I confess, I was prepared to dismiss Pocket for Mac when I first heard about it.
After all, I thought: I already have Pocket on my Mac. It sits in my browser, where its life began and where I think it belongs. It is software born of the web. It should live on the web.
But I changed my mind pretty fast after trying out the native app, downloaded from the Mac App Store. Because it’s gorgeous.
Quick, answer this one: what’s the quickest, easiest, no-sign-ups required way to get a bunch of photos from your iPhone to the internet, right now?
Instagram? Nope. You’re kind of right, but Instagram has its limitations. And you need to sign up to use it. Apple’s Photo Stream? Closer, but you still need to be using iCloud.
The quickest, easiest and no-sign-uppiest service I’ve yet seen has to be Photoset, a new thing from the people who make Tumblr.
MapMyWalk is one of a range of apps from the people at MapMyFitness. It’s not a pretty app, but mapping walks doesn’t have to be pretty to be functional. And it is functional. Mostly.
The violent driving sensation that is Carmageddon makes its debut on iOS today, 15 years after it was first released — and subsequently banned for its twisted mix of automotive killing machines — on Mac and PC. It’s available to download right away from the App Store, and it’s free for today only — so grab it quick.
As a great man once sang, there’s 57 channels and nothing on). But that was before iOS and apps came along. Now you don’t need channels. You need something like Vodio.
It’s the weekend, and if you’re looking for a cute little romp through the monster-battling arena for some down time, Mo’ Monsters just went live. It’s a free to play game from Rumpus, a development studio out of San Francisco, and it’s fairly typical tap-tap-tap fare, with some cute characters and fun monster capturing mechanics in addition to the standard battling.
There’s been a lot of hoopla today about Rockmelt, a free new iPad app for browsing the web. Everyone keeps calling Rockmelt a browser, but I disagree. This is not what I call a browser. It’s a feed reader.
This is Dolphin. It’s a neat web browser for iPhone. You could easily be forgiven for saying: “What’s the point of having an extra browser? Mobile Safari does everything I need.”
Which is true. Safari does everything you need. But try Dolphin for just a few minutes, and you’ll discover a browser that does everything you need but in a totally different way. A way that’s much better suited to using on your phone while you’re moving around.
Multi-touch? Pah, that’s so last year. Gestures are where it’s at. Only yesterday, we reported on a prototype wrist-mounted motion detector; today, we’re trying out Flutter, a free OS X app that we first mentioned back in March when it was still a demo.
Now it’s available in the Mac App Store. It claims to put gesture controls at your, um, fingertips, using your Mac’s built-in webcam.
Does it live up to the hype? Well, sometimes.
If the lack of a native Google Maps app on your iOS 6 device is giving you headaches, then good news: someone’s just made one, and you can grab it for free.
There’s not a lot I need say about today’s Best Thing Ever, so I’ll keep it brief.
Manga Camera does exactly what its name suggests, and it’s no surprise that it’s a sudden huge hit on the iOS App Store.
Co-inciding with her latest TV series, Nigella Lawson’s latest foodie app, Nigellissima is now on the App Store. The theme is simple, delicious Italian food. Nigella, as always, makes amazing dishes look effortless.
The new app is free, but huge, demanding 750MB of storage space on your iOS device. That would be OK if it was packed with useful content. But it’s not.
Sums is a gesture-based calculator for iOS, and whether you like it will, I suspect, largely depend on how much you’re already accustomed to using traditional calculators.
Mint.com, the slick and extremely useful financial tracking website, also has iOS and OS X apps to natively keep an eye on your finances. The Mac app came out in early July of this year, and was updated to version 2.0 at the end of August. Today, however, it has gone from being a free app to asking for a cool $4.99.
What happens if you give ten strangers the same piece of paper to draw on at the same time? Let’s up the stakes. Let’s make that paper a blank iPad screen, and let’s give all the “artists” the anonymity of the internet. This app exists, and it’s called uDraw HD.
Looxcie today launched their own Facebook channel, along with an update to their free live-streaming app — called LooxcieLive that turns any Android or iOS device into a video broadcast camera that streams video straight to your Facebook feed.
Of course, Looxcie’s isn’t the first app to do this; Utsream did the same thing just a week or so ago with their own app, Broadcast for Friends (with the gag-me-cute acronym of BFF). The difference here is that Looxcie’s Facebook channel can also serve up live broadcasts from Looxcie’s own hardware — which may make first-person-perspective shooting easier than, say, duct-taping your smartphone to your forehead (snicker all you want, we’re sure it’s been done). And, of course, Looxcie is first out the gate — and the only Ustream to the punch with an Android app.
Curious about who, exactly, is behind the growing number of TV ads for and against this or that political candidate, this or that political issue? Well, wonder no longer, as the developers behind Super PAC App bring Shazam-like audio recognition technology to the political advertisement space.
Like we said, Passbook in iOS 6 is going to steal a few tricks from flight apps like Mobiata’s $5 FlightTrack (and $10 FlightTrack Pro), making the apps seem somewhat less valuable.
Whether or not Passbook replaces these types of apps remains to be seen; in any case, Mobiata isn’t going down without a fight, and has just released an all-new, free version of their FlightTrack app for both iOS — and Android.
Popular and useful note-taking and synchronization app Evernote has just updated its Mac app to version 3.30. The new version adds new keyboard commands, a new premium user account, new user controls and LinkedIn support, which is also now available in the web-cased Evernote client. In addition, Evernote sports a handy slideshow option for notes that involve pictures. This will look really nice using Evernote’s new Retina display support.
Once a staple of any vacation, the postcard has since faded into obscurity due to the advent of technology and instant sharing. One company meshing the best of both worlds, Touchnote Ltd., has a popular app on both Android and iOS that allows users to turn photos into personalized postcards and have them sent for around a $1.49 per postcard. In celebration of the 2012 Olympic Games, both Touchnote and Samsung want users to have the luxury of sharing their amazing moments via a postcard without having to visit a local London gift shop. That’s why Samsung is sponsoring a promo that will allow users to send free Touchnote postcards up until August 31st.
It took a good half hour, but Apple has now activated OS X Mountain Lion’s free up-to-date program following this morning’s release, allowing users with a qualifying Mac to get their hands on the latest release without paying a penny. All you need to qualify is a new Mac purchased after June 11, 2012.
Shortly after iOS 6 beta 1 made its debut in early June, Cult of Mac reported that users are no longer required to enter their iTunes password when downloading updates or previous purchases from the App Store. In iOS 6 beta 3, Apple has expanded this feature to cover free apps, too.
UPDATE: In an email from the developer after this posted, it was made clear that the FREE app is only able to manage one project. In order to utilize the full power of this project management app, you’ll need to purchase the “full” version for an in-app pice of $8.99 “currently.”
In response to our feature article about project management apps on iOS, developer i2e Consulting emailed me to ask if we’d write about its own project planning app, Project Management Pro. While I’m not reviewing the app, the quick look I had at it made me want to pass the tip along to you, especially as the app is free as of today.
Earlier this year, we reported on the plans by NetZero and FreedomPop to offer free 4G mobile broadband in the U.S. over ClearWire’s WiMax network. Both companies planned to operate on a freemium basis where users get a limited amount of data each month and can buy more if they choose.
This week, a company in the U.K. called Samba joined the free broadband bandwagon with a model that’s ad-based and freemium in nature, making it somewhat similar to NetZero’s original business model from the good old days of dial-up service.
However dramatic the stories about her extra-curricular activities and personality are, Martha Stewart remains the undisputed queen of crafts.
But the last time I did anything crafty was back in high school when I ditched three periods and headed for the beach — so I wasn’t horribly enthusiastic when Martha Stewart CraftStudio popped up on our radar. Color me shocked though, because it’s pretty darn awesome — especially for kids, and people who actually know what they’re doing.
