The annual Appy Awards are dedicated to acknowledging creativity and excellence in app design. READ MORE>>
The Appy Awards are all about acknowledging creativity and excellence in app design.
The Appys were created to acknowledge extraordinary Applications, whether they be mobile, social, or Web-based Apps living inside another Web site. The Appys do not discriminate by format, platform or device; instead, they focus on honoring the best Apps in a diverse range of categories, from Games and News, to Health & Fitness, Social Networking, Photography and many others.
The official Appy Awards judging will take place in early 2013, and the Winners will be announced at the Appy Awards Reception on March 5th 2013 at 5:30 PM, at the conclusion of MediaPost's biannual OMMA Global Conference & Expo in San Francisco, CA.
Once you submit your entry, your app is automatically and instantly eligible to be featured as our “App of the Week”. As a “Featured App”, you can expect a special placement on our website, an “Appy Awards Featured App” badge for your website and promotional and marketing efforts, and a featured review article written by our team and published in the weekly “Appy Awards News” newsletter (subscribe to it below). <<CLOSE
The Appys were created to acknowledge extraordinary Applications, whether they be mobile, social, or Web-based Apps living inside another Web site. The Appys do not discriminate by format, platform or device; instead, they focus on honoring the best Apps in a diverse range of categories, from Games and News, to Health & Fitness, Social Networking, Photography and many others.
The official Appy Awards judging will take place in early 2013, and the Winners will be announced at the Appy Awards Reception on March 5th 2013 at 5:30 PM, at the conclusion of MediaPost's biannual OMMA Global Conference & Expo in San Francisco, CA.
Once you submit your entry, your app is automatically and instantly eligible to be featured as our “App of the Week”. As a “Featured App”, you can expect a special placement on our website, an “Appy Awards Featured App” badge for your website and promotional and marketing efforts, and a featured review article written by our team and published in the weekly “Appy Awards News” newsletter (subscribe to it below). <<CLOSE
The first thing you notice about The Daily, is it’s not simply a re-purposing of print content. It seems to defy conventional categorization. News Corp has wisely eschewed the convention of pretend page turning or flipboard-like page flipping for simply sliding between pages. Is it a newspaper? A magazine? It’s as immediate as a newspaper, actually as immediate as the Web, often updating and adding stories throughout the day. It’s as slickly designed as a magazine. Copy is well-written and beautifully presented and illustrated. Videos are placed like photos, waiting to expand and play. Pages often expand downward with additional content, polls and interactive charts invite you to touch and animate them, and sudoku and crossword puzzles invite you to sign into the Game Center to share the interactive game with friends.
Sharing content doesn’t end with game scores. Touch the share icon and a transparent screen slides up, post your comment to The Daily, Facebook, Twitter or email, or record a voice comment. When I posted to Facebook, the Facebook comment interface carried the icons from Facebook mobile, with red badges indicating two messages and four alerts. Very helpful.
When it comes to app games, I’m all about Words With Friends and DoodleJump. I consider those gems my “one-two-punch” to boredom’s annoying face. Well, more bad news for boredom! Poker Pals just boarded my Addiction Train, so now I’m enjoying a triple-punch combo!
I downloaded the free version of Poker Pals this morning, which contains unobtrusive ads. When you begin, a tutorial holds your hand throughout your first three turns, making it very simple to learn the basics of gameplay. Naturally, you have to understand the hierarchy of poker hands, but other than that, the app does an excellent job of explaining its crossword puzzle-like hook. At the start, three random cards appear on the grid-like playing surface (similar to Words With Friends). Each turn, you play cards in a single direction – either horizontally or vertically – and score points based on the strength of your hand. Things get cool when you try to make multiple poker hands in other directions, crossword-style. (In a neat touch, jokers at the corners of the board automatically turn into whatever card will score you the most points.)
There’s plenty of free content to enjoy on The Atlantic’s free iPhone/iPad app, and that’s good enough for me. With anything “free,” I set my expectations to a certain level. That way, I’m rarely disappointed and usually pleasantly surprised.
In comparing notes with most of the Atlantic reviewers on Apple, yes, I am indeed easy to please – my standards don’t seem to be as high as the average critic. The most common complaint is the app’s current inability upon closing to return on relaunch to where you left off, which for me – with what I consider a browsing app – is a non-issue. I understand the frustration, but I’d rather have more free content with a hard close, than less with a placeholder.
If you’ve been to the Apple Store, you’ve probably seen them, those cool iPad-based interactive displays that recently replaced all paper placards next to products on display. This concept isn’t new, and the “kiosk” or “demo” mode for computers has been around for a while. Now, with the new Kiosk Pro app for iPad, anyone can set up a full-featured professional kiosk to present their products and web sites full screen, with no navigation or status bars. The $2.99 Kiosk Pro app, which has a free Lite version and the advanced $29 Kiosk Pro Plus, was developed by the same folks that have spent decades custom making kiosk applications for the likes of Amtrak, Boeing, CocaCola and IBM. The interactive displays in the Smithsonian were also made by them, and now the very best in kiosk development is distilled into this remarkable and inexpensive app.
Kiosk Pro app comes with more settings than most people might need, but the initial setup is fairly simple. You set a homepage and the Allowed Domains list to limit the sites your visitors can navigate to, or leave it empty for unrestricted web browsing. Turn on the Digital Sign mode to completely disable the iPad’s touch screen and turn it into a non-interactive digital signboard. For kiosks located in high traffic areas (like an expo hall at a big convention) there’s a helpful time-out feature – after a set number of minutes of use, Kiosk Pro automatically navigates to a “Goodbye” page and then cycles back to its preset homepage, giving more visitors a turn at your kiosk. Another awesome feature is the option to display all web pages and media from local files stored on iPad directly – a godsend for any location with spotty or slow WiFi or cell service.
All great historical figures have their equally memorable clones. Katie Holmes has Suri Cruise. Homer Simpson has Bart. Corey Feldman had Corey Haim. Austin Powers has Mini-Me, and now I have my WeeMee.
The WeeMee Avatar Creator lets me clone myself into millions of WeeMees. With over 40 hairstyles, hundreds of clothing and accessory options, 26 pairs of sunglasses for sunny days and 15 themed backgrounds to play in, I can’t decide whether to put on my Snooki look with orange skin and black hair bouffant, or channel Farrah Fawcett with long, wavy hair and a red bikini. I can clone myself anatomically correct, and add color and shade to everything from eyes to underwear. My WeeMee (I call her ‘MiNE’) gets more unique with the ‘closets’ feature that lets her shop for trendy, premium and branded items. Adding seasonal accessories, pets, Apple products and beverages (with and without alcohol) makes this app fun and personal.
Creating avatars in WeeMee is easy – I had a small army of adorable MiNE’s within minutes. Navigation features are identified with playful icons. I can save to the gallery, post to Facebook and Twitter, and add wings and panda slippers before you can say “Dolly.” Available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the app includes a built-in address book so I can create avatars for my friends and use them as the contact’s image. I couldn’t help but dress my (male) boss as a mermaid under the sea, and my best friend looks good in vampire garb creeping in the forest.
As a weekend DJ hobbyist, I was naturally intrigued when the guys over at Musicshake Remix submitted their B.o.B. Feat. Hayley Williams “Airplane” app for our consideration. While my colleagues pondered their next featured apps, I snapped this one up, and went straight to “work.” I have always wanted to produce my own remixes, and with computer tech the way it is these days on the dance floor, why not? The irony is, the ease with which digital mixes are produced has spawned a plethora of remixes – both sanctioned and bootlegged – and tracking down and previewing new mixes consumes most of the free time I have around DJ bookings. Such is life.
Hello, Musicshake. Remixing is simpler than you might think. Dance music (and most pop music as well) is broken down into 32-beat blocks. A typical refrain plays out over 16 beats (four measures) and repeats and resolves over the next 16. A verse is typically two 32-beat chunks strung together. Never was the simplicity of this structure more evident than when playing around with Musicshake apps – they have a number of them, most of them free, though “Airplanes” goes for $2.99. Heck, B.o.B. has to make his Benny’s somewhere, right? Anyway, Musicshake breaks these 32-beat blocks into literal colored blocks. Vocal, guitar, keyboards, drums, bass, these are all their own rows of blocks and inside each block you can select which 32-beat segment you want to play, swapping bits and pieces around however you like, surprisingly enough, never ending up with a really bad mix.
Remember that languid moose strolling through the opening credits of Northern Exposure back in the early 90s? (Classic!) Though filmed in Roslyn, Washington, the show heightened my interest in visiting Alaska, and an episode featuring the aurora borealis peaked my wanderlust. Fast forward to 2011, and my interest in the last frontier is back, baby!
Alaska Air’s iPhone app has everything you need to arrange your transportation. All the standard features you’d expect from a great travel app are present and accounted for: mobile boarding pass options, text & email flight alerts, gate & boarding time info, flight check-in, seat-changing options, etc. But the app also has handy & unique features, including a personal travel concierge who can set parking reminders, remember hotel & car confirmation codes, and remind you of specific day-of-travel resources to help you skip those long lines at the airport. And for peace of mind, all benefits of Alaska Air’s website are easily accessible.
Today? Yes, today is definitely a great day to