shakespeare posts

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, iPhone, Holidays, iPod touch

Buyer's Guide: 33 things you don't need if you have an iPhone

by Chris Rawson (RSS feed) on Nov 19th, 2009

Every time I walk through Warehouse Stationery (New Zealand's equivalent to Office Depot) or Dick Smith's Electronics (pretty much Best Buy), I'm struck by how probably half the products in each store are pretty much useless to me since I've got an iPhone.

Thanks to the apps that come pre-packaged with the iPhone and the more than 100,000 third-party offerings now available in the iTunes Store, the iPhone has gained functionality that might have seemed hard to fathom under three years ago when Steve Jobs first announced the device.

"A widescreen iPod with touch controls... a revolutionary mobile phone... a breakthrough internet communications device... these are not three separate devices. This is one device." So Steve Jobs told us all back at Macworld Expo 2007. But since then, the iPhone has grown to be much more than just those three concepts.

What follows is a sort of anti-buyer's guide, a list of products and devices that you may never need or even want to buy again (or receive as a gift) if you have an iPhone. Some of these are certainly open for debate, but more than a few of them are products that, for all intents and purposes, are completely unnecessary if you have an iPhone. (Items in bold also apply to the iPod touch).

Continue reading “Buyer's Guide: 33 things you don't need if you have an iPhone”

Tags: 2079, Air Mouse Pro, AirMousePro, Ambiance, Cleartune, dictionary.com, Dropbox, Flight Control, FlightControl, Google Earth, GoogleEarth, GuitarToolKit, Handbrake, Hero of Sparta, HeroOfSparta, hgg, iPhone, iPod Touch, IpodTouch, iShoot, Kindle, MotionX, netbooks, Peggle, RunKeeper, Shakespeare, Stanza, VLC Remote, VlcRemote, WriteRoom

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, First Look

First Look: Touch Poet lets anyone be a poet

by Cory Bohon (RSS feed) on Feb 11th, 2009

With Valentines Day right around the corner, it would seem that everyone is looking for something to get their loved ones. While most might settle on candy, or other holiday items, would you ever think of writing your special someone a poem? Even if you've never written a sentence in your life, you can easily write a poem with Touch Poet [iTunes link] for iPhone.

Touch Poet grabs word snippets from works by Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, and Rudyard Kipling as well as Digg headlines and other news sources. When you tap on the right-pointing arrow in the app, words will be move out from behind the arrow. When you find a word that you want to use, you can drag it up to the top portion. The snippets of paper has a really great physics engine that makes it look as though you are actually touching it. If you don't like a word, or would like to choose a better word, then you can "throw" the piece of paper in the garbage shoot by tossing it towards the bottom right of the screen. If you can't seem to find a word that you like, you can input your own words by double-tapping on the bottom of the screen -- this will allow you to input your own word.

If you tap the upward facing arrow you will have several options, namely the ability to select the source of your words. From here you can also Twitter your masterpiece or e-mail it straight to your loved one. You can get your hands on Touch Poet by visiting the iTunes App Store. It is currently on sale for $.99 (US) through Valentines Day; after then, it will go up to $2.99.

Gallery: Touch Poet

Tags: iPhone, Kipling, Poe, Poem, Poetry, Shakespeare, Touch Poet, TouchPoet, valentines day, ValentinesDay

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Freeware, Internet, Internet Tools, Developer, iPhone, iPod touch

Google releases Books browser for iPhone

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 5th, 2009

Despite the fact that the App Store is capturing everybody's attention, old-school (as in, about 8 months ago) mobile web apps are still worth checking out, too -- Andy Ihnatko reports that Google has put their Google Book Search web app in iPhone form, and the result is awesome: 1.5 million public-domain texts in a well-coded and clean reader all for completely free. Classics, you may be a video star, but you can't touch this.

Ok, so no it doesn't have Classics' fun little page-turning or bookshelf-browsing graphics, nor Stanza's bookstore and eReader support, nor Bookshelf's linkup to Webscription.net -- but it is awesome, and completely free. To check it out, you just need to visit http://books.google.com/m on your iPhone or iPod touch (and you might as well bookmark it, because you never know when you'll want to read a little Shakespeare or Dickens).

Update: Commenters note that you can add Google books to Stanza by entering the URL of the book. Not too shabby. Stanza is free [App Store link].

Tags: app, app-store, classics, dickens, google-book-search, iphone, mobile, shakespeare, web, web-apps

Filed under: Retail, Apple

Thus goeth down the Apple Store

by Erica Sadun (RSS feed) on Apr 28th, 2008

Shall I compare thee to a yellow sticky note?

Thou art more foreboding and less indicative of closure.

Rough winds do shake retail commerce before May

And downtime hath all too short a date.

Sometimes too excited the yellow sticky shines

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd

And sometimes when credit-cards decline

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

Thy momentary downtime does not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair new product;

Nor shall Apple introduce what wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou waitest;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

Fair 3M's scrap of parchment shall cheer thee.

Thanks, verily, to all ye who have sent tidings of this news.

Tags: Beholdeth, Downtime, Forsooth, omg, Shakespeare, Sir Jobs, SirJobs, Sticky, store, tweet-this, Yellow

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