YouTube Link

If you’re someone who likes to keep track of your statistics on Twitter, Birdbrain could prove to be very useful to you. I could see this app being helpful for companies who want to use Twitter as a marketing tool and track trends. On the same token, I could also see it causing problems where people now have a way of knowing exactly what users have stopped following them (let the Twitter fights commence).

When you open the app for the first time, it’ll grab initial info from Twitter. So at first, you can’t see past information such as the last 7 days or last 24 hours. When you open the app in the future, it will begin to congregate past statistics and show you the differences.

The overall layout of the app is pretty slick. It’s incredibly easy to figure out and very user friendly. One thing I wasn’t sure of was how the app loaded your statistics. I wasn’t sure what happens if you don’t open the app for a week or so? Are the 24 hour statistics still accurate or what is it loading it from? That’s what had me a little confused. It definitely doesn’t load your statistics in the background.

I could also see some users wanting push notifications. Getting push notifications for when users follow or unfollow you would be a nice added feature but that would require Birdbrain to poll the Twitter servers quite often in order to aggregate and push the information. I could see that being a little overkill. Personally, I wouldn’t really care to see notifications of when someone stopped following me, but I wouldn’t mind having notifications for when someone starts following me. Then I’d disable the emails Twitter sends me.  There’s also a mentions tab within the app, which will congregate all your mentions and keep a running total of how many times you’ve been mentioned on Twitter.

Overall, it’s a decent app that does what it says it will. If you’ve been looking for a way to monitor your Twitter statistics more closely, this app could be what you’ve been looking for.

Pros

• Nice interface

• Shows a nice amount of statistics

• Seems to be really accurate

Cons

• Push notifications would be a nice addition

• Takes a few days to start aggregating information

Birdbrain for iPhone – App Review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Recently we talked about FoodScanner by DailyBurn which can read the barcode on food items and give you the calorie and nutrition information as well as helping you keep track of your calorie intake. I found it pretty handy and so naturally my eye was drawn to Occipital’s RedLaser app which powers FoodScanner. RedLaser just takes it on a slightly different angle and pulls from an allegedly  huge database of products to give you a listing of the lowest local and online prices for the product you scan. Potentially pretty handy right?

Well, it is, I think. I mean it is really handy to be able to see a list of the lowest prices for something you’re looking for, especially if there are some local locations; there’s nothing wrong with a little comparison shopping, and who doesn’t need to save some coin nowadays? Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m not really with it these days, maybe it’s all the Kool-Aid, I don’t know, but I just don’t find myself using RedLaser that much.

Now first of all, since we’re about to discuss shopping, let me make it known that I am a man and therefore do not have the same visceral and somehow spiritual reaction to shopping that women do. Having said that, I realise that any women readers I have just experienced a sudden fit of rage, and now look upon me with a cold, low level hatred and I’ll probably start receiving threatening emails; however, I know that all you guys understand exactly what I’m talking about. OK, let’s carry on then.

Here’s the deal, if I’m out shopping for something, a) I usually know what I want, b) I want it now, c) I know where I’m going to get it, and d) I want it now. Once I get to where I’m going it would be highly unlikely that I would drive somewhere clear across town to obtain said item(s) for a cheaper price. Even if we’re talking about groceries. Especially if we’re talking about groceries actually. Grocery shopping is, for me, a trying enough experience as it is; I’m lucky enough to get out of the store without throttling someone, much less getting everything on my list. And to be honest, after a trip to my favorite local grocery hypermarket, I’m not that impressed with RedLaser’s identification abilities.

Pork Jowls

For instance, RedLaser was completely flummoxed when I scanned some individually wrapped pork jowls from the meat department. And seriously, who doesn’t love pork jowls? C’mon!

I tried something a little more conventional with a bit more success I suppose, but still not enough to make me want to hunt down the suggested price savings. Also, RedLaser seems to return the prices on bulk purchases of scanned items. Now in some cases I can see how this may be beneficial, but I myself am not particularly interested in purchasing $140 worth of mac & cheese. I mean, mac & cheese is good, but it’s not that good.

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

In the end, if you’re a serious penny pincher, then RedLaser might really help you out, but for me it’s just a bit too much trouble. Even if I’m aware that the item or items I want to purchase can be had a few cents cheaper on the other side of town, I’m just not willing to make the effort to hunt them down. RedLaser is now free to download from the App Store, so if you’re a consummate coupon clipper, then you might check it out for yourself. Personally I’ll stick with my pre-purchase research for items I really want or need, and save the extreme penny pinching for the neurotically cost conscious.

So, if you’re counting calories—and who isn’t these days—you’ve probably seen the food and calorie trackers available for the iPhone; there are several. And although FoodScanner by DailyBurn was released in September, 2009, it recently went on sale and we thought now would be a great (meaning cheap) time to give it a whirl since we’ve heard many good things about it and its effectiveness.

In short, FoodScanner allows you to scan the barcodes of food packages, pulling up all the nutritional info you need to help you watch your caloric intake. Alternatively you can search for foods that won’t scan, or GASP!, don’t have barcodes. But you need to ask yourself, do you really want to eat something that doesn’t have a barcode? I don’t know, it’s a shaky issue; with no barcode how are we supposed to even know what it is, right? Moving on. You can scan or search for the foods you eat for every meal and FoodScanner will keep a running total of your calories for the day, along with other numbers like carbs, fat, protein, and more.

DailyBurn claims FoodScanner has a growing database of 200,000+ foods for reference, and they’re serious too because if you run across something that
FoodScanner doesn’t recognize, you can add the nutritional information yourself and it will be incorporated into the database.

FoodScanner couldn’t be easier to use. As soon as you bring it up you’re ready to begin tracking your food for the day. There’s a search bar along the top, or if you’re feeling lucky you can tap the little lightening bolt in the lower left corner (visible in the screenshot above), and that will bring up the UPC scanner which uses the iPhone’s built in camera and Occipital RedLaser technology to read the barcode and display the nutritional info in the database. From there you can choose the serving size you consumed (be honest!) and what meal it was for. FoodScanner does the rest!

Good thing I only had 4 of these today…

It doesn’t require an account with DailyBurn, but if you choose, you can sign up for a free account and get access to several other trackers available there. You can see charts and graphs breaking down your daily intake of fat or carbs. Or bugs. OK, not bugs, you shouldn’t eat bugs; I don’t want anybody walking away here saying I told you to eat bugs.

Anyway, the DailyBurn site is just crammed with all kinds of useful stuff to help you keep up with your health and weight, and even your exercise regimen. Like I said, you can opt for a free account which gives you limited access to DailyBurn’s useful tools, or if you’re really serious about your health you can sign up for one of their paid plans. But, fair warning, the plans seem to be on the expensive side in my opinion.

FoodScanner is presently on sale at the App Store for only $0.99 which is fantastic because the app does exactly what it says on the box and it does it pretty well. Used in conjunction with DailyBurn’s website, the app could be a powerful tool for the health conscious. (Do you feel a but coming up?)

But…

There’s one!!

So FoodScanner is a pretty cool app, it makes it easy to track your calories, and it has an impressive database of foods to pull from. I like it. But the limits placed on the free account at DailyBurn and the prices of the Pro plans kind of turned me off, especially given the functionality of the totally free site, SparkPeople, which also has an app for the iPhone (and it too is free). I haven’t done an in depth comparison of these services, but on the surface it seems that you can get as much or more for free from SparkPeople. You must decide for yourself.

If anyone has tried either service, feel free to share your opinion in the comments section; I could have totally underestimated DailyBurn, and if so, I’d love to hear about it.

Let me preface this entire review by saying that I suck at Guitar Hero. Seriously. If someone took me hostage and forced me to play GH in order to save my life, I’d be a dead man—and don’t anyone get any ideas either. I’ve tried it on every platform around; it’s especially funny if I try to play in public, say, in a big department or electronics store where they have a demo unit set up. I usually try to resist the pull, but sometimes I just can’t and find myself approaching that little guitar, queuing up a song I love and thinking that maybe this time it will be different. It never is, and I inevitably end up surrounded by a small flock of smarmy looking twelve year olds waiting for me to get out of the way. I have yet to hit any of their young, smirking faces with the controller, so I think I can take that as a sign of growth and maturity even in the face of such open derision.

So anyway, it’s not that I’m not musically inclined, it’s just that I have about as much rhythm as a can of unopened pinto beans. Still, I must admit to being impressed by the port of Guitar Hero over to the iPhone. Anyone familiar with the game can safely skip over the tutorials, though they are quite helpful, and after jumping into the game to try my hand, I found myself going  back and actually reading through a few of them. It didn’t help my performance any, but at least I had a better idea of just how badly I was really doing.

The game’s graphics are beyond decent, meaning they’re pretty good, which is what we’ve all come to expect from the iPhone anyway. GH looks and feels right at home on an iPhone screen, and the game’s controls and interface are slick and intuitive. One of the things that impressed me the most with GH, however, was the sound. The sound quality of the game, especially the music, was excellent even when piped through my $50 Sony earbuds. And you’ll definitely want to use headphones—even the game tells you this as it’s loading—the sound experience just isn’t the same when played through the iPhone’s unimpressive external speaker, not to mention the possibility that those around you may not in the mood to rock out with you. I found myself really enjoying moving about the interface—which to me has a very cool and somewhat grungy, steampunk look to it— and awesome little background sounds with each click and selection.

When you first start the game it will ask to scan the music you have on your phone and add it to the game’s library of songs. If you want to further expand your library you can visit the in-game store and purchase additional songs. The store doesn’t really have much of a selection at present, but the game was only released a few weeks ago so I’m sure that will improve. If you’re feeling kicky you can share your scores with your friends on Facebook or compare yourself with other users via the Leaderboard display. I, of course, did neither of those things as I have enough sources of embarrassment in my life without unduly exposing my complete lack of timing and coordination. A guy has to keep some things secret, right?

The gameplay in GH, despite my jerky, zombie-like thumb action, is quite easy to get into and the game’s controls translate quite well with the iPhone’s touchscreen. Even if you’ve never played the game before you should have no problem getting comfortable with the simple controls and you’ll be getting your groove on in no time. Guitar Hero, as many people already know, is ridiculously addictive and fun even for someone with considerable lack of talent (me). It’s $2.99 at the App Store and well worth it in my opinion. I’m sure it will see plenty of play on my phone if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I’m not the uncoordinated goob the game makes me look like.

Tweetings for iPad is a relatively new Twitter client.  It comes not only for iPad, but iPhone and Mac as well (we’ll look at the iPhone version next time).  Tweetings is all around a very full featured Twitter client.  It has everything from unread tweet management, geolocation tagging, now playing, nearby tweets, and even push notifications.

Tweetings has also recently been updated to support iOS 4 and iPhone 4.  The update also fixed a couple bugs including one that really irked me — scrolling.  It only did it with certain themes but it was irritating nonetheless.  The problem seems to have disappeared since the update.

Read on for a breakdown, pics, and how you can win a free copy of Tweetings for iPad!

For the most part, Tweetings should be very familiar to you if you’ve used clients such as Twitter for iPhone (formerly Tweetie 2). Tweetings comes complete with pull down to refresh and even carries familiar UI elements to Twitter/Tweetie 2. To me, that’s part of what I really loved. The UI isn’t completely overdone. I’m a fan of simple and elegant; a streamlined UI is typically what wins me over. It’s typically the reason I’ve stuck with Twitter for iPhone, the interface and simplicity.

Don’t let Tweetings completely fool you though, it may look simple but it carries some pretty advanced features. It also has native push. I attempted to test this by keeping Boxcar active and the push for Tweetings. For the most part, it was touch and go. Sometimes Boxcar would chime in first, other times Tweetings would. I’m only going to assume this has to do with how busy both servers are at any given time. Either way, I’d call it a pretty fair fight.

From the screenshot above, you can see how Tweetings also has a feature that will allow me to combine two users timelines together. It’s very similar to a conversation type feature, but I somewhat like it better. Say I wasn’t sure what Leanna was replying to, well if she @ replied me with any tweet, and not that specific one, a conversation tool wouldn’t pick that up, where completely combining our timelines, I can easily read through and pick out what she was talking about. This to me is extremely useful and intuitive.

Direct Messages are also now grouped by user, which I prefer. No one likes scrolling through pages of direct messages searching for something. I believe this was implemented in the most recent update as well.

The iPad version also has a quickpost feature which I like quite a bit. It just brings a little box down and monitors your characters. If you’d like to attach a photo or other type of media, just go to the regular compose screen.

Clicking on a user’s display picture will also present you with a quick view of ways you can interact with that user, which I find extremely useful.

You can also click on the physical tweet to be presented with several more options including seeing that users profile, location, and of course, your combined timelines.

There’s also a lot of fun extras I found within Tweetings such as TweetCost, a spam reporter, and a block feature. You can also tweet now playing, which will probably be a fun feature for a lot of users.

Overall, I’d say Tweetings is an all-around solid choice. I experienced a few bugs here and there, but the developer seems pretty quick to fix them. He can also be found on twitter with the handle @Tweetingsapp. He’s very responsive to issues and questions. So if you’re in the market for a Twitter client or you’re bored of your current one, I’d have no issues telling you to give Tweetings a try. It’s very reasonably priced for what it is. If you decide to take it for a spin, or currently use it, let us know your thoughts in the comments!

[iTunes Link]

Pros

• Reasonably priced
• Tons of basic and advanced features
• Lots of extras
• Great developer support and frequent updates
• Available across 3 platforms
• Built-in push that actually works

Cons

• Experienced a few crashed in the iPad version
• Sometimes conversation view doesn’t catch everything
• Settings panel could be simplified just a bit, it could be a bit overwhelming to Twitter beginners

Give-away

Want a free copy of Tweetings for iPad? Just leave a comment below telling us what you want in an iPad Twitter client. What feature is most important to you?

(Reminder: Promo codes require a US App Store account — Apple’s rule, not ours! — and they expire. If you get one, use it quickly!)

[YouTube Link]

Tweetings for iPad – app review and giveaway! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

iMovie for iPhone 4 is a video editing application designed by Apple. iMovie is also the name of the video editing software included in iLife, which is bundled with every Mac. iMovie is only available for iPhone 4. (Don’t be sad, it needs the extra RAM and Apple A4 processing power).

As with most Apple products, iMovie is very easy to use and is fairly intuitive. If a tap doesn’t do what you want, a double tap will. iMovie can be used in either portrait or landscape, but landscape seems more natural for me.

While in editing mode, the top center of the screen shows your movies, the bottom of the screen has the timeline, and the sides of the screen have options: projects, upload media, upload media directly from camera, and play. When choosing media to add to your project, there are three tabs: video, photos, and music. Videos are listed in reverse chronological order, but photos are listed in chronological order. I find this annoying because it’s very likely that the photo I want to choose was recently taken and scrolling through hundreds a photos every time gets tedious. Not to mention, scrolling through photos is very laggy. This needs to be fixed.

Editing your movie is a breeze. You can drag clips around, trim the edges of clips, add titles, quickly switch between themes, and make minor edits to transitions. If there is a clip or photo you want to remove, just drag it off the timeline. There is one thing I want to mention about titles, however. They are very nice, but you cannot edit their length. Titles are automatically the same length as the clip you have the title attached to. Another simple feature that is missing is the ability to add plain text against a colored background.

Although there are a few little things missing from iMovie, I found it to be an excellent and quick way to edit a video. This is the first release of this app and I look forward to the changes that Apple may bring to it in the future. For only $4.99, iMovie is worth every penny.

Video and screenshots after the break! (To see a completed movie that was created with iMovie, check out my quick review of the iPhone 4’s camera)

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Comes with 5 themes: Modern, Bright, Travel, Playful, News
• Can add your own music or chose from Apple’s theme music
• Export as, medium (360p), large (540p), or HD (720p)

Cons

• Titles last the entire duration of clip, with no option to set the length.
• Cannot add more than one audio track
• Cannot split clips
• Must pan over images. Cannot have entire photo displayed in video.
• Searching through photo library has major lag
• Photos are listed in chronological order instead of reverse chronological order
• Cannot add a text slide

[$4.99 - iTunes link]

iMovie for iPhone 4 – app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Apple has sent out a notice to developers advising them that the iTunes App Store has begun accepting iOS 4 binaries for submission and review:

Submit your iOS 4 apps for review so they can be ready for sale when iOS 4 is available to iPhone and iPod touch users. Make sure you have built and tested your applications using iOS 4 and iPhone SDK 4 GM seed, which you can download from the iPhone Dev Center.

Log in to iTunes Connect and upload your iOS 4 applications today.

iOS 4 is scheduled for release on June 21, once again developers aren’t likely to get much sleep, especially if trying to once again implement new features for a device they don’t have and can’t yet test.

(The effort is much appreciated.)

iTunes App Store begins accepting iOS 4-compatible apps for review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Pinball HD brings classic pinball arcade playing to the iPad. The graphics are beautiful and motions are smooth.

There are three tables included with Pinball HD: Wild West, The Deep, and Jungle Style. I find Wild West to be the least interesting table to play, but it will probably be great for a child who doesn’t need a complicated and involved table. The Deep and Jungle Style are much more detailed and require much more skill to get a good score.

Pinball HD can be played in 3 different views. Holding the iPad in landscape will display the full table from a perspective view (the front is bigger than the back). In portrait, you can either view the full table or play with a “flying-table” view. The latter view follows the ball around the table and zooms in even closer when the ball is doing something interesting like bouncing around a bunch of bumpers or entering a special hole. The graphics in “flying-table” are very impressive; however, I find myself getting a little dizzy when playing in this view.

If you’re a fan of pinball, Pinball HD will not disappoint. The physics are accurate and the gameplay is fun. For video and screenshots, follow us after the break!

Pros

• Beautiful graphics
• Realistic physics
• 3 tables
• 3 views
• Detailed instructions for each table
• Local and global high scores

Cons

• “flying-table” can make you dizzy and is the default view for portrait play
• Table instructions are busy and sometimes difficult to follow the lines

[$2.99 - iTunes link]

Pinball HD for iPad – app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Pinball HD brings classic pinball arcade playing to the iPad. The graphics are beautiful and motions are smooth.

There are three tables included with Pinball HD: Wild West, The Deep, and Jungle Style. I find Wild West to be the least interesting table to play, but it will probably be great for a child who doesn’t need a complicated and involved table. The Deep and Jungle Style are much more detailed and require much more skill to get a good score.

Pinball HD can be played in 3 different views. Holding the iPad in landscape will display the full table from a perspective view (the front is bigger than the back). In portrait, you can either view the full table or play with a “flying-table” view. The latter view follows the ball around the table and zooms in even closer when the ball is doing something interesting like bouncing around a bunch of bumpers or entering a special hole. The graphics in “flying-table” are very impressive; however, I find myself getting a little dizzy when playing in this view.

If you’re a fan of pinball, Pinball HD will not disappoint. The physics are accurate and the gameplay is fun. For video and screenshots, follow us after the break!

Pros

• Beautiful graphics
• Realistic physics
• 3 tables
• 3 views
• Detailed instructions for each table
• Local and global high scores

Cons

• “flying-table” can make you dizzy and is the default view for portrait play
• Table instructions are busy and sometimes difficult to follow the lines

[$2.99 - iTunes link]

Pinball HD for iPad – app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

FlickStackr for iPad is a Flickr browsing application. The interface is beautiful, intuitive, and a pleasure to use.

With FlickStackr, you can browse photos on Flickr, even if you don’t have a Flickr account. If you do, then you can also browse your photostream, sets, favorites, groups, and contacts. FlickStackr also displays EXIF data, tags, and comments. The main feature that is missing from FlickStackr is the ability to upload photos. However, iPont promises to bring that ability in a future update.

In addition to the wonderful online photo viewing that FlickStacker brings to iPad, it also allows you to save photos locally for offline viewing. iPont calls this feature a “Stack”. You can choose any photos from Flickr to save to your stack. It only saves the actual images, however, not the EXIF data that’s associated with them.

FlickStackr is an excellent app for experiencing Flickr on the iPad, and for only $0.99, it’s quite a steal!

[$0.99 - iTunes Link]

Pros

• Browse photos from photostream, sets, contacts, groups, explore, or search
• View photos as slideshow
• No account required
• Support for multiple accounts
• Offline viewing in your “Stack”
• Wonderful interface

Cons

• Cannot upload photos
• Offline viewing does not include EXIF data

Video and Screenshots after the break!

FlickStackr for iPad – App Review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog