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The Big Game is just a few days away and whether you’re a Giants fan or a Patriots fan, it likely will be a great time filled with adult beverages, tasty snacks, funny commercials (including one from Samsung) and great football. Research shows that many of you will be using a smartphone or tablet during the game, so let’s take a look at some great apps which will help you enjoy the Super Bowl even more. One of my favorite parts of the Super Bowl is that it gives you an excuse to eat all sorts of delicious food that’s probably not good for you but let’s step our games up folks and create bites that are better than your average feedbag. I really like the iCookbook app on the iPad because not only does it have thousands of recipes, it has voice controls in it so you don’t have to worry about getting foodstuff onto your tablet. If you don’t want to pay the $5 for iCookbook, the Epicurious app is always good for finding ideas on what to cook. If you’re not a football fan and want to sound knowledgeable about the game, there are a wealth of sports-related apps to help you out. ESPN is the biggie in this category and it’s good and available for nearly every single platform. Don’t forget to give Bleacher Report a chance, as it has the expert opinion in there, as well as the fan’s perspective. If you’re lucky enough to be on the ground in Indianapolis for the Super Bowl, you can use your mobile browser and check out Indianapolissuperbowl.com for a list of events going on near the Big Game. . , the Android version can be found here.Download the ESPN iOS app here (iTunes link), the Android version can be found here. [Photo via Shutterstock, bikeriderlondon] The best way to experience the Super Bowl (if you’re not there) is with a gigantic television, good friends and with lots of food but sometimes life gets in the way. If you happen to be on the go during the Big Game, you can use Verizon’s NFL Mobile app to watch the spectacle. This is the first time ever that the Super Bowl has been streamed to a mobile device, so it’s kind of a historic thing. It’s not just the live broadcast of the game, as the NFL Mobile app for Read More

De iPhone-app Alien Blue maakt het een stuk makkelijker om de website Reddit te bezoeken. Reddit is een online dienst, waarmee je interessante artikelen met anderen kunt delen. Heb je iets gelezen, wat voor anderen ook nuttig kan zijn? Dan markeer je het op Reddit. Reddit heeft een officiële app, maar er zijn ook apps van derden die alles nét iets handiger proberen te doen. Zoals Alien Blue. Een nieuwe update zorgt ervoor dat de interface van de app een nieuwe lik verf heeft gekregen. Ook is inloggen via de app nu een stuk veiliger, dankzij het gebruik van SSL-authentication. Gebruik je de in-app aankoop Alien Blue Pro, dan toont de app voortaan link-previews en retina-thumbnails. De lijst met artikelen heeft een nieuw ontwerp gekregen, waardoor hij er minder kleurrijk uitziet. De app gebruik nu de kleur donkerblauw in combinatie met een hele lichte grijsvariant, waardoor hij een beetje doet denken aan het populaire Tweetbot. Een vergelijking die helaas niet helemaal opgaat door de traditionele lichtblauwe balken boven- en onderin de app. Deze verandering in ontwerp is ook doorgevoerd in het reactieveld, waar nu ook duidelijker onderscheid wordt gemaakt tussen verschillende opmerkingen met een streep. Reddit is een bekende sociale nieuwssite, waarop iedereen kan aangeven of ze een bepaalde link wel of niet belangrijk vinden. De meest populaire links verschijnen bovenaan de pagina, waardoor je snel ziet wat voor belangrijk nieuws je misschien hebt gemist. Reddit is in de Verenigde Staten erg populair en bevat vooral Engelse links. Gisteren was Reddit één van de websites die op zwart ging om te protesteren tegen het wetsvoorstel SOPA. Downloaden: Alien Blue (gratis) Read More

by Women’s Wear Daily, the fashion, retail and beauty trade newspaper, has launched a comprehensive app for the iPad. This is the third iPad app the publication has launched. However, it’s the first that will let existing subscribers — more than a fifth of whom own Apple’s tablet device — completely transition from print, says Dan Shar,VP and general manager of digital at Fairchild Fashion Media, the owner of WWD. That transition will be further aided by the app’s design which, unlike the tablet versions of most newspapers, more closely resembles its print edition than its website. As such, readers will need to zoom in to read most of the articles in portrait mode, but overall, existing subscribers should be pleased with the experience. “In our research… we [found] that readers really wanted to get the same sense of completion they receive from reading the daily paper,” says Shar. Additional web content is located separately on the home screen. The app is available gratis as part of WWD’s $169 per year print and digital subscription. An iPad-only subscription can now be purchased for $129.99 per year or $12.99 per month. Issues are automatically downloaded to subscribers’ iPads at 12:01 a.m. on weekdays. In a statement, Editor in Chief Ed Nardoza suggested that part of WWD‘s motivation to invest in an iPad app was driven by the need to serve its international readership, many of whom, we imagine, must pay a heavy premium for print delivery. No iPhone or Android tablet version is in the works at present, but Shar says the iPad app was built with the idea that editions for other platforms would eventually follow. Read More

With the clock ticking down the hours until Santa arrives, here are some last-minute holiday apps to load on your iPhone or iPad as you go out caroling, do last-minute shopping or visit your friends and family: Santa's Big Helper ($.99): This has a number of features, and if you're looking for one good Christmas app, this is the one to grab. It has a Santa tracker, a naughty/nice list, the ability to write to Santa for those last-minute Christmas wishes, ask questions and more. FOOD52 Holiday Recipe & Survival Guide ($3.99): If you need a guide to hosting a holiday party or a good recipe for a family gathering, this app is great for doing everything from making pie to crafting a gingerbread house. There are eight suggested menus that will make fighting the crowds at the grocery store a bit easier, and you can follow community links to get help from other people. And if it's too late to take advantage of the app this Christmas, it'll be on your iPad for the next holiday season. For other cooking apps, take a look at Epicurious (free) and How to Cook Everything ($9.99 for full app, free for essentials), which are always great go-tos for recipes. A Charlie Brown Christmas ($.99): We took a look at this iPad app in November, and it turns the classic Peanuts special into an interactive storybook that brings a new dimension to the story. If A Charlie Brown Christmas is part of your Christmas Eve traditions, then it's worth the download and is currently on sale for $.99. Christmas Carols ($.99): You're out singing Christmas carols tonight and suddenly forget the words to "The First Noel." Instead of humming along awkwardly, pull out this app and look up the lyrics to a number of carols. It might not help you carry a tune, but you'll at least know the words. Cards (Free): It's Christmas Eve. You open your mailbox to find a Christmas card from your great aunt, and you realize you've not only forgotten to send her one, but you're out of Christmas cards and she doesn't use the Internet. Pull out your iPhone, grab a photo of your Christmas tree and quickly use this app to create a last-minute Christmas card. It won't get to your great aunt until next week, but it's the thought that counts ... right? You also might Read More

There are over 500,000 applications for the iPhone and iPad, 300,000+ on Android and thousands more on other platforms. The average user has 65 apps installed on their phone . Many of us have more. Entire businesses have been built to solve the problem of “app discovery” – that is, a way to supplement the limited app search mechanisms built into the vendors’ own application stores. This is primarily to benefit mobile app developers, who can’t get their apps found. The end results of these products are pitched to consumers as tools to “find new, cool apps,” “find apps your friends like,” or “find the best apps that do X.” While these efforts are appreciated by app developers and end users alike, they don’t solve what is increasingly becoming a real problem: finding the apps you already have installed on your phone. Before sourcing factual data from mobile analytics firm Flurry as to the average number of apps users have installed on their devices, I did some informal polling on Facebook and Twitter. I asked my friends and followers how many apps they currently have on their phones. The answers were surprising. Although there were a few outliers – the person who only had 10, for example, and a couple of others who have upwards of 300, most people fell within the 40-100 app range. More often than not, they had closer to 50 or 60. Again, this is anecdotal data, but speaks to trends within the tech community. It’s interesting that this non-scientific polling shows that early adopters have roughly the same number of apps, on average, as all smartphone users worldwide – around 65. But how many apps do people actually use? According to Flurry, the average consumer uses only 15 apps per week. That means that the majority of the apps installed on the phone are for occasional use. The games you play while killing time, the tip calculator or bill splitter you only pull out when dining with friends, the calorie counter for that diet you began in January (and again June), the garage sale finder, the photo-uploader, and that game that you kid totally loves…you know, the one with the bunnies? What was that called again? And herein lies the problem. Unless your app is appropriately titled and optimized for search, on-device app search is severely lacking, at least on the two major platforms, iPhone and Android, which I’ll address in Read More

There are over 500,000 applications for the iPhone and iPad, 300,000+ on Android and thousands more on other platforms. The average user has 65 apps installed on their phone . Many of us have more. Entire businesses have been built to solve the problem of “app discovery” – that is, a way to supplement the limited app search mechanisms built into the vendors’ own application stores. This is primarily to benefit mobile app developers, who can’t get their apps found. The end results of these products are pitched to consumers as tools to “find new, cool apps,” “find apps your friends like,” or “find the best apps that do X.” While these efforts are appreciated by app developers and end users alike, they don’t solve what is increasingly becoming a real problem: finding the apps you already have installed on your phone. Before sourcing factual data from mobile analytics firm Flurry as to the average number of apps users have installed on their devices, I did some informal polling on Facebook and Twitter. I asked my friends and followers how many apps they currently have on their phones. The answers were surprising. Although there were a few outliers – the person who only had 10, for example, and a couple of others who have upwards of 300, most people fell within the 40-100 app range. More often than not, they had closer to 50 or 60. Again, this is anecdotal data, but speaks to trends within the tech community. It’s interesting that this non-scientific polling shows that early adopters have roughly the same number of apps, on average, as all smartphone users worldwide – around 65. But how many apps do people actually use? According to Flurry, the average consumer uses only 15 apps per week. That means that the majority of the apps installed on the phone are for occasional use. The games you play while killing time, the tip calculator or bill splitter you only pull out when dining with friends, the calorie counter for that diet you began in January (and again June), the garage sale finder, the photo-uploader, and that game that you kid totally loves…you know, the one with the bunnies? What was that called again? And herein lies the problem. Unless your app is appropriately titled and optimized for search, on-device app search is severely lacking, at least on the two major platforms, iPhone and Android, which I’ll address in Read More

Posted 12/09/2011 at 2:35pm | by Florence Ion The holidays are always the most stressful time for me. If I could measure my holiday stress with buckets for my tears, there'd be enough water for a full-functioning well. I learned that the best way to curb my anxiety about getting everything done is to get organized and use tools that help increase efficiency. And fortunately, with the world we live in today where smartphones are our saviors, there are a heaping of apps in the iTunes App Store that can aid in getting it together. In this week's Free App Friday, I try to solve your holiday stress issues -- and, well, mine -- with a list of helpful apps. The app is an absolute necessity if you're spending some time in the kitchen this holiday season. In addition to giving you access to thousands of online recipes, it lets you prepare a shopping list for those specific recipes that you've bookmarked.  Got a lot to do and not a lot of time? Errands is a task manager with various features that lets you easily organize your tasks to suit your needs. For instance, you can make lists for the holidays corresponding to each side of the family, or make a list of what gifts to get for certain coworkers. The app also lets you add in Mail tasks and uses what's called a "Focus Folder," which lets you star certain tasks that are of the highest priority. For a free app, it's totally worth it for you to keep your sanity this holiday. Going crazy about your Christmas shopping? This app will change your life and will change your shopping experience. If you're looking for the best deal and are unsure if  a department store or specialty shop can afford you one, scan the item on Amazon and see what it's worth there. And if you decide to purchase the item, why not consider having Amazon wrap the gift up and ship it over to the recipient? Because the internet is amazing. Mark your Christmas card list as one less thing to worry about. I mentioned this app last week, but I'm going to include it again because of the variety of designs Sincerely Ink offers. Choose from over 30 photos cards and illustrated designs to add some holiday cheer to your Christmas cards. You can choose from religious, non-religious, Read More

Our refrigerators are becoming increasingly bare with the decrease in travel postcards and increase in Facebook photo uploads. There are several easy to use and extremely inexpensive apps to document special moments in life and share it via snail mail, email, or social media–and sometimes all of the above. We’ve reviewed several here to help you identify one that best suits how you care to share with your loved ones, your social circles, and potential clients. These apps are great for sending out postcards to friends and family using your iPhone over the holiday season. Price: Free The Postagram app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad app could be the only postcard app you need. The download is free, and custom postcards are delivered worldwide for the low, low price of 99 cents each. The set-up for the app is quick and simple. Postagram syncs with your photo library, Instagram, and Facebook albums, so you have several resources just a click away. You pick a profile photo that is printed like a return label on your postcard. When you create your postcard, you can customize text for each. Grandmother needs to hear from you in a very different way than your college roommate. You pay for the postcard with a secure credit card entry from the screen. You can also manage your address book and payment options online via the app’s developer Sincerely Inc. The Postagram app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad uses technology to connect with friends and family in a very old-school way. Price: Free The shoot it! app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad may be a free download, but the cost of the postcard and frustration of dealing with the app make it feel expensive—and not the good kind of expensive. The process for setting up the app is laborious, and you are required to input credit card information before you get a chance to check out the app. There are a lot of case sensitive requirements for usernames and passwords, so you have to guess at what parameter you may not have addressed. That’s frustrating. Fortunately, you can quickly sync to your camera libraries and choose a picture. The next step is choosing recipients, and it did not go smoothly. I simply could not make my sister’s address work, and I don’t know why. After the app crashed and a bit more fiddling about to Read More

by The inaugural iPad edition of Conde Nast Traveler has arrived at Apple’s Newsstand — and it’s hefty. The issue is 784 megabytes — substantially bigger than even Wired‘s first issue, which attracted a fair number of comments about its portliness when it arrived on the iPad in May of last year. Should Traveler continue producing issues at that size, owners of 16GB iPads will find that more than half of their storage space is taken up by that magazine alone. In an email, a spokesperson for the magazine suggested that the size problem is linked to a series of 3D rotating maps of the South Pacific, and that “future issues will most likely take up less memory.” The spokesperson also pointed out that users can archive past issues and redownload them at a later date to save space. Weight problems aside, the issue looks decent. There’s plenty to tap, swipe and rotate, and the stunning imagery Traveler is known for translates well to the iPad. The publication added more than 100 photos not included in the print version, as well as the aforementioned 3D rotating maps of the South Sea Islands. Just before the masthead appears a time-lapse video taken from a beachside hotel balcony in Barcelona, a personal favorite. Users can purchase issues for $5.99 apiece, or initiate one of two digital subscription options: 1) a one-month, automatically recurring subscription for $1.99, or 2) a one-year, automatically recurring subscription for $19.99. Existing print subscribers can enter their credentials for free access to the iPad edition, which is downloaded automatically onto subscribers’ iPads every month. Currently only the November issue is available, alongside the “2011 Hot List,” a special feature the publication released in August, as well a short free preview. Traveler is the tenth Conde Nast title to be formatted for the iPad, following Allure, Brides, Glamour, Golf Digest, GQ, Self, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired. Vogue and Bon Appetit are slated to arrive on the device by early 2012, Bob Sauerberg, president of Conde Nast, said earlier this month. 1 of 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Read More

Here's an app that lets you browse through the popular link board Reddit. You probably don't want to see everything there is on Reddit -- just like Digg in its day and other message boards like 4chan, some of the discussion over there can get pretty wacky. But Reddit is definitely a great community of people, and if you ever want to take the temperature on what the 'net is thinking about the news of the day, browsing through Reddit's links can be very informative. There is an official Reddit app called iReddit, and it works pretty well. But Alien Blue is really the better option. I like the layout better, and it has excellent features like inline comments, Instapaper and Read It Later support, and the ability to actually post and edit your own comments on the service. The app itself is free to check out, but you can spend US$1.99 for an excellent pro upgrade that opens up a "Canvas" view for pictures and a host of other streamlined options for reading, sharing, and browsing Reddit. There's also an iPad version available for a straight $3.99 price. You may balk at that, especially if you're happy with the free official app (or willing to read the site through an RSS reader). But for regular readers and commenters on Reddit, odds are that Alien Blue is worth the extra few bucks. Read More