Posts in the Apps category

In the real world, I spend my days working as a web developer, both professionaly and in some occassions, in my spare time. I love creating web sites and web applications, but one of the most enjoyable parts of the job is working with a good designer. As a result, I subscribe to a lot of web design blogs and try and have a go. My latest attempt at designing a site resulted in this very magazine being put together. Not prefect, I'm sure, but I'm happy with the results.

As I spend a lot of my time online, and come across some beautiful websites and I thought that now is as good a time as any to share some of the best looking websites I come across here. This won't be a regular feature by any means, but I hope to showcase good design.

The AppZapper website is a one page affair, one that works very well. Smooth transitions and an interface that's almost as simple as the app itself. The design is in keeping with most Mac specific apps, minimal furniture and everything at easy reach.

Even other pages on the site are well designed, even if they get a little bit busy.

Look out for more articles on web design as and when I find well designed sites.

I've been posting a lot about Android lately, and this is the last one I intend to post for at least week or so.

As I've documented already, the HTC Wildfire is my phone of choice for my foray into the world of Android.

Having used the phone quite a bit over the last two weeks, I thought that it was time that I shared my thoughts on the phone, Android and the surrounding ecosystem.

First Impressions

The HTC Wildfire is a small phone, both compared to it’s Android siblings and the iPhone. My last phone was extremely small, but that’s what I wanted. A small phone that didn’t take up a crazy amount of real estate in my pocket (in the process destroying the whiskers in my unwashed jeans).

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HTC Sense usually refers to the user interface on your device and is a bit like a layer of gloss that HTC apply to Android devices. It's actually not that bad. It's quite a decent, yet subtle, set of changes to the default UI. Admittedly, these arent to everyone's tastes and nearly a week into my Android adventure, I'd like to try an Android device without it.

As a result, I searched and messed around and thought it might be useful to document how you can disable and re-enable HTC Sense on your Android device so that you can make the most of it. Having disabled it myself, I've found the phone to be just a little bit faster and more like what I was expecting from Android.

The steps I’ve put together all apply to HTC Sense on a HTC Wildfire which is running Android version 2.1. It's fairly easy to do and you'll find them at the bottom of this article.

Pros

• I found the phone to be a bit faster
• Can always re-enable the HTC Sense UI
• The home button takes you to the home screen you were on

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Android may languish in second place when it comes to the number of Apps in it's store, but that's not to say it doesn't have it's own gems.

As I've only been using the phone for a week or so, this is a top 5, but I hope to be able make a top 10 soon. I've only downloaded the one paid app, and a handful of free apps, but then most of what i've wanted had already been pre-installed. So here goes, my top 10 Android apps (in no particular order):

My top Android apps

Please note, that clicking on these links will take you to their Android Market page if being viewed on an Android device. I'll update the links to be friendly in all browsers soon. If you have an Android device, try out the Barcode Scanner app by scanning one of the QR codes below.

Twitter for Android (free)

Not as good as the iPhone version, but still a pretty good Twitter app. All the key features you need, but I can't seem to view my own timeline of tweets. There's the mobile version of the site I guess, and future updates may change that, but I feel the iPhone and Android apps could be closer together in terms of appearance. Not perfect, but a must have for Twitter users.

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The App store continues to go from strength to strength and the number of apps just refuses to slow it's growth. There seems to be an App for that in every situation (almost), which is no mean feat and just goes to show how well Apple has the phone and music market firmly in it’s grasps.

Here's a top 10 for the apps you should download from the App Store (apps that run on all iOS devices):

My top 10 Apps

Facebook for iPhone (free)

Facebook is possibly the most popular social network around and having the iPhone app makes it even easier to keep in touch. I don't think there’s a feature from the website missing, so if you're a member of Facebook, you should have this on your iOS device. No excuses!

Twitter (free)

Twitter may not be as popular as Facebook, but it's popular product in it's own right. Twitter's official app is the evolution of a third party product that was bought in-house early/mid 2010. It's much improved and has some nice touches. Twitteriffic was my first choice before, but now that has had some real love and attention from the guys at Twitter, it's a must have app!

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After it’s debut a couple of years ago, it has taken me a little while to jump onto the Android bandwagon. Not that I didn't want too, more that I couldn't justify the cost to make it happen.

My phone history

Since early 2006, I’ve been mostly Mac based (exclusively for the last 6 months!), so the jump from OS X to iOS wasn’t a big leap. Having said that, the jump to iOS is so small, it's ridiculous that Apple have been able to make such an easy to use device. During those 4years (and counting), I've been keeping up with Apple's journey and in October 2008, I purchased an iPod Touch. In February 2009, I moved from T-Mobile to O2 and that move bought with it, my first new mobile phone in over 4 years! I went from the brick that is the Nokia N70 to the brand spanking new, Nokia 6600 fold.

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I find myself using the web version of TaskPaper, a digital to do list, more and more.

There was a time when I would email every little note, comment, link or thought to myself and then pick them up alter, but I can now keep my email free for other types of spam. I must admit, my use is probably more limited to quickly sharing links with myself from work, and I often forget to pick them up at home, but having them in one central place is becoming more and more convenient!

Sending NSFW stuff for viewing at home has never been so easy! :)

An overdue update for this post is that there is now an iOS version of TaskPaper which syncs with a cloud based service run by the guys at Hog Bay Software.

From a casual browse around the net, I found a game built in Flash which had been ported onto the iPhone. It was a simple puzzle game, but I have never been able to find it again.

From my searches to re-discover that gem, I came across Bubble, a game in a similar vein and probably more refined than the one I was looking for. what makes it even more impressive is the fact that it's all JavaScript based and seems to work flawlessly.

The game doesn't seem to be bloated with lots of code, and works great in FireFox. I haven't tested it in other browsers, but I don't imagine there being many, if any, issues.

The people behind Bubble have also introduced a log stacking game, which isn't too shabby itself! The presentation is lovely and the use of JavaScript is truly inspiring to me. I wouldn't mind taking a crack at re-producing the Bubble game, but I very much doubt I'd ever make it as elegant and easy to use!

One of the best things is the fact that it should work on a iPhone/iPod Touch because it doesn't require Flash, just a browser with JavaScript enabled. The size of the games, I'm guessing, should match the screen on these devices and would look pretty sweet.