App Store Day: Cooliris and SpeakEasy Voice Recorder
Every week we bring you some apps that have caught our attention. This week, we bring you two very special apps, Cooliris and SpeakEasy Voice Recorder (I gave the game away, didn’t I?). Without further ado, let’s proceed to the ‘App Store Day’ reviews.
Cooliris
On Monday morning (and, FYI, I hate Monday mornings), I was pleasantly surprised to find an email from the Cooliris team, announcing the release of Cooliris for the iPhone! Back in August, we’d reviewed Cooliris for Safari, a plugin which puts a whole new dimension to your web surfing experience. That same functionality has now been ported over to the iPhone [iTunes link], including the fantastic 3D wall.
(Screenshots don’t do justice to the UI)
On launch, you are presented with the 3D wall along with a default search. At the top lie two buttons—Discover and Search. While Discover lets you browse public feeds for a variety of categories like news, sports, technology, or anything related to the 2008 elections, Search gives you the power to conduct a search on Flickr, Google, deviantART, and a few other websites.
The interface is very fluid and looks stunning on the iPhone. Tilting the unit sideways moves the wall on either side. You can, of course, flick the wall to move it as well. Tapping any of the pictures brings it up front along with all the related information. Tapping on it again puts the image in fullscreen. You can also pinch in and out of the wall to make it smaller or larger, but the default size should be good enough for most people. Tapping on any of the links brings up the built-in Safari browser so you don’t have to switch between applications.
One of the features that trumps the desktop version is the use of GPS. When I chose the News feed, it was all relevant to my location (India).
The application, however, can neither save any images locally nor can it bookmark them for future reference. You can only email the link using, what else, the email button. You are also limited in the number of websites that are shown and, unlike the desktop version, you cannot invoke Cooliris from the Safari browser. The Cooliris team promises that future versions will make it much similar to the desktop version in terms of functionality, as well as extend it beyond given the unique UI of the iPhone.
The best news among all this is that the app is totally free! I don’t know how these guys do it (even the desktop version is free), but I’m not complaining. Go get your copy from the App Store [iTunes link].
SpeakEasy Voice Recorder
When Aayush recommended SpeakEasy to me, I dismissed it as wasteful expenditure. After all, there are free voice recorders in the App Store and buying something to serve the same purpose would just be stupid. [Ed note: But little did he know that Aayush never does anything stupid. Except for that one time… and that other one… and that last one there—oh, damn it!] There’s Evernote [iTunes link], iTalk [iTunes link], and several others that cost just $1. But after a lot of pestering, I went in for it, and boy is it worth the $2 I paid! Yeah, it’s just $2 too.
The extremely intuitive interface itself is worth its cost and more. Memories of the old Front Row interface come gushing back when those four buttons smoothly cycle into view. On launch, you are presented with a large Record button, with three buttons in the background, flanking it on all sides. One tapping the Record button, the icons swirl, the Stop button presents itself and the recording begins. You see the volume meter as well as the length. On tapping the Stop button, the icons swirl again and a button with four options comes to the foreground. You can either start over, scrap the recording, save it, or listen to an encore. Hitting Play invokes the swirly thingy again and the blue “Stop Play” button swings in. Trust me, it’s much better when seen in person.
In addition to having a great interface, the app is also a fully featured voice recorder. Unlimited voice recording, limited only by the memory capacity on your device, titling your recordings, archiving them into categories, and even transferring them to your Mac or PC. The audio quality settings can be changed in the iPhone’s global Settings app.
The sound quality of the recording is very clear. Using the iPhone earbuds allows you to record from the integrated mic too. If voice recording is your thing, you cannot go wrong with SpeakEasy [iTunes link]. At $1.99, it is worth every paisa/penny.
Is there any application you would like to know more about? Let us know and we’ll see if we can bring it into the App Store reviews.
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You know, I had had my eye on Speakeasy since first seeing it reviewed on iLounge. I waited until they added the capacity to transfer recordings to one’s computer. When I did go to purchase Speakeasy, my attention was also drawn to iDicto, through a favorable review I happened upon on the web. It was—as is iTalk at this time—temporarily Free, so I downloaded iDicto when I purchased Speakeasy. I like both apps, but I prefer Speakeasy because of its clean, modern and attractive interface. Your review of Speakeasy brought my attention to Griffin’s iTalk, which I had been unaware of. Being only temporarily free, and liking it’s interface, I downloaded it tonight. After brief testing, I think I like iTalk the best of the three!
Like Speakeasy, it has an attractive and intuitive interface, virtually foolproof for understanding functions. Whereas Speakeasy’s interface remains the more beautiful, I prefer iTalk’s means of syncing better. With Speakeasy, one has to back up one’s iPhone before one can transfer new recordings via Speakeasy Connect. No big deal, and it’s easy enough, but it does require some extra fiddly steps, and a backup can take several minutes (at least). iTalk’s wireless syncing using iTalk Sync is, by contrast, much simpler and quicker. (iDicto’s wireless syncing is also very easy.)
Funny…your laudatory review of Speakeasy, which I already used and liked, turned me on to another recording app which I think I like better!
Robert1014 October 25th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Thanks for letting us know about iTalk being free. Immediately tweeted about it. I tried out Recorder (which was free on 24th Oct) and didn’t find the UI so pleasing. SpeakEasy has served me well (for the limited recording that I do), and since I don’t need to transfer those files to the Mac, I don’t miss much.
Milind Alvares October 25th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Cooliris is super cool! Definitely a ‘wow’ app that is actually useful!
Martin October 25th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I liked your review, but I wasn’t convinced. Especially I don’t see what does this app offer that the free ones don’t, apart from the UI. Any actual functionality not found in other apps?
What brings me to a question I have about these recorder apps. Is there one that allows you to record while doing other things with your iPhone? That is a recording app that can work on the background?
I would appreciate any hints on this.
Thanks a lot.
Clemente November 7th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Well I’m not sure. First of all there weren’t any free apps at the time of reviewing. Besides, most of the recording applications that we’ve tested also have equally ‘good’ interfaces. May not be as flashy, but they’re good. I’d suggest you stick to the free ones if they work for you.
As for your second query, no. Officially at least, you cannot run applications in the background so the voice recorder will not work. However, via jailbreaking there is an application that allows you to run apps in the background. I will look into the matter and let you know whether it works with the recording apps.
Milind Alvares November 8th, 2008 at 12:13 am