THAR: Tru's House of App Reviews

JumiMouse (Free Version)

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:07:00 -0800

I’ve been having problems with a combination of carpel tunnel and now tennis elbow for awhile and I found a different way of dealing with the pain, by getting rid of the mouse, for most things. Now and then it’s easier to use the mouse but for the most part JumiMouse fills the space very well.

You’ve probably seen or even used other trackpad apps but of the ones I’ve tried this is by far the easiest to setup and use. (Did I mention it’s free?) Like the others you do need to install a server client on your PC, (Mac version coming someday) and you can password protect the access to keep out anyone else, or allow guests.

The trackpad is simple with 3 buttons, for left, right, and that little used third button. On the right is a strip for scrolling pages. Just tap the screen once to left click or twice and hold to drag objects.

The scroll speed and cursor speed are adjustable by tapping the small cursor icon at left.

But now we come to an added bonus that JumiMouse has over some other apps like this. Just tap the monitor icon at top left, and you can see the computer screen, including watching video. This takes no added setup and worked for me straight away.

Pros: Smooth operation and easy setup. Quick start up. Free

Cons: It may be my monitor settings but the right part of the screen is cut off in the app viewer. Works on local wi-fi only. Moving video had some lag.

Also: There is a paid version that sells for $1.99 that allows connection from anywhere even over 3g and edge. It even has a built in full keyboard and can use the Iphone/Touch keyboard. It has some shortcut keys that might come in handy.

Get it:

Score this: 4 Ghost mice out of 5.

Jumitech has other apps along this line for web-cam viewing and game controlling as well as a Winamp controller.

Dedicated to our missing leader TRU

Beltane

A missing Tru

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:59:18 -0700

The fearless leader of THAR, trumcgowan, has been missing for 5 weeks now. No tweets, blogs, emails…nothing. His wakoopa even says that he hasn’t been online in all this time. As you can imagine, me and the fellow THAR contributors are quite worried about our space invader friend and hope that wherever he is, he is safe and sound. That said, if you know Tru “in real life” and have any information about what might have happened to him, please contact me at froggie@thefrogman.me

Or if you have any access to resources that might help us find out if he is okay, please feel free to email me as well.

I’m going to see about continuing on with some reviews in his absence. I’m super busy at the moment, but the THAR contributors and I think we should try to keep plugging on. Until we figure something out, we are going to be on a little hiatus.

Tru, I miss ya.

iHandy Level

Fri, 29 May 2009 10:42:59 -0700

Now I have never been one that concerns himself with things in his life being level. I always figured if something wasn’t level, well, that’s why the Flying Spaghetti Monster gave us bookends, duct tape, and velcro. Then I came across the iHandy Level app. This app is a perfect example of a developer seeing the potential of the iPhone and thinking outside the box to create something that is actually…very handy.

Level placed on my head. Hmm. That’s disconcerting.

The app itself is pretty basic. You open it, put your device on something, and if the bubble isn’t in the middle…you need to straighten that thing…or invest in bookends, duct tape and velcro.

Graphics: This app is actually quite beautiful. The animation of the bubble is smooth and the look and feel are top notch.

Sound: This app has no sound except every once in a while you’ll hear the sound of yourself saying, “Aww, crap. My shelf isn’t level.”

Drawbacks: This isn’t the be-all end-all of levels, I’m a afraid. The beveled edge of the Touch and iPhone can make it a little tricky to make sure you have it flush, and there is not enough surface area to get an accurate read on wider planes. If you see your contractor using iHandy Level instead of the real thing, well, you may be in trouble. But…I’d say for shelves, picture frames, and things that can often get nudged out of alignment, this is a very cool app.

Conclusion: Get this app. Not only is it great to have in your app arsenal for those occassional fits of attempted handiness, it is something that really impresses those without an iPhone. Grandmothers everywhere will think you are magic.

I give this app 4 out of 5 crooked shelves.

Price: Free

thefrogman

Due to some very very minor technical difficulties, THAR will...

Thu, 28 May 2009 12:59:55 -0700

Due to some very very minor technical difficulties, THAR will not be posting a review today. We plan to have the situation resolved and/or extinguished in time for tomorrow. We apologize for any conveniance.

Recorder

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

A while back Tru reviewed an audio recording app called Record. I needed an app to do the same thing, but I thought I would try something different so I could use it as a review. I took a gander at the options and decided to go with Recorder…because it is like Record…but with errr at the end.

This app couldn’t be simpler. A blind monkey with brain damage and one finger could use this app. You see that big red button that says “Record”? You press that to record. And then when you are done recording…you press “Stop”.

The options are again very simple. You can turn high quality recording on and off. High quality records at 705 kbps 44.1 kHz 16 bit mono in the aiff format. I’ve never used aifffff before, but the quality is very good and it converts well into mp3. Here is a sample I recorded, I think you will see the quality holds up well.

The low quality setting is 128 kbps 8 kHz 16 bit mono. This is much like telephone quality and is to be used for spoken memos and such. The low quality is clear enough to hear what is being said, and the file sizes are very reasonable, but I wouldn’t recommend using this mode for any kind of music recording. Here is a sample of low quality

You have two options to get the audio files off your device, both very easy. First you can do a wifi sync with your browser. It gives you an ip address to type in, you hit connect, and you go to a web page that shows all the files you recorded. Then you just download the ones you want, just like you would any other file on the internet.

The local web page for downloading files is actually very well designed and easy to use.

Your second option is email. You pick the file you want to send, upload it to Recorder’s server and then it automatically sends you a link to download it. This is not recommended for large files, as upload times could get ridiculous with a 30 megabyte file. High quality aiffffs are not small.

Graphics: Pretty good. They have a cool app icon and the UI is fairly slick. It’s one of the best red record buttons I’ve seen.

Verdict: This is a great app. It has no bells nor whistles, but it really doesn’t need them. It gets the job done and the sound quality is very good. I have no qualms recommending this.

I give this app 5 out of 5 old timey microphones.

Price: $0.99

thefrogman

NatsuLion

Tue, 26 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

NatsuLion is an iPhone app based off of the NatsuLion mac app.

Graphics and Interface: This app’s graphics are very similar to any other twitter app. There’s a ‘write’, 'mark all as read’ and 'reload’ button on the main timeline. There’s both a light and dark theme, which can be toggled on and off in the app’s settings, and you can also turn on 'shake to fullscreen’, so that when you shake your device, all the toolbars will disappear and you’ll be left with just a timeline and a refresh button. There’s an option to turn on left-handed controls, which simply switches the mark-as-read and write buttons.

Twitter: NatsuLion’s biggest disadvantage over all the other twitter clients is that NatsuLion only supports one twitter account, while most other twitter apps support multiple accounts. Almost everything else about the app works perfectly, though. You can toggle on an 'AutoPagerize’ feature, which automatically loads a new page of tweets when you scroll to the bottom of the timeline. Unfortunately, though, the app has no TwitPic, or location support. This app supports retweeting, but you can’t follow or unfollow users from within the app.

Bottom Line: NatsuLion is a simple twitter app with a bare minimum of functions. It works very well, and if you’re looking for a twitter client that just lets you tweet and read tweets, this is the perfect app.

I give NatsuLion 3 out of 5 NatsuLions

Price: FREE

trumcgowan

Darkness 2.0

Mon, 25 May 2009 08:56:51 -0700

I reviewed the first version of Darkness the first week that THAR was online. Darkness has now been updated to 2.0.

Darkness is a world clock, but it does so much more than that. It can tell you the sunrise and sunset, the current moon phase, even the current altitude and azimuth of the sun.

Updates: This app has gone through a lot of changes, and all of them are good. The graphics have been made shinier, and the app has been made easier to navigate. It’s easy to glance at the app and immediately see the sun’s position in the sky, the sunrise and sunset times, and the current moon phase. By tapping on a location, you can view detailed information about the sun and moon, and also see your location on a world map. This app’s graphics are absolutely beautiful, and the interface is extremely easy to navigate. There’s even a graphic that explains the altitude and azimuth to you.

Bottom Line: This update has made Darkness just that much more useful and pretty. It makes it easy to quickly find out where the sun is in the sky, and even where it will be at this time on a specific date. I can see it being a very useful tool for photographers, who need to know information about the light that they’re shooting in. This is the best app for finding out information about the sun and moon, and worth the $2.

I give Darkness 2.0 4 out of 5 suns

Price: $1.99

trumcgowan

Read the Darkness v1 review here.

The Frogman's Lightning Review #7

Sat, 23 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

App: Service Bell

Verdict: It dings.

ez Date Calc

Fri, 22 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

And now for my next review in my “nine tool” series. Have you ever had a deadline but weren’t sure how many days you had left to complete your task? Meet ez Date Calc.

Features: It features several ways to calculate time. You can figure out how many days are between two dates. You can add days to a date to find out what day your..say..30-day trial will end. It also lets you see what day of the week a certain day falls on. It even features a solar-lunar converter.

Conclusion: This is a very full featured app that has simple controls. Some features may never be used by the average person but if you have to deal with deadlines then this may be the app for you.

I give this app 3 out of 5 marked off days

☒ ☒ ☒

Price: Free (part of a free event)

Samuel lewis (labtec7)

Pocket Tanks (Incoming!!!!)

Thu, 21 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

This is war son….. get out there and blast the enemy with your…..Magic Beans?

Most of us have seen some sort of tank battle game, and Pocket Tanks has been around for a long time. It’s available on Mac and PC and finally it comes to the iphone/touch. This is as close as it gets to the PC version, and I paid for that version years ago and loved it. Disclaimer: I’m using a free copy from Blitwise for this review.

This version is pretty much a smaller version of the PC game, with the free version you get 35 weapons from a simple one shot to napalm and a laser gun. Moving up to the full version gets you another 70 weapons including nukes and a rail gun. There are no defenses unless you use a weapon like dirt to cover yourself until it gets blown off by enemy fire. Dirt is also good to cover the enemy since many weapons shot from under dirt will damage the shooter. At the start you can set the music and effects on or off then go to options. Adjust music and sound effects volume, and under game settings there are many choices that change how the game plays, such as the terrain type, explosion size, wind speed and more. A nice option is weapon selection, where you decide what weapons are available later, when you choose your weapons from a list of randomly selected choices. I turn off a few of the weapons I don’t really like but you may have your own tastes so this means you don’t get something you don’t want. Next you choose 1 or 2 player on the same device,(sorry no wi-fi play), or practice, where you control both tanks and have unlimited ammo and all weapons. Practice is great to explore the way each weapon reacts on the different terrain types, like flats, hills, and valleys. In one or two player you choose tank colors, player names, and difficulty level. Then your taken to the weapon shop and a scrolling list of 20 weapons randomly picked by the game. Take turns choosing or hit the random button and the game picks for you. You get 10 shots in turn and 4 chances to move if your on relatively smooth ground. There is no saving games, and if you quit mid game you start over. The game is short enough that you wont care much about saves and your score isn’t saved either so nobody will know if you suck. The interface is a combo of on screen buttons and slides to adjust angle of gun and power of each shot, but the angle can be set by dragging your finger on the screen to aim.

The ground is destructible…(is that a word?)…so you can use it to your advantage by blasting the enemy into a pit with a jackhammer, then filling it full of napalm..MMmmm MMmmm Bar-B-Q.

I give Pocket Tanks 5out of 5 Bulls-eyes.

Price: free

Price: $4.99 Deluxe

“I love the smell of pretend napalm on the ipod”

Beltane

Corners

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Corners is one of the best, least useful apps that I’ve ever used.

Gameplay (?) : Have you ever stared at a screensaver for hours, waiting for the logo that was bouncing off of your computer or tv screen’s ‘walls’ to hit exactly in the corner?

Corners brings this awesome and frustrating experience to your iPhone or iPod Touch. You simply watch the square bounce off the edges of the screen, until finally it bounces into the corner, the screen flashes, and you’re suddenly the coolest person in the room.

In case you want to become cool twice as fast, you can change the speed of the bouncing square in the settings portion of the app, and you can also change the color of the square by tapping it.

Bottom Line: It’s a wonder that such a simple concept can be so entertaining, but I can remember spending literally hours in front of a tv just watching the bouncing DVD logo, waiting for that moment of truth. This is a fun little app that will entertain you for a couple of minutes, and make your life just that much better.

I give Corners 5 out of 5 bouncing corner blocks that will never hit the corner *evil laughter*

Price:FREE

trumcgowan

PicFree

Mon, 18 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

PicFree is an app for sending MMS messages to cell phones. It is like the other app that Pinger (the dev) makes called TextFree for sending SMS messages to cellphones.

Functionality:

The app works as described and doesnt’t do much else. What it does is let you pick an image from your photo album or camera roll and send it to a cell phone. You have to type in the whole number with an area code for it to work right. The app sends the message with the picture and optional text to go with it. The app names the picture it sends as picfree-### and uploads it to Pinger’s servers. Pinger then sends it to the cellphone number.

Pros:

It works great for what it does.

Cons:

You can’t send multiple photos. The app recompresses the photos you send so they have a lot of jpeg artifacts which is bad if you have a high - rez phone or you are sending to an email address. There are no conversations like TextFree.

Bottom Line:

The app does what it says, but has lame quality, although that might be a failing of MMS. It is a little expensive at $5.99 but if you need to MMS a lot, go buy it

I give this app 4/5 THAR heads:

Price: $5.99

–amddude

THAR Poll: Are there any features that the iPhone has that you wish your mac or PC had?

Sat, 16 May 2009 13:17:58 -0700

I wish Safari 4 had that ’.com’ button that mobile Safari has.

The Frogman's Lightning Review #6

Sat, 16 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

App: Fish

What do you do?: Tilt and aim your fish at green bubbles

Why do you do it?: To pop them

Why would a fish do this?: What am I? A fish psychologist? I don’t know why he does it.

Did you like this app?: If by “like” you mean I thought it was really stupid, then yes.

What would you rather do than use this app?: Unravel my belly button

Get Home

Fri, 15 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Get Home is a simple app designed to ‘get you home’ no matter where you are.

Getting Home: When you first launch Get Home you are prompted to either enter your home address, or use your current location as your home. When you get directions to your home using the app, this address/location will be used as the destination. You can also change your home location at any time by going to the Get Home pane in the Settings app.

The developer of this app said 'I expect drunk people to use this’ and I find this to be true. If you’re slightly drunk and can still read a map, you can tap the 'Where Am I?’ button in Get Home to locate yourself using the Google Maps app. If you’re slightly more drunk, you can 'get walking directions’, and this also links to the Google Maps app, and tells you the quickest route to get home on foot. If you’re even more wasted, you can tap either the 'Bus Route’ or 'Call Taxi’ buttons to find your way home via a bus, or call a taxi service nearby. Finally, at the '21st birthday’ level of drunkenness, you can either text or call a trusted friend to come pick you up.

While this app does all of these things perfectly, I can’t see myself using this app anytime except for when I’m completely wasted (which I never am). It is nice to have easy-to-read-(while-drunk) text and color-coded actions, but each of these types of directions can be obtained directly within the Google Maps app. This app is useful for those who can only see enough to tap on the pretty blue icon on their iPhone’s screen, and then tap on one of the pretty bars to find their way home without having to stumble their way through the Google Maps app (and the iPhone keyboard).

Graphics and Interface: While this app’s usefulness for me is limited, the graphics are downright gorgeous. Apple’s own shiny buttons don’t do justice to the graphics in this app.

Bottom Line: This app is perfect for drunk people who need to find their way home. The graphics are gorgeous, the text easy-to-read, and the colors nice and bright so each function can be easily distinguishable when you’re completely wasted. There are a few quirks; the app doesn’t work the best on the iPod Touch, as the Touch only has wifi-based locations services instead of a GPS, though the app was still able to give me walking directions, find a taxi service nearby, and locate me pretty accurately. And of course, the phone and text functions don’t work on the Touch. It would be nice if this app could link to other apps such as Skype and TextFree, but unfortunately this isn’t possible.

I give Get Home 3 out of 5 views of the app through beer goggles.

Price: $1.99

trumcgowan

LittleSnapper

Thu, 14 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

LittleSnapper is a simple tool that uploads photos from your iPhone to QuickSnapper.

Graphics and Interface: I need to join pretty apps anonymous. I just can’t stop myself from buying them. This app is just downright gorgeous. All the buttons and menus have an awesome polish to them, and every function works just like it’s supposed to. The only complaint that I have is that the button wheel on the main screen requires you to actually rotate the wheel to the icon that you want before you can tap it. Uploading photos is a snap (pun intended) and the app even supports multiple QuickSnapper accounts.

QuickSnapper: This app’s integration with QuickSnapper is seamless. When uploading a picture, snap of a webpage, or screenshot, you can edit the photo’s description, tags, and you can choose which QuickSnapper account you want to upload to. After your photo is uploaded, you can share the photo’s link via email, open the page in safari, or post a link to the photo on Twitter using either Tweetie, Twitterrific, or TwitterFon.

Bottom Line: The app is $3, and a QuickSnapper account is free. I use QuickSnapper as my repository for iPhone screenshots, but it’s useful for posting screenshots of webpages, and even iPhone pictures too. And it’s a beautiful app with a pretty icon.

I give LittleSnapper 4 out of 5 Little Snap Dragons

Price: $2.99

trumcgowan

FML

Wed, 13 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

I found this app while searching in the app store for entertainment apps. This app is not anything important by itself but the content that it delivers is great.

What it does:

This app reads content from a feed at fmylife.com. The content is little short anecdotes that people post about what has happened to them that is bad, and that makes them say “F MY LIFE!” The stories are quite entertaining and are in various categories such as love, money, kids, etc. You can shuffle to find a random FML, view recents, and look at the best and worst FMLs.

Where it fails:

The app crashes all the time and I mean like every 15 minutes. The newer update had fixed some of the problems with crashing but it is still very annoying. Also, you cannot post an FML from within the app. However, you are allowed to vote an FML up or down. Final verdict: The application is simple and crashy, but the stories it gives are completely stupid hilarious.

I give this app 3/5 FML app icons

Price: FREE

amddude

Mactracker

Tue, 12 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

MacTracker is a great app for mac that lists extensive details and specs for every model of apple device ever made. It has existed in both Mac and iPhone Webapp forms for a while, but just recently a MacTracker iPhone app was added to the app store.

Graphics and Interface: If you’ve used the MacTracker webapp before, you’ll be familiar with the interface of the iPhone app. Apple devices are categorized by type, and by tapping on a device name you can view very detailed information about it. If there is too much information in a device description to fit in one line, you can read the entire portion of the description by tapping on it. Unfortunately, unlike the webapp (or the mac app), the device icons aren’t displayed in the app, only a default macintosh icon is.

MacTracking: This iPhone app offers almost all of the same features as the desktop app. You can view extensive spec details, including processor information, video information, pricing information (you can even choose what currency you want the app to display) and any other hardware or software specs. You can even play the startup chime for any device.

Bottom Line: MacTracker is the ideal app for anyone needing to look up info on an apple device, though it’s not an app I think I’d keep on my home screen at all times; I wish the developers kept the webapp running. It would also be nice if the app displayed the device icons, though all other device information is detailed and correct.

I give MacTracker 4 our of 5 MacTrackPads

Price: FREE

trumcgowan

ez Currency

Mon, 11 May 2009 09:00:00 -0700

My time on this review site has been a few months now and I think it’s time i did a series of reviews..frogman does lightning reviews so it’s time I did something creative..or at least something..hence I will review a set of apps that can be downloaded separately or in one app together. The first of this group is called ez Currency.

Features: Converts any type of money you want to just about any other kind of money you want.The example above shows the dollar being converted to the pound. (stings a bit when you look at it if your in the US like I am)

Conclusion: A simple app that does just what it claims it does on the tin..or button as it were..A useful app for those that travel around the world a lot or just want to know how the native money of their respected country stacks up with the other currency

I give ez Currency 5 out of 5 dollars (that’s about ten pounds…sigh)

$ $ $ $ $

Price: Free (part of a free event)

Samuel Lewis (labtec7)

The Frogman's Lightning Review #5

Sat, 09 May 2009 13:32:34 -0700

App: Fine Button

Acting: Hasselhoff quality

Verdict: It’s a piece of shirt

What I’d rather be doing than use this app: Watching a Baywatch marathon with the sound ON.