Tag Archives: reference
iGovernment – iPhone App Review
iGovernment ($1.99) Version – 1.0 REVIEW – “A great way to keep your eye on what big brother is up to!” Today I’m proud to be bringing you an app that will allow you to keep up with what’s going on in all aspects of the US government! iGovernment gives you access to information via RSS feeds on all kinds of things from breaking news to individual areas of government such as the courts, defense and the treasury. If you’re at all politically minded be sure to stick around and check the end of this review to see how you can have a chance to win a free copy of this app! When you open up iGovernment you’ll start out on the “News” page the first time. This page will have some general headlines and breaking news about what’s going on currently. Touching any of the stories will take you to a full screen view of that story with a simple menu at the top of the screen. You can scroll through the story and read it or you can quickly and easily skip to another story using the arrows in the menu at the top, open the story on its full page in Safari or send a link to it out on Twitter! The browser interface is very smooth and works well. If there are links in the post that you are viewing, touching them will open them up from within the app instead of opening Safari, which is nice. Another great thing is that if you click any links within the document it will load the mobile version of the site if one is available. This helps the pages to load much more quickly than if you were viewing the full website, and makes the look and feel of the app much cleaner! At the bottom of the screen you’ll notice a menu with several different options. The ones that will start here by default are “Pictuers,” “Videos,” and “Search.” These default buttons can be switched out with any of the other categories that you will find when you click on the “More” option in the bottom right corner. Here you’ll find pages dedicated to the White House, Congress, the Courts, Defense, and a whole host of other areas in government! In the upper right corner of the “More” screen is an “Edit” button. Touching this button will bring up a page full of different main pages that you have to choose from. From this screen you can then touch and drag any four icons that you want into the default menu bar at the bottom of the screen! Is health care of particular interest to you? How about the Treasury or Energy? Whatever your interest may be it is simple to put them just one click away with this app! Probably my favorite feature, although I did like the bulk and quality of the stories available, is the video that comes in this app. The videos are mostly from Youtube but are so well integrated into the app that you would never even notice it. It’s the things like this that really make this app feel like a premium app, it just works! Now I’m sure that a lot of people have skimmed through to get to the part where I mention getting this great app for free, am I right? Well if this is an app that interests you then all you have to do is two things to enter! (1) Follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/iHayward. This is to make it easier for me to contact the winners when the contest is over. (2) The second thing is that you need to tweet the following message, “@iHayward Win a free iGovernment app for iPhone and iPod Touch and experience the easiest way to keep up on the issues!-“. That’s it! I will go through all the entries and select the winners next week, Thursday the 11 th . In the mean time feel free to read through the review and comment with any questions that you might have! - David H.
Full StoryPremierGuitar – iPhone App Review
PremierGuitar (Free) Version – 1.0 REVIEW – “Get great guitar tips for free!” There have been a lot of apps released into the App Store for reading books, and even some that allow you to subscribe to magazines and read them. PremierGuitar has taken a whole new angle and has built an iPhone app that will allow you to read their magazine in electronic format for completely free! Whether you are interested in the latest music gear, some tips on playing guitar or even just some interesting articles about your favorite artists you can’t go wrong with free! When you open PremierGuitar the first screen you see is the “Issues” screen. There is a menu bar at the bottom of the screen and at the top you’ll see the covers of all the latest issues of PremierGuitar. If you’d like to read some of the articles in an old issue all you have to do is touch and drag the issue covers from right to left to view older magazines. Touching any magazine cover will open up a preview of the content in that issue. The preview is really a great feature because it allows you to not just see the table of contents, but also to actually view the full text of the articles before you decide whether or not you want to download the entire issue
Full StorySymptom Checker – iPhone App Review
Symptom Checker (Free) Version 1.0.2 REVIEW – “Get instant access to information about what your symptoms might mean.” Whether you are concerned for yourself or a family member having quick access to reliable information is always a great help. With Symptom Checker you can look up more than 40 symptoms and find out how to treat them, and when it might be time to visit a doctor
Full StoryWin a Free Promo Code for Star Walk!
Star Walk Giveaway! You may have noticed my review of the Star Walk app the other day. I talked about how it makes stargazing easy for anyone! If you missed my review and would like to know more about it you can check it our at http://appshouter.com/star-walk-iphone-app-review/ Today I’m happy to announce that I have promo codes to give out to 2 lucky readers! So how can you get your hands on this app for free? To enter the giveaway you must do 2 things.
Full StoryStar Walk – iPhone App Review
Star Walk ($2.99) Version – 3.6 REVIEW – “Explore the mysteries of the universe on your iPhone!” One of the hottest apps of 2009 has just received a new update the Valentine’s Day holiday! Continue reading down to the bottom to find out how you can win your own copy of this fun and very educational app! Star Walk basically shows how the stars are laid out in the sky. But the stars are always moving right? Well thanks to this amazing app you can actually look at what they sky looks like in any place on the globe on any given day and time! When I opened up Star Walk for the first time I was a little bit intimidated with all of the information on the screen. The actual app is very simple to use though. The screen that you see when you open the app up shows you a variety of information such as how full the moon is and the angle that several different planets and also the sun are at in the sky. Once you close the opening window you will see a part of the sky on the screen. You can navigate around in several different ways. The easiest is to just touch and drag around the screen. As the move around the sky you’ll see the names of different constellations, planets and even stars if you touch and select them. If any of the constellations move into the center of the screen then an outline of that constellation will show up with the appropriate lines drawn between the stars
Full StoryiFallinLove – iPhone App Review
iFallinLove ($0.99) Version – 1.1 REVIEW – “A cute diversion for Valentines Day!” Do you find yourself always wondering where your significant other is while you are away from them? Or maybe you have a certain place that you love like no other that you think about a lot. With iFallinLove you can now keep track of how far you are away from a person or a place and if you have have an iPhone 3GS you can even know what direction their location is in. On the surface this is a gimmicky, cheesy app, but at the same time it is only $0.99. For some it will be worth, and for others it won’t. When you open this app up you will see a blue heart in the center of the screen. In order to track or “fall in love” with a location all you have to do is touch the heart. Once you are “in love” with a location the further away from that place you get the smaller the red heart will get.
Full StoryFastMall – iPhone App Review
FastMall (Free) Version – 2.0 REVIEW – “Discover a new way to shop with your mobile device!” There are literally hundreds of developers out there, and they’re all looking for that next app that’s going to change the way we do things. While a lot of apps that are released seem to be gimmicky, FastMall by MindSmack has not only come up with a great idea, but has done a great job of surrounding that idea with lots of useful features! FastMall is the only app that you need when you take a trip to the mall! Not only will it give you directions to your local mall but it also does a variety of things from keeping track of where you parked to finding you a store’s phone number and the latest deals! Thankfully, while it does do a lot of things, this app still manages to keep the interface simple enough for anyone to just pick it up and starting using it. When you open up FastMall the main screen is filled with 9 icons. The main page works a lot like your device’s main app screen. If you touch and hold on one button the icons will all start shaking and you can rearrange them however you want. When you have them all just where you want them you can go back go back to normal by pressing the red “Done” button in the lower left corner of the screen. Finding a mall is as easy as touching the “Malls” button. This will default to showing the malls that are closest to your current location, but you can search for malls in any location by using the search bar at the top of the screen. You can also search malls by mall name and view only your “My Malls” list if you are logged into your FastMall account! As great a resource as the mall finder is this is just the beginning of what this app can do! Once you find the mall you are interested in and select it you will be taken to a screen with several different options. The first option is the “Virtual Map.” Unfortunately, I was unable to fully test this feature because the closest mall currently in their database was almost 200 miles from where I live. The good news is though that they are adding new maps constantly, and they listen to customer feedback to help them select the next malls that they add! While I was unable to actually use the Virtual Map feature at my local mall, I did load up a mall that had this feature available and look at it. I was impressed to say the least! What this feature basically does is show you a detailed map of the mall and then overlays it with important information such as where the restrooms are, where the theater is in the mall if there is one, and it also allows you to select a store or location in the mall and get turn by turn “directions” to it no matter where you are in the mall! Another thing that is really great about this app is that you can easily add your favorite malls to the home screen. When you have a mall you want to add open all you have to do is scroll down to the bottom and touch the “Add This Mall To Main Menu” button. While most of the options on the main menu are useful, some of them you will use less frequently and this allows you to have one touch access to your favorite malls! What will make or break an app like this is the details, and that is where this app excels. All the way down to the little things like the integrated “Where Did I Park?” feature. Yes there is already an app for that, but if you are using this as your virtual mall assistant did you really want to close it and go find another app to help you find your car? Honestly with all the features of this app, the time it could potentially save, and the money you could save by staying informed on the latest deals I would have expected this app to be attached to some kind of fee. That is why for the price of free this is one app that you should not pass up. If you don’t already have this app on your phone, you need to download it today! - David H.
Full StoryStar Walk – with a new sky!
Star Walk – with a new sky! The new Star Walk starts the new year with version 3.5 that features a new sky, new splash and FAQ! The starry night sky in Star Walk is clearer and appears less crowded.
Full StoryWerewolf Me – iPhone App Review
Werewolf Me ($1.99) Version – 1.01 USER REVIEW This app transforms you into a Werewolf. Experience the only lycanthrope application for iPhone and iPod touch, become a Werewolf instantly or wait for the full moon. Take a photo of yourself or a friend and watch the transformation into a Werewolf (you can choose to see it instantly or wait until the actual moon phase is full!). Once you have transformed yourself you can scare your friends by posting your Werewolf self on facebook. It’s a fun way to become part of the legend, especially after watching a Werewolf movie with friends, either one of the classics or the new ones out like New Moon, or The Werewolf Man.
Full StoryReal Time Congress – iPhone App Review
Real Time Congress (Free) Version – 1.0 REVIEW – “Let this app help you keep tabs on congress!” Whatever your political views are I think most if not all of America agrees that one thing we all need to be doing is keeping a closer eye on Congress. The problem is that a lot of us have regular jobs and families that keep us busy and it seems that there are always things being done late at night and on weekends so we won’t find out about it. Well thanks to the Real Time Congress app for iPhone and iPod touch, it’s now possible to get real time information on what is going on in Congress for free! When you open up Real Time Congress you’ll start out on the “Floor” screen. On this screen you can choose to view the latest information from either the House or the Senate floor. The updates are time-stamped and sorted under headings for the date that they are from. The list refreshes every time you open the app up, or you can choose to manually refresh it by pressing the button in the upper right corner of the screen. The menu at the bottom has several other screens that are useful as well. The first one is the “Whip Notices” screen. Here you will find both daily and weekly whip notices for both the Republican and Democratic party. These notices help you get an idea of what the leadership of the party is currently trying to get accomplished. The next two menu options are the “Hearings” and “Documents” pages. The hearings page currently has no information in it because there are no ongoing hearings but the “Documents” page has a lot of interesting information. This is where you’ll find documentation on all of the policies that have been passed/are being supported by congress. There are also GAO reports and a variety of other information including statements from the administrative branch of government.
Full Story
