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Archive for the ‘Software Reviews’ Category

EyeTV on the iPhone: In-Depth

Written on November 09, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 7 people have commented

Recently, Elgato released EyeTV for the iPhone (AppStore Link). At a cost of $4.99, its marketing blurb offers the following functionality:
With the EyeTV app, you can watch, record, and enjoy live and recorded TV on your iPhone or iPod touch. At last, you don‘t have to leave all your great TV shows at home; the EyeTV [...]

Camtasia vs. ScreenFlow: Creating Your First Screencast

Written on October 28, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 26 people have commented

If you have need to visually demonstrate your product, and you have the resources, then it just makes sense to produce a screencast. With the release of ScreenFlow 2.0, I thought it’d be useful to perform a real-world comparison review of the screencast heavyweight champ versus the relative newcomer (at least to the Mac), Camtasia.
Getting [...]

Cult Hit Settlers of Catan Comes to the iPhone

Written on October 26, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 8 people have commented

If you are or ever have been the board gaming type, you may have run across Settlers of Catan, or at least heard of it from a fanatic friend. The game, which is a bit like Risk but without the war (at least in its basic incarnation), is all about resource gathering, trading, and colonization.
Fans [...]

ReelDirector: Full-featured Video Editing Comes to the iPhone

Written on October 21, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 14 people have commented

Despite some predictions to the contrary, the iPhone 3GS launched without a portable version of iMovie for editing of clips. Yes, you can scrub and trim video you shoot on the device in the native Camera app, but beyond that, you can’t do much. New app ReelDirector changes all that, for the relatively low price [...]

RjDj to Sell Whole Albums as Interactive Sound Experiences for iPhone

Written on October 02, 2009 by Wagner James Au and 2 people have commented

RjDj, the exceptionally cool “reactive sound platform” app from Reality Jockey, which turns the iPhone’s microphone into an audio synthesizer, just got even cooler: Now available in the App Store is “Kids on DSP,” an entire album featuring collaborations from two well-known techno artists — Carl Craig and Acid Pauli — converted for [...]

Colloquy Brings IRC to the iPhone

Written on October 01, 2009 by Lisa Hoover and 4 people have commented

Even though services like Skype, Gtalk, Yahoo, AOL, Twitter and Facebook make it possible to instant or direct message just about anyone online these days, some folks still swear by Internet Relay Chat (IRC). In fact, for many die-hard geeks and software development teams, IRC is the only way to fly.
There are plenty of Web-based [...]

Dropbox: Now Native on Your iPhone

Written on September 30, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 14 people have commented

Of all the file syncing solutions available, one of the most popular is Dropbox. As one of the solutions that is also cross-platform compatible, many Mac users have embraced Dropbox as a more reliable and robust solution than other alternatives, like MobileMe’s iDisk. Diehard Dropbox users can now rejoice as the Dropbox team is at [...]

Weekly App Store Picks: September 5, 2009

Written on September 05, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 7 people have commented

The first week of September has seen a deluge of new arrivals at the App Store. It’s time for me to search through the latest releases for iPhone and hand-pick my recommendations for the past seven days.
This week I’ve been looking at Button, Facebook, BlogPress and Quicksilver.
Button (Free)
One of my favorite sci-fi novels, “Better Than [...]

App Review: Keymote Makes Shortcuts Even Easier

Written on August 28, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 6 people have commented

There are no shortage of iPhone apps that function as remotes for your Mac, Apple TV, or just about anything else. Keymote (iTunes link), by Iced Cocoa, takes the concept to a new level by allowing custom “keysets” for all of your favorite applications.
So why would anybody need an app to do this when most [...]

Slay Sync Services Dragons with Spanning Tools

Written on August 26, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 2 people have commented

Who doesn’t battle the Apple Sync Services dragon on a semi-regular basis? Here are a couple of examples from Apple Support about how to resolve problems with this very useful yet unfortunately flawed feature:

Mac OS X 10.5: Resetting the SyncServices folder
Sync Services: Advanced troubleshooting for contact and calendar syncing

There are even more support articles around [...]

Autostitch: Create Panoramas With Your iPhone

Written on August 06, 2009 by Mark Crump and 9 people have commented

If you’re like me, your iPhone does double duty as your average, everyday camera. While I have a dedicated point-and-shoot camera, since my iPhone is always with me, it’s great for quick shots. Sure, the camera isn’t the best, but the convenience is worth the tradeoff.
I heard Alex Lindsay over at MacBreak Weekly offer Autostitch [...]

Final Draft 8 Review

Written on August 01, 2009 by Liam Cassidy and 19 people have commented

If you’ve ever harbored the desire to write for the silver screen and tried to do something about it, you’ll already know about Final Draft, the showbiz industry’s favorite scriptwriting software.
Everyone in Hollywood uses it; Studio Execs, beleaguered Producers, hot-shot directors… even Michael Bay uses it, but don’t let that last one put you off. [...]

Beta Watch: SeaMonkey 2

Written on July 30, 2009 by Charles Moore and 6 people have commented

I’ve been looking for an up-to-date, Gecko-based browser to replace the discontinued Netscape Navigator 9 on my old G4 Pismo PowerBook running OS 10.4 Tiger. Navigato still works well, is based on the now-ancient Firefox 2 and probably has some security vulnerabilities. Firefox 3.5 and Camino 1.6 are great on my Intel Mac, but kinda [...]

SpotInside: A Solid Spotlight Alternative

Written on July 28, 2009 by Charles Moore and 12 people have commented

I have a love-hate relationship with Spotlight, OS X’s convenient and useful, but immensely frustrating search utility. Apple introduced Spotlight with OS X 10.4 Tiger, and tweaked it considerably in OS 10.5 Leopard.
Having a search engine ready and waiting all the time is seductive, and Spotlight is nice to have, but falls short of Apple’s [...]

MainMenu — Keep Your Mac in Shape

Written on July 27, 2009 by David Appleyard and 10 people have commented

Earlier this month, Dare to be Creative announced MainMenu 2.0, an update to its system maintenance utility for OS X. This lightweight application allows you to clean up your Mac, improve system performance and free up hard disk space — all directly from the system menu.
The new release offers a range of improved functionality, an [...]

Booyah MMORPG App Aims to be “World of Lifecraft” for iPhone Owners

Written on July 27, 2009 by Wagner James Au and 16 people have commented

Booyah, which is available as a free iPhone app, is a new social MMORPG from a well-funded startup of the same name. But here’s the twist: Unlike all other online role-playing games (GigaOM Pro, sub required) , you don’t improve your character by performing fantastic otherworldly tasks, like looting dungeons or slaying hobgoblins — what [...]

App Review: iBank Mobile

Written on July 22, 2009 by Charles Jade and 3 people have commented

The developers of iBank, the robust alternative to moribund Quicken for the Mac, have gone mobile with their latest product. With iBank Mobile for the iPhone and iPod touch you can bank on the go, but probably not go it alone.
To be fair, there is no perfect personal finance manager (PFM) in the App Store. [...]

Simplify Your Workflow With Dropzone

Written on July 17, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 6 people have commented

The real power of OS X lies in all of the hidden gems beneath what you see at first glance. Technologies like Expose, Spaces, Stacks, Spotlight and others help users tap the power of their Mac, while keeping the experience sleek and elegant. Aptonic’s Dropzone, a third-party application designed to further simplify your Mac experience, [...]

Mozy vs. Carbonite: Mac Backup Smackdown

Written on July 16, 2009 by Dave Greenbaum and 94 people have commented

If you look at the amount of advertising out there these days, you’d think the Mac vs. PC war is a mere slap fight compared to the war being raged for your data backups. They want your data, and they want it now!
In one corner you have Mozy, which shares corporate DNA with former Mac [...]

10 Instant Messaging Apps for the iPhone

Written on July 15, 2009 by Mark Crump and 31 people have commented

When push notification finally made its way to the iPhone, a lot of people were anticipating IMs pushed to their iPhone. At first, I scoffed at this idea. I’d always figured IMs were based around the “instant” part of the phrase, and someone pushing an IM to me might be disappointed if I don’t get [...]