iPhone App Review - Air Mouse

Air Mouse Pro, R.P.A. Tech $0.99, is a cool little app that transforms your iPhone or iPod Touch into a mouse. Features include touchpad or single finger control, keyboard, left and right mouse buttons, a scroll button and more. Before the app will work you must download "server" software for your Mac or PC here. Don't worry, it's very simple. Once you run the "server" software your iPhone connects almost immediately (assuming you have wifi turned on). Now I can see using this app for three main reasons. One, this could be fun to play tricks on the unsuspecting. Just stand behind them and watch them think the mouse is going crazy. Better yet, type something into a textbox and they'll think the computer has some crazy virus. Two, you need a backup mouse. In my experience, your bluetooth mouse will run out of batteries (and you may not have any) and occasionally has issues syncing. Thus, having another option is great cause you might be in a hurry. Third, if you are someone who uses your TV as a monitor sometimes this should be your mouse of choice. It's simple to switch from watching a movie, to checking your email or a spreadsheet. The range on the iPhone Air mouse is great. I've been over 20 feet away with no problems. Any more than that and I can't see the TV/monitor too well. Now I know there are some more sophisticated remote apps like HippoRemote, $4.99, and Remote Jr., $7.99. However, these apps are not only more expensive, but a little trickier to setup and master due to their greater options. Therefore, for the idiots of the world I feel more than comfortable recommending Air Mouse as a solid choice. See how simple it is to operate Air Mouse on your iPhone in this quick video.

Why Android Will Ultimately Fail

Android has some impressive features. It can run multiple apps at once, supports the 1GHz Nexus One, and overlays demographic data onto a map.

And that is precisely why they'll fail.

If you are a geek, you may want more out of the iPhone or the iPad. You want the ability to customize the UI, run multiple apps at once, and download apps that may or may not be damaging to the core services of your phone. All these things must be done with some knowledge of how technology works; how processors deal with tasks, for example. If you are running multiple apps, you'll need to figure out which app is a CPU hog, and quit it. This is easy if you're a geek. But, if you're an average user, this may be incredibly hard to comprehend.

The 1984 Mac introduced the GUI. The GUI revolutionized computers… It let users run a computer without extensive knowledge of how it actually works… no need to know any command line whatsoever. The iPhone is doing that with cell phones. It's simplifying the cell phone. Yet, making it more powerful. So you don't have to deal with a task manager on a mobile device.

I wanted to keep this brief, but you can view the continuation here.

iSaidWhat?! Review

Over the holidays, I stumbled across a very useful app for audiophiles, students and pranksters. iSaidWhat?! is an audio recorder, editor and mixer which can be used to record lectures or mix together recordings to create the illusion that someone said something they didn’t.

The first thing I noticed about the app was the icon. The icon was very clean and stood out from the rest of the pack. I immediately had high expectations of this app and I was not disappointed. I proceeded to open the app’s iTunes page and the next thing that struck me was the clean layout of the app. I knew exactly how to navigate around easily when I installed it. A nifty feature of this app is the input percentage meter, which allows you to choose how much the app can pick up. Although, this was not very intuitive. It should be there by default, rather than having to click the small grey microphone icon, which does not give a good indicator of its function. However, the feature is a bonus and not a necessity.

The next thing that caught my eye was the script feature, which puts a script for you to read from, which could be useful for song writers for example.

Now onto the main function of the app, which is the editor and mixer. I think it performs this function very well and it is very easy to use. It has two tabs, one for the recordings and one for arrangements of recording snippets. It’s very easy to cut bits out after a recording and easy to use it in arrangements.

Unlike some App Store reviewers, I disagree that the name is bad. I think it’s a unique name and will catch student’s eyes along with its icon that makes good use of the small square area. It could be improved to appeal to the songwriters though.

Complaints

The only complaints I have about this app are very minor. The first is that I should be able to delete a recording without deleting an arrangement that uses snippets from it.



The second is that the app should open to your list of recordings rather than the “New Recording” screen except on first launch. That’s it! Like, I said, these are not big deals and can be very easily fixed.

To sum up, I would recommend this app to pranksters, students and songwriters. For example, a student could use the arrangements feature to make one arrangement for a topic that was discussed in several lessons. This could be useful for many other purposes and I think at 99 cents, it’s a steal.

Update:
“The app opens in the recording screen on launch only if you didn’t close from within the snippets view, or arrangement view.”- my mistake
Also, as I suspected the developer says that “Arrangements aren’t seperate files, they actually read from the recording. Snippets are just shortcuts to a recording in order to conserve space and time.”

Where do you get your Apple theories?

We all know 9to5mac, TUAW, AppleInsider, and MacRumors. They deliver Apple news, and rumors. But do they provide perspective, and thought? www.bitefromtheapple.com takes their news postings and analyzes them, correlating them with Apple's past actions to best predict what the tech giant will do. Visit us everyday for the best perspective on Apple there is to offer.

We will also be giving away a weekly prize. So, go to out website as much as possible, and, if you see the red button in the sidebar (which usually isn't there), click on it to get a prize!

Vaja iPhone Case

When it comes to the iPhone, we all know there is a whole ecosystem of accessories to choose from. Cases are no exception. A few weeks ago, I decided to purchase a Vaja leather case. The case was certainly a splurge, and unfortunately it hasn't been everything I had hoped it would be. Watch the video below to find out more.