Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.
To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!
I would never suggest that I can draw. I have been drawing the same house since I was 7 years old. The lines are still crooked. My daughter says I can’t even draw stick figures – and she’s absolutely right. But I like to doodle.
I found Glow Draw while glancing through iTunes looking for something interesting for my new iPad. I don’t understand why it’s not one of the apps they you see in their tv commercials – it’s fun. It’s simple. Heck, it’s even free!
As I said, it’s a very simple app. You have a choice of a black, grey, or blue background, although you can use a photo from your camera roll if you want. Black is definitely the best. You have a limited choice of colors, but they’re all florescent. And that’s what makes it fun! When you first draw a line, you can’t even tell the color. But when you stop, the glow begins. And it’s cool! You can adjust the thickness of the line, and layering thin lines over thicker lines gives you an interesting textured effect.
Once you have completed your masterpiece, you can save it to your camera roll (so that you can use it as wallpaper), or send it to a friend. (Or send it to your daughter so she’ll know you can draw something better than a stick figure!)
[Free - App Store link]
It’s November, and that means it’s time to grow some facial hair for a good cause. Around the office, we’ve shaved and are letting our manly beards come roaring back in while we support the defeat of prostate cancer. While this happens, a few of us are personally documenting our struggle against a smooth face with an app called Everyday.
Everyday is a simple app that allows you to take a picture of your beautiful face once (or more than once) a day. The app provides some guides to line up the shot and a ghosting mode that shows you the position of your face in the last picture so you can make sure it’s as consistent as possible. When you’ve got a few, you can stitch them together in a little animated movie and watch your face’s progress over time. It’s a very cool effect.
You can set reminders within the app so that you don’t forget to take your shots, and it has a bunch of sharing features too. You can choose to manually share or automatically upload to your networks of choice (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr).
I can’t wait until my face forest comes back and I have a month’s worth of little snaps that I can turn into an animated video. In the meantime, if you’d like to help us in our rally against that jerk, cancer, you can visit our team page here.
[$1.99 - App Store link]
This week’s pick is an app that I nearly bought loads of times but never did. This week I took the plunge and had one of those “Why the hell did I not buy this earlier” moments.
Tapatalk works with a lot of online forums, well the best ones anyway such as TiPb’s very own awesome forums. It presents them in an iPhone friendly way instead of trying to deal with a full blown forum. It provides a super easy way to read posts, see all new posts and everything else in between. I
It makes forums an absolute pleasure to view and participate in on the move with you iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. If you are on the fence, get off it and go and buy this. Your forum experience will never be the same again!
Tapatalk is a universal binary so works natively on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
[$2.99 – App Store link]
This week I’ve been using an app that Leanna dug up for a giveaway a few weeks ago. OfficeTime basically allows you to set rates for different categories of services. From there you can add projects and timesheets as well as expenses. I’ve found it pretty simple to use in the time that I’ve spent with it.
I love that I can just start a timer while I’m working on something and then when I stop it, the amount is already calculated. I simply take the time and amount and quickly e-mail invoices to all my clients via Quickbooks. I’ve tried a lot of different apps for tracking time spent on projects and I think OffceTime is one I’ll stick with due to the ease of use and simplicity of it. I don’t need anything overly complicated since I already use Quickbooks for billing and invoicing. I just need one place to have all my client data so when it’s time to invoice for the week I can just view a summary and send them out.
They’ve also got a PC and Mac counterpart that you can sync back and forth which makes it even more convenient.
If you are a freelancer or contractor it’s definitely an app you’ll want to have a look at.
[$7.99 - App Store Link]
Its such a simple concept, yet strangely addictive.
You can rate items, foods, websites, literally anything, creating a list of all the things you like and dislike.
For me, its replaced my need for check-in apps like Foursquare and GetGlue, because of the ability to be more concentrated with your ‘likes’.
With locations, you can like and dislike individual items within the place, like individual rides at a theme park, instead of liking the entire park, and since you can re-oink, you can also like and dislike individual TV episodes instead of liking the whole show.
If you don’t go out much, you can also like and dislike websites, items around the home, drinks and more!
Its also loaded with a feature called ‘cred’, which is a more dynamic way to share. If you see someone who is a Level 6 in #beer, you could follow them for great beers, expanding the stretch of people you follow.
I added TiPb.com to the database, so go ahead and ‘love us’ up.
[Free - App Store link]
My sister is visiting this weekend so, eager for something new and different, I put her on the hot-seat and demanded an app pick. Her response, after a leveling stare, was eSleep Lite. What she likes about is, you have multiple music choices including RainSong and Ocean, and noise choices like PinkNoise, and WhiteNoise. You can loop the sounds, combine them together, record your own meditation on top of them, and there’s a timer so you can wake up to it.
And, it’s…
[Free - App Store link]
Trying to keep up with a task list that I will actually monitor and complete has been a struggle for me. I have tried Wunderlist, Reminders, Calendar appointments and just about everything else, but since I am not always on the same computers I don’t personally find them very helpful. Generally when signed into a computer I have my GMail account open, and then it clicked, I needed something that synced with Google Tasks so I could keep organized. That is when I met gTasks, a great free application that syncs with Google Tasks, and offers all the basic features that I needed. I can now sync from and to my phone any task that needs to be completed, I can select when to be reminded, and I can clear tasks right from my device, allowing me to keep up with what needs to be kept up. If you are looking to add some additional organization into your life, be sure to check out gTasks free in the AppStore today!
[Free - App Store link]
A couple weeks ago, Rene chose the notetaking app, Noteshelf [$4.99 - App Store link], as his pick of the week and I just had to buy it. My love for this app turned into an obsession with finding the perfect stylus. After about a week of jumping back and forth between my options, I went with the Bamboo Stylus.
I got this beauty in the mail, today, and boy do I love it! The problem with some styli is that they feel light and cheap – not the Bamboo! The Bamboo is weighted just right and is the perfect thickness. The length is also just right – shorter than an average pen, but long enough to be comfortable to hold. The tip is very smooth and does give a little. If I was one to press hard when writing, this may be a little bothersome – but I’m not.
Not only is the function amazing, so are the looks! The Bamboo is made out of metal and extremely stylish with the added color. There are six color choices and I went with blue. Although, I admit that I’m tempted to pick up a pink, orange, and green one as well…
[$29.99 - Bamboo Stylus]
Zombieville USA is the newly released sequel to the hit game for iOS: Zombieville USA. The game takes place in a zombie apocalyptic city, and you are the only one who has survived. What’s the premise of the game? Kill the zombies.
You start off with 3 simple, but useful weapons; a handgun, a baseball bat, and a shotgun. In each level, there are cities with different infection rates and as the levels get harder, the cities become infected with more zombies. The overall goal is to kill as many zombies as you can, collect money, and escape via helicopter before the times runs out. Unlike the original ZombieVille USA, once you die, you still get to keep your money and continue on your journey. Also, each weapon has different add-ons and you can always buy more weapons to help you kill the zombies. Lastly, there are more than one type of zombie, so be careful and have fun!
[$0.99 - App Store link]
You’re part of the team as well, so we will be choosing one reader to make a submission each week! Just look for the announcement on twitter or our Facebook page each weekend for a chance to be picked! In the meantime, jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!
