David Silva - Thoughts & Design » App Reviews

Instacast HD, Your Podcast Dashboard — Ben Brooks

David Silva — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:57:05 +0000

The new Instacast HD app is out and here is what Ben Brooks had to say about it.

This is a must have for any podcast listener with an iPad. It may even be the reason you need to buy an iPad if you love podcasts and still don’t have an iPad.

Available on the App Store

★

App of the week: Instacast

David Silva — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:05:51 +0000

This is by far my most used app in terms of time. I think I listen/discover more podcasts than I can handle, thanks to this app, than I ever did before.

This app seriously picks up where the Apple iPod/Music app left off. It makes adding, syncing and deleting shows a breeze.

Available on iTunes

★

A New Gowalla

David Silva — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:22:46 +0000

I’ve done the Foursquare, Facebook and Gowalla check-ins for a while and the truth is that it get tedious before long. The fact that someone checked in isn’t truly that interesting to me. What is interesting, however, is the story behind the check in and how you got there. That is what Gowalla 4.0 is attempting to do.

Congratulations to the Gowalla team on the launch! Now go download/update the app.

★

Stratus – The iOS CloudApp Client is Now Available on the App Store

David Silva — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:02:23 +0000

The app just hit the store today and it seems very good at first impression. Try it our yourself.

Available on the App Store (iTunes)

★

Verbs App for iPhone

David Silva — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:00:36 +0000

My personal instant messaging service of choice is Google Talk. I mainly use it with my wife to text back and forth whenever we’re out and about. I’ve tried many of the instant messaging clients that will support gtalk and they all suck. All except for Verbs (iTunes).

At $2.99, I think that Verbs is expensive for an instant messaging client, but then again it does handle Google Talk, AIM and MobileMe. It also offers support for CloudApp and Droplr. So I took the hit and love it. There isn’t too much to say about the app. It’s clean, simple and easy to use. If you need a gtalk client for your iPhone and have been looking around for an answer like I have, this is it. Period.

Verbs – Available on the App Store (iTunes)

Alfred 0.9 is now available!

David Silva — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:29:05 +0000

I love my MacBook Pro just as much as the next guy and it’s a pleasure any time I can find an excuse to use it. However, whenever I jump onto someone else’s Mac who is not a “power user”, I’m quickly reminded of the few apps and settings that help make that experience better for me.

One of those apps is Alfred. Now, I don’t think I could explain it any better than the developers do already so here goes…

Alfred is a productivity application for Mac OS X, which aims to save you time in searching your local computer and the web.

In other words, it helps you launch and search apps, files and web pages all with only a few key strokes. This isn’t the only app of its kind. In fact, more advanced users sometimes prefer to go with LaunchBar or Quicksilver as an alternative. However, I would personally recommend Alfred for it’s ease of use and simplicity. Also, spring for the powerpack to unlock all of it’s features.

New Powerpack Features

Global Hotkeys
Custom Terminal Commands
iTunes Mini Player Improvements (inc. iTunes DJ Support)
Preference Syncing
Drag files out of Alfred

Tweetbot – Available on the App Store

David Silva — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:14:17 +0000

Tapbots has had a new Twitter client in the works for a couple of months and is now finally available in the app store – Tweetbot (iTunes). Though they were not allowed to talk about it, those lucky few that had the opportunity to beta test the app seemed very fond of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to test it, but seeing as how much I enjoying using other Tapbots applications I have been looking forward to this release and pending review very much. More of my thoughts on this app later. Stay tuned.

Tweetbot – Available on the App Store (iTunes)

Dropbox: the way we were, are, and will be (hopefully)

David Silva — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:40:16 +0000

Eddie Smith writes about the benefits of Dropbox an points at incredible opportunity they have to enter the enterprise game.

Losing work “at work” is expensive. The company has to pay an IT pro to hunt down the file, and most likely, a high-salaried employee gets to redo the work. No telling how many times this happens every day in every company.

A consumer or small business using Dropbox, however, can fix an accidental deletion in about two clicks. No time lost. No rework. No help desk phone calls. No pulling IT pros away from more important things.

Dropbox is easily in the top 3 must have apps on both my MacBook and iPhone.

★

App: Everyday 1.0

David Silva — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 04:52:53 +0000

William Wilkinson, Oliver White, Noah Kalina and Adam Lisagor came together to work on a cool little project and released a new app titled, Everyday. Yes, it’s another camera app, but not just any camera. The app allows you to set a daily reminder after which you take a picture of yourself. Every. Day. Get it? Everyday!

I haven’t used it much, but I admit that it looks pretty cool. If you can manage to stick with it after the novelty of daily pictures wears off you’ll be rewarded when you are able to take all of the pictures you’ve taken of yourself and create a video. Seems like allot of work, but I definitely want that video of myself.

Everyday – Available on the App Store (iTunes)

★

iMovie Review By Jeff Carlson

David Silva — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:00:44 +0000

Jeff says:

This new version reinforces the value of an app that was already fun to use and capable enough to turn casual video clips into movies you want to share far and wide.

★

Instapaper 3.0 is here!

David Silva — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:59 +0000

The app as well as the web version have been updated to include many great features. As usual, Instapaper 3.0 (iTunes link) is a free upgrade to anyone who has ever bought the paid app. For new customers, it’s only $4.99 for the universal iPhone and iPad app.

Sharing

Both the app and the website now have full-featured, native sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinboard, and Evernote.

Your credentials and sharing preferences sync between the website and the app, so you only need to log into each service from one place.

Oh! and it gets better…

Browse Likes from friends

Instapaper is now social! (Don’t worry, it’s tasteful and optional.)

You can now browse your friends’ Liked items to find great articles to read.

You can find friends through your linked Facebook or Twitter accounts, your email addresses in Contacts (from the app), or by entering their email addresses yourself (on the website). Since we’re starting from zero, check back often over the coming weeks to find more friends who linked their Facebook or Twitter accounts with Instapaper.

You can buy Instapaper 3.0 from the app store.

A Little Less Google Please! Minimalist Gmail

David Silva — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:53:19 +0000

Let me first start off by saying that I do like Google. In fact, Google Maps, Google Calendar and Google Sync for blackberry are my most used apps because they show me the bare minimum of what I want to see. But when it comes to Gmail I have just never really been a fan because of its layout. It just seems too distracting to me. When I go to use a web application I want it to be fast, easy to use and clutter free. Minimalist Gmail helps me do just that.

I Hate Clutter!

Introducing a way to take Gmail back to basics. Way back. Now with a few clicks you can get rid of the stuff you don’t use and focus on what matters most. This simple Firefox extension creates a barely-noticeable label in the top right corner that you click on to give you options as to what you would like to hide. It is tucked away neatly and it gives you just enough control over the Gmail interface.

Download Firefox Extension

* Choose what you want, get rid of the rest.
* Change your mind any time you want.
* Simplify Rows takes the heart of the clutter, hiding unnecessary icons while keeping all the functionality.
* Remove chat, but still respond to incoming requests.
* Remove ads, if you must.
* Hide the header, but get it back in a jiffy. We add an itty-bitty toggle arrow for quick access to the search and settings.

You decide which elements to hide, but if you check all the options, the result is a very satisfying uncluttered Gmail. Like most of you, I love using keyboard shortcuts for common tasks because it makes it easier. Enabling shortcut keys in your Gmail settings really makes this already great web app seem like the perfect desktop app as well. Just remember, this is only a Firefox extension.

Download Firefox Extension

Have you tried this extension yet? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.