iPhone apps - page 62

The cruel but funny People of Walmart website is looking for a developer to create an iPhone app for the website.

If you’re interested in making an iPhone app to make fun of misfits — and possibly get sued for publishing their unauthorized photographs — contact People of Walmart at [email protected].

Surely you’ve seen the viral website, which publishes candid-camera style pictures of the various meth tweakers, rednecks, and other sundry weirdos that frequent the nation’s largest retailer, along with cruelly funny captions.

Just a few weeks old, the site is often down due to server overload. The developers are also looking for a new host that can cope with the traffic.

Via QuickPwn.

Now you can create tilt-shift photographs on your iPhone thanks to a new app called TiltShift Generator.

Available now for 99c (the price rises to $2.99 in two weeks), the app makes those fake miniature pictures so popular on the internet.

Created by developer Takayuki Fukatsu, the app works by selectively blurring parts of the picture to simulate a very narrow depth of field, making the subject look like a miniature.

The software can be used to create other effects, like vintage-looking photos.

If you want to try it out before plunking down your hard-earned 99c, the developer also offers a free online web app, and a free Adobe Air version. More sample pictures after the jump.

Link to TiltShift Generator on iTunes.

Developer’s website.

Starting in September, Zipcar users will be able to reserve wheels via an iPhone app.

Zipcar founder Scott Griffin takes the app for a test drive for CNN:

Griffith enters the parking lot outside his office in Cambridge, Mass., pulls out his iPhone, and taps a button on the screen. Suddenly a yellow Mini Cooper starts honking like a crazed goose.
Griffith approaches the vehicle and taps the screen again. The doors magically unlock, and under the steering wheel the key dangles from a cord. He starts up the car — nicknamed “Meneus” — and drives away at a rate of $11.25 an hour.

The Zipcar app gets works as a wireless key, getting drivers into cars, letting them lock them — and helps find the closest available garage.

The car sharing program I get around with in Milan uses an RFID card to lock and unlock doors (kind of nice if you don’t have an iPhone). Reservations over the Internet work decently, as long as you realize you need a car while sitting at your computer.
Alternatively, you can call them to see what’s available but half the time the operators don’t have key info — like the garage is closed for lunch.

The Zipcar app sounds well thought through, it’ll be interesting to see what it’s like on the ground.

Via CNN Money

New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority wants to derail an independent iPhone app that publishes train schedules for violation of copyright.

Called Station Stops, the $2.99 app available on iTunes, is the work of commuter Chris Schoenfeld, who also writes the blog of the same name.

The app provides the timetable of the Metro-North Railroad for regularly-scheduled trains departing and arriving from Grand Central Station.

The MTA provides its schedules to Google Transit, but doesn’t release the data publicly.

To build his app, Schoenfeld did it the old way — by entering data manually from the published public schedule.

Schoenfeld, who has often been critical of MTA service, got a nastygram from MTA lawyers ordering him to stop presenting himself as an official service — and pay licensing fees for the schedules.

The MTA reckons the developer owes them a share of profits from the app, back pay the licensing fees. And a $5,000 non-refundable fee.

Schoenfeld’s not interested in ponying up. His sensible David versus ham-fisted Goliath story received a lot of sympathetic local news coverage — but that didn’t stop the MTA from asking Apple to take down the app on Aug. 14.

As of this writing, Station Stops is still for sale.

As one station stops blog reader, Karen Cavanaugh commented:
“I always use Station Stops to check the train schedule when I visit my daughter in Hoboken, NJ. I never think of it as an “OFFICIAL” website. I’ve been to the official website and it’s awkward.”

Via Stamford Advocate, Greater Greater Washington

If you’re lucky enough to live in Pittsburgh, you can report stuff like potholes, graffiti and other everyday annoyances straight to city hall via an iPhone app called iBurgh.

Peeved Pittsburghers first download the app, gratis on iTunes. First time users need to fill in name, phone number, email and home address — stored automatically for logging future complaints.

Users snap pics of traffic gridlock, abandoned cars or whatever.  The photos are geotagged and sent immediately to the city complaint hotline 311. Officials hope that if enough people use the app (they already get about 200 rants a day) they’ll have a cluster map of trouble areas to plan for future maintenance and repairs.

There were a few snafus as iPhone wielding citizens tried complaining via smartphone when the service debuted yesterday — a server restart was necessary at one point —  but at least one user managed to report that pothole successfully.

It’s the first app available on iTunes from a Carnegie Mellon spin-off whose other product was mobile video technology for sports events, called “yinzcam”  that let users at hockey games pick what to zoom in on with their iPhones.

Via AP

If you’ve been inspired by David Hockney’s iPhone paintings or the New Yorker cover, you know that doodling on your device can be more difficult than it looks.

At least if you want results that don’t completely suck.

Enter a blog called fingerpainted.it, headed by freelance web designer Benjamin Rabe. He and a band of 11 creatives, including prolific iPhone artist Matthew Watkins, share tips, artwork and tutorials.

The how-tos show just how much dexterity and thought go into these mini-masterpieces; Luis Peso’s demonstrative cat sketch in the above Layers app tutorial has about seven steps.

A lot of the art is done with the Brushes app, but artists use a variety of tools including Layers, Jackson Pollock, Kandinsky Lite, Photofx. The tutorials show you how to start with Kandinsky, move to Pollock and end up with something entirely different, like this vibrant iPhone work by Patricio Villarroel.

While there are plenty of places to ogle iPhone art — flickr groups especially — fingerpainted seems to give the most info on how to get from art-icapped to art.

Apple has started re-issuing promo codes for +17 apps on iTunes. It’s unclear whether the lack of promo codes for these apps — which range from adult-oriented pics to eReaders which allow unfiltered content — was a glitch in the system or a ban.

One thing’s for sure, no promo codes hurt these +17-rated apps since journalists couldn’t try them out and therefore often avoided writing about them. One sex game app developer CoM spoke to said the lack of promo codes effectively hog-tied sales of saucy apps and discouraged them from making more.

The + 17 rating is supposed to act as a filter for adult content, according to the iTunes rating system. You must be over age 17 to purchase them because they “may contain frequent and intense offensive language; frequent and intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence; and frequent and intense mature, horror and suggestive themes; plus sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco and drugs which may not be suitable for children until the age of 17.”

Many ratings are subjective: the Cannabis app, which helps users find medicinal pot, is OK for anyone over the age of 12, and some sex dice apps are approved for players over age nine.

Via PC World

If you’ve told the kids 100 times not to interrupt while you work in the home office, maybe it’s time to download a new app that emits a high-frequency pitch that anyone under the age of 25 finds seriously annoying.

Called Kids Be Gone, it works like a teen deterrent device first used by British police to disperse unruly underage crowds by emitting a shrill tone only they can hear, 18.000 hz. (Kids and the under-30 crowd still have sensitive hair cells in their inner ears plus full aural capabilities people gradually lose as they age — try the demo for a similar service after the jump).

Art students at Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha, Wisconsin have hung out their works as iPhone wallpaper to help fund arts education.

The student art gallery, at the moment a little sparse with just 10 works, is available as wallpaper for $0.99 on iTunes. The CMHS app was created by Start Mobile, the folks behind many wallpaper apps from Shepard Fairey to Drop Dead Sexy Devils, who agreed to donate the proceeds.

“Raising the money to fully fund our school’s budgets is increasingly difficult in this challenging economy,” said Kathleen Hanlon Sampon, an art teacher at CMHS. “The added income from this innovative opportunity will help to ensure the ongoing strength of our department.”

The school’s 770 students are currently able to choose from 15 art courses per year ranging from studio arts to digital imagery.

Artist David Scott Leibowitz — whose impressionistic works for the iPhone were recently featured on CoM — teamed up with developer Andrew C. Stone for an app billed as the first mobile iPhone art gallery.

Called iCreated, the app ($.99 for the first week, $1.99 after that) comes preloaded with 18 works by Leibowitz. Other artists, like Russ Croop, who like to use the iPhone are also featured — and all of the works tell you what was used to make them, should you want to try your hand. Users can upload their own doodles to the public gallery and save or email them.

While the iCreated selection can’t trump sites like Poolga, which offers hundreds of slick wallpapers from designers and illustrators gratis, compared to some paid iPhone wallpaper apps it offers a little push to try some art of your own and share it.

So if you’ve downloaded Brushes, were inspired by the New Yorker cover, now’s the time to get busy.

Language app iLingua is keeping down prices for summer, one dictionary/phrase book will set you back $1.99 on iTunes.

The Spanish language demo looks promising: words or phrases have images to make connecting the dots easy. The woman speaks very slowly, which is good for learning, thought it may sound a little silly if you cow out and just play a phrase like, “Hey this room is way too small” to a native speaker.

Background music on a loop is distracting and makes the sounds harder to hear, not clear whether you can turn that off or it’s just a demo thing.

Available in Russian, German, Chinese (Mandarin) and Japanese — would’ve loved to have this for last year’s trip to Shanghai, where trying to get a restaurant reservation from the concierge (in what seemed slow, careful English) elicited nervous laughter and frustration all around…
We’ve written about using language/dictionary iPhone apps on the job —  have you used one traveling?

After Jorge Colombo’s iPhone art was featured on the cover of the New Yorker, it seems everyone wants to get their fingers in the pie.

The Brushes app Colombo used to finger paint a late-night scene in Manhattan sold 2,700 copies when the cover debuted Monday, earning slightly over $13,000.  It usually sells around 60-70 copies a day.

“A painting app seemed like a natural fit for the iPhone,” 32-year-old Brushes developer Steve Sprang told the NYT Bits blog.  “You’re touching the screen, so it’s a natural step to want to draw on it.”

Sprang said the results dwarfed when Brushes was chosen as the app of the day on iTunes and that the app had sold 40,000 copies to date, earning him six figures.

If you’re itchy to get busy with fancy fingerwork, Sprang has knocked the price down a buck, to $3.99, in honor of the New Yorker cover.

Via Bits

One million potential iPhone developers downloaded Stanford’s dev course since it started in April. The 10-week course from the Palo Alto university’s school of engineering is offered gratis on iTunes.

Steve Demeter, the founder of Demiforce and maker of the popular Trism iPhone game, spoke to the class Monday, the SF Chronicle reported, and touched on the opportunities and growing challenges of developing for the iPhone.

Demeter earned $250,000 in the first two months of Trism but acknowledged his good luck in breaking through early and having the support of Apple, two things that most developers now can’t count on.
You can still catch the video lectures of about an hour long each are available here.

Screenshot from Steve Marmon’s May 8 lecture, courtesy Stanford, iTunes.

Via SF Chronicle

CC-licensed photo by David Paul Ohmer.

In an effort to reach out to young, tech-savvy Catholics, the Holy See will launch an iPhone app to coincide with its World Communications Day, celebrated May 24.

The Vatican app was created by Father Paolo Padrini, the priest who developed iBrevary, an app that puts morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayers on the iPhone and a Facebook application called Praybook.

“The pope is inviting us to promote a culture of dialogue, of respect and friendship, especially among young people,” Archbishop Claudio Celli told Catholic News.

The initiative to put the Pope in your pocket comes after  the Vatican youtube channel and will launch from a website (not yet live) called www.pope2you.net. So far the app lets people send and receive “virtual postcards” of Pope Benedict along with inspiring excerpts from the pope’s various speeches.  No word on whether its gratis or, like the iBreviary, will cost $.99.

Would you download the Vatican app?

Via Catholic News

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j-DGrWry6k

Tap out lines on your iPhone with a credit card, then iSnort them with a rolled up bill. Sort of: it’s a video demo that you have to synch your livin’ large faux coke habit to (on a jailbroken iPhone, not surprisingly it hasn’t been approved by Apple), rather than an actual app that responds to your gestures.

Why bother? Creators Irish filmmaker Peter ‘Magic’ Johnston (of the 15-second film festival) and co-pilot Steven Henry push iSnort thusly:
“Be the envy of in-crowd. Get ejected from nightclubs. Shock and amaze your so-called friends. Get oral sex from Z-list celebrities.”

iSnort costs £5 ($7.40). Maybe it’s good for a chortle…

Via Gawker

An  app called “Wish You Were Here” lets you use pics taken with your iPhone, personalize a greeting and caption and then send them via snail mail.

Currently available to send to US addresses, WYWH creates 4.25″ x 6″ color postcards from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

As a postcard fanatic, I love this idea. The download plus first two postcards are free, after that it costs $1.30 per card, not bad considering you don’t have to find stamps on the road or settle for dull postcards — the  pic on the other side of the stilted sample message could change its meaning entirely…

Stanford’s School of Engineering recently launched a 10-week course on iPhone programming, available gratis on iTunes.

The video podcasts of about an hour each that teach programming for the iPhone and iPod Touch are the same ones offered on the Palo Alto campus, minus the tuition, with a few days lag time.

“There’s a lot of interest in the iPhone,” said Brent Izutsu, Stanford’s project manager for Stanford on iTunes U. “This course provides an excellent opportunity for us to show the breadth and depth of our curriculum and the innovation of our students.”

Not surprising, now that the media are calling the race to make money-making apps the new “gold rush.”
Via Apple Insider

If you travel frequently in the US and need to book a cab, an iPhone app may be a piece of wizardry worth downloading.

Called “Taxi Magic” the app from RideCharge Inc. allows travelers to book and pay for cabs via the iPhone.

The “magic?” While a number of apps will help you find a cab telephone numbers, this one connects to taxi computer dispatch systems directly, without making a phone call, and gives you live updates on the arrival of your cab. Plus you can pay with a credit card input on the system.

The hat trick is probably most impressive for business travelers, though. While the app is free on iTunes, the service charge by operating company RideCharge is $1.50 per booking if  you pay via credit card.

Currently available for: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, Orange Co., Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Francisco, San Jose/Silicon Valley, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington DC Area.

Via Chicago Sun-Times

Proctor & Gamble is now behind (pardon pun) global public bathroom finder app “Sit or Squat.”  Below the list of facilities in the area, a Charmin logo appears with the phrase “Gotta Go?  Relax. We got your back.”

The app, offered gratis on iTunes, has info on where to find bathrooms, changing tables, handicap access and other amenities. Users can add new content to the service and rate featured toilets.

“Our goal is to connect Charmin with innovative conversations and solutions as a brand that understands the importance of bringing the best bathroom experience to consumers, even when they’re away from home,” explained Jacques Hagopian, Brand Manager for Charmin in the press release. “Helping people find a bathroom that is clean and comfortable is exactly what the SitOrSquat project is all about.”

So far, SitOrSquat has compiled information on more than 52,000 toilets in 10 countries worldwide. Some  1,600 users have downloaded the app, although complaints about the user interface and slow loading times are frequent.

Still, as far as corporate-sponsored apps go, it’s much better than Coke’s “spin the bottle” app or Target’s virtual snow ball.

Via textually

The subtle humor of New Yorker Cartoons are now available in an iPhone app in animated form. Michael Fry and long-time feature animation writer and producer Jim Cox bring the strips as films, one a day, offered on iTunes gratis at this writing.

Via Textually

Hey, “festering dumpster biscuit,” I’m talking to you. Or at least I would be, if I’d shelled out $.99 for the Mud Slinger app.

Mud Slinger puts over a million different combos of contemptuous rudeness at your fingertips. Some are funny, none are really obscene and most would be challenging to  shout at the guy who just cut you off in traffic.

A few results from the “Unspeakably Foul Insult Generator”:
* Mutant rump worm penetrator
* Closeted dingle berry strainer
* Cretinous bubble jam
* Leaking member fondler
* Pulsating dill-knob fluid

Via TMC net

A police officer in Benton County, Washington is using his iPhone on the job as a translator.

Described in the local news story as a “crime-fighting gadget,” Deputy Doug Hollenbeck has been relying on his iPhone for the last eight months to help boost rudimentary Spanish skills while dealing with everything from roll-over accidents to routine traffic stops.

Hollenbeck says he’s admittedly at a disadvantage because he can’t speak fluent Spanish in a significantly Hispanic community.

“I’ve got some basic vocabulary skills but other than that, not so much,” he adds. That has translated to the phone being somewhat of a staple in his line-up of gear.  No mention of exactly which app he’s using.

Are translator apps fast enough to be used on the job? Let me know what you’re using in the comments…

Via kndu

Well, it’s more of an unfortunate oversight. But the iCount logo — a numbers game for the iPhone, iPod touch —  looks like it’s all about something else thanks to the dropping of the “o”. Oh, my. Chalk up another one for the iTunes store censors.

Via the Inquirer

The app designed to provide alerts on kidnapped kids in the US is now available, gratis, on iTunes.

As we reported last month, Jonathan Zdziarski, creator of the first iPhone forensics toolkit,  developed the AMBER alert. These alerts are issued when missing child cases are granted Amber status –œ  kidnappings of children under age 17 who police believe to be in danger of  bodily harm or death.
The iPhone Amber app provides a real-time feed of recent alerts including victim photos, suspect photos and descriptions, vehicle photos and descriptions and a reporting mechanism allowing users to report sightings.

The Amber Alert program was created in 1996 after the kidnapping and killing of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman.

The application was approved just two days after Zdziarski emailed Steve Jobs pleading for him to help expedite the app’s approval after waiting over a month, though Apple has not said if his letter had any effect on the approval.

Via ars technica

iTriage is an app for the iPhone and iPod touch that helps US users find local healthcare information on the road.

Developed by two emergency room doctors, it offers a national directory of emergency departments, urgent care facilities, retail clinics and pharmacies. Drilling down, the info also includes descriptions of capabilities and areas of specialization, web site links, opening hours and contact information. Quality reports on hospitals and physicians can be downloaded, too.

The docs saw a lot of patients making uninformed snap decisions, so they formed partnerships with leading health care information, service and technology companies to offer additional services,  including companies that can provide iTriage users with everything from quality and safety ratings and patient recommendations to 24-7 phone consultations with board certified physicians and assistance in negotiating medical bills.

Reviewers — including an ER doc and closet programmer — suggest  filtering to wade through all the info but otherwise like the app.

Available for $.99 on iTunes.