Thirty-nine of the apps for my iPad &/or iPhone were updated in the past week. Apps that do not have comments in the list below indicates that the update is simply a bug fix release or an Apple iOS 4.x compatibility update with, perhaps, some bug fixes.
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Here’s an tip for iPhone and iPad owners good for Black Friday and, in fact, every day of the year. If you follow iOS app tracking sites like AppShopper and 148apps, you know that there are a lot of apps that have their prices reduced or even become free for a period of time. Then, of course, there are apps that are free all the time. Here’s three that are free on this Black Friday.
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The free Starbucks Cup Magic for iPhone app gained attention for its entertaining Augmented Reality interaction with Red Cup beverages at Starbucks. You can see what I found for the latte I bought in the video embeddded below. However, if you are in the U.S., there is one more feature you might find useful: eGifting.
There are a variety of card designs to choose from. A message of up to 160 characters can be added to the card. Starbucks eGift Cards can be given in any amount you choose. However, the app provides preset options amounts too. eGifts are delivered via email and can be scheduled.
If you do not have an iPhone, you can use this web page to send Starbucks eGift cards.
We started off the holiday season in the U.S. with one of more social of holidays yesterday – Thanksgiving. If you’re looking for one more social outlet, there’s a new free game that seems to have impressed the people providing customer ratings in the iTunes App Store. The free iPhone game Lil’ Birds by Villain lets you find, feed, pet and breed virtual games.
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Oink for iPhone rates indidvidual things in places rather than the the entire place itself. It probably got equal amounts of attention from its somewhat unique take on social ratings as it did from its famous company founder, Kevin Rose of Digg fame. It was interesting but not very useful when I took a look at it earlier this month. However, TechCrunch’s report prompted me to take another look.
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The independent Google Operating System blog took note of the improvements to YouTube’s HTML5 player. The HTML5 interface is in an opt-in trial period that you can enter and leave at will. Once you opt-in, Adobe Flash becomes unnecessary when using a browser that supports HTML5. The question I had and answer here is: How does the YouTube HTML5 interface work with mobile browsers?
YouTube’s HTML5 Player Gets Better
The Google Operating System blog noted that YouTube HTML5 player improvements include the ability to enable annotations and captions, a contextual menu to let you copy embedding code and a video’s URL, 480p and 1080p options for WebM videos and full-screen support when using developer builds of the Firefox or Chrome browser.
The YouTube HTML5 player provides a mobile friendly interface too. This worked on the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) devices I tried with it. The mobile interface allowed giving a video a thumbs up or down (if enabled), adding to a list, sharing via Twitter, Facebook or email and deselecting high quality (HQ) mode (which is the default when available). Most importantly, full screen video viewing worked in the mobile browsers (including the Windows Phone 7.5 Internet Explorer browser). The controls you see in the second screenshot here appear when you tap the display while a video is playing.
MacRumors noted that the iPhone 4S, released just last month, overtook the HTC EVO 4G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G to become the second most popular cameraphone used to contribute photos to Flickr. Only its predecessor, the iPhone 4, remains ahead of it. Curiously, prior to the 4S’ release, the second most popular cameraphone was the iPhone 3 followed by the 3S.
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Foursqare and American Express aren’t the only companies to team up to promote holiday buying. Shopkick and Visa are also in the retail rewards game.
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Over the weekend concerns about Facebook oversharing was the topic of posts on Google+ and on blogs. The concern is over Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” with apps that automatically share information to the service. An example is Spotify, which will post the names of the songs that you are listening to on your Facebook newsfeed so your friends know what music you are listening to.
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My memories of Thanksgiving as a child includes watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Besides being pretty much the only thing on TV at that time in the morning, I was pretty much forbidden to change the channel when the parade was on TV. As seems to be the case for almost every major event these days, there is a mobile app for it available now for the iPhone and Android smartphones.
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