During the Macworld Expo, Apple has announced revisions to some of their creative softwares including iLife and iWork. Senior Vice President Phil Schiller who delivered the keynote in place of Steve Jobs has stated that the iLife photo management software is now able to achieve a few additional functions;
-Sort pictures by using facial recognition
-Mapping which allows you to upload location information onto photos
-Garage band lessons
-New editing tools
Of course there were also revisions to iWork which include transitions for Keynote and the ability to transfer presentations to the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Smule, makers of the popular music playing app Ocarina have released another weird yet very cool looking app for the iPhone. Their follow up app is called Zephyr and it allows you to draw out messages using a snowflake like interface. You can then send the messages blowing around the world to random people who can then pass them on to other random people online. This app seems pretty pointless, but it makes this planet seem a whole lot smaller by letting you send messages globally in an instant. Zephr is available on the Apple App Store for 99 cents. Check out the video above to see Zephyr in action.
Craigslist is the ultimate in online classifieds. The iPhone is the ultimate smart phone. Combine the two and you get the app named Craigsphone, one of the many Craigslist apps available to the iPhone. What sets this one apart though is the very intuitive control scheme and some very ambitious features that have yet to be fully implemented. The App can even allow you to search for craigslist posts near the location of your iPhone although apparently that is only available in San Francisco and Manhattan. Craigslist will now be even easier to access. Just make sure you stop whoring yourself out, authorities may now have a way of tracking your location!
-Derek
[Source: tuaw]
We at iPhoneSpies love iPhone apps, our iPhones are full of the latest and greatest apps. One app in particular we noticed has no real use or value, but it’s darn cool! The app iSteam which simulates steam on glass is pretty realistic and entertaining. Blow on the microphone and the iPhone screen is covered in steam you then can wipe off the steam with your fingers, it has the squeaky steamed up window sounds and condensation too. Water then drops and streaks as you wipe the steam off your screen. That’s all it does, but it kept us entertainted for quite some time. And at $.99 we didn’t feel ripped off at all. Check it out on the App Store.
Have you noticed all the “DaysTo” apps that have popped up in the App Store recently? Some may think this is a great way to spend their $.99 but others are just as happy using a good old fashioned paper calendar. There are about 30 “DaysTo” apps in the Apple App Store which all do the same thing. Count down the days till your birthday, Christmas or any other holiday or special event. There is one app that does what all the other “DaysTo” apps do, and best of all it is free! Why pay $.99 for all the various apps when the app Days Until can do it free of charge? Check out Days Until in the App Store.
The new iPhone app, Speeek, is a useful app for anyone planning a trip to Japan. It can recognize 1,500 spoken Japanese phrases and translate them into English or Chinese. The app only covers basic phrases like hello/goodbye or where is the bathroom so you won’t be able to translate conversations or anything. The app costs about $20 in Japan. Some say that the iPhone 3G hasn’t caught on in Japan, but all the various iPhone related magazines and this new Japanese iPhone app shows otherwise. The Speeek iPhone app was designed for Japanese tourist but would make a great tool for Japanese language students.
Crayon Physics was a game that won the independent game awards of 2008. Those who are into creativity and innovation in games will be happy to know that Crayon Physics will be coming to the Apple iPhone. The iPhone is already looking at possibly entering the gaming arena and with great new titles like Crayon Physics may become a force to be reckoned with. The iPhone has a few advantages over Nintendo and Sony; they don’t have to distribute their software through a medium such as cartridges or minidiscs and the iPhone already has a huge customer base. Recently EA has also started developing for the iPhone with the release of Sim City. Crayon Physics may be just the beginning.
When Pope Benedict XVI took over the Vatican, he said he wanted to reach out to the youth with their message. One way to achieve this feat is take the technology route. And that is exactly what the Vatican did. This week, the Vatican endorsed a new Apple iPhone application called iBreviary. What iBreviary does is it allows users to load the Breviary prayer book, prayers for saying a Catholic Mass, and other prayers. The applications was developed by Rev. Paolo Padrini and Web designer Dimitri Giani. According to a representative of the Vatican, the Catholic Church is “learning to use the new technologies primarily as a tool or as a mean of evangelizing, as a way of being able to share its own message with the world,” said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications. The application is available both in Europe and in the U.S. and should be available at the Apple iTunes App Store for 99 cents. Now we have a new way to “donate” our money to the Catholic Church.
I guess you can say that Apple was probably in a holiday festive mood. Or they were probably feeling very charitable. But for the holiday season, the Apple iTunes App Store is giving away 40 paid applications for free. Because of this announcement, it has been reported that the site has been bombarded with traffic and the site may be down or slowing down. If the iPhone Nano rumors are true, this may be an indication that Apple is trying to stir up interest. Here is a comprehensive list of all the 40 applications that is available for free.
The highly anticipated iFart app hit the top paid app spot receiving over 13,000 purchases on December 22nd. That means about $9200 went to the developer alone. That’s a pretty large payday for Joel Comm the developer. This is a good sign for independent app developers hoping to strike it rich, if such a useless app like the iFart then a useful app could do even better. This is great for Apple too as they take a part of the revenues.
Joel’s climb up the “ranks”
12/14 - 841 units - #76 overall
12/15 - 1510 units - #39 overall
12/16 - 1797 units - #22 overall
12/17 - 2836 units - #15 overall
12/18 - 3086 units - #10 overall
12/19 - 3117 units - #9 overall
12/20 - 5497 units, - #4 overall
12/21 - 9760 units -#? overall
12/22 - 13274 units, #1 overall
