April 2011
3 posts
9 tags
Apple knows where you've been!
Lots of scandal in the technology press this past week about the discovery by Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden [a couple of computer security researchers] that our beloved iPhones are keeping tabs on us wherever we go, storing this information in a hidden file called consolidated.db on the phone and also backing it up to your computer, whenever you sync your phone with iTunes.
Apparently it is...
7 tags
appletalker - the wake
just a heads up for anyone who may have lost touch with their fellow appletalker regulars and wants to maintain contact:
i5m’s appletalker group on convore is kinda… sorta… acting as a bit of a post-mortem discussion forum at the moment.
gamoe has set up an appletalker mailing list to allow folks to keep in touch
there’s this interim version of the...
appletalker RIP
after a lot of pondering, during the past few months, and also some recent chats with a couple of the appletalker regulars, i’ve come to the decision to shut down the appletalker forum. the appletalker forum was launched on 9th february 2006, as a refuge for a group of regulars from the macNN forums, at a time when there was a lot of discontent over there. from the outset, appletalker was...
January 2011
1 post
Batch Renaming Files (without using the terminal)
So you have a bunch of pictures on your Mac and you want to add a prefix (like say “My Wild Party-“) or a date to all of them, or maybe you’ve already painstakingly renamed them one by one, but want to change the name now. But there are 600 of them. Isn’t there any easier way to rename files and folders on the Mac?
You got a Mac because its easy, and powerful. Sure, the...
September 2010
4 posts
5 tags
review: camerabag
well, it’s all very well making the transition from ipod touch to iphone and opening up a whole new world of photographic fun and frolics but, let’s face it, the iphone camera is pretty basic. what it needs are some photographic apps to ‘jazz things up’ a bit. so this week, i ‘ave mostly been eating photographic apps:
camerabag - photographic filters
meet my new...
9 tags
review: redlaser vs. pic2shop
as i mentioned a couple of posts earlier, i’ve been on a bit of a quest to find apps which use the additional features i have on my iphone, as compared to the ipod touch. mostly this means i’m looking at apps which avail of compass, GPS and/or camera:
redlaser & pic2shop - barcode scanners
a bit of an change for you today. i’m going to review these two apps together and...
8 tags
review: motionX-GPS
it’s been a while since i paraded any new toys here. so here’s a couple of new ones i’ve got, since acquiring my iphone 3GS with compass and GPS:
motionX-GPS - GPS software
i did a bit of reserarch into the ‘must-have’ apps which take advantage of the later model iphones’ GPS and magnetic compass and this one kept coming out near the top of the list. as...
7 tags
review: pocket universe [UPDATE]
not a new one, as such, but just a re-mention for pocket universe:
i reviewed this earlier in the thread. it’s another app which is greatly enhanced by the presence of the GPS/compass on the 3GS iphone. as i said then:
madra wrote:
obviously the app takes on a whole new level of sophistication, when installed on one of the new iphones, as it uses the GPS and compass to automatically...
July 2010
1 post
7 tags
review: pastebot
i’ve been meaning to revive this thread for a while but, unfortunatley, along with my herman blog and my ranting blog, it’s turned into one of those things where the longer you leave it, the more catching up you have to do, so you put it off for another while….. and so on. :hmm:
however, i have been inspired by i5m recommending in this thread that i check out tapbots’...
February 2010
4 posts
7 tags
review: parker's car price checker
parker’s car price checker - valuation for second-hand cars
this is another newly released digital version of a previously paper-based publication. parkers is pretty much the bible, for anyone buying, or contemplating buying, a second-hand motor in the UK. basically it lists pretty much all the major models and variants thereof, gives you the spec and then a range of prices you can...
8 tags
review: backgrounder
backgrounder - run multiple apps at once
one of the biggest bugbears people have about the iphoneOS is the ‘one app at a time’ limitation. a lot of us were surprised that the launch of the ipad didnae see a corresponding upgrade to the OS, allowing multiple apps to run at the same time.
backgrounder is an app for jailbroken ipods/iphones which allows you to do just that.
using...
7 tags
review: my pantone
mypantone - posh colour picker
anyone involved in the art world will know that pantone colours are the de facto standard for er… ‘standardising’ colours used in graphic design.
mypantone is an app which puts all these colours at your fingertips. so, armed with your ipod/iphone you should theoretically be able to identify and store away for future reference any nice...
7 tags
review: metro UK
metro UK - digital newspaper
everyone in the UK’s freebie newspaper; metro news is a daily newspaper given away on public transport and street corners in big cities in the UK [manchester and london for sure. i presume they give it away elsewhere too!]. while not the most in-depth paper out there - it’s no times, guardian or indy, it does at least try and be semi-intelligent and...
January 2010
7 posts
8 tags
review: SBsettings
one last one for today:
SBSettings [cannae find specific app page. here is the dev’s site]
this app adds a quick configurable access panel [you launch it by swiping across the main menubar, while on the springboard screen], which allows you to quickly toggle on and off various features on your ipod/iphone. for example - location services, wifi… etc.
it’s quite a nice...
8 tags
review: cydia [jailbreaking part03]
stage 03:
now that you’ve installed your package manager, it will also appear as an app on your ipod. here’s cydia, nestling in amongst the other folks in my ‘apps which help you get new toys’ section:
fire up cydia and you’re good to go to start properly invalidating your warranty :devil:
again, my memory is hazy and it’s not helped by the fact that...
9 tags
review: cydia vs. rock [jailbreaking part02]
OK. on to stage two of the ‘great jailbreaking’ adventure:
after jailbreaking your ipod, you’ll find that there is now an app installed on it called blackra1n:
your next task is to install one of the package installers. there’s a choice of cydia or rock. i think there’s also another one called icy, which you can add, but seeing as they’re all much of a...
8 tags
review: mobile terminal
since one of the reasons i jailbroke my ipod was so i could enjoy its full ‘mini mac’-ness, one of the first apps i installed via cydia was mobileterminal which, as the name suggests, gives you a terminal on your ipod/iphone, so you can have a poke around in the OSX/*nix style internals. here i am changing the default root password to something more secure [it is ‘alpine’...
8 tags
review: blackra1n [jailbreaking - part01]
well, it’s been a while since i last updated this thread. mainly because; A - i’ve not bought any new apps recently and B - the new ‘stuff’ i have installed on my ‘pod has been as a consequence of jailbreaking it a week or two ago.
so, just to keep the thread alive, i thought i’d throw in a couple of jailbreak-only apps this weekend:
first up blackra1n
...
7 tags
review: draw a flag
draw a flag - flag recognition app.
i downloaded this, just out of idle curiosity, when it was reduced to free one day [usual price 59p]. the premise is pretty simple; you use the [very primitive] painting tools to paint a flag on screen and the app identifies it for you - or so the theory goes.
as an actual ‘flag identifying’ app, the premise is pretty idiotic to start with. ...
8 tags
review: words with friends
i d/loaded the freebie version of words with friends on oisín’s recommendation and we had a few games of scrabble over the intarwebs.
it’s actually quite a good wee game. if you’ve ever played scrabble before, the interface is pretty self-explanatory. drag your tiles onto the board, to make your word and then it’s the next player’s go. you can pinch to zoom in...
December 2009
7 posts
7 tags
review: 12 days of christmas
OK - here’s one i havenae had a chance to try yet, for obvious reasons. but it sounds interesting.
12 days of christmas - apple giveaway app
it’s a promo apple are running from 26th dec - 6th jan, whereby they’re giving away a free *something* in the itunes store every day. no doubt the freebies will turn out to be pants, as they usually are with this kind of thing. but...
7 tags
review: knot guide
knot guide - a knot tying guide
once a boy scout, always a boy scout!
being an outdoorsy, camping type of guy, this is the kind of ‘useless’ info i love collecting. i couldnae resist this app, when i accidentally tripped over it [like a discarded piece of rope! :grin: ] in the app store. a measley £1,19 for a fount of information that would keep any ray mears happy for a...
7 tags
review: guitar tab
tab toolkit - guitar tab app
another consequence of my previously mentioned [and yet another] midlife crisis induced re-awakening of interest in learning to play the guitar.
this is a mobile app from the people who make the guitar pro software. that, in itself, was not much of a recommendation, as i’ve tried a few versions of guitar pro in my time and always found it one of the most...
7 tags
review: photoshop.com mobile
photoshop.com mobile - photoshop.com app
if you’re unaware of photoshop.com, check out the smugmug vs flickr vs the rest thread. basically it’s a flash-driven cut down version of photoshop, on the web. as i said in the above-linked thread:
madra wrote:
all in all photoshop.com is not actually that bad: the interface is quite desktop-app-like, the ability to load your flickr...
7 tags
review: gran diccionario vox de la lengua española
gran diccionario vox de la lengua española - spanish dictionary.
i’ve had this on my watchlist for a while, as i really love ultralingua’s dictionary software. i’ve got the desktop app [along with a few of the language packs] and, with its dashboard widget, it’s a really handy way to look up words quickly.
this iphone app gives you the ultralingua goodies, such as...
7 tags
review: XE currency
XE currency - mobile version of the XE website.
not much to say about this one, really. anyone who’s ever needed to do currency conversions [ie. anyone who’s ever tried to make sense of us appletalkers whingeing about the cost of things in our respective countries] will be aware of xe.com - *the* currency conversion website.
XE currency is a mobile app which draws on the...
7 tags
review: NHS drinks tracker
OK. time for this week’s sunday round-up. i actually shelled out a fair bit of cash this week on ipod apps, mainly due to the fact that a couple of ones i had on my watchlist were on sale for cyber monday [whatever the feck that is :wink: ]
NHS drinks tracker - monitor your drinking
how can you resist a freebie app which shows you in graph form how your liver is about to explode? this...
November 2009
14 posts
7 tags
review: flickr
sunday bloody sunday! - time for my weekly roundup of the latest ipod apps i’ve been playing with:
flickr - the official flickr app.
even tho’ it’s a freebie, i resisted downloading this for quite a while as it is almost universally panned in the itunes store ratings, with a lot of people saying that you were better off just using the mobile version of the flickr website.
i...
7 tags
review: lastFM
last.fm - last.fm mobile app
here’s another one i downloaded a few weeks back but never really got round to road-testing til now.
if you’re even more ‘time-liney’ than i usually am and dinnae know what last.fm is, it’s a website which plays streaming internet radio. nothing novel there, but what makes last.fm really interesting is that you can create your own...
7 tags
review: good reader [UPDATE]
an update on my earlier review of good reader, an app which can be used as a viewer for PDF, MS office docs, HTML, webarchive, iwork docs.. etc. etc.
i got an alert in the itunes app telling me there was an update available for goodreader and, as usual, i was just about to hit ‘install’, without bothering to read the release notes, when i noticed the following:
so,...
7 tags
review: guitarist's reference
guitarist’s reference pro - guitar chord app
presumably as part of my latest midlife crisis, i’ve been getting the urge of late to start playing the guitar [badly!] again, so i’ve been poring over what’s on offer on ebay and giving my shitty old battered to fuck crappy squier strat the occasional strum.
i actually had a look on the itunes store to see whether there were...
7 tags
review: speedtest
speedtest.net speed test - ipod version of the speedtest.net broadband speed tester.
i actually got this app a few weeks ago but didnae get around to reviewing it.
there’s not too much to say really; it tests the speed of your ipod/iphone’s wifi connection, in the same way as the website does for your home broadband.
the interface is nice and clean and basic. you select a test...
7 tags
review: TV guide
TV guide - a UK TV guide
i’m not a great telly watcher. most of it is so moronic, i’d rather inject battery acid directly into my brain and get the job over with, than slowly dissolve it with the endless zzz-elebrity shitfests that pass for programming these days. however, sometimes it’s handy to know when sommit’s on - just for those rare occasions when there’s...
7 tags
review: grey's anatomy deluxe
gray’s anatomy deluxe - electronic version of the famous anatomy bible
being a lover of nice things and nice artwork in particular, i’ve picked up the ‘dead tree version’ of gray’s anatomy more than once, in bookshops, in the past - admiring the sheer amount of detail and craft that has gone into all the illustrations. the book is usually pretty dear and not being...
7 tags
review: ebay mobile
ebay mobile - ebay for your mobile phone
i got this a while back and it’s had a bout three updates since then. it was pisspoor when i first downloaded it and its still pisspoor now. navigation is pointlessly clunky. it never remembers any settings you enter [no matter how many times you click the big feckin’ ‘save settings’ button], so even when you try to access your...
4 tags
review: tweetie 2
tweetie 2 - YA twitter client
i’m not the biggest ‘twitterer’ in the world [although i may be the biggest twit!] and i was quite happy with the freebie version of twitterific, which i’ve been using up to now. however, it seems to me that, of late the free version of twitterific is becoming extremely ‘ad happy’. i’d never even noticed the adverts in...
4 tags
review: writeroom
oh no. it’s sunday again. time for my weekly round-up:
writeroom - a writer’s app
i got this app when it was on sale at 59p, to pair up with the desktop version, which had been given away as part of the macheist promo. in my naive way, i thought it might help me dash off a few words, when i had a moment or two, to help with my increasingly futile attempt at nanowirmo for this...
7 tags
review: shovebox mobile
shovebox mobile - a scrapbook type app.
having got the desktop version of shovebox for free as part of the macheist promo and found it quite handy for dragging various bits’n’bobs into, without interrupting my workflow [shovebox puts an icon in your main menubar - you just drag almost anything onto it to save that thing into shovebox] - i thought i’d download the mobile version...
7 tags
review: HIARCS chess
HIARCS chess - chess app
although i really liked the interface for my freebie deep green chess lite, i got a bit frustrated by the fact that i couldnae beat the fecker at all. i’m well out of practice at chess and am currently just too rubbish to beat a computer prog that disnae give me a chance.
the problem with this scenario is that, whilst mose chess apps will have adjustable...
7 tags
review: brushes
OK. it’s been a week or two. time for another batch:
* brushes - a painting app.
i got really inspired the other week by i5m’s mentioning of nanodrawmo and discovering that a lot of the entries were created on ipod/iphone, to splurge out some £££s on some ‘proper’ painting & drawing apps. i’m quite excited by this whole thing. i feel like i’ve...
7 tags
review: sketchbook mobile
* sketchbook mobile
i already had the freebie version of this and i quite like it. as mentioned above, i was having a bit of a splurge on art apps, so i thought ‘what the hell! i’ll get the full version of sketchbook mobile too’.
the paid version adds a few features over the freebie one [import images, merge layers, custom brushes etc] and it’s OK to use. sketchbook...
October 2009
17 posts
7 tags
review: TVcatchup
TVcatchup - watch UK TV on your iphone/ipod touch
actually, this is a bit of a cheat, as it’s a web service, not an app. but with the ipod/iphone’s ability to add an icon for a webpage to your home screens like it was an app, and the fact that adding this site magically creates an icon that makes it look like a proper app and not just a grabbed webpage, i thought i’d include...
7 tags
review: appminer
appminer - itunes app store helper.
this is quite an interesting app. it provides an alternative interface to the itunes app store, with a few nice additions; as well as the usual viewing apps by category, or what’s new, you can also view ‘sale’ apps ie. those which are currently selling for a reduced price. you can further sort these sale apps into free and paid. the...
7 tags
review: birds UK
birds UK - a bird identifying app
i really downloaded this to show the missus. she’s a bit of an twitcher on the sly and, whenever we’re off on our camping trips, she likes to dig the binocs out and take a look at our ‘feathered friends’. she’s also annoyingly able to identify, on sight, most of the plants and birds we see on our travels. so i thought i’d...
7 tags
review: civilisation revolution lite
a few mid-week ones for you, seeing as i’ll be off to whitby over the weekend:
civilisation revolution lite - freebie version of civilisation revolution
well, being the great fan of civilisation III that i am, i wasnae going to resist trying this one out for long - even tho’ i wasnae expecting to like it, as i think the civilisation franchise has been completely dumbed down and...
7 tags
review: the world factbook '09
the world factbook ‘09 - geographical info and data
this was one of the apps that i bagged for 59p, thanks to appminer [see above] flagging it up on the ‘sale’ listings.
while it’s not something i foresee any immediate need for, it had a swathe of good reviews and seemed to promise a handy pocket reference for looking up obscure facts on countries around the globe.
the...
7 tags
review: wikitap
wikitap - an info gatherer.
it’s a funny one this. on the itunes app store, i must’ve passed over a zillion apps, which tap into wikipedia or youtube or various online dictionaries - and never saw the point of any of them. wikitap seemed to promise a slight variation on the theme tho’. for a start it was a freebie [which always gets my interest :grin: ] and for a second, it...
7 tags
review: city maps to go
citymaps2go - paid city centre map app, with free downloadable maps.
i actually installed this last week, but forgot to write a review.
citymaps2go is an interesting concept for a map application. the app itself costs £1,19 but, once you’ve bought it you can download as many maps as you want for free, which i imagine would make it really good value, if you grab a load of maps. there...
7 tags
review: disc space
disc space - shows your ipod/iphone’s disc space usage
a pretty straightforward one-trick pony. this free app gives you a nice pie-chart, showing disc usage on your ipod/iphone. it does what it does OK and it looks nice enough. it could be improved by further dividing the pie in the way itunes does, so that it showed you more detail as to how the used disc space was allocated amongst...
7 tags
review: myst free
myst free - game
another venture into games-land for me. this time i came across a real blast from the past; myst - the iconic game from the 1990s. it’s available for ipod/iphone in a free version [which allows you to explore one location] and a full version for £2,99
i must confess that, in my usual timeline fashion, i never owned a copy of myst, back in the day. although i did have...