Free Iphone Applications

Self Image : iPhone Application

The iPhone’s camera is on the back of the device which makes it difficult to take a self portrait on it. Debacle Software launched Self image app which is very simple and plain to use.

You have to launch the app and select if you need to capture one or two people. Then you can turn the phone around so that you get the camera lens pointed towards you. Then the self image will detect your face and make the iPhone vibrate three times and then snap the picture. Then the Self Image app will save the photo onto your camera roll and all is done. But then this app doesn’t capture video and as iPhone doesn’t have built in flash the pictures taken on a dimly lit bar or crowded concert venue do not usually turn out well. But then this problem is due to the phone not the app.

PatternMusic : iPhone Application

Pattern Music from Richard Lawler is an music app for iPhone which is priced around $2. This app helps you in creating simple songs which consists mainly of repeating audio blips. But then it has good collection of instruments and you can easily create patterns that will make it more than an experiment tool.

Patter Music may seem confusing initially but then after few browses it reveals a fairly light feature set. On the main screen you can see the icon which represents a voice or an instrument and if you give it a closer look you can see that the icon for drum does look like drum. To play any song you have to click on a play button at the bottom of the screen. Pattern Music basically works in landscape mode and you can fast forward and rewind any song you want to. There are icons displayed with which you can raise volume of each instrument in your mix. Each instrument has series of blips. There are 64 notes per pattern and 4 octaves.

The pattern Music does lack in advanced features like exporting. You can not export your song. But is good enough for those who have casual interest in music and is a fun app as it can help create crazy looping patterns and mix them together.

RSSpeaker : iPhone Application

Altum Design Studios launched a new app RSSpeaker which combines the technology of custom RSS feeds and using the software from Acapela translates text to speech. This results in your iPhone or iPod touch into a personal news anchor. The RSSpeaker’s interface is very simple. You have a list and you just need to tab the plus button to add feeds. Adding feeds from the New York Times, CNN, and The Daily Beast were easy but SFGate and The Washington Post were unverifiable.

When you save the feeds all you have to do is press play to convert it to speech from text. The RSSpeaker picks only the head lines and short blurbs that can be found on the sites homepage. You can read faster that one paragraph description than listen to it. This app can be made to use while you are driving or your eyes are engaged somewhere. But then you don’t get the full stories on RSSpeaker which is a major flaw. Then the pleasant female voice sounds bit robotic even if you can speed up her so that she matches the cadence of a regular person. She may sometime sound like a monotone NPR broadcaster reading hard news.

IVideoCamera for IPhone

The iVideo camera allows user to record short videos on any phone. This app works with any 2G or 3G iPhone with iPhone OS 3.1 or above installed in it. This app has ability to save videos directly to the camera roll or “photos” and then you are ready to share it. You have options to share it on YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, flickr Video, Vimeo and camera Roll Export for trimming or editing. The new version of iVideo camera allows you to e-mail video clips or you can upload videos using wireless via FTP.

This iVideo camera app has its share of limitations. This app allows you to shoot a video of up to 1 minute in length and captures 3 frames per second. The resolution of the camera is 160 X 213 resolutions which is quite low. But then the latest version has made some improvement in its feature. The recording time limit has been extended to 15 minutes and records at 10 frames per second. This is not quite good but better than previous versions. The iVideo Camera works best if theirs is ample free space in your iPhone. The high quality mode consumes memory fast. This iVideo camera is best for first generation iPhone users as they get videos than no video at all.

Skype for iPhone

Skype is all set with its new iPhone application which has net based phone service to Apple’s mobile platform. This Skype iphone app will give users benefit of making free calls using Wi-Fi to other Skype users and much reduced price calls to landlines.

With its marvellous features user may get disappointed that calls are only possible via Wi-Fi not over cellular networks. But for international calls Skype’s iPhone app will save callers money by just avoiding AT & T’s wireless phone network. You can sign in using 3G, WiFi, GPRS or Edge and can send instant message to whoever is online. Skype features five tabs at the bottom of the screen unlike the desktop version. It displays contacts, chats, a calling panel, call history and your profile which is more like facebook style. Skype for iPhone uses phone numbers directly from your phone’s address book so you save the effort of duplicating contacts. Photos of the contacts can be displayed and conferences also possible. iPod touch users too can enjoy Skype but with a purchase of a microphone or headphones with built in microphones similar to the iPhone’s.

It misses many of the features its desktop version has like SMS, video and proper conference calling, file transfer, and voicemail.

Etch a Sketch Lite

As a lot of physical toys, games, and generally fun stuff is getting ported on to the iPhone and iPod Touch, and it seems that developers are all too willing to add to that list. Every once in a while, though, between the salt shaker App and the paper clip App, comes a great App that makes you think all those other failed Apps were worth it. One App that can truly live up to that is Etch a Sketch, and it’s free counterpart Etch a Sketch Lite. Derived from the popular children’s drawing game, the App is now tearing up the App market and people’s devices everywhere. The developer is game developing company Freeze Tag Inc.

We weren’t expecting much when we downloaded this App. Basically an etch a sketch that had been directly ported into the Apple interface. If we were excited to play that, imagine our reaction when we learned that Freeze Tag Inc. had went the extra mile and added a whole host of extra features, even for the free version. These features were built on top of the already popular Etch a Sketch interface, and added a whole host of options to the game. Some examples of the great add-ons include the ability to change the colour of the frame of the Etch a Sketch, the ability to add a background, the ability to choose from many different colours and brush types, and the ability to save your picture and load it up for later.

As you can probably tell, we were really impressed by the work put into this App. We got all these features from the free version alone, so we really expect great things from the paid version (which we think is going to be a blockbuster success). With that said, we award this App a over-the-top 5 out of 5 stars.

iDie

Ever wanted to figure out when you’re going to die, and exactly how much time you have left? Joseph Kump, the maker of the free Apple App iDie sure thinks so, because his does exactly that! The App, released only for free, has a very catchy tag line as well, which is “Get it Now, before you’re dead”!

As soon as you open the App after the download and install, you’ll notice that there is a lot missing however. All the current App does is let you choose the day you were born, and then choose whether you’re a guy or a girl. It then uses the average life expectancy to calculate exactly how old you’re going to live to be, and then does the math and gives it out to you in terms of days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The idea behind the App is to be able to whip this out and tell someone exactly how long you’ve got to live, and how much time they’ve wasted. The idea is a bit flawed, however, as there are a number of factors that come into account when figuring out a person’s life expectancy. A few factors that come to mind include their personal habits (smoking, drinking, etc.), their nationality and ethnicity, their diet, etc. While the App can’t possibly incorporate all of these factors, we feel that a few more would have made the App much more fun and realistic. We also think that fixing a couple of annoying errors and typos would have made it more professional.

Let’s hope the developers of this App get it right next time, because this idea is almost guarenteed to be a sure-fire hit, and if the developer can fix up his act, this App will be exactly that. Until then, we’re going to have to give this App a promising 2 out of 5 stars.

Banner Free

Ever wanted to turn you iPhone or iPod Touch into an advertising board, whether just for fun, or to genuinely advertise something? Banner, and its companion software, Banner Free, want to help you do just that! Released by Akamatsu, this great free App is now ending up on many people’s iPhone and iPod Touch’s, so we thought it was high time we review it.

This App is very basic, but very trivial at the same time. The App functions by displaying whatever you want it to say in LCD-like lights. The free version of the App is basically nothing more than that, and that’s where we find it’s shortfalls are. While the App performs the pretty cool feature of displaying your text in virtual lights, we feel like it could have been much better if all the features of the paid version was migrated into it, and the paid version discontinued all together. We understand that an App Developer has to put food on the table somehow, but we can hardly believe that the creator of this App makes a lot of money off this App anyways. Some examples of the features we would like to see on this App include the addition of multi-coloured lights and backgrounds, the addition of different fonts, control over speed of the scrolling text, vertical scrolling alongside horizontal scrolling, and the ability to add different styles of scrolling (backwards, back-and-forth,etc.).

So while App has a pretty neat idea, and is fun App to keep on your iPhone or iPod Touch even after you’re done using it, we believe that the developer did a very poor job with the release and features in this App. Even though Apps are getting smaller and more useless by the day, we don’t think that’s a valid reason to make no-feature apps. That said, we award this App an unflattering 1 out of 5 stars.

Annoyance

As the Apple store introduces more and more apps, there are bound to be some apps that are, let’s just say questionable. There are variety of new apps being introduced, and not all of them obey the mainstream App ideas that everyone is used to. One of the Apps that doesn’t is Annoyance. Created by independent publisher Ethan Allen, the App is a new genre to the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is based around the central idea of sounds that annoy people. Refreshing, isn’t it?

The App combines many different sounds that the developer found annoying, and then puts them together in a simple one-screen App. There are a total of 12 different sounds, ranging from the cry of a baby to the laugh of a hyena to the horn of a car. One thing we were instantly not happy about was the limited range of sounds. While the developer may find these specific sounds to be annoying, it doesn’t mean everyone will. We were hoping that they would have added more sounds, at least to the tune of 40-50, to add some more variety. Another thing we noticed was that these sounds were very quiet compared to some of the music that can be played on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and could barely be heard out of the speakers. We wish they would have at least upped the volume so we didn’t have to connect headphones everytime we want to annoy someone.

While the idea and inspiration behind this App may be very original and promising, there are a few major quirks that throw all that out the window. If the developer can fix these basic problems and expand their app, they may have a shot at one of the best iPhone Apps. Until then, however, this App gets a simple 1 out of 5 stars.

If Found

Ever been worried about losing your expensive iPhone or iPod Touch because you left it somewhere? Worry no more, because the free app If Found wants to present a solution to the problem. The App, from Polka Networks, displays a personalized “If Found” message, so that the person who finds your iPhone or iPod Touch will know exactly who to contact to return it.

Upon opening the App, you’ll see 2 fields that you can fill in, and one field that you can select. The first is your emergency phone number, which you either type in or import from one of your Apple contacts. The second is the other information field. This field is meant for any information you have for the person who may find your iPhone or iPod, and must be 35 characters or less. We suggest using this space for your email address, but we’ve also seen uses of it where people put in a finder’s reward (we don’t recommend it!) or a personal message or even their name. The final field is the wallpaper image, which is basically your background. You can either choose one from already saved pictures, or you can instantly snap a picture (iPhone only). After you’ve done this, you can then preview the image, and then save it. Now all you have to do is choose the newly saved picture as your background.

While this App may seem like an insurance policy to some, it seems very stupid to others. For instance, this App is counting upon the complete goodwill of whoever finds your device to return it. With iPhone and iPod Touch ranging in the hundreds of dollars, and the insane popularity of these devices, we’re not sure if that may happen. Either way, it’s a great way to protect your possession in the case that someone nice enough to return it does find it, and that’s why we’ll give it an honourable 3 out of 5 stars.