Technomaly » app

Transfer Cash By Bumping iPhones

Asterios Kokkinos — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:06:51 +0000

For months we’ve been reading stories of upcoming technology designed to turn your iPhone into a device to collect money – through credit card swipe readers, mostly. Today, PayPal’s jumped in on the action by releasing a new iPhone application that allows the transfer of money from one person to another via the bumping together of iPhones.

The app uses tech from Bump Technologies, which originally developed the software to transfer contact information between phones. It also comes with a feature to split a dinner check, including tax and tip, so everyone can transfer their cash to a single person who’d then pay the entire bill.

According to the New York Times, payments are free between PayPal accounts or banks, and fees vary if a credit card’s used. Given that PayPal’s motto is, “Give us 2% of everything you own,” I can see them making a ton of money off microtransactions here. In fact, mobile transactions with PayPal jumped from 24 million transactions in 2008 to an astounding 140 million transactions in 2009, so there’s definitely a market here.

Get bumpin!

What The Hell Is “Chomp?”

Asterios Kokkinos — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:00:50 +0000

Well, Chomp, you got my attention. I just read a headline marked, “Chomp surpasses 300,000 users,” which makes sense as the service is named Chomp, and Chomp is a cool name for something. But what the hell is Chomp?

Well, Chomp is an iPhone app that allows you to review other iPhone apps. Recursiveness aside, there’s a need for this, as the iTunes app store is a confusing, frustrating maze of content and wasted money. You can see what apps your friends recommend, or what the entire Chomp community thinks of an app.

App developers can also add a “Chomp Connect” button to their apps which allows users to chomp the app without even loading the program.

Has anyone reviewed Chomp on Chomp yet? Someone hurry, Chomp may at this point be unChomped!

Source & Photo Source: TechCrunch

New App Measures iPhone Radiation

Asterios Kokkinos — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:00:38 +0000

Israeli startup Tawkon (get it? “talk on?”) has developed an iPhone app that claims to monitor the radiation emitted by your iPhone at any given point in time. The app, which is not a hilarious “joke app” designed to scare you about cancer, was apparently in development for 18 months, uses complex algorithms, and has some very scary graphics that essentially make the iPhone look like a cancer machine.

How exactly does the program claim to measure radiation? I’d explain it here, but it’s pretty complicated – here’s a list of the variables the program uses to judge radiation output:

distance from cellular towers
weather
proximity of the antenna from the body
the way in which you’re holding the iPhone
bluetooth
accelerometer
GPS
terrain
travel speed

I’ve got no idea if this thing works at all – and you may never find out, as the app’s been held up in iTunes App Store approval limbo for weeks. Still, if the program does come out, it’ll be in the $5-$10 dollar range. Additionally, android and blackberry versions are being developed, and the approval process for those stores is much less insane.

Source & Photo Source: TechCrunch

Wi-Fi Stumblers Vanish From App Store

Asterios Kokkinos — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:18:27 +0000

Apple’s really gotta knock this off. Once again, we all wake up to a story of Apple arbitrarily removing apps from their iTunes App Store – some which have been sold for years – for vauge and arbitrary reasons.

Today’s victims? Wi-Fi stumbling programs like WiFiFoFum, WiFi-Where and yFy Network Finder, which are all designed to help you find open wireless networks. You know, the same thing your iPhone does when you ask it to.

The reason? “Using private frameworks to access wireless information.” What? Why not just ban the iPhone from accessing any unprotected network, then? Because that’d have an even better effect on halting access to unprotected wireless networks.

The days of the one-man iPhone app developer are quickly vanishing – if you can’t be sure that your app won’t be removed for no good reason, why even bother spending the hours and hours coding the program in the first place?

Source & Photo Source: Mashable

Final Fantasy: Now on the iPhone

Asterios Kokkinos — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:01:48 +0000

And a great horde of moogles and chocobos rejoiced, as their franchise, straight and true, landed on that most chosen of platforms!

Final Fantasy – specifically, Final Fantasy’s I and II – have arrived for the iPhone, greedily sucking apart whatever was left of your free time. The twin franchise leaders – the second of which is the actual Japanese Final Fantasy II and not the NES version of Final Fantasy II (which was really Final Fantasy IV) – are available now in the iTunes store for $8.99 each, a mere pittance when compared to the hours of fun they’ll bring!

And are the graphics updated? As Sarah Palin would say, You Betcha! They look to be the same or similar versions as to the ones released for PSP a few years ago. Check out these sweet screenshots Mashable pulled, and tell me with a straight face that this isn’t the most exciting thing to happen to the iPhone since 3g.

Source & Photo Source: Mashable

Hulu Coming To iPad

Asterios Kokkinos — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:00:17 +0000

The good news: Hulu’s coming to the iPad, giving people one more reason to buy one of the damn things. Access to every single episode of Lost on a beautiful screen while waiting at the airport? That’s a good thing.

The bad news: they may charge money for the app, which as we all know, is free over the internet. That’s according to All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka, who says he’s got this news from multiple sources within the organization.

Makes sense to me – Hulu’s not making any money right now; it’s kind of losing its shirt in fact. Those little fifteen second commercials they run between acts of your favorite television shows aren’t making the networks much money at all, so the idea of Hulu charging a premium for iPad access makes sense. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’d be the surest way for the service to make a little cash. If you’ve got the scratch for an iPad, surely you have the $5-$10 for an app that’ll allow you to access all of Babylon 5.

Still, I’m bracing myself for the nerdrage. “Boo! Give us everything we want, right now, for free or we’ll murder you!!”

Source & Photo Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Google Shopper Allows For Mobile Comparison Shopping

Asterios Kokkinos — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:00:20 +0000

Another useful, mind bending app from Google Labs? Yeah, it’s expected at this point, but still very cool – a few days ago, Google introduced “Google Shopper,” a program that turns your Android handset into a mobile price scanner. You simply point your phone at the box art or barcode of something you’d like to buy, and presto – instant product information and price comparison across other retailers.

In addition to the barcode or box art scanners, you can also do a traditional text search or voice search. I think I’ll stick to the barcode scanner for obvious reasons of coolness and helping me feel as if I’m in the future. The app, which is currently a Google Labs feature, could well soon be bundled with new Android handsets, which would deal a real blow to price gougers everywhere. Knowledge is power!

Here’s Google’s self released video of the app in action.

Source & Photo Source: Mashable

2 iPhone Apps To Help Battle Climate Change Deniers

Asterios Kokkinos — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:00:12 +0000

FastCompany, a website I fall in love with more and more each day, has created a list of two iPhone apps to help you spread the news that the planet is dying. Fun!

Their first recommendation is SkepticalScience, an app that provides you with common climate change denier talking points, and then gives you the appropriate response. So the next time someone’s like, “Where’s all the global warming? It’s snowing,” instead of punching them in the face, you can just bring up the fact that global weather patterns being altered is creating both record high and low temperatures. THEN you can punch them in the face.

SkepticalScience is my favorite app, but Jungfrau Climate Guide is pretty awesome too. It’s a scenic look at the Jungfrau region of Switzerland, telling you exactly how different it’s become due to global warming. Also, apparently you can aim it at any glacier and it’ll tell you how big that glacier is supposed to be. While me and my iPhone aren’t usually hanging around glaciers, it’s still pretty cool.

For more info on these apps, Google them, you lazy son of a gun. What am I, your internet maid?

Source & Photo Source: FastCompany

PMSBuddy Tracks Girlfriend’s Periods, You Jerk

Asterios Kokkinos — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:00:55 +0000

TechCrunch just turned me on to an iPhone app that’s as unnecessary as it is hilarious. It’s called PMSBuddy, and is designed to tell you, a frightened male who’s uncomfortable with how the female body works, when he should hide in his room playing Fallout 3.

As someone who’s actually dated girls, let me tell you – PMS isn’t actually that big of a deal. It’s not a Jeckyl/Hyde transformation from reasonable intelligent partner to savage, chocolate popping monster. Girls are always crazy, regardless of what time of the month it happens to be.

That being said, if you really need an application to tell you when your girlfriend’s period is, well, here you go. It’s available as an iPhone app, a website and a facebook widget, and is used by approximately 100,000 terrified adult males worldwide.

Coming soon: FertilityBuddy, an app that allows you to determine when your significant other is ovulating. I’m not kidding. I wish I was kidding. I’m not kidding.

Source & Photo Source: TechCrunch

The App Store: Now With 100% Less Fun!

Asterios Kokkinos — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:00:50 +0000

Many of you have likely been hearing about the iPhone App Store’s crackdown on suggestive or titillating apps. The common thread in all the stories has been a deliberate vagueness on Apple’s part – they know if they define the content they don’t want as a list of rules then developers are just going to create content that follows those rules but is still suggestive. By keeping the definition of suggestive as “whatever we say it is,” Apple retains editorial control.

So given that infuriating but suggestive strategy, one wonders why an Apple employee defined the do’s and dont’s of the iPhone App Store for TechCrunch. Regardless of the brightness of the move, here’s the list:

No images of men or women in bikinis or ice skating tights. No word yet as to bikinis over ice skating tights are OK.
No “skin”? Hilariously, the TechCrunch reported then asked the Apple employee if Burqa’s were OK, and the Apple guy got angry.
No suggestive silhouettes. Damn, so much for my new iPhone app, “ShadowBreasts.”
No innuendo…and we all know what that means! I’d censor that app anyday!
Nothing that can be sexually arousing. Sorry Anderson Cooper, you’re outta here!
No apps that in any way imply sexual content, although apparently, the Playboy app is still in the store.

It’s a brave new world for Apple, or 1984, or whatever – pick your crappy literary metaphor that I have a tenuous hold on – this is straight up bad news.

Source: TechCrunch

Wired Magazine: Now On The iPad

Asterios Kokkinos — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:00:37 +0000

Wired Magazine’s new iPad application is essentially an issue of Wired you can read on your iPad. Which is pretty much all I need to hear to get excited. Although saying that Wired’s on the iPad now is the exact same thing as saying, “Wired Magazine just got much more expensive and harder to read! Also, unlike now, when you drop it you break it entirely!”

Below is some sweet, sweet video of the iPad/Wired combo platter in action.

While the iPad at this point refuses to promote Flash, it’s more than happy to promote the fact that the magazine runs on Adobe AIR. Interesting double standard, Apple.

Mashable had some nice observations that I completely missed, namely: the fact that the magazine can be turned 360, hand gesture navigation, dual axis navigation (which I do not understand), and Twitter/Facebook integration. I must admit, the idea of highlighting and tweeting text directly from an issue of a magazine out to your friends is pretty damn cool.

I’m still skeptical as to whether or not we even need an iPad, but hey, let’s hope we keep getting impressed by these apps.

Wolfram Alpha Updates Their $50 iPhone App

Asterios Kokkinos — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:00:11 +0000

For those who don’t remember, Wolfram Alpha is a website that answers user questions by directly computing the answer, instead of crawling the web for the answer like a traditional search engine. They sell an iPhone app of their website that sells for…get this…FIFTY DOLLARS.

Going to the Wolfram Alpha website? Free. Visiting the Wolfram Alpha website on my iPhone? Free. Downloading an app that replicates the website experience? FIFTY DOLLARS.

Well, to help users get more bang for their buck (or FIFTY BUCKS), Wolfram Alpha has released a new set of keyboards for their app that are actually quite cool. Alpha now comes with a “math” keyboard, a “symbol” keyboard, and a “Greek keyboard, all designed for nerds to enter their nerd math quieres in a more nerdly way.

Still, FIFTY DOLLARS? How about I give you geeks wedgies until you give it to me for free? Oh who am I kidding, these guys could probably use their fancy computer to calculate my weak spot with amazing accuracy.

My weak spot? Cake.

Source & Photo Source: TechCrunch

Apple Bans The Word “Android” From The App Store

Asterios Kokkinos — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:00:55 +0000

“Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?” could soon read, “Do ********s Dream Of Electric Sheep?”

At least in the App store. Last week new regulations came down the pipe from Apple banning the word “Android” from being mentioned in any app descriptions. The culprit that caused the ban was Tim Novikov, whose “Flash of Genius” SAT prep flashcard app mentioned its status as a “finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s [sic] Challenge.”

First off, you probably shouldn’t be using the word “developer’s” in that context if you’re creating SAT prep materials. But besides that, it seems like a fairly innocuous mention of a competitor.

“Competitor? SMASH THEM!” responded Steve Jobs. Actually, here’s the official statement:

“Providing future platform compatibility plans or other general platform references are not relevant in the context of the iPhone App Store.”

Other words banned from the app store? “Boobs” and “Booty.” The word “Android” sure is joining some illustrious company.

Source: Appscout

Guy To Create iPhone App Live, Over One Week

Asterios Kokkinos — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:00:06 +0000

Starting Sunday, February 7th, iPhone app developer Sahil Lavingia will be creating an iPhone app live at www.oneweekapp.com. Lavingia, creator of the iPhone app’s Twizzle and Color Stream, says he’ll be posting “timelapses, screenshots, and other notes” in order to allow you to watch the work of an iPhone app, from scratch, happen.

What will the app be? We don’t know yet! Will he be able to accomplish his task? We don’t know that either! I do know this – I’d like it to be a game where iPhones punch Nexus One’s in the face for control of the galaxy.

That or some kind of really, really good calculator. Anyway, we at Technomaly will be following the progress of this guy’s app, and will alert you if it’s not incredibly boring.

Source: MacWorld

The App Store Is Coming! The App Store Is Coming!

Asterios Kokkinos — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:00:14 +0000

Google’s App Store is right around the corner – hooray for the 12 people out there who own a Nexus One!

Actually, this is great news for anyone running Android – soon, you’ll be able to download crappy application after crappy application just like your iPhone’d counterparts.

According to the Wall Street Journal, many of the applications planned will be third party add-ons to Google’s existing suite – programs like Gchat, Gmail, Google Maps may soon get programs enhancing their security, filling in gaps in their word processing or allowing for better porting of information.

As someone who’se already in love with the Gsuite (I’ve been using Gmail since college), this is pretty cool news. Hopefully Google won’t be as iron fisted about what they allow or disallow as Apple, who, according to NPR, rejected an application for including the word “fuck.”

Rumor has it that Google will drop it’s announcement in March – when we get more information, we’ll let you know.

Source: Mashable

Image Source: HTCpedia