Utilities
One of the reasons I upgraded to the iPhone 4 was to take advantage of the built-in HD (720p) video camera. However, I was left scratching my head when I found out that for some reason Apple doesn’t allow you to upload your 720p videos to YouTube at the full 720p resolution. It compresses them down to a lesser resolution (568×320). Now of course I understand bandwidth constraints of cellular networks, however they also compress them even if you upload via WiFi (and email). That defies all logic with me! Why would I be restricted over WiFi.
720tube Uploads At Full 720p Resolution
Luckily this FREE App allows you to upload your 720p HD movies in all their HD glory directly from your iPhone 4. I’m happy to see this App exist as I now feel much more compelled to shoot and upload a video directly from my iPhone 4. Although this App does exactly what it says, I have gotten some “out of memory” messages popping up during upload, even though the upload completes just fine. I also would like to see support for the YouTube “unlisted” category in addition to Public and Private.
You can download 720tube here for Free from the 
Text messages have become a major part of our lives. Just ask yourself, how much do you call people nowadays compared to some years ago? Here in Sweden, text messages are relatively reasonably priced and it is beyond me how US carries can charge a user to receive a text message.
As iPhone users we are lucky to have data access at our fingertips a feature that easily replaces text messages. Here is one of my favorite applications for replicating text messages between iPhones using Whats App.
Interface
Upon launching Whats App you will recognize yourself in a friendly Apple-esque design, utilizing all the common user interface styles.
Messages are displayed in a list, not at all unlike the default Messages app. You have one conversation group per person with the entire conversation listed inside in the familiar bubbles, the cross between text messages and an instant messaging app.
Find My iPhone is a feature of Apple's MobileMe service that allows iOS Device owners to find their missing devices. If the device is on and connected to the internet, Find My iPhone can be accessed from a web browser by logging into your MobileMe account or via this New App installed on another iOS device. This App does NOT need to be installed on the missing device to use the feature. I like the prospect of the Find My iPhone feature of MobileMe. However, you have to realize that there are limitations. First off, you have to be a MobileMe customer and the Find My iPhone feature has to be turned ON on the device before it comes up missing. Even then, you will only be able to locate the device if it's turned on and connected to the internet. So let's say you just discovered that your iPod touch is missing and the last time you used it was a couple of days ago. If the device has run out of power or if someone took it and is walking about outside (not in a WiFi zone), then this feature won't help you. As long as you realize the limits, having MobileMe and this feature provides more hope of recovering your device than not having this feature. If you have an iPhone, you have a better chance since the iPhone can be on a cellular data network just about anywhere.
The only thing worse than losing your device is someone having your information too
Although you can replace your iOS device, it may be a lot more frustrating and potentially damaging if someone has access to all of the information on it. We often don't think twice about what's on these devices. However, there's a lot of information on them about YOU! Your contacts are on there. Your calendar is there. Your photos are on there. Your emails are on there (probably complete with order confirmations complete with your shipping address, from the places you shop at), and most of your Apps probably have the passwords saved in them for easy access to your various accounts. I always tell people regardless of whether or not you have MobileMe, you should protect your device with a PIN. So it takes a few extra seconds to key it in when you want to use the device, at least it gives you peace of mind that someone else can't just turn it on and have your whole life in front of them. With that out of the way, now let's talk about the App. Like I said, you can do all of this from any web browser. However, since Apple doesn't really let you get to the MobileMe site from your iOS device (odd, I know), you now have a FREE App to use this feature. Once you launch the App you sign in with your MobileMe credentials. You can then access all of your iOS devices that have the Find My iPhone feature enabled. If the device is on and on the net, Find My iPhone will begin to locate it. Once the device has been located you can Display a Message on the device that pops up. This could be a message with instructions on how to return it to you. You can have it play a sound even if the device is muted, which is handy for locating a missing device in your home or around you. You can Remote Lock the device with a new or different PIN. Lastly you can Remote Wipe the device, which will remove ALL of your information from it. This last one is great because once it starts the process of wiping there is no stopping it. Even if they power off the device, the wipe will continue once it's turned back on. What if your device is off or not on the internet? Although Find My iPhone won't be able to tell you where it is, you can still use the Display Message or Sound, Remote Lock and Remote Wipe features and they will kick in the next time the device is turned on and connects to the internet.
You can get the Find My iPhone App here from the
The Bottom Line
I was already a MobileMe customer before this feature, so for me this just adds more value to my MobileMe account. Although I understand the limitations, I would still like to see a couple of additional features added. First off I have a MobileMe Family Pack and it seems silly that I have to log in as each user separately to locate a particular user's device. I understand the privacy implications, but I still think that the Family Pack MobileMe members should have an Opt In option for the master account holder to be able to see ALL the devices associated with the one account at the same time. The other thing I'd like to see is a Remote Wipe and Destroy! What good is Remote Wiping my iPod touch if the thief can then just configure it as their NEW device once I wipe it? Wipe and Destroy would render the device useless until it was either sync'd with the last computer that it had been sync'd with or taken into an Apple Store to be cleared (not on the stolen list). Even without these last two features I find MobileMe and Find My iPhone a much better value than AT&T's Family Map feature.
Whatever you do, don't pay full price for MobileMe
I've been a MobileMe customer since day one and not once have I ever paid the full retail price for it. You can get any version of the retail packaging and use the code inside to renew your subscription. You can get the individual pack here for about $68 ($99 retail) and the Family Pack here for about $98 ($149 retail)
One of the things I've wanted since day one on the iPhone was a built-in list of SMS text responses. I had this feature way back when on my Palm Treo. So I'm still stunned that it's not built-in to the iOS. Nonetheless, there's now an App for that. SMS Quicky addresses this need cleanly and easily. The App is very easy to use. You launch it and there are some canned responses already available. You can of course add as many of your own responses as you need. Then when you need to use a response, just launch the App and tap the response you want to use. That response will automatically be sent over to the messaging App in a new message. That's it! Straight and to the point.
I want copy and paste too
While the App performs exactly as described, I would like the option of perhaps holding my finger down on a response to copy it to the clipboard instead of sending it to a NEW SMS message. This way I can use the App for other things like email responses, and responses to existing SMS threads or in other 3rd party Apps that I use like TextNow. Also it would be great to implement this App/feature as an optional keyboard. That way if I'm already in the Messages App I could just switch to the special keyboard to pick canned messages to insert. Lastly once a template is created there doesn't seem to be a way to rearrange their order or edit one. If you want to edit it you have to delete it and create a new one. If you add a copy function, editing and manual sorting to this App, I'd gladly give it that 5th star 
You can get SMS Quicky here from the
When I want to see how fast my cable modem connection is I use my favorite website SpeakEasy.net/speedtest. However, since the interface for that site is in Flash, that site doesn't work on iOS devices. So I wanted to find an App that gave me the same look and feel as the SpeakEasy site as well as the consistent results I've grown to depend on from SpeakEasy. I found just such an App and it's a FREE download. It's called SpeedTest.net. Just like my favorite speed test site, this App delivers a great user interface that's easy to read and most importantly it logs your results so that you can compare multiple devices and different connections. As I was running a test, I seemed to remember seeing the Ookla branding somewhere before. As it turns out this App is by the same developer of the speed test on the SpeakEasy.net site. No wonder I like it so much
So if you're feeling that your data connection is all of a sudden slow, you can test and compare to see if it is or if it's just your imagination. They do a great job showing you if the test was run via a WiFi connection or via your Cellular connection.
You can get SpeedTest.net for FREE here from the
Although I really like the features of iOS 4, I'm not liking the fact that the customizable double-tap-the-Home-button feature was replaced with the double tap the Home button to access multitasking. In the previous iOS 3.x you could customize what you wanted the Home button double tap feature to bring up. For me it was my Phone Favorites. For others it was the Camera, Search, iPod, etc. If you have a multitasking capable iDevice running iOS 4 you no longer have a choice. Double tapping the Home button brings up the multitasking bar PERIOD. So how do you quickly access you phone favorites (after all the iPhone is a phone!)? Now you're back to having to first launch the Phone App and then tap Favorites. On the plus side, I'm finding that Voice Control works MUCH MUCH MUCH better for me in iOS 4 on my iPhone 4, but I sill would like a faster way to get to phone Favorites.
Favorites steps in to save the day
I actually bought this App months ago, but didn't really use it. Then I saw that it was one of my Apps about to be updated and I checked out the new features and of course it was updated with iOS 4 compatibility. I gave it another look and wondered if it would be a good replacement for the missing functionality that iOS 4 took away. The good news is that it is! Favorites is an App and therefore it can be put on the dock. That in and of itself gives me a one tap to access Favorites no matter which Home screen I happen to be on. You can easily add your "favorite" contacts to the screen from your Contacts list and pick the default number for each contact that you want the App to use. Once you tap a contact, that default number will be dialed. If you want to access other function such as sending an SMS to that person or an email, then just double tap the person's icon to get more choices. So in a way this is actually faster and more powerful than the built-in Favorites feature. Since it's iOS 4 aware it supports Fast App Switching as well as appearing on the multitasking bar right where you left off. The other obvious advantage is that it's VISUAL. You dial someone by their picture, not their name. Being a very visual person, I visualize the person I want to talk with, not how their name looks. So this is great for me. Although I do hope that Apple gives us back control over the Home button, this will work out quite nicely in the meantime and it has earned a permanent spot on my iPhone 4's dock!
You can get Favorites here from the
Of course it didn't take long for 3rd party App developers to figure out how to make a buck by allowing you to turn the iPhone 4's LED camera flash/video light into a Flashlight. It's even rumored that the first Apps to do this were not approved by Apple at first because of "misuse of hardware." Well I guess Apple conceded as long as the developer was willing to put up a warning that using their App for extended periods of time would drain the battery (duh!) Now I must also tell you that there is no magic here and technically you can already do this by firing up the Camera App and switching to Video mode and turning on the Video Light. There you go! You have a Flashlight on your iPhone 4. Why would you pay for another App that basically does the same thing? Ease of use, less taps and more features is why.
I've tested 3 of these Apps so far
My favorite of the bunch is Light-O-Matic. Light-O-Matic gives you a choice of a Strobe (not sure when I'd use that other than a party for 20 somethings), a Flashlight, this is very handy especially considering how much light the iPhone 4's LED puts out, and finally a Morse Code translator. Yep, you just key in the phrase you want to send and the App will translate it into Morse Code for you and flash the LED appropriately. As long as you have a Boy Scout from 60's in range of your signal, you're all set and help will be on the way. Or you could just dial 911, but that's just me. Oh I forgot! You fell in the well, there's no signal and Lassie isn't around The novelty of the strobe and "Safety Mode" wore off pretty quickly. However, since it's the same price as the other Apps I've tried and you do get those two additional features, it's my pick.
You can get Light-O-Matic here from the
If you're looking for a simple no frills App that just works as a Flashlight (and strobe) with a single ON/OFF button, the check out the FREE (iAd supported) LED Light for iPhone 4 here from the
I remember a few rumblings when the iPhone and iPod touch came out from people complaining that they didn't have a way to print. This kinda left me scratching my head because in the 3 years I've used an iPhone and the years before that using a Palm Treo, I can't think of anytime I had something up on my phone and said "I need to print this!" I guess I always rationalized that if I'm near a printer, then I'm probably near a computer too. Why not just print from the computer? Now let's fast forward to today when iPads and tablets are all the rage and now we have Apps like Pages, Documents To Go and Numbers that actually allow you to "author" documents on your iPad. This kind of changes the equation a little. With an iPhone, I don't really look at it as a device to create documents as much as I look at it as a device to consume documents. So again I don't think about printing. Even with the iPad, I really don't think about printing either. However, I get a regular stream of questions asking "can I print from my iPad?" So I thought it was time to address this and give you some options.
Apple doesn't build print support into the iDevices
Unlike your Mac or PC, printing is NOT a part of the iOS (well at least not today). So any printing that is done has to be done via a 3rd party app and even then is limited to what's allowed in the iOS Software Developer Kit (SDK). Also since there isn't really a central file system in the iOS, the Apps don't always have an easy way of moving documents from one App to the other. Although this did improve in the iPad and iOS 4 with the "Open In" command. Let's take Apple's own Pages app as an example. You can create documents from scratch. You can move documents back and forth from your computer via iTunes/USB and once you create a Pages document you can either save it in the App or send it via Email or the iWork website. Even pages doesn't support the Open In command to let you move a Pages generated PDF to another App. If you wanted to "print" a Pages document you would have to (gasp) email it to yourself on the iPad from the iPad as a PDF or Word .DOC and then use the Open In command as an attachment to open it in a 3rd party printing App. Definitely not elegant!
Which App?
Today I'm reviewing ePrint. ePrint allows you to print wirelessly (WiFi) to your network printer or to a shared printer connected to a Mac without actually having to install anything special on the Mac. I have a Xerox Phaser 8550DP network Postscript color printer that is plugged in directly to my network via Ethernet. So there is no computer required to drive the printer. When I fired up ePrint it saw both my Xerox Phaser and Epson Stylus R1800 (shared via USB on a Mac). I was able to setup the Xerox in a matter of seconds and printing a test page.
You can get ePrint here from the
I thought that title might get your attention! However, it's true. I can now see Flash based websites and content on my iPhone via this clever App called Cloud Browse. Cloud Browse isn't doing anything revolutionary. It's a "virtual machine." I'm just glad that someone finally got around to doing this for the iPhone. The way it works is you launch the App, tap the web button and enter the URL that you want to go to. The App navigates to that site on the web via a desktop version of Firefox running the full Flash Player and you see the content on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. You can navigate the links of the site by tapping on them just as you would in mobile Safari. Also since all the processing is happening on their servers, it's really FAST even over a slow cellular connection. The reason it's so fast is that it's only having to send screen and sound to your Cloud Browse on your iPhone.
I even get Flash Video too
I was completely blown away when I played a video on thebeatles.com and not only did I see the video playing (not the best frame rate mind you, still watchable though), but I also heard the sound via the App. So no matter which side of the whole Flash debate you might be on, it's hard to argue that having a FREE App that you can "choose" to install, that doesn't actually run Flash on your iPhone and allows you to see the sites that you CAN'T see in the built in Safari browser, is a great thing to have. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. It takes a second or two to respond to your tap once you're on the Flash page. Again you have to remember that it's having to send that tap to the site and then return the results to your App. I also have security concerns. So I wouldn't be too quick to use it for logging into secure sites such as banking, because at that point you are keying in your user names and passwords on THEIR servers, however, for those times when I need to see Flash content on a site that doesn't require me to log into I'll absolutely be firing up Cloud browse!
Don't walk, but run to the App Store and get it here for FREE: 
One of Apple's latest iPhone television ads (Dog Lover) features an App called iCam. At the end of the Ad they show how they can keep an eye on their dog at home (provided he or she sits and waits for you in front of the camera ) from their iPhone. I've long been a fan of WiFi cameras for home monitoring. I have four Panasonic network webcams (some wired and some wireless) that work great. Although these cameras can be monitored and even panned from a standard web browser, I was intrigued by the possibility of having a native App to use. So when I saw the Dog Lover spot, I headed over to the App Store to check out the App. At first glance it didn't seem to provide much more than I already had in my web browser and it would even take away the ability to pan/rotate the cameras (my specific models support this), but I decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad that I did. I love this App!
It's all about the Motion Detection
Although more four cameras are wonderful, each one acts as its own independent web server. I can set it up to email me photos on a regular basis or FTP them up to a server. I can time the cameras when to broadcast an image and when not to. They offer a variety of great options. However, what I was missing was being instantly notified if someone or something walked past my cameras. Especially the ones inside the house when no one is supposed to be home. iCam makes this really easy by adding Push Notifications to this surveillance. If my cameras detect motion, the iCam server software (a free download for Mac or PC) will send me a Push Notification right to my device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch) and let me see the camera right away. Great if you happen to catch it. What's even better is that you can set the software to record a series of images anytime motion is detected and YES, you can view these images right on your device! Whoa! That's Cool! Another problem that this App solves is that my network cameras have passwords and although you can save your passwords in Safari, for whatever reason it doesn't save the passwords to these cameras. So I have to enter the password each time I want to look at the cameras in the browser. iCam saves the password at the server on your computer. So you never have to enter a password in the App besides the one you enter once to connect to your server.
This solution works over WiFi, 3G and Edge.
You can get it here from the App Store: Get the Server Software for Mac or PC here.
