The Ultimate List of Note-worthy iPhone applications (Part 3).

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I’ve had an idea to help you sift though the rubbish on the App Store – Basically – I’m going to do it for you. The idea being, if you know what application has got the better UI, or the better functionality, then hopefully the rubbish on the store, will either fade into the background, or be forced to increase it’s quality!

This is PART 3 of the list. You’ll find PART 1 here and PART 2 here

I have now combined the three separate lists into one easily accessible one:
[The Ultimate List of 'Noteworthy' iPhone Applications]

Click an icon to be taken to it’s App Store page.

R-Fly

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Rapid Review: Koi Pond for iPhone.

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While browsing the store this evening, I came across a unique application. Koi Pond [App Store].

Basically, Koi Pond by The Blimp Pilots, is a CGR (Computer Generated Realisation) of … well a Koi pond (Koi are fish for anyone wondering …). So what does the application do? – Quite a lot for £0.59.

Koi Pond for iPhone.

Basics
When you launch the application you are faced with a very inviting pond. Dependent on the pond’s settings, the pond, at first, may be very dull, have no fish or contain no lily pads. Run your finger through the water, and you’ll be subject to a dynamic water simulation – it rocks. When I say it rocks, you know the visual feedback you get of running your hand under your tap? – It’s that kinda ‘rocks’ – it’s superb.

Kio Pond for iPhone.

Further Settings
Behind the visual’s of Koi pond lie some user configurable settings. These settings include the ability to choose the tint of the water, how many fish are in the pond at one time, and how many lily pads you wish to be available in the pond. Also, the bottom row within settings is a 4-layer audio track, which you can mix-up to provide the perfect relaxing background track to your pond.

Overall
From the graphical representation of water, to the life-like motion of the Koi, Koi pond for iPhone is that of a masterpiece. Relaxing, realistic and cheap – Fantastic value for money. After saying this, it goes without saying, if you don’t like fish or will get bored of playing with virtual water, don’t buy this – for everyone else, go get it!

App Store: Koi Pond

R-Fly

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The Ultimate List of Note-worthy iPhone applications (Part 2).

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ALERT – WE’VE MOVED TO RAZORIANFLY.COM

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I’ve had an idea to help you sift though the rubbish on the App Store – Basically – I’m going to do it for you. The idea being, if you know what application has got the better UI, or the better functionality, then hopefully the rubbish on the store, will either fade into the background, or be forced to increase it’s quality!

This is PART 2 of the list. You’ll find PART 1 here

[Update]
I have now combined the three separate lists into one easily accessible one:
[The Ultimate List of 'Noteworthy' iPhone Applications]

Click an icon to be taken to it’s App Store page.

R-Fly

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Mobile Chat 3: The Review. – [Updatedx3]

Mobile Chat 3 for iPhone.

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[Updatex3] – 20.08.08 (02.11am GMT)

No Push Capability // No persistent connection is kept
Something which should have been clarified a long time ago, is that Mobile Chat 3 for iPhone currently does NOT retain a connection to your account if you close the application. This will hopefully change when Apple implement ‘push’ technologies into iPhone OS, until then, we wait.

[Updatex2] – 19.08.08 (23.35pm GMT)

Twenty08 yesterday announced they have joined forces with one the greatest developers the iPhone has seen to date. Alex Schaefer. Recognisable as the developer of ‘Apollo IM’ for jailbroken units, Alex has officially joined the payroll over at the MobileChat base camp. Interestingly, Saverio notes Alex brought up some pretty nice ideas for UI enhancements and program stability. The relationship is said to be exclusive between Twenty08 and Schaefer, hinting Alex may drop support for Apollo IM on the jail-break scene. Apollo IM was a freely available application which did not use the ‘App Store’ distribution model.

Via: Twenty08

Original Article:
It’s fair to say the developers at Twenty08 (namely Saverio and Shaun) had a fairly rocky roll out of this new messenger client for iPhone, but, after all the trial and tribulations, things are starting to look up. I’ve personally been using the application on and off for a good 2 days and can say that, when it works, it works. Flawlessly.

Setting Up Mobile Chat 3 for iPhone.

For anyone who doesn’t know what I am talking about, Mobile Chat 3 is a full instant messenger client for your iPhone. The application works over Edge, 3G or Wifi and displays all your buddies who are currently using the service. Mobile Chat 3 supports AIM, Windows Live, ICQ, .Mac, Yahoo!, Google Talk and Jabber account setups.

Out of courtesy, and due to privacy issues, I have decided to block out my buddies IM addresses.

MC3 buddy list and Chat overview.

Using MC3
To use MC3 you need to setup an account. As mentioned above this can be a AIM, Windows Live, ICQ, .Mac, Yahoo!, Google Talk or a Jabber account. Once setup, your account reports all buddies currently active on the network you are connected to. The UI of mobile chat 3 is simple but almost classy.

Keyboard in view and chat delete options.

Chat Window and Photo Integratability.

The Chat Screen
This consists of three components;

Message Window
As with all messengers, this allows you to communicate with your messenger buddy. On iPhone, simply touch the white box, and the keyboard will pop right up for you to use. Don’t want the keyboard anymore? – just double tap in the convo area and the keyboard will disappear back underneath the MC3 user interface, until needed again.

Camera Button
Who needs MMS? – The camera button is used for sending your buddy photos, straight from your iPhone. You have a choice whether to send them a photo from your current photo library, or take one right there and then, with the built in camera!

Info Button
This button when clicked, provides detailed information about the current contact you are chatting with. For example, it can show their e-mail address, your e-mail address, current online/offline status and even loads their messenger profile if it’s available at the time of request.

Status options and phone number IM abilities.

Choosing Available or Offline
As with all messengers, the expected option is to be able to choose whether to appear online to your buddies, and MC3 doesn’t disappoint in this field either. Not only do you, as a user, have the option to appear offline, but you can also appear away, and setup you own custom away messages!

Other Options
Mobile Chat 3 also offers the ability to IM a phone number. By selecting to do this, you can IM your friends by phone number, without having to know their IM user name.

Landscape Mode
Adding to the small list of applications which actually support this built in view,
Mobile Chat 3 supports chatting in landscape mode. (Thanks diesel of Mac Rumors)

There’s More …
Mobile chat 3 for iPhone supports PUSH. This is huge. Basically, any application with push activated can work without the application having to be open and on-screen. This means, if your talking to Jack, and you then hit the home button, open maps to view the party venue for tonight, and then exit maps, before you even open MC3 it will display the messages you received while away from the application in a red bubble, rather like Apple’s built in Mail application. But also, once you open the application again, all the messages you received while you are away are pushed into the chat window. Finally, you have an option to be notified by the Twenty08 servers, of new messages received, by SMS or E-mail.

Note: E-mail and SMS push notification is only available for AOL/.Mac accounts.
(Thanks diesel of Mac Rumors)

Application Stability
Apart from a few minor graphical glitches, Mobile Chat 3 held up strong for me.

[Update] – 17.08.08 (01.25am)
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

CURRENT REPORTED ISSUES

- AOL/AIM account users are reporting issues with bouncing logins
Twenty08 have acknowledged these issues and are working to resolve them as soon as possible.

- Application Crashes
Reports are in of the application failing to launch, or when launched and closed, other application fail to launch successfully

- Graphical Glitches.
People are also reporting of sporadic glitches within the program which cause buddy lists to disappear and account information to be deleted or lost.

- Missing or Inconsistent IM behaviour.
Also reported is the issue of instant messages not being delivered to the recipient.

- Server Issues.
Twenty08 are having huge issues with servers at their end, mainly due to sheer demand.
Please refer to: Mobile Chat 3 Now Available for more details.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Overall
This application rocks, and when Apple provide true push services sometime in September, this application will get updates like nothing else, and rock even more. Despite the buggy launch due to server overload and demand – Mobile Chat 3 is set to be the only messenger client you’ll need for iPhone, we just have to give it time.

Pickup your copy here for £1.79

R-Fly

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Simplify Media: Share your Music with the World.

Yesterday, a new way to share your iTunes library with others, hit the App Store – not only in iTunes – but now on your iPhone too. Simplify Media [App Store].

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Currently free, the application allows you to invite and accept people by username, and then share their iTunes libraries! – The person(s) you are connected to, will show up under ’shared’ libraries in iTunes. Their music will also be accessible to you via the application on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Share your music library through Simplify Media - Legally!

Access my music library by inviting;

Screen name: razorianfly

Feel free to post your screen name’s in the comments section!
A world with legally shared music, is a better one – Lets start discovering great music.

R-Fly

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Mobile Chat 3: Unexpected Demand // Servers are pulled. – [Updated]

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[Update] – 15.08.08 (20.28pm)

Twenty08 has acknowledged AOL connectivity issues with Mobile Chat 3.

From Twenty08

“We have no estimated time frame on the patch for this problem; however, we are diligently working and hope to have a solution soon. We will post new information as it develops.

Just as a note, we are VERY aware of the other issues; however, we are focusing on the largest and moving down the list as we solve them.”

As well as promising to address issues with the AOL protocol and Mobile Chat 3, one of the developers also states:

“I understand that everyone is frustrated. Shaun and I have been working non-stop over the past few days trying to resolve these issues and there’s only so many hours in the day. We’ve brought in a number of people to help us out and we’ve been speaking with the people who are behind some of the core technologies that we run MobileChat on. We’re deeply apologetic for the hassle we’ve caused people and understand that people are furious with us. My only consolation (as of right now) is that, if you’re patient, a quality product will be delivered (as it should have in the first place!). I can offer nothing else other than the knowledge that Shaun and I will not rest until we’ve made each and every one of our customers 100% satisfied.

-Saverio”

Original Article:

A few days ago, a highly anticipated application hit the App Store. Mobile Chat 3. Within the first hour of it being on the store, the developers hit a snag. Demand. The demand for this application was huge, and buyers who had bought the application where using it that much, the developers at Twenty08 had to pull their servers offline while they figured out what they were going to do next. With the application still on the store, and available for purchase by buyers, customers were none-the-wiser as to the problems lying behind the new, very cleverly-marketed, messenger client for iPhone.

Users, including me, who tried to access the application within this period were met with a message stating servers were completely down and should reference tumblr.twenty08.com for more information.

The developers worked through the night to get the servers to handle the clear high demand. So what was the actual problem? – By my understanding the servers at twenty08 simply couldn’t handle the sheer amount of requests being sent every second or so.

The issues got worse, and the developers at Twenty08 even placed an advert to recruit new developers who were familiar with C/C++ and Objective-C programming.

Twenty08 announced today that they were also bringing in ‘The Big Guns‘.

Some people are still reporting issues with the AOL protocol. Issues also being experienced are the application crashing, freezing, requiring a reboot and it crashing other applications.

Servers are back-up, and after using the application for most of today, and it running very smoothly indeed, I can finally say this application is worth the £1.79 for MSN network users ONLY …

Saverio & Shaun, know this - You messed this up, BIG TIME

My advice? – If you use anything other than MSN for chatting with your buddies on iPhone, this isn’t the IM client for you.

R-Fly

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The Ultimate List of Note-worthy iPhone applications (Part 1).

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ALERT – WE’VE MOVED TO RAZORIANFLY.COM

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I’ve had an idea to help you sift though the rubbish on the App Store – Basically – I’m going to do it for you. The idea being, if you know what application has got the better UI, or the better functionality, then hopefully the rubbish on the store, will either fade into the background, or be forced to increase it’s quality!

This is PART 1 of the list. You’ll find PART 2 here

[Update]
I have now combined the three separate lists into one easily accessible one:
[The Ultimate List of 'Noteworthy' iPhone Applications]

Click an icon to be taken to it’s App Store page.

R-Fly

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Heads Up: Mobile Chat 3, Now Available – [Updatedx6]

MC3 Servers are pulled due to unexpected demand.

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[Updatex6] – Full Review, Now Available

For anyone reading this article currently, my full, on-going,
review of Mobile Chat 3.0 is now available HERE

[Updatex5] – 13.08.08 (20.05pm)

Scratch that, the application functions over 3G and Edge too! – Although very unstable currently.

[Updatex4] – 13.08.08 (11.31am)

The application seems to need a persistent connection to wifi. It’s unclear as to whether the service works over Edge and/or 3G. The reason I’ve come to this conclusion is I tried to connect to the account (pictured above) and I got a ‘Cannot connect to Mobile chat’ alert message. I then switched to Wifi and my account continued to be successfully signed in through the MSN network.

[Updatex3] – 13.08.08 (10.29am)

Status Update 8/13 @ 5:08AM EST

The trial runs have been going very well so far. As many of you have seen, the MobileChat servers are now accepting connections. It seems to be running far smoother than ealier in the night. We will continue to test and update you guys as we’ve been doing. If anyone would like to try out MobileChat, we urge you to do it now so we can test our environment under a full load.

-Saverio

[Updatex2] – 13.08.08 (09.30am)

Status Update 8/13 @ 4:10AM EST

We’re going to be performing a trial run of our latest server setup within the next hour or so. We’ve performed a number of bug fixes to our software and have changed the overall way that our backend platform works. We don’t anticipate the servers being 100% stable; however, we do have further plans to implement changes to our infrastructure as the week rolls on. At this point we are trying to get the best working system up and running with the fewest problems.

Expect an update to follow shortly.

-Saverio

[Update] – 13.08.08 (09.19am)

Servers seem to be down currently, for maintainence. Launching the application results in a pop-up confirming all servers are down, and to check tumblr.twenty08.com for more information.

Which brought me to this:

Status Update 8/13 @ 2:35AM EST

We are working hard to bring the servers back online. Here’s a run down of the problem:

1. We expected MobileChat to be popular, but we didn’t expect the amount of volume that we received (and are still receiving). Our estimate was 100 sales a day during the first week. We’ve gone far above that. The application is currently the 35th Top Paid Application on the AppStore and Apple isn’t willing to work with us in pulling the application down until we can recover. (I don’t blame them, but it would have been nice.)

2. As a result of us not being able to pull the app from AppStore for a few hours while we work out the bugs…we pulled our backend servers from production and let our users know (with a message) that we’d be back shortly.

3. We DID plan for the load to a certain extent. We had our datacenter provision some spare servers for quick access; however, the problems that we’re facing are not fixable by “adding more power”. Basically, our server software wasn’t able to handle more than a few hundred simultaneous connections before dropping everything and dieing.

4. We will continue to work through the night to resolve the problems; however, “the night is darkest before the dawn”. In other words, there is still a very bumpy road ahead!

5. We WILL compensate our users in some way. How or what we will do has yet to be determined. I’d love to give you guys a firm answer on this, but our time is being dedicated towards fixing the problem and we only have so many hands! Which leads me into my next point…

6. We’re small. (It’s really just Shaun and I running this thing!) However, that’s not an excuse! We provided an app for sale on the AppStore and as a result, we will hold true to our promise of delivering a quality product. Please just be patient while we do what needs to be done. I assure you that your loyalty will pay off.

7. We’re sorry!

I’ll post another update before the dawn…
-Saverio

Original Article:

Mobile Chat 3 by Twenty08 is now available.

My original article: Mobile Chat 3: Stuck in Apple’s App Store approval system.

You’ll find it on the App Store: HERE (£1.79)

I’ve just picked this up and a review will follow shortly!

R-Fly

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iPhone 2.0.1 Firmware hits the Wires! – [Updatedx2].

Image courtesy of Engadget.com

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[Update] – 05.08.08

- It is noted that the ‘Backup’ process for the iPhone is much faster under this update. (Hallelujah!)

- This update takes it’s sweet time to install, be patient people!

Original Article:

So, around 07:51 PM EST yesterday, Apple finally pushed iPhone firmware 2.0.1 out the door. Of course, as always, Apple doesn’t provide a list of changes, only that mysterious phrase of ‘Bug Fixes’.

At 249.2 MB, I for one hope it fixes A LOT of bugs. I’ll let you know how I fare after using it for a day or so.

Go Grab it on iTunes Guys!

R-Fly

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Twinkle = Twitter + Location + Style – [Updated].

Twinkle by Tapulous

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[UPDATE] – 31.08.08

Tapulous recently pushed an update to the App Store for Twinkle.

Version 1.1 Fixes include;

– Fixed an issue where corrupted image could cause Twinkle to crash.
– Toned down notification sounds.
– Toned down starry background.
– Fixed an interaction problem when composing messages by moving the Send button out of the
keyboard.
– Increased text color contrast to enhance legibility.
– Localized units of distance.
– Overall increases in performance and stability.
– URL scheme twinkle:// now launches Twinkle from other applications, including Safari.

Original Article:

I’m not a big twitter user, but when I do use it, I like to be able to use it in a user-intuitive and easy fashion.
This is where Twinkle from Tapulous comes in.

If your new to Twitter …

From Wikipedia

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application such as Twitterrific or Facebook. For SMS, four gateway numbers are currently available: short codes for the United States, Canada, and India, as well as a United Kingdom number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/razorianfly and of course, I use Twinkle on iPhone too.

Twinkle not only allows you to see tweets and follow others users, but with the iPhone 3G and it’s build in GPS chip, it also allows you to see where those people are twittering from – this is truly a step forward for mobile twitter clients.

The UI of this app is stunning, and updates being pushed from Tapulous to the App Store, to fix bugs, are steadily appearing and rectifying minor issues I currently have with the app.

The Old Days
We first heard of Twinkle when it appeared on the ‘Jailbreak’ scene. It’s fair to say, even though the idea was there, it wasn’t very well implemented at the time, but people had nothing better, and so lived with it.

Twinkle has come a long way. Old UI (Left) New UI (Right)

I’m pleased to say, the guys and gals at Tapulous took Twinkle under their wing,
and have bought it into the 21st century.

Using Twinkle
Using Twinkle couldn’t be simpler, and the great part about it is, you don’t even have to have a Twitter account – but it does help if you do. To get started with twinkle, all you need is a valid e-mail address.

Get started with twinkle, and get twinkle'ling!

Twinkle Location API
The makers of Twinkle have also made the experience even better as you can now ping the native GPS chip inside of iPhone 3G to attach a location to your tweet! Not only that, but you can search for ‘Twinklers’ in your area and photo-blog on the move!

Sharing that picture of your half-eaten Sunday roast, is no longer a challenge – with Twinkle.

Twinkle's photo-blogging ability & location aware UI

Rating: 8/10 (Recommended)

Get it here: Twinkle

R-Fly

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