First wave of Apple iPhone Apps reviews: best freebies

By Aaron Burkhart

Before the reviews, here’s what to expect from the update and the new App Store:
With people having problems updating their iPhones due to overloading of servers (Apple’s and/or AT&T’s), I waited a few days to install the update. Not including download time, the installation of the update took 20 minutes, going through various stages of “backup,” “restoring,” and “verifying.” At several points it looked like it might be stuck, but it would eventually keep going. It’s possible the servers were still being strained. After the update was up and running I headed to the new iTunes App Store to see what new functionality I could finally add to my 16GB iPhone.

The App Store had a total of 790 apps on Monday, July 14. Some random observations:

• While there were plenty of free apps, some cost $50+
• There were at least a dozen tip calculators
• There were seven different apps that turned your iPhone into a “flashlight” by just having a blank screen. Five of them you have to pay for.
• Photo sharing, geotagging, and social networking all had plenty of apps available, for the iPhone user with a thousand friends.
• Some apps were very location specific, like the Berlin Trip Planner.
• Some apps were overpriced: PacMan for $10?! Free Cell for $1.99?
• Basic apps, like note takers and dayplanners, have free versions if you look for them and don’t need all the features.

The Good Apps:
BoxOffice
Finding movies in nearby theaters is so easy with BoxOffice. It automatically locates where you are and lists all nearby theaters and showtimes. Or, if you want to search by movie, it list all the movies currently in theaters along with each movie’s rating from RottonTomatoes.com. Best of all, it’s still fast when using the EDGE network, for us poor folk who couldn’t get a 3G.

Midomi
There have been times when I’ve been out and heard a song playing that I liked but didn’t recognize. Well, Midomi can hear just a snippet of a song and come back with the title, artist, YouTube videos, iTunes Store link, song samples and related or similar songs. You can even hum or sing to Midomi if you have a tune stuck in your head but forget what it’s called (though you have to be somewhat in tune). Then there’s the standard say or type search methods, which aren’t quite as fun but it’s great to have options. Although Midomi didn’t recognize a Russian song, it did great at finding most other types, with some Japanese and Spanish results even showing up. A great little free program; much better than the similar but inferior Shazam.

Graffitio
This one is great in concept: anywhere you are, you can post a virtual note attached to that place that other Graffitio users could see. For example, I go to a little cafe, love thier coffee and leave a quick note using Graffitio. Now when someone else comes in they turn on Graffitio and see my note. They don’t have to search for the name of the cafe, they don’t have to be part of my friends network; the notes are linked to each location, like virtual graffitti, taking the geotagging concept and actually doing something useful with it. It’s a great concept with lots of potential; but for now that’s all it is unless everyone starts using it. I’ll be doing my part!

Some quick and simple free apps:
Scribble: Lets you write on the screen with your hand.
MyLite: The only flashlight app worth looking at; it has color options and strobe modes, without the gall to charge for a blank screen.
Restaurants: Fast-food eaters who want to watch thier Nutrition facts will find this offline index handy.
Mobile News: The AP Wire Service for iPhone. Slow over EDGE network.
Pandora: An internet radio app that does a great job at finding your music tastes, delivering more than just mainstream artists or superficial similarities. Again, not that smooth while using it over EDGE.
Jirbo Games: There are a handful of quick fun games by Jirba, like Concentration and Breakout, but all using cute little animal icons. They’re like what you would expect to come free on any phone, and a pleasent enough way to kill time.
Aurora Feint: A puzzle game with level raising and powerups. Fairly complex for a free game, and addicting too.
TapTap : The iPhone answer to Guitar Hero on Tour, this rythmic tapping game also has you moving the iPhone itself to hit certain beats. Only a few songs are available, but more will supposedly be available latter, though maybe not for free.

A final thing to look out for when shopping the App Store: Some apps are location dependant and won’t work if you’re not in a supported city, even the basic Yellow Pages app didn’t have Anchorage, AK, although most of the other applications had no problem pinpointing my location. It’s important to check though, especially before paying for an app.

Product Review: Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e)

By Aaron Burkhart

The Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick (801e) is a small TV tuner (about the size of a thumb) that allows TV viewing by plugging into a USB 2.0 port on either a laptop or desktop. It’s pretty versatile, whether you want to watch analog or digital broadcast signals, FM radio, or unencrypted digital cable.

Since the portabilityof the Pro Stick is its main advantage, I tested it out on a laptop; the recommended minimum specs are a Pentium M 1.8 Ghz, with a 64MB graphics card and at least 1GB of RAM for a smooth HD experience. I tested it out on a Toshiba Satellite with an AMD Turion 64×2 1.9 Ghz, with an ATI Radeon X1200 and 2GB RAM (running Vista).

In short, my system made the minimum specs, but not by much.

The first step is to decide what type of connection to use: It comes with an antenna for broadcast reception, an S-Video and stereo audio adapter that plugs into the side of the Pro Stick, or a coaxial cable can be connected to the end of the Pro Stick for unscrambled cable. Since, again, portability was my main focus, I connected the antenna to the Pro Stick and placed it on a nearby windowsill (the cable is about 3 feet).

The set up takes 20 minutes or more, depending on if you want to install the included VideoSpin editing software. If you already have a good editing program it’s probably unnecessary, as VideoSpin doesn’t have any directly integrated features with the Pro Stick software. After installing the main TVCenter Pro software is the step to scan for available channels. BY default it will scan for every available signal, but if you want to save time and know that you won’t be wanting FM radio capabilities or analog broadcasts or whatever signal type, you could just have it scan for the signal type you want. I had it scan for everything, and after five minutes or so it came up with a dozen analog channels, two digital channels, and more radio stations than I knew we had.

Since analog broadcasts are terrible where I live (Anchorage, AK) I wasn’t expecting much from those stations, as huge antenna arrays are needed to get a clear picture on a television set, and the Pro Stick antenna understandably couldn’t get a clear picture. If you have a rooftop antenna setup, you can connect that to the Pro Stick. I was pleasantly surprised, though, to see that the two digital channels came in almost as clear as cable. Since the DTV transition is still pending here, I would only expect that more channels will be picked up once all the stations here switch over.

Of course, the Pinnacle Pro Stick does more than just pick up TV, it also acts as a digital video recorder, allowing live TV to be paused, rewound, saved, etc. for as much as your hard drive can hold. Its output format is also adjustable, so recordings of programs can be scheduled and recorded in PSP or iPod ready formats, and are easily transferred to those devices from a laptop. Even TiVo’s program transfer options can’t compete with the simplicity of the Pro Stick’s functionality.

However, there is a caveat: a system has to have more than minimum specs to use all the features. As it was, just watching a digital broadcast maxed out my system RAM; trying to convert the video at the same time was too much to handle and the picture became garbled, although just capturing a recording in the native MPEG format worked fine. Screen grabs also take just a click , so it’s great for sharing a choice moment from a favorite show on a message board or forum. The TVCenter interface was also less than intuitive, and it took a while to find out how to switch between analog and digital channels, since there’s no way to do it using the incuded remote control.

Just to be complete, I switched the TVCenter to radio and found it to be as clear as it should be and just as easy to record whatever was on, although it didn’t offer a choice of formats, only a Windows Media Player .MPA extension, which I found odd.

Those with cable TV and DVRs, or who watch TV shows over broadband WI-FI won’t likely find the most use out of the Pro Stick, but with a powerful enough system it would still offer some convienences. But anyone still watching TV over rabbit ears or without wireless internet will find a lot of functionality in this little device.

For doing what it says it does, I’d give the Pinnacle Pro Stick (801e) good marks, but the higher-end laptop requirements and interface issues (besides clunkiness, there’s a pay subscription service in order to have on-screen TV listings) leave it with a 7 out of 10 score.