Right or wrong, I use the AppStore ratings when I buy an app. There are some developers, that I don't need to see their ratings, I'll just buy their apps. But that is a vanishingly small percentage of developers on the AppStore. For the rest, ratings matter.
When I'm shopping for an app, there are several things that contribute to my buying decisions.
You get what you pay for I would rather pay for an app than to adopt a free app that gets abandoned.
MindMeister is having a sale for the next five days. The iPad app is free for five days and a MindMeister account is 25% off their normal pricing. A MindMeister account is required to use the app.
I still greatly prefer iThoughts HD but MindMeister provides web access to mind maps which is very convenient.
My most common use for Siri is creating lists in the Reminders app. My wife and I share a list titled "Groceries". This has replaced the pen and paper stuck to the front of the refrigerator.
I just realized that Siri will remember the most recently used Reminders list when adding items consecutively.1 So in one session, I start by declaring the name of the list but after that I can just add items without the list name.
This might be the best year yet for people that like good, but niche, discussions about all kinds of geeky stuff. The 5by5 network just about took over my Instacast list in 2011 and now Mule Radio is coming on strong too. Not a day goes by that I don’t get something new and interesting (and sometimes hilarious) to listen to.
It kind of feels like Apple is missing the boat when it comes to podcast functionality in iOS.
The universal app Wolfram Alpha received an update today. That may be one of the most boring sentences I will write this week but it's more interesting than it sounds.
The app now supports image input. Either snap a new image or grab one from the camera roll:
The app will automatically process the image to produce variations like this:
That's pretty neat.
But wait!
Grab an image of some text with an iPhone:
Sounds like Apple changed something that was pretty darn useful to some people.
I love Instacast for iOS. I no longer sync podcasts with iTunes. It’s a waste of time and disk space. If you are unaware, Instacast is podcast player that also downloads and syncs over iCloud between iOS devices. It’s the Podcast player Apple should have made. Unfortunately there is no Mac version.
When I want to listen to (or even watch) a podcast on my Mac, I still use Instacast though.
I don’t have anything smart to say about The New iPad specs or capabilities so I will save you those meaningless opinions.
But a brief Twitter exchange with Michael Schechter got me thinking about the significance of iOS in general. Each generation gets their moment to be remembered. We have the Silent Generation of the depression, the Greatest Generation that fought the Nazis, The Generation of Love, Generation X (my generation), and now Generation Y.
Following up on my article about Readability, I’ve decided to do something that costs me some dough but puts my money where my mouth is. I like Instapaper. I think it serves an important purpose. So I am going to give away 3 copies of Instapaper for iOS, out of my own pocket.1 Nice people have donated money to this site, so I’m giving some back.2
If you want a copy of Instapaper, then give me your opinion of these time-shifting reader services in the comments to this post.
Introduction This is the second part in a multipart series1 about using an iPad to do information gathering and processing. In the first part, I focused on using iCab as a web browser. While iCab is an excellent general purpose browser, there are some other tools I rely on for specific tasks. This post describes those applications and their strengths.
Dictionary That's right, a dictionary is still one of my primary reference sources.
