As you may know, you can use Siri to send emails (by saying something like “send an email to John Appleseed, subject 'tomorrow'”). But did you know that you can use her to reply to existing messages, too? Hot diggity-dog, my friends. You can handle this in a few different ways. To try out the…
iOS
Upcoming iOS 6.1 Jailbreak to Support Nearly All Devices
With the public release of iOS 6.1 now available, many iDevice users will start to look forward to an eventual jailbreak. According to a member of jailbreak team evad3rs, users won’t have long to wait and nearly every iDevice made in the last three years will be supported. MuscleNerd, a member and spokesperson for…
Discover Art Museums with Art Alert for iOS
There are apps that help you find restaurants or movies to your liking and even apps that help you find apps. But a really worthy use of an iDevice is Art Alert, an app that helps you find art museums anywhere you may be traveling. Art Alert is from the same company, Open Door Networks,…
Calendar: Using Event Titles to Enter Times
Some time ago, we discussed using the “Create Quick Event” feature. Depending on your workflow, though, it may be faster for you to use a bit of the same technology to enter events by double-clicking on a day instead. This can be especially handy if you use Month View most of the time. Here's how…
iPhone 5 Uses Most Data Overall in European Mobile Device Study
The iPhone 5 is having a significant effect on mobile networks in Europe, as users of the latest Apple smartphone use the most data overall and are consuming 50 percent more data than those using its predecessor, the iPhone 4S, according to a new report from mobile research firm Arieso Monday. Heavy data use by…
3 iOS Apps to Help You Change
Happy 2013!! I hope your holidays were spent in ways and with people you care about most. This is going to be a banner year for me, lots of changes are afoot and I am looking forward to all of them. There are those who are resistant to change however. They rail against it as…
Manage Your Bills Smartly With Chronicle 5
Keeping track of and paying bills can be a chore. Chronicle 5, for OS X, can turn a chore into fun and help you get well organized. With a time-ordered list, visible calendar as well as payment reminders, it's a great tool to get your bills under control in 2013. For me, paying bills has…
How to Configure Language Support on Your iOS Device
If you are interested in configuring and using your iOS device to write, dictate, and yes, even converse with Siri in different languages, then this article is for you. Perhaps you are learning a new language and want to “practice” with your device. Or maybe, like me, you are an expatriate who needs to occasionally…
How to Manage the Radios in Your iOS Device
Isn't it remarkable? I have more radios in my iPhone and iPad than I did in my “Ham Shack” back in the day when I was very active in the Amateur Radio service. When Steve Jobs announced the original iPhone in 2007, he declared that it would be a Communicator, among other things. Now, almost…
Twitterrific 5 for iOS: Just Delete the Other Clients
Some users keep multiple Twitter clients on their iPad or iPhone because there is no clear winner. Every other one has some major irritant or missing feature, and one can't decide. Well, I've decided. All the rest have been deleted from my iPad and iPhone. I have tested just about every Twitter client on iOS…
How to Troubleshoot Your iOS Device
Our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches are unquestionably magical devices and brought to us by The Future. Nevertheless, our wonderful iOS devices will inevitably encounter the occasional slow-downs, hangs and crashes. Even on the Starship Enterprise we see the crew's iPads misbehave on occasion. Even Jean-Luc will fix 95% of his iPad's issues by engaging…
2 Free Multiplayer Games for iOS
I got several emails the other day from some guys I hadn't heard from in a very long time. Tom, Mike, Jeff and I played a game you may have heard me mention before, Avara. Briefly, Avara was a real-time, fast paced multiplayer 'Mech' fighting game. You piloted a H.E.C.T.O.R. (Kind of a Star Wars…
iTunes 11: Using the "Up Next" Feature
Up Next is a new way in iTunes 11 to choose what songs to play and in what order, sort of like the old iTunes DJ feature. Here's the simple version of how it works: Play something from your iTunes Library, and Up Next will add subsequent tracks to its list to play afterward, which…
Great Free Decorating Apps for iOS
It's the last month of the year and two things typically happen; we cook a lot and we clean up our cave. We cook and clean because we tend to have folks over. It's how we reconnect with friends and relatives that we may not have seen in a while, and it's a chance to…
iOS: Dismissing Banner Notifications
I've loved the banner-style notifications ever since they were introduced in iOS 5. An alert that pops down from the top of your screen and then vanishes, leaving you doing what you were before? Awesome. Sometimes, though, you can't reach a screen element that appears behind the notification until it goes away, and that's less…
iOS 6's Swoosh Sound Sending Email Signifies: Nothing
Based on evidence accumulated so far, it appears that the swoosh sound heard in iOS 6 when sending an email doesn’t really confirm that the message has been sent. Only that you pressed the Send button. This appears to be a change from previous iOS versions. I spend a fair amount of time emailing product…
How NOT to Use iPhoto to Import from Cameras & iOS Devices
Image Capture. It's an application that lives on your Mac. It's been there forever. Apple doesn't promote it. Most typical Mac users I know, support, and teach have never heard of it. Yet, it's incredibly useful. Image Capture is a simple but powerful application that lets you transfer images, video clips and MP3 sounds to…
iOS 6: Using Maps' Quick Route Feature
Though mine may be an unpopular opinion, I actually prefer Apple's Maps application to the old Google Maps one. Granted, I haven't had any issues with the app not knowing where I wanted to go, so it's likely I'd be a teensy bit upset if that were true. Anyway, what Apple calls Quick Route is…
Without Forstall, How Will Apple Change iOS?
“Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve..” — Tom Landry “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” — Tony Blair Scott Forstall has been the driving force behind the look and feel of…
Just in time for Halloween, Harry and the Haunted House is definitely high on my all time top ten list of favorites. It was released for iOS on October third, but it's really 18 years old. And therein lies a tale. But first, let's take a look at this excellent app.
This is one of the best designed interactive children's books I've ever seen, and time was taken to get every small detail absolutely right. The title page starts simply where Harry, the protagonist in a fantasy world of talking animals, explains the two ways the book can be used. Either it can run on auto-pilot, which incorporates many of the interchanges between the four main characters and lots of sound and animation, or you can play with it yourself, having some of the dialogue read to you while you're off exploring.
Setup Screen
Many Customizable Settings
I like this setup because it puts the child in control or seemingly so. Under the hood, accessible by the button marked options, are a wide number of controls parents can set. These options are also to be found under the iOS settings on the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
Some things that can be set:
- Skip title page
- Bookmark setting, to get back to the page you ended the app, is on by default but can be turned off
- Patience Mode: which allows or disallows the child to interrupt dialogue or animations before they are over. For small kids this is very useful and thoughtful
- Page Swipe
- Highlight Hotspots: For very small pre-readers everything that kicks off an animation or interchange is surrounded by a red box. This is perfect for preschoolers, and I've not seen this done before.
A World of Discovery
All the words are not printed because that would take some of the fun out of discovery. There are all sorts of embedded interchanges kicked off by the child's fingers. Wanderful Inc. doesn't give away the store. There's constant excitement in not knowing what you'll find next, and the payoffs come quickly and are always fun.
At Least 20 Animated Objects
The characters of Amy, Earl, Harry, Stinky, Harry's dog, and even a bunch of singing and dancing bugs have real personalities. Mark Schlichting's writing is witty and charming with well developed characters.
Interactions Emerge From the Narrative, Not the Other Way Around
A major difference between Harry and everything else out there is that in other books tapping on something creates one action and often the action either contradicts the story or adds nothing to the narrative being employed. I surmise this is because either the designer saw it in someone else's book —like spring loaded everything— or appear for the sole reason of the designer being able to code it. Harry eschews this sort of brain dead clap-trap. Not only are cute, short animations embedded, but at least half the plot is meant to be discovered. This app is cognitive dissonance free. I only wish I could say that about the 99 percent of the available product currently on the market that can tend to confuse kids.
The Pictures Are Animated
Everything that happens adds and enhances the whimsical world where animals play baseball and the haunted house tells jokes and is a master of physical comedy. A nice addition is added dialogue and animations that happen when the reader turns a page.
Every word is recorded twice, once for narration and once for pronunciation. After it's read, tap on a word for it's individual pronunciation out of the context of the story or tap on the baseball to the left of the text block to have it read within the story.
The House is a Main Character
There is so much singing and dancing hidden away that I'm surprised that they could get the file size down to 103 MB. I can usually get through an interactive children's book in twenty minutes or less. This one took me well over an hour, and the new things I found were original. I especially loved the ending which is wonderfully satisfying and somewhat ironic.
Get To Any page At Will
Complete Curriculum and Activities Available
The app works in English and Spanish. An in-app purchase of $1.99 adds French. But for $2.99, if this is used in school, or for home schoolers, you get a premium upgrade that's worth much more than the cost: well researched and valid curriculum.
Just in time for Halloween, Harry and the Haunted House is definitely high on my all time top ten list of favorites. It was released for iOS on October third, but it's really 18 years old. And therein lies a tale. But first, let's take a look at this excellent app. This is one of…
Just in time for Halloween, Harry and the Haunted House is definitely high on my all time top ten list of favorites. It was released for iOS on October third, but it's really 18 years old. And therein lies a tale. But first, let's take a look at this excellent app. This is one of…
Dumpster Diving in iPhoto
More often than I'd like to see, I have students and clients, overtaken by uncontrollable fear and dread, contact me about photos that once lived in iPhoto having disappeared. Or, another common issue, they were editing a photo and then come to find that they accidentally cropped out Aunt Matilda, and that was their only…
Atlas by Collins (iOS) is Beautiful but Flawed
Atlas by Collins, released October 18, is a world atlas for iOS. It has satellite, physical and political maps as well as plentiful information on population, communications and energy. You can zoom into any part of the globe to obtain detailed information about a region. Unfortunately, there are many technical flaws. ____________________ As with the…
iOS App Sizes Increase as Device Capacities Remain the Same
The average iOS app increased in size by 16 percent, to 23 megabytes, between March and September of 2012, according to a report released Tuesday by technology research firm ABI Research. The release of the third generation iPad with its Retina display, which allows for far more detailed graphical elements in applications, and Apple’s decision…
iOS 6: Per-Account Email Signatures
With iOS 6, we can now add custom signatures for each email account we own, as opposed to being forced to use just one. This is awesome for me and probably for anyone who uses many accounts for different purposes, and it's really easy to set up. I always say that, don't I? Well, in…