iGoiPhone – Page 45 – …Reviews, Tips and How To

Reuters for the iPhone – Keeping You Informed

Reuters has released an update to their News application. It isn’t like the many other new ‘Readers’ which we have covered here. Where you choose a stream of news from a Web site’s RSS feed. Reuters is a news agency so they have their own views on news.

The first thing you notice is a rethink of the UI. It has made a huge impact on being able to use the app to get to the latest news quickly. Then you only have to choose how you want to see the news. The first is a list of categories as you would expect, tap one and the top headlines with a brief description expands.

If you associate your news with images then the next two options are for you. Selecting ‘Pictures’ takes you to a page that is a scrollable group of images, choosing one takes you to the story. Video is listed like the News, giving you a jump straight to news videos/audio. Both worked with the expected speed on 3G and WiFi.

The last two options are important ‘news’ for the well informed: Markets and Stocks. With the economy coming around now, we’re sure these last two will start be used more for ‘better’ news.

For us, a very important addition was the ability to Twitter articles so our friends can see what we thought was ‘important’. You are able to edit the text prior to posting, but there is no URL shortening so your personalized additions have to be few.

We did mention, all of this is for Free, right?!! With these updates, it’s a natural for a iPhone user wanting to stay ‘well informed’.

The Path To Happiness Through My iPhone

A one time $3 and 15 minutes a day is all it takes!
What plagues us most everyday, is remembering the small stuff later. The small stuff gets overwhelmed by the ‘big’ issues that fill up our time. Pushing down the little items that we need to know to be effective.
This is true with both work and our daily mental health. The problem with tracking the small details is they happen quickly and are lost as fast as they came. Most often, if your fast enough, these bits are jotted down on a sticky or a 3 x 5 card. Soon to be shuffled off your desk onto a pile that you then forget about or keep searching through for one item you ‘remember there was something talked about’.
Since my iPhone goes everywhere with me, I have been searching for a better way to gather tiny bits of information quickly and move on. Later being able to access the information with a few facts like date associated with it. I tried to do this with a large variety of Notes apps. with varying results.
Enter, Momento.

A small app that is far reaching. I use it daily two ways:

Throughout my day, there are many ‘good’ things that happen. When you start to look around you, there are amazing sites and situations that get missed in the hustle bustle of life. Momento launches quickly enough that you can make note of those times as a quick entry on the calendar. You don’t have to wait for times of despair, just take a moment of your day later to look back at the wonders of good fortune you have had. You can use the app’s search to find a particular one, or tap about to be surprised at what you saw and forgot.

For work, every time there is a quick decision made by someone, Momento gets an entry. I’m not talking about always something bad, there are every day things that happen to a project that are soon forgotten why they are that way. Then, months later, when asked on a call you can search for the subject, date or tag and have an answer. There is nothing worse for your work health than not being able to speak to how decisions where made or the silence on the call as you hunt through your stack of stickies.

For Momento, the iPhone and iPod Touch app carries many more features. I have just mentioned how I use it. You may find other features like it’s ability to pull and push through social networks – handy if you want to share those quick notes. I mentioned tagging a note, you can also do that to phone numbers, as well add a photo of that happy snap shot in time to help you remember it later.

Desktop Like UI apps Appear for the iPhone

When new operating systems appear, the first apps for them is software to do your day job. In an attempt to fine tune getting the job done. Then, games games games. Finally, the UI tweaks appear. For the iPhone and iPod Touch, it isn’t possible to overwrite the built in Launcher. Instead, there has been a sudden jump in applications that developers spent more time on the UI and usability over long lists of features.

It doesn’t mean functionality has to be hurt, it just means the developers worked on how you see your information. Instead of lists of notes, you are presented with pieces of paper to sort and stack.

Reviewed here is Awesome Notes that replaces your lists of notes into a more visual view of notes on a board inside of a file folder UI. MyDesk that moves your folders and notes onto your desktop… which while being a bit cramped on the small screen of a iPhone, is heading in the direction of a ‘desktop’ UI that we are more used to. MyDesk is just begging for a bigger screen device. And finally, My Desk All-In-One-Desk that is a desktop with all you would expect on it – clock, calendar, todo, music and even Twitter… but VERY limited in true functionality.

First up is the popular Awesome Note (with ToDo):

Notes and Todo items are placed in tabs which can be spread across multiple swipable screens. Tapping a folder tab opens is to view the notes within. The open notebook graphic takes you to an overview of all notes.

Notes are not trapped on the iPhone, they can be moved to Google Docs and Evernote so they can be shared.

Each note can have it’s own ‘paper’ style to help locate later – notes can contain images as well be set to Read Only to avoid accidental edits later. Notes can be text notes as well can be a ToDo item which can have an alarm and due date. The options to customize the look and feel of each note would take a chapter… just imagine walking into a stationary store and all the options you have there.

This is the view inside of a folder of notes when set to images, a ‘list’ view is also available. From this screen you can change the label, icon and password protection on the folder. Quick creation of new or default notes is a tap of a ‘+’.

MyDesk offers another Desktop Folder UI look and feel:

MyDesk takes the Desktop like UI a step further with the look of file folders and notes scattered about your desk. You can create folders and notes from the desktop, place them, set the look and size of each, drag notes onto/into folders and open folders to review notes inside.

The developer added a ‘desktop’ touch by having single and double taps on items cause them to be selected or edited/opened. This took a little getting used to but worked fine after a few times. The desk can get cluttered quickly so it is a great representation of the real world. Ha!

Viewing a note from either the desktop or inside of the folder offers the same quick access, view and editing.

Notes and Folders can be changed via selecting to Customize them. You can rename folders, change the color of ‘paper’ or folders, and change fonts (font changes are for the full page, not for a particular bit of text). Currently, this app is all about the world we live in with physical desktop tables of folders and papers. the developer has a list of near future enhancements which will free the notes from being locked to the app (only emailing is possible now).

To wrap up your ‘Desktop like UI’ is My Desk All-In-One-Desk that goes beyond notes and attempts to give to you everything you would actually have ‘on’ your desk. The tools are all there, but there is no real depth to the app yet. Making it a lot of fun to play with until the developers add more functionality then it can be a real starting point for your device. It reminds me of a light version of the Magic Cap OS in the Newton days. This app could work well with a few more features on the screen size of the iPhone and Touch and with those additions it would be the start up for most people if there was ever a larger screen iPhone OS device.

Tapping on the ToDo art on your desktop brings up your list of ToDo items. You can quickly add to the list via the usual ‘+’ button. As you can see, it is rather simple compared to most ToDo management apps. Tapping on the calendar gives you the spaces to put in your Google Calendar login so that the desktop calendar shows your Google Calendar items, not the iPhone Built-In Calendar. Tapping on the picture allows you to select a picture from your Photo Albums. The music player allows you to start and pause randomly chosen songs from the Built-In iTunes.

The below image is showing one of the features proving that there is huge possibilities with this app. You can have Twits from folks your following show up at the bottom of the desktop. After loading your Twitter login, choosing to show/hide the stream is a matter of tapping the Twitter Bird. All items on the desktop can be moved and twisted as you please with your finger.

Disclaimer: I am not endorsing nor associated with loris_sl on Twitter. Her post was streaming when I took the snap shot. That said, I follow her because she posts twits with great links and a lot of fun to follow.

From the ‘i’ on the Desktop, you get to choose which items show on the desktop, as well they type of finish you want as the background. The coffee cup changes faces and the ‘toy’ wakes up every now and then… neither doing much so I’m assuming they are place holders for something great in the future. Hint Hint…

To wrap up, these are all great applications that well help merge the physical world with the electronic world. Expect to see many more apps like these appearing in the near future. Screen sizes, access to built in data and creative minds understanding the way we work will help these become more integrated in our lives. There is a fine line when cute is fun but makes it harder to get to what a user needs to get to quickly… when asked for a name when your walking down the hall, you don’t have time to watch a cute bunny bounce about for a few seconds.

iPhone finally gets Barcodes done right

There are a few iPhone apps on the market that claim to be Barcode ‘readers’. Upon closer examination, almost all do not handle the little lined barcodes you see on everything, instead they are for reading the square ‘2D’ barcodes mostly used for data and ad linking.

The few that I have tested to do standard product barcodes have been lacking… generally to the point that they don’t work. Recently one app called RedLaser has been getting a lot of press, so I dropped another couple dollars in hope it was better than the earlier options.

Wow! That pretty much wraps it up. Your milage may vary, but for me the app started working very nicely right away.

Of course your iphone does not have a Red Laser to read the barcode like a store checkout does. So, RedLaser allows you to take a picture of a product barcode then translates that into data to query out and return a list of availability options and prices. The capture of the barcode is automated so I had quiet a time to get this screen shot. As soon as the code lined up in the box the app snapped an image and I was given a description of what I was looking at and where I could buy it.

While being able to price check and do comparative shopping is fun. The way people have been using RedLaser is far beyond that. One simple example given is to scan book codes as you place them in a box, then export the list to print and place on the outside of the box. So simple… why didn’t I think of that?!

The creators of RedLaser have made it very easy to add more power and options to the application. No serious programming needed. They offer a few options on their site you can use as well they offer the app to use to create more. You add the additional features like an application in your launcher. Once you have scanned with RedLaser, you launch one of the other related apps to use it’s additional features. Some popular app options others have created is searching google or amazon for information about the barcode product you scanned. The options are limited by your imagination… why not scan and pass the info to DB on your desktop for a home inventory… why not use it as a Wedding Gift registry so you can post your list of wants on your Web site… you get the idea.

RedLaser built in features allow you to manually enter the barcode numbers if you have poor lighting or a smudged barcode. Also, you can email your list… which is the simplest way to create that box of books list to print.

iPhone users at work – taking docs with you

I wrote earlier about how I take my text notes from my notebook with me by scanning and importing into the iPhone using Annotator. I use a different technique for keeping track of documents at the office.

There are a lot of folks writing about having all of their documents on a server (in the Cloud?) that they access anytime they need to. Having tried this for over a year, I have found spotty 3G inside of buildings and offices without WiFi limiting my ability to have quick access to what I need, when I need it. I need it now, most often the question comes up in an office hallway. “I don’t like the way the address shows on the invoice” mean very little to me, being able to look at a copy anytime on my iPhone saves many ‘later’ meetings.

There are two methods I use depending on access to the document. If the document is in a meeting and I can’t take it with me, I snap a picture and clean up with JotNot (link opens iTunes App Store). The app allows you to straighten the document if the image isn’t straight on and fine tune the image – black and white conversion is popular but I usually leave the document in color. A key to finding an app that works best to you is using one that is fast – you do not want to be in a meeting spending two minutes aligning the phone and document.

A fun add on to have in your office, especially important if you shake a bit (JotNot does have anti-shake built in) is a stand to put your paper doc on that holds your iPhone at exactly the right height. It takes up room, but it is a huge hit for the guy in the office next to me. You can get the plan for free, a cardboard punch out or a MLF version via Ponoko. Yup, you pretty much have to be a ‘real geek’ to have this.

As long as the document is back in my office, it is easier to manage with a inexpensive scanner.

On the desktop in my office, I use Documents-to-Go (link opens iTunes app store). After purchasing the iPhone app, you get the desktop sync software (Mac and PC) for free. The desktop software can look at a folder you choose to sync to your iPhone with. I just drag-n-drop any Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs, or Docs to this folder… actually, I have my scanner pointed to it too so anything I scan drops right in there to sync onto my iPhone. Since my office desktop is connected to the network over a cable, I have the built in WiFi set up as a AdHoc network with my iPhone.

Having this set up, I just launch Documents-to-Go, on my iPhone and hit the Sync button on the desktop app… seconds later I have a quick reference of everything in my iPhone. You can do all the usual Docs2Go features for managing, editing or forwarding to others that you need. Out of pocket (excluding the desktop and iPhone I already had): $11.99 Full version of Documents-to-Go, $4.99 JotNot, and $79 desktop Scanner (ecost.com and tigerdirect.com has deals all the time).