iPhone apps - page 48

Egretlist is a neat idea for an iPhone application, based on the data you store inside Evernote.

The app looks inside your Evernote notes (Evernotes?) for checkboxes, and extracts those items on their own. Then it re-arranges and re-displays them in a very smart, Moleskine-style notebook format.

What I like about this idea is that the todo items retain their context inside Evernote. You can keep a short list of todos with the other notes and info that relate to them – then, when you simply want to see the todo list as a whole to see what you should do next, Egretlist gives you that at-a-glance overview.

The Evernote team are impressed as well, and they’ve published an interview with the Egretlist developer that explains the thinking behind it in more detail.

When people first started playing with the iPad, a common comparison was to the interactive, tablet-like book (, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion) featured in best-selling author Neal Stephenson’s steampunk sci-fi novel A Diamond Age, so it seems like a natural fit that Stephenson will soon be coming to iPad with an app of his own.

The project’s called The Mongoliad, a wonderfully stupid title that sounds like a gag from the lost sequel to John Barth’s Sotweed Factor. But the idea is sound: Stephenson and a few fellow authors including Greg Bear and Nicole Galland will be releasing a set of serialized stories to the App Store, presenting “an ongoing stream of nontextual, para-narrative and extra-narrative stuff” that will allow readers to interact and create their own stories in the Mongoliad universe with some “pretty cool tech.”

Though details are scarce and while Stephenson’s product could be nothing more than some fancy e-books, this is worth being excited about. Stephenson’s fiction has long luxuriated in the magical possibilities of technology, and I’m eager to see if what he comes up with in code is just as future-thinking as what he creates in prose.

We’ve raved about Hippo Remote Pro so enthusiastically, one would think it were made of gold-pressed latinum; that’s because it’s probably one of the (if not the) best soft-remote app currently available for the iPhone.

And now it’s better: Its developers have added a heavily customizable gamepad function — cool for watching the life being sucked from that annoying Blood Elf rogue on a 52-inch HDTV while laying about on the couch with a mojito (or a rootbeer float, if you’re so inclined/underaged). Of course, that’s in additon to the trackpad function and oodles of application-specific profiles for Hulu, Plex, Chrome, and the rest it already comes with.

Hippo Remote Pro is $5; there’re also Basic ($2) and free versions, but neither of those include the gamepad.

There’s plenty of tower defense games available for the iPhone, pitting players against wave after wave of enemies as varied as robots, zombies and monsters, but Fluffylogic’s foray into the genre is sure to pique the interests of any geek who has ever watched The Empire Strikes Back.

Star Wars: The Battle For Hoth puts iPhone gamers in charge of repelling the Imperial advance with heavy weapon soldier, 1.4 FD P-Tower Laser Cannons and X-Wing Control Towers, while the Empire is provisioned with Viper Probe Droids, Snowtroopers, 74-Z Speeder Bikes, AT-ST Walkers, TIE Fighters, and hulking At-AT Walkers.

Brilliant. The Battle for Hoth is the scenario the tower defense genre was practically invented to simulate. There’s no explicit word on release date or price right now, but Fluffylogic says Star Wars: Battle for Hoth’s release is “imminent,” so keep refreshing the App Store.

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

This time, we review Amazing Animals: Savanna, Battle Bears: Zombies!, Creepy Caverns, Easy Checklist, Find in Page, Flaboo!, Truckers Delight, Tune Runner, and War Chess (iPad).

Act quickly, and you can get Gameloft’s Rogue Planet for iPhone/iPt for free.

Today only until 5 pm ET, the strategy game is free as part of the company’s 10th Anniversary Happy Hour. That’s a $5 drop and the best price we’ve seen for this game.

Grab it quick; time’s nearly up.

First revealed back in January at CES, the L5 Remote is a useful little dongle that supplements the iPhone or iPod Touch’s already incredible remote abilities by turning your iDevice into a fully functional infrared universal remotes.

All you do is slap the infrared sensor into your iPhone and load the free L5 remote app. The app comes with presets for many popular devices, but failing that, it’s easy to program your iPhone with your existing remote by bumping them nose to nose and pushing the button on your existing remote you want to program in.

Conceptually, I love the idea of using my iPhone as a truly universal remote, but if you think losing a remote is an irritatingly commonplace occurrence, imagine losing a tiny dongle between the couch cushions. Worse, the L5 remote costs $50: way too expensive when a cheap universal remote can be picked up at Best Buy for half the price.

Until iPhones and iPod Touches come with a built-in IR receiver, I don’t really see the iPhone to squeeze existing universal remotes out of the market.

Can’t decide whether to get the iPad with or without 3G? It looks like AT&T will soon be adding tethering, but you can already share your iPhone’s 3G data connection using a $10 app called MyWi.

All you need to do is jailbreak your iPhone — a painless, two-minute process that unlocks the iPhone’s full potential, including turning it into a personal Wi-Fi hotspot using MyWi.

The original Prince of Persia, first released for the Apple II back in 1989, is now coming to the iPhone according to Ubisoft’s website.

Called Prince of Persia Retro, there’s not many details available about the port, except that it will be a universary binary for the iPad and (obviously) support touch controls.

I’ll eat any old crap — and I mean, any; even hot dogs from an NYC hotdog stand.

But not everyone is as cavalier about what they put in their mouths. Try being vegetarian for a bit, or eating only food that is halal — Islamic law that describes how food must be prepared — and things get significantly more complicated (but yeah, accepting that NYC hotdog stand visits are a no-no is probably a good place to start). So an Auckland, New Zealand-based developer created two slightly different apps that’ll make life easier in both cases.

Think of it as Craigslist — but on steroids that give it super-speed and spidey-senses, and without the alarming hey-why-is-hair-growing-there side effects.

Just like Craigslist, users can trade goods or services; but Anttenna (no, that’s not a typo) also leverages phone tech like geotagging to create local micro-marketplaces based on the location of users, and then connects them through social-network tool Twitter — which the app is built on — for more immediate buyer-seller communication than Craigslist’s increasingly snail-paced-seeming email system.

It doesn’t yet have the massive throng of participants that makes Craigslist such a powerhouse, and its sophistication may actually hurt it, as one of the appeals of Craigslist is its simplicity. But who knows; a year or two from now, we may all be hearing things like “so hey, did you ant your old MacBook already?”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1sdtiwCJ9s

Voters in Santa Clara County can now register via iPhone and iPad for upcoming elections.

An Oakland company called Verafirma has been pushing an app that collects signatures via iPhone, iPad and other touchscreen devices. First touted as a way to sign petitions, Verafirma works much the same way bank technology does to accept digital John Hancocks. It doesn’t store signatures electronically.  Once sent, they are printed out and when the ballot is cast, that paper signature is compared to the electronic one.

Verafirma’s efforts paid off, if just in the nick of time: the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters decided last week that voter signatures collected via electronic devices as well as those on paper are also valid. Voter registration ends May 24 for state primary elections taking place on June 8.

Over at Gadget Lab, our favorite yoga-practicing nicotine golem of a gadget blogger, the pseudonymous Charlie Sorrel, has posted a fantastic guide on how to transfer your existing Stanza e-book library into iBooks.

The process is tricky, but as Charlie points out, since Stanza was purchased by Amazon last year, the likelihood of a native iPad port is in question as Amazon focuses on Kindle for iPad. Right now, then, this is the only way to transfer your existing library, along with cover art and keywords, to the iPad’s native e-book reading format. For guys like me, with an extensive Stanza library, this is a must read tutorial.

Sure, the app store is swimming in trivia quiz games, but Qrank is different — and ever since the game raised its shiny little head up off the App Store floor earlier this month it’s had us hooked like sugar junkies to a candy factory.

the free app cranks (you knew it had to be in here) out a fresh quiz every day, and you’re only allowed one crack at it per day, which is one big reason why it’s as addictive as, well, crack. That, and the way the game connects players socially — everyone has to answer the same questions, which makes it easy to let your friends know you’re smarter than them.

If you don’t have friends, the game publicly ranks you against everyone else playing that day, so you can be smarter than your state, the nation — or the whole world.

Reader “Romeo From Brazil” wrote in to share an awesome tip: how to quickly and easily get a U.S. iTunes account anywhere in the world.

Romeo’s method works like a charm. You don’t need a credit card and it is far easier than other methods we’ve seen. Best, it works in ANY country, so if you’re in the U.S., you can use it to buy music available only in the U.K. And if you’re outside the U.S., you can use the account to buy apps and music not available in your country, like Apple’s iWorks suite.

Here’s how it works:

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

This time, we review Azkend HD, Dizzypad HD, GTA: Chinatown Wars, LetsTans 8-in-1, Plants vs. Zombies HD, Scrabble for iPad, Scrabble Tile Rack, and The Catching.

What it is: We Rule is an addictive world-building iPhone game that blends Sim City with Facebook’s Farmville. Set in medieval times, you must build a prosperous kingdom by micromanaging the peasants and expanding trade with other online players.

Why it’s good: The game blends the best empire-building aspects of Sim City with the social aspects of Farmville.

As a teenager, I was totally addicted to games like Sid Meier’s Civilization, and Sim City. Even though they had terrible graphics and long load times on my old Pentium 1 PC, the sense of being a ‘god’ and having power over all those little guys made it a deep and immersive experience. Now Ngmoco has brought this gaming experience to the iPhone.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLz72XErN8U&feature=player_embedded

The iPad is a perfect accessory for the living room table, and Comcast’s forthcoming remote control app, the Xfinity Remote, capitalizes on that by pairing your iPad to your cable box through Bluetooth, allowing you to easily search listings and access movies on demand through an extremely attractive interface.

Additionally, Xfinity comes with some powerful social and sharing features, which allows you to share television or movies that you’re watching with other friends, even if they’re not in front of the same television.

You can find more information about Xfinity Remote here. It looks great, but at the end of the day, perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the app is that it’s for Comcast instead of a better cable provider.

Last year, we  were pretty impressed by UpNext’s 3D mapping app for the iPhone, which rendered landmarks like the Empire State Building in 3D — which is, of course, cool; but it was only available for NYC, there was no iPad version (because there was no iPad — wow) and it cost a whopping $3.

Now, UpNext 3D Cities has a new name and is available for a bunch of new cities (San Francisco, Boston, DC and Austin, home of SXSW), it’s been tweaked to play well on the iPad and its price has been reduced by $3 — yes, it’s free.

But the pretty, 3D-rendered buildings are just icing on the cake — check out the cool way the app graphically illustrates where to find Asian restaurants through a sorta infrared-vision trick toward the end of the above clip, or the way it overlays public transportation routes. And if that’s not enough, they’ve added the ability to see what’s trending and where your friends be at in Foursquare.

A new iPhone app promises to help combat that up-all-night, zombie-by-day havoc jet lag brings.

Jet Lag Fighter, $1.99 on iTunes for the iPhone and iPod Touch, gives you a bunch of tools to shorten your next woozy flight hangover. (We have promo codes to give away, check our Twitter account for details).

The app offers two main strategies to attack jet lag: either sleep adjustment (getting you on schedule for the new time zone before you leave) or light therapy (telling you optimal times get out in the sunshine to lessen the lag time).

During the flight, the also app calculates ideal nap times and lengths; if there’s no light available when you need it or you skip a sleep session, the app adjusts your recovery schedule accordingly.

A charity group is hoping that if you spend a few days with a homeless person — even an animated one on your iPhone — you’ll understand the problems they face. And perhaps donate to the cause.

iHobo was developed by Depaul UK, a charity devoted to youth homelessness. With a donor base largely over age 65, the iPhone app is a way they hope will get younger people involved. Players can also donate to the charity using the free app, currently available only in the UK store.

iHobo works much like Tamagotchi: the game takes place in real time over three days. Instead of a “pet” you play with a realistic, animated homeless man that you can give a sleeping bag, food or money. Take your choice and that’s it… until you start getting push notifications on your screen updating you on the man’s status.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HQ2GVMi2tQ

First released in December 1996 for MacOS 8, ReBirth RB-338 was a revolutionary synthesizer by Propellerhead Software that emulated two Roland TB-303 synthesizers, a Roland TR-808 and a Roland TR-909 drum machine. In the late 90s, it wasn’t an easy task even getting a computer to run ReBirth… but almost fifteen years later, it works flawlessly on the iPhone, featuring built-in FX units, some full featured pattern sequences and a scalable interface.

It looks fantastic, and while I think it would probably be a better experience on the iPad, you can’t overlook the cool factor of mixing some fresh, professional quality beats together on the bus. It costs $6.99

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

This time, we review AlphaBattle, Chop Chop Runner, Compression, ESPN Pinball on iPad, Mini Golf Wacky Worlds Free, Opera Mini, Parcel Panic, and Pinball HD.

Two of my favorite gadgets to hit up when rec time rolls around are my iPhone and my mountain bike. Combining the two together might result in a sort of Shangri-la-like experience, but until now the only option available to me would have been something like the almost surely life-threatening activity of negotiating twisty singletrack while attempting to score the next mining license in Space Miner.

But the new Xtreme Sports: Biker iPhone app seems a saner alternative that’ll have much less impact on my health insurance. The first-person freeride mountain-bike simulator rolls out 25 levels across forest, mountain, urban, winter and park environments — all for a buck. Pretty sick, dude.

I haven’t tried it yet, but if I actually get to the point where my time is free, it seems a good bet I’ll be trading a dollar for a ride.

A 44-year-old man is in federal custody after using a social networking app to meet and have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Moses Virgil Campbell Jr., 44, allegedly used the “iDate-Personals Dating Service for Singles of Any Sex” app on his iPhone to hook up with a teen, according to an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Alicia M. McShane.

This is the third sex case involving minors and iPhone apps we’ve come across — after one in Canada involving Grindr and another unnamed social networking app in Phoenix.  Both Grindr and iDate are free apps and classified as “games,” require users to be 18 or over.