Your Voice: iPhone Apps

Since the end of the June when apple released the iPhone & iPod Touch 2.0 firmware, the market for Apps has gone insane and the amount of apps that are now available for download is ridiculous. Although there are many great free apps, I haven’t really wanted to download them.

If i have more than one page of apps on my first generation iPhone, it becomes incredibly sluggish, and the user experience isn’t a good one. Therefore I’m not a fan of them - i have only 5 or 6 apps.

These are:

• Aim (AOL Instant Messenger)
• Last.Fm
• Twitterfon
• Brightkite
• Fring

Notice how they are all social network sites and communication tools? The iPhone to me is a phone and it will be nothing more. (Apart from a music player too).

I want to know: What do you use on your iPhone? What apps do you use on a regular basis, and what are your opinions!

Review: 1Password

Recently, I watched a ScreenCast on 1Password and found it interesting. It seemed like the perfect solution for me, as I can easily forget passwords, and use sometimes the same password on multiple sites.

1Password is from AgileWebSolutions, and I was luckily enough to snap up 2 Licenses. One for me , One for a lucky reader of mine! (another post about that soon! Subscribe to my blog for updates!)

What is 1Password?

1Password allows you to store and management all your online user name and passwords. It also has a password generator which is excellent for providing strong passwords. Then the app handles all of these, and keeps them safe in your KeyChain.

What’s The Point of 1Password?

A while back, I was using the same password of multiple sites not realising the consequences of someone finding out that password and then abusing all the sites that he could access. After I purchased 1Password, I went to all of those sites, reset the password and used the inbuilt generation to make some seriously strong passwords. I don’t think anyone is going to be cracking into the passwords that I set up on those sites.

So, it’ll only work with Safari?

Ah! No! 1Password works with Safari, Firefox, Camino, Flock, OmniWeb, Fluid and even NetNewsWire! They all have the application setup inside of the browser so you can easily log into your favourite websites.

What about I’m on the move with my iPhone, and need to know a password?

1Password has the ability to sync with both your iPhone and Palm device, this is one of the best features apart from the app it self. It works like a charm! Also, if you own a MobileMe account, you can sync the key chain to multiple computers, allowing 1Password to operate on any computer that you own that is synced with MobileMe.

I hate filling out forms with my details, it takes to long. Is 1Password for me?

1Password has the ability to create identities which fills all the information on web forms for you. Including Name, Address, Email, etc.. Very simple in your in rush!

Overall

It’s one of the best apps I’ve seen in a while from the Mac Community, I give it a 4.7 out of 5.0!

First Thoughts: OpenTape

After the unfortunate and unexpected shut down of Muxtape, a small group of people came up with the idea of OpenTape. Now, to those of you who don’t know what Muxtape is/was - it was a service created by awesome Justin, which allows users to share their favourite songs, and a create an online mixtape. The idea was simple, it worked and people loved it. They loved it so much that the big boys got involved and destroyed it. Including the legendary RIAA who wants to destroy the dreams of developers, and idea’s that work.

Along comes, OpenTape which has something fascinating about it. It’s hard to tell the different between this web app and a muxtape. Both work exactly the same, with a flash app running in the background protecting the original track from being downloaded.

This idea has to be one of the smartest idea’s that i’ve seen, and that’s free and of, course Open Source. The worry to me is that if you share copyrighted content, e.g - a song from, Snow Patrol. The issue of legality comes into view. And if you’re sharing their tracks without permission… hmm.. This is awesome for a little & local band that want to share their music with their listeners with ease and without having someone develop an web app for them.

Overall: An excellent, open source idea that works.

VOE - Video Over Ethernet & On Demand

I’ve been using a couple of services now for streaming television show’s over the Internet. There are several services for UK People, they’re great for those episodes of your favourite TV show that you’ve missed. Most of them are online apps, requiring just a web browser.

• BBC iPlayer

• C4D - Channel 4 on demand.

• ITV Online

• 5Demand

Two out of all four of these are Mac compatible, annoying some mac-only households. With a complete lack of support for one of the most rapidly growing platforms, it seems a little unfair to offer these services to people who have Windows XP & Vista. I know that licensing can affect how companies distrubute their content but really need to think of the end user.

My Mother recently missed an episode of an a program on ITV1, which she missed to record on our SKY DVR. I told her about the ITV on demand service and off she went on her Laptop, navigating her way to the correct page, until she came back to me and asked for help.

The ITV service had asked her to install Microsoft Silverlight - I am not a fan of the app/platform but I know it works well in some situations. She had successfully installed it, and congrats to my Mother who is a bit scared of getting something wrong, especially with her Laptop. What had happened was that her Laptop had blue screened giving me a stop code, which I could not find any specific information on the code that was given unfortunatly. SilverLight is availible for the Mac giving the ability to watch the ITV service, which worked fantastic, no problems. Thumbs up for ITV.

After a simple restart everything was working well, until when she started to play the video. The audio was out of sync with the video, another restart of Firefox, and attempt to use IE fixed this issue. Seems like support FireFox is limited by Microsoft, unusual really…

Channel 4 is also in the same position apart from it uses Windows Media, and a DRM codec, and the same with Five on demand. Microsoft don’t offer any Windows Media player alternatives for the Mac, and Flip4Mac is incapable of handling such Codecs. Channel 4 have a really great service when on Windows. They allow you to download and keep old shows on your computer and availible to watch at anytime. The quality is poor when streaming, but once download it is fine. The library of programs on 4OD is fantastic ranging back to the very start of programs! Including every single episode of Shameless!

BBC’s iPlayer is only the real service that offers support to all most modern OS’s which have a Internet browser and Adobe flash installed. You can also use iPlayer on your iPhone & iPod Touch which is fantastic for when your sitting in bed and there is nothing on the television! The most recent use came to me when I was sitting in a Coffee shop waiting for a friend, but she was stuck in Traffic. I popped out my iPhone, connected to the WiFi that was there and i was away watching that weeks Mock The Week.

I had a workaround for the Windows Only services, and this was to open my virtual machine of Windows Vista and use it this way, this was tough even on my MacBook pro with 2GB of Ram, which really needs to be boosted up to 4GB If I was going to be doing allot of the time.

Another work around Is to spend a bit dosh, and purchase an EyeTV stick which uses up a USB slot but turns your computer into DVR, allowing you to schedule recordings ahead of time, and watching live TV. It also allows the videos that you have recorded to be converted and then synced onto your iPhone, iPod.. etc.

Overall, the services that a offered are aqudate to me, but overall are somethings pathetic. Some required fast internet connections, at least 2mb/s downstream. I want to see more compatibilty with services.