Lifestyle

Apps in this category help you keep up your lifestyle and make your daily life easier.

Lifestyle / Reviews

Behr Colorsmart

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If there’s one question that I get asked a lot, more than any other as a matter of fact, it’s “how do you keep finding Apps to review?”. I started thinking about that question today as I was thinking about what I wanted to say about this App. The truth is, I don’t go looking for Apps “just to review” usually. For the most part the Apps that I review are Apps that I have found to solve a problem. After all, if it doesn’t solve a problem, what good is it really? Recently I started the process of moving into my new town home. Before I moved even the first thing in though, I decided that I wanted to paint things to make it feel more like home, more mine from day one. I headed over to the hardware store to start looking at colors and quickly realized that I had no idea what color I wanted. So, being me, I immediately went to my iPhone for help. What I found is quite possibly THE best iPhone App for anyone planning on painting anything in their home. Colorsmart not only helps you find your paint color, it helps you calculate how much paint you will need, and lets you preview it on a wide assortment of example rooms. These rooms aren’t simulated digital representations of rooms, rather they are photos of actual rooms. Even though this is an App about house paint, the design, quality, and execution make it an App for other developers to strive to emulate.

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Find Your Color

First and foremost this App is about getting you the right color for your project. Whether you’re painting a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen or barn, Behr Colorsmart is the perfect App to help identify the right color for you. There are a few different options to find the correct color. The first option is to use the Explore Color tab. This pulls up a palette of every color that Behr offers. Choose your desired color family,  the color style (muted, pure, or shaded), and the specific hue. When you have made your selection Colorsmart shows you not only the paint name and number, but it also shows you complimenting colors, and offers to show you a preview of it. This is TRULY a well thought out App.

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Have a color that you want to match? Not a problem! use your iPhone’s industry leading camera to take a photo, or choose a photo from your photo library. Once your image is loaded pinch to zoom in to the specific area that you would like to match and simply tap on the area. Colorsmart will bring up that color from the Behr line of paints, again with the name and Behr number. Once you have chosen your color, save it to favorites by tapping the icon in the upper right hand corner for future reference.

 

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Once you’ve chosen your colors, the last thing to figure out before you head to the store to purchase it, is how much paint you will need. Behr has you covered there too! Under the More tab at the bottom of the screen, you will find a Paint calculator that will help you determine exactly how many gallons you’re going to need to finish your project!

 

The Bottom Line

This App has it all! As you can see from the screen shots and the description, this App has it all; great UI, in depth functionality, and extreme usefulness! If you’re planning a painting project any time soon, you need this App. Colorsmart will help you save time, get the perfect color, and buy the correct amount of paint. It’s truly one of the most useful Apps I’ve ever seen.

 

You can get Behr Colorsmart for your iOS device from the iTunes store for free here: iTunes

 

Lifestyle / Reviews
Stylish Nails

Stylish Nails Just In Time for New Year’s Eve

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As a fashion photographer I’m more sensitive to nails, accessories, makeup and hair than the average guy. While I don’t necessarily study these things, I do listen to the models and am starting to develop an eye for this aspect of fashion. Recently I came across the App Stylish Nails and could immediately see the benefit to models or anyone else wanting to do a fancy nail job. This Free App does a very nice job of visually showing you not only hundreds of nail designs, but also the step-by-step video tutorials on how to do them yourself!

The nails are organized by category. The videos appear to be streamed into the App via YouTube so this means you’ll need a data connection to watch the tutorials. I was surprised by how detailed the videos were. You can even mark the ones you like as Favorites to be able to get back to them quickly.

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If you’re into doing your own nails and want something beyond the French manicure, then you should definitely check out the Stylish Nails App. Even if you aren’t into doing your own, this App would serve as a good reference to take to your professional nail tech to show him/her what you want done. I’d love to see an iPad native version.

Stylish Nails - oz maharshak

Lifestyle / Reviews
Apple Store

Apple Store App Adds Support for Gift Cards and Passbook

One of the things I have always been puzzled by was why Apple never sold “electronic” versions of Apple Store Gift Cards. Sure you can walk into an Apple Store and buy an Apple Store Gift Card and hand it someone, but there was no way to do this via their website and have the card “emailed” to the recipient. Yet this is possible with iTunes Gift Cards and pretty much has been since day one. When Apple showed of iOS 6 and specifically Passbook, one of the examples was an Apple Store Gift Card. This makes sense and I wondered would this also mean that they would finally allow these cards to be gifted electronically? The answer is yes and no. If you download the Free Apple Store App for your IOS device you can now finally buy Apple Store Gift Cards ($25-$2,000) that can be delivered either by regular mail or by email (Just in time for the Holiday Season). Yes! Finally! If you receive an Apple Store Gift Card via email you can even add it to your Passbook! Great. During this process you will prompted to enter a zip code so that your card can automatically pop up on the lock screen when you’re near an Apple Store in that zip code area. Neat!

Good start, but…

This is great start and long overdue, but there are some things that are missing. As far as I can tell there is no way to add an existing physical gift card to your Passbook. Also and still to my shock and dismay this App is still not a Universal App with native iPad support! Huh? Almost all the other Apple branded Apps are Universal Apps for all iOS devices, yet the Apple Store App still remains an iPhone/iPod touch formated App. My buddy argues with me that there is no need for it to be on iPad since the Apple Store works fine in Safari on iPad. While that’s true the same could have been said for the Apple Store website on iPhone, yet Apple saw fit to make an App instead of simply making the Apple Store a mobile website. I just don’t get it. I’d also like to see multiple “saved” payment options supported. Sometimes I want to use my personal credit card and sometimes I want to use my business credit card. I’d like to enter this info once in the App and be able to choose between multiple payment methods at check out (even If I have to enter a pin to do so). Simply tying it to my Apple ID stored credit card is not enough. Speaking of business. If you have any kind of business or organizational discount with Apple there is no way that I know of to take advantage of that discount in the Apple Store App. Apple, this is YOUR App. There is no reason that it shouldn’t support all the features of YOUR online store. Nonetheless, this App keeps getting better with each update.
iTunes

Lifestyle / Reviews

gyft App Gives iOS 6 Passbook Some Love

Last week I wrote a post about “Understanding Passbook in iOS 6“. As it stands we have to wait for Apps to be updated to take advantage of Passbook. However, I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long as more and more Apps are being update each day. If you really want to see Passbook in action then you should check out Gyft. This App has been updated to support Passbook and offers the ability of consolidating your existing gift cards and displaying them in Passbook. You can of course buy gift cards in the App from a variety of different stores. I had a P.F. Chang’s gift card sitting on my desk and I decided to add it in. In about 3 seconds it displayed the balance of my card and then I was able to add it to Passbook! Sweet! Now the question is will P.F. Chang’s be able to use the bar code on screen or will I still need to carry the card the next time I eat there? I’ll take the card as a backup, but I’ll definitely see if they can just work with the one on my iPhone 5.

gyft has a beautiful UI

I wasn’t aware of Gyft before my search continued for Passbook compatible Apps and I must say that they have a beautiful clean user interface that takes advantage of swipe gestures. They boast support for over 100 national retailers and you can even buy gift cards and have them delivered to your friends on Facebook via Facebook. Of course traditional emailing of gift cards is supported to. While buying gift cards in the App is nice, I must say that my favorite feature is being able to add existing gift cards in.

Hopefully more Apps will be updated soon (AMEX and Starbucks promise updates by the end of this month), but in the meantime gyft will give a big jump on Passbook today!

iTunes

Lifestyle / Reviews
Costco

The New Costco iPhone App

We knew this day would come! After all Sam’s Club is well into version 2 of theirs. As the saying goes, better late than never and Costco has done a really good job with this 1st version. What I hate is when a company that is already behind, comes out with a new product or service that isn’t at least as good as the competition that’s already been out for a while. You’re already late, you might as well take a little more time and do it right. While this is a version 1 App, it feels as good as Apps that have been out there for a while. What I expect to be able to do is:

  • Find my nearest Costco (hours, services, etc.)
  • See the latest deals/coupons
  • Check my membership details
  • Renew my membership
  • Order stuff directly via the App 
Anything above those features is a bonus! This app not only does those things but it also lets you read the Costco Connection magazine, make a shopping list, check your pharmacy prescriptions, and upload photos directly to be printed (nice!). As far as the coupons go, you still have to physically print them and bring them in on paper! Doh!
The Costco App does all that it claims to do in a nice interface. The only things I would ask for going forward is an iPad native version and the current Gas prices at the closest or chosen Costco Warehouse. Probably the biggest and most glaring omission of an App like this is why not have your membership card in the App? This way I would no longer have to carry it in my wallet and Costco would no longer have to print as many cards.
If you have a Costco membership, there is no reason not to have this App.

iTunes

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