Tag: 99.99 »

Avaz - AAC App for Autism (Augmentative Picture Communication Software for Children with Special Needs) is an app that helps children with special needs improve on their communication. The app is designed to help with speech therapy and has 3 vocabulary sets that feature over 5,000 core and peripheral words. It also has automated tracking that allows speech therapists to keep track of each session while working without having to take written notes.

•Automated tracking – Helps SLPs/therapists track a child's session while working on the app instead of making detailed notes
•Instant customization – Add a new message or edit an existing one within 15 seconds!
•Be social – Share Avaz messages on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail
•Prediction with Pictures – Use predicted words, prompted by pictures to improve sight-reading
•Record your voice – Personalize Avaz by recording a voice that the child is comfortable with.
•Use Avaz on multiple iPads – Synchronise Avaz content at home and school through Dropbox
•Visual reinforcement - Reinforce learning through animated zoom-in

For those who follow Ted Global, they'll remember that UP was previewed at the event this past July. Tracking sleep, eating habits and motion, the wristband is worn 24/7 and wirelessly communicates with the iPhone app via MotionX technology. The app then calculates daily totals, displays them and works to give users a better understanding of their health, what drives it and ways to improve it. And no, it's not another weight loss gimmick. It is about visually displaying the hundreds of decisions made every day to be healthy and gives the user the motivation to alter their behavior for an all-around healthier lifestyle.

UP also includes a social aspect with the ability to challenge friends. Within the app friends can send encouragement and challenge each other for most hours slept, who had the healthiest meals and more. The wristband will be available on November 6 for $99.99 while the app is available for free as of today.

Cast your mind back to August 5th 2008. The sun was shining, and the birds where singing. That was until the (now iconic) 'I Am Rich' app rocked the App Store sideways. Officially becoming the most expensive application to of hit the App Store ever, and priced at $999.99, the app hit the mainstream for being controversial to the highest level. Offering nothing more than a 'souvenir' of personal wealth, the app was designed to show how 'rich' you were. The premise being, if you owned it, you were rich.

On August 6th 2008, following it's release, and in response to the huge amount of media coverage and bad press the title had garnered, Apple pulled the application completely, from all 72 countries iTunes operated in. Now fast forward.

Just when we thought it couldn't happen again, it has. October 16th 2009. Developed by 15 year-old Mark Gurman, You Are Rich hit the App Store. Designed to be a complete copy of the original, You Are Rich is the absolutely bare bones of iPhone development. After you get past the shock of spending $99.99 on a picture of a glowing red gem-like fire-ball thingamajig, maybe the 'Secret Mantra' will make you feel a tad better? Then again, maybe not ..

I was lucky enough to grab a review copy from Mark, making me - not really that rich. However, if this is your type of app, you'll be glad to know this version will cost you ten times less than the previous, at just $99.99, and has a slightly different 'secret' mantra than the original. For those of you who can't afford this app, or simply can't afford to throw your credibility out the window with this app, the new mantra is below for your viewing pleasure:

"If you see this: You are Brave, You are a Success, You are Bold, You are Flashy, You are Amazing, You are Rich."

On the mantra screen you'll find a button which states 'Play Mantras'. Doing so throws up three options, including: Mantra, You Are Rich and I Am Rich. Tapping each one seeing the app play a different sound, with the first reading out the already written 'mantra' aloud, in this kinda eery hypnotic voice.

The fact is, I'd get this app while you still can! No really - Since being exposed to the app's mantra, my personal wealth has grown hugely. In fact, I'm typing this here now from a small yacht on the Caribbean, while sipping a Margareta. While I'm here I might actually start a new business - "You Are Rich" branded handkerchiefs. Think it'll take off?