2.2 is now available for download in Australia through iTunes. I’m currently downloading the hefty 200mb+ update and will let you know how it all goes. Cool!
Firmware 2.2
November 21st, 2008Cool Maps Tip
November 18th, 2008We all know that when you double tap with one finger in the Maps app you get to zoom in, but most don’t know that if you single tap with TWO fingers you can zoom out… Give it a go!
You can, of course, pinch in and out to get the same result, but the two finger tap is very handy.
New for Pro: Remember The Milk now available on the App Store
November 7th, 2008I’m a big fan of RTM, and I know they’re big fans of the iPhone, so I have been waiting (impatiently) for them to release an app to hook into my RTM data. It’s here and I love it. Excellent stuff.
New for Pro: Remember The Milk now available on the App Store: “
To say that we were excited when Apple made it possible to start developing native apps earlier this year would be a massive understatement (we’re big iPhone fans!). There was no question that we’d be developing an app for the iPhone and iPod touch… the only question was, ‘how big?’ :)
Building an app that simply gave access to your RTM tasks online wasn’t enough (after all, the web-based iPhone version does that already :) The app needed to give you the power of all of RTM’s functionality in your pocket (Smart Lists, tagging, search, etc), take advantage of the device’s features (like knowing your location), and of course the whole thing needed to work offline too (it’s no good carrying RTM around with you if you can’t manage your tasks as soon as you’re out of phone or Wi-Fi range!).
We set about re-creating pretty much all of RTM on the iPhone, but that was a big (ahem) task! We recruited a new team member to help us (we didn’t mention it at the time, but Ab’s a Mac developer… we’re sneaky like that). You know you’ve been staring at your iPhone just a tad too long when you reach out to tap an icon on your iMac screen, so we’re happy to announce that we’re finally done!
The app is now available as a free download on the App Store for RTM Pro users. Want to know what the app does? Read on to learn more!
Features and more features
Stay in sync.
Everything that you create in the app on your iPhone or iPod touch syncs back to RTM (and likewise everything from RTM syncs to your iPhone). That’s tasks, notes, lists, Smart Lists, tags, locations… the whole lot! You can even use the entire app offline without an Internet connection, then sync up later when you’re back online — perfect for subway rides. Auto sync makes it easy to stay up-to-date.
See things your way.
Organize efficiently by list, Smart List, tag, or location and prioritize your tasks. Not sure what’s next? See at a glance how many tasks are due today, tomorrow, and this week. Don’t like the ordering? Choose to sort by priority, due date, or task name for each list.
If you have enough time left over after organizing your tasks to actually do them, you can review completed ones with a fast switch between incomplete and complete tasks.
Manage your tasks.
The most important bit, right? Add and edit tasks with a few taps. All the fields you’ve come to know and love are supported (task name, list, priority, due date/time, repeat, time estimate, tags, location, and URL) and you can even customize the fields shown. So if you’re big on tagging, you can set that field to always display when adding tasks.
There’s flexible options for setting due dates and times, too; choose from days in the upcoming week, a full date/time picker, or enter your own in any of the supported formats.
Get stuff done.
Swipe a task in your list to complete it, and get that sweet feeling of accomplishment every time. Need to complete or postpone multiple tasks? Just tap ‘Edit’ to perform actions on several tasks at once. And because two ways of doing something is never enough, you can also complete, postpone, or delete while editing a single task.
Add tasks the Smart way.
Save time with add by context: tasks added to your today list will be due today, while tasks added to Smart Lists inherit their criteria. If your Smart List happens to show all your high priority tasks that are due today and located at the office, any tasks added to this Smart List will automatically inherit all these properties.
Note it.
Need to store additional info about a task? Write a note for quick reference. You can manage your existing notes too, and easily edit or delete them.
Email addresses and links in your notes conveniently auto-link to Mail and Safari. Phone numbers in notes also auto-link for handy one-touch calling (iPhone only feature). When your call is finished, RTM will re-open where you left off so you can keep on managing those tasks.
See tasks located nearby.
Ever since we launched the Locations feature in our web app back in September 2006, we’ve been hoping for an opportunity to do this next feature. With the iPhone and iPod touch being able to find your location, we thought it would be pretty awesome if we could show you tasks located nearby.
So that’s exactly what the Nearby feature does! See your nearby tasks due today, this week, or any time, and plan the best way to get things done.
Manage your locations.
Queueing at the supermarket? Take the chance to add your current location to the app. You can also add by address, and rename and delete locations. Remember that if you locate your tasks in the app (e.g., ‘pick up the milk’ at the supermarket), you can view them on a map in the web app.
Your own personal tasks search engine.
Not only can you search for tasks by name, you can use any of the advanced search operators supported in the web app for more powerful searching. Want to find your high priority tasks due in the upcoming week and tagged with ‘bananas’? No problem! Save your favourite searches as Smart Lists for quick access. (For anyone new to this feature, Smart Lists are very handy; they’re similar to Smart Playlists in iTunes, but allow you to easily see tasks that match your desired criteria, rather than music!)
Introducing locatedWithin.
Thanks to the Nearby feature, the app also gets a special new search operator. Use ‘locatedWithin’ in a search or Smart List to include tasks within a particular distance of your current location. For instance, you could find high priority tasks located within a mile (or kilometre, if you’re metrically inclined).
Customize, then customize some more.
Find yourself doing a lot of searching, or always checking what’s nearby? Head over to the More screen and configure the icons for quick access to your fave features. You’ll find even more options on the Settings screen.
The little touches.
The app remembers which screen you’re accessing, so if you close the app, it will handily re-open at the same place. Want to type with a larger keyboard? Try landscape mode (just flip your phone to see it in action!).
Available in every language the iPhone supports.
We’re launching the app today in English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish (whew!) — thanks to all the translators who helped to make this possible!
Thanks to…
A big thanks to the RTM users in the Pro Tester Program who helped us to test the app, giving us lots of feedback and reporting bugs. (Unfortunately we could only invite 100 testers, as there’s a limit on the number of devices that can be authorized for iPhone testing, but would have loved to invite many more!)
Ready to use RTM on your iPhone or iPod touch?
Got an iPhone or iPod touch? Sweet! Here’s the link you’ll need to launch iTunes and take you to the app page:
Want to learn more, or have any questions about the app? Please check out our Remember The Milk for iPhone and iPod touch mini-site. We hope you like the app! :)
“
(Via 0: Remember The Milk – Blog.)
iPhone Firmware 2.2 update
November 7th, 2008I’ve been reading bits and pieces here and there about the stuff coming in 2.2, and there’s all this fuss about Japanese Emoji character ability, yada, yada, yada…
Frankly, I don’t give a flying fig about Japanese Emoji capability on my iPhone… what I DO care about is Apple getting on with giving me the basic functionality of cut and paste! Snakes alive… all this yabber about ridiculously idiotic stuff instead of what ought to be a basic function drives me nuts!
Crazy GPS
October 30th, 2008Jumped into Google Maps today to get a fix on where I was heading, and was more than a bit surprised to find that my iPhone thought I was in Riga, Latvia!
Jumping out of the app didn’t help.
Restarting the radio didn’t work.
Finally tried completely turning the phone off and on, and that seemed to fix it.
But, that’s just the weirdest thing… Riga!? How? Why? Whaaaa?
Google Earth now available for the iPhone
October 28th, 2008From Google, Earth is now available. And it is VERY nice. It’s apps like these that demonstrate the power of the iPhone platform and show how far ahead of other phones it is in terms of what is possible.
The other app which does this (in my opinion) is the X-Plane flight simulator, which staggers you when you consider you’re playing this on a phone!
Anyways, take a look at the Google announcement below and have a play…
Google Earth now available for the iPhone: “
(cross posted with the Google LatLong Blog)
The world just got a little bit smaller. Google Earth is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing you to fly to the far reaches of the world from the palm of your hand. Since we launched Google Earth for the desktop in 2005, we’ve had over 400 million unique downloads, and people from around the world have used it to view their house, research travel destinations, learn how to make the world a better place, find local businesses, and view geo-located photos. Now, with a free download from the iTunes App Store, you can fly through the same 3D immersive world of Google Earth you’ve come to love, without having to fire up your desktop computer.
Check out this video tour to see Google Earth for the iPhone in action:
Not only is having Google Earth on your iPhone convenient, but the touch interface is a very natural way to interact with the Earth. Just swipe your finger across the screen and you fly to the other side of the globe; tilt your phone and your view tilts as well. You can pinch to zoom in or out, or just double tap with one finger to zoom in and two fingers to zoom out. We also integrated the My Location feature, so with a touch of a button, you can fly to where you are in the real world on your phone. In addition, we have over eight million Panoramio photos, which are geo-located photos of places, and you can view any and all of them from your iPhone. Besides being beautiful, high-quality pictures, they’re specifically of places, so you don’t have to see some guy’s family on vacation in Thailand–you can see the beaches, the temples, all the things that give you a real sense of the place. Here is a nice shot of the Grand Palace that I found on my virtual tour of Bangkok.
All versions of Earth include search, and the iPhone version is no exception. You have access to the same great local search that you get with Google Maps, so you can search for places, businesses, and landmarks. With Google Earth you get to the full detail page for businesses, so you can get reviews, photos, user content, business hours, and other useful information. We also added a ’search near me’ feature, so with one touch you can find businesses near your location, without having to navigate there first or type in the name of the city. Looking for a good cafe when you’re in Trento, Italy? It’s a snap:
To get Google Earth on your iPhone, visit the App Store in iTunes or your iPhone, and search for ‘Google Earth.’
“
(Via 0: Google Mobile.)
Making Your Own iPhone Ringtones Using iTunes
October 12th, 2008At some point, you always get tired of the standard ringtone options on any phone, so here’s a very cool and helpful tutorial from CNet to help you do this on the iPhone using nothing more than iTunes…
So easy! :-)
(And, you’ll find a lot more handy stuff where that one came from so check out some of their other offerings…)
WunderRadio: Best radio in App Store. Period
October 11th, 2008I love Pandora, but you can’t get it here in the Australian iTunes Store. But you can get WunderRadio for A$7.99… from the review below, sounds like it’s worth the dosh…
WunderRadio: Best radio in App Store. Period: “
Friday, Oct. 3, 2008 — 4:09 p.m. — out and about
Introducing WunderRadio from Weather Underground — yep, that Weather Underground. The weather folks.
The company known for what’s likely the best iPhone-optimized weather site has its second App Store app — this one called WunderRadio.
And it’s Wunderbar.
Like Tuner and AOL Radio, it streams am and fm radio. But it’s so much more. It streams EVERY station on the planet, or so it seems. I’m talking about every station I’ve ever listened to. It has stations I’ve picked up while listening at night as a kid. It picks up the stations I listened to commuting in New York and New Jersey and in Pittsburgh. It even has the station I used to listen to to find out whether or not my school would be closed due to snow.
How much would you pay for all of this? Don’t answer. Because there’s more.
What’s a weather company know about radio? Well, it’s got NOAA weather radio from just about everywhere and when you have the weather radio on, it shows the wunderground site and radar for that area.
You get all the radio stations plus weather radio plus radar. Now how much would you pay?
Well don’t answer because there’s still more!
Call now and we’ll throw in scanner frequencies for free! That’s right … now, hear what your local fire department or police department is doing.
That’s right. You get it all. A zillion radio stations, weather radio, radar, police scanners – the works. So how much? You might pay $185 for all that. But you won’t. You won’t pay $145. You won’t pay $100. You won’t even pay $50.
If you take advantage of the App Store now, you’ll pay just $5.99. That’s right … only $5.99.
There are even different versions of some stations so it will tell you if it’s optimized for EDGE or 3G. And it uses your location to either let you search by genre, location or use the built-in GPS to find the stations closest to you.
And I’m talking radio everywhere. Select the U.S. and you get choices from all 50 states broken down by state so searching is easy. Select Canada and get every province. Select a province and get a huge list of cities. There’s Virgin Radio in the UK (Sorry, Absolute Radio – ugh) and just about every other station you can think of. I have never seen a collection of stations this massive on the Internet in any one place.
I use AOL Radio and Tuner and I love them. But they are now moved to the last page and WunderRadio is at the top. It’s that good, my friends. And you know me. You know I tell you like it is. And I’m telling you, I love this app.
I’ve seen two small quirks.
1. Sometimes, when I pause the station so it’s not playing, it buffers and plays on its own. Minor and happens only sometimes.
2. There are some links that don’t work – however, 9 of 10 did for me and considering there are stations from all over the globe and we’re talking about Internet streams, that’s to be expected. But again, no points deducted. And, the developers ask you to e-mail them with dead links because they acknowledge there’s probably some. Very nice and shows dedication to customers.
I wrote to the developers to let them know how much I liked the app and they say that 1.1 is already in the works and should be even better. I can’t imagine it being much better. Only thing missing, honestly, is iTunes tagging to allow me to buy a song later in iTunes.
In the age of Pandora and last fm and iTunes, terrestrial radio has taken a back seat. But for me, as someone who has always enjoyed the thrill of the hunt – picking up a distant AM station at night — this brings me back to my childhood. And it brings me to places I can’t be — like to my favorite afternoon drive DJ in Pittsburgh.
And … I almost forgot … the stations that use RDS (Radio Data) will show what’s playing and who’s on the air when you search for the station.
Check out this app. You’ll be glad you did.
Let me know what you think if you decide to try it out.
Thanks for calling.
“
(Via 0: iPhone, Therefore I blog.)
Australian Fuel Price App Coming to Australia
October 10th, 2008In the current times of crazy fuel prices, the following info might be of interest…
Australian Fuel Price App Coming to Australia: “
Driving around town and want to know where the cheapest place to fill up is?
A new iPhone app called GasBag, already released in the U.S., will keep you in the know. The app will be released this month in Australia, and will get its data via community input, i.e. you. The GasBag developers say they can can update their list of stations and prices much more rapidly than getting it from other sources. We say it’s an Aussie app because three of the four GasBag developers are Australian. And yeah, it’ll be free. More details here, and see a demo of the app here, with a nice Aussie sountrack.
“
(Via 0: iPhone: Australia Edition.)
New: Toilet Mate (navigation)
October 9th, 2008OK, you just know that this app HAS to be useful at some point, especially if you have small kids… :-)
Check it out:
New: Toilet Mate (navigation): “
Toilet Mate 1.0
Category:
Navigation
Price: $0.99 (iTunes)
align="right">Description:
Toilet Mate can help you locate a public toilet when no one else can.
Toilet Mate will allow you to find any public toilet in Australia within a ~5km range. Any further than that I would suggest you find a bush somewhere.
Features
- Get directions from your current location to your selected public toilet.”
(Via 0: App Store – New Apps.)