Every time this happens again I feel Schadenfreude: some new hot app is being released but at first only for iPhone (and since iPad can run iPhone apps in compatibility mode: also for iPad). This time it is Vine - now still not available for Android and Windows Phone. What is Vine? It's basically speaking animated GIF with sound, a short (up to 6 seconds) video that can be uploaded via Vine app for iPhone. What is special about Vine is that it has blessing of Twitter, i.e. it's built-in into official Twitter app for iOS. Also Tweetbot can play Vine tweets. However you can post...


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I love using my iPad for taking notes. I started with Penultimate. It was..ok. It's obvious to me that the people who believe that Penultimate is anything other than penultimate, have never tried any other note taking apps. I quickly left Penultimate when I discovered Notability and CaptureNotes 2. I've gone back and forth between those two for the last year - they each have completely different strengths, so it's been a tough call. Now I've met ZoomNotes, and it was love at first sight. This app is a beast! If you can think of a feature you would want in a notes app, (like the commercial says),...


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Kinectimals for iOS is rather an sidekick-app to a videogame for Kinect, so first real game-game videogame from Microsoft is Tentacles: enter the dolphin! First when I learned about it that Microsoft is making now video games for iPhone and iPad, I thought "seriously? what about supporting Windows Phone first?". However after researching a bit I have learned that this game was actually released first for Windows Phone by a Denmark-located small company "press play" and now re-made for iOS (universal) but published by Microsoft as visible above in a splash screen. So the story goes...


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  Masquer is an iTunes app that bills itself as an image blender. That's exactly what it does - it takes two pictures and puts them together by leaving the background solid, and fading in the foreground image. Below is an early example of my playing with Masquer.   My glasses with my nephews, one in each lens. While a simple image, I had to insert nephew number one in the right lens, save, and then insert nephew number two in the left and save again. I then decided I'd try something with my own offspring (now that I'd experimented on my brother's children), and chose a photo...


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It's not often I get excited about a game. As most of you know, I've been happily playing Bejeweled since the 90's. But I recently saw my husband playing a game on his 10.1" Samsung Galaxy Note tablet that had me thinking "that looks like fun!" Have a look for yourself. I immediately had to see if this game was available for iOS as well, and to my delight it was! I quickly spent my $.99, and loaded it to my new iPad mini. And holy cow! It is as much fun to play as it looks - and that's coming from a total non-gamer! As you can see from the video above, instead of shooting at your attackers,...


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Rejoice! Yes, Apple has a few problems lately due to removing Google Maps and replacing them with their own (temporarily inferior) solution. However thanks to a 3rd party app that uses Google Maps service, you don't have to worry: Google Maps is back! While new Maps app from Apple has many advantages (vector drawing not based on images, very fast operation), it has serious problems with missing information. Here is a rather innocent example in Apple Maps where you can see that between street with name beginning with "H" there is nothing else: But on Google Maps one can clearly see another...


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Imagine leaving home. You're going to be gone a few weeks, a few months, or perhaps this is a permanent move. Now imagine being able to continue reading your hometown paper, no matter where you are. PressReader offers you the full newspaper experience on your tablet (and across multiple platforms). PressReader provides access to over 2,200 full-content newspapers and magazines from 97 countries in 54 languages. While my current local paper is not included, I found the newspapers from the last 4 cities I lived in the US, and all those from out of the US. Do you enjoy reading newspapers...


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Back in my Palm OS days, I liked having the ability to control my phone from my computer. This meant that I could respond to text messages or emails, and manage the content on my phone without having to pick up the device. Now that functionality has come to Android in the form of AirDroid. One major feature is that this management is done wirelessly. Unfortunately, it means that your computer has to be on the same network as the device, so this is not a viable solution for me when I am at work. In addition to sending and receiving emails and SMS messages through AirDroid, you can also...


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Do you run out of real estate on your home screen for icons? Do you wish you had a way to have an icon-free interface? Tagy Widgets is the answer! If you are anything like me, you like to be able to get to your most commonly used applications in as few moves as possible. In the past, I’ve resorted to folders, folder-like widgets and widgets that “shrink” icons to do this. None of them have suited me like Tagy. Tagy presents your apps, contacts, settings or bookmarks in "clouds". You can add as many items to a widget as you desire, and can put multiple widgets on your home screen (you...


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This app is not unique - there are many many apps with which you can measure distance or area - but I like this one. I don't claim it's the best, it's simply the easiest to use for me. I must admit that I like this app a lot. I find it extremely useful and I will keep it long-term. While built-in Maps app of iOS has distance measurement via route calculation, I often want to know the distance in straight line or I would like to know the area of some place and then this app comes in handy. There are 2 kinds of things I use this app for: one is for some places near me, in vicinity - to know...


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