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.
