Review - Money Plus

Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world....

Oh, OK.  No singing, but money is the subject of today's post.  Or rather, the management of money.

I like to be in control of my finances, and even if there isn't much of it, I like to record where it's going.  This is where Money Plus comes in.  Initially designed and built for the BlackBerry PlayBook, the developer jumped straight on the BlackBerry 10 and launched an app soon after release.

I've been using it on my Z10 since the day it was released, and haven't regretted it.
As a "Built for BlackBerry" application, you can rest assured this has been designed and built to the highest quality for BlackBerry devices.

It allows you to set up accounts (in multiple currencies if you so desire) and then set categories and payees to record your payments and income.  You can also make a note against the transaction, so you can remember what it was for.

The developer has been quite proactive in getting regular updates, with bug fixes and new functionality, and is very responsive to questions.

A recent update included location based transactions, so when you add a transaction, it automatically displays a list of your recent payees at that location.  This is a feature that builds up over time, as you "teach" the app where you are when you make the payment.
It also "remembers" the category for the payee, so entry of information is quick, as you only need to enter the amount.

It's also has the ability to tag the transaction as either "New" or "Cleared" so that you can see what is still pending.

I like the fact that the information is stored locally, and I can set a password if I want to.  I can also move the saved file to the cloud; like Dropbox, as a back-up, but that's my choice.

It's possible to filter the transaction list, so you only see the accounts you want, or the categories or payees you want; making it easy to see at a glance, where you've been spending your hard earned cash.

Updates are coming to set up regular payments, reducing the need to enter recurring payments each month, and that will be a welcome feature.

As you can see, this is a feature rich application, and whilst it's not free, at just £1.50, this is an app that is definitely worth the investment.

Money Plus is available in BlackBerry World and is compatible with all BlackBerry 10 devices and the PlayBook.

Review - ARKick

Here's an app I really like, and one I use quite often

It's called ARKick and it's an augmented reality app - which means it works based on where you are, and by looking around with your phone, it will "see" different kinds of locations.

From restaurants and pubs, to cash machines, wine bars, gyms - in fact, you name it, and it will show you where it is.

There are a two different modes.

This image is the SideKick mode, and displays the places around you, at the current time.  It looks quite busy, so you can filter what you're looking for, by using the Browser mode.

This is a first class app, written specifically for BlackBerry 10, and is definitely worth the small investment.  You can find it in BlackBerry World

Check out the video below.

Review - BlackBerry PlayBook Apps

OK.

I know I haven't had it for long, but too often the so-called pundits have complained about the lack of apps available for the new BlackBerry tablet.

So, to try to redress the balance, here are my views on a handful of the apps available:

Bluebox
I've mentioned Dropbox in a previous blog, and this is an app to access Dropbox files, on the PlayBook.  It's a neat app, which allows you to download, upload, move, delete and more, your files from a central storage location.  You can access Dropbox files from almost anywhere (unfortunately, it's blocked at my work!)





Instaphoto

I discovered this the other day, and it's a great app for adding filters to photos.  There are 25 to choose from, anything from gothic, to the 60s, Polaroid, faded; you name it, there's a filter to add that je ne sais quois to your pictures.







GeeReader
If you use Google Reader to follow those news items you want, then this is a great addition for the PlayBook.  I love getting my news on the go; and have a news reader on my phone.  This is the equivalent and it works beautifully.  What's more, because of the flash capability, I can open the video reports too!





Doodleblast
Couldn't resist including a game on here.  The PlayBook comes pre-loaded with Need For Speed and Tetris; but this game is a tricky little teaser.  You are presented with a number of obstacles and a box at the bottom of the screen.  You also have a bottle of ink; with which you have to draw lines to direct the balls that fall, into the box.  It's not as easy as it sounds; and each level reduces the amount of ink available.  It's extremely addictive.


That's only a small selection; and as time goes on, I may well bore you with more reviews!

Review - Sky News App for iPad

 After a week of Formula 1 posts; and an exciting race yesterday, this week I return to some app reviews.  You'll be glad to know I won't be going anywhere near the iPad 2!!

However, the following is an iPad app - the Sky News app; which I have to say is very good.

It's clean, easy to navigate and is totally free (for the moment).  Although it will always be free to Sky subscribers.

When you launch the app, you're presented with a timeline, and thumbnails of all the videos linking to stories. You can also look at the headlines; as well as watch Sky News live.

If you like Sky News and you have an iPad; this is one app you really don't want to miss.

Review - BlackBerry Travel app v TripIt

There are many great apps for the BlackBerry, and one I started using not long ago is TripIt.  A travel app that manages your plans and keeps them in one place.

The basic app is free, and does an admirable job; it will even search for travel related emails and create itineraries for you automatically.  Great for train journeys, flights and hotels; not so clever for big itineraries.  However, they're always working at improving the logarithms, so who know; maybe it'll get better over time.  One major advantage is that TripIt is also available on the web.

This week, BlackBerry released their own version of a travel app, in conjunction with Worldmate.  Now, I have to say, the integration with the core BlackBerry operating system is sublime.  It just fits, and works beautifully.  I have just one, quite major complaint.  It is very, very, light on functionality.

Where TripIt will cater for journeys, days out, theatre bookings and the like; the BlackBerry app is only suitable for hotels and flights.  Maybe that's what the typical BlackBerry user wants; but I'm willing to bet that since the market for the smartphone has increased, it won't be enough.

The app is only in beta stage; which means it hasn't been released publicly, and is in the final throes of user testing.  However,  unless more functionality is added, then it won't be a threat to TripIt.

If you've read other posts of mine, you'll know I'm a BlackBerry fan, and I jumped at the chance to give this a tryout.  Unfortunately, it doesnt cut the mustard, and whilst I'm not a frequent flyer (but use the train daily) I can't see this being adopted by the masses.

Of course, I'll keep my eyes open, and should more be added, then I will definitely give it another go.

For now, I will be staying with TripIt.

Do you have a favourite travel app for your smartphone?  Would you like to review it on My Blog and I?

Review - Patternlock for BlackBerry

Always on the look-out for useful applications for my phone, I came across this lovely little utility.

PatternLock offers a great way to lock / unlock your touchscreen BlackBerry. 


When setting up PatternLock, you define your lock pattern. The next time you see the lock screen, you trace your finger in the pattern you drew before and the device will unlock. Any other pattern and in any other order will not unlock the device. 


PatternLock can lock individual applications, the call screen, and the whole device. This is a feature rich lock application, with options that range from notification icons, integration with weather apps, security features (such as password protecting your options), and lots of customization options.


I had tried BerrySlider, but found that it drained the battery quite quickly.  I've been pleasantly surprised by how well PatternLock works, and with the configurable options, it's easy to use.


There are two versions available.  The Lite version is free, and offers only the basic pattern set.  The full version allows you to change the background, colours of the pattern, which applications to lock and much more.
It's also possible to set a maximum number of attempts, before the phone locks - this isn't as bad as it sounds, you just set how long to wait until you can try again.  I've not used that option!!

Review - Sunday Times iPad Edition

This might seem like a strange 'app' to review; but having looked at it, I think it's absolutely, brilliantly, produced.  Yesterday, The Sunday Times launched its very own iPad edition.

First of all, let me caveat this post by saying that I don't normally read The Sunday Times (or The Times!)  I occasionally buy it, but it's certainly not a regular read.

I downloaded and skimmed through the various sections of the sample editions (actually last weeks paper).  Yes; every one of the 12 sections that comes with the printed edition is present on the iPad.

Not only that, but there is more.  More information, hidden nuggets, and videos. It's really very clever.

You can 'stretch' the videos to full screen too.  Bear in mind that you will need an internet connection to play them.

It goes without saying that, on a screen with such a high resolution, the quality of the photos are staggering too.

Each section is downloaded individually, which means you can read as they download, speeding up the time before you can start reading.  

This really is taking full advantage of the iPad.

For those that need bigger print, rotate the device to portrait and a text only version of the article is displayed, which can then be zoomed with the established 'pinch' method. Excellent.

It's advertised on the App Store as FREE; however, that's for the library; you still need to pay for the individual 'paper'.

Each week, individually, costs £1.79.  Although, you can sign up for £2/week, and receive The Times and The Sunday Times on iPad (and their website editions too).  I have to say, The Times iPad edition is not as good - there's very little interaction.

If you're a regular reader, or, like me, dip in and out once in a while, this is a great way to read a quality newspaper.

However, this is a review, and that means bad as well as good.  When I went to download the paper yesterday morning, where was it?  Who knows.  For some reason, at 10am, the iPad version still wasn't available, and I wasn't the only one to notice.  As we say in Twitter world 'that's a huge #fail'.
Why bother launching the app without the content?

I tried commenting on their website, to no avail - it wouldn't let me submit my comment!! All-in-all, not a good experience.

To end on a high, at about 11.30 yesterday morning; I received a Twitter message to tell me that the new edition was now available, and could be downloaded for free!!  So, it was late; but they managed to retain my goodwill and positive feedback by giving it away this week; instead of the usual charge.  That's what customer service is all about (not forgetting the hundreds of disappointed / angry customers and the bad publicity that was taking place).  I'm such a cynic!!

Happily, the content is just as awe-inspiring as the sample, and I'm looking forward to reading through the sections over the course of the next week.

Have you tried the Sunday Times on iPad?  What do you think?

iPad - App Review

It's been a few months since I purchased my iPad (16Gb Wi-Fi Only) and thought I'd revisit some of the apps I've downloaded.  I've already written reviews on some of them, but there are others that are worthy of a mention too.

There's no obvious place to start, and with the lack of folders on the current OS (will have to wait for OS4 in November before we get them) I have split my apps into various screens.

A screen for business apps, one for news etc, another for games.  And so on.

Firstly; the apps that I have docked at the bottom of the screen are:
Toodledo - Task management has never been so easy; and it synchronises with the web too
Informant HD - Diary and task management (integrated with Toodledo, see above)
FeeddlerPro - An RSS feeder that synchronises with Google Reader
Kindle - THE ebook reader, from Amazon
Also Safari and iPod

Screen 1 - Apart from some of the standard, pre-loaded apps, I have
BBC iPlayer (which technically isn't an app; but a link to the site)
CineXPlayer - for watching XVid movies; now you're not tied to iTunes
DocsToGo - Familiar to BlackBerry users, this app gives you word, excel and more
Dropbox
AccuWeather - Need to know the forecast - this is a great free app
PrintCentral - An app to print from the iPad via Wi-Fi; excellent application
ZumoCast - Listen to music or watch films hosted on your desktop PC; via Wi-Fi

Screen 2
Facebook - This is the iPhone app; which doesn't look good at all - but it works!
Twitter - The app for iPad is very well thought out
Photo fx Ultra - Ideal for photo editing / enhancing
Wikihood - What's around the area you're in - Wikipedia for the local area
IMDb - The No.1 app for movie fans
Sky+ - Full access to the Sky programme schedules, and you can set it to record too
NASA - Pictures, video, news and more about space
LinkedIn - This is the iPhone app, and looks rubbish on the iPad; but it works
Instapaper - Download webpages to read offline

Screen 3
BBC News
TripIt - Online journey planner
Flipboard - A personalised, 'Live', magazine; which displays Facebook and Twitter in an interesting format
Sky Sports - General sports news; would be better if more video provided
Eurosport - Access to more sports news

Screen 4
Bloomberg - Business news.  Plus, how are your shares performing?
Teamviewer - A great, free, app for remote-access to other PCs/Laptops.  Ideal for helping others
Other pre-loaded iPad apps, that I don't use

Screen 5
Angry Birds - Very addictive (I have the iPhone version; but there is an iPad specific one too)
NFS Shift - Racing cars through cityscapes!!
Tesla Wars - Defend your area type game
MultiPong - Shows off the touch aspect of the iPad, with excellent graphics
Real Solitaire - Solitaire - nuff said!
Conquist - Like Risk, only playing against computers as well as your friends
Slice It - Addictive or what?  Very clever, and frustrating.

So there you go; just some of the apps that reside on my iPad. 

What iPad apps do you have that might be worth considering?

Applications for my iPad

My recent post about the iPad was, seemingly, quite well received, in terms of the number of readers, and I did say I would write about some of the apps available.

To be absolutely clear, the applications mentioned here are pure iPad apps. That is, they are not iPhone/iPod apps that need to be scaled up.
These have been engineered from the ground up, to take advantage of the larger screen size.

Feeddler
Firstly, and the one I use the most, is Feeddler (yes, that is spelt right!)
It's a newsreader, that is sync'd with my Google Reader account. This makes it easier to get the news and articles I am interested in, delivered to the iPad, so I can read whenever.
The benefit of this means that I don't need to be connected to the Internet, so as long as I synchronize before leaving my wi-fi connection, then I can read anywhere.

For something different, try MultiPong


It's a lot of fun.

Last time I mentioned Amazon Kindle - this is a free app, that allows you to buy books to download.  The benefit is that the books are priced in US dollars, so they work out cheaper than Apples own iBooks (which has quite a poor catalogue to choose from).

Finally, I'll mention DocsToGo.
Those of you with a BlackBerry will recognise this, as it comes pre-installed on their phone.  The application for the iPad allows you to synchronise documents with Google Docs, so it's possible (although not always easy) to keep a single document updated.
I use Google Docs quite a lot - it means I can access them anywhere, but by downloading them to my iPad, I can work on them remotely, and upload again when back in range of wi-fi.

All in all, these are my apps of choice, but I must admit to having a whole range of other apps; like Google Earth, the Formula1.com live timings app, plus games too.

It remains a terrific device, which is useful as well as being an expensive 'toy'!