Social Networking
I use Twitter, but I wouldn't call myself a Twitter junkie. Therefore the official and Free Twitter App was all I really needed. I liked the user interface and it did what I wanted. However, Twitter started messing with a good thing. The first round of attacks was the NEW Trending Bar. Everyone hated it, but I really didn't care. What I cared about and saw no reason for was dropping support for bit.ly URL shortening in favor of their own. People use bit.ly for statistic tracking. Also I'm a bit.ly pro user and therefore have my own shortening domain name. That was kinda the last straw.
Moving on to Echofon Pro
If I'm going to switch clients I want to switch across the board. Therefore I want the same client for both iPhone and iPad and if it's Universal as opposed to making me pay twice it's going to score points. Also most of these clients, Echofon included, offer a free version. Although I could probably get by with another free app I'd rather not have any limitations. Echofon has the features I need right off the bat. Multiple account support, location support, bit.ly support as well as a nice layout. It has one feature that I'm quickly falling in love with and that's an "Auto Refresh". As long as you have the App open and you're on a wifi network, new tweets will automatically come in. Very cool! If you use Echofon on the desktop there's even automatic sync of unread tweets.
While Echofon gives me back the things that the Twitter App took away, there is one major thing missing and it's keeping me from giving this app a 5 star rating. There doesn't seem to be a list of recently used hash tags. Nor does there seem to be a fast way of entering them. You have to manually use the # sign buried in the regular keyboard (someone please tell me I'm missing something here). With everything else this app has I'm actually quite shocked that there isn't a native hash tag feature or if there is, it's not obvious to me. Otherwise I'm happy with the move to Echofon Pro on my iPhone and iPad.
You can follow me on Twitter here.
You can get Echofon Pro for $4.99 here from the 
You can get the free version of Echofon here from the
There are a bunch of Apps available these days to manage your social media experience. Many of them are "one trick ponies" that only manage one particular service such as Facebook or Twitter. There are a few Apps that keep track of all of this content in one place, but many are buggy and not quite as good of a user experience as the company sponsored Apps. That is until RockMelt. RockMelt brings all of your online content to one place for easy viewing, interaction, and use. Not only does it keep track of your Facebook, and Twitter accounts, but it also lets you keep track of your favorite online content such as websites, blogs, and rss feeds. What makes RockMelt special isn't the content but how it displays and allows you to interact and view this content. With a simple UI (user interface), RockMelt lets you quickly and easily see if there is any new content available for each site or feed that you are following.
Desktop Application
RockMelt is a great stand alone content manager. When I first heard about, and downloaded it I didn't even know that there was a desktop counterpart to go along with it. After I logged in and started loading my content however, I realized that without the desktop application you are limited to the "popular" or suggested by RockMelt feeds. They have some of the most popular feeds available for selection right inside of the iPhone App, so some of the things you want to follow are ready to go, but if you want to follow say The Best App site, you have to add it on the desktop Application and it will sync over the cloud to your iPhone RockMelt App. (We are currently working on having The Best App site added to the suggested sites to follow, we'll keep you updated) My suggestion to you is this, download the desktop application first, and then download the iPhone App.
It Starts With Facebook
That's right, it starts with Facebook. The very first thing that you are asked to log in to upon launching the App is Facebook. Doing this pulls your name, and profile picture strait from Facebook and sets them on RockMelt for your profile. It seems Facebook is the pivoting point for RockMelt and if you don't have a Facebook account, you can't sign in to use it. I'm not sure this is going to be a deal breaker for anyone because lets face it, if you don't have a Facebook account, you probably wouldn't want an App like this anyway. Before anyone yells at me, if you're that one person out there that has a Twitter account, has rss feeds that they want to follow, but don't have a Facebook account I'm sorry, you'll have to create one to use RockMelt.
Where We Go From There
Like I said, you have to log in to Facebook to set up RockMelt, but from there the possibilities are vast. Within the iPhone App (not loading anything from the desktop application yet) you have a wide array of content to chose from. For example, I added my Twitter account @JasonLPhoto, CNN, The Oatmeal, Texts From Last Night, Fail Blog, Lifehacker, TechCrunch, Apple Hot News, and more just from the iPhone App! Each item has it's own icon, as well as it's name on what can be best described as a button. On the far right side of each button you will see a number indicating how many unread items you have for that particular site/rss feed. It's a simple yet effective UI.
Other useful features
As it stands Rockmelt is a really good content management App, however it does more. RockMelt has a built in browser of it's own so you never have to leave the App if you want to do a quick search for something on the web. Above the content buttons is a search bar that allows you to either input a search term or type in a web address. The search option launches Google with that search term inputted. Once you have found the web page that you are looking for you can either enter it and read/interact with it or you can use another of RockMelt's built in features, save for later. This will save the current content for viewing at a later time whether on or offline. This is a really handy feature. You can save things to view later when you might not have cell coverage, a really great addition. The other nice thing about this feature is that it's across the cloud so if you save something on your desktop RockMelt browser to view later it also saves it on your iPhone to view later. Bookmarks too are synced across the cloud to both locations.
Adding Custom Content
Adding custom content to your selection is easy. Go to the desktop application and navigate to the website that you would like to add to your feeds. For example, go to http://www.terrywhite.com/techblog as I have in the image below. Click on the small green plus sign on the right side of the screen to open the Apps and Feeds Panel. From here you have to give it a few seconds to build the icon and pull the content. Once it does a green bar will appear under the Add Feeds heading that says "From Current Site". Click here and it will add that site, it's content and icon to your followed feeds. At this point all you have to do is refresh your feeds on your iPhone by pulling the content down until your see "release to refresh" and the new content will load. It's that simple. Now make sure that you add Best App Site and Terry White Tech Blog as in the example. 
Room For Improvement
Let's be fair, this is a BRAND NEW App. They just released it this week so there will be updates in the future I'm sure, but there are a few things that I'd like to see. First, the interaction with Twitter and Facebook are basic. While you are able to do quite a bit within the Facebook portion of the App, most of the interaction revolves around your wall and news feed. There isn't near the control that you have with the actual Facebook App for iPhone. I hope that as time goes by RockMelt will add this control. The same goes for Twitter. There isn't near the control or functionality of the full on Twitter App. The basics are there however so tweeting, retweeting, replying, and seeing your @ mentions are all possible. Lastly, (and this is just me talking) I'd really like to see Best App Site as a recommended feed to follow 
Best of It's Kind
This is the best App of it's kind I've seen so far. With the integration of the cloud and the desktop application coupled with the ease of use, I can't recommend this App enough to anyone wanting all of their social media content in one place fore consuming.
Get RockMelt from the iTunes store for your iPhone for free here:
There is a new Twitter client on the block. It is called Tweetbot and comes from Tapbots, the makers of apps Convertbot and Weightbot, two apps which have been reviewed here before and gotten high scores. So, why am I taking a look at this new Twitter client at all then?
Well, first and foremost the official Twitter for iOS application is starting to shorten its links using the t.co shortener by default, allowing little control over how to display links at all. I fear this might just be the beginning of a series of bad choices for the app, the second being the #dickbar, making the rounds just a month or so ago. In addition, I do feel that it doesn’t hurt trying new things once in a while.
The first thing you notice when even looking up Tweetbot in the App Store, is that it has a rather cute icon. When downloading the app, you’ll notice that the entire interface looks very good. Clearly clean and simple have been keywords during the design processes, as with the other Tapbots apps.
You do not get a Tapbots app for the unified iOS experience (that I am known to love) but for the innovative, well-designed user experience that resembles the iOS default, but is just slightly different. This is by far something negative. On the contrary, the app is very easy to use and does explore alternative ways of interacting with tweets in a timeline. To reply, retweet or perform other actions, you just click on a tweet to get access to a little options bar. To check for new tweets, you drag upwards past the top, as debuted in the first version of Tweetie for iPhone.
In terms of features, Tweetbot has what you expect. The entire twitter feature-set is there, including a clever implementation of lists. If you have different lists created in your Twitter account, Tweetbot lets you see a timeline specifically to these people. This way you can still follow a lot of people without having to see them all in your timeline.
One big negative I have with this app is perhaps not as much about the app itself, as with the devices it is available on. While it is available on the iPhone and iPod Touch, it isn’t (at the time of this writing) available for the iPad, which I am not particularly fond of. I must say I prefer having the same user experience on both my iOS devices when it comes to Twitter clients.
Conclusion
To be honest, the only real reason for wanting to switch to Tweetbot is the lists implementation, however this does not have to be a small feature. In fact, if you are following over 300 people and don’t mind creating a few lists (unless you already have them), go ahead and give Tweetbot a go. At $1.99 it isn’t too bad and it offers a nice interface, all the features that you have become used to in other Twitter clients, and a few more!
You can get Tweetbot from the App Store here:
Most social networking Apps can already do push notifications and even the built-in Apps can do it too. The problem with all the Push Notification features built-in to most Apps is that they are either on or off. In other words you can't control when you're notified. I first discovered Boxcar as a solution for getting Push Notifications of Google Voice SMS messages and Voicemails. Although the Google Voice Apps all do Push Notifications now, i don't use the built-in ones. I still continue to use Boxcar because of one major feature – Quiet Time! You can set a time range for when you DON'T want to be disturbed each night. I really don't need to know that someone retweeted one of my tweets in the middle of the night. Sure I could just turn my phone off, but often when I traveling I leave it on for potential emergency phone calls from home.
Boxcar does more
Boxcar also usually does more than the built-in push notifications of these apps. For example, with Google Voice I don't want to actual SMS message displayed on screen. You can turn this off in the native Message App in iOS, but not in any of the Google Voice Apps that I've seen. No problem for Boxcar, just switch it to "Private Message" and Box car will just display a generic message on screen until you go into the App that you got the message in. Also with Twitter for example I use the "bird" sound to know right off the bat that the notification is Twitter related.
Setup is really easy and once it's setup you can turn off the push notifications of the individual apps and just use Boxcar for your source of all notifications. I could easily give this App 5 stars, but I'd like to see a couple of things. First of all I'd like to see the list of Google Voice support apps updated faster. For example, right now I'm using GV Mobile + and the latest version isn't supported yet in Boxcar. Also I guess their servers get busy sometimes and notifications aren't instant during those times. I always get them, but not immediately in all cases. If that's a concern for your most important apps then you might want to stick with the native App's Push Notifications. Otherwise, I LOVE Boxcar!
You can get Boxcar for Free here from the
There is a $4.99 in-App purchase if you wish to disable the ads.
Just as we are closing out the year and picking our BEST Apps of 2010, Skype slides an update in just in time. Skype is known for allowing people to voice chat and video chat around the globe for free! That's right. If you have a Skype account and I have a Skype account we can talk for as long as we want over the internet for free. They even added video chatting from Skype to Skype as well. The only thing that was really missing from this was allowing people to video chat on mobile devices such as the shinny new iPhone 4 with its front facing camera. That update just hit the scene this week and I had a chance to check it out. While I love the quality of Apple's FaceTime (it was one of my main reasons for upgrading to an iPhone 4), the thing that keeps me from using it more often is that you have to be on a WiFi connection to use it. There are plenty of times where I'm in transit that I would do a quick FaceTime call if I could. Now I can with Skype!
Skype Video Calling works over 3G too
This is the big thing that separates Skype from Apple's FaceTime. Skype allows video chatting over WiFi or 3G, from iDevice to iDevice or iDevice to Mac or PC. Although Apple did bring out a FaceTime desktop client for Mac (still in beta), there's no hint of a Windows version. However, there are millions of uses using Skype every day on both Mac and PC that you'll now not only be able to talk with, but also video chat with. I did a quick test with my sister and we connected immediately. Then I tested it with Jason Lykins. I purposely turned off WiFi to see it work over 3G. There's no question that FaceTime's video quality is better and you would expect it to be since it requires WiFi. With that said I found the Skype quality to be totally acceptable over 3G (YMMV). What was more important to me was the voice quality while video chatting. I know that sounds weird at first, but what good is any call if you can't hear each other? Skype did the right thing by focusing on voice quality first and video second. This combination works well. You get all the usual things that you would expect. If you're using an iPhone 4 or 4th gen iPod touch you can toggle between the front camera, rear camera or no camera. If you're on an iPhone 3GS you can use the rear camera. If you're on an iPad you can see the other person and as soon as iPad's have built-in cameras I'm sure that Skype (OK, I'm hoping they will) will come out with an iPad native version.
The lack of One more thing…
Although I'm very happy to see this Skype update and I'd recommend it to any Skype user or person that wants to stay in touch while on the go, there is one thing still missing from this update! All of my other VoIP apps support Bluetooth headsets and that support still seems to be missing from Skype. I don't know what it is about them adding this basic feature since all the other apps I use have it, yet it's still not there. Otherwise, Skype away! This update rocks!
You can get Skype for free here from the
It has been a while since we reviewed the Gowalla app for the iPhone here on the site and since we did, many updates have passed, this week however with the most major one that changes things up a bit.
Front and center with the new update is a brand new interface that is now truly gorgeous to look at but also helps with making the app easier to use. Where it was previously harder to get to, viewing friends check-ins (both all and nearby), your trips, own passport and even checking in, these areas are all available from the main tab bar.
When it comes to checking in specifically, this window has loads of improvements, the first being that Gowalla tries to calculate where you are checking in, based on your history and current location. Instead of having to choose from a list of spots first thing, you are now presented with the computed best guess for your sought check in.
No, I'm still not a gamer! However, I do like games 
I really like the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series and of course the recent release of Call of Duty Black Ops. While I was perfectly content playing these games on my Playstation 3 I learned that many of my colleagues were playing on the Xbox 360. The game is the same, but what's different between the consoles is the online play. PS3 users can play each other online and Xbox 360 users can play each other online, but not PS3 to Xbox or vice versa. As much as I did NOT want yet another gaming console, I went ahead and bought an Xbox 360 for the sole reason of being able to play online with people that I know. Since I'm not a gamer I'm not playing all the time. When I do play I'd like to play with friends. The problem is not knowing when my friends are online or not. This lead me to think, "I wonder if there's an app…"
1337pwn INXES Xbox Live Friends
This App solves the problem nicely. Once you enter your friends gaming tags you can at glance see who's online and what they're playing! This way if I'm in the mood to play but could take it or leave it, I can see if my friends are on and that would push me right over and start up the game and join in. You can see your friend's gamer card as well as detailed play history. The App is a Universal App, which means I can check from either my iPhone or my iPad depending on which one is handy. The functions are pretty basic and gives you the most important details about who is on or when they were last on and what they're playing. There is room for improvement though. I would LOVE to be able to configure a Push Notification for when certain friends are on AND playing Black Ops or any other specific game. That would really make me like this App even more. As it stands It's really good although sometimes it crashes inputing your friends. Once your list is built though you're all set and I haven't had a single issue since getting everyone in.
If you play Xbox Live games with others, you want this App!
You can get 1337pwn INXES Xbox Live Friends for FREE here from the
It seems almost silly these days to pay extra for SMS/MMS messaging on our data plans, but if you're an iPhone user you're probably doing just that right now. While I don't plan to totally eliminate texting coming into my main iPhone number I can certainly reduce the amount of messages I send/receive via AT&T by using one of the many free solutions out there. I've used both PingChat and TextNow for quite some time. Both Apps have their place and which one you go with depends on what you're trying to achieve.
PingChat
PingChat is great for friends/family that agree to install it and use it on their devices. Each person sets up a FREE PingChat ID and from that point on you can message that ID from an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android device or Blackberry running PingChat all you want. This also completely avoids messaging charges for texting someone overseas! For example, I use it all the time with co-reviewer Erik Bernskiold who lives in Sweden. This beats the $0.99 per message charge that AT&T wants to charge me! Since it works over your data plan you can use it over WiFi or 3G.
The newest version rocks by adding not only the ability to share photos and videos, but also voice notes, contacts, map locations and of course text. Yes it has Push Notifications.
This is also a great solution for families instead of AT&T's $30/month charge for an unlimited family texting plan.
You can download PingChat for FREE here from the
TextNow
Although I love PingChat I'm not going to be able to get everyone I know to install it and setup an ID. TextNow is for everyone else! With TextNow you can use it with either your FREE Google Voice account (the reason I first started using it in the first place) or you can now request a FREE phone number. This is great for giving out your "TextNow" phone number for unlimited texting with just about ANY regular cellphone. So unlike PingChat your friends/family/colleagues don't have to install anything special on their end.
TextNow supports all carriers in the US & Canada. It also supports picture messaging and even forward calls and receive voicemail. Yes it has Push Notifications.
TextNow is FREE, but ad supported. If you don't want to see ads then you can pay a subscription fee instead. Even if you pay the annual subscription it will be MUCH LESS than paying for SMS messaging through your carrier. TextNow also enables regular texting on an iPod touch or iPad. So if you or your teen are getting killed with high messaging bills you can put an end to those bills today!
You can download TextNow for FREE here from the
Yesterday I wrote about how great it was to finally have the Official Twitter App for iPad. However, when it comes to Facebook the wait continues. Unlike Twitter (they acquired a great 3rd party App and made it their own), Facebook has developed their own App for iPhone and iPod touch, but it's not yet a native iPad App. Although there is an official Facebook App for iPhone, it doesn't support all of the features of Facebook and that really bugs me considering that it comes directly from Facebook. Luckily when it comes to the iPad, Facebook works pretty good in Safari. It's not perfect, but it works. Last week Jason reviewed his favorite iPad 3rd party Facebook App, Friendly. Today, I'm reviewing a competitor to that App called Social. I was hesitant at first because usually 3rd party Apps just don't have the level of access to the service they are designed to support. This is why I want a native Netflix App with full queue and account management. 3rd Party Apps just can't access those features and the currently implementation of the "official" Netflix App for iPhone doesn't have them at all.
Social seems to have all of the features of Facebook
Wow! I was blown away by the level of Facebook feature support in this App. It supports the usual stuff like Friend, Photos, Chat and News feeds, but it also has support for Pages and Groups (the latter isn't even in the Facebook App for iPhone). The information is presented in easy to navigate (customizable) tabs. Sadly the only feature that it doesn't seem to have and it's one I use extensively is Lists. Again, this is not too surprising since the Official Facebook App doesn't have it either, but it's the only thing that I can see that's missing.
OK, sounds great what's wrong with it
Other than the missing Lists support the biggest problem with this App is that it's buggy. It quits on a regular basis and often times when I tap on something it takes me to my News feed instead of the item I tapped on. For example, I added three pages to the Favorites tab. When I go to the Favorites tab they are listed there. However, when I tap on any of them the Page never comes up, instead it goes straight to my own news feed. I can access those three pages no problem from the Pages tab. There are also some glitches playing Facebook videos.
UPDATE
Of course as soon as I wrote this review yesterday, he releases an update last night! I could have simply changed the review, but I thought it would be more interesting to see point by point what got fixed vs. what I had complained about. Also there was no time to thoroughly test the update, but the Favorites bug is fixed and although I see the lists feature via the News feed i don't see any way to actually manage the Lists via the App. Otherwise this looks very promising. Here's what the update addresses:
UPDATE #2
I just got a friend request and decided to process/accept in Social to see if the List support was there and I'm happy to say that it is! Although I can't manage the Lists themselves in the App, I'm very happy that I can add new Friends to Lists upon acceptance right in the App.
The Bottom Line
This is by far the best Facebook App I've seen to date on the iPad from a feature support standpoint. If the developer just works out the bugs, it would easily be a 4-5 star App. I'm looking forward to those updates.
You can get Social here from the
Like it or not, this “thing” called Twitter has become a major part of the way business is conducted. Whether it’s a fortune 500 company or a single employee entrepreneur, twitter is a cheap, relatively easy way to promote your business as well as a way to stay in contact with your customers. Then there’s the social networking side of it. Stay in contact with your friends, keep them informed of your whereabouts with geo tagging as well as what’s on your mind. The uses for Twitter are endless.
When it comes to an application (or desktop program for that matter) there are a few things that it has to have. First, it needs to be easy to use. I want to be able to automatically log on, tweet, send pictures, and shorten links quickly and easily. Second, it needs to be customizable. I want to have the option of changing the refresh wait period, the background theme colors, and the pop up alerts. I want to be able to choose different image uploading services, and I want to be able to choose whether or not it makes a sound. Tweetdeck does all of these things and more.
I have been a user of tweet deck on my laptop for a while and have been totally happy with it, so when I got my iPad and iPhone4, Tweetdeck was the first app that went looking for. You can read Terry’s review of the iPad version here. He was spot on with his review so it’s a must read before downloading for your iPad. As for the iPhone, Tweetdeck has hit a homerun with this application. They have included all of the above mentioned features as well as many, many more that have made it my go to app for staying on top of my Tweets.
Get it from the iTunes store here from the
