The Working Mom » iphone

WorldCard Mobile for iPhone

Jennifer — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:34:55 +0000

Have you ever gotten a business card and then proceeded to enter in all the information from the card, manually, into your phone. This is the need that WorldCard Mobile seeks to fulfill. My husband recently started a new job, and with it, he began to receive handfuls of business cards of new contacts related to his job. When I was contacted about doing a review of this iPhone app, I figured he’d be the perfect guinea pig.

With WorldCard Mobile, when you get a business card that you need to capture the information from, just open the app, click on the camera button and take a picture of the business card. (You can save this image to your photo library if you choose.) The app will then translate what it reads on the card into a contact file that can be stored within the app and/or be sent to your iPhone contacts list. On average it worked pretty well especially with a standard business card layout. However, it did struggle a bit with more complicated business card layouts. However, if you are required to enter in a great deal of contacts from business cards, this will still save you time, as having to correct a field or two is still less time-consuming than entering in all the information.

WorldCard Mobile: $5.99*

*Price at time of this writing. I received a copy of this app for review purposes.

Maya’s Dress Up (for the iPhone and iPad)

Jennifer — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:03:30 +0000

My daughter has a passion for fashion. Like many typical girls, she loved to dress up her dolls when she was really little – but she’s 10years old now and has moved on to drawing dress ideas, and the like. Secretly, I think she would still play dress up with dolls if it didn’t involve a massive cleanup afterward. This is why we both love this game for the iPad and iPhone: Maya’s Dress Up.

In this game you can select from a number of different dolls to dress up: Maya herself, or one of her friends. You can change their hair style and color. There are hundreds of different clothing, shoes and accessories. You can change an item’s color or how they’re “layered” on your doll. You also have a number of different backgrounds to choose from. The selection is massive, really. And the publisher has plans to continually add new items.

You can save your favorite designs and send them to your friends.

Here’s a video so you can see how the game works. Or learn more about this game on the publishers website.

We’ve downloaded a few other free dress up games but none had the kind of selection this one does.

Maya’s Dress Up iPhone App: $2.99*

Maya’s Dress up HD iPad App: $4.99*

*Price at time of this writing. I received a copy of this app for review purposes.

Merry Puzzles – iPhone & iPad game

Jennifer — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:45:06 +0000

Did you know there’s only like 9 days until Christmas? (We do both Hanukkah and Christmas in our house. Yes, there’s probably a reason for tweets like this one:

Heh. Truth be told, I haven’t finished shopping – so a note from Santa is still a possibility. But I’m sure they’ll be angels the day before just to make me feel guilty if I didn’t get them anything…

In any case, one present I got earlier this month was this Merry Puzzles app (available for both iPhone and the iPad). There’s a bunch of adorable illustrations, cut into random little squares that you have to put back together again. The illustrations have built in animations you’ll see once the puzzle is completed. There’s a few different levels. Zach has stuck to the easy level. I tried one at the “expert” level… yeah, I’m no expert for sure. So there’s definitely a huge range of challenges there!

Merry Puzzles iPhone App: $0.99*

Merry Puzzles iPad App: $1.99*

*Price at time of this writing. I received a copy of this app for review purposes.

Dog hunt

Jennifer — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 03:12:04 +0000

With the housing issue pretty much settled for now, we have begun our next hunt: the search for a dog. We can’t get one until we get into the house (which is at least a month to two months away) but we’re doing our preliminary research. Obviously key issues are the kids. As well, we want to make sure we get a dog that isn’t too wild. Our home will be on the small side, but I’d like to get a dog that I can take for a run once in a while, so a medium sized dog would probably be best. Some breeds (and cross breeds) we’ve been looking at are:

Golden Doodle

Cockapoo

Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier

We’ve also considered seeing what the local humane shelters have available – although from what I can tell, the breeds they tend to have the most of are not ones that we’re interested in. (Particularly boxers, pit bulls, and chihuahuas) Sometimes in the mix they might get one that seems interesting, so it will be a waiting game of sorts if we decide to go that route.

We’ve taken a few online quizzes to see what breed would best suit our family and ironically, those also seem to miss the mark. (One actually suggested a St. Bernard. LOL!! Are you kidding? In a small house with no yard?! I don’t think so) One idea we had was to go to a dog park and see a bunch of different dogs in action. Not that the behavior of one is always a representative of the entire breed, but at least it gives you an idea for a range of behavior.

smarTouch Gloves Review and Giveaway

Jennifer — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 03:35:40 +0000

So as I posted earlier, for my birthday my husband, parents and siblings all chipped in to buy me an iPad. I can tell you that the iPad is the most awesomest thing ever, but that’s for another post. There is, of course, one problem having gotten an iPad for my birthday, and that my birthday comes in the fall – cold weather will soon be upon us. (Yes, even after I move to California, I’m sure I’ll need to wear gloves, because it does get cold there once in awhile) – and actually – what’s that saying “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco?” I’m the type of person that wears gloves the instant there’s any kind of chill in the air. Obviously gloves and iPads / iPhones don’t usually play nice. I’ve seen some versions of gloves that will work with these devices, but they usually have some sort of weird nubby thing that’s sure to fall off at some point.

Well, Isotoner has come out with a great pair of gloves that work with the iPhone and iPad but without the nubby thing. They’re called “smarTouch” gloves. (Although I’ve seen them in some stores listed as “Smart Touch”) They sent me a pair of gloves to try out and I can attest that they do in fact work. There’s a piece of conductive thread woven into the index finger and thumb that the iPhone and iPad does register. My one complaint is that it would be even better if this material were on ALL the fingers – especially for use with the iPad because I do use QWERTY typing on it quite often. But hunt-and-peck typing is better than having to release my hands to the elements just to type a few words!

One additional nice feature these gloves have is the non-slip palms so that hopefully I won’t drop my phone and crack the glass again. Ahem. Yeah, that wasn’t fun.

Giveaway!

Isotoner has reserved two pairs of these gloves for me to give away.

Required Entry: To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post and tell me what your favorite winter activity is.

For an additional entry: Tweet the following (and leave a second comment telling me you did so):

Enter to win a free pair of smarTouch Isotoner gloves that work with the iPhone/iPad! >> @theworkingmom http://bit.ly/ddiX83

(click the link to tweet)

Contest ends October 18th, 2010 at 10pm MST. There is no purchase necessary to enter the contest. I will be using random.org to choose the winner. I’ll contact the winner via email, and he/she will have 48 hours to respond. After 48 hours, if I don’t receive a response, another winner will be chosen.

*Disclosure note: the smarTouch gloves were provided to me by Isotoner.

Free App Alert: Memory Mania

Jennifer — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:04 +0000

Just got an email this morning about a cute memory game app that’s currently free for a limited time on the app store. Here’s the description from the developer:

Vacation’s over for another year. So to cheer up all the kids who just started back at school, we’re now giving away MemoryMania completely free! This is a limited period giveaway offer.

MemoryMania is the biggest memory match game for kids in the AppStore. In MemoryMania users find 20 different sets of cards to choose from, and each set contains 15 different pictures. That’s 300 pictures – no other memory match game can compare with MemoryMania!

There are two game modes – a classic memory match, where you look for pairs of cards, or a hide-and-seek game, where you try to remember where the picture is and uncover it.
MemoryMania users love the 2 different game modes, the large choice of cards and the cute design that’s just perfect for kids.

Here’s a link to see a video of the app. And if you’d like to read more about the app, you can do so on the developer’s website.

Memory Mania: FREE*

*Price at time of this writing

Lola’s Alphabet Train – iPhone Game

Jennifer — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:15:08 +0000

We received a copy of Lola’s Alphabet Train a few days ago and it has quickly become one of Zach’s favorite games to play on my phone. The game has a few different modes depending on which level you are playing: Easy, Medium, Hard. In easy mode, you pick the letter spoken and shown (capital letters only), the next phase you pick the matching lower case letter as it falls from the sky. Then lastly, you move letters into the correct order to spell a word (you just need to move the letter on top of the hint). In the medium level, when it comes to the spelling mode, only a few letter hints are shown. You also play an additional mode where you are given a letter and you need to pick a picture of an thing that begins with that letter. The pictures are cartoonish, so for some, it’s obvious what the item is meant to be, and others could have a few names. (ie. is it a hamster, mouse, rat…?) In hard mode, you start a new mode where you select the word for the picture shown. (Multiple choices are offered). Then for the spelling mode, no letter hints are given. Again, I do wish in this mode it would at least speak the name of the picture shown. For example, in one instance, it showed a picture of a sheep – but all we could think of for the name was lamb but obviously the jumbled letters given to construct the word weren’t right. LOL! As you go along throughout the game, you collect coins that you can then buy prizes with. These prizes don’t appear to be saved anywhere. It would be nice if you could check in and see all your prizes. Hopefully this is something that will be added in the future. Additionally, I hope they make it so that you can turn the carnival music off and maybe turn off the sound effects, but leave the voice on. (The carnival music really needs to have an option most of all!) You can also customize it show your name, but this is also something that doesn’t seem to be saved.

Still, I think the game has potential, as it has held Zach’s interest and he likes playing with the letters in the game. Click here if you’d like to see a video of the game.

Lola’s Alphabet Train: $1.99*

Lola’s Alphabet Train is also available for the iPad:
Lola’s Alphabet Train HD: $2.99*

*price at time of this writing.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of these apps for review purposes

The Big Brag and Yertle the Turtle – ebooks for the iPhone and iPad

Jennifer — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:07:18 +0000

Oceanhouse Media has recently released the next set of Dr. Seuss books as universal apps that work both on the iPhone and iPad. I’ve already expressed my love of Dr. Seuss books, so once again I’m thrilled to see the collection continue to expand. The Big Brag and Yertle the Turtle feature the ability to read the story yourself, have the story read to you (manually turning the pages), or auto play (pages turn automatically). Sound effects can be turned on or off.

In case you’re not familiar with these titles: in The Big Brag, a rabbit thinks outloud to himself about he thinks he’s the best animal of all, at which point a bear listening nearby disagrees with him and boasts that he is the best of all animals. So they put their skills to test against each other, the rabbit trying to hear as far away as possible, the bear trying to smell as far away as possible. They are then interrupted by a worm who says he can see so far, he sees around the world and back again to two fools who have nothing better to do than argue who is better than the other.

In Yertle the Turtle, Yertle is king of his pond, and all he can see, but he is greedy and wants to be king of more – to do so he needs to see more. So he orders his poor loyal turtle subjects to come and make his thrown higher and higher. They obey, but one turtle complains that it isn’t fair. Yertle ignores his pleas and continues to order more and still more turtles over so he can sit on them. Finally the complaining turtle sneezes and makes the huge turtle tower crumble to the ground, sending Yertle into the mud and freeing all the turtles.

I think you’ll love these stories as much as my kids and I do. Zach happily listens to the stories over and over again.

The Big Brag: $1.99*

Yertle the Turtle: $3.99*

*price at time of this writing
Disclosure: I received a free copy of these apps for review purposes

Highlights My First Hidden Pictures – iPhone Kids Game

Jennifer — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:16:06 +0000

It’s always so thrilling when something I treasured from my childhood still exists to become a treasure for my own kids. Highlights Magazine falls into that category. Of course, one of the best parts to the magazine was always the hidden pictures game. This game is now available on the iPhone with Highlights My First Hidden Pictures. The game is every bit of fun on the iPhone as it was in print, but with more bells and whistles. The pictures are in color – when you find an item, simply touch it and it’s marked as found. You can zoom into or out of the picture.

The game comes with 8 puzzles, and if you register, you get 2 bonus puzzles. More puzzles are available for purchase as an in-app purchase. One thing I really liked that they did was explain how to TURN OFF the ability to purchase items from within an application so if you don’t want this ability freely available to your child, it’s pretty easy to enable and disable.

When I played the game, the pictures were fairly easy to find – although I did struggle on a few. Zach also liked the game and found a few right away, but seemed to struggle on some of the items as well. I would have assumed that the game would have been easier than it was given it’s title, but I still thought it was well done. Also, features like the “hint” button help reduce any frustration a child might have from not finding the item more easily by zooming in closer and closer to the item, each time you lick the “hint” button, to help you find it.

The game is available for both iPhone and iPad (however, and iPad Optimized version is still in the works). Additional puzzle packs cost as little as $0.99. To see a video of the game click here.

Highlights My First Hidden Pictures: $1.99*

*Price at time of this writing.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

AutoStitch Panorama vs. Pano – iPhone Panorama Apps Review

Jennifer — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:51:21 +0000

After my previous post about the You Gotta See This! app – I went looking to see what other types of panorama apps there are out there. I had bought one several months ago called Pano – but the favorite it seems, as far as I can tell from posts I was finding online, is another one called AutoStitch Panorama.

I was impressed with a few of the AutoStitch Panorama features – namely the fact that you can just take as many photos as you want, using the regular iPhone camera. You don’t have to take them in any particular order – just shoot away (but try to get a 30% overlap). And you can crop the photo yourself at the end.

However, despite the rave reviews the app was getting – I was not impressed with it’s stitching results. I tried several times to be as careful as possible about the photos I was taking, making sure the phone was the one rotating, not me – making sure the photos were well in focus, angles were consistent, etc. – and yet in just about every panorama I took, there were way too many “bad overlaps” and a lot of ghosting for my satisfaction. This was especially noticeable if there was a definitive structure line in the picture (like a post etc.)

However, the application I had bought those many months ago – still created the best looking panoramas. But where Pano fails, is what I liked about AutoStitch; with Pano, you do have to take the pictures in a particular order, and in fact, you have to take it in a particular direction too – left to right (I can’t find anywhere a way to change this). Also – you’re restricted to taking the pictures going in one straight line, if you want to add more “height” to the panorama, you can’t. But in the end – the panorama you get, is very clean – with minimal oddities in the overlap. When you’re taking the pictures – it shows you a shadow of the edge of the late photo you took, so you can be sure to get the right amount of overlap and help line things up. (However, this isn’t very useful if the scenery is somewhat repetitive)

But the proof is in the pictures. Take a look below. Same scene – two different Panorama apps:

First by AutoStitch Panorama:

(right click – and open link in new window or tab to see the closeup. The “lightbox” thing doesn’t do so well with how wide these are…)

Might be easier to see the details on VR rotator (You’ll be able to zoom in/out in the VR rotator thing)

Second by Pano:

(right click – and open link in new window or tab to see the closeup.)

And again the VR rotator.

I think the difference is really clear. You can see I was able to get more height on AutoStitch, but the ghosting was ugly. Pano’s panorama was beautiful – but limited.

Again, this is why I think that there is in fact room for one more panorama app despite You Gotta See This!‘s claim that “there are already plenty of panorama apps.” I think making use of the gyroscope in the phone is an excellent way to improve on what’s already been done. (And actually on a slight tangent – with the gyroscope in the phone; WHY oh WHY!???! is there no “stabilizer” in the iPhone camera? In this day and age – all digital cameras have stabilizers so that you don’t have to hold your breath and hand very very still so you don’t shake the camera. And yet the iPhone camera lacks a stabilizer. Really?? I hope we don’t have to wait as long as we did for “copy/cut/paste” to get camera stabilization. Seems to me, with the gyroscope in there, it should just be a matter of software. What good is that great camera on the iPhone if every photo I take is blurry???) =steps off soapbox=

AutoStitch Panorama: $2.99*

Pano: $2.99*

*price at time of this writing.

Updated to Add: I just recently made another panorama using Pano – I still think this app does a much better job than AutoStitch – but just to prove it’s not totally perfect -you’ll see in this most recent one – a small oddity to the right of the picture where the trees and grass are duplicated. It didn’t get the overlap perfect at the end there – but still pretty good. Also – This time I used the app in portrait mode, rather than landscape to get as much height as I could. It’s a smaller area (only about 90degrees rotation). Here it is.