BIRTHDAYLIST {HOMEBREW} [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (75%)

BirthdayList is a birthday reminder application and is released by Ahsirg.

(screen shot edited to remove images and contact names)

“The application shows all your on-device contact’s birthdays (from all accounts) and allows to add reminders to them.”

This is one of the simpliest applications I have ever used, as it really only has one real function and required no setup on my part, it just works.

BirthdayList opens up and immediately links to your webOS contact list. If there is a birthday for that contact it will immediately be listed within the application.

Therefore, if you have not linked your contacts via Synergy then this application is likely to be blank, however, if you have linked your Synergy account to facebook or yahoo it is likely the application will be full of birthday dates.

As I linked my account to facebook I had a near complete list of birthdays on my screen immediately. The birthdays are shown in a list in date our, so the next birthday will appear at the top of the list.

Each birthday shows the image of the person (from facebook for example), the birthday, and age if it is available.

You can set a reminder for a birthday by tapping a clock icon on the line. This offers to add the birthday details direct to your calendar. Tap on the birthday entry and it will open that persons contact details, so you have all the contact details to ping them a happy birthday message if you wish.

Clearly if you wish to add additional people to the list you need to add them into your contact list.

The only real shortfall of the application is there is no way to filter out people who you are not really that interested in without removing them from facebook etc.

On the upside:

• Simple and Easy to use.
• Does exactly what you expect.

On the downside:

• Filtering of list would have been nice.

Overall, this is a very simple application that does exactly what it is designed to do. The more contacts you have linked the more useful the application becomes, especially if you hate to miss other peoples birthdays.

Rating: 75%

Size: 1 MB

Price (at time of review): Free

Link: BirthdayList – Ahsirg

 

TAURUS [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (86%)

Taurus is a multitasking social/media application and is released by OMA Studios.

“Taurus is a social networking app geared towards multi-tasking and productivity. Using a unique dashboard-and-column system, content is viewed in a way that suits you.”

When you first open Taurus, you will have a blank canvas, and you will need to add accounts to get started with the application.

The application currently supports: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Reader and ToodleDo.

Once you have added your accounts, you can set up a dashboard where you can view the main items from each account like twitter timelines and 

Taurus reminds me a lot of that other great productivity application “Glimpse”, it uses the Touchpad screen to the full and allows you to quickly access the information you want all from within one application. This is like “Glimpse” for all your online accounts.

There are lots of preferences to use for tweaking your tweets or facebook information. There is the now all important switch off autocorrect. There are also three other good themes to select from if you are not keen on the default theme.

All the sites that are supported work well, with links offering a dialog box when pressed to open in the browser, open within the app (a dialog window), share the URL or copy the url.

You can even open the browser directly from within the application (using the option from the menu).

The application also makes use of the notification bar, when Taurus is running in the background. You have a pinboard to paste information from other apps and you can even tweet directly from the notification bar, but as the on screen keyboard given is very small I would not recommend it for regular tweets.

The user interface is well designed with lots of options to change things that work best for you.

On the upside:

• Excellent user interface.
• A very productive way of checking your online accounts.
• Has a very professional feel.

On the downside:

• A confirmation on deleting items from the dashboard would have been useful.

Overall, this is an excellent application and it has been thoughtfully put together. For someone like me, who has more than one twitter account and several other online accounts, this is really a useful application. There are other applications that do one thing well, but this application manages to do several things very well. If you love your online accounts then this is a must have application, it will save your time and effect. 

Rating: 86%

Size: 25.2 MB

Price (at time of review): £3.18

Link: Taurus – OMA Studios

 

SPARROW FOR TWITTER [TOUCHPAD] – REVIEW (80%)

Sparrow for Twitter is a Twitter client and is released by Arthur Thornton.

“Sparrow for Twitter is the premium Twitter client for the HP TouchPad. Currently on sale for $1.49 to celebrate the update and to assist users of Graphite in moving over in light of the news of its end-of-life status.”

With the removal of Graphite from the app catalogue and knowing it will stop working at the next major update of Twitter, lots of Touchpad users are looking for an alternative Twitter client, but does Sparrow fit the bill.

When you first open the applications you are asked to set up your twitter accounts, this process is painless as you authorise and link your Twitter accounts with the application.

When you twitter account first load it pulls back the last 50 tweets by the looks of things. You can set the refresh rate for looking for new tweets in the preference or you can just drag the column to trigger the refresh.

There are lots of preferences on offer within the application as well as the switching off of auto-correct when tweeting.

Reading Tweets is simple, with no issues of clicking links by mistake when scrolling. Twitted links can be clicked, and they will appear in a seperate card, opened in a browser window.

The user interface is well designed making it easy to navigate and find the information you want, although I could not see any support for lists?

On the upside:

• Good user interface.
• Lots of perferences.
• Supports multiple accounts supported.

On the downside:

• Would have liked a theme option as white text on a dark background is not a favorite of mine.
• Does not appear to be support for all twitter features (lists etc), but all the main features are there.

Overall, this is a very solid twitter client, with the loss of Graphite it has certainly become the best option for an application that only deals with Twitter (there are some solid applications that deal with Twitter and other social media sites). If you use Twitter then you need this application.

Rating: 80%

Size: 11 MB

Price (at time of review): £0.90

Link: Sparrow for Twitter – Arthur Thornton

 

FACEBOOK [IOS] – REVIEW (85%)

This is the offical Facebook app.

This application allows you to use all the functions of the Facebook site via the iPad or iPhone.

As you probably know some of the Facebook functions, especially chat, have issues of the safari mobile browser. This application is set up to allow access to these features.

When you first log into the applications you are asked for your facebook username and password, once entered you are up and running, just like you would be on the web version. 

The application itself has a nice user interface that allows you to get to the various facebook options quickly and effectively. The iPhone is very basic in look and feel, but does the job. The iPad version looks much nicer.

The screen layout on the iPad is very similar to the web version, and if fact I liked several of the iPad screens over the web version, especially trying to find a friend on your list and looking at friends photos.

Once you have worked out how the application works, that does not take long, you are up and running and ready to use it just like the web version.

On the upside:

• Well designed user interface.
• Universal (At Last)
• Not having to login in via a third party app.

On the downside:

• We had to wait so long.
• Still needs some tweaks.
• You will not be playing your facebook apps yet, but it is getting there.

Overall, it is good to see facebook running on both the iPhone and the iPad. It is unfortunate for the other companies that have tried to fill the facebook for iPad side of things as Facebook had made a good job of the iPad version. If you love your facebook then there is no reason not to have this on your iPad or iPhone.

Rating: 85%

Size: 9.5 MB

Price (at time of review): Free

Link: Facebook – Facebook, Inc.

 

TWITTER – REVIEW (8/10)

Twitter is the official twitter application.

The application is basically allows you to log onto your twitter account and do allow your basic twittering from the application

The application looks nice as well as being functional.

On the upside:

• Nice user interface
• Allows for more than one twitter account.
• It is free
• Seems a little faster than my other twitter applications (is it getting priority service)

On the downside:

• Lacks some functions that other twitter application have, but the basics are more than covered.
• Some of the functions on other applications are one click, on twitter it may take two or three.

Overall, this is a good twitter client, as you expect, but it is not the best, it lacks some functions that are useful to the twitter public, but it is a very good start and I am sure the next update is already on its way.

Rating: 8/10

Price (at time of review): Free

Link: Twitter