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Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

App Review: Caught You! — Make Your iPhone Rat Out Thieves

Written on February 27, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 14 people have commented

Oh the sheer horror of it! I’m feeling uneasy at the very thought of my iPhone getting half inched. At the moment, my strongest defense against thieves seems to be keeping my iPhone within a 1-foot radius at all times.
Beyond simply keeping a keen eye on one’s iPhone, it would be much more appropriate to [...]

MySQL Showdown: Querious vs. Sequel Pro

Written on February 27, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 59 people have commented

Administering databases is not generally an exciting task, it’s right up there with TPS reports and their cover sheets. So why then, are you using the command-line MySQL client to administer your MySQL databases when you have a nice shiny user interface provided by OS X at your disposal?
The people behind Querious and Sequel Pro [...]

MindView 3.0 Comes of Age

Written on February 25, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 9 people have commented

Do you mind map? Do you like to brainstorm with others using software that helps focus your ideas and prioritize project plans? Maybe you’re into Getting Things Done (GTD) and like to prioritize your tasks visually? If so, then read on my friend.
The folks at Matchware recently released MindView Pro 3.0 for the Mac. What [...]

Tumblr On the iPhone: 3 Apps Reviewed

Written on February 24, 2009 by Tanner Morrison and 9 people have commented

I have tried just about every blogging platform out there and the one I finally stuck with was Tumblr. I like many of the more advanced functions in WordPress, but Tumblr is where it’s at for me. I’ve notice over the past couple of months I have started mobile blogging a lot more, and what [...]

Pixelmator GPU Powered Image Editor for OS X

Written on February 24, 2009 by Charles Moore and 6 people have commented

Last month, reinstalling Leopard on my G4 PowerBook broke Photoshop Elements 6, and one reason I’ve been able to procrastinate about the necessary application reinstall (there oughta be a better way, Adobe — nothing else broke) is that Pixelmator is getting so darned good that I haven’t really needed Elements for anything yet.
PSE 6 still [...]

Introducing: TheAppleBlog App Review

Written on February 23, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 5 people have commented

I’m exceedingly happy to tell you all about a brand-new series of articles we’re launching here at TheAppleBlog, entitled: The App Review.
Every other weekday, I’ll be sticking my big hands deep into the gaping jaws of the App Store and pulling out a fresh app for a top-down examination.
In each review, I’ll take the app [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: Feb. 21, 2009

Written on February 21, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 1 person has commented

The weekend seems to have rolled up super-fast, so welcome one and all to the Weekly App Store Picks.
Before we jump in to this week’s apps, let’s take a gander at recent happenings in the world of Apple.
First up, as a frequent tweeter, I was pleased to learn about desktop tweeting without a client app earlier [...]

Taking Control of AppStore Reporting With AppViz

Written on February 20, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and No one has commented

Like the majority of Apple products and solutions, Apple’s App Store is sleek in its presentation to the consumer. However, one of the less polished aspects is the developer back end, iTunes Connect. Don’t get me wrong, this is functional, but it’s not targeted at the consumer market and as such it just does the [...]

Super Simple Invoicing With Involer

Written on February 20, 2009 by David Appleyard and 3 people have commented

There’s no shortage of invoicing applications for OS X, with a notable few including Billable, iBiz, Billings, and On The Job. They all offer different functionality, and may fit your requirements perfectly. However, another contender has recently emerged on the scene in the form of Involer.
Rather than attempting to be a complete solution for project [...]

AirPhones: The True Potential of AirTunes on Your iPhone

Written on February 19, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 19 people have commented

I like my Airport Express with AirTunes. I use it to connect my home theater set-up to my iTunes library, and more frequently, for listening to Internet radio via iTunes. But it’s always bothered me that I couldn’t use it to listen to audio from any other source beyond iTunes. I don’t know about you, [...]

Don’t Be Fresh

Written on February 19, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 10 people have commented

Fresh — is this app “Fresh” or is it “Exciting”?* Well, let’s talk about it. Just this week, the folks at Ironic Software released this clever little utility for all to use. When I first read the product information and watched the instructional videos, my interest was piqued with what the product could do for [...]

What’s the Weather Like Outside?

Written on February 16, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 19 people have commented

Weather apps on the Mac are sorely lacking. You generally have to use a Dashboard widget to find out the latest weather conditions in your area. In searching for a decent desktop solution, I found that many of the major weather/news publishers provide Dashboard widgets but none of them provide a simple Mac desktop app. [...]

Weekly App Store Roundup: Feb, 14th. 2009

Written on February 14, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 6 people have commented

Get your spoon and prepare to swallow a whole tub of awesome because we’ve got the freshest picks from the App Store to stuff in your mouth.
Before we get in to the latest releases, I’ve got a couple of interesting picks from the week’s Apple news.
First big thing, file sharing has been activated for MobileMe. [...]

Sharpen Your MacGyver Skills With The Bomb and The Safe

Written on February 13, 2009 by Lisa Hoover and 2 people have commented

Securicy Ventures, the folks behind the employment search app Job Compass, have come up with two ways to kill time while you look for your dream job. They’ve created a pair of games — The Safe and The Bomb — that will drive you nuts and keep you guessing for hours. Although no special skill [...]

Drobo: The Ultimate Network Peripheral?

Written on February 13, 2009 by Arvin Dang and 25 people have commented

I was recently introduced to the Drobo box. If you’re not familiar with it, simply put, it’s the ultimate home backup server.
For $400, you get a BeyondRAID array that can support up to 4 simultaneous drives, and caps at 16TB. Even cooler is the ability to swap out your drives with a single push of [...]

First Look: Postbox

Written on February 12, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 9 people have commented

Do we need another Mac email client? Well, the folks at Postbox believe we do. They have taken the core of Thunderbird 3, reskinned it, added some goodies and given us something new to use.
Is Postbox ready for primetime? Well, let’s weigh in on the merits of this new app. Essentially, Postbox wants to be [...]

Syncing iCal Birthdays to Your iPhone

Written on February 11, 2009 by Clayton Lai and 16 people have commented

One of the perplexing limitations about MobileMe is its inability to sync birthdays in iCal to the iPhone and iPod touch. As you may already know, iCal can take birthdays from Address Book and add them into a special “Birthdays” calendar, which is really a subscription calendar.

But while the latest updates to MobileMe now allow [...]

Time Crisis Strike Brings Arbitrary, Time-Based Shooting to iPhone

Written on February 10, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

As a proud owner of every version of Time Crisis ever released for home consoles, there was no way I was going to take a pass on Time Crisis Strike ($5.99, App Store) for the iPhone and iPod touch. Not to mention the fact that I Love Katamari, one of Namco’s previous releases for Apple’s [...]

Make Your Mac More Manageable With Tags

Written on February 09, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 10 people have commented

Nowadays, we use tags pretty much everywhere we work and play online. Flickr, Facebook, Gmail, this blog (and any other blog), and on and on. It’s an easy, intuitive way to keep track of things, and an organizational strategy that transcends categories and other groupings, like date and subject matter. It’s such a great system, [...]

Weekly App Store Roundup: Feb. 7, 2009

Written on February 07, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 2 people have commented

Wrapping up another seven days and bringing you the freshest picks, it’s time for this week’s App Store Roundup.
Tom Reetsman kicked off the week by calling Technologizer’s Ed Oswald out on an article he wrote about MobileMe, the general gist of it being that Oswald canceled MobileMe, only to lament the disappearance of his data.
By [...]