Friday, March 5, 2010

Sampstar's App Essentials

This is the current basics of what make up the current Sampstar's App Essentials. 

Yelp - has always been my favorite place for writing/reading reviews and in the past month or so they totally revamped their app to make it much, much better. i'm still not sure about the buzz around the "Check in" feature on these apps. It may just be that i don't know many people out and about to care who is where. One thing that just looks cool is the monocle feature where you hold up the iPhone in whatever direction and it shows you what is that direction and how far.

ScoreCenter - It was months before i realized it was actually Score and not Sportscenter. Anywho, when i first got this app, i don't believe it did all alerts (maybe) but now you can set alerts for game start, each quarter and final or just final. You can also arrange the sports or scores you want to see first and select your favorite teams that will be displayed on top.

TripIt - This little guy just makes it easier to find your travel information. Rather than looking through the email to find what airline you are flying this time, you simply email your flight itinerary to the tripit address and it recognizes your email and puts it in an easy to read format by trip.

RunKeeper - Started with TrailGuru, ended up with this one. Uses the GPS to track your runs outside, keeping time/pace and such. Sometimes has miscalculations in running routes, but usually seems pretty good.  Now allows you to manually enter workouts you missed or did on the treadmill. If only i could remember to log all runs, it would be even better.

Dropbox - A nice little program that gives you up to 2GB free to store music, pics or whatever online. It automatically syncs with other computers you have and your iPhone. You can also share with others. Join Dropbox via this link and they might give me some extra storage.

Animoto - This app makes a 30-second video montage with the photos of your choosing.
An example: our cats


Evernote - previously mentioned.

Other useful apps to have:
  • PhoneFlicks - Manage your Netflix que via your phone
  • myWireless (AT&T app) - easily allows you to view and pay your bill as well as check your minutes
  • U-verse TV - allows me to program my DVR from afar
  • Flixster - simple way to find movie times and watch previews
  • TweetDeck - when i do use Twitter, this is nice. it also allows me to view and update facebook status as well. 
  • RedLaser - One of two apps i think i have actually paid something for, this is just fun when i'm at Target scoping out the clearance end caps. It checks the price on Google and locally supposedly.
  • Mint.com - if you're in to budget tracking, this works nicely. 
  • Cardstar - allows you to put all your annoying loyalty cards from the wallet or key chain into your iPhone. It only works at places with a hand held scanner device from what i can tell. It works at CVS, but doesn't work at our gym unfortunately. 
  • iheartradio - picks up 106.5 in Charlotte and 94.7 from Indy. Allows me to listen to Bob and Tom without the static of the radio at work. 

2 comments:

  1. Pricecheckah is better than RedLaser. It uses the same great redlaser barcode scanner, but gives you results from Amazon, eBay, walmart, overstock, buy.com as well as Google. It even let's you put in your own stores.

    And at only 99c.

    http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=300264101&mt=8

    ReplyDelete
  2. Flickster also manages your netflix queue. You have a redundant app with phoneflix.

    ReplyDelete