Helen Crozier's my fabulous iPhone blog

blockchalk - like foursquare but anonymous

I'm on BlockChalk. It's the voice of your neighborhood. Use your mobile phone to leave messages on your block, your street, at the coffee shop, or anywhere you happen to be. Respond privately or publicly to messages from people in your neighborhood. It's easy: you don't even have to sign up.

Just go to http://blockchalk.com on your iPhone or Android phone and check it out. Or search the iPhone App Store for "blockchalk" to get the free app!

This app has great potential and would be appealing to those hesitant to use Foursquare due to safety concerns. One to demonstrate at your local precinct meeting perhaps!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

bump for iPhones makes business cards redundant

Bump for iPhone (and Android) makes it easy to swap contact details between iPhones.It's a free app downloadable from the iTunes store.

Make sure you have all the appropriate contact details in your phone for yourself including photo and any notes you would like the recipient to receive. You need to be in a wifi zone or have a data signal for your phone to be ready to bump but it's really simple and a lot of fun. I have successfully 'bumped' at my regular Thursday morning tweetup #nscm and intend to do a lot more!

The Australian Oxford Dictionary in your pocket

I appreciate the Australian Oxford Dictionary iPhone App for three reasons.

1) It contributes to streamlining my life - I looked at the hardback version in my bookstore and it's enormous! The application as we know takes up no space other than a tiny corner on my phone which is always within reach.

2) It is faster to use than the hardback version and has features not included with the traditional version. Many times I have looked up a word because I am unsure of how it is pronounced. This has helped me out of a couple of embarrassing moments!

3) The encyclopaedia section contains over 12,500 entries with special attention to Australian social culture and history.

It's not cheap at $29.99 and there are less expensive dictionaries around - I just appreciate the Australian content and the standard we expect from the 'Oxford'. Updates have been free since I purchased it last year. For those trying to justify an iPhone, ipod Touch or iPad - a more practical and serious application you will not find!

iTunes Link to Australian Oxford Dictionary

Pastebot Command Copy & Paste Magic for iPhone/Touch

Yes it was exciting when the iPhone update gave the screaming crowds 'cut, copy and paste'. I have however found something really worth getting excited about. Pastebot Command Copy and Paste is a divine little application with rave reviews from the iTunes store. 

It stores up to 100 images and text in the clipboard Tapbots folder. If you require storage for more items you can set up more folders. You are then able to access these items and transform them into something more useful if necessary. Images may be cropped and transformed using filters. Captions may be added. Text can be converted to lower/upper case etc.  Simply add to image library or share by email when you are finished.

As with other apps by Tapbots (Convertbot and Weightbot) the interface is slick, fun to use and so far seems without bugs.

A bonus for Mac users. Free Pastebot sync software - when your Mac is 'connected' to your iPhone/Touch whatever you add to the clipboard on the Mac will be available in the Pastebot folder too.

How will I use this? To make images more relevant when sending to blogs or social networking sites for sure. Adding comments to images should also be useful I imagine when sending visual information.

If you use Pastebot how has it made you more productive when using the iPhone?

iTunes Link to Pastebot ($3.99AUD)

Watch this video and prepare to be entranced!

Optus Sydney Festival Buddy iPhone app starts off wrong but reacts to iTunes user reviews

Summer is an exciting time for Sydneysiders - the festival that takes part in January is top entertainment. It seemed only natural that the iPhone would be asked to take a more active part in helping us all choose which events we might attend and this happened with Optus's free Festival Buddy Application released on 20th December 2009.

I downloaded the application a week ago but was horrified that upon opening it I was greeted by some rather dubious terms and conditions that I needed to accept before using the software. 

Basically I needed to agree to receiving push notifications and SMS messages from Optus and it's suppliers. I did not accept this and the feedback on the iTunes store was loud and clear - beware and do not download, accusing Optus of terrible motives (which I had to agree with).

Thankfully feedback has been listened to. The Terms and Conditions have been changed and we are now told that information will not be collected from Festival Buddy users for any marketing purposes. Phew! A crazy, careless situation has been fixed but I wonder how much damage was done? 

Let's just hope that the stability of the app has been sorted out too. This was another issue reviewers had. 

I've downloaded the app now and will test it out. Have you used it and how would you rate it? Also, how often do you review/rate iPhone apps, even ones you are not happy with? 

Download Link to Optus Sydney Festival Buddy (iTunes)

Sydney Festival Website

Sydney Festival Blog - (a nice use of posterous)

Sydney Festival Twitter.

Posted via email from iphonequeen

iPhone App: Explore the Louvre sans 'sore feet'

 

The Louvre is enormous and unfortunately on both occasions I've been there I have had limited time so have not explored the entire museum. Two nights ago I went there virtually however on my iphone. What fun! We explored the parts we had seen and discovered a few that we had missed. We even got up close and personal with some of the art which we had not of course been able to do when we were there for real three years ago.

The app is divided into these sections: Tour of the Louvre, Artworks, The Palace, and Visitor Information. Included in the application is a map of the gallery, video's and commentaries. I would hope that as time goes on the app will expand it's collection but in the meantime it is a most enjoyable way to spend 15 minutes in one of the greatest art museums of the world.

Navigation is very agreeable, the application is free and I'm happy! Which other museum applications do you have on your iphone or ipod touch?

Musee du Louvre Website
Musee du Louvre iPhone app

Coles Shopmate - doesn't find my local store!

 

 

It seems that 'retail' has finally decided that a lot of people own iPhones and therefore they should jump on the application bandwagon.

Coles say that the app will help you....

"Plan your shopping, discover delicious new recipes and stay informed of all the latest weekly specials with Coles ShopMate for iPhone.

Coles Shopmate combines the convenience and range of your local Coles supermarket with a host of powerful take-anywhere features unique to the iPhone. "

All well and good but my local Coles (around 1 kilometre from my house) hasn't hit the database yet and even though it has been open for over four months it doesn't come up in the list of local stores to choose from. That to me I'm afraid is a big 'fail' Coles and makes the application unusable. The store IS on the website database though so a tiny bit of tweaking should put me in the position of being able to properly trial the program.

I think this could be a useful program - recipes, shopping list & specials catalogue combined - has anyone used it? If they had my store would I find it useful? I'd be very keen to hear how it compares with the standard iPhone shopping lists. Is it useful or is it more of a gimmick?

Simply Tweet Upgrades to V2.5 with nice features

 

Simply Tweet upgraded to version 2.5 today. What's nice? Being able to send DM's that are over 140 characters! I don't know how far over they let you go but I went to 168 characters and didn't get any red lights - how brilliant.

I did see in the upgrade notice on iTunes as I was updating that in future upgrades Simply Tweet will synchronise your new twitter 'lists' which seems nice.

'Views' are no longer called 'views' but lists in line with that I guess. There are plenty more 'features' that are new to this upgrade. Read more at Simply Tweet.

I find it the best iPhone twitter app that exists - and I've tried a few!! If you use Simply Tweet what are the standout features for you?

Evernote iPhone App - forget those sticky notes now!

Dear iPhone

Thank you so much for being so incredibly useful! You truly are my spare brain. Today I had to race out the door and I tried after my bad experience on Friday to grab pen and paper just in case something happened while I was outdoors and would be unable to snap photos for any reason. Stupidly I wrote down the wrong phone number or wrote so badly I couldn't read what the numbers were. Hopeless! I was however completely happy when I realised that I had send the information I needed to a note in Evernote on my desktop. I went into the Evernote iPhone app, let it sync and download any changes and voila there was my note with all the information and phone numbers I needed to complete a small but urgent job while I was out.

The Evernote iPhone application has been around for some time but I am now finding the latest version the most exciting of all. The landscape view of notes is fabulous and the app seems very stable and much quicker to access important bits.

Thanks for saving my bacon this time!

ShapeUp/TripView/Tweetie updates

My Dearest iPhone

Thank you so much for...

Shapeup  - still helping me eat less, make educated decisions and therefore lose weight. Brilliant!

TripView - apparently the Manly Jetcat timetable is in there - thanks for that!!

Tweetie 2 - absolutely LOVE the 'add to contact' feature which I will write a 'how to' about soon. Basically click on the address card in the profile and it will import the avatar, twitter url and notes into your contacts either updating an existing one or addding new... how good is that?

hugs as always...

Hxxx