Facebook Places gives you a way to virtually check-in to real life locations and see if any of your other Facebook friends are nearby. The catch? You need to have an iPhone or your mobile browser must support HTML 5 and geolocation. The other catch? By default “Places” is enabled in your Facebook privacy settings so even if you are just testing it out you need to check who you’ll be sharing this data with first – unless you don’t care.
It’s a simple fix but something I felt should be addressed. What better way than with a screencast! To learn about Facebook Places and see how to update your privacy settings, watch the screencast below:
There’s still no Firefox browser for the iPhone but the folks at Mozilla have made a handy app that allows you to sync your bookmarks, recent browsing history and open tabs from your desktop, right to your iPhone. It’s called Firefox Home and it’s a free download.
After you install it on your iPhone you’ll need to create a Firefox Sync account by installing the add-on for Firefox on your desktop. Once the sync is complete you’ll have quick access to tabs that you have open on your desktop, on your iPhone. You’ll also be able to view your recent browsing history and all of your bookmarks.
To see Firefox Home in action, watch the screencast below:
MobileRSS syncs with your Google Reader so you can keep up with all of your favorite blogs and websites at all times. There’s a free version and a pro for $2.99 (iTunes links) which I’ll show you in the screencast.
After you install it and sign in with your Google account it will automatically sync up. All of your folders, tags, shared and stared items will be in place along with people who you follow. MobileRSS works a lot like Google Reader and you can also share items via email, Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, and more.
I installed both the free and paid-for versions and am happy with both. If you’re unsure about spending the money then install the free version, it works great and will give you a feel of what you get for your money.
To see MobileRSS in action, watch the screencast below:
Adobe Ideas (iTunes link) is an app for the iPhone and iPad that helps you quickly sketch out design ideas on a blank canvas or a photo. There’s also a handy color palette generator for use on a new photo or an existing one. It’s completely free so even if you’re not very creative (you’ll see my level of creativity in this screencast ) it’s still fun to use and can be useful for sharing simple design ideas with others.
To see the Adobe Ideas app in action, watch the screencast below:
I love that there’s one day a year dedicated to celebrating our wonderful Mother Earth. One day a year when people will remember to bring their reusable grocery bags to the supermarket, think twice before buying that ginormous bottle of water imported from Fiji and one day when people will remember to put down the lid on the toilet. Do you know how much water can evaporate out of the toilet when the lid is left open? Do you?? And thank goodness there are a ton of “green” iPhone apps to help us do our part. (Yes, I’m being snarky but I really am a hippy vegetarian so it’s OK )
Here are my two favorites that I stumbled upon today:
Cruelty Free (iTunes link) is a helpful app for people who want to be sure that they are buying products that are NOT tested on animals.
Find Green (iTunes link) is an app that helps you to find green businesses in your area.
Check out the screencast to learn more about the Cruelty Free and Find Green iPhone apps:
Photoshop.com Mobile iPhone App is a free and easy to use photo editor. You can use it with new photos you take or on photos already in your camera roll. Use it to quickly add effects, crop images and more.
Check out the screencast to see more:
CameraBag ( iTunes link) isn’t free, but it’s so fun to use that I think it’s worth the $1.99 price tag. It allows you to add awesome filters to your pictures almost instantly.
Check out the screencast to see more:
TiltShift helps you take any scenic photo and make it appear as if it’s a miniature scale model. At just $0.99, I couldn’t pass it up.
Siri is a virtual personal assistant that lives in your iPhone. It can help you find a place to get a bite to eat, show you movie listings, and even remind you to call your Mom on her birthday.
You have two options when using Siri – You can type out what you’re looking for or you can say it to Siri and it will do its best to figure out what you’re saying. For example, you could simply tap “restaurants” and then choose what type of food you’re looking for and where. Siri will grab reviews, menus (if available) and even allow you to add notes to your selection. You can then map it, email it, or save it to your Siri bookmarks. You can also choose the “say it” option and say what you want. I tried saying, “Shutter Island, San Francisco” into my phone and Siri immediately recognized that I was looking for movie listings for “Shutter Island” in San francisco. It brought up theaters close to me and gave me the option to reserve tickets.
You can say things like, “remind me to call the dentist” and Siri should send that info into the reminders section of your account and allow you to add a time for Siri to email you and remind you to call the dentist. This only seemed to work about half of the time. Sometimes it would recognize “remind” and sometimes it would think I was saying “find”.
Another little problem I had was with finding restaurants near me. Siri doesn’t seem to know of any pizza places closer than 10 miles to my house – And that is definitely not the case. It was also telling me that some restaurants were much farther away from my location then they actually are. With that said, this is definitely not a deal breaker for me as Siri does much more than just find restaurants and set reminders. You can request a cab, get the current weather, set dinner reservations, and pretty much anything else that you would have a real personal assistant do. Except this one is free. Get Siri in the iTunes App Store here.
I’m super excited to announce a first on DemoGirl (insert suspenseful drum-roll here). App Happy: iPhone App Reviews for Everyone. Or something like that. Ok, so now that I got that out of the way, and you’ve all had a chance to put on a fresh pair of underwear, let me explain:
This past weekend I got my hands on an iPhone, rigged up a mini-iPhone recording studio, and went to work. I chose the WordPress iPhone App because I use WordPress on a daily basis and, in all seriousness, it is a super useful App for anyone who uses WordPress.
Technically this is not a screencast. But, I am recording the screen of the iPhone and our mission remains, to help everyone understand and see how to use fun and helpful applications – Web-based or, now, mobile.
Please watch the video below and let me know what you think in the comments. Is the lighting terrible? Is it too hard to see the iPhone in action? Am I in desperate need of a manicure? Or do you think this is the most amazing thing you have ever seen in your entire life? Your feedback is so important to me and I thank you in advance.
) it’s still fun to use and can be useful for sharing simple design ideas with others.
