Archive for August, 2009
Yelp Augments My Reality
Robert Scoble just informed the world that Yelp includes an augmented reality feature! As I had just re-downloaded Yelp the other day, it was already on my iPhone. All you’re supposed to do is shake it three times, and the new Monocle feature will be activated. But I had a little problem doing so, and realized it was because I was on the wrong tab. I think it only works if you’re on the first tab, because that’s where you access Monocle from.
Anyway, I’ve attached a screenshot to show how it looks. I actually took four screenshots, and Yelp crashed after the last one. Ooops. Hm, and now that I think about it, the Pho Hoa Nam restaurant was behind me, not in front of me. Maybe my compass was messed up…
I’ve been fascinated by augmented reality apps ever since I saw that video of the NY subway app, which was just too cool. Now I have such an app too!
I heard some people suggest that augmented reality apps would only come with OS version 3.1 for the iPhone. I don’t know why. Anybody?
Cool Looking Apps like Groups
I was perusing an article about iPhone apps with nice interfaces again today, and decided to download one of them. After all, I’m a sucker for a nice GUI, and I bought Convert just for the purpose of checking out its GUI.
But the app I’m talking about this time is Groups. I just moved my Contacts app to my page of rarely used apps, and replaced it with Groups. Yup, it’s that good. It has a gorgeous GUI, and is very functional to boot. One of my favourite features is being able to email a whole group of people at the same time. I’ve included a screenshot from their website to the right. I don’t think they’ll mind. 
Yeah, so my point is that this app looks nice, but it also works nice. Apps like this (and ConvertBot and Convert) make me think that I need to brush up on my user experience skills a bit.
Does anyone know of resources about how to design a good iPhone user experience? What about links to articles like the one I linked to at the top, which just shows off some nice iPhone apps?
Push is Better
In my last post, I bemoaned two Push applications that weren’t working quite right for me. Unfortunately for me at the time, my timing couldn’t have been worse for either of them.
Because now they’re working just fine.
GPush went through some teething problems when it was introduced, but now it’s working splendidly. I turned off the sound notifications, but left on the alerts and badges. So now I’m always aware of incoming Gmail, yet at the same time I’m not being constantly annoyed. I heard that the number of customers experiencing GPush problems now is very small.
Boxcar has gone through a similar transformation. You’ll see on my post that a representative from Boxcar offered to help me with my problems, but I suggested that I’d wait it out. That turns out to have been an excellent idea, because now Boxcar is working great for me. I personally use Boxcar as a replacement to text messaging. I refuse to pay my carrier that much money for such a small service. I now have Boxcar and BeejiveIM, which together give me a much better, and cheaper, solution than text messaging.
It would be nice if the iPhone had a a little light on it that would glow if you have a pop-up alert waiting for you. Kinda like the Blackberry, I know. But it would still be handy.
So now I’m a happy Push camper. Now I just need a Push app that’ll tell me where my kids are…
Push a Bust?
Recently I’ve bought two push notification apps: Boxcar and GPush. I’ve been happy with neither of them.
Boxcar has already been around for a bit and I’ve seen a lot of reviews online that say it “just works”. That’s not my experience. I have enabled push notifications on my phone. I have enabled push notifications in Boxcar, and gave Boxcar my Twitter credentials. So far, it hasn’t been working very well. I got a couple notifications from Boxcar itself (a couple days ago) saying it was having problems with the Twitter API. I received a notification or two from my Twitter account, but since then, nothing.
My experience with GPush has been similar. I have received some notifications, but they were slow in coming, and I haven’t received notifications for every email I get. Which is quite annoying.
What’s the use in buying these apps if they don’t work?