Price at Press Time: $2.99
Category: Productivity
Version: 1.0.2
Website: www.buddybirdtodo.com
iTunes: Buddy Bird ToDo for iPhone

Productivity tools are perhaps the most important tools we possess. They are the hub through which all information is processed, delegated, deferred and/or accomplished. Knowing the outline of your day – or coming week – is an essential part of fulfilling your responsibilities and obligations across settings. A great system can assist you in capturing and “filing” everything exactly where it should be, with little friction, assuring you that nothing has been missed. When there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place, your mind can be free from clutter and worry making life that much more enjoyable. Any task management solution worth its weight has at least the minor possibility of making these things possible.

Buddy Bird ToDo is a task management solution for your iPhone, with a twist – it can read tasks to you aloud. Though text-to-speech is fairly well done, and an obviously valuable feature, Buddy Bird must still stand its ground as a productivity tool. Let’s first take a look at how it stacks up against the plethora of task management solutions already in the wild.

Syncing

With Buddy Bird ToDo, it’s important to talk about syncing services upfront. There are two options – iCloud and ToodleDo. If you are already a ToodleDo user or migrating your task list from one of the 25 iOS applications that use the service as its syncing solution, this is fantastic news. It means that all of your lists, current todo’s, past to-done’s and long overdue’s will sync flawlessly from ToodleDo to Buddy Bird. If this applies to you, setup is a dream.

Adding a List, Context or Area of Responsibility

We all have different areas of responsibility in life. Work, home, errands etc.. In any todo app, it is extremely helpful if these contexts can have their own separate list with their own separate tasks assigned to them. In Buddy Bird, lists are located at the top of the main section, appearing as scrollable tabs. There are five default lists – All, Today, Soon, Overdue and Tips¹. To add a list of your own, such as Home or Work, swipe the tabs at the top to the left until you come to the plus sign at the end. Tap the plus sign, type the list name and tap ‘create.’ All done.

Lists (or contexts) are really handy because some tasks can only be completed in a specific location with specific tools. It makes sense for those items to be organized as such so at any given time, in any location, you are able to view only the tasks in which you can complete. Having 40 tasks stare you in the face, 30 of which you can do nothing about, never helped anyone’s anxiety. Do yourself a favor and set up some well considered lists.

To edit a list’s name or delete it altogether, long tap and release to trigger a pop-up menu. Choose the appropriate option and go to town. Just be careful when deleting a list as I haven’t quite figured out if the associated todo’s default to another list, or are completely decimated in the process. I have a sneaking suspicion that they all go the way of the dodo.

Adding a Task

Adding a task is made simple. From within the list you wish to assign your task to, tap the plus sign at the bottom-center of the screen to trigger the task entry mode. Type your title and select your options. You can add notes, select your start and end dates, set to repeat, assign a category, assign an action, add to a list and even set an alarm. I have only two hang-ups with the process – setting start & end dates and recurring task options.

Setting a start and end date is not optional, it must be done – for every single task. Even if you do not enter a value, each field defaults to one which cannot be removed. ² This is great if every task you have on your list requires such detail, but some tasks require only a ‘due’ date while others – those destined for a ‘someday’ list – require no dates at all. It would be nice to have the ability to remove that from a task.

Secondly, recurring tasks are extremely limited as there are only 4 options to choose from – None, Daily, Weekly and Monthly. It would be really helpful to be able to drill that down a bit more, or expand on it. For example, setting a recurring task for the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month. You’d be surprised how many recurring tasks I have that are set up exactly as such.

One-touch Actions

If need be, an action can be assigned to any or every task you create. “Call, SMS, Email and Browse” are the options currently available to be set as actions. Once an action has been chosen, and your todo item saved, it can be executed from the task list without ever drilling into the tasks details. It simply requires that you tap the action icon that is associated with that task. The browse option cannot be set to call on a specific URL, rather searching Google for your text input is all it will do. Not a deal breaker except for the fact that any search performed is restricted to the in-app browser which has zero navigation, not so much as an “open in Safari” option.

Changing a Priority Level

I myself do not delve into priorities as I find that everything ends up as a high priority. I mean, if it’s not a priority at some point, why would it go on my list? That said, if you make good use of prioritization, it’s pretty easy with Buddy Bird. From the task details page, tap on the feather and select the option that best fits, from the pop-up. From here, an item can be starred as well. Prioritization can be helpful if you want to sort tasks by priority as opposed to date or title – the trouble is the probability that something time sensitive will slip through the cracks.

Marking Complete

Beside each task is a box of white space bordered by gray. Tapping within that box will mark your task as complete. Once any task is checked off, it is sent to the “Done” section which can be accessed by tapping the icon situated directly to the left of the “add a task” plus sign.

Sorting and Searching

One size does not fit all. Sometimes, we prefer our tasks and todo lists are organized in a specific way. Other times, we simply need an efficient way to sort them in order to locate an item we can’t seem to find. Above your tasks, within every list, is an icon that resembles an outline – tapping this icon will give you options for sorting. Whether you need to view your tasks by title, date or priority, Buddy Bird has you covered. Each can be ordered by ascending or descending values.

If sorting your tasks does not do the trick, you can always use the search feature, accessed by tapping the magnifying glass icon. Searching is done real time – as you type – so results come fast.

Themes

Within the settings panel, you can choose from one of 19 themes. However, themes are not quite themes as you would imagine them. Applied themes do little or nothing to the UI other than change the background. Most everything else remains the same. I felt a little disappointed as Buddy Bird really felt like a app I wanted to customize a bit. Perhaps a change in terminology from “theme” to “wallpaper” would have been less of a let-down for me.

Text to Speech

Buddy Bird’s claim to fame – the feature truly unique to the application – is text to speech. It is, to my knowledge, the only task management application that will read your tasks to you. The voice output needs refinement as it does not, in it’s current state, sound very natural. That said, she will read the list name, and how many tasks are on that list before she starts to read individual tasks. Individual tasks, up to 35, are read as Title, Date and Time. I really like the innovation here and can see some really good use case scenarios – such as reviewing my work list during my commute to work – if this feature is refined a bit further. As it stands, even after adjusting the TTS settings, it is sometimes hard to discern what is being said, where one tasks ends and another begins. Nonetheless, I hope the developer will continue to iterate on this feature as I think it really sets it apart from other task management applications.

Wishlist

1. Desktop version – when it comes to todo applications, a desktop counterpart is almost a must these days. The lack of such a platform is certainly a strike against Buddy Bird – if not a deal breaker altogether.
2. Simplified design aesthetic – Buddy Bird’s interface is fun, but it distracts from the focus of the application, which is getting things accomplished.
3. Make better use of the screen – almost 1/4 of the iPhone (4S) screen goes completely unused as all functions are confined to a fixed box that occupies the other 3/4. Remove the background, shift tabs to the top and extend field input and task lists to the edges of the screen.
4. Remove the tips tab – the tips tab contains very little useful information. I vote to remove it.
5. Customizable app badge – currently, it seems the app badge defaults to due + overdue. I would love to see the option to refine and customize the badge display and what it represents.
6. Finally, voice output options – while I prefer the soothing sounds of a female voice with an American English accent, not everyone will. If the developer can open this feature up to include voice options – maybe even as in-app purchases – I can see this sort of thing taking off. Right now, you’re stuck with one lady voice, whether you like her or not.

Conclusion

Buddy Bird ToDo for iPhone is a solid option for the average person looking to get organized. If you are heavily rooted in GTD, however, you will find the application lacking in some areas. That said, not everyone needs a system that follows GTD so closely, so I think Buddy Bird will be a great fit for a lot of users looking for a novel, fun and upbeat task manager. The TTS feature is an amazing idea which could work wonders for this app if refined and expanded upon. Buddy Bird ToDo is a great version 1 release and I look forward to seeing some of the improvements and feature sets to come with future iterations.

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Price at Press Time: FREE
Category: Productivity
Version: 1.0.1
Developer: Orchestra, Inc.
Website: www.mailboxapp.com
iTunes: Mailbox for iPhone

Designed 30 years ago, traditional email transmission is clunky and slow.

This is the problem – since its inception, not a lot has been done to bring email up to speed with our modern lives. It remains much of what it was, decades ago, conceptually. However, in recent years, the amount of email we receive and the way we utilize our inbox has changed drastically. Almost everything we do today requires an email address to get it done. Heck, even my car dealership wants my email address when I take my vehicle in for an oil change. Work email, junk email, sale notifications, coupons, life’s special moments, action items, reminders, appointments, inquiries, financial statements, and so on – much of how we interact with the world starts in our inbox. Needless to say, a repurposed inbox that functions in unison with how we interact with its contents is long overdue. Enter MailBox.

Mailbox is an application from the creators of Orchestra, a popular GTD task management solution for iOS (and the web). With the momentum of a successful application behind them, and astute knowledge regarding the way people utilize their task management systems, the developers conceptualized Mailbox.

Though Orchestra was (is) a great application, admittedly, it wasn’t right for my needs. Mailbox, however, piqued my interest immediately. Email was something I had never really given much thought to. It had always looked and felt the same for me under the hood, regardless of the skin or platform it was masked by. What could possibly be done any differently? I was curious as to what was on the other side of traditional email management – what was outside the box? Following the link provided in the email, I signed up for future alerts. I was already a fan though I had no clue what to expect.

Fast forward 6 months. Mailbox is here, on the App Store, so now what? Well, if you are one of 700,00+ iOS users – you are waiting in line. You see, Mailbox generated a huge buzz before it was anywhere near ready for launch. Subsequently, the team needed a way to control access to the application in an effort to scale their servers properly – slowly – to ensure stability and reliability.¹
To make this possible, they have created a ‘take a number’ process – one that I admire on many levels, mostly for its innovation. While the countdown to access is ingenious, it is also beyond frustrating depending upon where you are standing in that line. Just imagine walking up to the deli counter at your supermarket, taking your number – number 634,895 – only to glance at the “now serving’ number to realize you have 601,140 people ahead of you. My guess is, you’d leave and find your artisanal cheese elsewhere, or you’d come back another day. This is exactly what is happening with Mailbox right now ². If you are one of the folks thinking of getting your cheese elsewhere, I beg of you, wait your turn – it’s worth it.

Our inbox is charged with the expectation of quick, convenient, correspondance with our contacts. Out of those communications often arise actionable items – items that most of us mark as unread as a reminder to take action. The trouble is, those items accumulate quickly and with that, so does anxiety and stress. Before long, you are faced with an overwhelming number of action items staring back at you from your inbox. ”Look at all of those promises you couldn’t keep with yourself.” At this point, it’s just easier to file them, delete them or never open your email client at all. Maybe if you ignore that stress, it will magically disappear. I presume that’s not working out well for you since you are equally as excited about Mailbox as I am.

The Mailbox developers understand how you have been using email until now, and they want to help you make a change for the better – become more productive and less stressed. Through the use of smart snooze alerts, intuitive drag-and-drop prioritization, clever gestures and a soothing color palette, Mailbox helps you achieve Inbox Zero and get things done. If you are looking for a more beautiful, well executed interface in an iOS email client, good luck – you’ll be hard pressed to find one. Mailbox receives my vote for the most beautiful email client, above even that of Sparrow and the official Gmail app. The UI is a major win.

Gestures

Mark as read or delete – Without opening a message, you can swipe it to the right to have it marked as read and archived. As you are swiping, the message pane reveals a green backround with a white check mark to indicate the action performed. Swiping a bit slower – dragging the gesture out a bit and swiping to the edge of the screen – will delete the message, without marking it as read. This, I have a problem with. I strongly dislike seeing unread messages that I have clearly dealt with already, whether in my inbox or my trash can. Unread items communicate to my lizard-brain that I have missed an item that I must go back and process. I would love it, instead, if messages discarded from the inbox were also marked as read.

Snooze a message or send to a list – The creme de la creme, snoozing. Let’s pretend for a moment that you have received an email from your supervisor once you have left work for the day. You don’t want to lose track of the message, because it requires action, but you certainly have no desire process its content while you are spending time with your family. With Mailbox, it’s a win-win, you can satisfy both of these needs. From your inbox, swipe the message to the left and select an option from the snooze panel to have the message delivered to your inbox at another time that works best for you. Take a look at the full-size screenshot to see what options are available when setting a snooze alert. All snooze options can be customized to meet your needs.

Personally, this feature – snoozing messages – has already become a major part of my GTD workflow. I receive a lot of emails regarding projects that I can not always tend to as they come in. I simply defer them for a few hours – or days – and deal with them on my own terms. The trick, however, is using this feature in conjunction with your favorite GTD application and refraining from snoozing messages carelessly, just to reach Inbox Zero. If used properly, the snooze feature can greatly assist you in getting things done. Used recklessly, and you will have many actionable items falling through the cracks. Snooze wisely.

All gestures mentioned, can be applied in bulk by grabbing the handles at the bottom of your inbox and dragging them left or right. My biggest gripe here is that the action is applied to all items as opposed to having the ability to select individual items to apply the action to. For example, select 4 of 10 messages to archive, 3 go to a list and 3 deleted. This is a step backwards in my eyes as the standard Mail.app client as well as Sparrow already provide their users the ability to do so.

Mailbox makes Inbox Zero easier to obtain than any other email client on the market. It even has a little ‘easter egg’ for users who get there – accessible by tapping the inbox icon once there are zero messages in your inbox. Though fun and rewarding, avoid archiving and deleting items just to reach Inbox Zero. Done for the wrong reasons, you could find yourself even more stressed. Do some research on the proper way to manage your inbox – for the long term. There’s even a helpful video presentation by Merlin Mann, creator of Inbox Zero.

Lists

You can bypass the snooze option to add the message to a list by swiping to the far left of your screen. At its core, Mailbox strives to simplify email management, cut through distractions, and focus on actionable items. Thus, its default lists are sparse – “to buy, to read & to watch.” The trouble is, that doesn’t cut it for my needs. I have custom folders that must be included in my workflow, without question. Luckily, the fix is straight forward. If you don’t mind doing so, simply prepend the titles of your Gmail folders with “[Mailbox].” Give the Mailbox servers a few minutes to syncronize and they will appear in the app shortly after ³.

Threaded Messages

When opening a threaded message, initially, Mailbox presents you with the newest message front and center, all previous communications above it. Each message is separated from one another on its own “card.” While it works, it’s counter-intuitive for me and the way my brain works. I want my newest message on top, older messages below. It just feels a bit more natural and makes it easier to follow the lineage of a conversation. For that reason, I usually drill into a single message by tapping on it, and using the “page up, page down” buttons to thumb through the thread one message at a time. This offers a little more control and displays emails with the newest on top – just how I like it ⁴.

Composing an Email

No landscape support. This was a major gripe of mine with Sparrow when it launched – a feature they eventually added and I look for Mailbox to follow suit. It’s not necessary for reading messages but it is certainly preferred for composing. As of now, I am composing in Drafts for iPhone, then copying the contents to my clipboard and pasting into the body of my message in Mailbox. Other than that, composing is simple and straight forward. I will say I have noticed that Mailbox makes much quicker work of a message once the send button is tapped. It seems almost instantaneous. I realize that the message is actually standing in queue being sent a couple of seconds later, but I quite enjoy the quick reassurance Mailbox provides. Compose, send, close – no lingering. No wait time.

Caveat

Mailbox requires that your emails be stored on their servers. This sounds a bit creepy, but it is necessary. Rest assured, they are not reading your email – rather storing them on their servers enables push notifications as well as their snooze feature. If this is a bit of fine print you are uncomfortable with, consider another client. Also, remember that Mailbox is mobile-only for the time being. If you access email from your desktop often, you may be looking for a smooth, consistent experience across devices. Right now, Mailbox is not offering that as an option.

Conclusion

Without bias, Mailbox is everything I had hoped it would be. It’s fast, reliable and fun to use. Push notifications work without a hitch and I have yet to have a snoozed message fail to return to my inbox on time. With plans to expand the list of email clients that Mailbox supports ⁵, I could definitely see a day when Mailbox is my only mobile client. Until then, I will have to continue using Apple’s solution in conjunction with Mailbox, because I have self-hosted email accounts, enterprise accounts and one outlook account in addition to the two Gmail accounts managed by Mailbox.

In four words, I am a convert. I love Mailbox and use it every day. Barring some catastrophe with my data or abandonment on further development, I see myself sticking with Mailbox for quite some time. Word is, they plan to follow a freemium model, so I am excited to see what features are offered for premium users. However, I wish the team would have charged for Mailbox upfront. I also realize how that may have seemed like an unjustifiable model at launch, given the wait time for access. Either way, I’m anxious to support the application and its development. In other words, “shut up and take my money.”

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Price at Press Time: $1.99
Category: Productivity
Version: 3.0
Developer: Andres Canella
Website: www.wakenshakeapp.com
Additional: Wake N Shake Manual
iTunes: Wake N Shake for iPhone

For years I have been waking to the sound of a ship under attack – or perhaps taking on water. An alarm that is so truly annoying and invasive that it could double as a fire alarm for most educational settings. However, after 4 or more years of conditioning, my annoyance with the standard iPhone alarm has dissipated. The alarm I once hated to love, is subject to three or four snooze cycles every morning. Effectively, it has been rendered inneffective by way of desensitization. That was before I found Wake N Shake Alarm Clock on the App Store.

Wake N Shake piqued my interest for one very simple feature – it requires a high level of engagement – shaking your iPhone with intensity – if you’d ever like your alarm to subside. By the time you are able to turn your alarm off, the intense activity will have stimulated your system to the point that returning to your bed for a snooze session is out of the question. Good morning sunshine!

As evident already, Wake N Shake is not your typical alarm clock. Aside from the shaking required of you, the application uses Facebook integration to enable social achievements, stats and a leaderboard of sorts called the “Weekly Ladder.” Though these features are somewhat unique in this space, and worth mentioning, I want to circle back to it after discussing ways in which this application stands on its own as an alarm clock. That said, let’s have look at how this thing works.

Design

As you can see from the screen shots above, Wake N Shake Alarm Clock packs a minimalist interface, clean and free of clutter. The color scheme is simple and pleasing, especially if you are viewing or setting your alarm in the dark. The entire interface is gesture driven and it seems very intuitive to me, once I un-learned the old habits I had developed with the standard Clock.app. In my experience, Wake N Shake has been easy to navigate and responsive in every way. Added bonus for the cute and friendly animations the alarm icon will cycle through. I feel like I know him (or her) already and subsequently I have conjured up a friendship between the two of us. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?

Main Screen

The main screen has three essential functions:

• Count down until your next alarm is triggered
• Time Display
• Quick timer/Nap alarm

The default display is a count down until your next alarm is triggered. For instance, 15h 30m 40s will display at 5:30pm if your alarm is set for 9am. I love the count down display for two reasons – the first being that I can always open the app as I am working late at night to serve as a reminder of when I should begin winding down to get a desired amount of sleep. A lot of times I look at a clock and lie to myself, telling myself I have plenty of time for good rest. There’s no lying to numbers and Wake N Shake makes quick work of my lies. I also love the count down for its important information at a glance, should I wake up in the middle of the night. Let’s face it, if I wake up at 3am, I don’t want to know what time it is – I want to know how many hours I have left to sleep. Wake N Shake excels at this.

To access the time display, just tap the number display one time. To return to the count down, tap again.

To set a one-off quick timer or alarm, useful for naps, tap the number display twice and drag the number fields to the desired amount. ¹ To activate the timer, just tap the number display again.

Setting Scheduled & Recurring Alarms

As I mentioned, the Wake N Shake interface is gesture driven, so all settings and feature panels are accessible with a single swipe, albeit different directions for different panels. For setting your scheduled alarms, swipe to the left (or pull the main screen to the left) to reveal a gray panel void of any information other than a minimalist alarm clock icon begging to be tapped. Don’t be creepy. Tapping the panel will generate an alarm that defaults to 8:00am, ready to be customized to your needs. To set the hour, tap the hour field and use the awesome, custom tumblers to adjust it. Do the same for minutes. To switch between AM and PM just tap that field one time. To set the days in which this scheduled alarm should sound, tap on the days, listed horizontally, below the time. If you have fingers a bit chubbier than the average, you may find this tricky but it’s doable.

To add a second alarm, a weekend alarm perhaps, just tap the panel again and repeat. You can presumably set as many alarms as you’d like (I made it to 30 and stopped) though I am not sure why you would need more than 7 – 10 at the most – for scheduled alarms. Then again, I lead a pretty routine lifestyle that has me out of bed and back in it at roughly the same time every day. The lesson here, I’m quite boring.

Activating, deactivating and deleting alarms was a bit curious for me but I quickly figured it out. Swipe the desired alarm to the right to activate or deactivate it and to the left to delete it. The simplicity is obvious in hindsight but again, I had to un-learn some old habits.

Once your alarms are set and you are ready to go to bed (or whatever it is you do) you must leave your phone unlocked and turn it face down. Wake N Shake utilizes the iPhone’s proximity sensor to shut the screen off to avoid battery drain. To date, I have had zero issues with battery when using Wake N Shake overnight.

Setting Alarm Sounds & Shake Intensity

If you have yet to get the picture, Wake N Shake requires its user to shake the daylights out of their iPhone to turn off a triggered alarm. Thankfully, shake intensity can be customized. Ranging from “Teddy Bear” to “Merciless,” you can access shake settings and alarm sounds by swiping up from the main screen.

Choosing an alarm is quite fun. Wake N Shake ships with 24 custom sounds, all of which are fantastic. I am currently using “Hungry Bear” which sounds like you’d expect – a hungry bear growling as it chases after a screaming girl. It does the trick for me in the morning. Other, not so violent, alarms are available too. Instruments, toys, animals, and even your own personal Robot.

“Wake up and shake the iPhone. Can you smell the pancakes? No? Well, wake up and go make some. And some coffee. And how about some french toast? You know I love french toast. That’s right, me, your iPhone.”

Needless to say, there are a few nuggets of humor baked in to the alert settings. If you have stored music in your iPhone’s native music app, you can choose a song from your library to alert you as well. It’s a bit less fun but options are always nice.

As for shake intensity, I would really suggest setting quick timers to explore the different levels. The thing to remember is that you must shake the phone until a progressive meter reaches the top of your phone’s screen. Each time you stop shaking, you are penalized as the meter will begin to drop. The “Merciless” setting literally requires two hands for me and a shaking so intense, for 45 seconds, that I am slightly out of breath and almost breaking a sweat. Yes – it’s that intense. No, I am not exaggerating. The “Teddy Bear” setting, on the other hand, I can turn off by shaking with very low intensity – similar to that of the iPhone’s undo action – for 10 seconds. Choose a setting that will be challenging but stay away from settings too intense, that may create an aversion to using the application.

A link to the Wake N Shake Manual and a toggle for a vibrate option can be found on this panel as well.

Sleep Timer

There is one. Swipe down from the main screen.

Social Integration

Currently, there is one option for signing in to interact with others and that is through Facebook. Since FB boasts a billion users, it’s likely a good choice. I used the social aspect of the application only briefly with my wife. I would imagine this could be a lot more fun with a larger group of friends.

Signing in through Facebook enables achievements that you work towards every time you successfully mute a triggered alarm via shaking, quick timers excluded. Achievements such as

Arctic Swimmer
Shake on Cold Shower intensity 10 times.

Simultaneously, you are competing against any friends who are also using the application and your achievements are visible to them from the social panel. So far, I have 1,287 shake points, 3/50 achievements and I have placed 1st on the leaderboard because my wife isn’t being a good sport². It’s a fresh take on waking up in the morning by making it a fun, social competition of sorts. I really like the idea, I just wish I had more friends using the app. Looks like I’ll be sending lots of requests via FB. I apologize in advance for those on that list.

Conclusion

Wake N Shake is not for everyone. Some will find it requires too much hard labor. However, some of us will find it necessary and along the way realize how much fun it can be to use an alarm clock. I seriously never thought I’d say that. Wake N Shake is a winner in my eyes. It’s beautiful, well planned, well executed and it solves a problem that many of us have – snooze-button syndrome. Since installing and using Wake N Shake, I have not snoozed once. I wake up and that’s that. Ready to start my day. It’s a fantastic application that I cannot praise enough. If you think you might love it too, don’t hesitate to purchase. Supporting awesome ideas only ensures that even more awesome ideas follow. Many thanks to Andres for changing the way I use my alarm clock.

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Price at Press Time: $1.99
Category: Photo & Video
Version: 1.1
Developer: GhostBird Software
Website: http://kitcamapp.com
iTunes: KitCam for iPhone

Heads-up – KitCam offers extensive options and services. In an effort to be thorough and comprehensive, this review will cover most of them in detail. As a result, this article will run a bit longer than usual.

The market for iPhone applications has become somewhat of a gift and a curse. While it is amazing – the immense number of applications available to iOS users – it can sometimes make finding the app that’s just right for your needs a bit challenging. So when we arrive at a place where we are comfortable with the suite of tools we are using to capture and process images on our iOS device, it is difficult to make changes – to leave that comfort zone. But somewhere deep inside, we will always be driven to browse the App Store ‘just in case.’ Well, if you’ve been paying attention to that little voice the past week or so, it’s about to pay off. KitCam by Ghost Bird Software is the camera replacement application you’ve been praying for.

If you know anything at all about Ghost Bird Software, you know that they have demonstrated extensive knowledge of a photographers wants and needs with the release of their popular post processing application, PhotoForge 2 – an application capable of accepting and processing even RAW formatted files up to 20 MegaPixels. If you don’t know already, that’s super-impressive. Ghost Bird’s newest application, KitCam, is equally impressive. After spending a little over a week with the application, it quickly became evident that the development team took everything they had learned from PhotoForge 2 and applied it to KitCam. It’s beautiful, easy to navigate and, most importantly, it features non-destructive editing. If you are unfamiliar with this term, simply put, it is the ability to make and save changes to an image without altering or destroying the original file. That means at any given time, you can revert the image back to its original state. Real James Bond-type stuff.

So what is it that makes KitCam a worthy replacement for your current camera application? KitCam can be as simple as you’d like or advanced as you need it. On one hand, it’s perfect for composing basic snapshots – beginners will fall in love with its simplicity. On the other, it’s an advanced system for composing and editing complex images – perfect for the enthusiast. Its controls are in abundance, always accessible, yet manage to stay out of the way when you need them to.

Controlling Your Exposure

KitCam offers extensive control over the images you create – the most simple and straight forward of which is focus and exposure control. Users can easily adjust their focal point or exposure by tapping the screen, using two fingers, in camera mode to reveal the manual controls for each. Adjusting is as simple as sliding the corresponding tap target around the screen until you have arrived at your desired exposure. Both settings can be locked as well. If you need bit more control, KitCam has an exposure compensation feature ranging from −2 to +2 as well as manual white balance settings. Both are accessible by tapping this icon from the bottom toolbar.

Opposite the exposure compensation button, is a settings icon which puts a wealth of goodies at your fingertips. Advanced features like a histogram, composition grids (think rule of thirds, golden proportion etc.) and even a level for ensuring your horizon is straight. For a truly unique composition, KitCam also enables its user to choose their own aspect ratio and preview the changes live – select from 4×3, 1×1, 16×9 or 3×2. If you are shooting video, aspect ratios are replaced by film resolutions such as 288p, 480p and 720p. If you own a shiny iPhone 5 you will see 1080p as an option as well.

Shooting Modes & Settings

Continuous Shooting

Continuous shooting makes certain you never miss your desired image. Perfect for sports or precious moments that you know are coming, but can’t pin down the exact timing. High speed burst is also an option here so long as you don’t mind compromising quality for the faster frame rate. Images resulting from high speed continuous mode are VGA resolution, like that of the forward facing camera. Likely to pass as acceptable in a few cases, but not the way you want to shoot on a regular basis.

Timed

Setting a timer to fire your shutter is great for many reasons. Two of the more popular reasons would be avoiding camera shake and including yourself in group images. Unlike some applications that limit timer options to 2 or 5 second timers, KitCam lets you easily customize the length of the timer up to 10 seconds. You can even select “Torch Countdown” which will fire your flash to alert you as you get closer to the shutter release.

Stabilizer

Hands a bit shaky? Not able to gauge whether your photographs will be blurry based on how still you were able to hold your phone? Let KitCam solve this problem for you with its stabilizer function. Your snapshot will only fire once the device has been held reasonably steady for a few seconds. This ensures sharper images.

Multi-Expose & Multi-Shot

With the Muti-Expose option, you can shoot up to 6 images to overlap one another in the same frame – mimicking the results achieved in film photography when a single frame of film is exposed more than once. What’s more is that you can apply different settings to each frame beforehand and/or edit each frame individually after the fact. Here’s a sample image of my daughter that I shot using the Multi-Expose feature.

The Multi-Shot feature is similar in that it let’s you capture several images to include in a single frame. However, with this option, you can shoot no more than 4 frames which are subsequently arranged as a diptych[1]. Here are the options available for shooting diptychs using KitCam.

Multi-Expose and Multi-Shot are both easy to understand and execute.

Time Lapse

KitCam ships with a time lapse feature. If I attempted to explain how time lapse can be used to your benefit, we could be here all day. I’ll give you the short version. Time lapse is a way of placing automated – in this case – intervals between your images. This is also the way that stop motion animations are created. If you are unfamiliar with the possibilities of time lapse photography, search Vimeo for some truly amazing examples.

Lenses, Films and Frames

Let’s face it, since the popularity of Instagram has skyrocketed, photo filters are all the rage. They take a lot of flack but in essence they are no more than presets for the mobile processing studio. With KitCam’s non-destructive editing, choosing a filter, lens or frame does not “lock you in” or define your final image. Filters/presets are great starting points for processing your images.

There are 10 lenses, 24 filters and 15 frames available with your initial purchase, all of which are tastefully executed and can be combined with one another for endless options. Additional packs are available for $.99, but are not necessary to reap the benefits of the application. If you do decide to upgrade, packs can be tried/previewed before purchase.

Lenses, filters and frames are all accessible while shooting and can be changed on the fly. Changes made to any of the aforementioned are applied instantly via Live FX Preview – see the effects as you shoot. If you end up with a combination you do not like, but you like the image, filters can be removed or replaced in post process. So, not only do you get non-destructive editing, but no commitment capture as well.

Image Editing/Post Process

From your KitCam library of images, you can select individual frames for editing. KitCam keeps the basic user and the advanced user in mind as the app provides adjustments ranging from quick and easy to detailed and more deliberate.

Starting with quick and easy – users will find the easiest adjustment to make is none other than auto adjust. It’s a “one click to a better image” setting. You can get a bit more detailed in your approach with KitCam’s cropping, straightening, and rotation tools. The same filters, films and frames available when shooting are available from the edit menu as well. You will also find exposure compensation and white balance tools at your disposal.

If you are looking for a bit more control, tap the button labeled “Pro” located on the right side of the bottom toolbar. As you might have imagined, Pro indicates manual controls for everything. Brightness, contrast, saturation, color balance, levels and sharpness are all available and easily adjusted to your liking. Color balance and levels can even be adjusted by individual color channels such as red, green or blue. It is here that I am reminded of PhotoForge’s extensive controls and the influence they must have had on the development of KitCam. Though not every image we take calls for such fine tuning, it is nice to have the option available to us. In the past week, I found myself using the Pro tools at least once a day. Provided you understand a bit about what it is you’re tinkering with, you can get some great results.

Syncing

Using DropBox to back up photos? iCloud? Your own server? KitCam can sync to any one of them. Once you have successfully set up your connections, you can select options for auto archiving photographs taken with KitCam – a fantastic feature. I use the heck out of it, syncing every photo to DropBox and bypassing my photostream (intentionally so) altogether. It’s the ideal set up for me since I hate to crowd my photo libraries with thousands of images. I shoot, get home to WiFi, auto archive and delete the local files. Could not be easier or more efficient.

Settings

From the settings menu, you can set up popular services like DropBox or Flickr to auto archive images, as previously mentioned. Additionally, you can link a folder from your own server via FTP for auto upload. To save on data, make sure you tick the “WiFi Uploads Only” option. Sharing options are similar, with the addition of Tumblr and Facebook[2].

Conclusion

Whether a novice or an enthusiast, KitCam’s offering is a great one. It covers most every need you could possibly have, streamlining the entire process of iPhoneography. KitCam is a steal for just $1.99 on the App Store. It has replaced my preferred camera application and secured it’s spot in my dock.

Sample Images

images taken and edited with KitCam for iPhone

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Price at Press Time: $4.99
Category: Navigation
Version: 1.0.3
Developer: Excited Pixel
Website: http://excitedpixel.com/apps/ios/quickroute/
iTunes: Quick Route for iPhone

I can recall, years ago, purchasing a GPS device for the purpose of turn by turn directions from one location to another while driving. At the time, I was blown away by this little box that sat secured to my windshield by a single suction cup mount and took the anxiety and stress out of the “I have no idea how to get there” equation. It was that very moment, I had forgotten all about MapQuest and the cumbersome 15–20 step, printed, directions I used to rely on to get me across town safely. This was the start of something innovative and convenient. Who would have known, this device would help breath life into an era defined by its technology? An era in which consumers have access to the world – all day, every day – from the interface of a mobile device, that fits in their pants pocket, through the portal of its applications.

Today, there are many options available for mapping and navigation from your iPhone. There is, of course, Apple’s Maps application, which has been the center of much controversy and even the subject of an unprecedented apology from Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook. Then there are alternatives available on the App Store. Some are free, some are paid – some are good and some are terrible. It’s extremely subjective and, quite honestly, a crapshoot. But, it doesn’t have to be – if you know where to turn for great advice. And this, is how I came upon Quick Route for iPhone.

Quick Route is a navigation solution for iPhone. It is built with the end user in mind. It is as simple to use as it is beautiful. Most importantly, it’s reliable. But what makes Quick Route more reliable than others, you might ask. Mostly, the service/API it is built upon – you may have heard of it – Google Places. So what does that mean for the user? It means anything that can be found on Google Places, can be found on Quick Route. And if you know anything about Google, Google Places and Google Maps, you can find – quite literally – most any location your heart desires.

What Quick Route Is Not.

I want to be 100% upfront with readers of this review – Quick Route is not a replacement for the full featured Google Maps or even Apple Maps. You cannot take spontaneous vacations, vicariously, through street view nor can you do a “flyover” of New York City. It will not serve as a terrain or sattelite map and it will not display traffic conditions. Quick Route will not provide spoken turn by turn directions.

So Then, What Is Quick Route?

Quick Route is a navigation application that focuses on delivering accurately detailed directions, from one location to another, for four modes of transportation:

• Biking

• Walking

• Transit

• Driving

That’s it, and with that said, you can already see why Quick Route is so valuable on the iPhone – welcome home transit directions, welcome home. Not to mention, Quick Route’s directions are insanely accurate if you have location services enabled. If you commute a lot or travel quite a bit, you’ll find your saving grace in Quick Route. Heck, I don’t even travel that often, but I get lost enough in my own city that Quick Route has become my go-to navigation app in less than two weeks of use. As a matter of fact, it lives on my home screen.

Getting Started

When you first launch Quick Route, you may feel as though you are seeing double. Disregard that feeling – I assure you, you are not. There are two identical input panes, one for start location input and the other for destination input. The starting location defaults to “current location” if you have location services enabled. However, you are just one tap away from a manual entry or selecting an address from one of your contacts if desired. If you select a location other than your current one as your start point, Quick Route will adjust your destination to reflect your current location. This is especially nice if you are directing someone else – perhaps over the phone, for example – to your location.

Once you have your start location filled in, just tap the input field on the destination pane and enter your “end” address. Tap search. Quick Route will display all entries that match, or closely match, the address or search text entered. Simply tap on a location marker to designate a place as your destination (or start point). Before requesting your route, make sure your mode of transportation is set as desired. The top of your display shows tabs for the four aforementioned modes of transportation. Tap whichever you are using, then tap route (the blue and white arrow icon in the upper-right corner) to retrieve directions.

I am a driver and rarely use public transportation. Nor do I walk long distances, in unknown locales, that require directions very often. From this point forward, any experience I speak of will reflect my use of driving directions. I can only tell you that walking, biking and transit directions are in beta, but performed well on my one-off, extremely brief, testing.

Using Directions

Quick Route will display the route it deems best as your default route. However, tapping the re-route icon in the upper-right corner of the screen, you can choose a different route, if one is available. On the top half of the screen, routes are outlined and labeled with a number. Tap a number to highlight an individual route. Below the map you will see information corresponding to each route above – including distance and travel time. Tap one to set it as your route and return to directions.

Side Note

When you are on the “Routes” screen, you can tap the clock icon in the upper-right corner to choose/organize routes by desired departure or arrival time. It is a novel feature that I have not used enough to ellaborate on.

Navigation Screen

When using the navigation screen, you have two options. You can manually swipe through directions, step by step or, you can tap the “geo-location icon” in the bottom right corner to enable Quick Route to progress you automatically. If you choose to allow Quick Route to advance the directions for you, rest assured the service is highly accurate and extremely sensitive. The app senses the slightest turn or merge and places you right where you should be within the directions. It has not failed me once in two weeks. It is the option I choose the most.

However, if you decide for some reason to advance through the directions manually, Quick Route makes it safe(r) to do while driving – though still not suggested. The top 1/3 of the screen is dedicated to detailed instructions such as

189 feet

Head Southeast on Thisismy Street Toward Next Road

Those directions are also accompanied by an icon that indicates an action, such as merge or turn left. They are helpful, at-a-glance reminders, as I often find myself remembering the street I am looking for but forgetting which direction I should be turning. The banners detailing the route are your tap targets for manually advancing through your directions. Because they are large, they are easy to swipe without ever even looking at your device. It is one of the features I love most, as it shows that the application was made with the end user in mind – for practical application.

How Do I Re-Route If I miss A Turn?

Simple. use the “pull to refresh” gesture. Except in Quick Route, it’s pull to re-route.

Conclusion

I’m sold. Let me tell you why. As an experiment, I used Quick Route to get to my local Best Buy a few nights back. I know the way – several ways – to get there. As the app would tell me to turn, I would disregard and pull to re-route. I did this three times, intentionally. All three times, Quick Route noticed my exact point of deviation and gave me another accurate route immediately. But this is what really did it for me. As I turned off of the main road, into the private parking lot of Best Buy, Quick Route continued to give me directions – on a private lot! Specifically,

take second left and your destination will be on your left.

It just goes to show how powerful Google’s mapping system is and how ingenious the developers at Excited Pixel are for choosing to build on their API. For $4.99 (at press time), you’re nearly stealing Quick Route from its developers. If you need direction(s) in your life, get Quick Route today – now. Do it.

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Many of us have exiled Apple’s note taking application for years. It’s terrible to use and far worse to look at. My digital device does not need to resemble a legal pad in order for me to recognize I should be putting my notes there. Instead, what I crave is an application that is speedy to launch, supports Markdown and is equipped to handle lots of export options. Though there are many options out there, Scratch and Drafts seem to be the leaders in the arena at present. Both support Markdown, both are lightning fast to launch and both are simple by nature. So how do you decide which to use? The choice is going to be an entirely personal one; both applications are fantastic and worthy of your purchase. Nevertheless I will be comparing the two applications, briefly, against features that I consider to be major deciding factors in purchasing a note taking application.

Icons

Okay, this may not apply to some folks, but I most certainly judge an app by its icon 85% of the time. I like things to look good and therefor icons are important to me. In this category, drafts comes up short as Scratch’s icon is both simple and beautiful.

Launch Time

Both Scratch and Drafts launch, ready for input in 2 seconds flat, even from a suspended or closed state. However, Scratch will open to the last note taken if you have yet to file it away in your history. In contrast, Drafts can be set to create a new note when returning to the app after a specified time. This means that Drafts will more than likely launch to a new note when you need it to, making it more readily available to receive input on launch. For that reason alone, speed aside, Drafts wins my vote.

Input

Drafts and Scratch both allow for plain text or Markdown input. Both have very simple interfaces that focus on the text. However, each shines through in their own way. Drafts has the ability to preview your Markdown files whereas Scratch does not. Drafts also supports landscape mode, which is 200% more comfortable on the iPhone, and Scratch does not. That said, Scratch boasts a beautiful toolbar that contains swipeable [some even customizable] panels for quick access to your most used functions. This toolbar makes typing notes, whether plain text or Markdown, a breeze; lightning fast. Both applications track words and characters as well, making them both ideal applications for composing tweets. If you do not mind typing in portrait mode for everything, Scratch would be my pick for input.

Export Options

The export options available in Drafts are amazing! We are talking actions to send your text to 20+ specific applications. That is not including the “open in” option or copy to clipboard, preview Markdown, or share actions. The options are easily customizable from the settings menu and can even be arranged to appear in the order you’d most prefer. To say it quite simply, Drafts makes exporting easily accessible and maximizes your possibilities.

Scratch offers an extensive list of export options as well, albeit not as comprehensive as that of the aforementioned Drafts. Accessing the list of export options is also a bit more of a process since you have to swipe the toolbar to reveal the panel with the share icon. However, Scratch allows you to export from its application to Drafts where drafts does not reciprocate the option. That means that if you like the look and layout of Scratch but want the Markdown and application support of Drafts, you can compose in one and send to the other for the ultimate feature mash-up.

If being judged on the export services and handling options alone, Drafts really crushes Scratch in this department. That said, Scratch is more flexible and will integrate nicely into an already established Drafts workflow; and for that, Scratch turns out to be the winner for me. Keep in mind, that victory is standing on the shoulders of Drafts integration. Remove it and Scratch falls way way short.

DropBox Integration.

Both applications play nicely with DropBox, either creating new files or appending to existing ones. The trouble with Drafts is its rigidity in appending notes. Though you have access to your account and the ability to add text to an existing file, that file is unchanging in nature. Drafts creates a document called “Journal.txt” in the Drafts folder of your DropBox account. Each time you append a note, it adds it to the Journal file indiscriminately. If the Journal file has been moved, deleted or renamed, a new file with the same name is recreated. You are unable to choose/assign which note your text gets appended to. Thumbs up for integration; thumbs down for implementation.

Scratch on the other hand, allows you to access DropBox as if it were an SFTP. You can browse individual folders and files, selecting an exact document to add said text to. It is exactly what I would expect an application to do if it offers document appendage features. Scratch gets a thumbs up for integration and two big thumbs up for implementation.

Conclusion

As I prefaced this entire article with, both applications are stellar and worthy of your purchase. This is why I bought both and use both. Each is superior to the other in some aspect or another. If it were a horse race, you guessed it – photo finish. That won’t stop me from giving you my personal preference.

I prefer Scratch over Drafts for two reasons: the shortcut toolbar and the ability to append to specific documents in DropBox. It makes up for the lack of landscape support and the shortcomings of its export options. Plus, as I said, I can export to Drafts if need be for Markdown previews and added export options. At the end of the day Scratch takes the lead role with a heavy supporting role played by Drafts. Neither would not be as rich without the other within my workflow.

Scratch for iPhone

Price at Press Time: $2.99
Category: Productivity
Version: 1.2.1
Developer: Karbon Works, LLC.
Website: www.gokarbon.com/scratch/
iTunes: Scratch for iPhone

Drafts for iPhone

Price at Press Time: $1.99
Category: Productivity
Version: 2.1.1
Developer: Agile Tortoise
Website: www.agiletortoise.com/drafts
iTunes: Drafts for iPhone

Price at Press Time: $1.99
Category: Productivity
Version: 1.0.1.b
Developer: Ignition Soft Limited
Website: www.clip.ignition.hk
iTunes: EverClip for iPhone

Are you an Evernote user? If you answered yes, I’d be willing to bet you have used their Web Clipper App at one time or another from your desktop computer. If I bet incorrectly, and you are somehow unfamiliar, Web Clipper allows you to clip full articles and web pages right from the internet to a default notebook in Evernote, such as your inbox.It is a powerful tool that replaces the need [mostly] for bookmarking material online.

Are you an iPhone user as well? If so, it’s no secret that the Evernote application for iOS is fantastic. Like its desktop counterpart, it makes the process of creating and referencing notes fast and simple with the added benefit of being available to you at all times on-the-go. However, until now the iPhone application has been lacking the ability to capture and process a web clipping. As a result, saving information from a web page (or any other app for that matter) could be rather cumbersome; long-tap,copy text, fast-switch, paste, fast-switch, long-tap, copy etc. Heaven forbid you needed to copy multiple selections of text from several applications. Well, problems only exist so that smart people can find their solutions. Ignition Soft has done just that with EverClip.

EverClip, the 2012 Devcup Gold winner, was developed with ease of use, productivity and a greatly simplified “clipping” workflow in mind. It works in the background as you browse the web or navigate applications and effortlessly collects the text and images that you copy to your clipboard. Behind the scenes, it organizes your clippings into individual items for you to curate before sending them to your Evernote account. Each item can be sent as an individual note, or multiple clippings can be combined to create one note.

Clipping Content

To begin using EverClip, simply launch the app and return to whatever task you were performing prior to. EverClip is now working in the background, out of your way. As you select and copy content to your clipboard, you will receive audible feedback confirming that your content has been clipped and placed in EverClip. Clip as little or as much content as you’d like, returning to EverClip when you are ready to curate your content before publishing to Evernote.

So you’ve finished clipping articles, images and links and have launched EverClip to review your content. What now? It’s pretty simple actually. EverClip arranges each item that was placed on your clipboard into individual cells that appear within a srollable feed of clippings. Those items can be reviewed by simply tapping them. From there, you can title your note by tapping the text field above your content. Tags can be added as well by tapping the tag field and typing. There is no need for commas to dliniate your tags, as the return key takes care of that task for you. Once your note is complete you can send it to Evernote or return to your feed of clips.

The real power of EverClip is made evident when you are copying multiple entries from several sources for a project or related material. For example, you have text messages, emails, web articles and images all relating to a particular subject matter and you need to get them all into the same note. EverClip, from the main content feed, allows you to do that. Just tap the pencil icon in the upper right-hand corner to reveal the option to select more than one item. Tap each item you wish to merge together and then tap the arrow that is now dispayed where the pencil icon once was. You will see all of your selected items together, ready for export. Alternatively, once in the ‘multiple selection’ mode, you can delete several clippings at once and/or add entries manually via text input, taking a photograph or selecting an image from your camera roll.

Items sent to Evernote, individually, will appear in your chosen default notebook immediately as separate notes. Items having been merged and sent to Evernote will appear together as one note.

Settings

EverClip’s settings are not at all overwhelming. In fact, they are very straight forward. From the settings page you can, most importantly, select the default notebook for export as well as default tags to include in every export. You can choose to turn off sound effects, whether or not to delete clips after export and contact the EverClip team as well. Surprisingly, there is also a log of all sent items kept in plain text format for you to access. Though I am uncertain how this may be helpful to me in my quest for productivity, I am sure someone will make good use of the feature.

Wishlist

Sortable Clips

Though the clips feed is efficient as-is, I would like to see one feature added; the ability to sort clips. This would allow me to clip at will and sort before export for items requiring sequence.

Improved Editing in Preview Mode

Currently, you can edit/append the title and tags from the preview screen. I would love to see the actual clips themselves capable of accepting text input as well. Upon reviewing material I have clipped to EverClip, I find that there are times I do not need all of the text from the article. In those moments, I find myself poking and prodding my screen looking for a way to edit those clips and delete unwanted content.I do realize that not everyone will have the same needs and for most users the current setup is fine. But it would definitely be a welcomed addition.

Control Over Operable Time

EverClip is designed to run in the background, and so long as you are using its features, the app will remain running. However, if EverClip senses inactivity, the clock starts ticking. Eventually, after 10 minutes, you will receive a notification that “EverClip’s background session has ended… Please relaunch the app.” Though this is not an issue for me personally, I can see it being an issue of contention among users. It would be nice if the amount of time EverClip is able to operate in the background could be determined by its user. To be perfectly clear, I do not even know if Apple would allow for such a feature. However, if so, it would allow users not only to extend the time in runs in the background but also decrease its run time if desired. In a perfect world, it would be nice to have the option.

Conclusion

Well, you don’t win DevCup Gold awards for making bad apps; that’s for sure. EverClip is superb. Aside from the very few gripes I was able to generate, the app works flawlessly and performs a task long missing from the Evernote experience on iPhone. It is one of those apps that sneaks up on you; I was unaware how much I needed the app until I began using it. Now, I don’t think my workflow would survive without it. Bravo to the EverClip team of developers on a job very well done. I am a huge fan and look forward to future updates… which will hopefully include one or more items on my wishlist.

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Price: $2.99
Category: Productivity
Version: 1.1.2
Developer: Pormanteau
Website: www.listaryapp.com
iTunes: Listary for iPhone

Introduction

Listary for iPhone is a simple application that makes the process of creating and completing lists super-fast. Many applications are built to be, or try to be, everything to everyone. Listary is not that application. Listary does not do push notifications, no location-based services, no tags, no inbox, zero calendar integration, and no fuss; just lists. Choosing to focus on performing this single function, creating and completing lists, to the best of their abilities, has paid off tremendously as it is by far the easiest to use, most efficient, application of its kind.

I have used many, I mean many, applications for creating lists. Some of my lists a bit more detailed than others, but for the most part, manageable in plain text without the need for a lot of granular documentation or attachments. Some of these applications I grew very fond of, only to run up against problematic feature sets upon extended use. What I mean is not that a feature would not function properly, in fact it may have functioned just as intended, but it was cumbersome to use. For me, the whole point of having an application to create lists inside of, is ease of use, accessibility and speed. Remove one or more of those items and you might as well go back to your day-planner. That said, Listary has all three nailed down pretty good.

Creating Your First List

Let me start by saying this; if today were the very first day I had ever owned or used an iPhone, and I was asked to create a grocery list with Listary, I would have zero trouble at all. As a matter of fact, Listary is ideal for long lists, such as grocery lists, which is one of the main reasons I have become such a huge fan.

At the bottom of your start screen, you will see two icons. The icon on the left side is a plus sign with three lines next to it indicating the ‘create a list’ function. The icon on the right side, is a singular plus sign for creating individual items to add to an existing list. You can create a new list after entering singular items, but for organization sake, creating a parent list is always a good place to start.

Once you have created the parent list and given it a name, such as ‘Groceries’, you can begin adding items to the list using the plus sign located at the bottom right of the screen that follows. Now for the super-easy part: to create a new item in the list, type the name of the item and hit return to advance one line below to enter another. Repeat until your list is complete and tap “done.” Really, it’s that simple. If by chance you change your mind about the parent list that you want these individual items nested in, Listary allows you to choose from another existing list or create a new one, right there from the same screen. No editing, no deleting and re-typing, no copy-cut-paste process. Nope, just two taps and your items are nested under a new list.

If ever you need to re-order or delete your lists/items, Listary uses the native drag and drop function to do so and is accessible from the “edit” button.

Speaking of Copy & Paste

Keeping with our theme of grocery lists, I want to share a really cool feature with you that you may have otherwise missed. That would have been a real tragedy too, because this feature makes life all-the-more easier and so much less time consuming to make your weekly list. If you are anything at all like me (hopefully you are, because I am pretty awesome) you have a list of ‘staple’ products that you purchase each and every week at the grocery store, never fail. Well, my list is about 35 items long and it is a pain to type those things over and over again. So instead, I have typed that list one time only, in Evernote (or any note taking app that will save your work) placing each individual item on its own line. Those items have also been arranged so that they correspond with my trip from the back of the store to the front, so that I am a more efficient shopper. Now, on Fridays, when I am ready to make my list for the week, I open the note in Evernote and copy its text to my clipboard. Next, I open Listary and enter my ‘Groceries’ list. I tap the plus sign to add a new item, then I paste my list into the text field. Guess what?! Listary recognizes each and every line break and separates all of my items for me automatically! All I have to do after the fact is add any items that are one-off for the week and I am ready to go! This is a fantastic feature and can be used in so many ways. I can’t tell you how many times my fiancee will send me items via text message that I need to pick up while I am out. With any other app I have used, those items do not get parsed as individual items if I simply paste them into a list. Instead I have to type each item individually. But now, I just copy the list from the SMS and paste in Listary. Done. List created and I’m off to the races. Simple, yet amazing, feature.

Sharing a List with Others

Many applications will allow you to create a list, then share that list elsewhere; SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter etc. Essentially, you are sharing a static list that offers zero collaboration with another person (or two or three). With Listary, when they say ‘share’ they really mean collaborate. Inside of each individual list, sits an icon at the bottom of the page just to the right of the ‘share’ icon. (The share icon enables the usual sharing by SMS, email or copy to clipboard.) The icon resembles the ‘contacts’ icon and enables collaborative sharing. Tap it to open your ‘Share List.’ From here, you can type in an email address or add one from your contacts. Listary provides ‘smart suggestions” as you type as well, offering email addresses that match your input. I find that to be a bit quicker than adding from my contacts.

Once you have selected persons to share your list with, they will appear in your ‘Share List’ for quick access and/or reference. All shared lists will appear with its own icon to indicate its shared status. Now, when you or anyone else the list is shared with, makes a change or checks an item off, everyone’s list will be updated across all shared accounts. Collaboration does require a Simple Note account (free) as Listary uses Simple Note’s Simperium-Based syncing solution to push changes/updates to users.

Though collaboration was my major reason for falling in love with Listary, a Simple Note account is not required to share lists; only to collaborate. So you can still share lists via SMS, email or copy and paste into the app of your choice.

A word of caution before sharing, collaboratively: If you want to share a list with someone, your wife for example, be sure that she has signed up for a Simple Note account beforehand. If you attempt to share a list with someone by selecting their email address, yet waiting for them to sign up after the fact, the list will fail to sync properly; at least, it did in all of my tests.

Syncing

As mentioned, Listary syncs using Simple Note’s Simperium sync service. This means that all of you Simple Note users can rejoice because Listary syncs right to its own list in the Simple Note App. Any changes you make to a list in Listarty is almost immediately synced to your Simple Note account (iOS and web). Any items marked as completed will show in Simple Note, at the bottom of the note, in plain text as ‘item @done’ or ‘/ item’ depending on your settings in Listary. I was hoping that I could make changes in Simple Note and have them reflect in Listary, but it seems that it only works the other way around. Despite that minor setback, the sync speed is unrivaled.

Wish List

To be very honest, it is hard to pick an aspect of Listary that could be improved upon or marked as problematic. Everything runs extremely smooth and very fast. I guess my biggest hope for future updates is a better conversation between Simple Note and Listary. As of now, it seems that Listary talks to Simple Note but Simple Note does not reciprocate well, if at all. Either that, or Listary just doesn’t listen well. ¹

I had a few glitches when collaborating with others, such as wierd strings of text inserting themselves into an item, without any user error, and items mysteriously duplicating themselves. It’s as if Simple Note and Listary could not communicate ‘Delta’ updates to eachother and just dumped duplicate items as a result. However, that was few and far between in my two weeks of use. Not worth any major concern on the users end, but certainly worth a look on the development side of things.

Conclusion.

Need to make lots of lists? Need to make them quickly? Buy Listary. It handles the listing of items like no other application I have seen thus far. Tap, type, return, repeat, done. With simple collaboration, copy and paste list generation, super-fast sync to Simple Note and a clean easy-to-use interface, it is truly a no-brainer. Buy it today from the app store.

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Let’s face it, a lot of people who own an iPhone are completely satisfied with the stock utilities pre-installed by Apple. The vast majority of consumers have no beef with mail.app, the calculator, notepad etc. But then, there are the rest of us. The geeks. The crowd that recognizes the limitations of an application and sets out on a journey to find a replacement that is far more powerful, unrestricted and liberating. If you self-identify with this group, then you’ve long been fed up with Apple’s skeuomorphic calculator application. The iPhone itself solves so many problems in mobile computing. So why is it then, that the app that is entirely dedicated to literally solving problems on the device is restricted to one line input? What if you make a mistake? Hit clear? Start over? Why is it that an app aimed at calculating sums and solving equations, in the year 2012, looks and performs so much like a desktop calculator from the mid 80’s? That sounds completely out of line with what a ‘smart-phone’ should be, right? Well, geeks rejoice. Soulver is here to quite literally, solve all of your problems.

Upon launching Soulver, you will immediately notice that it is quite a departure from the typical calculator application. That’s because it is anything but typical. As opposed to linear calculations generated so that one result is replaced by another, Soulver is a running log of text and numbers living together in harmony. Neither fighting against one another for space on your screen, because, well, there’s room for everyone. The leftmost portion of the screen is dedicated to input, line by line, while the rightmost portion of the screen is dedicated to output, or solutions. As you type, Soulver makes a note of all numbers used within a line and whatever operations are requested between two sets of numbers. It disregards text when displaying solutions but leaves text fully intact within the written problem for greater point of reference should you ever need to return to the calculation again to make changes. Just as Acqualia describes its experience, Soulver is reminiscent of ‘back of the envelope’ scratch pad math. This makes your calculations much easier to understand if you happen to look back on them because, if you’ve chosen to use accompanying text, every number is displayed within a context. Solutions are calculated and displayed in real time, as you type, on the same line on which you performed a function and requested a solution. Soulvers ability to update in real time means that you can go back and alter one line of a file and watch all related information update to correspond with your changes. It means never having to ‘clear all’ when you need to change a small part of your calculation. Multiple keypads make standard text input, simple math, complex equations, formulas, currency conversions and variables all just a swipe away. Not just a calculator. More convenient than a spreadsheet. Not quite a notebook. It can only be described as a text editor on mathematical steroids. Though input takes some getting used to, the overall learning curve is not too steep.

Soulver’s developers are nothing short of brilliant. They recognized early on that although having access to so many functions makes Soulver unique, robust even, not everyone needs access to trigonometry functions such as sine, cosine, tangent etc. in their everyday life. That realization led to the ability to enable or disable Keypads within the settings to suit your specific needs. Options are a beautiful thing. Speaking of options, there are tons of them in Soulver’s settings. They range from text styling to formatting to sync options and currencies. Soulver also lets you control the number of ‘Scratch Files’ to save. These ‘Scratch Files’ are the calculations/logs that you have given a name to and chosen to save. These are the files you are more than likely coming back to to make updates or even as a point of reference.

While developing a website for a friend of mine, I wanted some concrete statistics on browser usage and the demographic using the browsers so that I had a good idea which browser his intended audience would be viewing the site from the most. So I decided to do a small sampling using a Facebook post to my friends and family. At the time this screen shot was taken, I had 25 responses. As you can see, the way Soulver is set up, I am able to revisit this file, much like a spreadsheet, to make changes and watch my numbers update accordingly. As each person gave their response, I added them to the browser category they fell into, with the number of participants as my very first line on my scratch file. Below the actual numbers and ‘tick marks’ I set up percentages using line references. You see ‘Chrome: line 2 as a % of line 1’ on the left and its corresponding percentage, 40%, on the right. I never have to revisit or edit that line. So long as I update line 1 everytime I receive a new response and add it to the list, the percentage of Chrome users will update automatically. I found this process far less intimidating and far more efficient than your classic spreadsheet. It just feels like a more natural way of interacting with data. Not to mention, I could update it on the go, which is becoming increasingly important in all aspects of our lives as time goes on.

Though the above is just a tiny example of the power harnessed within Soulver, it’s easy to see how extremely convenient and logic-driven the application is. Its versatility is endless, limited only by your imagination, for the most part. I have used Soulver to lay out a grocery budget, convert multiple currencies, track calories for the day and even create an itemized expenditure report for my upcoming wedding (you dodn’t really expect me to link to that, did you?); each as simple as the other, believe it or not. If you are a Soulver for Mac user, you will miss some of the features you are used to such as easy reference to stock prices. Since I have only ever used the iPhone app, and do not own or trade stock, I have no qualms about its feature set as-is; it suits my needs quite nicely. That said, I would’t be the least bit upset if Acqualia decided it was time to handle unit conversions on the iPhone. In fact, given the way Soulver handles text and numbers together, as natural language input, it would be the perfect kitchen companion.

In the end, Soulver can be as simple as you’d like, yet complex as you need it to be. Simple math, trigonometry, binary, currency conversion, and more, are all at your fingertips. So why settle for a calculator app that limits you? C’mon baby, step into twenty twelve with me; get yourself a real calculator; a 21st century calculator… a text editor on mathematical steroids. You won’t regret it.

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Life is complicated. Parts of our life bring us much joy while others induce stress. In fact, some of the very items that bring us the most joy and happiness, can also become our main stressor. So when it comes down to analyzing that which stresses us the most, we tend to have a difficult time doing so. Even determining what makes us happiest can be a difficult task to conquer. Our brain tends to associate being happy with things we like, and unhappy with non pleasurable experiences.Logically, that makes a great deal of sense. However,life is not always so easily dissected and things are not so easily categorized as being black or white for most individuals. In Flow for iPhone is an application focused on making light work of your lifestyle analytics.

How It Works

On its surface, superficially, In Flow appears to be yet another check-in application with some fun social media integration. However, if you pull back the curtain and look behind it, you will find some powerful tools focused on self awareness, relationships, self improvement and, ultimately, accountability. Using Foursquare to power its check-ins, In Flow also asks you to be detailed with each you make. Most importantly, it asks for your mood, which has been implemented in the form of an 'emotional tumblr' in which you swipe left or right to choose graphics that create an icon/emoticon of sorts that is indicative of how you feel. It's quite simple, fun, and allows for a great level of accuracy. The tumblr is made of two parts only; eyes, and mouth. The eyes represent your energy level ranging from dead tired to extremely wired, while the mouth represents your emotions. So with In Flow, it is entirely possible to be exhausted, yet still very happy. This is much closer to the way life is lived. We are not always, simply, happy or sad. In Flow understands these complexities and makes them easy to record. Each time you check-in and record your mood, In Flow links the location, your mood and a few other factors together in order to make some long term comparisons that become very telling, the more and more you use the app.

As mentioned above, In Flow asks for items other than location to perform some handy functions. One of those items is 'who is around you?' If you have connected the application with Facebook you can select from your list of contacts (avatars intact) regardless of whether or not they are using In Flow. If a contact is not on Facebook, you can create a contact manually. However, there is currently no way to assign a photograph/avatar to a contact created manually, which makes it a little more challenging to differentiate those contacts at a glance. When recording who you are with, you can mark multiple people as being present.

Once you have added your location and the people around you, you can add a context. That context comes in the form of 'what are you doing now?' Examples include 'working, watching TV, drinking coffee, relaxing, listening to music…' and the list goes on. I found that the default list included with In Flow served well for most occasions, only leaving me to manually create a few items such as 'cheerleading' or 'picking up the kiddos.' Select one or more contexts and return to the check-in screen for review of all selected items; mood, location, people and context.

The third and final step in the check-in process is composing your post; the actual check-in itself. In Flow uses the data you have input to generate a status that can be posted to Facebook and or Twitter. Both are optional just as making the post visible to the In Flow network is. An example status from In Flow would be 'I'm drinking coffee and writing at home.' This status can be deleted and customized by simply tapping in the text box to input your own text. Just as you can on Foursquare, you can add a photo to your check-in as well.

What Next?

After completing the three step check-in process, you will be presented with a brief summary of your check-in, such as:

• This is your best check-in for the day!

• You feel better than your last check-in one day ago. Stay on course.

• This is your first time writing.

At the bottom of that summary screen, you will be given a question intended to evoke a little self reflection. It is only one question and it is simple. Generally you will be given two locations you have recently checked into and asked which of them makes you feel best. Sometimes you will be asked which of two people or two locations makes you feel best. The answers to these questions are used to generate the Predictions feature of the application.

Speaking of Predictions

Initially, I was under the impression that predictions feature, located on the main screen, would inform you of what to expect when you are at certain activities or locations and I couldn’t figure out why it was not immediately available to me when launching the app the second or third time. However, I quickly learned that the Predictions feature is a means of showing you your actual check-ins and recorded data against the way you perceive yourself to feel while doing these things. Often times you will notice that the two do not align as you may have hoped. For me, I found the feature to be a way of ‘fine tuning’ my self awareness. This is key if I am ever going to truly recognize the things in life that bring me joy and attempt to eliminate the items that do not; at least the ones I can. As an example, I expected to be correct in assuming my work environment to be among the most stressful environments, going through my predictions. I was surprisingly incorrect in that assessment. My work, in fact, was causing much less stress than three other environments, one being my financial institution. Most times, when checking into my bank, I was tired and stressed. In Flow assessed me correctly, as I am a ‘worry-wart’ when it comes to all things financial, so it only makes sense that I am stressed when banking. This opened my eyes to the fact that perhaps I have been focusing my efforts in reducing stress on the wrong areas of life. It helped me to re-evaluate the situation. In the long run, it also helped me become more self aware, reflected in my increasingly accurate predictions about the venues I visit, the people I spend time with, activities I participate in and my corresponding moods to all of them.

Additional Features

While I find the check-in process to be the most fun and engaging, the Predictions feature to be the most telling and useful, In Flow has a few more features that are notable as well. There is a ‘Best & Worst’ list that ranks your people, venues and activities from best to worst. Initially, only the best 3 and the worst 3 are displayed for quick glance purposes, but you can certainly dive into the full list for a more detailed break-down with just one tap. My best? Home. My worst? Subway Sandwiches. Hmm… I thought I liked that place! Oh well. ‘Get a tip’ is another cool feature which changes with each check-in. They range from venue tips, left by other users who have checked-in, to suggestions from In Flow about people and activities that could help you have a better time. Maybe I am a little melancholy while sipping coffee at my local coffee shop. In Flow makes a note of it, and suggests that I call one of my favorite people, by their records, to make the experience a better one. Pretty awesome concept.

Friends Feed

Once you have added some friends to your In Flow network, you can tap on the ‘Friends’ panel to view a feed of their activity. The feed includes only those check-ins the users have chosen to share with the network, which is a nice feature because it means the developers value privacy. If the check-in is a positive one, and your friend is feeling good, you can give them a high five to keep their spirits high. If they are in need of encouragement, forego the high five to give them a hug to give them a much needed pick-me-up.

Any pictures that have been attached to check-ins by your friends require only one tap to expand and view full screen. Locations included in the check-in are displayed with a map of the location, the average mood of people there, popular activities that take place at the venue and which of your friends have visited the venue. It’s quite informative and may help you to discover new places that you want to visit or activities you wish to try.

Conclusion

In Flow is a lot of fun as it puts unique spin on the check-in process, which can become quite addictive. There are many, and I mean many, check-in focused applications on the app store these days. To my knowledge, In Flow is the first of its kind to really take that check-in data and cultivate it into something entirely useful, productive and insightful. As easy as it is to use and understand, you almost forget that the application is performing double duty as a conduit to and from your favorite social networks and as a self-help application. In the past few weeks of use, I have learned things about myself that I never even thought to process on my own. I’ve been surprised by some results and completely shocked by others. I’ve used the app to discover new places, try new things and surround myself with good company. The app has a few very minor bugs that were rather inconsistent, but this is to be expected from an early release. At the end of the day, In Flow is a free application, that may change the way you view geolocation services forever, so why would you hesitate? Download it, give it a go. If nothing else, you’ll have fun using it, and hopefully learn something in the process.

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