iPhone OS 4.0

Hey guys I know it has been awhile since my last post. I have just been really busy with everything but today I am really excited to share with you iPhone OS 4.0 and my thoughts on it. Yes, I know this was released yesterday but I had some previous jobs I had to do. So here it is.

First I will go over the 4 major new features that were gone over in the keynote because I just don't have time to write about all 100 new features. The first new feature I will go over is multitasking. This is a real big addition to the iPhone OS. One reason for this is because their biggest competitors have been able to multitask on their devices for a long time. Apple claims that they haven't had it on their platform until now because they wanted to wait until they had it just right. What they mean by this is not only the interface of it but while using multitasking you wont kill your battery or lose a lot of the phones power. Multitasking will let the customer play music from other apps while they go into another app. For example a user could be listening to their Pandora account and then close out of it and go into another app and the music wouldn't stop like it use to. Another way to use multitasking is by using VOIP or Voice over IP. This is like taking a skype call and then closing out and staying on the call and being able to go play a game. This is a real big thing for many people. The next big feature that was added is folders. Folders will let the user put all the apps they want in one place. With a simple drop one app on top of another app you will be making folders. You will even be able to name the folders. For those of you that ran out of space because you could only have 180 apps on your device you will now be able to have 2,160 apps with these new folders. The next big feature that was added is an even better mail app. With this new mail app you will be able to have multiple exchange accounts hooked up to the same device. You will also have the option to show all your email accounts in one big inbox so you don't have to keep switching back and fourth between the different inbox. Other parts of the new mail app include being able to open attachments in third party apps, organizing messages by thread, and switching between inbox faster. The last major feature that they showed off was iBooks. Now yes iBooks was released with the iPad but now Apple has brought that same app, book store, and all the other books you have bought to the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can even do this while listening to music. One other cool new thing they talked about and showed but didn't go into much detail was about being able to change you home screen background. You now will be able to have what ever picture you want as your background and it doesn't have to stay black. At the keynote that also went over a new thing called iAD and Enterprise. They also went over the fact that there is now over 1,500 new APIs for developers to use and make their apps do what we just talked about. iAD in a quick little description is Apples new way to put ads in developers apps so that they can keep them free and still make money.It is a really cool and interactive way to put ads in apps. Enterprise is for companies. This will let companies easily deploy many iPhones through out their company. This will also let them make and distribute apps just for their company very easily to every one. A cool new thing about that for them is that they wont even need to plug in their phones and sync the apps they will be able to do it wireless. Now here is the catch this is a direct quote for apple.com " Phone OS 4 will work with iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and the second- and third-generation iPod touch this summer, and with iPad in the fall. Not all features are compatible with all devices. For example, multitasking is available only with iPhone 3GS and the third-generation iPod touch (32GB and 64GB models from late 2009)."

Now for my feelings and impressions about the new iPhone OS. Over all I am very happy about all the new features and will love to have them on my iPod Touch. The only downfall is that I wont be able to multitask on it because I have the 2nd Generation. This disappoints me very much because this is something that I have been looking forward to for a long time. Now if we put that aside I am extremely happy. I will be able to set one of my own pictures as the background and these new folders will let my organize my minimal app collection. I will also be able to merge my inbox and for me this isn't the biggest thing because I really only get mail in one inbox but when I do get mail from the other mail box I wont have to spend the time to switch to it. Another feature that was talked about but I wont be using is the feature of being able to have multiple exchange accounts. The first and the biggest reason is that I don't even have one exchange account so this doesn't effect me. Now for the iBooks app. I'm not the biggest reader and for that I rarely read at all. When I do read it is in school and during school I cant pull out my iPod and claim to be reading so I most likely won't be using this app but if for some reason I do decide to download a book and read it using this app from what I know the experience will be great. Over all as you can tell I am very happy with the turn out of iPhone OS 4.0 and can't wait to use it this summer.

iPhone OS 4.0 will be available this summer for the iPhone and iPod Touch and then later this fall for the iPad. There is no price that it will be going for at the time. For more information on iPhone OS 4.0 go to http://www.apple.com/iphone/preview-iphone-os/. You can also download the keynote or watch it one apple.com for more information and demos of everything talked about.

For more of my work go to http://applman02-appleworld.blogspot.com/. Thanks.

ISW Recorder & Editor: A Very Useful, Free iPhone App

ISW Recorder & Editor is a brilliant new, free iPhone app for recording your audio and mixing it around. I previously wrote a review of the paid version for this app on my website and thecreativeone.tv. This app is very useful for almost anyone.

Easy to Use
This audio recorder and editor is very easy to use, not to mention fun. The app has a very clean interface, which is very clearly laid out and is one of the rare apps in the App Store that is actually very well designed in both the UI and the icon. I was immediately able to use the app and navigate around with ease.

Many Uses
ISW is an incredibly versatile tool and can be used by pranksters, students, songwriters, especially with its scriptwriting feature. Another great feature is the Input Percentage Meter, which can go up to 500% and pick up even the tiniest of vibrations. This feature could be convenient for spying on people. Not that I’m endorsing this sort of behavior. Absolutely not. As I said in my review, “a student could use the arrangements feature to make one arrangement for a topic that was discussed in several lessons.”
This app really is amazingly useful, especially considering that it’s free. Of course, if you choose to go pro, then that’s cheap too, at 99 cents. Read on below to find out how to get it for free.

Promo Code
I have a promo code for the paid version of this app. If you want to have a chance of winning it, then email me at ha.alamin@gmail.com, with the subject: ISW Giveaway. Then tell me why you think this app would be useful for you. The winner will be the person with the most creative way of using it. You don’t have to write what you will actually use it for and you can make it up. I might also give it to the funniest email. You’ll just have to see.

Edit: I have two new promo codes to give away, that makes a total of three codes. 

PogoPlank - Theme and Categorize your iPhone

PogoPlank, $1.99 from BigBoss on Cydia, is an awesome app that allows you to theme your jailbroken iPhone or iTouch down to one page. That’s right, no more swiping through pages of icons as they are all listed underneath folders on the home page. Almost all the PogoPlank themes follow the format of having the folders displayed in a wheel. See the Guinness theme on my iPhone to left. This cool theme was designed by Dogma at Sinful iPhone. The tiny glasses of Guinness are icons for the folders. Tap a glass and the apps within that folder are displayed as you can see in the screenshot below.  If you watch the step by step video you will see the folder icons are in a “wheel” formation that you scroll to display additional directories. Setting up PogoPlank couldn’t be any easier. There are two tabs on the bottom of the app. Themes is where you pick which one you want displayed. You just select any theme you’ve added from a dropdown menu. There are hundreds if not thousands of themes for PogoPlank from sports teams, movies like New Moon, TV shows like The Simpsons and many more. The Categories tab is where you name your folder icons and add whichever apps you want to each folder. That’s it, once this is done your iPhone or iTouch has just one page and acts just like your desktop. Setting up some PogoPlank themes requires you to SSH the theme folder into your iPhone. However, this is fairly simple and as I’ve stated before, if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone you can SSH. It’s much easier. To set up this Guinness theme on your iPhone just watch the video guide here. Creating your own PogoPlank theme for your jailbroken iPhone or iTouch is simple as well. Just download the folder and change the image files folder.png, list.png and wallpager.png. I recommend opening the images up in Photoshop or whatever editor you use to get the proper image size. Anyone think this will be a popular at the Irish pub on Saint Patrick’s Day?

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.”