iPhone Car Navigation

Navigation on a mobile phone is always going to be kind of second rate compared to a stand alone GPS unit. Screen size is a factor but the big thing for me is the sound. Phones just don't have large enough speakers to overcome car noise and there's no way you will hear it over the stereo. If you can plug your phone into your stereo it would take care of that problem.

People cite the lack of in car navigation as one of the big differences between iPhone and Android. I haven't used Androids navigation so I can't say if it work well or not. As far as iPhone goes well..."There's an app for that". There are many options both paid and free. Some from the big names such as Tom Tom or Garmin but there is one stand out in the group called Waze and it's free.

www.waze.com

Waze has some good points and bad points that I'll touch on here. This isn't a full review of Waze but I will tell you first is it's FREE so give it a try.

Waze is very much the entire GPS navigation package. It is very acurate and performs just as it should. You can also add yourself as a user, what this does is adds a social asspect to navigation. You can post about a traffic accident, police activity, or just say Hi. Waze will tell you how fast other users are going and collect other data that will help you on your trip. They add in some game like things as well. The view becomes dark at night and light during the day. A nice feature I noticed is that during a phone call Waze will still tell you the direction you need to know and the other party on the call can't hear it. Entering an address could be better, it does intigrate with your contact list but you have to blind search, no list view.

Waze is happy to tell you all about thier service see the video below.

My Tie for Android

Today we published My Tie for Android. It is the same great app we have available for iPhone. 

it can be downloaded in the Android Marketplace. 

Click the marketplace link to download. 

How to use Siri with Facebook and Twitter

Siri can do lots of things for you and with a few simple steps you can have Siri update your Facebook status or update twitter (yes, Siri can tweet)

What you will do is set up Facebook and/or Twitter to receive a text message from your iPhone.

Facebook
Step 1: Text "hello" to 32665 (in the US). Facebook will reply to your text, follow the instructions to complete the setup.

OR

Step 1: You can go to www.facebook.com/mobile, on the lower right side of the screen you will see "Do you text? Sign up for Facebook Text Messages" press sign up and it will ask for your mobile number.

Step 2: Add "facebook" as a contact on your iPhone with 32665 as the phone number. Done

To update your Facebook status simply say to Siri "Tell Facebook..." and Siri will send off a text message to facebook that will be posted as your new status.


Twitter
Same process here.
Step 1: Text "start" to 40404, follow the instructions that twitter will text back to you.

Step 2: Add "twitter" as a contact on your iPhone with 40404 as the phone number. Done

To post a new tweet simply say to Siri "Tell Twitter..." and Siri will send off a text message that will be your latest tweet.

iCloud - iTunes Match [Updated]

iTunes Match is a new service offered by Apple that puts all your music on all of your computers and iDevices. Unlike the rest of the iCloud services this one will cost you $24.99 per year, a small price to pay for the three big benefits it offers.

1. All your music combined and synced across all your computers, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV.
2. No more memory problem on your iPhone, If you find yourself short of memory simply delete some albums, You can add them back later as needed right from the cloud.
3. No need to sync music to your iPhone or iPad, iTunes Match shows all your music on your device and ready to download.

Lets get started. (click read more)

Gmail on your iPhone

There are really two ways to properly set up Gmail on your iPhone or iPad. Google recently released a native Gmail application. Simply Search Gmail in the App Store to find it and read about it features.

The second way is adding it to your native Mail application. It may seem simple to add it as you would add any other email account. Problem is you don't get your email pushed to you when you set it up, read on and I will let you in on the trick of getting your Gmail account to behave like the rest of your mail accounts.

iPhone - How to make Contact Groups

Ever since the original iPhone came out there has been a Groups button in your Contacts but not a way to make a group. Even now there is still no way to do it on your iPhone or iPad but it can be done. Navigate to www.icloud.com and go to your contacts.

Click Read More to continue

iPhone Flashlight Apps

There is an easy way to turn your iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S into a flashlight. There are a multitude of flashlight apps out there I'm going to review two of the top reviewed apps. One is free and one is 99 cents.

The aptly named Flashlight app is free. They don't mention it has advertising included on the screen. Not that the ads take up any valuable screen space but they do show up while some people may want an all black or dark screen. In addition to an on/off button there is a dial that will allow you to turn on a strobe and vary the speed of it. Once you start the app you will need to switch on the light. There are click sounds for all the buttons but you can toggle those on/off right on the main screen. As you can see the app also hides the status bar at the top of the screen so you can't see the time or more importantly the state of your battery. It's good to know your battery level as having your light on uses power, fast.

iTunes link






The second app is also called Flashlight. It costs 99 cents. The interface only includes an on/off switch. This app may be the fastest at getting it turned on as hitting the icon on your home screen is all you need to do to activate the light. The status bar is present on the screen so you can see the time and battery level. This app is about as simple as an app can be.

iTunes Link