Peephole

by IFWORLD Inc.

Category: Social Networking (Twitter)

Price: $1.99

Excerpts from the diary of Visitor Specimen #14,

aka "Nebuchadnezzar Babu Squidge-Izzt the Third"

May 1st, 2009

I have now been on Earth for exactly [redacted] months and [redacted] days. My human military captors are largely benevolent, but most are clearly under orders not to interact too closely with me. I am content to continue my visit under these circumstances for the time being, as there is much that can be learnt about their medical technology and defenses. Also, I have just been given an entertainment program called 'Frasier' for my amusement. Only the first "season" for now, as the other "DVDs" have been misplaced. I could watch them just by staring at the discs, but do not wish to refuse the generosity of my hosts, who have prepared a large plasma television for my convenience.

I am considering sharing my knowledge of the historic Outer World Wars and the dangers of plasma screen technology before I leave. This will depend on how good the food is next week.

May 14th, 2009

Holy [redacted], 'Frasier' is seriously the best thing in the universe!! The humans have had to install new soundproofing in my residence to prevent my bemused chortles from physically destabilizing the military complex. But why does the skinny one, Niles, not profess his affections for the female Daphne with more force and confidence? It is infuriating to watch his bungled advances time and time again! But he may make a good match for her, given her occasional shrew-like behavior. Furthermore, it seems somewhat improbable that they are brothers. Perhaps the humans also combine unwanted offspring to form new families.

It does not appear that I am missing very much by staying with the military people. The rest of their world seems to be populated only by apartments, psychiatric offices, coffee shops, and radio stations.

August 1st, 2009

A startling discovery today. I shall start from the beginning. Of late, the humans have installed a female physician who visits me regularly – probably as an experimental response to my recent depression over the ending of 'Frasier'. Our scientists did not stop innovating after the discovery of interstellar travel; why did the producers of 'Frasier' cease their creative employment?

Anyhow, the human female has been more friendly with me than the others. She says it is because I resemble a famous attractive human. She showed him to me, on the cover of a "romance novel". Yes, the flowing blonde hair and well-defined pectorals were like my own, but all the people of planet [redacted] look like me. I did not share her excitement.

She did, however, share with me an exciting human invention: the 'Peephole' application for "iPhones". It connects to a network called 'Twitter' and pulls down photos being posted by humans around the world, in their apartments, psychiatric offices, coffee shops, and radio stations. All in real-time! She promised to let me fiddle with it more tomorrow, after I agreed to give her a ride on my broad, muscular shoulders.

August 2nd, 2009

'Peephole' is a joy to use. It loads images swiftly from the "Public Timeline", according to "Trends", from "Friends" (should you have some), "Searches", and even from "Nearby" your physical location! Once you tap to view a photo in its full size from "Twitpic", the accompanying tweet is conveniently displayed with text in a transparent overlay. One may even filter out duplicates, retweets, and replies to achieve more useful results.

The graphical interface is no more complex than it needs to be, which follows principles set out by my people when they first began to use portable communication devices. I need not remind my reader of the gruesome consequences of warp drive texting.

One of the things I have learnt from 'Peephole' is that there is a lot more going on out there than I had imagined. Humans enjoy taking photos of themselves in fast-food restaurants, public shopping malls, in front of bathroom mirrors, and also with furry members of their Planetary Governing Council. It has literally provided me with a window on human society: their hopes, their dreams, also fears and private lives, are now as visible to me as the undercurrent of sexual longing that Frasier still feels for his ex-wife, Lilith, although she is a monster.

I must investigate further.

August 5th, 2009

I have befriended a human female on 'Twitter' who has promised to show me videos too controversial to be freely transmitted. I admit, I am intrigued by her professionally-photographed avatar and attractive features. Her username is also composed of random numbers – clearly an encryption scheme to thwart pursuers. She must be a very important figure in a human insurgency, and it behooves my research mission to meet with her and view these videos "the authorities won't want you to see!"

I escape tonight.

----
Positives: See the world from your bedroom, prison cell, hospital ward, office, or secret military installation. In-app browser for following links is a useful touch. Allows saving/emailing/retweeting of photos, and even following of users without leaving the client.
Unpositives: Landscape photos do not display at correct zoom level in portrait view.
Final rating: 5 / 5

Buy Peephole in the iTunes App Store.
----

WhatsApp Messenger (vs Ping!)

by WhatsApp Inc. (v2.1 reviewed)

Category: Social Networking
Price: $0.99

The story so far:
There are two schools of thought in app development. One believes that being first is more important. The other believes in being the best. The 'First' camp aims to capture a large user base in a short time, locking them in so that when the 'Best' app eventually appears, most users won't switch. This is similar to that Stephen King novel, "Misery", but without the car crash or creepy fat woman, just iPhone users lying in bed all day, unable to move. A familiar picture, you'll agree.

Once out the door and an established brand name, the First app is free to improve itself. From there, it's a downhill battle. Nowhere is this strategy more effective than in social networking, where the technologically-impaired burden their brighter and arguably more attractive geeky friends and keep them tied to inferior services *cough*twitter*. Unfortunately for the First camp, the App Store is a cruel frontierland where logic gets shot to pieces while sleeping in bed, with his wife and several heads of cattle taken at the pleasure of fart-happy bandits.

Consider the tale of WhatsApp Messenger, an iPhone-to-iPhone hybrid SMS/chat app not unlike RIM's Blackberry Messenger. It arrived before its recently-popular challenger, Ping!, but failed to get traction. Ping arrived later, but did the smart thing: it was free for a few precious days. Like chlamydia, it spread within groups of close friends almost instantly. So when it started charging 99c, it was an easy buy for anyone who already knew a few people using it.

And yet today, barely a week since we recommended Ping! to an adoring readership of my mother and the girl I kidnapped from a playground 18 years ago, WhatsApp Messenger is king and everyone's using it. Not Ping.

How this happened:
In layman's terms, WhatsApp fought fire with Satanic worship. They turned out a 2.0 version that was clearly the Best app, and made it free for a few days – straight out of the Ping playbook. The cost of switching for most people who'd gotten Ping for free was zero. Say what you will about the stupidity of the general population and their propensity for doing shots of single malt whisky and driving SUVs in the city, but they know a good deal (and better chat app) when they see one.

Here's what WhatsApp Messenger does better than Ping:

• Contacts are added automatically; if their numbers are in your address book, they're on your list.
• There's a goddamned contact list. Ping is like trying to dial in the dark with your nose.
• Status messages. (I'm home, sick!)
• If you're offline when a message is sent, you get it when you're back. There's nothing like getting a booty call the next afternoon when your girlfriend's playing Cooking Dash.
• Messages don't get cut off for being too long. What's too long? Ask Gary Fung.
• It's made by a registered company, not some dude named Gary Fung.

Here what Ping does better than WhatsApp Messenger:

• Anonymous sexy chat without giving out your phone number.
• Pervert.

-----
Positives: Highly polished, does more than messaging, finds your friends.
Unpositives: Still a proprietary messaging network, so our earlier criticisms apply.
Final Rating: 4 / 5

Buy WhatsApp Messenger in the iTunes App Store.
-----

Halloween iPhone Wallpaper

[Download full size]

Halloween's just a week away, undead boys and girls, so get ready for some juicy intesti... CANDY!

Ping!

by Gary Fung

Category: Social Networking
Price: $0.99 / Free

Why you should:
Chances are, you bought yourself a mobile phone to be contactable at all times. Or if you're an elderly person or child, someone got one for you in case of emergencies. Elderly people and children can leave now; you're not paying your own bills. You can text ur bffs all through class or physiotherapy, vote for American Idol, Canadian Idol, Australian Idol, and any other international contest you happen to see while on YouTube – it doesn't matter, someone else has got your back.

But real people with real money trouble know how much texting costs. On some networks, you even have to pay to receive a text. Yet, if you're on a reasonably generous data plan, you could send hundreds of thousands of emails and hardly break five bucks. Plus, SMSes cost your carrier virtually nothing to deliver! These days, sending a text is the telephonic equivalent of drinking bottled spring water, using gourmet sea salt at the table, and having your orange juice squeezed by the thighs of Swiss virgins.

Ping! tries to offer an alternative to texting. Your friends must also have the app, but a free version (with advanced functionality removed) is now finally available. Once installed, you can trade messages all day for absolutely nothing. The app uses Apple's Push Notifications technology to pop an alert up on your screen no matter what you're doing. Ping! doesn't need to be left running at all. Sounds sweet, but...

Why you shouldn't:
Ping! requires your friends to 1) own iPhones, and 2) trust and love you enough to install an app that no one else they know uses. We can handle #1, but er... let's not push our luck with #2.

Push email. Google Talk. MSN Messenger. Yahoo Messenger. AIM. ICQ. Jabber. Facebook Chat. There's no shortage of messaging networks, and they all communicate with your friends' PCs, Macs, and enabled mobile phones. Why can't everyone just use push email?

Buying into a random proprietary app like Ping! by a random independent developer whose company name in iTunes is Gary Fung is kind of like getting a pacemaker made by your uncle Benedict who's a pretty smart guy, except he also likes to make his own special batteries that need to be replaced every now and then, but oh wait uncle Benedict died last spring and what's that beeping sound in your chest? Oh shit indeed.

---

Positives: Free version available, but even at 99c, much cheaper than texting in the long run (if you have friends using it)
Unpositives: Made by some guy who might turn his servers off one day without warning, rendering it useless. Somewhat buggy, truncates messages past an unknown character count (!). Less secure and reliable than push email.
Rating: 3 / 5

Buy Ping! in the iTunes App Store.
Get Ping! Lite for free in the iTunes App Store.

Positive Machine iPhone wallpaper

Show your iPhone how much you care by using this image of an antiquated robot app reviewer as wallpaper!

Let the rusty, cantankerous presence of the ironically-named Optimist Prime remind you to visit this website on a daily basis!

Women will coo over your shoulder with every check of the clock! He's irresistible!


---------- WALLPAPERS BELOW THIS LINE ----------

Here's how it'll look on your lock screen:


And here are the full-sized files, in both original St. Peter's White and Graveyard Black. If you're viewing this in Safari on your device, just tap and hold down on the image. A pop-up will ask you what you'd like to do with it; select "Save Image". It will then appear in your Camera Roll photos, where you can set it as your wallpaper.


*The words look a lot sharper here than they actually do on an iPhone screen.

---

Halloween edition wallpaper:


[Download full size]

Zoom Lens

by BitWink



Category: Photography
Price: $0.99

Now your iPhone is once... twice... 8x a lady

Digital zoom apps on the iPhone are a funny thing. The fact that anyone wants them at all points to some deep-rooted flaw in the human gene pool. When I see the number of people clamoring for an app that will allow them to emulate a zoom lens, on a 2-3mp cameraphone, I pray for a meteor to strike us all down. Yes, I said us because this app sits on my very first Home screen.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. "Pray tell, what is the fundamental argument against digital zoom?", goes the crying of the uneducated savages beneath my window. Well, it's like this. All digital zooming does is take the same photo you would normally have taken, and cut out the part in the middle that you have selected. So that leaves something smaller and inferior to a real, optically-zoomed picture. Some iPhone apps just leave you with that, while others blow the crop back up to the photo's original size, albeit with blurry results.

Often in life, we must perform necessary evils. If given no choice but to perform emergency brain surgery in a filthy basement with nothing but a power drill, wouldns't thou choose a quality Black & Decker instrument over nameless Chinese knockoffs made from recycled toilet roll, tupperware and dentures? Or if telephoned in the middle of the night by a Catholic priest who begged your assistance in killing a man he was convinced to be the physical incarnation of Satan, lest the world be swallowed up by madness and murder, would you not prefer to do the deed with a Taylor Made or Callaway golf club, rather than your uncle's worn-out putter? I rest my case.

I submit to you that Zoom Lens is no miracle. It does not achieve anything you could not do yourself with some experience in Photoshop. So why, then, does your humble robot reviewer* swear by it? Because this well-turned app takes the extra step of sharpening and cleaning up the artificially-inflated results. It carries its plates to the kitchen after dinner while the other loutish guests are lazing about in the living room, guzzling your expensive wine while making shameless small talk with one another before traipsing off to your bedroom! And you just changed those sheets!

Zoom Lens is simple and elegant. You pinch with two fingers to zoom smoothly in and out. Yes, you could crop and resize a photo later back home with an Image Editing for Dummies book beside you, but in the real world, being able to play with a zoomed composition and seeing if it works – right there and then – is often the difference between taking that shot and having something, and coming home from the playground empty-handed.

Positives: Thoughtful UI design, image quality can't get much better for digital zoom, supports tap-to-focus/exposure on iPhone 3GS.
Unpositives: Lacks accelerometer-based image stabilization, which would be great for low-light and 8x shots.
Rating: 4.5 / 5

Buy Zoom Lens in the iTunes App Store.

* This is a lie. I am incapable of humility.

The PUMA Index

by PUMA AG

Category: Finance
Price: Free

Playing for thigh stakes

Hi there, Warren Buffett here. You may know my name from conversations at the bar when some of your more worldly and forward-thinking friends in the financial industry, in an effort to impress the girls, mentioned how I was a source of inspiration to them. Never mind that you and your cretin friends are so far removed from someone of my accomplishments that the very idea is as absurd as a bronzed statue of Apollo in the Louvre being worshipped by a dirty copper penny.

It's true, a man like me can have any woman he wants. Female companionship comes so easily to me, I only have to flash my mugger's wallet and the ladies are all over me. The truth is, I've been bored for ages. I tried looking for a woman who loved me for who I really was, but the ones that turned up weren't really hot enough. Until I met the Puma Index app for iPhone, I thought I'd never feel the thrill of the chase again.

Now there was a woman who wouldn't take her clothes off for just anyone! When the market's up, she puts on more clothing. When the Dow drops a few points, she takes something off. Here at last is a strong, intelligent, and independent woman who won't act like a slut for just a few hundred-dollar bills stuffed in her thong! Unlike all the others, she won't degrade herself just for a pink private jet and a couple of mansions. No, this one will take billions to conquer. It's a challenge I can't resist. All these years of building my empire are finally going to pay off. Tomorrow at noon, private bankers around the world are going to get calls from my people, and I will finally get to see those luscious Puma Bodywear intimates.

----

Positives: Hot male/female models, video
Unpositives: German & Asian markets from website not included
Rating: 3 / 5

Download The PUMA Index for free in the iTunes App Store.

VR+ Voice

by Shape Services

 

Category: Social Networking / Productivity
Price: $1.99 / Free

Great artists steal (and sometimes reference)

Cop: Sir, are you alright?

Man: What? Where am I? Whose clothes are these?

Cop: Jesus... what are all those tattoos on your body?!

Man: I don't remember getting these. I don't remember anything!

Cop: Hang on, this one here says you have "ante.... antero...."

Man: Anterograde amnesia?

Cop: That's right! How did you know?

Man: I think I used to be an insurance fraud investigator. There was a man who suffered from it and killed his wife with insulin injections. She wanted to test if his memory was really disappearing every five minutes. That's what anterograde amnesia is... you're unable to form any new memories.

Cop: Wow. That's a really interesting affliction, you could make a movie out of it!

Man: Yes I suppose you could. Hang on, this tattoo across my groin says my wife was murdered in a burglary gone wrong, and I'm on a quest to find her killer and get revenge! Argghh! I wish I had some sort of iPhone application that would allow me to take high-quality voice notes instead of getting all these tattoos!

Cop: Back up there a second. So you say your wife was murdered and your failing memory prevents you from making progress with finding her killer? This is really good stuff! Perhaps it will turn out that you are merely deluding yourself with manufactured memories!

Man: Uh huh. Ideally this iPhone application would best the built-in Voice Memo feature by only recording when it detected sound. Perhaps I should make one... I would name it "Memento".

Cop: Memento! That's a perfect name for my script! Thanks buddy, you've just given me my ticket out of this dead-end job. Thank goodness I have VR+ Voice right here on my iPhone, recording this entire conversation. With the touch of a single button, I can email it to my agent, or share it on Twitter, Facebook, and even MySpace!

Man: Why the hell would you want a MySpa..... ugh... er.... Where am I? Whose clothes are these?

Cop: So long, sucker!

----

Positives: Powerful sharing features, records to MP3 at bitrate of your choosing, high fidelity
Unpositives: Decidedly un-Applesque interface
Rating: 5 / 5

Buy VR+ Voice in the iTunes App Store.
Download VR+ Voice Lite for free in the iTunes App Store.