Online content is growing exponentially every day. Every morning when I turn on my computer, fire up my iPad, or look at the news on my iPhone, there is not only a greater amount of information to intake than the day before, but there are many more ways to view, or consume that information. There are new social media sites, new blogs, and new streams to follow. At times it can get a little overwhelming. For this reason, any time I can combine those media streams to one source for viewing, I do. This is exactly what Flipboard for the iPad does. It takes updates, pictures, posts, and news from your favorite sources and puts them all in one place for your viewing. Best of all, it does it in a format that is easy (and fun) to use!
If you’re anything like me (and if you’re reading this I’m sure you are), you have multiple accounts that you follow every day. I have two twitter accounts, a Facebook, a Linkedin, and a Flickr account that I check at least once a day if not multiple times. Not to mention the 20+ blogs and 50+ websites that I follow. Flipboard takes (some) of these accounts and content and places it all together for you to view easily. What makes Flipboard special is that it formats it like a magazine. You have titles, larger full page articles with pictures, smaller articles with pictures, and even smaller yet (and in the case of the Twitter feeds single lines) text only articles. There is no real indication of how it decides what content deserves a full page, and what is limited to small, or text only articles. As best I can tell it’s a random selection.

The first thing you’ll notice when you install and launch the app is the two squares in the top left corner to add your Facebook, and Twitter accounts. When you tap on these squares you are asked for your information (user name, password). Once you have entered that you get a message telling you that you have been placed into a cue to be added. This process takes about 3-5 days(at the time of my submission it took 3 days, but your wait time may vary depending on requests) and you get an email when your accounts have been added. At that time you will be able to access the content of these two accounts. With Facebook you get the content you would have from your news feed. You are shown videos, comments, status updates, and pictures. The one thing that you are not shown (thankfully) is the add-on applications to Facebook such as Farmville.

When it comes to Twitter content, this is where Flipboard really shines. You see tweets as you normally would, but you also see the images (instead of an image link). You also get the content on the other side of the shortened links. For example if someone posts a link to a newspaper article, that article shows directly below the tweet! It makes reading and keeping up with your twitter info a snap. With Flipboard you also have the option of adding a box for specific groups, or lists that you follow on twitter. I have quite a few people that I follow on twitter, but sometimes I only want to see what my family is up to, so I have a list for that. With Flipboard, you can open only that list and be shown only that content. (If you’re not using lists, I highly recommend that you look into them).

Along with Twitter and Facebook, you can add many different news streams to your Flipboard digital magazine. Flipboard has some suggestions for you, but they also have a whole (searchable) list for you to browse and add content from. There is content available from popular sources such as Wired magazine, E! Online, and USA Today.
While Flipboard is constantly adding the media sources available to you, selection may be the biggest downside of this application. There isn’t a large enough variety available yet for me to ditch my traditional RSS reader. There is no Flickr addition yet, no Linkedin, and no way to add your own custom content (I think the custom content may be more of a formatting issue for each source so I don’t know if that will ever be possible). I would also like to see the number of sources you are able to have at one time raised. Right now you are limited to 9 sources. For me this is not enough. I have more than 9 twitter lists that I would like to be able to follow individually.

Overall I think Flipboard is a wonderful app for media consumption. It is my favorite way to keep up with my twitter updates, and a great way to see my Facebook news feed. If they increase the media sources to choose from, as well as the number of available spots in your “magazine”, this would be a great all in one application.

Download Flipbook here from the 
 

Earlier this year Netflix released their first App for the iOS platform. It was the Netflix App for iPad. The iPad is a great platform for an App of this type and at the same time Netflix also announced that they would be releasing an iPhone version later this summer. Well it's here! I was anxiously awaiting this App not only for the obvious streaming content benefits, but I was also hoping for a great Netflix queue manager. I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed. While the App does let you manage your "Instant Queue" for streaming, it doesn't let you access your DVD queue.Now in all fairness this was never promised and even on the iPad the App brings up your DVD queue in a browser (inside the App). So we've never had native DVD queue management. Nonetheless I was hoping to finally have a Netflix branded App that allowed me complete access and management to all aspects of my account. In the meantime I'm continue use and recommend MovieFlick for Netflix queue management.

Streaming Netflix Videos to your iPhone

As with all video streaming apps you're at the mercy of your available bandwidth. Netflix is no different. On a slower connection you will experience pauses in your video while more video content buffers. On 3G, the video is watchable and GREAT quality, but I did experience a few momentary pauses. On WiFi the experience is much better. With that said, I probably won't be watching too many feature length movies on my iPhone. I'd probably watch a 30 minute TV show here and there while waiting in a line or waiting room. For that, this App is great. Netflix continues to add more and more content for streaming. This makes it easier to continue paying my monthly account fee. I also love the fact that I can start a movie on one device and finish it on another and now that they have support for so many platforms (ie. TiVo, Wii, iOS, etc.)

Downloads would be nice – One of the places that I actually watch the most movies is on planes. While WiFi is coming to more and more flights, streaming video isn't something that people should be doing as the bandwidth would come to a crawl. The ability to download a movie or two before getting on the flight would be nice. Sure I can already do that with iTunes as a rental or purchase, but I'd like to be able to do it via the Netflix account that I'm already paying for. It would be great to be able to download the same selection of streaming content right to the device and watch it offline. 

The Bottom Line

The Netflix App does what it claims, but no more. It's FREE, but you need a Netflix account to actually be able to use the App. I'd love to see more account features built-in to this App as well as offline viewing.

You can download it here from the 

Interface

Looking at the WordPress app and its interface, you are not in for the special piece of art but you are not in for a bad one either. Interface wise, the designers have gone with all the usual iOS styles to make an app which is very easy to use and looks the way you would expect a general iOS app to look.

Functionality

Managing multiple blogs is not a problem in the WordPress app. On the front screen you can tab the plus button and add as many blogs as you want to be able to write to (or edit) from within the app.

Clicking into a blog enables you to choose one of the three sections to use. You are able to manage both posts and pages as well as comments, the latter being very useful for approving or cleaning spam.

The edit is no real joy to use when editing the contents of a page or post. Granted, this is an iPhone/iPad app where it would be hard to build in a true WYSIWYG editor but at least something between having to type all HTML code yourself and helping us out a little would have been nice and a big time saver on the iPhone.

A strength of the app is that you can attach photos to a post (useful given that the iPhone has a camera). Yet this comes with one of the bigger downsides. You see, any photo that you add is automatically going to be placed inside the post as there so far is no way to place photos where you want them to be yourself.

Conclusion

To sum up, the WordPress iOS app is a must have application if you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and you also have a site or blog that is built using WordPress. Even though you have limited controls in the ways that you can upload images and even though you have to write all HTML code by hand, you get an application that can do these two actions if you need them as well being able to edit comments, perhaps one of the biggest features in the app.

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

Here is a test video I shot with the iPhone 4, edited in iMovie for iPhone and then uploaded to YouTube in 720p using 720tube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoHFV5io2Wo

Get it from the iTunes store here from the 

When you first log on to Tweet deck you are given the option of adding multiple twitter accounts. This is important for people like me that have multiple twitter accounts. You are also given the option of adding your Facebook account. Once you have the multiple accounts loaded, you can post tweets across all of your accounts at once. This is a really handy feature for me because I have a different follower demographic for each account, but sometimes my tweets are relevant to all of my followers.

Once installed, you sign up (or sign in if you already have an account) for Tweetdeck’s free “cloud” service that keeps all of your Twitter settings, lists, groups, and information so that you can sync between all of your devices. This is huge for me because I use multiple devices across multiple platforms. I have multiple idevices as well as pc’s. Tweetdeck stays synced automatically between all of them.
Inside of the app, you will find a host of features that make your tweeting experience easy and pleasant. You can add multiple columns, for just about anything you want. By default you get a column for ALL FRIENDS that contains just what it sounds like it would, all of the posts from all of your friends. You also get a MENTIONS column containing all of the @ replies to your account. The third column that comes by default is DM’s or direct messages. These are similar to emails, or messages that only you and the other party can see. Along with these three default columns you have the option of adding columns for your lists, twitter trends, or many other things.
A unique feature of Tweetdeck for iPhone that I really like is the “shake to refresh” feature. You have a traditional refresh button at the bottom of the screen, but I prefer to just shake the phone to refresh my tweets.
Overall, Tweetdeck for iPhone is a great application, and with its ability to sync with Tweetdeck for iPad, and the Tweetdeck desktop program, it fills all of the needs of a twitter user and then some. It is easy to use, simple to setup, and best of all, it’s free.

Reunion for Mac is hands down the best genealogy program out there! I've used it for years and it's been a joy to use. Of course when the iPhone version came out last year I got it. Although the iPhone version is definitely functional, I didn't really use it a lot simply because of the small size of the iPhone display. Reunion for iPad changes that! This is a brand new App built from the ground up to take advantage of the iPad. First off let me say that this App is a "companion" App for Reunion on the Mac. In other words without Reunion on the Mac the App is of no use to you and there is no reason to get it. If you do use Reunion on the Mac, then you can get Reunion for iPad to sync and update your Reunion file. This new App let's you display your Reunion data in a very iPad friendly way. You can also share Family cards via email to those family members that don't have Reunion. The idea of this App is that you can take Reunion on the go, look up information and more importantly update the information right on the iPad itself. Once you get back to Reunion on the Mac you can then sync your changes. You can even sync changes in both directions. So if someone was making changes on the Mac while you were out or with other iPads, Reunion will sync all the changes in both directions. One of the other big additions for me in this new App that I'm still surprised was not in the IPhone version is the ability to also add photos to the records just like you can on the Mac. This is handy with the iPad Camera Connection Kit.

The Interactive Family Tree Is Amazing

Visually the thing that I was most blown away by was the Family Tree tab. Once you tap it to view it you start with the record you were last viewing. You can navigate the tree using your finger to drill down and branch off to different family members. It's really cool to see. The Ages display is also neat. For any given person you can see a linear break down of every event that has taken place and what age that person was when it happened. 

Reunion for iPad definitely has everything I want. What I'd love to see is support for the iPad VGA connector so that I could do a live presentation at my family reunion of the interactive tree. Other than that, this App has it all!

You can get Reunion for iPad here from the

*NOTE – Reunion for Mac is required to use this App!

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.

Functionality

Inside of Whats App you can easily just send messages all in text (just like you send texts in the messages app) as well as both images and videos. My opinion is that this is a strong point of the application. Sharing is very easy between friends with another iPhone.

Adding contacts into Whats App could be much simpler than it currently is. If someone asked me for help, I would not be able to answer simply but need to check and play for myself. Why is there not just a simple plus button to add?

Whats App have solved the way you connect with your friends in a very smart way through which is why I feel this beats the other applications aiming to do something similar. Instead of having you register a special username, it just uses your phone number to recognize you.

Conclusion

In my world, being able to send a quick and free message to a friend (that is not necessarily an instant message) is almost necessary. When you then think about the fact that you can send more unserious messages (not to be confused with silly ones) for free, without needing to pay for them, I think you have a winner.

We're just one week away from Photoshop World Vegas and of course it's time to start locking down your schedule and choosing the classes you want to take. I remember using the Photoshop World App last year and saying "this is great, but It's missing one thing." That one thing was the ability to add things to your schedule that may not be on the official conference program list. For example, at 2PM I'm going to head over to the Adobe Booth and check out that Terry White guy . So while it was great being able to fill in all the classes I wanted to take, I still had to rely on my regular calendar for other meetings and activities. Well that all changes with the latest version. Shawn Welch did a FANTASTIC JOB listening to my feedback and feedback of others and updating this App to be the best conference App I've seen to date. First off it's a Universal App now, which means it's native to all iOS devices including the iPad. Secondly he added the one big thing I needed, which is the ability to put in your own custom events/meetings. That alone makes this a 5 star app for me, but Shawn didn't stop there. He added in some very cool social networking features like the ability to tweet and update your Facebook status right inside the App. He even added the ability to share your schedule with others via email or Bumping two iOS devices together running the app! Shawn thought of just about everything this time around. There's even the ability now to schedule backup classes. So if you just can't decide right now which of two classes you want to take, you can go ahead and put your first choice in a time slot and then add your second choice in so you won't have to scramble at the last minute if you change your mind. 

Classes, Instructors or Exhibitors 

You decide how you want to look up information about what you might want to see. If you like Joe McNally, then just tap his name and see all the classes he's teaching at  glance. Or if you have an empty time slot, just tap it to see all of the classes happing at that time and pick one. Of course there's an Expo floor, so you can tap Exhibitors to see who's exhibiting and where they are. Once I got my schedule built on my iPhone I was able to easily send it to a couple of friends via email (even if they don't have the App it comes over as a nicely formatted HTML email). However, I wanted to also have the same schedule on my iPad. No problem, I just used the Bump feature to share the schedule to the iPad from the iPhone wirelessly. Once it was on the iPad in the shared section, I just tapped on it to add each item into my schedule on the iPad. Very cool!

You can get the Photoshop World App for FREE here from the 

Facebook also gains a feature I've been wanting in that you can now on a per status update basis decide who can see that particular update. I use the List feature quite a bit to decide who can see my photos and status updates. It's great to be able to do this via the iPhone App now. This has been available via the web interface for some time and I'm glad to see it make its way into the App. Lastly the Facebook App can upload photos and videos in the background when running under iOS 4.

You can get Facebook here from the 

Update your Privacy Settings Now!

Whether you ever plan to use Places or not as it stands right now your friends can tag YOU for places that they check in to without your consent. So you should still adjust your privacy settings as to who can see your Places "check ins" even you don't ever plan to use the feature yourself.

Knocking Live Video works with any iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4 or higher. Although this update works, I did run into a few warnings (even on WiFi) stating that my connection may not be good enough. Not sure if that's a bug or just overloaded servers. Once it connects, it works great.

You can get Knocking Live Video here for FREE from the 

There is also an Android version so that you can Stream video between platforms. 

Blackberry is coming soon according to the developer.