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Yet another site for helping you find useful apps is appSpace, which says it has the world's most powerful recommendation engine. You can create an account and then specify the App Store categories that you tend to favor, your interests, your favorite apps, and your ratings for the apps that you like. Then it makes recommendations. This is an amazing site with a lot of potential, but so far of the recommendations it's given me, there's just one app I was glad to find. You can get a flavor of how this site works without having to register by using their cute gizmo on the front page. But you don't really get any utility unless you spend some time building your profile. The neat thing about this site is that it learns.
The web is a buzz with information that Apple may further develop iTunes into a monthly $30 subscription service for TV and movies as reported in Forbes today. Peter Kafka of All Things Digital indicates multiple sources indicate that Apple may be ready to take on the likes of Hulu and Zillion and tap into the growing trend of people's viewing habits shifting from traditional TV or cable and towards the internet.
Easy Stitch 1.0 (iPhone, iPod) provides full-color, step-by-step instructions on how to get started in knitting, crocheting and embroidering.
If you've ever wanted to be a part of Deal Or No Deal you have three choices. First, try and get on the show. For most people, that probably won't happen. The second would be to play Deal Or No Deal: Around The World on your iPhone. The third would be to just sit in front of the TV and make comments while the show is playing, even though you know the people on the TV can't hear you (or at least I hope you know that). If your choice is between 2 and 3, I'd opt for choice number 3. You might be a little less disappointed.
Oceanhouse Media was kind enough to send me a few complimentary apps to review (and my apologies Karen for the tardiness of this review). If you are not familiar with Oceanhouse Media they are "dedicated to building high-quality products that educate, uplift, enlighten and heal the planet." The company was founded by Michel Kripalani.
I think augmented reality is so cool, with so many potential applications. Imagine pointing your camera at a tree and having text appear atop the image giving you information about what type it is. Or traveling in an unfamiliar city and as you point your camera at historical sites, text appears on the screen giving you background information. So Mosquitoes ($0.99) is a new augmented reality game — which must be one of the first. As you point the camera at your environment, you see mosquitoes in the picture.
On Friday night, the "Year of the iPhone" began in China when the device officially went on sale there.
The following pricing is listed on Wired.com: "An 8GB model of the iPhone is estimated to sell for 2,400 yuan ($350), and a 16GB may be sold at 4,800 yuan ($700)", while China Daily is reporting that "An iPhone 3GS handset (without connection) costs 4,999 yuan ($733), more than half of the country's per capita urban disposable income, and about 25 percent more than what it sells for in Hong Kong." However, the phone will come without wi-fi at the behest of the Chinese government.
Yesterday I posted about a new app, Babelshot, that lets you take a photo of text in a foreign language and then translates it. Today I learned of another: PicTranslator. It has 16 languages, compared to Babelshot's 33. It's cheaper at $0.99, but that only includes one language. You can buy additional languages via in-app purchasing at $0.99 each, or you can buy all languages for $1.99. Five of the languages include audio translation, which is helpful. Again, I think this is a pretty cool use of the built-in camera.
Free Halloween Sounds (free) is just plain fun, what it is is fifteen free spooky sound effects (bats, ghosts, chainsaws, creaky floors, etc) and a spooky soundtrack you can play in the background. To kick it up a notch just get a mini jack to 1/4" stereo jack and plug it into your sound system for Halloween and really give the kids a fright! I've been playing with this thing so much even my son is getting tired of it, and he's 7!
I'm amazed by all the creative uses developers are finding for the iPhone camera. One of the latest is the just-released Babelshot. If you're in a situation where you have a bit of text in a foreign language that you need to translate, such as a restaurant menu, you can simply take a photo of the item, select the portion of the text you want to translate, and Babelshot does the rest. It supports automatic translation between 32 languages. You don't need to do any typing or anything. Babelshot only works for small amounts of text. You can also optionally enter in text manually. The app is $1.99.
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