Michael Koby’s Most Used Paid iPhone Apps

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Michael Koby

A few days ago we looked at the free iPhone apps I used the most, today we’re going to look at the paid apps that I use.

Tweetie ($2.99) – Hands down the most used app I have on my iPhone.  Not to mention, the best Twitter app on the iPhone.  I’ve tried all the more popular iPhone Twitter apps: Twitterific, TwitterFon, TweetDeck, Twitterlator Pro, etc and Tweetie wins hands down.  I’m anxiously awaiting the newest version which the author of the app says will “awesome” (but you know developers, we like to say “awesome” a lot).  If you’re looking for a Twitter app, look no further than Tweetie.  It’s rock solid (I don’t recall it ever crashing on me).

Beejive IM ($9.99) – If you do instant messaging like do, then you’ll need a good IM application for your iPhone.  Coming from the BlackBerry world, I was happy to learn that Beejive had an iPhone version of they’re application.  I was even more excited to learn that it was going to be one of the first to get push notifications.  Now my wife and my friends can get a hold me no matter where I am.

Byline ($4.99) – I read a lot of websites throughout the day and as such I subscribe to and watch a lot of RSS feeds.  A large part of my news reading takes place in Google Reader so it stands to reason that my iPhone RSS reader has to connect and sync with Google Reader.  Byline not only connects to Google Reader but will cache my starred items for future reading offline.  It will also cache unread articles for offline reading as well.  This makes it a must if you’re ever in a place where you can’t get cell or WiFi signal.  If you read RSS feeds and do so through Google Reader, then you really need to give Byline a shot.  It’s worth the price.

BuddyFeed ($2.99) – As noted earlier, I twitter a lot, and having used and liked FriendFeed in the past I wanted to make more of an effort to use it regularly.  Enter BuddyFeed, the more popular FriendFeed client for the iPhone.  It allows you to do most of the basic features you’d need in a FriendFeed client like post a new item, comment, like, and profile lookups.  It’s very easy to navigate and allows one get value out of FriendFeed fairly easily.  While FriendFeed hasn’t caught on with the mainstream, this will change due to its recent purchase by Facebook.

Peggle ($4.99) – I bought this game because it’s fun and it was on sale for two dollars.  This is an addicting game and if you’ve never played it, I suggest downloading the demo onto your computer and giving it a try.  It might seem hokey with the unicorns and other wooded creatures, but it’s addictive as all heck.  My wife even steals my iPhone on occasion so she can play this game.

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Michael Koby's Most Used Paid iPhone Apps

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Michael Koby

A few days ago we looked at the free iPhone apps I used the most, today we’re going to look at the paid apps that I use.

Tweetie ($2.99) – Hands down the most used app I have on my iPhone.  Not to mention, the best Twitter app on the iPhone.  I’ve tried all the more popular iPhone Twitter apps: Twitterific, TwitterFon, TweetDeck, Twitterlator Pro, etc and Tweetie wins hands down.  I’m anxiously awaiting the newest version which the author of the app says will “awesome” (but you know developers, we like to say “awesome” a lot).  If you’re looking for a Twitter app, look no further than Tweetie.  It’s rock solid (I don’t recall it ever crashing on me).

Beejive IM ($9.99) – If you do instant messaging like do, then you’ll need a good IM application for your iPhone.  Coming from the BlackBerry world, I was happy to learn that Beejive had an iPhone version of they’re application.  I was even more excited to learn that it was going to be one of the first to get push notifications.  Now my wife and my friends can get a hold me no matter where I am.

Byline ($4.99) – I read a lot of websites throughout the day and as such I subscribe to and watch a lot of RSS feeds.  A large part of my news reading takes place in Google Reader so it stands to reason that my iPhone RSS reader has to connect and sync with Google Reader.  Byline not only connects to Google Reader but will cache my starred items for future reading offline.  It will also cache unread articles for offline reading as well.  This makes it a must if you’re ever in a place where you can’t get cell or WiFi signal.  If you read RSS feeds and do so through Google Reader, then you really need to give Byline a shot.  It’s worth the price.

BuddyFeed ($2.99) – As noted earlier, I twitter a lot, and having used and liked FriendFeed in the past I wanted to make more of an effort to use it regularly.  Enter BuddyFeed, the more popular FriendFeed client for the iPhone.  It allows you to do most of the basic features you’d need in a FriendFeed client like post a new item, comment, like, and profile lookups.  It’s very easy to navigate and allows one get value out of FriendFeed fairly easily.  While FriendFeed hasn’t caught on with the mainstream, this will change due to its recent purchase by Facebook.

Peggle ($4.99) – I bought this game because it’s fun and it was on sale for two dollars.  This is an addicting game and if you’ve never played it, I suggest downloading the demo onto your computer and giving it a try.  It might seem hokey with the unicorns and other wooded creatures, but it’s addictive as all heck.  My wife even steals my iPhone on occasion so she can play this game.

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Why Apple Should Fear (But Also Embrace) Google

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Michael Koby

Late last week, both AT&T and Apple released there responses to the FCC inquiry regarding the Google Voice iPhone application.  Also, The iPhone Blog, released an article about Apple being afraid that Google is taking over the iPhone.  It is an interesting concept, Apple being afraid of Google and it makes one question where things are going on a technology front.

Let’s review: Apple released an extremely popular phone, the iPhone.  It is used by both seasoned geeks and teenage hipsters looking to be “cool” to their friends and classmates.  It has gone from having zero market share to having a nice worldwide market share in just 3 years (still not beating Nokia but Apple still has some impressive numbers).  Google, in it’s “don’t be evil” way, managed to land 2 native iPhone applications at launch: Google Maps and YouTube.  Not only are these apps native, but they are extremely popular.  Also, Google has two top 50 apps in the iPhone App Store (Google Mobile and Google Earth), and the recent release of the Google Latitude web app Google has an impressive array of applications for use on the iPhone.

So is the rejection of the Google Voice iPhone app a result of fear from Apple about Google taking over the iPhone?  Could be.  But while Apple might be starting to fear Google’s apps on their platform, they should embrace Google.  Why?  Geeks (and the general public) love Google.  They like what they see Google doing.  People pay attention to Google.  Michael Arrington of TechCrunch recently dropped his iPhone over this whole Google Voice debacle.  Apple needs to realize that they have a platform that people like to develop for, and it behoves them to allow as many developers as possible onto that platform.  Aside from blocking obvious pornography apps (and that is another debate all together), Apple needs to stand aside and let people develop and release apps to their device.

It makes sense for Google to target the iPhone even though they have the Android platform.  The iPhone is a popular device, lots of people have one, so targeting apps at it has a good pay off.  And with that in mind, there is this one simple fact: mobile application developers can survive without Apple and it’s iPhone.  The did for years before there was an iPhone.  With more mobile platforms now than before, a mobile application developer has a lot of choices: Android, Windows Mobile, Palm’s WebOS, and even Symbian.  What Apple can’t do is support the App Store without it’s application developers.  Make enough of them angry, especially big ones like Google, Apple runs the risk of losing quality application developers and thus loses quality applications on their platform.

So while Apple might be scared that Google has so many good applications for the iPhone, they should just let it go and accept it.  Apple doesn’t want to lose Google as a App Store developer, because you treat a big company like Google badly, smaller developers will begin to question how viable developing for the iPhone is and move elsewhere. Apple needs to get over it, be more accepting of apps on their platform, and make everyone happy.

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Daily Link Posts

Posted on August 23, 2009 by Michael Koby

As of this weekend, I have stopped the automatic daily posting of my Delicious bookmarks to this blog.  I did this for a couple of reasons.  The first being is that it was over-running my blog and covered a little less than one third of my total posts.  The second reason is I’m not sure how much value it was bringing overall.  I know a couple of people that linked to my “Daily Links” category and they should not worry as the category is not going away.

What does this mean long term?  What I will probably do is move to doing a regular but less frequent link blog post.  I’m hoping for once a week, but it might be every 2-3 weeks depending on the amount of links I find that are post worthy.

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Why Blocking Social Media Sites is a Bad Idea

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Michael Koby

Earlier today, social media watch site Mashable posted an article that said a study showed that there has been a 20% increase in employers that are blocking social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.  It is already common place for companies to block things like YouTube and even various web mail applications.  I even have co-workers whose client blocks all web blogs.  I for one think that the blocking of social media sites and applications is a bad idea for employers to do.  The reason? It decreased moral.  As someone who routinely uses social media sites like Twitter to find answers to questions from people who do things all the time that I only do every so often, I find that blocking things like Twitter, Facebook, or even simple IM services (like Live Messenger or AOL) can have a disastrous effect on my productivity.

Look at the bigger picture.  It’s a simple means of allowing a worker to do whatever is necessary to get the job done.  Human nature alone dictates that I will never know everything, but someone out there is going to (more than likely) have the answer to my question.  Being able to send a blast out on Twitter or even read a news blog can save me hours of work I might have to on my own as part of a trial and error process.  The internet is an extremely useful tool.  Yes, it can be used to waste time on, and some people would rather surf the internet and watch stupid YouTube videos all day than do actual work, but realistically most workers are going to use the internet as a tool to find answers more than they are going to use it to waste time.  And hey, lets be honest, no one works all the time.  You have to have a mental break, otherwise you’ll go crazy or make bad decisions.  So taking 10-15 minutes every so often to do something that might be considered “unproductive” will actually result in better productivity.  I know I’m going against all sense of general manager logic here but think about it, if an employee wastes 30-60 minutes doing the occasional unproductive things like watching YouTube videos or reading non-work related websites but has solid quality output, what does it matter?  Does someone have to go back and fix his work, is she constantly behind schedule?  If not, what’s the harm?  If you have a slacker, deal with them.  Give them warnings and if necessary, fire them.

As an example, I once worked with a guy who constantly touted his productivity, but it was well known that all he did was play web games, listen to music on his PC, and browse the internet.  It looked like his numbers were great, as a support guy his number of closed tickets rivaled other “less productive” members of his team.  But when we started looking at how many of his tickets were reopened after the fact because the problem was not fixed, it opened management’s eyes to a much larger and more costly problem.  So while he appeared to be a very productive individual, he was in fact the least productive as he generally created more work for the rest of the team.  The problem here wasn’t his browsing the net, it was his work ethic as a whole, and this was eventually dealt with (he was let go).  The point I want to make here is that if the company had used hard rules about internet access and began blocking sites as a result of this one guy, it would have decreased the moral of the other team members and even less work would have gotten done because they would have all been upset with this one guy who didn’t do his work and caused the rest of them to lose privileges.

The key here is, everything in moderation.  Reading blogs, following certain people on twitter, even the occasional look at LinkedIn Answers helps me stay up to date.  And as a consultant, being up to date is extremely important.  However if my work starts to slip, that’s a problem, but if I’m getting my work done on time and it’s quality work, there should be zero issues from management when I take a few minutes to read a news article, look up something on eBay, or watch a music video on YouTube.  In the long run you’ll see more work from me if you allow me to work the way I like to work than if you force me to work in a way I don’t like.

Draconian access rules like blocking web blogs, social network sites, or video sites will only lead to lower employee moral overall and a higher turn around rate on employees, meaning higher costs overall because you’re constantly having to train new people on your practices, policies, and routines.  Like I said, open the internet up to your employees, deal with those not working and you can have a productive and happy team.

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Michael Koby’s Top Used FREE iPhone Apps

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Michael Koby

It’s been about 6 months since I “sold out” and joined the cult of the iPhone.  Over that time I have used a lot of various applications that you can get from the famous App Store.  Today I’m going to be looking at some of the most used FREE applications.  All the apps below can be downloaded from the App Store and cost a whopping zero dollars.

USA Today – While I hold that the printed newspaper will go the way of the dodo eventually, I feel that it will be a long time before it happens.  However, with apps like the USA Today app on the iPhone, it could happen just a hair sooner.  This app completely removes the need to buy a copy of USA Today from a newsstand or vending machine.  You get all the latest news that you would get from USA Today right on your iPhone screen.  It’s easy to navigate, and the text is fairly easy to read.  You also get quick access to weather, sport scores, and headline photos.  A great app if you want to keep up with the news.

Alternatives: Associated Press App if you want local coverage and more news.

Evernote – If you’ve never heard of Evernote, you’re probably trying to remember too much stuff in your head.  With the Evernote iPhone app, you can completely remove (or move them off your main page) two default iPhone apps; Notes and Voice Memos.  The Evernote app connects with your Evernote account and allows you to create, manage, and sync your notes.  You can turn photos or voice memos into notes that get uploaded to the Evernote servers for future reference.  It makes organizing thoughts and information easy.  Trust Evernote to be your memory and with the iPhone app it’s just that much easier to do.

Shoutcast – It’s no secret to anyone that reads this blog that I like music.  I like finding new music I haven’t heard and sometimes I like a radio format.  The problem is that I hate regular radio.  But I’ve long loved internet radio, and I’ve been using Shoutcast since when WinAmp was still the top music player for Windows.  The Shoutcast app for the iPhone makes it easy to find streaming stations that fit your musical tastes, plus if you get tired of listening to your limited collection on your iPhone it’s a great way to add some variety.

QuickTip – My wife and I eat out a lot, mainly due to our 5 month old son having lots of doctors appointments which leaves us with a lack of time to fix meals at home.  I hate figuring out the tip, I had been working  a pretty decent system of just doubling the tax and then rounding up to the nearest whole dollar.  That gets expensive and if you had a bad waiter, you’re over tipping if you do that.  QuickTip makes it easy, you can set a default tip amount and then have it round up/down to the nearest dollar.  A great app for those that eat out frequently.

Zynga Live Poker – The only game on the list (I have more actual applications/utilities than games on my iPhone) is Zynga’s Live Poker app.  This app will allow you to connect to your Facebook account (where Zynga has a Texas Hold’em app) and play against your Facebook friends from your iPhone.  Also the app is gorgeous, and is fun to play even if you aren’t playing against your friends.  Plus, you get free chips just for logging in once a day, nice incentive to get people coming back routinely.  Plus its Texas Hold’em which is like the most popular card game in the world right now.

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