WhatsApp Bought by Facebook $19 Billion – Why?

Ok, so this is going to be a very humbling article but I just gotta know from the iPhone community, What is so great about WhatsApp? I’m guessing it has to do with the fact I live in the US and most of my friends have iPhones so we use iMessage. I also use Facebook chat for some group messaging. So, when I open up WhatsApp, there are only about 20 of my friends that even show up out of my 1,200 total iPhone contacts. It feels a lot like Google+: If no one is on it, I’m not going to use it. And, if another app already has the feature, I’m not going to use it. I have lots of other apps like that, for example: Sceene, Skype, Voxer, Skype, HeyTell, Kik & Viber.

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Apps for Election Day 2012

I know many readers are from all over the world, but since this website is based in the United States, I’d like to share some apps for election day. First, both Barack Obama & Mitt Romney have apps. [Read more…]

ABC’s Nightline Tours Inside Apple’s Factories in China

Look at the back of your iPhone. Like most things around you, it says, “Assembled in China”. Not a big shock, but due to the size of this factory (Foxconn), when bad things happen, like suicides and explosions, they get more media attention. I’m all for the audits and making things right and so here is ABC’s video of their tour and what they saw: [Read more…]

Big Picture – App For Boston.com The Big Picture

I love the feature on Boston.com‘s website called “The Big Picture“. They gather the best photography from current events and display them full screen. The problem with this website on the iPad 1 is there is not enough memory to load all the big pictures. Most picture only show a border where the picture should be with a little blue square. So, with this app, you can swipe through a slideshow of all the pictures including their descriptions. There’s also a button in the top right that allows you to view it in Safari; share via Mail, Facebook or Twitter; or you can save the photo to your photo app. One feature I would like to see is the ability to pinch and zoom on the pictures. I find myself trying to do it often but it still doesn’t work. There is also a nice counter in the bottom right to tell you what picture number you are on and how many are left. [Read more…]

The Washington Post iPad App [Video]

The Washington Post recently released their free app for the iPad. They also released a demo video promoting the app. I finally got a chance to check it out and all I have to say is… that is seriously a lot of iPads! If you haven’t seen the video, you can check it out below. [Read more…]

Election Apps for Your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

There are two really good applications for keeping track of today’s elections in the United States. The first one is the CNN Elections Center app. It can detect your current location and find the races in your area. Then you can pick them or up to 15 total to follow throughout the day. The app includes House, Senate and Governor races and also includes some state Ballot Measures such as voting on the right to hunt. Of course it also has a news section to keep up on breaking election news. [Read more…]

More Rumors of the iPhone Coming to Verizon

verizonThe Wall Street Journal claims to be in contact with someone at Apple that has stated there will be CDMA iPhone and will come to Verizon by the first quarter of 2011. The device will not yet run on LTE technology as many have thought. Also discussed was that the design of the CDMA iPhone will continue to use the iPhone 4 design and the new iPhone 5 will have some changes. The expected growth of sales could be an additional 10 million iPhones a year.

It will be very interesting to see if Verizon’s network can handle the iPhone or if it will have the same problems AT&T has had. It may be OK since Verizon has had other smart phones like all the Android phones. But, AT&T started slowly with a non 3G iPhone, then the iPhone 3G, then the iPhone 4 that sends bigger pictures and video, runs apps in the background and has more apps then before where Verizon will be jumping right in with one of the more bandwidth intensive devices ever!

Links

Wall Street Journal Article
New York Times Article

Engadget Releases iPhone App

EngadgetEngadget has released a very nice iPhone app that gives access to their blog. It has a very nice design and does a lot more than just display blog posts. Something I’m excited about is the interface for when they live blog. Here are some of the features:

• A non-stop, daily stream of all the news on Engadget, Engadget Mobile, and Engadget HD
• See features, reviews, unboxings, and hands-on coverage as it happens
• Check out photo galleries of the latest gadgets
• Watch streaming video of “The Engadget Show” without leaving the app
• Share news, photos, videos, and other tech stories via Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail
• Get quick access to the Engadget Podcast
• Use the in-app option to tip Engadget on breaking news
• Commenting fully supported
• Saving feature to bookmark articles and view while offline
• Integrated mini web browser for viewing web content without leaving the app
• Intuitive and clear interface

Engadget
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TGI Black Friday – The Must-Have Black Friday Application

Available In: App Store       Price: Free  

TGI Black Friday TGI Black Friday, powered by TGIblackfriday.com and DealCatcher.com, is the ultimate Black Friday application. I received an email about this app over the week-end and since downloading it… I have spent WAY too much time on it! I’m pretty sure it has every feature you could want in a Black Friday specific application. Not only that but, it is nicely organized and easy to navigate.

Upon opening the app, you will find five options on the lower menu bar; Home, Stores, Categories, Search and My List. In the Home option you are given a list of the most popular Black Friday deals as well as a list of the newest Black Friday ads that have been added to the application. The Store option will list all the stores (in alphabetical order) that have already released their Black Friday sales… if you scroll all the way down, you will see a grayed-out list of stores that are still due to release their Black Friday sales.
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TUAW Releases iPhone App

Available In: App Store       Price: Free  

TUAWTUAW, a great Apple blog about Apple laptop computers, ipods, iPhones, etc., has released an app for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can read articles, view photo galleries, sort by category, and the best feature of all: save articles to your iPhone or iPod touch to read offline. The app was built by AOL, their parent company. [Read more…]

BNO News Releases Push Notification App *UPDATED*

Available In: App Store       Price: $1.99 & $0.99 per month  

BNO NewsWe’ve been testing this app for a few weeks and it has finally hit the App Store. Breaking News Twitter account has almost 1 million followers. But if you don’t have Twitter, you can still get breaking news alerts to your iPhone via push notifications. The app is designed to push only major news but you can turn on low priority notifications to see all updates. Another great feature is you can select a time to ignore notifications. ALL PUSH NOTIFICATIONS APPS NEED THIS!!!

I have noticed that the push update gets to me a little sooner than my text alert from Twitter does. It seems to be about 30-60 seconds. When you open the app, you see a list of recent updates and you can tap on them for more info. When a link is posted, you can view it via the built in browser so you don’t have to leave the app. [Read more…]