When I wrote about the RunPee app in my The Right Time to Pee...at the Movies post, it was for it's practical purpose of letting you know when to take care of your biological needs while not missing an important part of the movie you paid so much to watch. If you don't order a large drink like I do and don't need the app for the primary purpose it's intended, there is another reason to have it.
Naturespace, an app I've written about a couple of times already and one of my favorites, has undergone a major update. If you've never heard of Naturespace before, it's an app that plays ambient nature sounds that are of a quality that is unrivaled in any other similar app out there. It's a free download so if you don't have it, download it and try the five free tracks that come with it. Try them with headphones to appreciate the quality. The huge catalog of tracks beyond the free ones range from $0.99 to $2.99, most being $1.99.
It's December and you know what that means...the beginning of Bowl Game Season. OK, that pales in comparison to Christmas, but it still makes for a lot of football enjoyment. With games starting on December 17, how can you prepare and what can augment your bowl-watching experience? ESPN produced an app for your iPhone for that, and it's free.
Did you know you could buy iPhone and iPad apps from iTunes and give them as Christmas presents? By default, iTunes (on your Mac or PC) will email a redemption email with a gift. While this is great for someone far away, that you won't see at Christmas, there is a better option that is a little more personal. You can print the gift and iTunes will create a decent-looking page with who the gift is to and from, what the app is, and instructions on redeeming it.
If you play fantasy football with me, please stop and don't read the rest, because I'm giving away one of my secrets. When you realize, like I did today, that Thursday night football for the season is already starting on the NFL Network, you know it's a narrower window during the week that you have to set your lineup. This means that it's critical to be able to do that anywhere. That's one of the reasons I wrote Fantasy Football: What You Can Do on Your iPhone and Why.
Most of us don't have an iPhone 4S but may look semi-covetously on those who are able to talk to Siri and get a response to almost any question. We know we can talk to our phones with the iPhone voice control feature, telling it to call a phone number or play a playlist. But those people with the new iPhones can search the web, find a restaurant, and even send an email. You can't do those things with the voice control feature.
One of the great things about football season, besides the imminent cooler weather and the excitement of watching football, is getting to play fantasy football with friends. In the old days, that was too much work for me to enjoy, but now with a multitude of web sites handling the scoring, your team management, etc., it's a lot of fun and a whole lot less work. However, when web sites began to keep track of your team and your scores, participating in fantasy football still involved getting in front of a computer to set your line-up, add or drop players, and check your scores. At least that was the case until until the smart phone.
Update for 2012:
I debated whether to or not to write about this before my fantasy football league draft. I knew that it might help my competition. However, most of you are not in a fantasy league with me but may play fantasy football nonetheless.
In RSS Readers: Your Reading in One Spot on Your iOS Device, I wrote about RSS readers, of which there are many in the app store. At the time, I told you that I prefer to use Google Reader in Safari rather than a dedicated app. All my feeds are in Google Reader which I can read on my Mac, on other computers, etc. so I prefer having one place where I set up all of my feeds. Plus, Google Reader in Safari on the iPhone works pretty well.
When I'm thinking about what next to tell you that you can do with your iOS device, the answer often comes unexpectedly as I use mine to do something I haven't told you about yet. Tonight was one of those times. As I wondered which of the many next things I could write about, my wife said something that reminded me I needed to refill a prescription. So of course, I went to my iPhone.
With Tropical Storm Emily bearing down on the Dominican Republic, where I have friends living, I've been paying more attention to the weather in the Caribbean. If you live on the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or the even the Pacific Ocean, this is a time of the year you want to pay attention to tropical storms, hurricanes, and typhoons.
It's only been about three weeks since the new social networking application, Google+ launched. So why another one and what does this have to do with what you can do with your iPhone or iPad?
As I write this, it's about 12 hours from the last launch of the Space Shuttle program with the final mission of the Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-135). If everything goes as planned, the Atlantis will launch at 11:26 EDT on July 8, 2011. But what if you are away from the television and the computer for this historic event? What if you're sitting in an airport, relaxing on the beach, or drinking coffee at Starbucks?
Sometimes you need another person's phone number, email address, or home address. This happens to me a lot because I keep all contact information in my iPhone (which I have synced to Gmail's contacts). I often need someone's phone number or email address to get in touch with that person later. More recently, I sometimes have to go to someone's house that I've never been to and don't have an address for. I don't want to type all that information into my contacts on the little keyboard (or into my GPS for that matter). Fortunately, there is a better way...and it's built into the iOS Contacts app that is on every iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
One good thing about having an iPhone in your pocket or an iPad by your side is that it's available whenever you have time for a quick read. One of the things I like to read are blogs, blogs of all kinds: friends' personal blogs, news blogs, technology blogs, blogs by pastors I respect, political blogs, and even other blogs about iOS devices.
Fax machines are so last millennium...but strangely, even in 2011, I find myself having to send one on rare occasion. Given the infrequency of sending faxes and the fact that I don't have a land-line, owning a fax machine isn't really practical. However, there are just some times that you need to send a fax. (It seems like it's always to banks, mortgage companies, or doctor's offices, but I digress.)
As I mentioned in The Best Camera is the One You Have with You, the iPhone 4 takes some pretty good pictures, but even if you have an earlier iPhone, you can still turn pictures into a work of art by the use of filters. Apps with filters are an easy way to add a lot of interest to a photo you've taken, giving it any number of looks such as aged, cross-processed, black and white, sepia, vivid color, etc.
I've use PayPal for a number of years, mostly for buying online and giving to my church. However, I never really use it to transfer money to someone else or to receive money from someone else. Recently, though I did do that, though in a little different way, and with my iPhone.
I recently helped some friends have an estate sale where they sold almost everything they owned in preparation to move to another country as missionaries. Since it was important to get people out to the estate sale, I needed to post an ad for it to Craigslist. At the time I needed to post it, doing that from a computer wasn't really an option. Since Craigslist doesn't have a mobile-friendly web site I immediately went to the app store to see what my options were.
When your flying, once the door is up and electronics are turned off, unless you pay for onboard wifi, you can say goodbye to all communication for the duration of the flight. This includes communicating to whoever is going to pick you up at the airport or is waiting for you at home. Fortunately, there is an app that helps with that.
In my original post about ambient sound, I mentioned an app called Naturespace for the iPhone and iPad. Since then I've begun using it even more than when I wrote the post, especially for going to sleep at night. I also use it to help focus whenever I've got a lot of work that requires that I sit in front of my PC for a long period of time. This increased use for a variety of situations has taught me a lot that I thought I'd share as tips.
The Green Hornet, Flash Gorden, The Lone Ranger, Abbott and Costello, The Adventures of Superman, Sherlock Holmes. These are some of the old radio shows that families would gather around the living room to listen to before television. While you're not likely to do this at home anymore since you own a television, the lack of video makes old time radio programs a good choice when doing things that require the attention of your eyes elsewhere (driving or exercising, for example).
One of the not-so-obvious features of the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 is Voice Control. One of the reasons it's easy to forget about, if you know it's there at all, is that there is no app icon for it and there is very little in the way of settings for it. Voice Control is extremely useful in the car, when you don't want to take your eyes off the road to place a call or play some music.