ScreenFlow 2 adds some great features to let you create sleek screencasts.  There are now new transitions to flow between different clips. If you drag two clips together a transition will automatically be placed in between. You can change the type of transition by double-clicking the transition area. You can also drag new clips in from another screen recording and you can speed up or slow down clips.

This update adds a lot of features to help you edit the audio in your clips. First off, you can detach the audio from the video clip, and even copy it to a different video. You can also have ScreenFlow automatically fade out the background audio when you have a voiceover player, and fade back in after it is over. They have added live audio scrubbing too, so you can quickly scan through to get the the section in the audio that you want.

ScreenFlow 2.0 also added a few other useful features. You can now export your video to YouTube, right out of the application. And Telestream added a feature that lets you pause the recording, and then resume it later. Finally, they added a few keyboard shortcuts, improved performance, and added Snow Leopard support.

This is a great update to a great application. It is a little pricey, $99 for a new license or $29 for an upgrade, but I think that anyone interested in screencasting should try out the demo. If you just need a cheap simple application to record your screen, you might want to try another alternative. You can download the trial and buy ScreenFlow at Telestream’s website.

GPush is the first app for the iPhone that will send you a push notification any time you get a new message in your Gmail inbox.  It’s a fairly simple app that tackles a fairly simple problem, and it works.  After a simple username and password set up, you’ll receive a push notification whenever a new message pops into your Gmail account.  The push notification is similar to any text message you might receive.

One of our earlier complaints about the app, and one which we intended to focus on here was the inability to access your new mail directly from the notification.  This was addressed in a recently released update to the app, and we couldn’t be happier.  Now when you receive a new push, whether you’re in a application or not, you’ll be given the option to view the email or close the push notification.  If you choose to view the email you’ll be kicked out of your current application and taken to GPush.  Once there, GPush will take you to the new Gmail tab where it loads up a mobile-friendly version of your Gmail inbox that’s identical to the one seen in the Google Mobile App.

This new view feature is a great addition and well appreciated, but that doesn’t mean it’s not without flaws.  Clicking view only brings you to your inbox, not the email itself.  For folks like myself who much prefer using the iPhone’s built-in Mail app, having to use the web-based Gmail mobile feels a little too slow and clunky.  And the view option doesn’t work in every circumstance — if your device receives a push notification in standby you won’t have the option to view or close.  Instead sometimes you’ll be forced to open GPush the next time you unlock your device, and sometimes you won’t.  It’s flaky and inconsistent from the standby state, which is a fairly significant stumbling block when it comes to using the feature properly.

There are other annoyances with the app as well.  Many folks have multiple Gmail addresses for business, personal, etc.. but GPush only allows for one account.  And speaking of Gmail, why only the one client?  Sure Gmail is the biggest freemail provider out there, but does that mean users of Yahoo, Hotmail and Live need to be left out in the cold?  Or how about server based emails?  I happen to use several addresses, both Gmail and otherwise, and would have been delighted to have an app that could cater to all my push notification needs.

Despite our nitpicky complaints, GPush sets out with one thing in mind and it does that one thing incredibly well — it keeps me from bringing up my inbox every 5 minutes.  If it can accomplish that, it can probably accomplish anything.

GPush is available from Tiverias Apps on the iTunes AppStore for $1.99.

After looking at the changelogs—both the shiny publicized one as well as the more technical support one—I realized that the primary changes that I had issue with were all covered under the phrase “an improved look and feel.” With respect to the geniuses at Apple, this is a terrible way of doing things. The largest way a typical user interacts with a program like iTunes, whether or not it has Home Sharing, Genius Mixes, and the like, is through its UI. We get very used to these interfaces. And yet, there are never any specifics given as to what the changes to the UI actually are. This itself must change.

I’m not saying that the old iTunes interface was perfect, but it was something we were all used to. To suddenly change things around in an interface that makes sense just confuses everyone. Take the new column view, for instance. It is useless to me to have a list of all my artists, and then a small window for the songs. I preferred the old way, when I could have albums, artists, and genres all along the top, while still being able to see the song list below. This doesn’t necessarily mean it shouldn’t have to be changed, but Apple should at least tell us how to make it look the old way. I only found the options for reverting the view by wandering around in the menus for some time.

The playlist and other icons were changed in the sidebar as well. I, personally, don’t really care about this one way or another, but again it brings up the question of why Apple would do this when the old ones worked perfectly well. Is an off-center note more trendy than one in the middle? Is a cut-off gear nicer than a complete one?

About fifteen minutes after upgrading, I had reverted most changes, and made my peace with the new changes that I couldn’t fix. Satisfied with my life, I clicked the green button to minimize the window into the Mini Player I always keep in the corner of my screen. The window simply jumped slightly. Huh. I must have pressed the wrong thing. I clicked again. And again. And again. My world exploded once again. That was the most useful feature of iTunes—to have the display become small and unobtrusive. Had Apple actually gotten rid of this? Luckily, this was not the case; I eventually discovered that you could bring up the Mini Player by pressing Shift+Apple+M. Although this made it possible, it still seems like a stupid idea on Apple’s part. Why make this so much more difficult to do? I’m all for keyboard shortcuts, but if my hand is on the mouse, it would be nice to click. At least, tell me how to make it appear, rather than, once again, making me hunt through menus.

So, I’m not against change. Many of the new features of iTunes are great (I love the new Genius Mixes, among other aspects), but just, tell us about them, okay? An “improved look” is not nearly descriptive enough for me. Make sure that I—and people with less patience for scanning menus—know how to make a program do what it had always done in the past. Progress should not come at the cost of information. We’ll like the updates more if you tell us what’s in them, I swear.

Accessing the Genius function is a simple enough process.  At the top of the App Store App beside the New and What’s Hot options that we’ve grown accustomed to will be a new to access Genius.  The first time you access this you’ll need to read and agree to the Genius Terms of Service, but once that’s out of the way it’s pretty much smooth sailing as it compiles a list of recommendations.

iTunes Genius has, in my experience, offered a wonderfully appropriate list of suggestions based on my listening tastes.  They’ve turned me on to new music, suggested music I already know I love — all in all it’s been a quality service since it launched.  It’s baby sibling, however, isn’t fairing as well.

While iTunes Genius seems to base it’s recommendations off of the purchases of like-minded individuals, App Store Genius feels as though it’s pulling random apps from similar categories and dumping them in your lap.  Paypal was recommended based on my use of CBC Radio.  NFL 2010 was recommended because I have Pac-Man Remix.  While these things might technically fall under the same category, their purposes and audiences couldn’t be less similar.

Still, it’s not all bad.  Based on my use of Tweetie a number of Twitter-related apps were suggested my way.  My use of Twitpic led to a recommendation for HP iPrint Photo.  These are all things that are thematically the same.  They make sense.  The problem is that more often than not I would be recommended MLB at Bat based on Twitpic or DOOM based on Civilization Revolution.

Looking at your purchases on the whole and making recommendations based on those might have made a little more sense.  If it did Genius would learn pretty quick how much I love tower defense games, and recommendations of those would have been a welcome addition to the sea of nonsense that’s currently presented.  It may break from the system used by iTunes Genius, but maybe that’s what’s needed here.  Music and apps are two very different beasts, and those beasts need two very different approaches to be tackled effectively.

One thing that surprised me was that Genius only factored in apps currently on your device.  If you’ve purchased apps in the past but removed them, those aren’t included.  One can appreciate the logic behind this — if you’ve deleted an app you probably don’t like it — but there’s a flipside to that argument.  What if you loved the app, but just didn’t need it right now?  Secret of Monkey Island SE easily ranks amongst my favorite iPhone games, but I deleted it once I was finished because of the space it took up.  In my mind, that’s something that should absolutely be factored in to any recommendation engine that’s trying to learn about my shopping habits.

App Store Genius is a great idea, but it’s execution is poor and contrary to the it’s own purposes.  Without consistently sensible recommendations, this just isn’t a part of the App Store that you’ll find yourself visiting.

The upgrade process is, in the spirit of most Apple products, incredibly easy to figure out. I popped the install DVD into my computer after taking it out of the packaging. The packaging itself I was less than impressed by, for other than the snow leopards scattered around, there was little else specific to this release. True, there were pages in the booklet extolling the features of the operating system, but most were ones that could be found in 10.5 as well. Nevertheless, this did not stop me from continuing with the installation. The DVD’s minimalist window showed up on my screen, with three choices. Two were folders, and the only one I was interested in was the installer itself.

I double-clicked on the icon, and was presented simply with the choice to install or not. I continued through a few windows, and input my password. And that was pretty much it. Unlike some other installers, this didn’t even have to restart before initiating the install. It quit all my programs, and then I was left with nothing to do. It also took, all in all, a surprisingly short time. It estimated an hour, and it took a little bit longer, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. Now, I chose to upgrade, rather than to wipe my hard drive and do a clean install. I don’t know how the timing of this would be different.

The waiting was the worst part, however. I was constantly watching for any sign of the petrifying greyed-out screen that signifies a kernel panic. Or even worse, a black screen (or perhaps even worse than that, the smell of burning plastic). But none of these appeared, and my trusty Macbook went through the process unscathed. The computer restarted itself and I was greeted with the same orientation video I saw a few years back when Leopard came out (still cool, but I could have done with something newer).

And then came the other fear: Did my computer still work? Did all my programs—and more importantly the system—still do what they were supposed to? The answer to this, actually, for the first few minutes, was no. My menubar was, for lack of a better word, twitching. Spotlight kept appearing and disappearing, and I couldn’t see the date, or any of the apple icons. However, with some quick Google searching I discovered that the issue was iStat menus, a very handy little program, but one that has yet to be upgraded for Snow Leopard. The only other big problem for me was that I noticed that, for some reason, I was doing everything much more slowly than usual. I then realized that my application launcher Quicksilver was no longer working, and so I was doing everything by hand. This upset me greatly, but once again Google saved the day. There were a few other necessary tweaks, but in the end it was a very painless process.

So far, I’m very glad to have updated. At least as of now, it’s the little changes that I didn’t know about that I find most useful. Exposé is tweaked to be more helpful. The Dock pop-up menus are on grey instead of white, and so fit better with the aesthetic. The menu bar can finally show the date. The list goes on, but needless to say, updating was the highlight of my day. Oh yes, one more thing. There are many desktop pictures of snow leopards. And none of them are angry.

Simplenote provides exactly what it says, a simple way to take and sync notes on your iPhone and iPod Touch. When you open an app, you see a simple page where you can add a new, view, search, and delete notes as well as allowing you to sign up/log in to your web account. Adding a note is as simple as touching the “+”, to manage syncing you simply touch the wrench button, and to delete a note you swipe your finger across the note and touch “Delete”.

When creating a new note or editing a preexisting note, the interface remains clean and simple with buttons to return to the notes list, email your note, or delete it. The app supports both portrait and landscape mode, which is very nice if you are typing a lot and prefer the landscape keyboard as I do. With no extra frills like titles, tags, locations, images, and file attachments, Simplenote runs extremely fast, even on old iPhones and iPod Touches.

The web app for accessing your notes on your desktop is just as clean and light as the app. It looks almost the same as the app and provides the same exact features. The app syncs automatically and stores local copies of your notes to allow you to view, search, edit, and add new notes even when you don’t have network access.

With the latest update of the app, Cloud Factory has added an API which allows for the creation of “Extras” which allows developers to create third party applications to interface with Simplenote. Currently the only app is a web application, Simple Backup, which allows you to backup/export your Simplenote notes into plain text, CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, and Evernote archive formats. I expect to see some exciting new features added with this feature in the future.

If you are looking for a simple, clean, and fast note taking app for your iPhone or iPod Touch that also syncs with the web Simplenote is my pick. Simplenote costs $1.99 which includes a free web account and can be downloaded from iTunes.

When you first launch Bevy you will want to add a few folders. Just click the gear icon in the top left and select folders. Here you will tell Bevy where to search for applications, and Bevy will display you applications in different sections for each folder. This will let you easily keep things organized. You can also exclude some items that you don’t ever need.

Bevy can display you applications in a few different ways. You can view all applications, included applications, excluded applications, or running applications. You can view them all in one big group, or have then grouped by folder. Applications that are currently open will be in a box or have a stroke around them, which you can pick in the settings. You can also change all the colors of Bevy and adjust the opacity in the settings.

But Bevy isn’t just to launch applications. If you want to open a file in a certain application you can drag the file, launch Bevy, and drop the file onto an application. All applications that can open the certain type of file will be highlighted, and all other applications will be dimmed. You can also quickly find applications by holding a letter on your keyboard. This will cause applications that start with that letter to be highlighted.

However, Bevy could use a few other features. One thing that it lacks is an actual search. Bevy also doesn’t work with Spaces, and it will only show in one space. If you open Bevy while in a different space, you will switch to the space that Bevy is in. If you want to quickly access every application on their Mac, you might want to try Bevy. Bevy is available from bergdesign for $9.95.

The point of Flickery is to move all of the functionality of Flickr to your desktop. So, of course, you can upload photos with it. All you do is go to the Upload item in the sidebar, and either drag some photos onto the window, or use the Make Screenshot button to create and upload a screenshot. You can also click the Open button to choose some files to upload. These can be either pictures or videos. But, to make things even simpler, you can record a movie to upload directly from Flickery. Once you have chosen some images and/or videos, you can then add titles, descriptions and tags to them. However, from this screen, you can’t choose what photoset it will go into when uploaded.

Once a picture or video has been uploaded, you can still edit its information just by clicking Edit Info. To add a photo to a photoset, you just have to click the Add to Set button, and then choose one or more photosets. However, the sets it is already in don’t appeared as checked (in the window that pops up), so you can’t really tell if it’s already in one. This also makes it hard to delete it from a photoset, because you can’t uncheck the box. You can also show comments, tags and descriptions of anyones photos by clicking the Show Details button when a photo is selected. I really like the crumpled paper look of this screen, but it really doesn’t match the rest of the UI, so it seems a little awkward. To view a larger size of an image, you just double click on it. Or, you can click the Fullscreen button to view the image in fullscreen.

Flickery also supports easy downloading of any picture or video. If you’ve ever browsed on Flickr.com, you know it’s always annoying to download an image or video. But Flickery makes it just the click of a button away. You just select an image or video, and hit Download. A downloads window will then appear, allowing you to manage multiple downloads. Along with this, you can also add any photo to your iPhone library (not Aperture though). You just click the Add to iPhoto library. I’m not sure why you’d want to add someone else’s image to your library, but you can.

Like Flickr.com, Flickery allows you to Explore. Exploring is just a cool way to find all images that were taken on a certain day. You can also perform and save searches right in Flickery, which is really cool. You can also see all of your contacts and their photostreams by just clicking on their name in the sidebar. However, you cannot manage contacts directly from Flickery. I assume this is an issue with the Flickr API, and not the app though.

Flickery is a great desktop version of Flickr.com. It has almost all the features the Website has and a couple extra. You can buy it for about $20, and download a 15-day free trial from their site. Anyone who uses Flickr frequently, or who wants a better image search engine should definitely try out Flickery.

For many years now, the Get A Mac ad campaign, other campaigns, and general experience have led the typical Mac consumer to think that their computer is unreachable by anything bad, and that, especially compared to Windows, there are no real threats and using a Mac is safe and secure as ever. By including a program that appears—at least from the screen shot above—to scan downloads for potential security risks, Apple is admitting that there are in fact viruses that can infect Macs, and that its users are not as safe as they might think, at least not currently.

However, by creating this app, they are also, of course, making their computers safer. The theory is, many Mac enthusiasts think, that this is less to address a current, ongoing problem of Mac malware, and rather to keep people’s systems safe for the future. It is still certainly true that there are many fewer viruses and so on made for Macs than there are for PCs, most likely because the market share remains small and it’s just not worth it for the hackers. So, the inclusion of this feature should still be a selling point for the Snow Leopard upgrade which comes out this Friday.

Apple has yet to respond to comments on this feature, which seems to be working against the company. If they discussed the utility, its limitations and features, they might well get people more excited about Snow Leopard, happy to be safe, and so on. If not, as they are doing, it seems as if they are trying to pretend that viruses just don’t exist, which in the end will hurt the company.

Apple also wrote that no discussion with AT&T about the application had taken place, and that all the concerns that had been raised were from Apple’s side and not from the phone company. As had been suspected before, the application was not immediately approved because it was seen to duplicate features already on the iPhone. However, these were described more specifically: the Google Voice application would replace the phone button on the iPhone, and voicemails would no longer be stored on the iPhone itself but on Google’s servers. The same concerns were raised about the SMS section of the application. Apple was also concerned about the safety of the contacts imported from the iPhone to Google, and the company’s subsequent use of those contacts.

AT&T and Google also wrote letters to the FCC as part of the investigation. AT&T confirmed that Apple had not consulted them about the application, and defended its position on internet calling programs by stating that they needed to be sure that enabling VoIP on iPhones would not reduce revenues for the company. Google, always trying to gain the upper hand, stated in its letter that it did not, unlike Apple, screen any applications for its phone operating system (Android), with the exception of pornographic and potentially offensive material. These letters are part of a larger investigation by the FCC into internet calling on smart phones initiated by complaints from Skype. The investigation is expected to continue to discern the rights of wireless networks to screen applications, and whether or not it would make the system more amenable to a monopoly.

USAA, a company whose largest customer base is the armed forces, is no stranger to new and inventive ways to bank. Because their customers are scattered all around the world, not just around their one branch in San Antonio, Texas, they have previously released a service where a scanned check can be deposited, so the iPhone application is not a far leap. However, compared to many other online banking services offered by other banks, it is a huge step forward. While many banks, such as Bank of America, have dedicated iPhone applications, they are used primarily for checking balances, making transfers, and all in all dealing with the money already in an account. To be able to deposit money without having to visit a brick-and-mortar bank is a fascinating innovation. The customers using this application don’t need to mail in the check later, they can void the check as soon as they “deposit” it and forget about it.

iPhones are being used increasingly to deal with financial transactions, say the most popular banks in America. A cell phone is almost always on one’s person, and so is the most convenient way to bank. Perhaps other banks will soon pick up on the trend started by USAA, and we will be able to deposit and handle our money without ever setting foot in a real bank.

At first Glance, the app appears to be more than it is. While the store has a great sidebar, I found the interface a bit sluggish (it’s obviously loading all of the app data from the net), and sometimes unresponsive when I tried browse into an app’s info page. The navigation arrows normally found at the top of apps, were kicked to the bottom (likely because of the giant branded awning), and took a few minutes to get used to clicking at the bottom.

The Bodega interface is slick, except for the exceptionally tacky awning (which you can’t get rid of unfortunately).

I perused the categories, surprised to find a wide spread of apps I hadn’t come across. However I was extremely disappointed to find out that Bodega isn’t really a store, but more of an app aggregator. There’s no built-in payment system that we’ve associated with the iPhone App Store. Instead of being brought through to a payment page, I was crushed to see a little tiny browser pop out of the top, and open the developers site.

Bodega merely links you to the developers website to use their custom payment system

Why use Bodega then instead of simply going to the developers site? Well Bodega does help you save your receipt and license inside the app, but it also works as an update manager. If you have software installed that’s also in the Bodega store, it will show up in an Application list with any available updates. There are also rating and review features similar to Apple’s App Store, which allow users to rate and give feedback on apps.

This is a great first start, but Bodega isn’t the true app store that you would expect it to be. On the Bodega website IDFusion touts the direct-from-developer system as a feature:

“Bodega lets you buy direct from developers, so you’re certain to get the lowest price while making sure your software dollars end up in the pockets of hard-working programmers, not middlemen.”

However, this complicates the purchase process. It’s like going to a big retail store, and being told you have to drive across town to pay for a product.

Hopefully in Bodega 2, or other app stores, we’ll get the one-stop experience we’ve grown accustomed to in Apple’s App Store.

]]> http://macapper.com/2009/08/05/news-new-app-store-on-the-block/feed/ 2 http://macapper.com/2009/08/03/keymote-review-keystrokes-just-a-tap-away/ http://macapper.com/2009/08/03/keymote-review-keystrokes-just-a-tap-away/#comments Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:00:26 +0000 Jack Amick http://macapper.com/?p=9157 There are many applications to control your Mac in the App Store. Some will let you view and control the whole screen, while some just let you control a single application like iTunes. Keymote, by Iced Cocoa, is a different type of application for your iPhone or iPod Touch. It lets you set custom keystrokes to buttons, so you can create sets (or keysets) of keystrokes for any application. You can even share and download other users’ keysets.

To start using Keymote, you need to sync your device with your computer. Just download and install the Keymote Controller to your Mac and tap “Add Computer…” in the Keymote settings. After that, you need to start creating keysets. Keysets are extremely easy to create. Just tap on the plus icon in the keysets section of the application and add a name and category. For each keyset you can add keystrokes and spacers. Spacers let you add a blank spot in between keystrokes. These custom keysets make Keymote so versatile. You can start by adding some keystrokes that you use the most often, and Keymote will definitely prove useful.

You don’t need to create all of your keysets. Keymote also has a Keyset Store where you can upload and download user-made keysets. Despite it’s name, everything on this store is free. The store already includes many keysets. There are keysets for a numerical pad and even one for Adobe Photoshop. There are many options in the store that let you easily browse the Keyset Store; it’s almost like browsing the App Store. You can check out staff picks, what’s hot, what’s new, categories, or just view an alphabetical list. You can also search the store to quickly find a keyset for the purpose you want. Adding a keyset to the store is easy. You just need to tap the plus icon on the top right and select your keyset.

I think that almost every Mac user will be able to find a good use for Keymote. With this application you won’t need to remember tons of keystrokes, you just need to tap a button. It does have a few small issues. It takes some time to set up a large custom keyset, and some keysets from the store might not work for you. You might have different keystrokes set up than the person who created the keyset. Despite it’s small flaws, Keymote is a very useful application that many Mac users will appreciate. Keymote is currently under review by Apple and should be available soon on the App Store for $3.99.

Final Cut Studio has been around for a number of years, gaining traction on it’s Avid counter-parts. Being used by large-production companies for feature films, or short goofy clips by high school and college students, Final Cut serves a broad audience with its suite of editing, creation, and manipulating tools.

*Note: To be fair, we haven’t yet gotten our hands on the software, this is working from the advertised feature list from apple.com

Final Cut Pro 7

Final Cut gets the bump to the big 7.0, and while it offers a number of small new features, I was hoping to see a stronger feature set for a big version change like this. Apple calls it “the year’s most stunning new release.” If this is the year’s most stunning new release, it’s going to be quite a disappointing year.

• Current Final Cut users will be happy to get an improved export system called “Easy Export.” This one was common sense: allow users to continue working on a project while it’s encoding in the background. I’m excited for this, but it seems like something that should have been done in the first place.
• Apple is heavily touting it’s ProRes codec family as a big feature, and while a more extensive codec family is useful when working with multiple types of clips, I hardly see it as a big feature.
• Apple is parading better integration with iChat and Cinema Tools, support for more formats, more effects and transitions, and blah blah blah… None of these features are so earth shattering I would pay $299 for the upgrade.

Motion 4

I don’t event know what to say about Motion. No major updates to the interface, no major new features, just more of the same tacky templates, particle emitters, and preset patterns.

• Lots of other small little useful tools Motion has had for years made better…

Soundtrack 3

Soundtrack got the most new features of all the apps in my opinion, which is sad for this video-centric suite.

• Soundtrack sounds like it got a bunch of tools to repair common audio problems with just a few clicks. This will be refreshing change, as before it could be clunky to make smaller edits in a large timeline.
• Soundtrack 3 improves integration with Final Cut to make it a more useful counter-part in the editing workflow. Make precision edits to dialogue levels on two tracks to that they match perfectly. Another great feature, but it always seemed like a feature destined for Soundtrack, nothing that will change how you use the advanced multi-track editor.

Color 1.5

A lot more of the same. Color grows up a bit, and gains… you guessed it: tighter integration with Final Cut.

• Not much to report. Come back next version.

Compressor 3.5

• Compressor gets a bit of a facelift, and I understand that it’s hard to improve an encoder. Compressor does a better job of handling batch jobs, gives you better batch templates to work with, and a great 3rd-party-plugin system to let you better write your own custom workflows.
• Compressor supposedly now gives “pristine” format conversion, including excellent SD-to-HD up-conversion. A plus, sure, but it’s hard to quantify what “pristine” format conversion means in comparison to what Compressor used to be.

DVD Studio Pro 4

• To be honest the Apple website doesn’t really say much about DVD Studio Pro of consequence. It touts features already available in the software for years, and just more of the same.
• Blu-ray support? I’m guessing (and your guess is as good as mine). Compressor supports it now, so it leads one to believe that you would be able to burn Blu-Ray images at least. No where on the site does it say that it does though, and no Macs currently support Blu-Ray media, or have drives to read/write the discs.

Conclusion

I’m honestly at a loss of words as for what to say about the new Final Cut Studio. By no means do I think they’re bad programs, I think they’re all excellent, but there are no compelling features to justify the upgrade. It adds better inter-app integration, it offers some improved sharing features for popular formats and services, and just improves over-all. There’s honestly not much to report.

Either Apple did a terrible job advertising new features on their website, or the new suite is just the slightly more-polished version of Final Cut Studio 2 it sounds like. If users were planning on buying Final Cut Studio already, they should go for it, there are some useful new fixes and tie-ins, but it’s not really worth the upgrade from the current version.

1Password is an incredible application. Once installed, it automatically installs a plug-in into every browser. Any time a new password is entered, it gives you the option of saving it in 1Password. This seems similar to the password managers built in to many browsers, such as Firefox and Safari, until you realize that the passwords saved are available from any browser. Switching back and forth between multiple browsers, a common occurrence especially when testing out new websites that may not be complete, is made super easy with 1Password.

The application stores all passwords, as well as credit card information, license codes for software, pretty much anything that a user might need but would prefer to keep hidden. This is all accessible through an easy to use interface (primarily the aforementioned browser plug-ins), once a master password is entered. This password only has to be entered once per session, and then a keyboard shortcut is used after that to enter any password or login. 1Password gives you the option of creating new, super-secure passwords for any new web services that would be impossible to remember, but because of how the program works, it is not necessary to remember them.

One of the best things about 1Password is how easy it is, once a password is saved, to put it into a form. The user simply has to press a keyboard shortcut, and it automatically enters the login info into the provided boxes. This is not only easier than remembering your various usernames and passwords, it is also incredibly fast. 1Password also has the option of auto-submitting the information, so you don’t even have to click a button. This is true not only for login information, but also for billing addresses, credit card numbers, and so on.

1Password is not a perfect app. There were a few sites (although not the majority) that it didn’t notice when I was entering in a new password, and so didn’t take it up into its memory. Also, it is extremely difficult to enter a new login from the application itself, rather than from one of your browsers. Oddly, one of the reasons it is so difficult is that the program keeps reminding you that it is easier from a browser. 1Password consistently warns you about things that may compromise your security (using Apple’s built-in keychain software instead of the Agile Keychain), which is helpful, but can get annoying when it stops you from doing something you know you want to do.

The user interface of the application itself could be more aesthetic, like AllSecure’s, for example (a similar program). But, since most interaction is done through a browser, this is only a minor detail. Another issue I had, which is more an issue of usage than the actual program, is the suggested password. If a generated password, 16 random characters long, is used for an online banking site, that is fine when it is being accessed from the user’s computer, but it is impossible to get in from another computer, since the user does not actually know the password.

However, despite these flaws, 1Password is a great tool to streamline the internet—especially shopping and banking. It is available for $39.95 (with a money-back guarantee) from the Agile Web Solutions website.

Ecoute has a small main windows that feels a lot like an iPod. You can browse your music just as you would on an iPod or iPhone. When you play a song the window will shrink and display the album artwork for the song. Hover your mouse over the album artwork you can easly play, pause, and skip back or forward in the track. The bottom of the screen displays the time that is left in the track and you can click the search icon to search songs. Clicking the album artwork will display the song lyrics (if available).

Ecoute also has many features that iTunes lacks. You can add a small controller to your desktop. This will display the album artwork, song title, artist, and album. You can also use it to play/pause, and skip ahead or back. You don’t need to have Ecoute’s icon in the dock. It can be in the menu bar instead. Ecoute even has Last.fm scrobbling. If you don’t know what Last.fm is, it let’s you track and share what music you listen to.

Ecoute is a very basic app. While it would be nice if it included some more features, like playlist creation and the ability to tell if a playlist is new or not, it is a great application to listen to music and watch videos without opening iTunes. You can download a free trial of Ecoute from PixiApps and a license costs $10.

The Easy Way

Naturally the easiest way to keep your Palm Pre syncing with iTunes is to download an older version of iTunes, or refuse to upgrade to the new 8.2.1 release. This limits you to the features (and security) of the older version, and isn’t very practical. Although, if you have multiple machines, it could be just as easy to leave iTunes at 8.2 on an older machine. Click here to download iTunes 8.2 from Version Tracker.

The Other Easy Way

A few months back we previewed the doubleTwist software released by famous DVD encryption cracker DVD Jon and his small team. The concept of the software is simple: sync your all devices from one piece of software, without all of the hassle. doubleTwist is still fairly new, but it offers support for a few hundred smartphones, Mp3 players, the Sony PSP. Recently added to that mix is the Palm Pre. A note for Palm Pre PC users: the doubleTwist is available for Windows as well on the company’s website.

1) Download and install the doubleTwist software from the company’s website, and launch the app.

2) Sign up for an account with the company in the dialogue box that appears at your first launch.

3) Once loaded, you should be able to see tabs for your music, photos, and videos from your iTunes or iPhoto libraries.

4) Connect your Palm Pre (or other smartphone/device) with the USB cable to your machine.

5) Your device will show up in the column under the “Devices” section. This should look remarkably familiar for iTunes users. Then syncing both ways works the same way as it would in iTunes. Select the music you want to transfer to your device, and drag and drop it onto the device in the sidebar. When transferring video, doubleTwist will automatically convert the video for the right format of your device.

doubleTwist’s interface is attractive, yet sparse. It’s merely a sync manager,
you’ll still want to use iTunes for content management.

It’s as simple as that. While normally I would think it’s a hassle to have yet another step to sync to my phone, I find doubleTwist a friendly, simple, and intuitive solution.

This video is a company demo of how doubleTwist syncs content from an Android phone (or similar phone).

The first thing to be said about Postage is how good it looks. It has an amazing UI, and it is no wonder that in won an Apple Design Award this year. But it’s not just the UI that’s nice-looking, it’s the postcards you create as well that look great. And they’re easy to make—It just takes a couple of steps.

The first step is to choose the style for the postcard. As of now, there are over 55 styles in 10 different categories, which is more than enough. In the preview of each style, it shows you exactly where the picture will go, and where the text will go too. After you have chosen a style, you can choose a picture from your iPhone’s photo library. It would be great if you could see a preview with the picture as you were browsing photos, but I think that is an issue of Apple not allowing direct access to photos, you must use the list. After you have selected a picture, you can add one of 7 effects, or keep it as-is. More effects would be nice, and maybe even sliders for exposure, and saturation. But, this is supposed to be a simple app that allows you to make a postcard in just a minute, so it is not a necessity.

The next step is text. With Postage, not only can you choose what it says, but you can also choose a font, text style and text color. There are 9 different fonts to choose from, all of which are very different. If they added more, some would look alike, and you might end up spending minutes trying to figure out which one looks best. So, maybe you should be happy there aren’t more. The styles are normal text styles: left, center or right-alligned and normal or bold. I’m surprised that italics are not in there though, but for a simple message, I’m not sure you’d usually need them.

The final step, but most important one, is the addresses. You can choose someone from your contacts, or just enter someone’s email address. And, you can choose any email address that it will be marked as being from. So, if you want to surprise them, but down a random email address. You can also choose to add the postcard to your photo library, so you can keep track of all the ones you send. I would have never thought of doing this, but it is a great idea. Then, once you have finished everything (and you can go back to the previous step at any point), you must click Send, and your postcard is complete.

Just as easy as—Actually easier than—Mailing an actual postcard and you can choose your own image, style and text style and it arrives almost instantly. All this for the (normal) price of ($4.99) about 8-10 postcards (with postage), and this allows you to send unlimited postcards. But as this is being written, Postage is 40% off, or just the price of ($2.99) 5-6 postcards (with postage). So, if you’re on vacation, or going on vacation soon, Postage can assure that you don’t have any angry relatives for not sending postcards—What’s not to like? It’s available in the App Store through This link for only $2.99 as of now.

I hate to gush about any app, but I love it.  As a Comcast user (who is not getting anything free from Comcast, other than this app, which is free to all), I was shocked and dismayed that just earlier this year, the web client to access my voice mail forced me to listen to the mail before deleting them.  No mass delete check boxes either.  Since then, Comcast rolled out comcast.net and now the iPhone app and has removed any doubts I had about Comcasts commitment to getting mobile right.

The app is extremely clean and sleek.  I honestly don’t think Apple could have done a better job designing this one.  Comcast turned to mPortal for the heavy lifting in coding the app and they’ve done an outstanding job.  Let’s take a look at the features of this instantly-essential (to me at least) application.

Digital Voice

This is the killer app of the, well, app.  See that button in the lower right-hand corner?  That one allows you to forward your number as you please.  Awesome.  Now, I can forward and unforward my number about as easy as playing a rousing game of Lexic.

Simply hit the Call Forwarding button, choose where you want to forward your number to and push the slider to turn it on.  Users can even label phone lines, like “work” so they can be recalled easier and faster.

In a very Android-like way, all your calls are shown in the “All” category.  Users ccan click on Outgoing, Missed or VM tabs to access just those calls.  If you feel that is too much info to look at, simply hit clear and you have an empty page.  Very soothing.

Access to call logs, both incoming and outgoing is there as is easy deletion of voicemails.  Everything you need, all within reach seems to be the design mantra here and it works.

SmartZone Address Book

Last year, Comcast bought Plaxo, the social networking site that sought to keep everyone’s contact information in one place.  Comcast integrates this great idea in their iPhone app.  By bringing your Plaxo address book into your iPhone you get contacts sync’d much like the Palm Pre does.  When one of your contact changes say a phone number, that change is pushed to Plaxo and thus into your Comcast SmartZone address book which can be sync’d with your iPhone address book.

Comcast bills this as a universal address book – the last one you’ll ever need.  The iPhone app also uses your on-iPhone contacts as well.  Handy.

If you are like me and keep your iPhone by your side while watching TV, there is a nifty guide that localizes based on your location to tell you what is on.   Not ground breaking but nice to have.

SmartZone Inbox

Most Comcast users are going to love this.  This feature combines your Comcast line phone data along with your Comcast email.  All in one place, organized by time and searchable.  Even your email folders are accessible through this app.

On Demand

Another nice to have feature, find out what is new from Comcast’s On Demand.  The app will display movie trailers broken down into categories or you can search for a specific title.

Settings

Good settings to me, are the tell tale mark of a well thought out application.  This app has just about every setting adjustment you could want.  Users can change the home screen from a list to Cover Flow  to a grid, alerts can be customized as can several other settings.  It is a nice touch.

Summary

Rarely am I this impressed with an iPhone app. About the only flaw I can see is the lack of push notifications, but that is a minor (and fixable in later versions) flaw.  The Comcast application is simple, easy to use and very detailed; exactly the type of application that makes the iPhone shine.

Learn more at: [Comcast] or [iTunes link]

In previous versions of Baseline, you had to delete files separately, which could be a tedious process when freeing up space. Now, Baseline allows you to select and delete multiple files at a time, making it much easier to get rid of large files. No more select and delete, select and delete… This is a pretty important feature though, but at least it now is in Baseline’s feature-set.

Along with that, Baseline also now supports multiple levels of undo, meaning you can easy undo many deletions. Again, this seems like it maybe should have already been there, because it’s very important in preventing data loss. Nonetheless, it is there now.

Another major-ish new feature is Baseline’s use of zip to compress files. This means, when you select some files, and go to File>Compress, these files will be put into a zip archive: The preferred archive type.

Along with this new features are stability fixes and minor memory fixes. I had never noticed memory issues with Baseline before, so it seems it was very minor. It may have also speed up the time it takes to scan your hard drive, which was already very fast.

As always, you can download a free 14-day trial from it’s site, and buy it for $20.00. Now that OmniDiskSweeper is free (which was one of Baseline’s major competitors), you may want to check it out too. It has a few less features, but it is also free. So, if you don’t need some of Baseline’s features, it may be perfect for you.

Often, throughout the life of a computer, the hard drive slowly fills with all manner of things: music, movies, preferences, support files, and so on. At a certain point this gets to be too much, and a user must clean house. But in order to do so, she must first discover which are the files that are taking up the most unnecessary space, and where they are. This is where disk visualizers like DaisyDisk come in. While it is nothing special, DaisyDisk is a perfectly competent and very aesthetic application for dealing with this problem.

This application is by no means the only visualizer out there. The problem of finding space on your Mac has been around for almost as long as the computers themselves have. DaisyDisk is, however, one of the best-looking visualizers on the market. Instead of showing files as simple rectangles, or even as a list, DaisyDisk shows all files as radiating outwards from the parent folder (marked with the full size of the folder, in the middle). This is where the name DaisyDisk presumably comes from, as the end result vaguely resembles a flower, although it is more similar to a pie chart, with the size of each file’s wedge based on how large it is.

The application presents its data in a format that is incredibly easy to understand. Once it is opened, it presents the user with a list of the various hard drives on the computer, with a bar displaying how full or empty the drive is (which changes color from green to red as more space is filled) Once a hard drive is picked, the disk is scanned (remarkably quickly compared to other visualizers), and navigation through the results, for the most part, is also very user-friendly. One simply clicks on the folder they want to explore—either in the list or in the graphic—and that folder slides into the center with a nice animation. This can be done indefinitely, drilling down (or outward, as the case may be) into smaller and smaller folders until the space-hogging culprit can be found. The path to the current folder is displayed at the top of the window, and if the center is clicked on, the parent folder opens, allowing easy access backwards. This can also be accomplished by a keyboard shortcut.

This app offers little more than a pretty interface. There are literally no preferences, no options to customize—color, layout, even canceling the transparent background which can be a little annoying at times. It also fails to allow for what can often be the most useful tool in any visualizer—a delete option. For the most part, people use this kind of application to find files they can remove to free up space. However, with DaisyDisk, once you find the file, you must right-click on it to open it in the finder, and then delete it manually. DaisyDisk does have a few features that beat out the competition—the most useful being integration with Apple’s Quick Look. Once a file is clicked on, a user simply presses space bar to hear the audio, see the video or text, which is a great way to see if you really need a file or what it is. But again, if you decide it is unnecessary, you still have to go to the Finder to delete it.

There is also no help available in the application. While it is a very simple program, it is not simple enough  to warrant no aid at all. The Quick Look integration, for example, I found out by accident. There is one option in the menu to scan as a Super-User, presumably to find invisible and hidden files, but this is not explained anywhere. The “Back” button next to the file path also does not function as one might think: instead of moving up a file path, it moves to the last view you were at, acting more like a web browser than a file browser. Despite being a fully released product, it is clear that this is still a work in progress. Besides these omissions and flaws, one of the few menu options that does exist is to submit Feedback to the developers. Hopefully they will quickly respond and change the options that need changing.

DaisyDisk is not a necessary application, nor is it a perfect one. However, for a visually appealing way of discovering the files on your hard drive, a user needs to look no further. While not necessarily the most useful visualizer, DaisyDisk is fun to play with and look at, as the animations are smooth, the colors varied, and the interface simple. DaisyDisk retails for the slightly expensive price of $19.95, and you can download a free 15-day trial from its website.

One of the most useful things about the Dock is that it tells you with a quick glance what programs are open. I can see that I have, for example, four different browsers running, and that’s probably what’s making my computer slow. Or, the reason I can’t find that window is not because I accidentally moved it but rather that the application quit itself. I can also easily see if there are files in a folder, using the Stacks. When this feature first came out, I was one of the people who were a little suspicious of its utility, but I have since been converted. I have a Temporary folder where I put things I have to deal with, and I can tell quickly whether or not there’s anything in there. I can also see whether I have to empty the Trash (a task that is much less arduous than its real-life counterpart, but still one I often forget to do). All of these tasks are very difficult to do with Quicksilver.

Now, you can move files through Quicksilver. You just have to find the file, usually by browsing through a directory, then tab over to the action panel, type in “move to,” and then tab again, and find the final resting place. But, with a few folders in the Dock, you can just drag the file straight in. I find this a lot easier, and a lot less time consuming. Although I might save time by using Quicksilver, I still open up the folders afterwards and make sure that the file was actually moved. That is one big problem with anything done through Quicksilver—opening applications, moving files, and so on—there’s no feedback. When you click on or drag something to the Dock, it bounces, or fades, or slides. You know something has happened. With Quicksilver, you just have to trust it.

But the biggest reason I keep my Dock around is for the sake of art. There are many programs out there, like Dock Library, SuperDocker, and so on, that allow you to customize the way your Dock looks. I can always be content that my Dock matches my Stack icons and the style of my computer by being “wooden.” You can customize Quicksilver too, but that’s only up for as long as you’re using it. With the Dock, you can also admire the well-designed icons of the world.

I wouldn’t want to compute without the Dock. It may not be my go-to application for launching applications, but it serves so many other purposes that it’s still worthwhile to keep around. Sure, there are scripts, programs, and hacks floating around the internet that allow you to do away with it, but I’m standing by my old friend. A launcher like Quicksilver is the easiest way to be quick, but the Dock adds style and utility to a desktop.

The first thing you will notice about Snowtape is its amazing interface. It uses a completely custom UI that really works for the app. It also includes a mini-comtroller (just like iTunes) that is also unbelievably good-looking. It doesn’t just have a good UI though, it is very easy to use. There is a directory where you can search for stations, and there is also a repository of recorded tracks that you can edit and send to iTunes. It’s very simple.

In the directory, Snowtape sorts all stations by genres. Each station can have many genres, so some may appear all over the place. With the recent 1.1 update, Snowtape now has 700+ stations built-in, so you may never have to add your own. If you ever do, though, you just go to File>Import URL… if you have the URL of the playlist (for the station) or File>Import File… if you have the actual playlist file. You can sort stations by title, description, genre, number of streams, quality and popularity. The streams usually range from 320 kbps to about 16 kbps with most at about 128 kbps.

Snowtape’s main purpose is to record internet radio. And this is very simple to do. When you are listening to a stream, simply click the record button, and until you click the button again, everything will be recorded. Once you have recorded what you want, you can go to the Last Recorded section and see what you have. Your recording will be split into tracks based on the song that was playing. However, the track data from internet streams doesn’t always change exactly when the song changes, so you may have to do some editing. But, if some of the song gets cut out, you are out of luck. Although you can cut a track, you can’t add from one track to another. Luckily, you can decide for Snowtape to not cut it into tracks by going to the Recording tab of Preferences and deselecting the Enable automatic cut at track boundaries checkbox. Using that feature comes at a cost.

Once you have finished editing a track, you can get artwork for it by simply clicking the Get Album Artwork button. You can then choose from the images it shows you. And once you have done that, you can export to iTunes. The track info will already be filled in, and if you choose artwork, it will be there too. Recording in Snowtape could not be simpler.

One thing that may be overlooked by some users of Snowtape is RadioURL.com. This is a service provided with Snowtape that allows you to share what you are currently listening to to other Snowtape users. When you are listening to a station, just go to Action>RadioURL.com and choose what you would like to do. Others can then click on the link created and listen to what you are.

Snowtape retails for $29 and you can download a free demo from that link as well. Having artist alerts would be nice, but with 700+ stations, by the time you got the alert, the song would probably be over. It is extremely well designed, and just nice to use. I was not much of a radio fan before it, but now that it’s so easy, I listen and record all the time. I think everyone should try out this app.

SweetFM is a mash up of sorts, mixing Last.fm streaming with your average iTunes helper app. Like all other iTunes helper apps, SweetFM displays the album artwork of the song your currently listening to and that functionality also works with music you stream from Last.fm. It also has an indescript spot where you are suppose to enter what you want to listen to on Last.fm and an arbitrary arrow button next to it. One would think you could just enter an artist name into the box and get Last.fm to play it but this is not the case. Instead you have to press this arrow button to display a group of addition buttons labeled “Artist”, “Tags”, and etc. You then have to hit one of those buttons and enter further information into the box. For example, if I wanted to listen to Pink Floyd on Last.fm, I would have to open up SweetFM, click the arrow, click artist, and then enter “Pink Floyd” in the box.

In reality all they are really doing with this convoluted process is adding a little tag behind the information you enter into the box. You would think they could automate this or have a little bit of magic happen behind the scenes, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Aside from that the application feels more like a beta than a final release, I’ve encountered multiple bugs in the few days that I’ve been playing with it. The first of which is that what the application shows as playing and what is actually playing in iTunes don’t match from time to time, even though SweetFM says the right info in it’s menu in the menu bar. Also, the progress indicator, which allows you to scrub through songs, occasionally does not work.

But the most disappointing part of this application is it’s user interface. Even though they are touting the fact that you can design skins for this app using HTML and CSS, a well built one should still come bundled with the app. Fibre, the included skin, is an overly glossy, distracting waste of desktop space. Personally, I like my iTunes helpers to be pinned to the desktop and just meld with everything else their but Fibre is just not capable of doing that (the melding at least). Silly things like having the horizontal volume slider bumped right up to the “Scrobbling” button for Last.fm makes it seem as though the slider has something to do with “Scrobbling” when in fact it does not. The semi-transparent background in particular is my least favorite part, why does it need to be there? Take a page from the designers doing skins for Bowtie and just get rid of the app background all together, it works so much better with the desktop. Luckily choco moko has a skins directory on their website but at the moment it only has one additional theme, which seems only like a slight redesign to Fibre and nothing more.

If your at all interested in helper apps for iTunes, I would recommend you stay away from SweetFM. Although if your a fan of Last.fm it is worth checking out. It is available from choco moko for $29. If you are just looking for an iTunes helper, check out the free Bowtie.

Star Walk shows you all its information based on the time of day and your location. Using Apple’s location services, you must only allow it to find your current location, and everything else is automatic. If you would like to change the time of day you’re looking at, simply click on the Clock icon (in the upper-right corner) and you can change it. To navigate around the map, you just use pinching and dragging. There are even four markers for North, East, South and West so you know exactly where to look for a specific constellation. There is also a red line for the horizon making it, again, even easier to see where something is.

Star Walk is cool enough with just the ability to look around a virtual map. But, it also adds some other features. When you press on a constellation name (in the virtual sky), you will see a white drawing of it with the stars. This feature is great for showing to kids (and for helping one find the constellation). While the name is still selected, if you hit the “i” button, you will get more information. A “W” button will also appear allowing you to see a Wikipedia article on it.

Constellations are not the only things Star Walk knows. If you click on any star or planet on the screen, you can also hit the “i” button and get more information.

What I would say is one of the most important features that Star Walk carries is its search. If you hit the search button (lower-left corner), you can search for stars, constellations, planets and messier. If the object is visible to you, its name will be in white, if not, they name will be grayed out. When you click on one, it will take you there on the map. This makes it so easy to find what you want.

Star Walk also includes some nice preferences. The first one is night mode, which basically turns everything into a red-ish color. There is also the ability to turn of the pictures of constellations and sounds. And finally, you can adjust the brightness of stars, planets, etc. All of these can be accessed from the button in the lower-right corner.

Star Walk costs $4.99 in the App Store and is the International Year of Astronomy 2009’s official product. It is extremely intuitive and also provides many features for amateurs and even pros. Anyone who likes watching the stars (and has an iPhone or iPod Touch) needs this app.

Ringer is a very basic application. The sidebar on the left lets you browse your iTunes library and the rest of the window is for creating ringtones. You can browse many different sections of iTunes including artists, movies, and TV shows. You can also search for the specific clip.

The ringtone creator is very similar to the one built into iTunes. It has the same features and tools. You simply drag a box around the portion of the song you’d like to use, and hit preview. You can also set the gap in between loops and have the audio fade in and out. When you click create the ringtone is instantly placed under “Ringtones” in iTunes and you will be able to sync them with your iPhone.

Ringer is a great app for creating simple ringtones, but it doesn’t have many advanced features. For some ringtones it might be useful to have a few simple audio effects. There is also no way to control the length of the audio fade. Ringer doesn’t have many features, but it does just what it should. It’s an easy way to create new ringtones in a few short seconds. Ringer is available for $15 from Pixel Research Labs.

Buddy the Bus offers up a 21st century take on the book-and-record sets we used to get as kids.  Back then you’d dig out your Fisher-Price turntable and listen to the narrator read along with the story.  Now that we live in “the future,” both audio and book are magically transported as one package in this totally free app.  Your kids can pop in their headphones and listen along as Buddy the Bus takes his passengers all over the town.

Baby Flash Cards is, to no ones suprise, exactly what it sounds like.  Flash cards are considered by many to be a great way to stimulate a child’s mind.  But why shell out $5-$10 for a set of real cards when you can get a fantastic free set right here?  The free set included in Baby Flash Cards features a variety of real world objects and animals paired up with their matching words.  Cards can be explored alphabetically or randomly, and you can set it so that all the info is on the card at once or the words are hidden until you touch them.

SimpleDraw proves one solid universal truth: kids LOVE coloring.  It’s timeless.  Give a kid in 12th century Mongolia a crayon and he’ll know what to do with it in seconds.  So it should come as no surprise that the one app my 2 year old is always trying to wrestle away my iPod for is the one she calls “COLOR!!”  SimpleDraw’s name couldn’t be more accurate.  You can select from a handful of colors and brush thicknesses, but asides from that things are kept alarmingly minimalist.  Your little one can just put a finger on the screen and go to town.

Children’s Classics let’s you put the tradition of reading with you’re kids right in your pocket.  Sure you could ask your child to sit quietly and patiently on that long train trip/airport wait/doctor’s office visit, but wouldn’t it be more fun to break out the bedtime stories in the middle of the afternoon?  Children’s Classics offers up 16 classics children’s reads ranging from Pinnochio and Robin Hood to Aesop’s Fables and The Secret Garden.  If you find your family is really digging it, make sure to do a search on the AppStore for BeamItDown Software.  Not only have they pblished this great collection, but they have a number of other classic family stories like Alice in Wonderland or A Christmas Carol available completely free of charge.

myHomework is an app that every iPhone/iPod toting student should own, and every parent encourage.  myHomework lets a child keep track of their class schedule, assignments, tests and other school activities.  Even better, it has color coded reminders to let them know when something is about to come due or has missed a deadline.  Organization is a cornerstone to success, and what better developmental task to apply this to than the daily juggle of academia?

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are many apps, both paid and free, that prove to be a great resource for parents the world over.  What iPhone apps do you share with your kids?

The purpose of Prizmo is to scan without a scanner. So, you can scan anywhere (so long as you have a digital camera [no, a film camera will not work]), on-the-go, at anytime. And, it only takes about three steps: Take the picture, open Prizmo and load the picture, and select the part of the picture you want and do a little bit of tweaking.

When you open Prizmo, you are presented with a nice animation telling you where to drop your image. But, there’s also a button that allows you to choose an image from a camera that’s connected to your computer or your iPhoto or Aperture library. Although Prizmo will accept most image types, I have had issues when feeding it RAW files, so you may want to convert to JPEG first (if you shoot in RAW).

As soon as you find your picture and drag it into Prizmo, you will so the editing window. This is where you will put the bounding box around the object you would like to ’scan.’ The bounding box gives you four points to put at the four corners of the thing you are scanning. If you’re trying to scan a triangle, or a five-and-more-sided-figure, then you’re out of luck. Here, you will also find options for crop, lens distortion and processing. The crop tool just allows you to choose a size to constrain to. Processing just gives you options for brightness, contrast, sharpness and saturation.

Now for lens distortion. This can be a problem when trying to scan objects, because it, well…Distorts your images. Not many people will know how much to pull the distortion sliders, and Creaceed thought of that. They allow you to calibrate your camera, and even get data from other users’ calibrations. If you click the Search button, Prizmo will look through its online database for calibrations from people with the same camera (and lens for DSLRs). But, if it doesn’t find any, you can do it yourself. Just go to Tools>Calibrate Camera… (Command-K) and you will be presented with an assistant for calibrating your camera. Because no data was there for my camera and lens, I decided to do this. After following the directions and taking some pictures, it failed to recognize the checkered pattern on any of them. I was doing it in RAW at the time, so that could have been an issue. Then, though, I converted them to JPEGs and tried to add them, but they wouldn’t add. It seems there needs to be some fixing in the calibration.

Prizmo retails for $39.95, and you can download a free trial from the site. My results were great, despite not being able to calibrate for lens distortion, and it could definitely act as my only scanner. But, it really isn’t only a scanner, it can be used on anything. If you see a movie poster or an ad that you like, and would like to have documented, just take a picture, and Prizmo will help you with perspective, cropping and everything else.

The most important feature of Bento for iPhone is its ability to sync with the Mac version. So, you can access all of your databases on-the-go, in the palm of your hand. All you have to do is go to the Sync tab and click on the “Set up sync with computer…” item. You will then be prompted with directions to enable syncing, and once enabled, you only have to click the “Sync Now” button in the Sync tab. Syncing allows you to easily transfer the data from your iPhone to your Mac and vice versa.

Bento for iPhone comes with 25 templates for databases, but you can also create your own, or just start with a blank one. All you must do to create a new database is click on the New Library tab, choose a template and click Create Library. You may then begin adding entries. As with the Mac app, there are many different field types for different types of information. One of these field types is an image, which Bento allows you to take with the built-in camera. Unlike the Mac app, unfortunately, there is no way to edit the fields—Once they have been created, they are there for good*.

Adding a new entry to a database is very straightforward. You just click the [+] button in the navigation bar of the database and are prompted to add information. Based on the field type, Bento will have you enter the information in a different way. There is one issue though: For some of the field types, the text field (into which you enter the information) never gets selected until you type something on the keyboard. This ca be confusing, because it seems as if the text field is not editable, but once you type something, you can see that it is. Also, for some field types (namely duration), Bento expects you to type the info in a certain way, but doesn’t tell you how to type it right there. It tells you when you create the field though.

Along with searching inside individual databases, Bento also allows you to do a global search. So, if you have many databases, and you only can remember the name, and not the database, this can be very helpful. However, with this power, there comes a consequence: Speed. Bento searches after every letter you enter, and this search can take some time, which makes the whole searching process quite slow. It would have been nice had Bento only searched when you didn’t press on the keyboard for more than a second.

One complaint of Bento for iPhone (not for Mac) is that you cannot access the calendar. But, this is not because the folks at FileMaker don’t want you to, or because they forgot to implement it, it is because Apple doesn’t let you access it. But, hopefully soon, Calendar Store will show up on the iPhone. Despite this, Bento still allows you to create databases with events and dates, it just doesn’t sync over to iCal (on the iPhone).

Bento for iPhone retails for $4.99 in the App Store (link) and you can find more info from FileMaker. It has a few issues, but for any heavy Bento user, it is a must-have. For everyone else, it is a great companion to the Mac app, or as a standalone app, and if you think databases could help you, it’s definitely worth a look.

*Note: You can actually edit fields by going into a record and clicking on the “fields” button and then you can edit, rearrange and delete fields. It can be a little confusing to find at first though.

Project Gutenberg contains over 28,000 free titles that you can access from your computer, and now your iPhone too. Eucalyptus is really just an app that allows you to download and then read books from Project Gutenberg. And it does this very well. You can look at the “Picks” or search by author or book. The Picks are good if you are looking for a very classic book, or just don’t know what you want to read. Once you have selected a book you would like to read, you just click Get Book, and a nice animation shows you that the book has gone to your downloads. The only possible improvement for downloading books would be the ability to browse by genre or alphabetically.

When Eucalyptus downloads a book, there are two parts: The actual downloading and the structure analyzing. The downloading is straightforward, and when it says, “analyzing structure…” it basically means that it is analyzing and converting the book to be read with Eucalyptus. There is even a two-part progress indicator to show you how much of each step has been completed. The longer the book, the longer this whole process takes, so be prepared to wait a few minutes for a long book.

Your library of books is sorted in two ways: By title and by author. The Authors tab allows you to see books by specific authors (and also just see what authors you have books by), and the Books tab allows you to see your books alphabetically. There’s not much more to it than that.

As if its huge library of books, and the ease of downloading weren’t enough, the reading experience is outstanding. There are three ways to go through the book: The slider, flipping pages and the “back” view. The slider allows you to traverse through the book very fast, and also shows you what chapter the new location will be in. Sliding between pages is my favorite. There is only one other app that even does page turning similar to Eucalyptus, and I must say Eucalyptus even puts that app (Classics) to shame with the animations. An app like Classics uses static images to flip from page to page, which creates a great animation. But, Eucalyptus seems to use a real 3D engine. The shadow changes based on where the page is, and the page will even wiggle if you drag back and forth very fast. I really love this part of the app. You can also use the arrows at the bottom to go from chapter to chapter (but not page by page).

Another way to get through the book is the “back” view. You can get to this by clicking the icon in the right of the top bar (when in a book). Here you can simply click on a chapter (or other section), and Eucalyptus will bring you there. It also shows you the current chapter (or section). This basically brings a table of contents to the book, that is accessible without having to flip to the beginning of it.

Eucalyptus costs $9.99 in the App Store, and you can easily see the amount of polish and work put into it. It has become my favorite book reader instantly. And because of its huge library, you’ll always find a book to read. However, it is very expensive compared to other readers, but in some of those, you have to pay for books, or you only get a few. Anyone looking to read classic books on the iPhone must at least check out Eucalyptus. I might even say it is one of the most polished apps in the App Store.