Foword is a news reader with filters and a good deal of style. Perhaps it has too much style and not enough filter. Foword pulls news items from a few non-cusomizeable sources and lets the user group and filter the news by keywords. Like Apple stuff? Create an Apple news group but filter out anything with the words “samsung”, “lawsuit”, “rumor” or “exclusive”. That should give a reasonably interesting news feed.
AppStorm has a really nice review of the new features in Curio 8. Curio might be one of my favorite Mac apps. It would be perfect if there was an iPad version too, but that does not detract from the polish and power of the application.
Shhh. I have a secret. I shop on Etsy occasionally. I’m not crafty by nature. I loathe wicker, cringe at paper-craft and detest all things knit. But I like Etsy. I’ve found some wonderful pieces of art and great iPhone and iPad accessories. The best experience I’ve found is the Handcrafted app for iPad. The app provides a complete Etsy experience as far as I am concerned. Search, favorites, and shopping cart management are all there.
I’ve built many custom solutions for uploading and sharing files. I have my own FTP upload and Amazon S3 push, both built on Hazel. I use this system every day and it works like a charm. I use the FTP host for posting to Macdrifter and I use the S3 links for sharing with friends. I really like “owning” my stuff. But I’ve been looking for a more convenient and ubiquitous sharing solution so I have been test driving Droplr and CloudApp.
Curio 8 is out and it’s a solid update worthy of the price. It’s $50 for an upgrade or $100 for first time buyers. Version 7 is no longer on the Mac App Store and it looks like version 8 will not be there either.
This isn’t a review because I have not had enough time to review this new version. I’ll just talk about how great Curio is and some of the new features that have me excited.
I commute over 90 minutes a day by car.1 I spend most of that time listening to podcasts and audiobooks on my iPhone. While my car has Bluetooth connectivity and supports incoming and outgoing calls, it does not support streaming audio. To remedy this problem, I waded through six different bluetooth-to-3.5mm stereo jack adapters. Five of them sucked. The Belkin Bluetooth Kit is great.
Bluetooth Setup The Belkin BT Kit is $89 on Amazon2 but it’s listed for $80 on the Belkin product page.
I’m a big fan of iThoughts HD for iPad.1 I use it everyday. It’s my third most used app behind OmniFocus and WriteRoom. This weekend, iThoughts received another significant update that included updates to the core product and an update to the In App Purchase bundle that has been designated as “Early Access”. The early access features2 now include:
Search Passcode Lock Doodles The doodle tool is a nice addition and the search is a must have.
Bastion is a great game and it’s available on iOS now.
I provided a quick review of the latest update to Drafts for iOS yesterday. Within hours there was an update to a similar app, Scratch.1 Of course, I took a look.
The Speed of Text Scratch is one of a new generation of iOS apps, the quick entry apps. Drafts and Launch Center Pro are good examples and I like where this trend is going.
Until Drafts and Scratch, an index card was the fastest way for me to take a note.
Agile Tortoise just updated Drafts for iPhone and also launched Drafts for iPad.1 I really like and use both versions. It’s the quickest way to get a bunch of notes down. The iPad version feels roomy and comfortable. I especially like the low contrast extra keyboard row. Too many apps make the text window smaller by adding an extra row. Drafts doesn’t feel smaller.
There are also a good number of new actions available such as “Send to Day One” and “Append to Dropbox”.
