iphone 2.0

A Year Of The App Store: Successes And Failures

8:00AM Kevin Purdy | One year ago, Apple opened the doors to the iTunes App Store. We’ve been wowed with some of the apps, left longing for others, and we’ve got a (relatively) small wish list. More »

iDrive Lite Backs Up Your iPhone Contacts For Free

1:00AM Kevin Purdy | iPhone only: A bad sync, or a few clumsy finger swipes, can leave you with missing, duplicate, or otherwise messed-up iPhone contacts. iDrive Lite is a free app that stores contacts in the cloud. It’s a simple app that exports your contacts to a space at the previously reviewed iDrive, a web-based file storage site. Hit “backup” to upload, “Restore” to download, and “Share” to share a contact or two via SMS. It doesn’t seem to actually require an account with iDrive to backup, and I had a hard time finding details of what format the backups take. Still, for skipping the bill from MobileMe or anyone lacking an Exchange server link, iDrive Lite might provide free peace of mind. It’s free to download, requires an iPhone running at least 2.0 software, and doesn’t require a sign-up. iDrive Lite [iTunes Store via TechCrunch] More »

Rowmote Turns Your iPhone Into An Apple Remote

7:01AM Adam Pash | iPhone/iPod touch only: The Rowmote iPhone application turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a full-fledged Apple Remote capable of controlling Front Row, iTunes, Quicktime, DVD Player, and Keynote over your Wi-Fi. As Gizmodo points out, Rowmote actually one-ups your Mac’s IR remote in a couple of ways. For example, your Apple Remote requires line-of-sight to control your computer. Since Rowmote works over Wi-Fi, line-of-sight isn’t an issue. It also works as a cheap replacement if you’ve lost your tiny Apple Remote. Rowmote only offers the simplest of controls (the same ones available on the Apple IR Remote), so it’s not terribly robust. If you only need to control iTunes, for example, you’d be better off sticking with Apple’s free Remote app (which makes for a helluva multi-room wireless remote). If you want to control any of the other apps, Rowmote looks like a great option. Rowmote works with your iPhone or iPod touch, will set you back $US1 in the iTunes App Store. Once you’ve downloaded Rowmote, you’ll need to install and run a companion app to get it working. Rowmote [iTunes Store via Gizmodo] More »

HearPlanet Is A Free Talking Tour Guide For Your iPhone

7:00AM Adam Pash | iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application HearPlanet plays audio tracks of Wikipedia articles based on points of interest surrounding your current location, turning your iPhone or iPod touch into an audio tour guide. HearPlanet uses your iPhone’s location awareness to find places of interest near you. When you choose a topic, HearPlanet loads up a screen with both the text and audio of the Wikipedia article in question. If your iPhone or iPod touch can’t find you, HearPlanet offers a search option in which you can enter a search topic and location. That means that even if you don’t want the audio tour guide, you can still use HearPlanet to listen to Wikipedia articles on the go—if you don’t mind a little robot voice, that is. HearPlanet is a simple but smart app with a nice look and feel. As TUAW suggests, integration with maps and phone numbers would be a great addition in time. HearPlanet is a free download (for a limited time) from the iTunes App Store, works on both the iPhone and iPod touch. HearPlanet [iTunes App Store via TUAW] More »

LogMeIn Ignition Brings Simple Remote Control To The iPhone

4:30AM Adam Pash | LogMeIn Ignition lets you remotely connect to and control your Windows or Mac PC from your iPhone. The catch: It costs a whopping $US30—expensive by any standards, especially in the iTunes App Store. LogMeIn may be the most popular remote desktop tool on the market, but it seems unlikely that it’s $US30-for-your-iPhone good. LogMeIn users, let’s hear what you think in the comments. Alternately, check our previously mentioned Mocha VNC Lite for free (but perhaps less simple to set up) remote control. More »

Seadragon Mobile Gives Deep Zooms On High-Res Images

11:00PM Kevin Purdy | iPhone/iPod touch only: Microsoft has made a surprising leap into the iPhone app realm, releasing a mobile viewer for its super-high-resolution Photosynthservice. Unless you’re familiar enough with the previously mentioned Photosynth tool to create your own in-depth, virtual-tour-ish images, you’d likely use Seadragon as a kind of low-lag image viewer, which it seems to work quite well at. Seadragon comes pre-loaded with some pretty eye-widening images from NASA, the Library of Congress, maps, and intriguing shots from Photosynth, but you can also add your own RSS image feeds—such as those from Flickr, and get similar super-zoom features, up to a point. It’s also worth noting that while Photosynth previously required a Windows-only plug-in, it’s recently opened up a Silverlight-based viewer that should work for Mac clients as well. Seadragon is a free download for iPhones and iPod touches running at least the 2.0 firmware. Seadragon Free [Example Source via Example] More »

VLC Remote Adds iPhone Control To Our Favourite Media App

1:00AM Kevin Purdy | iPhone/iPod touch only: VLC Remote Free lets you play, pause, and skip tracks on the mighty VLC Media Player on any computer from your iPhone or iPod touch. Its (currently) 99-cent sibling, VLC Remote, gives you full playlist control. Both are fairly simple to set up on your computer and hook up over a wireless network, and work well in conjunction with the new playlist features in the latest version of the open source player for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Setting up remote access requires only a quick plug-in download on all three platforms, and the Free edition can then skip forward and backward on a pre-loaded play list, as well as control the volume and move around a video or audio file. The full app, however, allows selecting playlist items, and even remotely browsing your system’s entire hard drive for media. Read on for a walkthrough and screenshots of both VLC Remote versions. More »

Amazon Mobile Looks Up Any Product You Snap A Picture Of

6:00AM Adam Pash | iPhone/iPod touch only: Amazon released a new mobile application for the iPhone and iPod touch today, ensuring that you can now get your online shopping fix no matter where you are. Not only does the Amazon app provide an excellent interface to search, buy, or add items to your wishlists, but if you’re an iPhone user, the application’s Amazon Remembers feature identifies any product you take a picture of—sort of like previously mentioned SnapTell. When you snap a pic, the app uploads the picture to Amazon, which looks for a match among its products. If it finds one (it can take anywhere between a couple minutes and 24 hours), it’ll send you an email and update the Amazon Remembers tab. So far it’s worked like a charm with all of the products I tested. I expected that my iPhone book might throw it for a loop, considering it has a picture of an iPhone on it, but even it was correctly identified within a few minutes. More »

Voice Dialer Brings Fast, Impressive Voice Dialing To Your iPhone

7:00AM Adam Pash | iPhone only: As its name suggests, free iPhone application Voice Dialer adds voice dialing to your iPhone. More accurately, though, Voice Dialer is a contact search-by-voice app that also does autodialing. The difference: You can easily autodial any contact by saying “Call John Smith at home”—and Voice Dialer is great at recognising matches—but if you don’t say “Call” before the contact’s name, Voice Dialer will simply pull up matches. From there, you can also check out a contact’s full contact card to quickly compose an email, send a text message, or launch Google Maps at your contact’s address (the video demo illustrates these features nicely). More »