Here Say is a self-proclaimed “augmented reality” app whose goal is to build a community around the act of posting pictures. The developer freely admits the app is still in Beta, but read his description in the App Store and it’s obvious Design-PT has big goals.

The basic premise behind Here Say is this – you are at a place, say a concert, and you take a picture of the stage through the Here Say iPhone app. You post the picture to the community and attach a comment to it.

In theory, other people will pull out their iPhone (with Here Say installed) and use the built in geo-location feature to find nearby posts and add comments to them. Conceptually it is a noble idea and in terms of the actual application, it is clean, well designed and works.

Unfortunately at this point, Here Say suffers from the same feasibility problems as any other fresh-from-the-oven social media app. The fact of the matter is that any geo-location app built around the act of posting pictures is 100% reliant on its ability to create a vibrant community and Here Say, in its current iteration, does not have the gusto.

That being said, if I were the developer, I would immediately integrate Facebook Connect and the ability to tag people in posts (viral marketing steroids). Next, I would work on a better “augmented reality” interface – the current one is simply a picture with the comment on top.

Then I would start to market the hell out of this badboy to yuppies in urban areas, pray to the gods that Facebook does not add geo-location anytime soon and in no time this Appcraver 6 could be a 9.

• app_name: Here Say
• rating: 6/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Here Say Desperately Needs Some Early Adopters | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

Much like Buddy, Sooshi gives you some ways to meet people online, though just like your average Craig’s List relationship quality pickings are slim and unlikely to lead to any long-term friendships.

One good feature found in Sooshi that  many other social media apps lack is the ability to sign up for a profile directly inside the app — many force you on to the web to create an account.

Once you do this you can connect your existing social networking profiles and other links such as your web site or blog to your Sooshi account. This makes your profile a bit more complete and transparent to those who may check you out in the Sooshi community.

Using Sooshi consists of mainly trolling through the list of users and trying to strike up a conversation. You can send direct messages, update your status, or check in on the profiles of other users. One annoying feature was that Sooshi forces the users to have GPS enabled. Sure it makes for a convenient way to tag your location and find other users, but the battery drain is quite significant. That is of course if you plan to make use of Sooshi. What you are likely to find is many users who pass along “whatups” to each other or, surprisingly, complain about the app itself.

Apps like Buddy and Sooshi are trying to supplement what Twitter, Facebooks and others have launched with social networking. But the experience just isn’t that satisfying. It lacks the connection that some of the more well-established networks have.

• rating: 6/10
• app_name: Sooshi – Social Sushi

© AppCraver, 2009. | Sooshi – Social Sushi Still Too Raw | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

The free service is angling for a more interactive, real-time user experience. Setting up your account includes the standard list of preferences and status messages to choose from; including your age, marital/relationship status, interests, and many others.

The most important choice in Buddy is what kind of buddy you are looking for. If you are an avid jogger, choose jogging buddy. Perhaps you are looking for someone to play video games with; pick gaming buddy. For the travel minded choose travel buddy (though personally I would recommend getting to know someone a bit before going on a trip). Once your profile is set then by tapping Buddy List you will see a list of buddies that you can interact with based on your shared love of golf or dating.

Location plays a prominent role in Buddy. By using the iPhone’s GPS capabilities you can have Buddy broadcast your location. If you are feeling a bit squeamish about being this available to strangers, you can opt for “Celebrity Mode,” which randomizes your location within a square mile of where you really are. This way you can be found in local search results. Or if you you really want to stay off the grid, opt for “Prime Minister mode.” This keeps you from being found on the Buddy Map, which is a real-time location of Buddy users logged on to the service.

Buddy is a service worth toying around with if you eat up the social networking environment. But in order for Buddy to succeed it would probably benefit from some deeper integration with some of the existing social networking tools. But who knows — maybe there are plenty of people who need a buddy.

• app_name: Buddy
• rating: 7/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Need a Buddy? Give ‘Buddy’ a Try | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

Podcasts have been a godsend in my life. Because I can freely download and customize the kind of content I want through iTunes, I was able to cut the cord on my Sirius XM radio subscription. No matter the issue or topic, I’ve got a good collection of go-to productions that deliver every time. With my appreciation for the entertainment and knowledge that podcasts can provide, I jumped into the Tubulous Global Social Podcasting app with great excitement.

Tubulous Global Social Podcasting is a tricky idea to describe succinctly, but I’ll try my best here. This application provides a place to discover new podcasts AND share your favorites podcasts with the world as well. Like many other social networking platforms, Tubulous Global Social Podcasting requires you to create an account on your iPhone. After a few minutes, you’ll be selecting a profile picture and hanging out at the main landing page for the application. The main landing page has a list of topics (e.g. Business, Comedy, Education, Health, etc.) that house the podcasts (both audio and video), and almost everything is covered. After selecting a topic and a podcast of interest, the application automagically streams the selection to your phone. Besides the general sections, there is a personalized section (e.g. My Channels) that users can modify to their hearts content.

My Channels is the place where you can jump to your favorite channels or upload a podcast. To upload a podcast to Tubulous, you have to plug in a podcast url so the application can create a channel for it. I’m sure there has to be some great technical explanation behind why it has to be done this way, but I find entering a podcast url incredibly unintuitive. For someone like me that already has a dozen subscriptions to podcasts through iTunes, my expectation was that Tubulous Global Social Podcasting would look at what’s already on my iPhone to ask me what I’d like to share. If this is not technically feasible, there should be some type of built in podcast search functionality to mitigate the hassle of tracking down the right url.

Tubulous Global Social Podcasting is a well-made application that’s setting out to start a revolution. There are more “nice-to-have” social networking bulleted features (e.g. Twitter support, friends lists, GPS, etc.) than I can’t possibly fully detail in the confines of this review. For more details on the full set of features, check out Tubulous Global Social Podcasting application description page on the App Store.

The biggest impression I’m left with is that this revolution is being started on the wrong piece of hardware and, in turn, it’s fundamentally flawed. An idea this big should have launched on a desktop-optimized website. Because the iPhone is hamstrung with mediocre battery life and the slow common denominator of the EDGE wireless network, the kind of exploration that’s encouraged with Tubulous Global Social Podcasting isn’t practical in the real world. Streaming audio and video always takes a substantial chunk out of the battery, and I suspect many other users would prefer the more efficient “download and sync” action to get content of interest, on their iPhone.

I’ve got a ton of respect for the Interlacia and what they’re trying to accomplish here, but I don’t suspect that Tubulous Global Social Podcasting catch fire with podcast enthusiasts everywhere. Keep at it guys…

• app_name: Tubulous Global Social Podcasting
• rating: 7/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Tubulous Is An Intriguing Idea…That I’m Not Sold On | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

CirclePix keeps referring to what they do are “videos,” but they’re really animated slideshows where images are panned, zoomed or both. Don’t think of the results as true video.

Tubey has four build-video options that you can do in any order: One, chose images by taking them or selecting them from your photo library. Two, add audio. Three add info. Four, approve and send.

First things first: Launch Tubey and then register. After that, you have the option of creating one of five slideshows: Personal Sell, Events, Real Estate and Other. The difference is the content in the intro for each category.

In this example, let’s say you want to create a Personal slideshow. Take photos or select images from your album. While in preview mode, you can add narration and background music from a long list of audio clips, which you’ll select using a scrolling wheel menu. Then, add info such as a title for YouTube, meta tags to improve your search results and other stuff you want on the info screen. When you’re done, upload.

You could use Tubey in a whole bunch of ways such as selling your junk on eBay or Craigslist; spicing up your blog; or promoting your small business. Heck, just mess around with it and impress your Mom.

CirclePix’s Tubey is an ingenious concept and it’s easy to use. You can’t ask for more than that.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include a YouTube video of Tubey, wouldn’t I?

• app_name: Tubey
• rating: 9/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Tubey Knocks Your Socks Off | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

If you don’t have time to date and you’re already hip to sites like Match.com it’s now on available on your handset. Match.com tries to bring everything that you love from the site to their new iPhone app.

As a member you have access to 15 million Match.com singles, you can edit your profile, take pictures and get your mail all on the move. The premise doesn’t seem very difficult especially if you’ve used Twitter, Twinkle or any other mobile social networking program. There are some problems with Match.com. There are two pretty obvious issues with the app functionality and fees.

From the beginning Match.com was pretty difficult to use. The application wouldn’t scroll down far enough to let me register. After restarting the app about three times it froze. The 4th time I started up Match.com I finally reached the home screen.

In order to set up the service you must create a profile between 200 and 1000 words. After this you can search for people in your area. You can see who has viewed your profile and check your inbox for any messages. Trying to search through the profile pages took ages. It even took a long time when I was utilizing Match.com at home on a fast Wi-Fi connection.

Someone should give kudos to the developers of Match.com for making the interface colorful and pretty. There are nice dark, pale and muted blue colors in the interface. And everything is visually in an easy place to spot. If you’re just signing up to Match.com you’ll have to remember that everything you do on the site has to be approved so expect a little bit of wait before you can find the love of your life. This is not a free service. You’ll have to become a full paying member of the match.com site to actually use the full range of services and that can range anywhere from $39.99 to $20 depending on the plan you choose. There may also be a fee for using the mobile version too.

Notwithstanding the fees, the biggest complaint I had with Match.com is how buggy the app seems to be. I had to restart Match.com about 10 times total to try to get the full value of what it could do. As a miniature version of the desk top site it’s supposed to do so many things well and some even better. It’s a shame that users will probably become frustrated and turn to something else.

• app_name: Match.com
• rating: 5/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Matchmaker Make Me A Match with Match.Com | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

Facebook and Twitter are built on the idea of short quips about your thoughts and activities. Twitter asks, “What are you doing?” Facebook wants to know, “What’s on your mind?”

Instead Whrrl asks, “What’s your story?” This upstart social network seeks to add some depth (if that term can really be applied to social networking) to your online life. A user is encouraged to post a series of stories —text and photos of events that you are at or have been to. With Whrrl others can then add their own tags to indicate they were there or leave comments. The service is the brainchild of Seattle start-up Pelago. And instead of competing against other services, the developers of Whrrl see it as a way to complement the social networking experience. Whrrl allows you to share your stories through Facebook and Twitter.

User feeds from Whrrl read like a narrative. Instead of the quick “Doing laundry!” type of messages that are common in Twitter and Facebook, most Whrrl feeds feature an event and then let the pictures tell the details. The Whrrl app lets you peruse others’ stories and comments. You can swipe through photos quite easily and tap to leave a comment or view the others that have been left.

Because the focus is on stories, location plays prominently in Whrrl. But this leads to a major annoyance – Whrrl constantly asks to turn on your GPS for adding your location. If you are someone who uses GPS sparingly because you like the battery to operate for more than three hours a day, expect to get irritated by the constant pop-up menu. But there is a pretty innovative feature in Whrrl that allows you to say your location so it can be added to a story.

If you are a Whrrl user, then this app will be a nice complement to the service. If, like many, you are already a bit overwhelmed by keeping up with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Friendfeed, Ning, or the rest of the slew of services competing for your time, then Whrrl is probably not worth the free download.

• rating: 7/10
• app_name: Whrrl

© AppCraver, 2009. | Whrrl Wants to Know Your Story | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

Peek (by Agile Dimension) is a social networking app that lets you find other users in your area (or anywhere, really), who can share photos and things on their profiles. When you run the application, Peek uses your iPhone’s GPS to identify your location, which it shows as a glowing green dot in the center of a dark screen. Around your location are other dots, which represent other Peek users. Simply tap on a nearby dot to pull up the profile of that user.

Once you’ve found a user who seems interesting, you can instantly send them text and photos through Peek. (A future update will also include the ability to send voice messages.) If they like what you send, they can answer you. If not, they can ignore you, or, if you’re really creepy, they can block you. (Here’s hoping it won’t come to that, right?)

Peek also offers a feature called HyperPeek which zaps you to a different location (within Peek — your physical body stays in place!) and lets you poke around at the various users in that area, if the locals just aren’t capturing your interest.

Peek is pretty straightforward and it seems to work well, and it’s the type of application that could probably be a lot of fun. The problem with Peek is that since it’s so new, there currently aren’t that many users. I live in upstate New York, and the closest person I found was in New York City, which is reasonably close. But the next closest was in Kansas City, Missouri…not quite as close. So much for peeking on my neighbors! (Just kidding — I have Facebook for that!). Presumably this is something that will be resolved with time, and ultimately, it probably doesn’t really matter. Peek is more about the novelty and some minor voyeurism than making any sort of meaningful connections, I would venture.

Learn more at PeekPlanet.com.

• app_name: Peek
• rating: 7/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Peek: Curious? Take a Peek at this Social Networking App | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

Ever struggle with trying to update all of your social networks at the same time? Statuso offers a solution. This new app provides one screen for updating your status on Twitter, Facebook, Yammer and Friendfeed. And the developers promise that this is just the start. More social networks are on the way, including the possibility of more functionality within the different networks.

In its current state Statuso is solid in its performance, yet a bit limited in features. However, what Statuso is set out to do it does rather well. Through just a few taps and setting up your account information, you will then have one screen where you can update your status to some or all of them at once. Whether or not you need an app like this will depend on how heavy of a user of social networks you are. For example, Facebook has an application that allows Twitter to update your status message, which would mean you could already get both updated at once by using Twitter.

But if you are a user of more networks, or perhaps like to give one status to Twitter, another to FriendFeed and even a different message to Facebook, then Statuso may be a great time saver. One well thought-out option is the ability to prepend your Facebook message to keep it grammatically correct. Unlike Twitter, Facebook status messages start with the person’s name. So if you are updating the same message to Facebook as to the other networks, adding the word “in” to your Facebook status would look like, “Derek is reviewing a new iPhone app!” instead of  ”Derek reviewing a new iPhone app!”

There were a few kinks in the setup, as you will have to authorize Statuso to update your Facebook account. This means being taken to your Facebook page with the embedded browser in Statuso. This takes you to the full rendering of the site, so a bit of pinching and swiping is necessary to see what you need. But ultimately Statuso works just find and there were no real problems in finishing up the setup sequence.

• app_name: Statuso
• rating: 7/10

© AppCraver, 2009. | Statuso Streamlines Your Social Networking Updates | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!

Also, social networks currently don’t exploit the advantage provided by iPhone Contacts as a communications hub, he says.

Having everything revolve around iPhone Contacts has become a prerequisite for any app that involves sending messages or making phone calls, so the latter point is moot, if you ask me.

The company’s new app, Pinger Phone, has four primary functions — mail, mobile, IM and text — which are integrated into one menu so you can manage both phone contacts and friends on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and communicate with them by whatever means suits the occasion. You can see whether someone is available via IM or on their social network feeds and then elect to call, text, IM, email or send a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter message.

Pinger Phone works with AIM, Yahoo! IM, MSN IM and Google Talk. The app automatically switches to the horizontal keyboard mode to make entering text faster and more accurate.

Pinger Phone is free, and supported by advertising. I’ve had Pinger Phone on my iPhone for a couple of days and so far, it works as advertised.

It’s sure a dull-looking app, though. It’s got the kind of look that could put you to sleep on a packed, sweaty bus bouncing down a hot, dusty road. I think if you aspire to do cool things, you should look the part.

Although I doubt I’ll do much IM-ing, I like being able to do it in landscape mode. Now, if I could also have it for my texting and emailing, I’d be happy.

• app_name: Pinger Phone
• rating: 8/10

© AppCraver, 2008. | Pinger Phone Wraps It all Up in One Integrated Package | Get our iPhone Reviews on Facebook & Twitter!