Looking for a quick last-minute gift? Not feeling up to fighting the holiday traffic, crowds and checkout lines? Just too lazy busy to shop? Then you may want to consider giving the gift of an iOS app. You can gift any paid app from iTunes on your computer or from the app’s description page on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Just scroll down past the screenshot and look for the “gift this app” button. All you’ll need is the recipient’s email address to complete the transaction. This app list includes both new releases and old favorites. It’s entirely subjective! Note that some of this year’s best apps are free, so they aren’t on here. (Waving to Instagram, Path, Spotify, Flipboard, Pinterest, HBO GO, etc.) Also, everyone already has Angry Birds (the original). It’s not on here, either. 1. iMovie ($4.99) Everyone should have this app from Apple, the fun moviemaking app for Read More

Looking for a quick last-minute gift? Not feeling up to fighting the holiday traffic, crowds and checkout lines? Just too lazy busy to shop? Then you may want to consider giving the gift of an iOS app. You can gift any paid app from iTunes on your computer or from the app’s description page on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Just scroll down past the screenshot and look for the “gift this app” button. All you’ll need is the recipient’s email address to complete the transaction. This app list includes both new releases and old favorites. It’s entirely subjective! Note that some of this year’s best apps are free, so they aren’t on here. (Waving to Instagram, Path, Spotify, Flipboard, Pinterest, HBO GO, etc.) Also, everyone already has Angry Birds (the original). It’s not on here, either. 1. iMovie ($4.99) Everyone should have this app from Apple, the fun moviemaking app for Read More

The best thing about this app is that it shows the current weather on the app’s icon as a badge and there’s no need to jailbreak. There are other apps like WeatherIcon that hack your Weather icon to show the current temperature instead of a constant sunny and 73. The app has other basic weather features that honestly don’t impress me that much. None of the maps are full screen on the iPad and they reload each time you tap on them, which isn’t fast. It would be nice if it cached the one’s already downloaded. Also, the maps show no state boundaries so it’s hard to tell where everything is at. You can also tweet or Facebook the current or forecasted weather. The apps is worth downloading for getting the current temp on your homescreen but not worth the extra $0.99 for the maps. This app is universal meaning it Read More

Posted 06/01/2011 at 9:38am | by J Keirn-Swanson With all the crazy weather we’ve been having lately all across the country, you might want to think about upgrading from Apple’s pretty bare bones weather app to something with a little more umph to it. But where to start? The App Store is choked with weather apps, but the basics are pretty much a given. You want to know the temperature, what the weather will be like today, and a forecast into the near future. Is that too much to ask? Let’s find out.   Perhaps realizing that after you’ve covered the basics, there really isn’t much more to do, ITWC, the makers of Weather+ decided that pretty was the way to go. So they souped up their universal app with gorgeous weather-related backgrounds. Of course, there’s plenty besides pretty. Once you’ve inputted your location, Weather HD grabs the local time and Read More

In this continuing series, we round up some of our favorite new applications for smartphones each month, specifically for iPhone and Android devices. This spring edition is one of the longest lists yet - there have been a number of incredible new launches to highlight this past month. (And yes, we know it's May already, these things take time). As a bonus just for this month, we've added a section for new iPad and Honeycomb apps, too. As always, feel free to share your favorite apps in the comments! Fring: Not new, but a new release for both iPhone, Android and Nokia lets users make free group video calls with up to four friends. (Free, multiple app stores) Trapcall: Available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, this call screening/call recording/call blocking app lets you see who's calling, even when the number is blocked, plus blacklist callers, record calls and more. Ethical questions Read More

While everyone is making a wish list of iOS 5 features, please make sure to include something about an upgrade to the notifications system. Maybe while you’re at it, ask for some form of a widget feature too. Not everyone needs them, but those of us who have experienced them on other smartphones would love to see them in iOS. The biggest benefit they bring is information at a glance. I’m currently using the WeatherIcon tweak to help me cope with the lack of the feature. At least I don’t have to pop into the weather app anymore. For folks operating on non-jailbroken devices, Fahrenheit basically accomplishes the same thing… The app uses push notifications to bring you weather information based on your location. The current temperature is displayed in a little red notification badge, just like when you have a text message. Unlike the WeatherIcon tweak I mentioned earlier, Fahrenheit Read More

...weather app for iPhone... http://bit.ly/eXGxhv... Read More

Fahrenheit: 41. No, that's not the number of messages I have waiting--it's the current outdoor temp! (Yeah, Michigan weather sucks.) I'm pretty sure icon badges (the little red numbers that appear in the corners of some apps) have been around since iPhone Day One, and yet Apple has never seen fit to add one to its Weather app. Which is strange, seeing as that would give you a convenient at-a-glance outdoor temperature reading. As always, third-party developers to the rescue. New weather app Fahrenheit (also available as Celsius) works a lot like the countless other weather apps currently available, but with one tiny--yet major--difference: it displays the current temperature as an icon badge. In other words, now you can finally have a temperature gauge right on your home screen. The app is universal, so it works equally well on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. Just start it once, approve notifications and your Read More

For some reason, Apple has not provided a weather application that can show you the temperature in real-time on the home screen. The stock weather application always says it’s 73 degrees no matter what time of year it is. I personally never use that application and I usually go for the official Weather Channel app. However, Fahrenheit is a relatively new weather app that tells you what the temperature is on the app’s icon. Fahrenheit is $0.99 in the app store for any iOS device. It pushes the temperature to your device just like other apps push notifications. As the name suggests, Fahrenheit can only show temperatures in Fahrenheit. If you want Celsius temperatures, you’ll have to download Celsius which is also $0.99. In addition to real-time temperatures, Fahrenheit also opens up to show you the 10-day forecast, precipitation, humidity, UV index and plenty of other weather related goodies. There’s also Read More

Apple’s iOS home screen may be simple and effective, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of dynamically updating content. Two new apps, Fahrenheit and Celsius (there’s a separate app for both temperature scales), do the best with what Apple provides to offer dynamically updating local temperature you can check without ever opening an app. One thing I miss about the home screen of the Samsung Galaxy Tab I briefly owned (there isn’t much) are the widgets that provide information without actually requiring a user to fully open an application. Apple only allows icons to be displayed on the home screen, and the only dynamic one of those is its own Calendar app. Third-party developers can’t use dynamic icons, and Apple doesn’t seem eager to give any other of its own first-party icons a dynamic makeover. Even its own Weather app always shows it as sunny, clear and 73 degrees, Read More

One area that Apple needs to address is the iOS home screen, which uses icons and badges to display information instead of the more informative widgets used by its competitor, Android. While many apps resign themselves to this limitation, a weather app by International Travel Weather Calculator pushes what is possible with a clever use of the iOS notification system. We are all familar with the red iOS badge that displays the number of missed calls or unread emails on your home screen. The Fahrenheit – Weather and Temperature on your Home Screen app takes advantage of this notification system to display the temperature on your home screen. It's a clever use of Apple's built-in system that does not run afoul of the App Store guidelines. The rest of the weather application is feature-rich and includes location-based weather forecasts, support for multiple cities, astronomical data, like sunrise and sunset times, and Read More