Yes, just when you thought things could not get weirder, here comes a new iPhone application for those with a sense of humor who enjoy gross out fun…the iFart, billed as the “Fart Machine for All Ages” is 99 cents and offers free lifetime updates (wonder what those will be like?).
Among its many uses, the iFart application can be used to trigger its unique (and probably startling) noise when someone moves your iPhone (thus its use as a security device).
Reviews on iTunes are mixed…some love it, some think the offerings are not real enough sounding…you be the judge. Here is a You Tube video about it…oh, and by the way, the developer reportedly made $40,000 in 2 days sellling this! Available through the iPhone App Store.
Amazon.com will join the iPhone frenzy… with a new application available free for download through Apple’s App Store.
The software is relatively straightforward, offering a way for iPhone or iPod Touch owners to browse through all the products offered by Amazon.com, as well as by third-party retailers like Target and Macy’s that make their products available online through Amazon.
There is, however, one unusual and noteworthy aspect of the app called Amazon Remembers, which Amazon is calling “experimental.” The tool lets users take a photograph of any product they see in the real world. The photos are then uploaded to Amazon and turned over to the far-flung freelance workers in Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program, who will try to match them with products for sale on Amazon.com. The results will not be instantaneous (between 5 minutes and 24 hours, the company says), but the idea is to entice consumers to buy products from Amazon instead of its offline rivals.
Amazon Remembers is similar to other features Amazon has introduced this year in its continuing effort to filch sales from other Web sites and retailers. TextBuyIt, a mobile messaging service introduced in April, lets people send a text message to Amazon at 262966 with the name of a product or a search term. It then replies with a number of buying options.
Another new feature that Amazon introduced this year, Universal Wish List, is a Web browser toolbar that lets people directly add the products they covet to their Amazon account when they see them on other Web sites.
AOL RADIO- GET RADIO WORLDWIDE - LOCAL CHANNELS AVAILABLE VIA GPS LOCATOR
How cool is this? I recently discovered that AOL Radio is available for the iPhone. I love this feature on my laptop and am glad it is now available for my phone. AOL Radio offers 350 music, sports, talk andnews stations and will find local radio stations for you to choose from via your GPS locator or you can listen to channels in far flung places.- whatever suits your fancy.
Watch this You Tube video about this feature and then visit the App Store to download this free app.
On Wednesday, Amazon announced the throwing open of its virtual doors to iPhone and iPod Touch users everywhere with Amazon Mobile, a free app now available in the iTunes App Store.
It’s a pretty nice offering that simplifies the search experience for products found not just on Amazon.com, but also on partner retailers Target and Macy’s.
The bulk of the app is dominated by a search bar you can launch either from the home screen or from a separate Search screen. While there’s a tiny promo area on Amazon Mobile’s home screen, the app completely omits browsing by categories. The vast majority of shoppers probably beeline to their wanted product, but there should be an option to browse from the More menu.
The surprise feature is one Amazon is trying on for size that lets you snap a photo of a product to jog your memory later. In addition, the app will try to find the product in Amazon’s catalog. Amazon Remembers, as the feature’s called, was a little slow when we tried it out, but found our products in the end.
This visual shopping assistant is a great feature that replicates many others we’ve seen for iPhone and Google Android. SnapTell for iPhone (free) is also more flexible, pulling in data and price comparisons from IMDb, Barnes and Noble, and Wikipedia, along with Amazon.com.
However, Amazon Mobile’s advantage to registered members is its simplified purchasing that honors 1-Click buying and Amazon Prime, and its memory for items you’ve flagged in your wish list, shopping cart, and now, photo bank.
The Bank of America iPhone application is now available from the App Store Icon on your phone, from iTunes or from going to www.bofa.mobi
With the Bank of America iPhone application, you can:
Check available balances
Pay bills
Transfer funds
You can also use the new ATM/banking center locator to find nearby Bank of America locations, whether you’re traveling or just driving around town. Watch this You Tube video from BofA to learn more.
Cool tool for those of you who are BofA customers. Most large banks (whoever is left after all of this chaos) will probably follow suit.
Gas Cubby is the ultimate tool for tracking gas mileage and vehicle maintenance and now its available for the iPhone. Whether you’re a hypermiler, or just want a reminder to change the oil, Gas Cubby will help save you money and keep your vehicle operating at it’s peak.
Features:
Tracks gas mileage and vehicle maintenance
Charts: MPG, gas price, gas expenses, service expenses
Charts update as data is filtered
Customizable service reminders
Supports multiple vehicles
Store vehicle information: VIN, License Plate, and Insurance Policy
Turn data fields on and off
Excel compatible email reports (CSV attachment)
Easily search, sort, and filter records
Customizable tags
Number Pad or Odometer style entry
If data entry is interrupted by a phone call, the data will be stored and retrieved on next launch
The iPhone Manga Converter can be downloaded at MangaWare.com and is free to try (registration required). The trial version expires after 14 days from the first use. Its $14.95 if you want to keep it.Website contains full ez to follow instructions and good FAQ page.
For those of you who don’t know, manga is the Japanese version of comic books that is wildly popular there and abroad with millions of fans.Many like to read them on their smart phones. Here is a way to do it on your iPhone:
iPhone Manga Converter is a tool for converting your favorite manga, comics, or images into format suitable for the iPhone browser. Save the converted file into your personal Web server or upload to your Web site by using any FTP software or free DNS service to create a host name that will direct to your personal Web server. Once you have your converted files online you can read them anywhere using Safari browser on your iPhone over Wi-Fi, EDGE or 3G connections.Version 1.0.0.4 fixed bug on HTML chapter menu creation.
Features
Supports image format JPG and PNG or in a form of archive format “RAR”,”ZIP”.
Supports archive in archives of “ZIP in RAR”, “RAR in ZIP”, “ZIP in ZIP”, or “RAR in RAR”; IPhone Manga Converter will extract archives no matter how deep it is.
Unique panel scanning logic that can automatically identify panels. This function is helpful when performing panel zooming on iPhone.
Conversion results were tested and 100% Safari iPhone compatible. Auto creation of html, JavaScript, Title menu, Chapter menu, Index menu and image pages.
Excellent image quality with small file size.
Here is an 8 minute YouTube video showing off some of the features. (by the way, it isn’t your imagination, there doesn’t appear to be any audio for several minutes into this video)
for an interesting article on Google’s new enhancement to its iPhone app: Voice Search Capability- watch for it coming soon on iTunes but before you read this watch a demo from Google courtesy of Youtube:
The New York Times reports in Friday’s newspaper that Google’s iPhone app will be updated with voice search capability. The move should come as no surprise: The launch of Goog411 in 2007 brought immediate speculation that mobile voice search was on the way, and Google tells the Times that data collection from the Goog411 project helped create this new iPhone service.
With the new Google iPhone app, you’ll be able to speak your search query into the phone rather than having to type it out. The Times article explains what happens after you ask your question:
“The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.
The search results, which may be displayed in just seconds on a fast wireless network, will at times include local information, taking advantage of iPhone features that let it determine its location.”
The Times article says Google’s updated iPhone app should be available Friday. It’s a free update, and Google expects to make the voice search feature available on other phones, too.
Postscript from Greg: I just checked and the app doesn’t yet appear to be available in the iTunes store. As the Markoff article mentions in the Times, both Yahoo and Microsoft have a variety of voice search apps.
Microsoft’s Live Search mobile client app has offered voice for some time, but it’s limited to mostly local categories. Microsoft also owns Tellme, which offers both the free directory assistance alternative 800-555-Tell and an app for BlackBerry that is voice powered. Microsoft also separately operates 1-800-Call-411.
In July Google introduced a voice-powered version of Google Maps for BlackBerry. Earlier this year Yahoo introduced voice for oneSearch (full web search) with Vlingo. This is what Google is now introducing essentially.
As mentioned, there are also a host of free directory assistance alternatives in the market (six or seven major ones), including Tellme, Call-411 and Goog411. The recognition engine behind Goog411 powers the new iPhone voice search.
Among the range of “voice search” and free directory assistance alternatives services now in the market, mobile ChaCha is noteworthy because it allows users to ask any question, essentially full web search, not just “what city what listing.” It also uses humans behind the scenes to disambiguate and answer queries. ChaCha has said that some of its heaviest users are doing query volumes that mirror search activity levels on the desktop. Hypothetically the more queries, the more ads — potentially.
In terms of the iPhone, a range of companies are working voice “search” or control for the device, including Nuance which previously demo’d voice control and search for the iPhone. The first to officially offer a voice capability for search was Dial Directions, which has two voice controlled iPhone apps, Say Who and Say Where. The former is voice control for contacts/dialing and the latter, introduced several months ago, is voice-based local search through selected sites via the Safari browser.
The key with all of these voice applications is the accuracy of the speech recognizers. The failure rates remain an issue, although they’re improving and variable from app to app.
So far voice has not proven to be the “killer app” for mobile search (as I once believed it would be). However Google’s new voice search iPhone capability should be helpful in selected situations — while in the car, for example, when directory assistance is most heavily used or for longer “long tail” queries that are highly specific. Indeed, it may result in longer or more precise query strings.
Regardless, I’m sure the new Google voice search capability will be quite popular among iPhone users.
Thanks to Robert Hansen writing for iPhone Freak on 10/28/08 for the following review of Google Earth for the iPhone: (but first check out the You Tube Video from Google about how to download and use the app)
Google has recently released an iPhone and iPod touch version of GOOGLE EARTH. The newly released app is available for free and offers functionality similar to the desktop version. Initially I was a little skeptical on just how well this would perform on the iPhone, but after playing for a little while I can say that it not only performs well, but was also fun to use.
Google Earth for the iPhone allows users to browse the globe with your fingertips. It even has links to Wikipedia articles for select locations as well as over 8 million Panoramio photos. Using Google Earth is simple thanks to the touchscreen capability, users can move around by swiping your finger, then once you locate that spot you want to check out, you can then pinch to zoom in or zoom out. The app also takes advantage of the built-in accelerometer and allows you to tilt the screen and get a different view.
Additionally you can use the search field to narrow into a particular location, and even use the built-in Location Services of the iPhone to quickly zoom in on your current location.
Overall, I am not sure just how often I would use Google Earth, its fun to play with, but one thing it seems to be missing are the street names, which you would commonly find in Google Maps.
Here is a tip for getting a free voice recorder for your iPhone courtesy of iPhone News from a post dated 10/13/08:
If you are looking for good and free voice recorder, EccoNote is a good choice. But it does not look as good as iDicto. This very good looking voice recorder app is currently having a promotion.
It originally charges you $0.99, but now it’s free now for a limited time.
It does not have time limit for recording, and the interface is just like a classic voice recorder.
In the recording screen, click the sync button in the bottom left, you will be able to download the recordings from iPhone to PC through web browser easily using Wi-Fi.
Time is limited, grab it in iTunes or later it will become shareware.
Follow the link below and be sure to sign in with your iTunes user name and password or create a new account if you are new to iTunes
Yes, its official, there ARE medical applications for the iPhone. The National Network of Libraries of Medicine has posted a host of things doctors can now do via their iPhone. With the iPhone 3G there has been an increase in applications and tomorrow..who knows…soon they will be passing iPhones out with the stethescopes.
Here is just a taste of what the docs can do with their iPhones-
List of iPhone medical applications AirStrip OB - remote patient monitoring Apple website iPhone demonstration DynaMed and the iPhone - stay tuned for other EBSCO announcements Epocrates demonstration Heart It iPhone demonstration iChart Sync - CareTools for the iPhone MacPractice iPhone Interface Mediquations - Medical Calculator for iPhone and iPod Touch Medical eponyms database for handheld devices Merck Medicus - PDA tools MIMvista - Presents Multi-modality Imaging on the iPhone™ Modality Learning: we make small screens smarter and potential iPhone applications for medical students Podcasts and Videocasts PubGet Mobile Unbound medicine simulation Wikipanion - wikipedia for mobiles Yale’s Cushing/Whitney Library Mobile site and PDAs, Handhelds and Mobile Technologies in Libraries
Unbound Medicine & the iPhone
Unbound Medicine is one of the few medical information tools specifically designed for the iPhone. It places emphasis on current information, and book titles such as Harrison’s Manual of Medicine and Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests from McGraw-Hill, 5-Minute Clinical Consult from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Red Book® from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Davis’s Drug Guide and Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary from F.A. Davis.
Unbound MEDLINE tracks medical journals and searches 17 million citations. Unbound Medicine’s customized iPhone interface takes full advantage of the built-in Safari™ web browser to give health professionals quick answers over cellular and WiFi networks. Users navigate intuitively by tapping on index terms or by entering searches into clinician-friendly forms. Cross-links and lists of related content instantly take a clinician from a disease management discussion to a drug monograph for the correct dose, possible interactions, and adverse effects of a recommended medication. In addition, iPhone and iPod Touch users can use iPhone-optimized Unbound MEDLINE on their WiFi or cell-enabled device by simply going to: http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline (go there with a web browser you’ll get the web version).
Medical library websites & iPhone
A number of American medical libraries have started to develop special pared-down, ‘optimized’ versions of their library websites. See Yale’s Cushing/Whitney Library cool mobile site The idea with minimalist library websites is to help users navigate library resources on small mobile screens. In that small content, you should be able to use the iPhone to find books, specific journals or articles in medical libraries with no difficulty. Some health librarians report that pdfs open but take time to load on the iPhone; lengthy articles may time out before they are completely downloaded (this has also been observed in loading web pages). Some articles open up in ‘html’ which may be a more sound option.
iPhone and medical faculty & students doing research Books and articles should be searchable/findable on the iPhone Health professionals should be able to determine, if needed, the physical location of library items using the iPhone Copies of articles to view or print later should be easily sent via email on the iPhone Also, abstracts and articles can be shared with colleagues, residents or medical students via email. Patient monitoring, x-ray and scan viewing, patient charting, are all coming to the iPhone.
