found was completely rebooting your phone sometimes, but not always, seemed to work and allow you to replace the icons that disappeared or move them to wherever you had originally planned on moving them.

The second work around is a bit quicker and actually seems to work better. Before you start moving or rearranging your apps kill all your running apps using the Advanced Task Killer app. The native app killing app may work just as well but ATK is the app I use.

I’ve found that killing everything with ATK and then rearranging seems to make everything go pretty smooth. No more disappearing apps so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Filed Under: How To, Tech Tagged With: advanced task killer, android, apps, gingerbread, google, How To, nexus s

Zapd App Lets You Build a Website in Seconds

May 6, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Zapd is an ingenious little app that makes it easy for literally anyone (with an iPhone that is) to publish photos and content to their very own website right from their phones.

If you have a ton of photos just sitting on your iPhone looking for a unique space to share with friends and family you definitely want to check out Zapd.

It’s a great concept with a lot of potential even if it is still a little rough around the edges. Here’s my Zapd page I created last night in less than a minute.

Zapd pros:

Incredibly user friendly.
Super fast and easy to create a site.
It’s free (Although I would imagine there will be premium features available in the future).
20 free themes to choose from.
Create an unlimited number of free sites.
Sites are mobile optimized for and automatically show the best theme for phone, tablets of PC.

Zapd Cons:

No ability to create custom URLs, someone will definitely need a link to get to your site. For example the Zapd URL I create is http://2s5t.zapd.co/.
Once you’re on a Zapd site there’s no ability to “share” the site. No social media integration.
Posts are shown in chronological rather than reverse chronological (typical blog order) so the oldest photo/post is always at the top. (Although this may be less of an issue if you think of Zapd in a different way which I’ll discuss after this).

As I was writing that last con it crossed my mind that not only is Zapd incredibly easy to use, it’s totally outside the box of other photo/content sharing apps and it doesn’t work to try and judge it by the same standards. The complaint about the posts showing in chronological order may be a valid one if you’re thinking of Zapd as along the same lines as Posterous or Tumblr or even Instagram or Picplz but I think that’s a mistake.

Each of those sites are permanent archives where you archive all of your content always and forever, which is why it’s important that the content be displayed in reverse chronological order so you’re not seeing the same photo every time you visit the site for the next two years. What Zapd allows you to do (and should be encouraging its users to do) is to create one-off Zapd sites for virtually every moment in your life. Go for a walk in the park? Here’s a Zapd for that. Kid learning how to walk? Here’s a Zapd for that.

Zapd’s strength isn’t in it’s ability to harbor every moment in your life in one place, it’s strength lies in it’s ability for you to create a clean, quick, one-off site complete with dozens of photos, comments and commentary about literally any life experience that is happening right now and share it with the world in a matter of minutes. When you think of Zapd like that it’s features become a lot more valuable.

Zapd Screenshots

Zapd in 60 Seconds

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: apps, micro-sites, reviews, websites, zapd

Google Updates iOS App with Google Doodles

April 15, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

The Google Search app is one of my most used apps on the iPhone and in the past month it’s gotten quite a bit of love from Google.

Last month the app got a complete overhaul with a new UI, bug fixes and speed enhancements.

Today Google pushed out a new release that added the ability to see the Google Doodles in the app. The one downside is that it doesn’t allow you to fully see Google’s interactive doodles.

Today’s doodle happens to be a video celebrating Charlie Chaplin’s birthday and clicking the doodle in the app takes you to a Google search for Charlie Chaplin rather than letting you play the video.

Still, it’s a pretty cool way to spice up the app and offer up some variety for mobile searchers.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: app store, apps, google, google doodles, google search, ios, iPhone

Apple Starts Airing “If You Don’t Have an iPhone” Ads

March 17, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Nothing like a little peer pressure to sell some more iPhones. Apples new iPhone 4 ads boast, “If you don’t have an iPhone, then you don’t have an iPhone.” Subtext: “If you don’t have an iPhone, then you’re probably a reclusive hermit that doesn’t have any friends either.” Of course that’s totally subjective.

One thing I have to admit I like about almost all iPhone commercials is that they’re obviously showing off the best of the best as far as the apps go and you can often discover some very cool apps you may not have known about otherwise.

Apple posted this along with two other new iPhone commercials on their website as well as on their YouTube channel.

Filed Under: Videos Tagged With: ads, app store, apple, apps, commercials, ios, iPhone, iphone 4

Google iPhone App Gets a Major Overhaul

March 16, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Google released an update today for it’s mobile iPhone app. The new app came with some much needed improvements including a new UI, crash fixes and overall speed improvements. The new app is noticeably faster and has improved in app switching.

While using the search feature you can start a new search from any point inside the app simply by swiping down on the screen, the search box slides down and let’s you begin a new search. You can also slide from left to right and open up a the fast app switching sidebar.

there are a number of improvements we’ve made to everything else you love in the app, including Google Goggles, Voice Search, Search with My Location, Gmail unread counts and more. There’s a lot in the app, so we’ve added a simple help feature to let you explore it. Access this by tapping the question mark above the Google logo.

Check out the video for more on all the new features in the Google search app for iPhone.

Filed Under: Reviews, Videos Tagged With: app store, apps, google, ios, iPhone, mobile, Videos

Girl Scout App Helps You Hunt Down and Track Girl Scout Cookies

February 27, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Scan the qr code for a link to the Girl Scout iPhone App

If you’ve ever found yourself sitting around the house with the munchies, cursing yourself for not planning ahead and getting a couple boxes of Tagalongs and Samoas to satiate your munchie desires, well you’re in luck. There’s an app for that.

The Girl Scouts released apps for the iPhone and Android that lets you find Girl Scout cookies near you.

The free Cookie Locator lets you find cookies on sale close to you. Use your phone’s GPS location to find cookies nearby, or find cookies by ZIP code, city, or state. You can map your way to a cookie booth or share results with friends. Add the sale details automatically to your calendar so you remember to stop by and stock up on your favorites.

Pretty soon Girl Scouts will be using Square to accept payments from their iPhone they were issued when they got their smartphone badge.

The app itself has some pretty neat features although there may be some issues with how well it works. I was unable to find any cookie sales in my area no matter what period of time I chose. The app also could not locate me using my phone’s GPS so I had to manually enter my zip code. Other than that (which are the two main purposes of the app) everything else seemed to work fine.

Personally I’m still waiting for the Krispy Kreme app that alerts you when hot, fresh donuts are getting ready to be served up.

Oh, and for all you Android users out there you can scan this qr code to download the Android app.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: android, apps, girl scout cookies, girl scouts, iPhone, locator

Imo.im Web Based IM Client

February 19, 2011 By James Poling 4 Comments

Ever since Google invited me to beta test their Cr-48 Chrome OS Notebook and join their Pilot Program, I’ve been doing a lot of research and test driving a variety of Cloud solutions for applications that, traditionally, I’ve relied on desktop apps to accomplish.

One of the first things I was lost without was a good IM solution, my app of choice for years has been Trillian’s desktop app. I know there are web-based solutions out there (Meebo and Trillian for Web two name a couple) and while I’m not intimately familiar with all of the features each of them offer I could never get passed the UI of either one of them. They both seem bulky and cluttered and lacking a certain snappiness I look for in web-based apps.

imo.im gives you the option to store your chat history and, perhaps more importantly, easily allows you to delete selected chat histories as well.

I recently came across imo.im and was immediately impressed with what I saw. The UI is simple, easy to setup, user-friendly and, most importantly, fast.

Right off the bat you get the impression that imo stands out as a web-based messenger and as you start using it you find out quickly that it’s really much more than that.

Founded by brothers Ralph and Georges Harik in 2007 imo seems poised to become a serious contender in the web-based messenger arena.

From their website:

imo.im is a web-based service that allows users to hold text, voice, and video chats on multiple instant messaging protocols. Currently supported protocols include AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, MySpace, Skype, and Yahoo Messenger. The service is free and requires no user-registration or sign-up.

Yes, they have Skype integration and the ability to make voice and video calls right inside the app using Skype or GTalk!

About imo.im’s Founders

Ralph Harik has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in computer science from MIT and brother Georges is the former Director of Googlettes and a Distinguished Engineer at Google. His team was responsible for product management and strategy efforts such Google initiatives as Gmail, Google Talk, Google Video, Picasa, Orkut, Google Groups and Google Mobile.

I’m guessing they know a little bit about the future of Cloud computing and it’s potential.

imo.im’s Services

I really can’t get over how clean and user-friendly the UI is, you can definitely see the Google minimilistic design influence in imo.im. Since I’ve started using it I’m not only using it on my Cr-48 but I’ve also found myself relying on it soley even when I’m using my desktop. Even having more than a half a dozen conversations going at the same time the window doesn’t seem cluttered and when you want to initiate a conversation with someone, going to the imo.im dashboard is much quicker and simpler than cycling through a number of open rogue IM windows.

If you’ve tried or are already using imo I’d love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments. If you haven’t tried it give it a shot and let us know what you think.

Filed Under: Chrome OS, Reviews Tagged With: apps, facebook, georges harik, google, gtalk, imo, imo.im, instant messaging, ralph harik, skype, web-based

Twitter Suspends UberTwitter and twidroyd for Violating Polices [Breaking]

February 18, 2011 By James Poling 1 Comment

UPDATE #1 | 3:44 p.m.: twidroyd posts it’s first Tweet addressing the issue:

Twitter may have thrown down the gauntlet and started declaring war on third-party Twitter apps by suspending the privelages of UberTwitter and Twidroyd, two most popular Twitter clients on BlackBerry and Android platforms respectively.

When the iPhone was released there were a number of Twitter apps that flooded the the App Store which gave users a lot of options to choose from. Tweetie, fairly quickly, became the most popular iOS Twitter client. When Twitter decided to make its foray into the mobile platform scene it simply went out and bought Tweetie and re-branded it as the Official Twitter app for iPhone.

It seems Twitter is taking another route to make a splash in the BlackBerry and Android platform market. Rather than worrying about buying up the hottest clients it’s decided to just shut them down.

UberTwitter has long been one of the most popular Twitter clients for BlackBerry OS and hasn’t relinqueshed that title even though Twitter now has an Official Twitter BlackBerry App.

Twidroyd was one of the first Twitter apps released on the Android platform, followed shortly by the Official Twitter for Android app. Although a very unscientific poll seems to indicate that Twidroyd has remained a more popular choice among most Android users.

Is it a coincidence that the two of the most popular apps on the two platforms that official Twitter apps aren’t dominating are the ones who had their privileges revoked? As you can see from the screencap above and from Twitter’s official statement below, they’re making no bones about giving those users, who can no longer use their apps of choice, plenty of ways to get to the official Twitter apps being offered.

Every day, we suspend hundreds of applications that are in violation of our policies. Generally, these apps are used by a small number of users. We are taking the unusual step of sharing this with you because today’s suspension may affect a larger number of users.

We are committed to helping you continue to use Twitter during the disruption of these applications. You can download Twitter for Blackberry, Twitter for Android and other official Twitter apps here. You can also try our mobile web site or apps from other third-party developers.

Twitter has also promoted its own Tweet to the top of the timeline as well as buying the number one trending topic to make their apps easier to find.

Both UberTwitter and Twidroyd are fairly recent acquisitions of UberMedia which has been busy buying up as many third-party Twitter clients as it can get its hands on. The biggest acquisition it’s made by far is the recent purchase of the largest and most popular 3rd party desktop client TweetDeck. If you really want to see the crap hit the fan, just wait until Twitter suspends that app which is used by a whole lot of Twitter power users.

There have been quite a few Tweets from users directed at Twitter asking for clarification which policies these apps violated, but as of now there has been no official response.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: android, apps, blackberry, twidroyd, twitter, twitter clients, ubertwitter

Yoono Launches Desktop, Web and iPhone Social Network Clients

January 6, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

I just came across and started using Yoono, a really amazing social media client for literally all of your social media sites. You can see by the screenshot that not only can you include the usual Twitter and Facebook columns you can also choose to have Flickr and YouTube in there as well. And yes, it also handles multiple Twitter clients for those of you that asked.

It doesn’t stop there, you can add FriendFeed, AIM, Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Gtalk columns for your IMing needs as well.

I’ve also tried out there iPhone client which I am also impressed with so far. The major drawback that I can see in the iPhone app right now is that it seems to be fairly slow compared to other Twitter apps out there, however I’m sure this will be addressed in future upgrades.

One small feature I really like is on the left dashboard column “for lack of a better term” is that when you’re on your twitter tab it alerts you when you have any DMs or @replies come in so you don’t necessarily have to waste an entire column with one of these if you’re looking for a way to maximize your content and save some real estate.

Has anyone else out there tried Yoono yet? If so let us know what you think about it in the comments.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: apps, clients, facebook, linkedin, Social Media, twitter, yoono, youtube

Apple’s App Store Statistics [Infographic]

December 18, 2010 By James Poling Leave a Comment

The folks over at App of the Day put together this great infographic breaking down Apple’s App Stores numbers.

A full one-third of the apps downloaded are free apps, iPhone apps dominate over iPad and universal apps (although we could see that trend downward in 2011 with the release of iPad 2), books and games are the dominant categories of app downloads and the average price of all apps is $2.43.

Click after the jump to see the infographic and more cool stats about the app store.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: app store, apple, apps, infographic, stats

What Do You Get the Cat That Has Everything? His Own Kitty iPad App of course

December 17, 2010 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Everyone knows that, for the most part, cats are finicky bitches with huge egos which makes shopping for them nearly impossible. There’s no worse feeling than having your cat get all uppity and judgmental about the crappy cat toys you bought him Kristmas.

All of this, of course, is scientifically proven information and which is why I refuse to own cats.

Lucky for you Hiccup came up with this iPad game made specifically for cats. Step one: Go out and buy your kitteh a fat sack of catnip. Step two: Download this free game on your iPad. Step three: Sit back and watch as your cat has his mind blown with hours of mice chasing fun.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK2dwTVi-aQ&feature=player_embedded

P.S. You’ll probably want to make sure your cat’s declawed because, from the looks of it, he’s going to be doing some serious pouncing on your iPad.

Filed Under: How To Tagged With: app store, apps, cats, games, ipad, ipad game for cats

ZumoCast is a Must Have App for iPhone and iPad Owners

November 21, 2010 By James Poling 2 Comments

For a year or so now I’ve been using the Air Video app to stream movie and tv shows from my computer to my iPhone and iPad. It’s a cool app but requires that you be connected to your WiFi network in order to access your stuff, which is obviously limiting.

ZumoCast on the other hand allows you to access not only your videos and music but practically any file you’d like with your iPad or iPhone over any kind of network, even 3G. Like Air Video you can convert your files on the fly, but unlike Air Video you can download files straight to your device which can come in extremely handy.

No more syncing music to your phone. ZumoCast streams your entire music collection to you with a familiar interface. It even supports your iTunes playlists.
Streams video of any format (mp4, avi, mkv, divx, rm, and more). No conversion necessary. Video can be streamed over any connection, even 3G.
ZumoCast is designed for your mobile devices. The iOS app adapts media to work with any connection. It also lets you download media to the device for offline access.
ZumoCast turns your computers into a personal cloud, enabling you to access all of your files and media without having to upload. Now you have access to all your content with zero effort.

Ever been out and wanted to show off a photo you forgot you had left on your home computer? Not a problem if you have your photo folder synced with ZumoCast, just jump on the app and show off every photo on your home computer!

The best part about all of this is that, as of right now, ZumoCast is totally free. They do offer a premium solution but it’s not clear what features are missing from the free version right now, if any. There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be using the hell out of this app right now.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: apps, ipad, iPhone, reviews, zumocast, zumodrive

StumbleUpon is the Perfect Time Wasting App for iPhone and Android

November 5, 2010 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Some of the best mobile apps are the ones that don’t make you have to work for the content, they just deliver random goodness to your phone for hours of enjoyment. If you’ve ever found yourself in a waiting room and you’ve answered all your texts and emails (or are just avoiding them) and don’t feel like playing Angry Birds again, if you’re like me you often find yourself flicking back and forth between apps, bored and waiting for something to happen. Sort of like when you keep opening the fridge expecting some new and delicious meal to be there that you may have missed the last time you checked.

StumbleUpon has been around online for years and has a fairly large following of active users that keep it fresh with content. If you’re not familiar with StumbleUpon you can read more about them here:

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 8 million+ other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

While this is a really cool concept for surfing the web, it’s an absolute awesome concept for surfing the web on your mobile phone while you’re trying to pass the time. Now, not only can you pass the time you can discover great new sites, photos and more while you’re at it.

The iPhone and Android app versions of StumbleUpon have been out for a few months now and if you haven’t checked them out they’re definitely worth a look, especially that they’re both free.