Short Version $219.94. The price says it all. The TomTom Car Kit is great; it works perfectly, and I loved using it. In fact, I wish I could keep the review unit that TomTom sent me. That said, would I ever spend 2 bills and change on it? Mayyyybe, but it’s unlikely. A standalone TomTom GPS unit can be as cheap as $100, which is half the price of the TomTom Car Kit ($119.95) + TomTom GPS App ($99.99) for the iPhone. Furthermore, it’s hard to justify buying both the hardware and the software when there are cheaper options for both (more on that later). Of course, the product does serve multiple purposes as an in-car iPhone charger, Bluetooth speakerphone and GPS unit. All in all, I was fairly impressed with the device and think those that aren’t turned off by the price might consider its purchase. The convenience of an all-in-one device is compelling. Hit the jump to read on… → Read More
There are more than 100,000 approved apps in the App Store now, making it harder and harder to spot the really good ones. One of these apps that don’t get enough airtime (and that I viewed a demo of recently) is called Makibishi Comic (iTunes link) and is offered by Tokyo-based GungHo Works (it’s available in Japanese and English). → Read More
It stands to reason that a general purpose mobile computing platform, like the iPhone or iPod Touch, will engender a host of special purpose niche applications. Pet Acoustics is one such application: “Pet Acoustics music has been specifically designed for the hearing sensitivities of your pet, both in frequency, volume and rhythm to calm and soothe your pet anytime, anywhere.” This $1.99 app includes music for dogs, cats, and horses, and includes a timer feature for scheduled playback. → Read More
Are you addicted to FriendFeed? Can’t get enough of Robert Scoble‘s incessant posts? Want to keep up with them even when you’re on the go? Are you praying to the heavens that Facebook doesn’t screw up FriendFeed post-acquisition? Then Stir (iTunes link) might just be for you. Created by StructLab Stir is an iPhone app that allows you to get your fill of FriendFeed anytime, anywhere. You can use it in the bathroom at work (guilty), while watching a lame chick flick with your girlfriend (guilty) or if you’re on the couch and don’t want to walk the 10 feet to your desk (umm, yes, guilty). Of course, it is hardly the first FriendFeed app for the iPhone, but it’s the first one I’ve looked at and it’s pretty damn good. Mind you, I only started using FriendFeed last week. Twitter [follow me] is still my micro-blogging platform of choice, but I quickly noticed that FriendFeed has some obvious benefits. And Stir takes advantage of all of them. → Read More
Does it seem to you, like it seems to me, that iPhone apps are the new way to drive traffic to various websites? With the always-on Internet connection of an iPhone, why bother building all the content into your app when it can simply phone home to fetch what it needs? In principle I have no problem with this: avoid duplicating data, and focus on providing a great product. In reality, though, people seem to abuse this model by quickly throwing together a decent looking app that doesn’t really provide much value to the end user. Case in point: Palo Alto Networks’ Applipedia web site and its associated iPhone app. → Read More
It is time to ask the age-old question: Are our cellphones ready to replace standalone GPS units. Sure we’ve all done a little work with cellphone mapping services and we’ve all mucked about with Google Maps while driving (which is very dangerous). But are cellphones and iPhones in particular ready to knock the old GPS box off of the dashboard? To paraphrase Molly Bloom in Ulysees, “yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me and I think you can replace your GPS device with an iPhone and software like Navigon’s Mobile Navigator for iPhone are making it much simpler yes I will Yes.” → Read More
Short Version: As it stands, the BlackBerry Tour 9630 is the best smartphone available for Verizon Wireless customers. It’s a mash-up of the AT&T BlackBerry Bold and T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900. One would think that this would lead to the perfect BlackBerry, but it has one glaring flaw and it isn’t one that you can get over quickly, if ever. → Read More
The short version: A solid, compact WinMo smartphone that’s capable of a lot, but can’t really compete with the others on the market. The Dash 3g is the successor to the Dash (obviously), which was a good phone back in the day, though limited by Windows Mobile as many phones are. The Dash 3G has its strengths, and shares some of its predecessor’s weaknesses, but more importantly, it doesn’t seem to offer any value compared with a Blackberry or G1 if you’re on T-Mobile — to say nothing of an iPhone or Pre. → Read More
There is a fairly standard montage in the canon of bad 80s movies. It involves the protagonist(s) working hard to build/do/invent something to beat the stuck up and dismissive antagonists. See, for example, Summer Rental, a John Candy vehicle in which Candy and crew convert a seafood restaurant that was originally a boat back into a boat in order to win a big, rich boat race against snobs. I don’t quite recall why they needed to win the race, but that’s immaterial. In the end [SPOILER ALERT] they thumb their noses, triumphantly, at the crews of the other, more richly appointed boat. It’s the tale of the underdog – an important tale to be told in that dark decade – and it is applicable here. This brings us to the HTC Hero, HTC’s first Android phone to use the company’s new Sense UI. In one sense the Hero is “just another Android phone”; in another sense, it’s an entirely new direction for HTC and the platform. The Hero is a great phone. It is on par – and ultimately better – than the Palm Pre and, some would say, the iPhone on many points. It also turns those lumbering Windows Mobile and Symbian into something that you will fondly remember from your youth, a set of dinosaur technologies now extinct. Furthermore, we can easily extend the metaphor above to say that the Hero is John Candy lacquering the deck while Apple and Palm are the rich, stuck-up yacht club members laughing at the upstart. I’m here to tell you that these yacht club members should ignore this upstart at their peril. → Read More
A few months ago I was touring Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo when I espied the Nokia N79 Active Edition. Announced around CES time, this phone combo included a heart-rate monitor and sports armband along with special software to record your distance, heart-rate, and route for each workout. The software includes a full complement of statistics and maps for your pleasure and is quite fully-featured. The phone itself uses A-GPS to measure speed and distance and the heart-rate monitor is a Bluetooth model made by Polar. It also includes a built-in pedometer and two extra backplates so you can customize your phone. I tested it a few times over the past few weeks and came away quite impressed. → Read More
So I’m going through my twitter stream a while back and I see several links from some former colleagues of mine, pointing to a new iPhone app called ColorSnap, by Sherwin-Williams. So what right? There are a million (ok, fifty thousand) iPhone apps out there—what’s so interesting about this one? Well, two things. One, it was developed by my former employer, Resource Interactive, for whom I have the utmost respect and must also disclaim. Two, it is a tool of sorts, which I seem to be more interested in these days rather than just games or social networking. I wanted to check it out. How it works. You use ColorSnap to take a picture of anything (a room, an object, whatever). After the image is selected and zoomed in to the right spot in the application view finder, you move your finger over that image and a small square-shaped magnifier follows your finger around and shows a detail view of the color in that part of the photo. Once you find a color with which you are satisfied, you press the “palette” button and it identifies the primary paint color you have just selected and offers two secondary colors that go with it. For example, if you have a dominant object in a room, like a giant red leather couch, you could use this tool to find some supportive secondary colors for the walls and furniture surrounding it. → Read More
Let’s face it: there are a lot of crappy games available for the iPhone. Even 99 cents — as cheap as that is — is more than I’m willing to pay for most games, since I’m unlikely to get even a dollar’s worth of enjoyment from them. Not so with Freeverse’s Flick Fishing. This 99 cent game offers a lot for that very small price tag. In addition to great graphics, excellent sounds, and decent gameplay, you can purchase expansion content in-game. And there are a variety of clever multiplayer aspects built in, too. → Read More
Free fun, thy name is Lemonade Tycoon. I downloaded EA Mobile’s free Lemonade Tycoon to my iPod touch yesterday and spent the better part of the afternoon creating my own beverage empire, one fresh squeezed glass at a time. → Read More
Step aside, Mint. Pageonce just launched a major update to its iPhone application, and it blows you out of the water. Pageonce’s v3 update is absolutely fantastic, and Mint’s app pales in comparison. Pageonce’s premium app, A Personal Assistant Premium, allows you to connect all of your online accounts to one login (and one application). What do we mean by all accounts? We mean damn near everything: from Facebook and Twitter to American Express to AT&T Wireless, Pageonce allows you to connect with pretty much every account that you have online. → Read More
First, an anecdote: when the iPhone first launched in 2007 I took it on a tour of Central Europe, namely Budapest and Warsaw. Communism had just fallen and the dreams of these benighted nations were dashed. But as I pulled the iPhone from its protective cozy, the eyes of those present were filled with hope again, hope that there was something better out there, something magical. That something was called the iPhone and it was this promise, the promise of a Jobsian escape from the gristmill of history. All of this in a cigarette-pack-sized cellphone. Fast forward two years. With the release of the iPhone 3G S we can safely say that the bloom is off the rose. The 3G S looks exactly like the iPhone 3G in every way. There is no outward identification and, in those intervening years, Hungary, Poland, the UK, Russia – heck, everybody – got the iPhone. Pulling one of these out is like pulling out something like a tin of Altoids – a bit against the grain but common enough to discourage gawking. So we must answer a few questions in this review. They are: * What are the major improvements? * Who is this phone for? * Should you buy one/should you upgrade? And so we begin. → Read More
Here’s a fun way to waste time: make fake tabloid covers using photos from your iPhone camera! Appy Newz is a cute little faux desktop iPhone publishing application that makes it super easy to create slick looking magazine covers. It comes filled with stock backgrounds and faces, but you can easily select backgrounds and faces from your camera roll. → Read More
Everyone moans about the lack of Flash on the iPhone, right? Let’s face it: if someone makes a solid Flash implementation for the iPhone there would be substantially less interest in making native iPhone apps. You could create a rich user environment in the browser, and the iPhone App Store would be less and less relevant. As things stand now, I prefer native apps over browser apps for iPhone services. I use the dedicated mail client to access my GMail account, rather than load the mobile GMail interface in Safari. I use a dedicated Twitter client, FaceBook client, and LinkedIn client rather than load the mobile version of those sites (assuming a mobile version even exists!).
Often, though, no native client exists, and you’re stuck using a web site. It can be a real pain to find a mobile-friendly version of the sites you need, sometimes. Enter Taptu, the alternative search machine. This free app provides iPhone-friendly search results in a surprisingly intuitive way. → Read More
I’m not a huge movie buff, but I have a pretty good memory and do well enough at movie trivia games. I am also often able to repeat lines verbatim from movies I saw years ago, and usually enjoy doing so. So I was pretty intrigued when I saw Avalinx’s new app, MovieLingo. It’s a simple app, but I think it’s a good example of how to use mobile computing and always-on Internet connectivity to improve the social experience. → Read More
