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- Weekly App Store Picks: March 28, 2009
Welcome one and all to the weekend, a time for rest, relaxation and fresh pickings from the App Store.
Before checking out this week’s apps, we’ve got seven days worth of Apple happenings to run through.
First up, the week kicked off with a scathing review of the Daniel X graphic novel — an utterly dull comic-book barely improved by its leap to iPhone. Later in the week though, I took a look at Tumblr’s official iPhone app, turns out that it’s a brilliant tool for capturing moments while on the go.
On Tuesday, there was a curious new addition to UK retailer Play.com’s store: the 16GB iPhone 3G. Apparently taking advantage of EU regulations — ensuring the availability of SIM-free mobile phones — the device’s are retailing at a hefty $900.
Midweek, Apple introduced cross-border shopping for twenty different countries via their online store. Unfortunately, our own Darrel Etherington was less than pleased to discover that Canada has been left out of the International shipping fun. Plus, owners of the unibody 17″ Macbook Pro were also treated to a firmware update fixing graphics issues with the system.
Bringing an end to the week’s Apple happenings, over at GigaOm.com, Om Malik received a tip-off concerning a new app for iPhone: Skype. That’s right, there’s rumored to be an official Skype iPhone app, due for release very soon. Unfortunately, for me, it may be too little too late: I doubt that it’ll be feature-packed enough for me to swap over from Nimbuzz.
Moving on the apps, this week I’ve been looking at Bowman, Gengo Lite, AudioBoo and Elemental Monster TD.
Bowman (99 cents)
The original version of Bowman is an excellent little physics-based Flash game, controlling an archer, you simply drag back on the arrows to launch them at your target. Back in February, I mentioned an unofficial 99 cent Bowman game that hit the App Store, for iPhone and touch. Now it seems that the official Bowman game has been released, alongside updated graphics, it packs three different modes: Single player, Multiplayer and Bird Hunt. Try the Flash game first and then, if it hits your target, grab the iPhone version.
Gengo Lite: Finnish (free)
Last Sunday I made the epic move of packing up shop and moving from my apartment in central London to Finland. As I don’t speak the language here, I decided to hit the App Store in a bid to find out if my iPhone can help me learn the local lingo. The Gengo Flashcards apps are particularly special — featuring both a plain old flashcard mode and a more exciting game mode. Plus, there’s a wide range of languages on offer: alongside Finnish, there’s Spanish, French, Italian and even Hindi, Farsi and Turkish among others.
AudioBoo (free)
Occasionally an app comes along that has the potential to change the way we use our iPhones on a daily basis. Both Tweetie and Evernote fall in to that category, the former giving me beautifully stream-lined access to Twitter and the latter enabling me to take notes and stay organized wherever I may be. AudioBoo is another one of these potential game-changers. It’s an app that plugs straight in to Facebook and Twitter allowing you to record tweet-style audio messages. Quick to set-up, easy to use and certainly very good fun, this is definitely one to check out. Stay tuned as I’ll be posting a full review to TheAppleBlog next week.
Elemental Monster TD (99 cents)
Over the past few weeks, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with Tower Defense (TD) games. If you’re not familiar with the genre, it’s essentially a type of strategy game where you build offensive towers on a map to attack waves of enemies. It’s over-simplified real time strategy gaming: more immediate than Command & Conquer and easier to learn (with much less depth) than Warcraft 3. Elemental Monster TD moves the genre forwards: introducing trading card collection alongside action-packed tower defense. What results is a game with stunning graphics, ultra-strategic gameplay and a few added twists to the tower defense genre. Normally $3.99, the app is on offer at 99 cents until March 30.And that’s your lot for the week, I’ll be back next Saturday with more picks from the App Store. Plus, drop by TheAppleBlog during the week for the latest app reviews too.
In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?
Переслать - Alkaline: Windows Browser Testing On Mac OS X
For anyone who’s ever designed a web site on a Mac, you’ll know that one of the biggest headaches is testing your design on Windows browsers. Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer have a nasty habit of displaying the same web site in very different ways, and constantly swapping between XP, Vista and OS X can be a time-consuming issue.
Alkaline is a new application, launched yesterday, that goes some way toward alleviating this problem. It’s powered by Litmus, an online tool that can show you how your web site appears in a vast array of different browsers and operating systems. Alkaline is their first move to the desktop environment, and certainly stands to save web designers using OS X a huge amount of time.
Setting up Alkaline
Alkaline is a free download, and only takes a few seconds to get up and running. However, to actually use the app, you’ll need to create an account with Litmus. You can initiate this process right from within Alkaline itself, and when completed you’ll be presented with a useful graphic which explains how to enter your information into the application:
Litmus Login Information
Once logged in, you’re able to start running a few tests.
Creating and Managing Tests
Initiating a new test is very simple — just enter the URL of the site you’d like to check, and select the browsers in which you’re interested. Testing in Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7 is completely free of charge, though you’ll need to subscribe to access all 23 browser versions available.
After initiating a test, you’ll need to wait a while before the screenshot images are generated and returned. This took around one minute in my testing — a more than acceptable delay for a free account. You’ll then be presented with a resizable screenshot of the site in question, and the option of viewing the result with or without browser chrome is available. A test information window is also displayed:
Litmus Test Information
This outlines a variety of information about your test, including the site URL and title, creation time and browser/platform information.
Tests are concurrently integrated with the online version of Litmus, so you can log in and access your results from anywhere. This is done by accessing your personal URL (e.g. http://yourname.litmusapp.com) and logging in.
Version Support
When ironing out problems and bugs with display in a particular browser, you’ll likely be running several tests, one after the other, until the issue is solved. Alkaline supports the storage of different test versions so that you’re able to flick back through previous screenshots and check where improvements have been made:
Version Storage
This is really useful for seeing which code/design changes effected which browsers in different ways over time — as you fix one problem, another often occurs. These different version images are also available through the Litmus web app.
Plugin Support
If you’re someone who uses an integrated environment such as Coda for design and development, you’ll be pleased to know that Alkaline is offered as a Coda plugin. A different version is also available for TextMate. Alkaline is also pushing developers to create a plugin for their own application, and has provided instructions on how simple the process is.
I expect this will be a great way to generate interest from other developers, and it would be incredibly useful to have support built-in to other apps such as Espresso and BBEdit.
Pricing & Conclusion
After running a few different web sites through Alkaline, I’m really impressed. It goes a long way towards negating the need for virtual machines, Windows licenses, or any messing around with keeping different copies of Windows up to date. I’ll definitely be keeping the app installed, and I do think it’ll come in very handy for future projects. While I expect I’ll still need to boot up a virtual machine from time to time, gaining a general overview of how a site looks in Alkaline will be invaluable.
The obvious limitation is that you don’t actually get to use your site, and there is only so much you can gain from viewing a range of screenshots. To really generate an idea for how your site works in a different browsers, you do need to actually use the application itself. Animation, user interaction and rollover effects can often behave in a way you wouldn’t expect — issues that wouldn’t be picked up via a static image.
The free version of Alkaline allows testing in Firefox 2.0 and IE7. To upgrade to access all 23 browsers you have two options. A ‘day pass’ is available for $24, giving you access to all web browser (and also email account testing) for a 24-hour period. Alternatively, you can pay a monthly subscription of $49 per month for unlimited testing. The service doesn’t come cheap, but can offer real value and save a decent amount of time if you’re an OS X web developer.
For more information, check out the detailed screencast or head over to the Alkaline web site.
Переслать - Thanks to TheAppleBlog Sponsors!
We’d like to say thanks to this month’s sponsor of TheAppleBlog:
- WunderRadio: Wunder Radio provides access to thousands of streaming Internet radio stations and on your iPhone or Windows Mobile Phone.
- Mozy: Back up your photos, music, and files with Mozy for as low as $4.34 per month.
Переслать - App Review: Tumblr — Collect Every Moment Wherever You Go
App Quick Stats
Developed by Mobelux, and formerly known as Tumblrette, the official Tumblr iPhone app has now arrived.
Tumblr is essentially the short ‘n sweet side of blogging: Posts are ultra-snappy, comprised of mixed-media uploads such as images, quotes, audio and video. The service is free, via Tumblr.com, and, since the site is so intuitively designed, it’s incredibly easy for new users to dive straight in.
The result of this platform, paired with such a simple and effective interface, is the ultra-diverse Tumblr community. Browsing through various tumblelogs is like sifting through the Lost and Found Department of the entire Internet. It’s a beautiful mess of everything and anything, from the shocking to the spectacular.
Over on the iPhone, the official Tumblr app integrates all the features of the main site, plus a couple of unexpected welcome additions.
Get Ready to Tumble
The app is split in to three panels. First-time users are initially presented with the Tumblr Settings panel (accessible only via the app itself as opposed to the iPhone’s Settings app). From here you’re able to sign in to your Tumblr Dashboard, register a new account and configure Dashboard settings.
Although there’s a Sign up for a Tumblr Account button, the registration process doesn’t occur in-app. This means that tapping the button drops out of the app and moves in to Safari; it works, but it’s certainly not an elegant way of handling new registrations.
Furthermore, the Settings panel displays the name of your primary tumblelog but doesn’t display the name, or otherwise even mention the existence of, any other tumblelogs you may own or contribute to. For prolific users, this could be quite a drawback.
Dashboard Confessional
Once registered and set up, you can configure the Settings panel to always display an iPhone formatted version of the Tumblr Dashboard every time the app is loaded. The Sites panel displays your Tumblr Dashboard — an overview of new content posted to tumblelogs that you’re following.
Clicking on a post in the Dashboard allows you to view it in full, plus there are two buttons: Like and Reblog. Clicking the Reblog button allows you to post content from other tumblelogs straight to yours, automatically crediting the source too.
Rather unexpectedly, and again quite inelegantly, clicking Reblog actually loads the standard web-based Reblog page embedded within the app. It feels clunky to have the standard web-interface within the app and ends up being ineffective for quick-fire tumbling.
Those prolific users that I mentioned earlier may be pleased to note that the Dashboard panel provides quick access to all tumblelogs of which you’re a member. The drawback, though, is that there’s still no configuration options on these pages — it’s simply an embedded page within the app’s browser — so there’s no clear benefit to this feature and as such it feels half-baked.
Mixing Your Media
The Post panel is where the action happens. There are six different post types that can be sent directly to your tumblelog: text, photo, quote, link, chat and audio.
Without copy/paste on the iPhone, the text, quote, link and chat options seem particularly redundant. There is apparently a bookmarklet available, although I couldn’t find it in spite of various Google and Tumblr.com searches.
The other two posting options, photo and audio, are downright brilliant, grin-inducing joys. The former allows you to snap images on the iPhone camera, add text and then upload directly to your tumblelog. The latter is exactly the same, except instead of imagery, it’s all about making sound recordings.
Being able to get away from the computer, snapping and capturing images and sound from the world at large, is exactly what Tumblr is about. It sums up the essence of tumbling while furthering the concept and freeing Tumblr users from their desktop computers.
Summing Up
The inelegant registration process and embedded web page for reblogging only stand out as issues because, the rest of the time, the Tumblr iPhone app is so coherent in its design and ease of use. These niggles will, I hope, get resolved in future updates.
As for the post options for chat, links, quotes and text, these will become incredibly useful once copy/paste is introduced to the iPhone.
The app comes together when you find yourself out on the streets, wanting to capture a moment, an incredible sight, or an odd overheard conversation. The photo and audio features that make this possible are deliciously addictive.
If you’re a regular Tumblr user, or you’ve got an eye (or ear) for interesting happenings when you’re out and about, the Tumblr app will be your ideal companion.
Переслать - JavaScript 3-10x Faster On iPhone OS 3.0
There has been a reasonable amount of speculation surrounding JavaScript speed improvements in iPhone 3.0. Testing carried out on the iPhone Simulator bundled with the SDK didn’t lead to a conclusive outcome, but benchmarking done by Wayne Pan would seem to suggest that iPhone 3.0 handles JavaScript 3x-10x faster than iPhone 2.1.
Last year the WebKit development team released information about a new JavaScript engine, slated to have a dramatic improvement in performance. Originally dubbed SquirrelFish (now called ‘Nitro’), to date it has not been included in any major release of the iPhone OS. Expectations are that the performance enhancements found in iPhone 3.0 are due to the inclusion of the SquirrelFish engine, leading to faster web site browsing and snappier web app performance.
The new Nitro engine has gradually been improved by the WebKit team over the past year, and is included in the latest Safari 4 Beta. This new engine accounts for the dramatic performance improvement in Safari 4, which Apple states as enhancing both JavaScript and HTML rendering:
Using the new Nitro Engine, for example, Safari executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and more than 3 times faster than Firefox 3 based on performance in leading industry benchmark tests: iBench and SunSpider.
In addition to superior JavaScript performance, Safari offers top-flight HTML performance — the best on any platform — loading pages 3 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and almost 3 times faster than Firefox 3.
While Nitro is certainly responsible for the improved JavaScript performance, better HTML loading times may be due to other browser enhancements. Hopefully these will also make the move to Mobile Safari, increasing performance and page loading speed. This is even more important on a mobile device, where connection speed is far more limited than on most desktop machines.
Moving this new engine across to Mobile Safari on the iPhone is indeed the next logical step, and the 3.0 release of Apple’s iPhone operating system would seem a reasonable point at which to integrate it. John Gruber created a simple script to test whether a browser is likely to be running the Nitro engine — this tests positive in Safari 4, and he confirmed yesterday that the test is also passed on the iPhone 3.0.
All these pieces of an ongoing puzzle would seem to lead to a fairly strong conclusion that Mobile Safari on iPhone 3.0 will receive a completely new JavaScript engine, significant speed improvements, and better web application performance. I’m thoroughly looking forward to experiencing the same speed boost on my iPhone that Safari 4 brought to my desktop, and can’t wait to try out the new software.
Переслать - Apple Begins Selling Contract-Free iPhones at Retail Stores
First it was AT&T selling iPhones off-contract, which suggested a stock clear-out, and now it’s Apple, which all but confirms the sell-off.
Apple began selling contract-free iPhones at their brick-and-mortar retail locations on Thursday, a fact reported by AppleInsider and confirmed by Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York, via CNNMoney.com. Buying from Apple apparently carries less restrictions than buying from AT&T, but the phone is still technically locked to the only official U.S. iPhone carrier.
Pricing is also still the same as what we’ve seen from AT&T. The entry-level 8GB model will cost you $599, while the 16GB version will set you back $699. At those prices, the iPhone costs more than most netbooks, but to some, the additional freedom the extra $400 buys is worth the price of admission. According to reports, customers will be able to purchase unlimited numbers of iPhones from Apple stores, and won’t have to be AT&T customers to get one. If Apple isn’t actively encouraging unlocking, they know that it’s going to happen, and they’re clearly turning a blind eye in the interest of moving stock.
There’s no word on whether this deal will come to other international stores, or when they’ll actually be stocked at Apple retail locations. It’s unclear how many people will go for this, since that’s an awful lot of money to part with for a product that’s soon to become previous generation technology. Personally, I’m just hoping it drives down the price of the used iPhone market so that I can pick up an unlocked 8GB for less than $400 via craigslist.
Переслать - Another Harebrained Microsoft Ad: Lauren and Her Quest
Have you seen the ad yet? Lauren only has to find a laptop computer with a 17-inch screen for under a grand and she gets to keep it.
Lauren is a redhead. Long, thick, curly, lovely red hair. Did I mention redheads rule? Well, they do. Curse you, Microsoft, for using Lauren in this ad. Her engaging personality and infectious enthusiasm blinded me, and I eagerly sought the HP web site to pick up that great 17-inch laptop. After all, if it’s good enough for Lauren…
We don’t know exactly what laptop she got, but it’s an HP and has a 17-inch screen. It also rang up for $699, so that narrows the field quite a bit. On the HP notebook page we see the G70t series is listed as having 17-inch screens. Clicking for details, we see a “Quick Ship” model for $699, detailed here. I’m not saying this is the exact model Lauren got, but I think we can all agree it has to be darn close.
Let’s take a look:
- Screen resolution is 1440 x 900. This is only one step up from the MacBook Lauren admitted she wasn’t cool enough to own, yet comes at the cost of a huge and heavy notebook. I’m amazed at the marketing of screen sizes in the PC world, where the 13-, 14-, 15-, and even many 16-inch models come standard with WXGA resolution.
- Last year’s Intel 2.0 GHz processor on last year’s 800MHz front-end bus.
- 3GB of last year’s DDR2 memory.
- Claimed support of 4GB memory, but of course the 32-bit Vista OS can’t address that much, so it’s a bunch of baloney.
- Intel-integrated graphics, which will help suck the 3GB memory dry. Oh, and provide minimal performance.
- Don’t worry about the performance, though, because it’s not as if any worthwhile software comes with the thing. Certainly nothing like iLife.
- No Bluetooth, but then Lauren probably isn’t cool enough to own any BT devices, either.
- The battery? Much like screen sizes, this is another thing PC makers don’t talk a lot about. They keep it small so their already too-heavy notebooks don’t appear even more so. It’s a six-cell battery, which appears to be “up to” 3.5 hours battery life. That’s maybe 2.5 in the real world. Ouch!
- Oh well, as big and heavy as it is you won’t be taking it far from a power outlet anyway, so it doesn’t matter that you can’t.
So, is my point that the HP machine is crap? No. Seriously, it’s not. My point is it’s built to a price, and heavily compromised in the process. Nothing wrong with that; it is what it is.
But Microsoft’s (and HP’s) implication that PC vendors are charging cheap prices yet providing non-cheap components is a load of bull fecal matter. The vendors are — as they’ve always done — selling older CPUs and weak graphics, in a huge case, with little battery life, and festooned with stickers like it’s a trunk that just got back from an around-the-world cruise.
If that’s your thing, great! Add some software and knock yourself out. But don’t kid yourself into thinking you got anything more than you paid for, or found some sort of computer bargain, or know some secret the rest of us aren’t clued in on. You asked for little, and that’s exactly what you got. Of course, if low-ball is really what Lauren was after, she’d have looked into Linux, but this is a Microsoft ad so we’re only concerned with the price of hardware.
Next up, Lauren goes shopping for a car with eight speakers, power everything, and a navigation system. She gets a Kia after deciding she’s not cool enough for a BMW.
Clearly, Lauren doesn’t mind because she’s inexperienced and got the thing for free. Microsoft, please offer me that same deal. I’ll set even lower expectations than Lauren, get some $299 eWaste Linux PC, and save the remaining $700 for Apple’s new Mac mini touch tablet whatever machine due to be released any day now.
Meanwhile, I’m glad Microsoft doesn’t take the Lauren saga to its conclusion. She’ll wise up eventually, and I can honestly say it’d break my heart to see her pulling all that hair out.
Переслать - Skype On Its Way to the iPhone
The holy mecca of VOIP calling could be coming to an iPhone near you. Om Malik wrote that he received a tip that Skype is nearing release on the iPhone. What does this mean for us iPhone users?
Well, if I had my druthers, this would be the full VOIP application we’ve all been waiting for on the iPhone. No more third-party implementations (or imitations). No more waiting. This would be the real deal.
However, I might not get my way. In fact, we could receive a Skype iPhone app that sucks. Yes, it might just be an app that provides basic presence information to the rest of Skypedom. Or, it might charge me mobile minutes to use the service when making a call. If either is the case, then we might have a big Skype FAIL for the iPhone.
To our friends at Skype: will we see a fully enabled client for the iPhone? Will I be able to make calls as well as communicate with my existing Skype friends? What will the UI look like? I think that is my biggest concern. Having seen Skype 4.0 on Windows, I am scared to see what we might receive for the iPhone. The Mac Skype client is reasonable (kind of boring, actually), but at least it feels Mac-like.
In the end, the tip Om received is just that, a tip. We’ll all have to wait and see if the Skype for the iPhone makes its debut next week at CTIA Wireless. Until then, I am saying a little Skype prayer…
Переслать - Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2009: June 8-12
Where will you be this June? If you’re an Apple developer, you’ll want to be at San Francisco’s Moscone West for the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2009 slated for June 8-12.
This is the premier event for Apple developers who create apps for Mac OS X or iPhone, and also for IT pros who work with Apple platforms. Besides rubbing elbows with developers of every level of experience, attendees can hit up technical sessions on Mac development, participate in hands-on labs, check out presentations by special guest speakers, and get in on workshops to help you design and create iPhone Apps.
Of course, what’s an industry conference without an awards ceremony? Each year Apple hands out design awards in categories like Best Mac OS X Leopard User Experience, Best Leopard Game, and Best Student App. This year’s nominees haven’t been announced yet, but past winners have gone on to become familiar names in the Mac community.
Tickets to this extremely popular event usually sell out quickly, so if you plan to go, reserve your spot now. Tickets will set you back $1,595, but if you snag yours before April 24, Apple will knock off $300. ADC student members and Team Members in the iPhone Developer University Program can apply for one of 400 scholarships available through Apple.
Переслать - Apple Releases 17″ MacBook Pro Graphics Fix
A while back we reported about issues 17-inch MacBook Pro owners were having with vertical lines and other distortion appearing on their displays. Almost three weeks later, Apple has released a fix for the issue. Officially dubbed “MacBook Pro Graphics Firmware Update 1.0,” it’s downloadable immediately via Software Update.Apple doesn’t point any fingers regarding the source of the problem, which seemed to be the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M card that handles dedicated graphics processing. Let’s hope this fix does finally resolve the issue once and for all, because otherwise Apple might have to move on to hardware replacement and even a general recall. Let us know whether or not the fix works if you were experiencing problems.
Переслать - Vuze Brings Easy Video Conversion to Apple Devices, but at What Cost?
I admit, I am a reformed Azureus user. When I made the transition from Windows to Mac for my primary machine, one hang-up that came with me was my devotion to Azureus, a program which (as I was soon to discover) was fast becoming unnecessarily resource-heavy and bloated, especially compared to lightweight Mac alternatives like Transmission, and more recently, uTorrent. I abandoned Azureus long before it stopped being open source and become Vuze, that Frankenstein beast of a media download manager.Because I care about you, I actually installed the newly released version of Vuze on my MacBook today, even though it was painful to do so, and my notebook’s fan started working overtime the moment I did. The reason? Vuze now offers a quick and easy way to get video content in to your iTunes library and onto your iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV without getting your hands dirty with complicated conversion software.
It worked like a charm with the Katy Perry fluff piece I downloaded (if I have to endure Vuze, I should get to have some fun at least, right?); the conversion process took very little time and the video was available in my iTunes library immediately afterward. Likewise with a “Fast and Furious” trailer downloaded for the purposes of testing HD conversion, but I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t maintain HD quality during the conversion, since the max resolution supported under iTunes devices is 720×432 for Apple TV.
I suppose it’s very handy if you’re looking to quickly get video onto your portable Apple device, and if you don’t mind finding and/or downloading the file in Vuze (I tried adding a previously downloaded .mkv file to my Vuze library, but could not). And it works very well if you want to convert HD content for playback on your PS3 or Xbox 360, but overall, I don’t think the bargain is worth the price of admission, especially if you’re an advanced enough user to convert your video using HandBrake or some other similar program.
Переслать - Genius Extended to Movies and TV in iTunes 8.1
I still have a lot of music-savvy friends who deny the validity of the the name Genius for Apple’s recently implemented iTunes music recommendation engine, but regardless of how appropriate the name may be, the service has now been turned on for movies and TV, too. That means selecting any movie or TV show in your library should bring up Genius recommendations in the sidebar, so long as you have it turned on and are using iTunes 8.1.Genius results are about as accurate as you might expect based on your experience with its usage regarding music. The top results are always episodes from the same series and season as the content from your library. When I tested it out using “Battlestar Galactica,” Season 1, recommendations from beyond the series were fairly accurate, at least getting the genre right, and included “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Firefly” among the top results. A similar test with “Heroes,” a far more mainstream program, brought back bizarre results, with the top recommendation outside of the series itself being Dexter. Only parallel I can draw between the two is that Dexter is a serial killer and Sylar is sort of one too. And both star hot girls, maybe?
You also get a new TV Shows tab in the Genius: Just for You subsection of the iTunes store main page. As you can tell from the screenshot from my own recommendations, I am indeed a huge nerd, and aside from Supernatural, iTunes knows me all too well. I suppose it would have shown me Movies recommendations as well, but I don’t actually own any iTunes-purchased movies as of yet. Let us know in the comments how well those recommendations are working out.
Переслать - Go Green: 8 iPhone Apps to Help Save the Planet
These days, “going green” is all the rage. So it should be no surprise to anyone that “green” apps for the iPhone are, ahem, sprouting up all over.
I wonder though, with green-ness being such a trendy topic, are some developers just using the term as marketing? I gathered up the greenest apps I could find for my iPhone to see how much they might help me save the planet — and to see if they are true to the cause. The following are my findings.
Tips
I’m not the New Age, environmentally conscious type. Don’t get me wrong, I try to do the right things, but I’m not immersed in the movement, so to speak. But it’s my assumption that knowing how to do good for the environment is a combination of common sense and remembering the lessons taught on “Sesame Street.” In case you missed out on one or both of these key elements, the App Store carries a few free apps that give you tips for taking better care of the world around you.
- Go Green (free)
Displays a tip each time you launch it. That’s it. I came across a useful tip or two that I hadn’t considered before. - Green Tips (free)
Displays a tip at launch. Hit the refresh button for more tips (though there are not many to cycle through). Email them off if you find them to be especially helpful — I didn’t. - The Green Lemur (free)
By far the most full-featured of these three. Search, add tips to favorites, or browse by category. I did find some interesting ideas here as well.
Measuring Up
What does your carbon footprint look like? How can you whittle down your personal impact on the environment, and maybe even put some extra green in your pocket at the same time? Glad you asked! While the following apps each have their own focus, each of them can help you figure out an answer to these questions. The best part is that if you truly give them a chance, you could start saving yourself some money while also lessening your impact on the environment.
- MeterRead ($2.99)
Somewhat manual in usage (but then, no one said saving the planet would be easy!), use MeterRead to log your electric meter’s reading. You can log your readings and use them to predict your electrical consumption, and thus, your upcoming bill. Try to be more efficient, and maybe the next time you check the meter, your readings will hit below the projected usage. (More info on their site.) - greenMeter ($5.99)
My favorite of the bunch. Uses the accelerometer to determine the drag and resistance of your car/driving habits in real time. There are several usage meters to monitor, though real-time MPG has been my favorite. Really helps tune your driving for better efficiencies and fewer pointless emissions. (More info on their site.) - shopgreen (free)
By title, this doesn’t sound like it fits here, but it does. To use the app, just answer some questions about how you maintain your life. Answers that are good for the environment are tallied (like air-drying your clothes, or changing the furnace air filter), and the amount of CO2 you’ve saved is calculated. As a bonus, the CO2 savings gets you discounts at local, participating retailers for your efforts.
Shop Till You Drop
Shopping is shopping. If these weren’t free, I’d accuse them of capitalizing on the eco-friendly iPhone users. But they’re really just apps that help you find relevant retail locations nearby. I suppose if you used them to plan your route ahead of time, you’d put out fewer emissions driving back and forth.
- 3rdWhale (free)
Much like other location-aware shopping apps (and dare I say, Google Maps?) 3rdWhale finds you businesses nearby (select walking, biking, or driving distances). So what makes it green? The resulting businesses are supposedly eco-friendly, allowing you to patronize those taking care of the world around us. - Yowza! (free)
Not yet out, Yowza! presents one of the more interesting ideas of the bunch. Also location aware, it brings up coupons for retailers nearby. So not only could it save you some cash, but it’s claim is that you can use the digital coupon right on your phone’s screen, rather than printing more paper that will just get tossed out.
Conclusion
In my experience, I wouldn’t say any of these are playing the “green” card for profit — they are all legitimately taking their own shot at saving the environment. Despite some being far less useful than others, (your mileage may vary, of course) their cause is still noble. If you’re thinking it’s time to give something back to Mother Earth, it can’t hurt to give any of these apps a try.
And of course, if you’ve got the goods on a green app that I missed here that’s made a difference for you, please share!
Переслать - Go Green (free)
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