The Christmas Card App by Equinux is a fun app, but very limited creatively. You are able to choose your picture to place in a ready made frame. The picture can be adjusted and zoomed. Text can be changed, however the note area at the bottom is very small and can't be centered. The card comes through fine on email - but when attempting to copy or save image the greeting line is not saved. Forwarding the email results in gibberish and HTML code splashed all over the place. Any text written at the bottom of your email bleeds into the card.
Some might call it a pointless app, but I call it moooooving!That’s right Erica Sadun’s app Moo (free) is an iPhone / iPod Touch version of the old school “moo box” open up the app and you see the image on the left, turn your iPhone upside down and out comes the moo. After goofing around with this app for a bit I found I could actually make a pretty good Formula One gear shifting sound if I shook my iPhone.
Also, if you'll forgive the self-promotion, some of my own apps are on sale! AutoRingtone PRO (normally $1.99) is half-price, at $0.99 and AutoRingtone MUSICAL Edition is FREE! Check 'em out at http://www.AutoRingtone.com!
If you've been paying close attention, as most developers do, to the App Store, you may have noticed some changes.
New Releases only show BRAND NEW apps, i.e. version 1.0
Updates are not included in the New Releases
This is potentially a good thing for users but there are some downsides.
The good news is, you won't have to search through old apps to find new gems. It might also discourage developers from submitting minor updates just to be featured on the New Releases page. That will also cut down on approval time as fewer apps need to be reviewed.
Orb sounds pretty neat, though I haven't yet tried it. They just released their software for the Mac yesterday, having been available for Windows for some time. According to their press release, the free Orb application and service enable the streaming of any media type from computers running Windows or the Mac OS, to any other internet-connected device including laptops, mobile phones, and even TVs connected to a game console. You're able to access all your music, photos, and video anywhere, anytime, without first having to download content to your iPhone or iPod touch.
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!
Apple recently announced a major shift in how they treat free apps and I have been mulling over what it means to developers, in addition to end users.
In the past, "In-App Purchases", or the ability to add features to an app, were only available for paid apps. Free apps could not be upgraded, short of purchasing the paid version separately. Now, users of these free apps can purchase upgrades.
On one hand, more choices are a good thing. But I have some concerns.
Fanboys and girls are understandable excited that EA has released Rockband for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The base game costs $9.95 and is 158 megs. Each song is reported to be between 10 and 20 megs each. People with smaller capacity devices may have to delete some content.
