Apps, apps, apps - Iphone, Android et al - Post 'em up!

Recently got an Android phone and looking for apps, preferably free. If it matters, it's one of the cheap LG models running Android 2.2.2.

Mainly interested in cars and sports. I've already downloaded CarBuzz, Speed, ESPN ScoreCenter, Yahoo Sportacular, and Motorsport Calendar. Any others I should try?

Some interest in financial and world news; maybe a Bloomberg, CNBC, WSJ app?

Not interested in games or social media like FB, Twitter, etc.

As for Tapatalk, what other sites use it other than FChat? Quite honestly I'm hesitant to get it because I already spend too much time on FChat as it is! And of course I'm too cheap to spend the $2.99.

TIA.

 

Can't really help with the other stuff.

However, as far as Tapatalk goes... it's impossible to get a complete list of forums using the software... there are over 25,000 of them.

Are you interested in any specific forums? If so, PM me a list and I'll search in Tapatalk for them and will let you know if they are compatible w/ Tapatalk.

 

Thanks for the offer but no specific forums other than FChat. Probably best that I keep my $3 else I'll get further sucked into the FChat abyss!

 

OK, so I gave up my iPhone last summer and switched to an Android phone (HTC Sensation) but I still keep up with iPhone stuff. A lot of my friends use iPhones, after all. Last weekend, I was shown a really great app--BigLens. It takes pics, and allows you to apply soft focus to parts of them, making them look very professional and as if they are shot with a high-end DSLR instead of a phone camera with a small focal length. Way cool app.

Unfortunately, it does not have an Android equivalent (yet) so far as I know.

Try it out, I loved what it could do! 99 cents on the App store. BigLens...might be Big Lens with a space.

 

Here's an update on the stuff that I use the most. I'm a moderately mediumcore user of Photoshop on the PC, and the iPad makes a pretty awesome adjunct to it.

Photo Transfer App:
No more Dropbox or iCloud or Sync to get your pix onto the iPad in a hurry. This $3 app uses wifi to spit images back and forth between your desktop and mobile device. It requires no software on the non-iOS device; instead, it uses the browser on your desktop to upload/download pix. Also, it doesn't screw with file sizes like Dropbox does, so the image on your desktop is the image on your iOS (before iOS fiddles with it of course). There's some amount of fiddling required to beam images to and from, but it's minor. And in Apple tradition, it just works.

You'll need a wifi adapter in your desktop to use it, though. I use this for W7 and it's been perfect: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833315096

iPhoto:
Just get it. The slideshow function itself is worth it. I haven't used the photo manip stuff with it because I have better stuff, but the slideshow itself is worth the can of soda in NYNY this thing costs. It will turn your iPad or HDTV into a slideshow beast of a machine.

Snapseed:
Same verdict as iPhoto: Just Get It. I use Snapseed to very quickly manipulate images with its decently broad range of filters, then squirt those images back to my PC for finalizing. Snapseed has filters that would cost me hundreds of dollars or many hours to replicate in PS 5.

PSTouch:
The mobile version of Photoshop. It can't compare to PS5's depth, but then again, there's no way it can. It excels at allowing you to gather up all the other images you've done on iOS and spits them out in a format your desktop Photoshop can use.

Pixlromatic:
Edges, borders, overall lighting effects. I don't use it as often as the others, but when I do, it works beautifully.

Apple Wireless Keyboard.
At $69, it seems to be a steep sell, especially next to my MS Ergonomic 4000. The MS Ergo 4K is an excellent keyboard for typing, but it takes up a vast amount of space. I don't have a small desk by any stretch of the imagination, but the 4K takes up more than its fair share.

Enter the somewhat diminutive Apple Wireless Keyboard. I bought a US Bluetooth adapter to use it with my W7 PC, and it paired right off and works well. Some nits: the BT doesn't work straight away at log in, but does after 10 seconds. Not Apple's faultT

The keyboard itself looks undersized at first glance, but it's actually a regularly sized unit but without the numbnutznumber stuff at the right. It uses a horrible chicklet key topography that negates pushing 100+ WPM for me. In all honesty, I'm not sure if it is the keys or the non-ergonomic nature of the device. I get my freak on with the MS4k that I've used for 6 years, so this can't really be seen as a slight against this device.

In the end, this keyboard has good key response and feels almost as good as what I paid for it.

Not perfect, but not anywhere near bad. Also, it takes up almost no space, so I use it with my Intuous and have enough room for my Ipad2 and mouse and my Thinkpad without feeling cramped.

 

I need a data tracking app - free I hope. My wife's iPhone 4S eats up data at odd times when she's definitely not using it and Verizon is happy to bill away (half wondering if it's a scam on their part, but that's another thread). Plus she hardly uses data stuff anyway. It even eats up data when she's at home connected to wi-fi. At 7am a chunk is used!?! Driving to PA last weekend it ate up .2GB in the middle of the trip and her phone was sitting on the dash.

Mine doesn't do this and I think I have them set up the same. Aside from an app recommendation, any idea what's going on? We have Siri on but not for location reminders and only a few apps for location stuff - mainly weather apps and Google Maps. No games on either phone and almost no apps back up to iCloud. Thoughts?

 

I use an app called Data Usage (I know, original right?) that works great to keep track of my data usage. It also keeps track of when your data plans starts every month and reminds you when your data plan is renewing.

I have a list of all my favorite apps on SpringPad. Here is my notebook with all the iOS apps I love and recommend to my clients: http://sprng.me/e1i05

Kevin

 

Speed. The longest wait of data transfer revolves around the tx/rx rate of the devices...which is pretty minimal. Also, this is direct transfer, so there's no middleman "Cloud" sitting between you and your data* and the resultant lag associated with blasting packets of data all over the country just to get data from device X to device Y that are mere feet away.

Another feature is that the app doesn't compress photos getting sent outbound from the iOS device. DB does so in order to save data that would otherwise eat into bandwidth caps. I am sometimes forced to use DB for other-than-photo use, and there's always a bit of a wait before that data pops up in the DBoxes of my other devices. Adobe's Creative Cloud sometimes has wait times of minutes which really isn't acceptable.

Yet another big feature is in the fact that there's no client software required; all the client device needs is a web browser. IE, Safari, Chrome and FF are supported...and as such, all major OS'es are supported. All that's required to use is the app installed on your iOS device of choice, and off you go.

The App will also xfer photos and video between iOS devices just as easily as it xfers photos from iOS devices to other web browsers.

*not much app security.

 

This is the best racing game for a wide audience on iOS after Real Racing 2 HD:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drawrace-2/id433127774?mt=8

Kids and adults who have tried this on my iPad love it. $3. The $2 inapp purchase cheater car is an easy buy because it keeps easily frustrated young minds in the game (and out of your hair). Allows 4-person multiplayer on 1 device, so it's a lot like board games of old, but with nice graphics.

 

If you didn't realize it compressed outbounds, how did you think it was a tunable parameter?

The only real way to bypass DB's lossy compression while using DB is to zip photos before DB'ing them. Not at all handy. I haven't used DB in 2 months, so they might have changed this behavior since then, but it was definitely there when I used it.

 

Hi

so I just got an iPhone, and I'm curious about this tapatalk. What is it really for? I can access FCHAT on my safari webbrowser. Is there real good justification for this app? Please list pros and cons (if any).

Thank you

Chris

 

I use Tapatalk extensively on my Android devices.

For starters, it allows me to pick my favorite subforums and creates a list of just those so that I can quickly access those forums.

I also use the Dark theme which is much easier on the eyes at night (white-on-black instead of vice-versa)

I also use Tapatalk to access multiple other forums, and can switch between the various forums very quickly as it saves my login information for each.

I believe that on iDevices, Tapatalk is the only way you can upload files to FChat.

 

Yes but it doesn't always work, at least for me.

 

I'm getting a lot of use out of this app: http://mightytext.net/

I saw a person use this app in a store this morning: http://keyringapp.com/

I installed it but haven't gone beyond that yet, full report forthcoming.

 

I've been experimenting with NFC technology lately... I don't know how to write an app but the tech is revolutionary IMO... 10 years ago RFID was buck rogers **** but now every smart phone is an RfID reader, writer, and can act as an RFID tag itself. There are some real world applications that are immediately useful in some industries like security, access control, the adore mentioned loyalty cards... I like this tech much better than q codes because you just get the phone on or near the tag instead of trying to take a picture and wait for the brightness adjustment, focus, etc....

 

Me either but on first glance this looks like an interesting place to start, http://developer.android.com/training/index.html.

I glanced thru an article recently that stated QR codes had a short life span and would be replaced with new tech rather quickly. Unfortunately I don't recall where I saw it and a quick Google search didn't jog my memory.

 

Try looking overseas for apps, the Japanese have been using NFC for quite some to pay for subway tickets, even order food at McD's... At the time, the iPhone had just come out there and nobody was really interested in it because it didn't do NFC. Nokia was the dominant smartphone.

 

I'm enjoying Feedly as my news reader. Actually took me awhile to get adjusted to it after enduring the blah-ness of Google Reader.

Haven't tried Flipboard (yet) so can't compare the two but FWIW they have the same rating in Google Play.