Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break. Espresso [ v 2.0.1 ] My pick this week is Espresso, a web development tool from MacRabbit. I am currently enrolled in a web design class at my local university, and on occasion do paid web development. I’m not particularly great at it, and certainly can’t handle the more advanced Javascript functionality. However, I am pretty comfortable with HTML and CSS. That’s where Espresso shines, with tag highlighting, code collapsing, and other helpful goodies. It even allows you to preview your website from within the app. Although Panic Inc.’s Coda is a wonderful, competing tool in the marketplace, I prefer Espresso. If you do any sort of web development, and don’t want to shell out the big bucks for Dreamweaver, this is a great tool. Espresso can be purchased from MacRabbit’s website for $79. A free 15-day trial download is also available 15 Day Free Trial Cloud [ v 1.5.3 ] There’s lots of ways to exchange files that are too big to be emailed – but hardly any this easy. Cloud App is a small app that resides in your menubar and exists for one purpose – to make it easy for you to share files, pictures, and even URLs with other people. It couldn’t be easier to use – just drag a file to the icon Read More
Appigo’s Notebook is one of the first purchases I made on my iPhone 2G in 2008, and so it comes as a pleasant surprise that Notebook 2.0 has been released as a free update. The two major features of this update are a switch to the plain text (.txt) format for notes and very flexible Dropbox integration – both of which combine to make the notes you create on the iPhone or iPad versions of Notebook universally accessible. Of course, there are already a number of apps out there (Notesy, WriteRoom, Elements, etc.) that work beautifully with plain text files and sync with Dropbox, so what does Notebook really bring to the table? [Warning: Notebook turns out to be one of those apps that likes to rename your files for you if they use any characters deemed invalid by Windows. So if you keep a lot of text files with the following characters, Notebook will automatically remove them from the file names: . / : ? * < > | ] Notebook is probably the only Dropbox-friendly app I’ve seen that syncs properly with multiple non-nested folders, making it extra collaboration friendly. This is an important feature that’s very easy to overlook. Most apps, like WriteRoom, prefer that you choose a single Dropbox folder (e.g. Dropbox/Writer) to keep your notes in. WriteRoom does support sub-folders, but it can still only see notes and folders that are inside of /Writer. Notebook, on the other hand, will allow you to pick and choose exactly which folders you’d like to sync with, and adding a folder will also sync any relevant sub-folders and notes, as well. This means that I can choose to sync /Writer and all of its sub-folders, as well as /Shopping, which is a special Dropbox folder I share with my Read More
Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break. Ultimate Sharks [ v 1.1 ] My Pick this Week goes well with the topic of education and iPad apps: Ultimate Sharks for iPad. Although pricey at $9.99 it’s worth every penny and deserves the praise and attention it has gotten as one of better apps for learning on iPad. The content is of course focused on the topic of sharks and has seemingly endless content of the various types Hammerhead, Great White and lesser known ones like Lemon or Blue Shark. Of course there’s loads of pictures, videos, maps mixed with great effects and comprehensive info on habitat, physiology and habits. But what made it a particularly enjoyable experience on my first run-through of the app was it Air Playability. I was able to enjoy the videos in high-quality on my own TV screen via Apple TV – a wonderful invention! If this doesn’t fascinate kids (of all ages) then I don’t know what will. Spirited Away [ v 0.7.2 ] My pick this week is Spirited Away, a small application that lives in your menu bar. It’s sole purpose is to hide your unused, open application windows after a set period of time. You can set exemptions for applications you would like to have visible at all times, as well as the length of time before Spirited Away Read More
I have very fond memories of playing SOULCALIBUR on my first Xbox, but there’s really no way I’d part with $12 ($15 at full price) to re-live them on my iOS device. The first issue is my own: I’ve played a few fighting games on my iPhone now and am convinced that touch controls just can’t match real tactile buttons for accuracy, but that’s understandably subjective. The real sin here is really the lack of multiplayer. Fighting games often feature single player modes, but everybody knows that hitting other people using your joystick (yep) is really where it’s at. Releasing a fighting game without even local multiplayer is is like creating a photo editing app without any export options. Granted, the game description hints strongly that “additional modes” are coming, but they really should be here now. For this to fly, the game should start out a lot cheaper to reward early adopters, and then head up to to $12 when the entire game is released. As it stands now, NAMCO’s soul is in some dire need of caliburating. Read More
Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break. NFL Flick Quarterback [ v 1.2 ] Now that my hometown Detroit Lions are all out of roar, I found a neat way to fill the Stafford-sized void in my life: NFL Flick QB for the iPhone. It has quickly become one of the most-used apps on my phone. The gameplay is simple enough. As you can probably guess by the title, you flick to throw the ball. You don’t move your QB (you can juke, though). You don’t worry about fumbles. You just focus on throwing… and juking some wannabe-sackers. The QB editing options are sparse (just name, number, and team), but this game isn’t about options. It’s about throwing in one of four uniquely fun modes (not counting the training drills). The basic mode has you trying to find your receivers between some corners and linebackers. As you would expect, it starts out simple but gets progressively more difficult. Then there’s a “play against the clock” mode, which I’m sure you can figure out. Then there are two trick shot modes where you aim for barrels instead of receivers. The game also keeps track of your stats through all four game modes; I’m at 13,085 career yards. Game Center support is also present, but it’s nothing really to bother with, except for keeping track of where you Read More
This week we are changing things up a little. We wanted to make this a special post where we pay tribute to 2011 by selecting that one app, accessory, piece of hardware, etc that we couldn’t live without. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be yours. However, if they’re not, please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this year’s picks after the break. iOS 5.0 My Pick of the Year is iOS5. After long and careful consideration I’ve decided that this piece of software is the thing that most delighted my iLife this year. Although I do not each feature or app daily and despite the fact that many things are still a work in progress (iMessage I’m looking at you!) this is thing that Apple can be most proud of birthing this year (yes even above iPad2 and Lion). It was such a major release that it felt like I was getting a new phone. And that’s a good thing, because I was feeling a major itch for something new around this past August/September. So I was most relieved and delighted to see that iOS5 did not render my iPhone 4 obsolete, I was still rocking one the coolest smartphones on the planet, now with cool new features. What I most like about the update for my iPhone are customizable Notifications, geotaggable Reminders, the effortless and indomitable Photo Stream and Over The Air syncing. Additionally the introduction of Multitasking gestures and Airplay Mirorring for my iPad 2 make a world of difference. I can’t remember how we used to live without these features. Of course a lot of things are aided and abetted by iCloud which delivers more or less a smooth user experience once correctly set up. Now that Read More
It wasn’t until I searched the App Store for Photogene, one of my favourite photo editors on the iPhone, that I realized it had been taken away…and replaced by a sexy, 99-cent sequel. Photogene2 (which is probably read “squared”) replaces the four-year old interface of Photogene with something much, flashier and more powerful. However, unlike Photoforge 2, Photogene2 still manages to feel intuitive, despite all of the extra power under the hood. I haven’t had enough time with the app to review it yet, but it’s definitely feeling like a solid upgrade so far. All the familiar crop, text, and enhancement tools are here, but they’re much more flexible now. It’s also blazingly fast on my 4S. I realize that this may look like overkill, since apps like Photoforge 2 and PhotoToaster already fill out similar functions, but there really is a whole new level of polish to Photogene2, which makes it well worth a look. The initial purchase is $0.99, though there are extra in-app purchases if you’re looking to spend some of your Christmas money. Read More
Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break. Amazon Mobile [v1.8.0] Picked by: Jay This week is a “see one, get one free” for my Pick! With the state of the American economy in such fluctuation, I am always seeking the best prices for things I need and want. Over the holiday shopping season Amazon has two apps that have become my pocket saviors while shopping. By having direct access to my Amazon.com account, the online site becomes a shopping competitor while on-the-go. For Amazon.com-only information, Amazon Mobile has become my staple. If I want to know what the reviews of a certain Nintendo DS game happens to be, I can scan the barcode which takes me to see the price and its reviews at Amazon. If I don’t see the box with a barcode, I could use “Snap It” to take a picture of an item on the store shelf and within seconds, the app looks up what the item is, and off I go to the product page. And having access to my Amazon.com account means I can also save these product searches to Wish Lists I’ve already set up. Price Check [v1.2.1] Amazon also offers a less-powerful app, Price Check, to price compare among Amazon.com and its online merchants where you can enter the price you see at the brick-and-mortar vendor (“this helps ensure our prices remain competitive”). For example, at a local Barnes Read More
Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break. MacBook Air A week after I replaced my MacBook Pro (which met an untimely demise) with a MacBook Air, I couldn’t be happier. As I pointed out in my piece outlining the incident, it is fast, and has more than enough power to do what I do for a living (design). I swear it rivals a pro machine, and has the added benefit of a lightweight design, which after all is the point. If you’re in, or soon to be in the market for a new MacBook, I would recommend giving the MacBook Air a good hard look. MacBook Air starts at $999. I’ve gotten a lot of tremendous feedback for my last post regarding the untimely death of my MacBook Pro. So, I’m going to clarify a few things. First, and to my chagrin, I did not purchase AppleCare when I purchased my MacBook Pro. At the time, I didn’t even consider AppleCare, which is Apple’s extended insurance policy on the product you are buying. I did not have the money, nor did it occur to me that the machine would fail in two years. Me being naive I suppose… ($999.00+) Link Koto Go Silence (v1.0) This is a brilliant kids storybook app for the iPad. It’s the story of one exciting night for Koto the dog, who steadfastly defends his Read More
It’s irritating having to head to different websites for your cellphone usage, broadband usage, and to check for that package of Gummi Bears you ordered from Germany. Consume 1.x helped ease this pain on my iPhone by allowing me to track usage details and shipments. But now Consume 2.0 is out and it’s smexier and infinitely more universal than before, meaning that it now runs on both the iPhone and iPad. I only started using the new version today so my stats and accounts are completely uninteresting, but I am digging the automatic iCloud sync. All I had to do was set up my Rogers account on my iPhone and leave it up to iCloud to do the same on my iPad. If you enjoy consumption or the number two, you can check out Consume 2.0 for $2.99 on the App Store. Read More
