Social iPhone app for the runner shares ‘How you felt today’

Years ago, I helped a running coach with his product sales and Web site. After a bit of meeting runners through marketing meetings for him, I came to relize that sticking with running had a large social part to it. What was important was being able to share the run, how you did and where you went. The Coach would always ask; “how do your feel?” before and after every run. It was partly about how you physically felt but also a question of how your mentally felt.

A few days ago, while zipping around Twitter, I came across Stephen Ryner Jr (@nuthatch) out of Chicago. He has written an app called Electric Miles that connects to the DailyMile runners service. His app is different from the normal running mileage tracking apps, his is about the social side of running.

Stephen has created a method to stay in touch with other runners, social media style. No need to reach out to Facebook or Twiter to post up that you ‘felt great’ today… that means little to a non-runner. But, to your friends on DailyMile, it means a lot.

You still post up how far you went if you wish, but most important is the positive re-enforcement that comes from other runners that keeps the running shoes seeing the miles go by.

The iPhone app, Electric Miles, is currently free so why not connect up with it to your running friends around the world that care when you happy or not so happy with your daily run.

Price and Availability found through just a picture taken with an iPhone

When I covered apps you might want to use when hunting down deals for the best Christmas deals, I had to draw the line somewhere for how many apps I would talk about. One that I really wanted in but didn’t make it was SnapTell. It is an app I have used quite a bit over the last couple years on my iPhone.

Maybe because it is so easy to use, it is so fast to give me my requested information or because it always seems to work, I have started to just assume everyone has it. After talking to a gent today in line at the store, it became obvious not ‘everyone’ does.

The SnapTell app accepts an image you take of either a product packaging front or the product bar code. It takes that information and tells you where else you might find the product and how much it is selling for elsewhere. The locations for the availability is both brick-n-mortar and online.

Snap an image of the cover or of the bar code, the results you get back are the same:

The first result screen you get is what the software thinks you may be looking for. In this case the cover was enough for it to know I was looking at the movie ‘Inception’ but not if it was a regular DVD or Blu-ray.

Choosing one brings up a list of the option SnapTell found for that item. Here is found 19 Online options and 2 local stores that have ‘Inception’. Farther down the list is the options for more information on the product. This can be handy for looking up who was in the movie, if there are any warnings about a toy, etc…

Choosing the local stores option, SnapTell shows the stores, distance from where you are, the price they are selling the product for, their address, and a short on the product it’s self. I actually used this in a store last week when there wasn’t a price marked on the item, SnapTell told me.

And, generally for ‘really good’ pricing or if your not finding any local stores that have what your looking for – the online available options is generally a much longer list. All of this from a simple picture of a cover or product box taken with the iPhone.

Translating text on signs in real time with the iPhone

OK, I admit it… I have been jealous of Google Goggles on the Android Smartphones. It has some limitations, but the augmented reality features are far beyond all of the individual apps I have on my iPhone doing similar things. There are a couple winning apps on the iPhone but one area no one has touched is Goggles ability to translate a sign to different languages. That is, until now… happy days! Word Lens has appeared in the iTunes app store and it works very nicely!

A major difference between what Word Lens offers compared to Google Goggles is the lack of need to be online. This means that you have to have the different languages you may want to translate to/from installed on your iPhone, and it also means you can translate without being connected to the Internet.

While Word Lens doesn’t currently work on handwriting or fancy fonts, it does work with regular signs… and menus too! You point your iPhone camera at some text, the app looks at each word, translates it to/from the language you chose and shows the text right on the sign where the previous language text was. It is just like having a little sign guy in your pocket to run out and redo the sign in real time for you!

Currently, Word Lens only has English and Spanish. The app it’s self is free, then you pay for each language in each direction as an in-app purchase. More languages are on their way. It is hard to compare the price to any other translation software since they always require you type in words to be translated. Word Lens replaces what you see with what you can understand.

Saving face with your friends with iPhone in-app purchases

Bejeweled Blitz has been updated. Don’t know what Bejeweled Blitz is? It is a gem game that has several different types of games, the Blitz one being a Facebook share game. The ‘Blitz’ is key to this post.

For this ‘update, there is the usual things you expect… new backgrounds and changes to the UI. Most notable in the UI changes is a new view of how you can spend your collected coins on add on boosts.

Just a couple of the Blitz backgrounds examples (anyone else see a face in all of the Blitz backgrounds?):

The games you can play are you against a clock or unlimited play, and then there is the forementioned ‘Blitz’. It is a one minute game that posts your highest score up on Facebook for your friends to see and compete against. It isn’t until you use this feature do you realize how many of your friends are playing Bejeweled when they should be doing… something other than playing games! Guilty!!

As you play, some diamonds have coins in them. These coins count up allowing you to ‘buy’ extra features like having multipliers show up right at game start or an extra five seconds on your minute of play. You have to play the game over and over again to build up coins to afford many ‘boosts’.

Without extra powers you have bought with your coins, you may find it pretty hard to get up to 200,000 points. You will notice your friends jumping to 350,000 and 400,000 pretty quickly. Why? They are using their coins for extra powers.

In this new version of Bejeweled Blitz, when you are way behind your friends and are lacking coins for more Boosts, you can ‘in-app’ purchase more.

And to help blow through your boost coins, the new Bejeweled also allows you to set up a group of boosts that run on every game (normally they only last three games). That will really burn through those coins. More important though is saving face on Facebook!

The ‘Final’ GLIF has arrived, iPhone is on the Tripod!

You may remember, the GLIF was a mount that slips onto the iPhone 4. One way goes around the corner of the iPhone so it can be held on a tripod, the other is a lip to allow the iPhone to sit on the desk for movie viewing. The final seems to flex just a tiny bit more than the 3D print so it is fitting on my iPhone that has a vinyl skin on the back.

The 3D print version was mentioned not long ago. Well, the guys sent the final and my iPhone hasn’t left the tripod since. Time to wrap up my night shots I have never been able to stand still enough for. I’ll post those up later this week.

The finish work is very nice with detail in the areas that hold the iPhone and mount to the Tripod. Since this is an injected plastic piece, there is a rough area where the excess had been trimmed off of the final product. Nothing distracting, but wanted to be clear that it was seen but not concerning.

For now, here is a few shots of the GLIF (www.theglif.com):

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