AppCraver » William Biwer

Pinpoint Colors With iSpectrum Color Blind Assistant

William Biwer — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:30:19 +0000

iSpectrum Color Blind Assistant by Wishbone Apps offers up some very useful features for the color blind as well as those who are not.

The app is straight forward and a breeze to use. Upon running iSpectrum Color Blind Assistant the user is given the option to choose an existing photo from their library or to take a new one with the iPhone or iPod touch camera.

Once you have your desired photo a color spectrum appears on the left side of the screen and a crosshairs appears near the center of your image. From here you can slide the crosshairs to the desired location or tap the screen in the spot you wish to examine. A very nice feature is available by tapping the crosshairs button at the top — the ability to move pixel by pixel. This is extremely useful for pinpointing that exact color you wish to check. (...)
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Eye vs. Eye Tests Your Eye for Color

William Biwer — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:30:13 +0000

Eye vs. Eye by FORMation Alliance is a great little game for improving or testing your color matching skills. FORMation Alliance is an up and coming iPhone and iPod touch app contributor with a focus on designers.

Eye vs. Eye is a simple app that can be played individually or against a friend. The main goal of the game is to match the original color that is displayed on the screen within a certain amount of time. The original color is displayed on the screen for approximately 5 seconds. Once the color is taken away you are given ten seconds to slide the RGB (Red, Green & Blue) sliders to re-create the original color as closely as possible. Noted by the developers that in version 1.1 HSB, CMYK and Crayon options will be available as well as the current RGB.

Once loaded the main menu, which is beautifully designed to flow along with the game, displays options for solo play, resume contest, rules, credits and new contest.(...)
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Craigsphone is Almost All You Need to Use Craigslist with iPhone

William Biwer — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:30:41 +0000

Craigsphone by Next Mobile Web is so close to being the best and most full-featured Craigslist app for the iPhone. I’ve previously reviewed two other Craigslist iPhone apps. Both CraigsMobileList and CraigSearch lacked certain much-needed features and neither had the ability to post sales. Craigsphone finally allows you to post directly from your iPhone or iPod touch.

Craigsphone sets up and runs similar to the other two apps. Once loaded you need to choose a nearby state/city to limit your searches to. The main navigation contains options to browse listings, post a listing, view featured searches and edit your account information. Browsing allows you to search eight general categories or, by tapping the blue arrows on the right, you can refine your category. Tapping search lets you enter a descriptive search term for even more refined results.

Posting a listing uses an interface that is basically the Craigslist.org slimmed down to fit better on the iPhone screen.

(...)
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Banner Communicates with Scrolling LED Messages

William Biwer — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:30:20 +0000

I haven’t found a practical use for Banner by akamatsu.org yet and I’m not sure if I ever will. The ability to create an advertising LED on your iPhone or iPod touch doesn’t really seem like a useful function on such a small personal device.

If you think you have a use for this app and want to try it out, a free version is available here. The paid version is similar in its function but it offers more options to customize your scrolling message. The added options allow you to create up to 5 messages and display them all at once or individually, adjust the speed from slow to fast, change the LED shapes between 6 different shapes and adjust the color.

Banner is very simple to use and setup. To access the options simply tap the screen of your iPhone or iPod touch. You can change it to a double tap if you want to avoid accidental exits of your scrolling message. Once in the options the layout resembles your common device settings menus. (...)
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Lifehack App is a Simplified Clone of Lifehack.org Web site

William Biwer — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:30:11 +0000

Lifehack.org is a website dedicated providing articles detailing how to get things done quickly. As far as their app goes, it does quite the opposite. If you are a follower of Lifehack.org (the Web site) then you will probably want to check out the Lifehack (the app) by Stepcase Limited. Unfortunately, don’t get your hopes up for anything spectacular.

The app in general is very straightforward, providing the user with the same bottom navigation common in many other apps. The menu contains Latest, Featured, Productivity, Technology and More which includes articles on money, communicate, lifestyle and management. If you’re familiar with Lifehack.org’s site you will recognize the categories as the same that exist online. That’s good, no need to confuse users with changing terminology. Each of these categories simply split up the articles posted on the site. The overall design is similar to many basic iPhone and iPod touch newsreader layouts. (...)
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Photonasis 2.0 May be a Bit to Basic for Most

William Biwer — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:21 +0000

Photonasis 2.0 by Mohamed Moshrif is a very basic iPhone or iPod touch photo “editing” app. I wouldn’t exactly call what its functions do truly editing a photo.

The structure of Photonasis 2.0 is quite basic. From the main screen you can choose to take a new photo or grab one from your library to adjust. Once you have your photo, tap the Select Filter button to bring up a list of filters. It would be nice if the preview used your chosen photo instead of the app’s sample image. After you choose an effect you must tap the preview button before any changes will be displayed. This seems a bit redundant, an undo button and having the effect applied right away makes more sense to me. Once you are satisfied tapping save will create a new image and store it in your library. (...)
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CraigSearch Lacks, But Gets The Job Done

William Biwer — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:00:54 +0000

CraigSearch by PheedYou, Inc. is another app with the sole purpose of searching the popular online market place craigslist.com. I recently reviewed the app CraigsMobileList which basically performs the same task of searching craigslist. Each app has their pros and cons.

The interface of CraigSearch is simple and basic. From the main page you enter your location, choose your category and subcategory and tap begin search. Next you are brought to a search details page. This page will differ depending on the category you choose. All categories include options where you enter a search phrase and toggle whether you would like to search only titles or only posts with images and also set a minimum and maximum price range. In my opinion, it would have made more sense to include this on the main page instead of having an obstacle of options in your way before reaching the content you are actually using CraigSearch to access. Once you finish adjusting the search details, tapping run search will bring you to your results. (...)
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Wired Product Reviews: Does Just That

William Biwer — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:30:37 +0000

Wired Product Reviews by CondeNet (the company behind Wired Magazine) is a simple and creatively designed app for the iPhone and iPod touch. If you are a fan of gadgets and gizmos and like to keep up with the latest products this is a must have app.

The main menu at first glance looks like something from Star Trek, but after a closer look you notice they are icons representing the main categories of products. It is great to see developers breaking out of the basic menu lists and trying something different. The categories are separated into the following groups: automobiles, camcorders, desktops, digital cameras, gaming gear, home audio & video, household, mobile phones, notebooks, portable media players, sports & outdoors and televisions. If you know exactly what you are looking for there is also a search option.

After choosing a main category a list appears displaying the reviewed products. You are given a thumbnail, the product name, a brief description, the rating and the products price. A great feature is the option to quickly choose how to sort the list. You get 4 choices located above the first item. The options include name, latest, price and rating. (...)
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CraigsMobileList Searches Craigslist with Style

William Biwer — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:00:30 +0000

CraigsMobileList by Mobile Simplicity lets you search craigslist with ease. If you haven’t heard of craigslist.com, then go check it out. It’s a great resource for finding & selling just about anything.

The main screen is very straight forward. Navigation tabs at the bottom allow user to search/browse, bookmarks, favorites and view the app’s about page. The navigation stays the same no matter which of the above options you choose.

The first time you load the CraigsMobileList you will need to specify your search criteria. These include your city, category, subcategory and filters. Choose the closest large city to your location as not every city is included.

The categories are broken into the same main categories as the website, which keeps things similar if your familiar with the web version. Craigslist’s categories include: community, personals, housing, for sale, services, jobs, gigs and resumes. Choosing a subcategory is not required but is helpful in refining your search even further.

Filters are also not required but are nice if you only want to search posts with images, only words in the title or set a minimum and maximum price range. For even more fine tuning of your search you can enter a series of keywords at the top. In order to search using the keywords you must use the search button as opposed to the main browse button. (...)
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Spawn Illuminati – Pricey Fun for Your Fingertips

William Biwer — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:00:13 +0000

Spawn Illuminati by Elements of Design is an iPhone and iPod touch beauty. Even though Spawn Illuminati serves no other purpose than entertainment it still creates some rich effects that can be controlled and altered with your fingers.

iPhone and iPod touch apps don’t get much simpler than this. No menus, no options, no bells and no whistles. Once Spawn Illuminati is launched there is a quick instructions screen. Quick being my only gripe. The instructions are displayed for a mere 5 seconds. To catch all the information you need to restart the app a few times or take a screenshot. (For those who don’t know how to take a screenshot, hold the iPhone or iPod touch’s home button and then press the on/off button. The screenshot will then be stored in your photo library.)

Once you understand the instructions it’s time to have some fun. (...)
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