Ask Reader: What’s your dream iPhone app?
Nov/090
Stepcase Lifehack readers and other lifehackers, we are reaching out to hear what types of applications you guys would like to see on your iPhone. Think of it as your dream iPhone app. In the past, Stepcase Apps were developed based solely on our team needs. However, as we continue our development of mobile apps for the iPhone, we’d like to get our readers involved and see what kind of business, productivity or utility applications you’d like to see on their iPhone.
If you’d like to share your thoughts on how you want to be more productive from your mobile, we’d like to hear to about it. Feel free to leave your comments below.
Stepcase Lifehack blog and Stepcase Apps are both operated by the Stepcase.
Angus Lau is currently consulting at Stepcase. He is a
blogger and founded 852signal.com, a blog tracking startups and social media in Hong Kong. He is also a co-founding member of the Open Web Asia workgroup, a workgroup focused on Asia’s internet industry.You can follow him on Twitter: @anguslau
Review: aNobii for iPhone
Oct/090
aNobii.com is a cataloging and social networking website for booklovers. On aNobii you can catalog your book collection on a beautiful wooden shelf and meet people with similar reading tastes. aNobii has an international following with information on over 10 million books, including 200,000 book reviews spanning 15 languages.
aNobii has just released an iphone app, and we’ve had a chance to try it out. The bottom line: this is the best iPhone app for booklovers we’ve seen so far.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the features that set aNobii apart:
9 More Apps to Help You Get More Out of Your Android Phone
Oct/090
With new android phones just out and even more on the way, I thought it would be a good time to release another list of neat-o Android apps. My last Android post (part 1 and part 2) focused on apps specifically for increasing your productivity; this post includes all manner of apps. Some will help you be more productive, some will just help you have more fun.
(Note: Some of these are paid applications. As with iPhone apps, an initial rush of free applications in the Android store seems to be giving way to higher-quality, low-priced applications that allow developers to devote more time and effort to upkeep and support.)
1. AK Notepad
AK Notepad is a basic memo pad for Android, with a few niceties. The interface color and text size are nicely customizable, and it can be set to automatically convert email addresses and URLs into clickable links (useful for remembering websites you see in ads or magazine articles while you’re out and about). Since Android doesn’t sync to a desktop the way Palm and Apple devices do, there’s no direct way to get notes off your phone, but individual notes can be sent by email (or other programs that allow it) and all your notes can be exported to the SD card and opened from the device when you plug into your PC’s USB. (Text files from your PC can also be placed on your SD card and opened in AK Notepad.)
2. Dial Zero
Route your calls around pesky (and slow) voicemail systems with Dial Zero, a database of workarounds for hundreds of companies. Each entry includes the company’s main phone number (which it will pass to the dialer if you press the green “phone dial” button), a description of how to reach an operator or agent, and comments from others who have used the app.
3. Hi-Hiker
Meant for wilderness explorers, Hi-Hiker also functions as a great fitness app. Functions include a GPS tracker, pedometer, stopwatch, weather information, maps, an altimeter, a compass, a flashlight, and a quick-dial button to call for emergency help. Most of the functions use the GPS, so make sure you have a full charge before leaving “home base” for too long!
4. Greed
Greed is a Google Reader application for Android phones, which does a much better job on the small screen than Google’s web interface for Reader. One important feature is the ability to cache your feeds on the SD card for later viewing – great for when you’re about to get on a plane or driving cross country (well, riding cross country – don’t drive and read, kids!) and will be without cell-tower service for a while. Although not a specialized podcast app, you can also subscribe to podcast feeds and download the files so they’ll show up in your media player. Greed is good.
5. Places Directory
Places Directory was designed by a Google employee, so you know it’s good. It offers location-based search to help find nearby restaurants, post offices, comic book stores, or whatever. It can get your location either from the GPS or from the nearest cell tower. Give it a long-press to dial a phone number or open a map, or a short-press for info and user reviews (each press opens a different contextual menu). A compass needle will tell you what direction you’re headed and what direction to go, and you can save a list of your favorite places (to quickly find a Starbucks in a strange town, for instance).
6. Qik
Shoot and stream live video from your phone with Qik. You can have Qik send out a tweet whenever you’re recording, and you can embed your video in other sites using the automatically-generated embed code. The only downside is that you will burn through your battery at a pretty fast rate – but it’s useful for catching quick clips on the go if you don’t have a camcorder handy.
7. Skype Lite
Skype all you want on your Android phone using Skype Lite. Works fine over 2G, and imports all your Skype contacts and other account information. If you have SkypeIn, you can even get Skype calls on your Android phone!
8. Taskiller
Android phones multitask, meaning that there are often several applications still running in the background when you open an ew one – or even when you aren’t doing anything at all. Unfortunately, Android makes it difficult to know what’s running in the background (and using up your battery). Taskiller opens a list of all running apps and allows you to close them individually or all at once. You can also switch between apps easily using a long-press.
9. Wertago
Wertago offers location-sensitive nightlife search coupled with social networking functions (friends, status updates, profiles, messaging, picture sharing) so you can find out what’s going on right now, where your friends are at, and what the best place to hang out might be. Nightclub listings include ratings from other users, distance from you, mapping, and search by tags (like 18+, dancing, dressy, etc.), and how many of your favorite Wertago users are there at the moment. If you’re a clubber, this is an essential app.
Got any other cool apps that Lifehack readers just have to install on their shiny new Android phones? Let us know about them in the comments.
Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer’s Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he’s not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don’t Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
Eat That Frog… is now an iPhone Application
Sep/090
Eat That Frog… is now an iPhone Application
Eat That Frog! Every bit of planning, prioritizing, and organizing comes down to this simple concept.
Every great achievement of humankind has been preceded by a long period of hard, concentrated work until the job was done. Your ability to select your most important task, to begin it, and then to concentrate on it until it is complete is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity.
By concentrating on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50% or more.
It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task – to pick it up, put it down, and come back to it – can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500%. This is not productive!
But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. You get better and better and more productive. You work faster and more effectively.
Now I’ve taken this concept to the next level – I’ve developed an iPhone application to help you put the Eat That Frog concept into practice.
Last week this application rose to #6 in the Productivity Category AND was featured in the New and Noteworthy section of iTunes. Wow!
See for yourself…
Based on my best-selling book, Eat That Frog, the Eat That Frog iPhone Application will give you tools you need at your fingertips to ‘Eat That Frog’ each and every day to reach even higher levels of productivity and beat procrastination…
With this new app, you will have the ability to:
- Establish as many custom Tasks/”Frogs” as you like
- Track your daily Frog and add required steps to keep you on target
- Establish estimated completion dates for each Frog
- Track each Frog over multiple days if necessary
- Chart both completion percentages and status
- And much more!
This app is specifically designed and developed to ensure that your biggest priorities are handled with the urgency and focus required to make you most effective in your business and personal life.
Get your iTunes “Eat That Frog” App today!
And the key to all of this is for you to determine the most valuable and important thing you could possibly do at every single moment and then Eat That Frog!
Darkroom Premium iPhone app now updated to support OS 3.1
Sep/090
Darkroom Premium, the camera app that snaps a picture automatically when your hand is steady is now back in the iTunes App Store. After a prolonged approval process by Apple, Darkroom is now available for you to download and update.
Darkroom Premium will require your iPhone to be on the latest OS, 3.1 in order for it to work. OS 3.0 users will continue to experience the app crashing, so it’s best to update to the latest OS if you want to use Darkroom. Darkroom Standard version users will need to continue waiting as Apple is still working to approve the app.
If you have an iPhone (2G/3G/3GS) and is in search of an app that has a steady mode as described above and additional features like timer mode, fullscreen shutter, finer accelerometer control, you should consider Darkroom Premium for your iPhone.
This is a product message from Stepcase Apps, the development division of Stepcase.
Angus Lau is currently consulting at Stepcase. He is a
blogger and founded 852signal.com, a blog tracking startups and social media in Hong Kong. He is also a co-founding member of the Open Web Asia workgroup, a workgroup focused on Asia’s internet industry.
You can follow him on Twitter: @anguslau
