Category Archives: app of the week

app of the week, e-book, iphone

Shakespeare – iPhone App of the Week

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Shakespeare – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Shakespeare.

A cooperative project between Readdle and PlayShakespeare.com, the free Shakespeare application puts the complete works of William Shakespeare literally at your fingertips.

Free

This is a nice App that incorporates the complete works of Shakespeare.

All of his plays and sonnets in one iPhone App, accessible and searchable.

So reading books on the iPhone is not the best way of reading books according to most people I have spoken to. However I never see books on the iPhone as a direct replacement for paper books, but as an enhancement and enrichment of the printed book.

For example, imagine a learner is studying Macbeth (or the Scottish Play); more than likely they will buy a printed copy of the play to use for their studies, one they can read, refer to, annotate and make notes in. Where they will find the Shakespeare App useful is having immediate and easy access to the complete works to compare writing, characters or other plays.

Reading books on the iPhone is never going to replace the printed book, but books on the iPhone (and the iPad) is not about replacing the printed version, but providing access to books at a time and place to suit the reader.

A enhanced version Shakespeare Pro with added features is also available.

Photo source.

app of the week, iphone, ipod touch

Black & White Camera – iPhone App of the Week

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Black & White Camera – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Black & White Camera.

If you love black and white photography, this is the app for you! Just take a photo or pick a picture from your photo library, you will get beautiful black and white art photos.

Features:

– Create black and white photos directly using iPhone
– Create black and white photos for pictures in photo library
– Automatically create and save to file
– Processed and saved in original size
– Fast processing & saving
– Polished UI, beautiful design

The pro version “Black & White Camera Pro” comes with flash to do fine grain brightness adjustment.

Free and £0.59 for the Pro Version.

I sometimes think the best Apps for the iPhone are the simple ones, the ones that do one thing well.

Black & White Camera is one of those Apps, you take a photograph, it converts it to Black & White and saves it as a new image to your camera roll.

Nothing more and nothing less.

It’s a free app, the pro version has a “flash” but that isn’t necessary for most photographs. If you want to use photographs from your photo library (for example on an iPod touch) then you can do that too.

Regular readers of the blog will know that I do like to use black and white images to illustrate posts. This App allows me to take a picture and use it in a blog article quickly and easily. The top image was created using this App.

app of the week, iphone

TuneIn Radio – iPhone App of the Week

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TuneIn Radio – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is TuneIn Radio.

Listen to and record over 30,000 radio stations including thousands of AM/FM local stations on your iPhone or iPod touch with TuneIn Radio!

£1.19

Despite all the wonder, images and content that television and the internet brings to people’s lives, radio is still very much alive and listened to.

I suspect that the main reason for that is radio is something that can be combined with other activities. Whilst driving your car you can listen to the radio. Likewise when cooking, cleaning or gardening you can also listen to the radio. I am sure many learners will listen to the radio whilst studying, and I guess many staff have the radio on when marking.

The iPhone for all its features and functionality does not have a radio function. Some mobile phones do, but the iPhone does not.

So what does this all mean in the context of this series on iPhone Apps?

Well I was recommended to have a look at TuneIn Radio. This App allows you to stream various radio stations from the web.

As well as radio stations you have never heard of, it also allows you to listen to stations like Radio 4 or Five Live.

The App allows you to pause and rewind the stream, making it great when you want to not miss anything, but something more important comes up than the radio.

The App also allows you to record from the radio and listen later.

Now without multitasking on the iPhone, there are limitations in how you can do other stuff on the iPhone as you listen to the radio. Having said that the App has a built in web browser, allowing you to do web stuff whilst listening to the radio.

I have only really just started using this App, but even at this early stage I really like the ease of use, the way it works and what it allows me to do.

If you like listening to radio then this App is certainly one you should be looking at.

Get TuneIn Radion in the App Store.

Photo source.

app of the week, iphone

Scrabble – iPhone App of the Week

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Scrabble – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Scrabble.

Scrabble spells major F-U-N on your iPhone! Experience the realistic look and feel of Europe’s favorite board game.

£2.99

I recently discussed gaming and learning with Ron Mitchell and Kev Hickey in one of our podcasts.

Last week saw the Game Based Learning Conference, we didn’t go, but that didn’t stop us from talking about using games for learning and using gaming devices to enhance and enrich the learning process.

At the end of the recording we asked what was our favourite games, Scrabble came up twice!

Scrabble is a word game in which players get points for playing words on a board in a similar manner to a crossword.

Research from various universities has demonstrated that if learners play word and number games this can improve their literacy and numeracy skills. AS reported by The Telegraph:

Scrabble is just as good at improving mental sharpness as a Nintendo DS video games console and a copy of Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, say researchers from the University of Rennes, Brittany.

Just on that article and research I have to admit I have always found it much easier to get 17 year olds to play games on the Nintendo DSi than I have getting them to play Scrabble!

Having said that I have “caught” learners in our Library playing Scrabble on the computers. I didn’t know if I should throw them off or congratulate them.

Scrabble requires players to use both word and number skills to maximise the points they earn, so has as demonstrated by the research to improve literacy and numeracy.

Scrabble on the iPhone can be played solo or with other players over wifi.

I quite like playing the game, even if the iPhone cheats and uses words that a) no one has ever heard of and b) no one would ever use!

When waiting for a train, or on a train, or to pass a few minutes away, Scrabble is a nicely executed iPhone game.

app of the week, iphone

The World Factbook – iPhone App of the Week

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The World Factbook 2010 – iPhone App of the Week


This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is The World Factbook.

The World Factbook is the reliable and extremely popular source of information on all the nations of the world.

It provides up-to-date, valuable data for more than 250 countries and territories in a concise, well-organized format whenever and wherever you want.

Topics addressed include natural resources, industries, GDP, religion, ethnic groups, legal system and much more. Key data are grouped under the headings of introduction/background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, transnational issues.

£0.59

So all the information in this App is available online for free…

So why on earth would you spend 59 pence on an App?

Well…

Good question!

The main reason is that the information is “available online for free” and that’s the crunch, you have to be online to be able to access that free information, which means it isn’t free! Going online costs money, okay if you have access to free wifi, less so if you are using expensive 3G data.

But you can download the Factbook….

True, but if you download it to an iPhone (or iPod touch) you won’t be able to access it, as you can’t access the file system on  the iPhone you won’t be able to open the downloaded Factbook.

So for 59p you can have offline access to the Factbook and this in my opinion is 59p well spent.

The key with any App is, is it value for money, and I think the World Factbook is value for money. It provides detailed information and maps on the countries of the world quickly and easily and can do this without needing a 3G or wifi connection.

app of the week, iphone

PhotoForge – iPhone App of the Week

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PhotoForge – iPhone App of the Week


This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is PhotoForge.

PhotoForge is a highly optimized editing and painting application designed for the iPhone and iPod touch. It can be used for image manipulation, retouching, effects, and color correction, as well as a painter’s tool. It is indispensable for creating original artwork, or editing photos on your mobile device.

PhotoForge is a superb photographer’s tool, providing digital darkroom capabilities that are second to none. It is also a tool for creating incredible works of art and illustrations. PhotoForge allows you to put together an image, combining filters, brushes, and effects. They may be hand-painted, or a composite of photographic images mixed with painting. The filters and effects can be layered to produce even more dynamic results.

£1.79

There are numerous art and photographic Apps in the iTunes Store, and I have bought a fair few of them. I like to edit photographs and though I will more often then not use my Mac, when I am out in the field, to be able to edit photographs taken with the iPhone ON the iPhone then these Apps make life really easy.

PhotoForge is one of the more complicated and advanced photo manipulation Apps on the iTunes Store, with lots of features and functionality. Sometimes you want a simple App and sometimes you want something with a bit more oomph.

Take this photograph that I took in Bristol recently. It has to be said that the camera on the iPhone (even on the iPhone 3GS) is not the best cameraphone I have used, the Nokia N95 took nice photographs, whilst the Google Nexus One takes really nice photographs. Anyhow so I took this image with the iPhone and as you can see the result was not brilliant, the sun was shining into the camera by the looks of it.

So using Photoforge, doing some cropping, changing levels and adding a few FX I got to this.

Now this is something I could use to illustrate a blog article or discussion forum on the VLE. It is the ability to create content, edit photographs on the iPhone that make the iPhone such an interesting and useful device for learning. It becomes more than just a phone, it becomes a tool that enables learning to happen, as well as lots of other things too.

There are numerous adjustments, tools and filters in the App. The main constraint will be how you can use the tools expertly enough with just your finger.

I am awaiting to see how I can use similar Apps on the iPad, though of course you will need to use the iPad Camera Connection Kit to get your photographs onto the iPad, though this does mean you can use a DSLR or other digital camera instead of the iPhone camera!

There are simpler Apps in the App Store and there are free Apps that do one thing (such as the B&W filter), however I do like PhotoForge, it is a powerful image editing tool and or what it can do on such a small device as the iPhone, it is well worth the £1.79 that it costs.

app of the week, iphone

Animoto Videos – iPhone App of the Week

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Animoto Videos – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Animoto Videos

Animoto turns the pictures on your iPhone into beautiful music videos! It takes just a few minutes to make one, and then you can share and collect them with your friends. Make as many as you like–they’re totally free.

Free App, you can create 30 second videos for free, however for longer videos you need to pay $30 a year.

Sometimes a simple app like this is a nice and easy way to demonstrate the potential of the iPhone.

Simple either use images from your iPhone or use the camera, combine with some provided music and the software (on the web) renders your images as a nice little video.

The resulting videos can make an activity more interesting or make for a nice way of showing a series of images.

However the video will only play on the iPhone, you can’t download it to your computer, what you can do is “share” the video through the Animoto website, as in this example.

Get Animoto Videos in the iTunes App Store.

app of the week, iphone

London Mini A-Z – iPhone App of the Week

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London Mini A-Z – iPhone App of the Week


This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is London Mini A-Z.

This map is a digital rendition of the famous “London A-Z Mini Atlas” and covers an area from West Hendon in the North West to Grove Park in the South East. Add this application to your iPhone or iPod Touch and you will have instant access to all 352 pages of the London Mini A-Z printed map.

Covering 141 Square Miles (367 Square Kilometers) and with more than 32,000 streets and additional places of interest. This map is drawn by real cartographers with the detailed care and human touch of emphasis and colour that A-Z are famous for. Internet maps are OK but you really can’t beat the genuine article.

With the maps installed on your device there is never any need for an internet connection enabling you to access the map anywhere and at anytime.

£5.99

If you are as old as me you may recall buying maps rather than using Sat Nav or Maps on your iPhone.

One of the things I use to buy a lot were A to Z books of various places I went to as either the provided maps were useless or I was. More often then not I would forget them the next time I was in the city and would buy a second (or even third copy). You would think I could just pop into the newsagents and flick through the A to Z and

This app is bascially a virtual recreation of those A to Z books. With the advantage that as it is on your iPhone it will be lighter and easier to carry. You can locate yourself using the phone’s built in GPS which is helpful; and you can use multi-touch to zoom in and out as well.

So why not use the built-in maps function? Well that App as good as it is, does depend on having a good internet connection. You would think in central London that this wouldn’t be a problem and most times it isn’t a problem however of course when you do in fact need it for real, is when the 3G network will let you down.

So for the iPod touch, the App starts to make even more sense with its dependency on WiFi and no 3G.

Now this is a useful app if you travel to lots of different places in London and want to ensure that the maps are on the device. If you only visit the big smoke now and again, I suspect the built in Maps app will be more than sufficient.

app of the week, iphone

National Rail Enquiries – iPhone App of the Week

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Update: Since this blog post was written, this app has been renamed UK Train Times and another app by a different company has been released which is called National Rail Enquiries. To add to the confusion the UK Train Times icon has changed, whereas the National Rail Enquiries app has a very similar (well identical) icon to the old icon of UK Train Times. Though National Rail Enquiries is free, having tried both, I do think UK Train Times is a much better app and you don’t get the ads you get on the free app.

National Rail Enquiries – iPhone App of the Week


This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is National Rail Enquiries.

National Rail Enquiries provides complete journey planning for journeys across the UK National Rail network and live departure information for all National Rail stations in the UK. This is an official application from National Rail Enquiries, with fully-licensed and accurate real-time information.

£4.99

For many users a 99p App is too expensive, this is a five pound App, so is it worth it? If you travel by train then in my opinion it is.

A simple example, I know that this App helped my college secure £40,000 of funding, so well worth the £4.99 I paid for it.

Really?

Well, let’s just say it certainly helped.

What’s the story?

I was on my way to London to be interviewed for a funding proposal we had put in.

The interview was at 11.00 and I had my train ticket and was intending to catch a train from my local station and arrive at 9.45 giving me just over an hour to get to the venue for the interview.

So there I was waiting…. waiting…. waiting…

I got out the iPhone and checked National Rail Enquiries.

It said that the train was running very late and would not be going to London! Confused I was to begin with. A few minutes later the “train” arrived. It wasn’t the big High Speed Train I was expecting, but a smaller local train. As it arrived the driver lent out the window and shouted that this was the next train to Bristol. What had happened was that the original London train had broken down and they were using this as a replacement. Arriving in Bristol later than expected and on checking the departures form Bristol on the iPhone via National Rail Enquiries, I knew that if I caught the Manchester train I could change at Bristol Parkway and catch a London train from there. This I managed to do with literally seconds to spare after running across the station; and eventually I was in London by 10.00! Only 15 minutes later than originally planned.

If I had relied on finding out trains from departure boards or information kiosks I would have been much later into London and would have been late for the interview.

Would it have made a difference? Don’t know for sure, but I am glad I was there in plenty of time.

So what about the App itself?

Simply it is a portable station display board. It tells you the departures and arrivals from any station on the national rail network. It can also tell you the whereabouts of your train, if it is running late or worse cancelled.

It can also be used for journey planning, though there are other websites that do that for free. For the immediacy of catching trains now, it works really well.

If you travel anywhere by train, then this is one useful app. True you can find the information online for free, but the user interface of this app beats most websites interfaces, which have been designed more often then not for use on a computer and not on an iPhone sized screen.

app of the week, iphone

Tube Exits – iPhone App of the Week

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Tube Exits – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Tube Exits.

With unique information, Tube Exits will give the savvy tube rider the inside track on how to get one-step ahead of their fellow commuters to get a speedy exit off the Tube. Save about 10 minutes on average peak hour journey times. No more delays following crowds, and walking the length of the platform. Save valuable time out of your busy schedule and avoid frustration.

£1.79

If you ever go to London and ever go on the London Underground then Tube Exits is one app you should get.

While writing this article I found a free App which does something similar, called Tube Changer Lite. Now I have not used the free app, but do make extensive use of Tube Exits when I am in London.

So what does it do?

Well to put it simply, it allows you to plan your journey on the London Underground and make it as easy and stress-free as possible.

The App works out your route and then lets you know which carriage to get on, so that when you arrive at your destination (or transit) station you know which side the doors will open and you get off on the platform next to the way out! This means, especially when the tube is very busy, you are not stuck on the wrong side of the train when it arrives at your destination and when you do arrive you can get out the station quickly, avoiding delays walking down the platform and the throngs of crowds as they stream to the exit.

You can save regular journeys, to save having to recalculate each time you use the tube.

A simple App that has made it easier and less stressful to use the Tube.