Category Archives: Reviews: Software

The other day while I was checking my calendar (Week Calendar) on my iPod touch, I reminded myself that this app would be great if there was an iPad version. I mean, I’ve been using the iPod version for quite awhile and knowing that one did not exist, I fired off an email to the developer asking if and when they had any plans to do so. Thirty minutes later I had my answer. Yes! It was awaiting approval from Apple and it would only be a few days before it was available. I was so excited. Too excited. Two days later it hit the AppStore. after using it for a short while, I decided to write down some thoughts about this program.

The first thing I noticed was the similarity in looks to the native calendar app. Many of the familiar elements were there across the top and across the bottom. From the calendar selector to the view sensitive date selector on the bottom of the page. But there are a few tweaks. I appreciate the thoughtful tweaks and details like the page marker and the nice use of larger fonts that take what Apple gave us and add much needed usability.

Week Calendar HD has four views: Day, Week, Month and Year. Information can be pulled from either the native app or synched with Google calendar. (This is the main reason I use it). You can create several calendars or even subscribe to other calendars such as holidays, sporting events etc. Each calendar display can be color coded so you’ll know exactly what calendar(s) you are looking ator hidden if desired. Each view has a contextual navigation bar across the bottom so yo can navigate to the day, week, month, or year needed. There is also a Today button on the bottom left that, when pressed, will take you back to the current day. It is a very clean and straight forward layout that is easy to use without having to think about where different features are located.

The Day view is divided in to two panels. The one on the left lists all the upcoming events for the month in an agenda format. Tapping on any appointment will display the appointment details. Tapping on any day will bring up that day on the right panel. The right side panel displays the day broken up by hour time slots; working hours shaded differently than non-working hours. There is a red line that marks the current time of day in the calendar.

The Week view gives you a nice quick overview of your week. The day names run across the top with the current day highlighted in blue. As with the day view, there is a red line showing the current time of day. If you have appointments that are not displayed there are small arrow indicators that inform you there are hidden items. The block style for appointments can be customized from a simple flat color block. to a more modern shiny one.

The Month view looks very much like the default iOS app and works pretty much the same. The weekends are shaded while the current day is highlighted in blue. Tapping on an event will bring up the details of the event. Double tapping on a page with bring up the day view. I would like the choice to switch between a text label (iOS) and the button type (WC). But this is a very minor thing in my opinion.

The Year view is one of the views that I hardly use but it is a useful tool for advanced planning. The current day’s date is displayed in blue. Any day with an event will show yellow and get progressively darker with each event added. If you have five events per se, then the day will be an orange color. It’s a nice little addition that I thought was a nice solution to that particular need.

If you are looking for an alternative calendar for your iPad that syncs up with Google calendar, check out Week Calendar. It is a great program that may not have all the bells and whistles as some of the other solutions, but in keeping with an idea of sophistication with simplicity, Week Calendar is awesome. It just works. It’s well worth the cost of $3 and is available now on iTunes.

Clark

What do you call many dictionaries grouped together? Like a school of fish, a murder of crows, a gaggle of geese, or a nuisance of cats. I propose a Definition of Dictionaries.

I have 9 dictionaries and thesauri on my iPhone and iPad. They seem to multiply like my cats. I look at one, it looks interesting. I look at another. It presents words in a different way. And so on. I’ve stopped looking because 9 is the maximum I can fit in a folder on my iPhone. Part of me hoped that Apple doesn’t increase the limit.

This isn’t a review but a look at how dictionaries can present words. What’s the big deal, you say. A dictionary is a list of words in alphabetical sequence with meanings attached. And if it’s a thesaurus, each word has a list of similar words. That’s the basic idea. But words can be presented in different ways. When you’re looking for a way to describe something, having a list of words is one thing, but if they’re presented in different ways, it’s easier to choose the right word to convey what you want to say. Or maybe realize that you don’t want to say what you thought you wanted to say.

I can’t remember which one I bought first. And I look at some of them now and ask myself why I bothered. They must have looked good at the time. So I’m going to go through the ones I have and describe what I saw in them. I’m not necessarily recommending them other than for the way they present words. Also, some of the free ones are supported by advertising which is somewhat strange in a dictionary.

Oxford Deluxe (ODE & OTE) by Enfour

You have to have an Oxford. There are a number available. As I understand it, this is the Shorter Oxford which is normally two volumes and a couple of thousand pages. It’s quite expensive as Apps go, but significantly cheaper than the paper version. Layout and presentation is what you expect in a top level dictionary. There’s also audio pronunciation with a British accent. I also use this for British/Canadian spelling. It usually has the American spelling as well. There are other Oxford English Dictionary Apps, but this one seemed to get the best reviews.

American Heritage Dictionary by Enfour

Similar to the Oxford Deluxe, but American English oriented. At work, our documentation must use American English spelling, so having a good dictionary is a requirement. This one also has audio pronunciations, but in a North American accent. To me that means almost no accent. I also find that there are some words that are accepted in North America that I don’t find in the Oxford and vice versa.

Dictionary.com – Dictionary & Thesaurus by Dictionary.com

I think I picked this one up because at the time it was free. Definitions tend to be brief which can be useful. Again, the presentation is your typical dictionary. The thesaurus has a brief definition as well as a list of synonyms (of course) and antonyms.

Advanced English Dictionary & Thesaurus by jDictionary

This one has a different UI compared to the typical dictionary. It breaks out words in boxes with the type of word, noun, verb, etc., on the top of the box. It also has more general and more specific words as well as opposites. Each definition is in its own box along with related words so they are directly related to the particular meaning.

Meriam-Webster Dictionary by Meriam- Webster

I picked this one up because it was free at the time and it is Webster’s. Again, this is a traditional dictionary presentation and has synonyms and antonyms as part of the word definition.

Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus by Mobile Systems

This one also combines much of a dictionary and thesaurus in one, so you don’t have to switch. There’s a definition as well as a number of phrases showing usage. Then there are antonyms and synonyms. There are also related words which can help home in on what you want to say. As well, there may be hypernyms and hyponyms, words that are more general and more specific than the focus word.

WordBook English Dictionary & Thesaurus by TransCreative Software

This one has the usual definitions and origin, but you can then tap a button to get to a traditional thesaurus and also a links button which contains synonyms, more specific and more general words, and related words. You can also use the word in a Google search and define websites to use as links, such as Wikipedia.

WordWeb Dictionary by WordWeb Software

Another traditional layout but when you’re searching, related words that are included with the definition of the current word drop down in a little box. This one also has links to external resources such as Google and Wikipedia.

English Dictionary & Thesaurus by Ultralingua

Here the definitions are also quite short and to the point. I found some of the related words to be interesting choices. For example, I looked up the word “swim” in all the dictionaries to compare them. In the thesaurus, this one has “swim” as a verb with be light, float, and lighten as some of the related words. The antonym given is “gravity”. I would have expected “sink” but I did want a different view after all. One nice touch in this dictionary is that verbs are conjugated. Most dictionaries just have a single word showing the different tense. This one shows the complete conjugation (I, you, he/she/it, we, they) as well as more tenses than I knew existed.

So there you have it. As I said, a brief look at what makes these different. One thing’s for sure, I’m never at a loss for words.

Bob

As I’ve mentioned, I peruse 15 to 20 Apple-related web sites a day. I’m curious about general happenings, what’s new, and App suggestions. Ever since I found it impossible to keep up with the new and changed releases every day, I depend on others to point me in the right direction. I may not see a new App on release day, but good ones usually make themselves known. Of course this assumes that I’m interested.

Then there are the price drops. That’s more interesting because it often gives you a chance to try something for free or pick up something that you were waffling on for a reduced price. I’m starting to watch this more closely because there are some deep discounts available if you can catch them.

Some of the sites I frequent highlight price drops and Apps gone free. It is one such freebie that prompted this piece.

On one site that regularly highlights Apps Gone Free, I noticed a paint program called Inspire that was rated quite highly. It was down from $4.99 to free for the day. Now I am no artist. I don’t consider that I have very much creative ability, at least not in what people would consider art. However, for free, I figured what the heck. Let’s see what can be done.

I’ve seen paint programs on Windows and the Mac. In fact I have some. Mostly I use them for photo editing, but occasionally, I need to change a splash screen or something for work. I can use them that way, but I would never consider them for real art. Just like my feeling about mind mapping Apps, using a mouse is to far removed from the App.

So I downloaded Inspire. It’s an iPhone App but I loaded it on my iPad. The iPhone is too small to let things flow. And I started playing. Way cool. I said I was no artist and an App isn’t going to make me one, but this was fun. There are a zillion options for brushes, textures, amount of paint on a brush (gee, just like the real thing), and so on. I checked out the iPad version and it looked even cooler. But it wasn’t cheap. Since I was just playing, I couldn’t justify the price.

But my curiosity was fired up and I started doing some research, as I tend to do a lot. I checked out various sites with reviews and comparisons of painting and drawing Apps. I downloaded some free ones to get a feel for them and the various interfaces. And I made a list of Apps I want to keep track of for price drops.

One of the Apps had some very basic tutorials. One of the reviews mentioned them but complained that they were much to simplistic to be of much use. But it occurred to me that there must be lost of free tutorials on the Web if I was interested, just like there are for almost any subject you can think of.

And there it was. It actually occurred to me that it might be fun to learn something about painting. I don’t think I had ever given this a first thought before, never mind a second one.

I had the same thoughts about music when I got my MacBook and played with GarageBand. And then GarageBand on the ipad brought it even closer. But I wasn’t a complete stranger to music although I’m no musician. I did play with a guitar some when I was younger. That was the 60s. You had to play the guitar!

So Steve Jobs is correct when he says that the iPad (and similar tablets, but we won’t tell Steve) is magical. It’s a transformative type of magic. Alchemy if you will. It has the ability to change no interest into curiosity into a fun learning experience.

I’m looking forward to retirement in a few years. I’ll have absolutely no trouble filling up the extra time. I’m adding art and music to my list of things to try. Who knows what else I’ll magically be attracted to.

Bob

There are countless note taking / task list apps in the iOS App Store and choosing which one is best is truly a needle in a haystack experience these days. I happened across abcNotes which offers a different experience to the rest and the kind of organisation interface some of you may find fitting for the way your minds work.

It is a sticky notes style app which do not tend to work well on smartphones because the amount of screen available is not suited to such a medium. However, abcNotes has been cleverly built to offer flexibility of note size and crucially a variety of different note styles and fonts which work much better on a small screen than an app that offers the standard yellow sticky note styling. It doesn’t end with just styling either because you can overlay notes on top of one another and prioritise by simply dragging one note over the other or increasing its size with a two finger pinch.

This is a highly visual experience which uses touch above all else to create notes, organise them and even move them between categories which are basically new pages of notes. It is hard to explain how well it works, but trust me it does work very well indeed. There are times when it can run slowly if you have lots of notes created, but hopefully a future update will resolve that problem.

All in all abcNotes offers an innovative and pleasing experience that will suit the majority of users who want to take full advantage of the iPhone screen and the way the touch interface works. It is staying on my iPhone and time will tell how useful it will become.