Reviews - page 154

The iPhone 4 brought changes in shape, function, features, and so on, but to the joy of many cell phone photographers, the device now includes a rear facing 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and a forward facing VGA-quality camera. Apple enhanced the cameras via software improvements like FaceTime, zoom, etc. linked to the hardware changes above. These changes will probably calm the complaints about the camera that I heard about on the previous iPhone models. However, regardless of the issues users have developed exciting ways to use the camera and there are innovative third-party applications to help along the way.

One such app is Camera+, which is a joint effort between Taptaptap and Canadian photographer Lisa Bettany. I figured it was worth taking a look at it since it was on sale Sunday for $1.99 (regular price is $4.99).

Newton Peripherals carved out a niche in the gadget-universe, guided by the simple principle that the best gadget is the one you take with you — because that’s the one you’ll use. They created the MoGo Mouse, a mouse-remote hybrid that tucks away into a laptop’s pc-card slot, then followed it with the MoGo Talk: an ultra-slim Bluetooth headset that resides in — and actually forms part of — a case which attaches to the back of the iPhone 3G/s.

But while the design concept is brilliant, engineering-wise, the Talk wasn’t quite ready for prime-time when originally released; complaints surfaced that the headset was difficult to eject from the case, and more alarmingly, that the case’s pop-up charging port was fragile and often broke, removing the only method available for charging the headset.

ID8-Mobile has since snapped up Newton Peripherals, addressed the Talk’s problems, made a few other minor improvements to the case (while leaving the headset unchanged) and re-released it as the MoGo Talk XD. So did they get it right?

Unfortunately, Second Life definitely ain’t what she used to be. There have been more than a few headline-grabbing scandals in recent years, user numbers have fallen off a bit and the newest official Linden Labs viewer software hasn’t exactly gotten rave reviews.

However, there is still a very large and very loyal SL contingent that is eager to access their digitized world wherever and whenever they can. Those people have been begging and pleading for a reliable Second Life viewer for the iPhone since day one. Those same people really began clamoring for something more mobile when the iPad came on the scene.

Pocket Metaverse Pro ($2.99) is just that app. With versions for the iPad and iPhone (and free versions to boot), Pocket Metaverse is more than adequate for accessing Second Life and other similar Open Grid virtual worlds while on the go.

Number seven in our series is free, streamlined, an absolute joy to use — and here’s the biggie — syncs seamlessly with one of several desktop companions (which are also free); it’s also the first essential in our series that fully replaces a native app.

There are several excellent iPhone apps available for cyclists. Abvio’s entrant into this category is called Cyclemeter, which turns your iPhone into a GPS-based cycling computer. The $4.99 app has been updated to allow multitasking and full iOS 4 integration.

In many ways, Cyclemeter is pretty similar to other apps such as B.iCycle or iMapMyRide. It offers full integration with Google maps and iCal. You can control your iPod from within the app. It can save your routes and post rides to your Twitter or Facebook accounts. And it will produce some pretty impressive charts and graphs to help analyze your performance. Battery consumption is also on par with that of other cycling apps.

I’d heard mixed reviews about Samsung’s new 14.2 megapixel TL240 point-and-shoot camera. One friend told me it was slow. You know, the dreaded shutter delay? Depress the shutter and two weeks later it fires off.

Expectation is a mighty powerful sense. I hate going to movies that are highly recommended. I tend to expect too much, and in most cases the movie never lives up to my expectations. That is why my brother always recommends movies to me by saying, “It was a piece of CRAP, don’t miss it.”

But when it comes to the TL240, my lowered-expectations didn’t pan out. This is a nifty little camera that takes good pictures. It has a nice big touchscreen, and some suprisingly-useful shooting modes like “blink,” which is perfect for shooting relatives who always have their eyes closed.

The AirStash is a $100 USB card reader with a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot. It is used to stream media to other devices, which means broadcasting movies, music, and video to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and other gadgets with limited amounts of memory.

If only it worked.

It’s said Odin gave one of his eyes in exchange for a drink from the Well of Wisdom. Luckily for us, quenching our thirst for knowledge is somewhat less dramatic — all it takes is the punch of a button and bam, we’re at Wikipedia. Question is, which button to punch?

With its dizzying collection of features, Wikipanion is that button.

This is the app every iPhone sold int he U.S. should come pre-installed with. There are probably good reasons — or maybe bad ones — why it isn’t; but it’s easily available, it’s free and it might just save you some money.

Animated Knots by Grog is a great app that teaches you to tie all kinds of handy knots. This is the first app we’ve reviewed to earn five Black Turtlenecks using our rating system!

Money makes the world go ’round, right? If that’s the case, then there’s no more essential app than PayPal; and here in the U.S., it’s really the closest thing we have to a virtual wallet — a concept other cultures (like Japan) have enjoyed for years.

Iomega’s new Mac Edition eGo Desktop Hard Drive packs a whopping 2-Terabytes in a compact, stylish package.

Available now for $249, the eGo drive offers plenty of connectivity options — USB 2.0 and a pair of FireWire 800 ports — making it suitable for a host of tasks, from backup to iMovie video editing.

I’ve spent the last few days glued to my iPhone watching the grand drama of the Tour de France (or “Tour-DAY-France” if you’re an ex-racer from Oakland named Bob) unfold in Europe via Versus’ Official Tour de France Live app.

Regular visitors to this blog will probably have noticed that we mention Dropbox a lot. I mean, we won’t shut up about it. Why? Because it’s so ridiculously useful.

The way it works is simple: It’s a portal for files from your iPhone to your Dropbox account, a free service that gives you your own 2GB cloud to store files and media, and if you want to, lets you share those files and media.

As unusual as it is to find an electronic gadget manufactured in the U.S. these days, it’s even more unusual for that gadget to hail from New York City — but that’s exactly where Grado’s SR60i is made. Appropriate, because just like the city, these cans have an unpolished-but-genuine persona that’s a little off-putting at first, but incredibly charming once you get past the gritty exterior.

There’s no shortage of choices available for gabbing with buddies these days, but instant messaging remains a favorite (I’ve actually worked in at least one newsroom where the primary method of communication was IM).

There’s no lack of IM iPhone apps either; but a clean interface, wealth of features, ability to connect with practically every IM service in the galaxy and availability for free makes Meebo the best of these.

Super Badminton 2010 by Rolocule is the one and only 3D badminton game available in the App Store for iPhone & iPod Touch. Despite no current competition, this game still boasts “hyper-realistic physics,” HD quality graphics, a slick UI and realistic sound effects, all of which go towards keeping Super Badminton at the top of its game.

A Chinese gadget site has reviewed the best iPhone 4 knockoff on the market, and while it looks good ands costs only $100, it’s really a piece of junk.

Says M.I.C Gadget:

“It’s the new king in the knockoff market, built to look like a real iPhone 4 while doing its best — with features like a front-facing camera with flash, removable battery, and that outrageous imitation of the industrial design, no one would say that this knockoff is not cool.”

But under the hood, the hardware and software are rubbish. The touchscreen barely works; the back is made of plastic, not glass; it says 64GB but it’s only 64MB; video is so crappy it is unwatchable; the Mail app is MMS, not email; the “five megapixel” camera is only 0.3 megapixels, and so on.

M.I.C Gadget: iPhone 4 Knockoff Review.

PS:  M.I.C Gadget also has reviews of a knockoff MacBook Air and a phony iPad.

So you’ve just bought a shiny new iPhone, and now you’re itching to plaster apps all over that pretty wallpaper. Well, we’ve come up with a few suggestions; in fact, we’ve come up with 23 of them.

Through the rest of this month or so, we’ll be listing apps we think no iPhone user should be without — apps that almost anyone should find useful — which will fortify your iPhone with just over an extra screen’s worth of valuable apps. And since most of these are free — with a few costing no more than three bucks — there’s really no reason not to own all of them. And this series isn’t just for noobs; we’re willing to wager there’ll be at least one app on our list that’ll surprise even the old-schoolers.

So fire up the App Store and prepare your iPhone for incoming apps as we launch the series with our first essential: the Bing app, in the running for the best Microsoft product I’ve ever used.

I cannot think of another iPad app that makes me want to take out the velcro and stick my iPad on the wall as much as Emerald Observatory does. This gorgeous app is simply stunning to look at and it is a useful astronomy tool too. Once you have it running on your iPad you won’t hesitate to display it for everyone to see and it will become a striking conversation piece.

We previewed this compact dock last January at CES in Vegas and came away impressed that Altec Lansing could make a unit so compact and relatively inexpensive sound as good as it did. When they contacted us and said they had review units available, we wondered if we’d still be as impressed with the inMotion Compact once all those mojitos had cleared our system. Turns out, the mojitos had nothing to do with it.

I was still shooting JPG on my digital camera until a few months ago, but buying a new MacBook and being given a copy of Aperture gave me a chance to switch to shooting RAW.

That also meant a new workflow for managing and editing photos. I didn’t want my Aperture library to be filled up with crud, so I decided to import images to a folder and manually weed out the useless shots before transferring what remains to Aperture.

After doing this in a Finder window I realised I needed a better tool for the job, so I went looking for lightweight image browsers.

And what I found was Xee.

I purchased my first iPad with Wi-Fi and later upgraded to one with 3G when they were available. I am using it more than I am using my MacBook Pro especially for quick and dirty tasks that it is perfectly suitable for like e-mail, internet surfing, chatting, Twitter, reading, shopping, research, etc. My iPad became very useful very quickly and now it has become a very important part of my life at work and at home. Therefore I’m constantly seeking something new, innovative, or productive to do with it and now that I am armed with a VGA video adapter I’ve discovered that my iPad makes a great whiteboard.

When a buddy of mine suggested (insisted, actually) I try using HeyTell, my first feeling was that using it was like having a ridiculously slow-mo phone conversation: short staccato bursts of talking interspersed by long, frustrating periods of having to wait for a response.

Well, that feeling lasted all of about 10 minutes; the more I played with it, the more I realized that — besides the fact that I could already call, text, tweet, email, IM and use Facebook — yep, here’s another method I’ll use semi-regularly to blab with.

You’re probably sick of reading about the iPhone 4, so here it is in a nutshell: It’s slick as sh*t and I recommend without hesitation that you buy it.

• No yellow spots
• Holding it the “wrong way” drops bars, but it doesn’t matter much to performance.
• It doesn’t scratch that easily, no matter what you’ve read.
• Industrial design is beautiful.
• The screen is gorgeous: like going from SD to HD.
• Photos and video are much improved.