Tag: Facebook »

Cooliris is an app for sharing and discovering photos on social networks, and it just got more social with Facebook and Instagram support. The interface displays photos in an angled grid that can be scrolled through horizontally to view more photos. Photos from the Camera Roll can be shared to Facebook, or shared through private Conversations with other Cooliris users, with the ability to send invites through Facebook and email.

With Instagram, it’s possible to view one’s own photos and popular photos. Support for viewing Instagram feeds is in the app, but wasn’t working when I tested it. Facebook integration brings the latest photos from the News Feed into the app, along with photo’s from one’s own albums. Cooliris even provides a unique way to search for images from Google in its interface. Photos discovered through the app in any of these methods can be saved to the Camera Roll for preservation or sharing in Conversations.

The Olympic flame was fanned to extreme levels at 148Apps.com this week, as Jennifer Allen explored PlayUp's socialization of the London games. She writes, "We’ve covered PlayUp before, appreciating its ability to bring sports fans together in their love of their chosen sport. Just in time for the London 2012 Olympics, a major update has been released geared towards keeping users informed during the summer Olympics.

The app offers users all the latest information on their favorite teams and athletes, as well as the latest news on the medal tally. That’s 17 days worth of coverage, across 26 sports, 39 disciplines and 302 medal events. Content is geared towards the geographical location of the user, ensuring that the most regionally relevant content is brought to the forefront when first launched."

Want to know more? Read the full article at 148Apps.

Giggleapps.com got Disney-fied with a review of Minnie Bow Maker. Amy Solomon writes, "Minnie Bow Maker is a cute and enjoyable application for kids – part craft experience – as well as including story and fashion show elements. Having a son, I have not had to deal with a daughter who wants to dabble in the world of fashion at a young age. For this reason, I consider myself fortunate as I could easily be a killjoy when it comes to many action figure dolls geared to fashion-conscious girls that to me, send inappropriate messages.

For this reason, I think many parents, especially those of girls, will enjoy Minnie Bow Maker as this app touches upon fun accessories that may satisfy young children who have shown an interest in the world of fashion."

Read Amy's full review at GiggleApps.

Finally, 148Apps.biz featured a story about 6waves' WaveX. Carter Dotson says, "Mobile publisher 6waves has announced WaveX, a new advertising tool for developers to drive traffic to their games. This serves essentially as a traffic exchange, where developers can display advertisements for other games, and get more opportunities for traffic by helping to drive new installations of other games. Developers can upload graphics for both portrait and landscape games, and the service is completely free to use."

Read all about WaveX at 148Apps.biz.

The week is over, but there's more ahead across the 148Apps network. Follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook to gain access to the latest news, reviews, and even a contest or two. Until next week, game on Olympians!

OneTuner is a radio station app that not only features streaming music, but also features integration of user’s social accounts.

There are thousands of radio stations available from several dozen different genres. It’s possible to filter by country and language, though sadly there are no Afrikaans heavy metal stations. Stations can be starred and added to a favorites list. Of course, the app supports background audio for listening while using other apps. Have a streaming radio station that would be worthy of inclusion in the app? Use the “Add radio station” feature in the options to submit for inclusion.

What the app’s most intriguing feature might be is its ability to play a user’s Twitter timeline and Facebook news feed as audio. Just log in, and the iSpeech text-to-speech engine will automatically playback tweets as a news channel. It’s perfect for staying up to date while in the car, or if one wants to stay up to date while still playing whatever game they want. Someday, if Apple opens up some Siri APIs, the developers should add in the ability to say “Siri, Like!” “Siri, retweet!” Maybe someday.

The developers claim that the app does not and will not have subscriptions, and is supported through ads in the free version, and a paid ad-free version.

How many nights out around the world rely upon social networking tools to arrange? I've done similar just now, tweeting someone to organize meeting up. It'd be easier to consolidate everything and sort out night time plans in one easy to use place, though. This is exactly where new app Wendr features.

Wendr asks users just one question: 'what are you doing tonight?' then provides all the tools needed to set a plan in motion. With everyone using Wendr, it's simple to see which friends are going out, staying in or open to suggestions. Alongside such simple entries, users can enter exactly what they're doing and where, making it easy to meet up.

Users can only view customizable crews of friends, ensuring there are no privacy concerns, and it's easy to add friends through Facebook to the app.

For those of us sitting in the office trying to organize evening plans, it should save plenty of time.

Wendr is out now and it's free to download.

Those of us who regularly attend networking events for work, and those who just hang out at plenty of parties will appreciate this dilemma. You meet someone, you want to get to know them better, either for personal or business purposes, but you forget their full name and lose the chance to add them to Facebook. What do you do?

There's a solution in the form of new app Friendthem. The location-aware app fixes this problem by allowing users to connect on the spot and immediately friend each other on Facebook. There's no need to look up their name or get the exact spelling correct, the app sorts all that out for the user making it an ideal way to hook up online with the person standing next to you, if you so wish.

It's not perfect just yet, as the app relies on people to have Friendthem installed, but it is a great step towards making networking much faster and simpler.

It's free to download, so what have you got to lose in trying it at your next event?

This week at 148Apps.com was all about the red, white, and blue as we celebrated the 4th of July. Writer Lisa Caplan contributed to the festivities with her list of Favorite Four apps for Independence Day. She writes, "It’s July 4th, so we hope most Americans are out celebrating and reading this on an iPhone or iPad or between activities. But if you are still looking for apps to help make the day even better, we’ve rounded up four of our favorties that commemorate everything from US History to the traditional BBQ for you here."

See Lisa's complete list at 148Apps.com.

GiggleApps stayed on a vacation theme with its review of Miny Moe Car. Reviewer Amy Solomon says, "Miny Moe Car is a charming and fun simulated driving app that toddlers and children in preschool will enjoy. I have always been a fan of this type of toy, both as an arcade game as well as a simple children’s plaything. I remember when my son was just a year old, I bought him the most realistic driver I could find – a toy he still enjoys today. A search on iTunes will find a few applications of this type that mostly show a POV from the driver’s seat of a car or other vehicle. This is also the case for this application which does a really nice job of recreating the driving experience for toddlers."

Read Amy's complete review on GiggleApps.com.

And finally at 148Apps.biz, Carter Dotson reported on a new study revealing the iPad as the number one gaming platform. Dotson writes, "Tablets and phones are vastly different devices. This seems obvious, but in reality, they really aren’t: the difference between the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 is basically different sized screens. However, the way that users, especially gamers, use the two devices is still dramatically different, according to PlayFirst, via Pocket Gamer. Tablet users are playing more games than phone users are, and they’re spending more on games."

Read the full report at 148Apps.biz.

That's the end of this week's happenings, but there's always more news, reviews and contests headed your way across the 148Apps network. Just follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook to keep track of all the goings-on. Until next week, enjoy the fireworks!

According to Stuart Dredge over at The Guardian, buzz-worthy app Song Pop now has 1.9 daily active users (DAUs) across its iOS, Android, and Facebook platforms, with an extra 400,000 users added in the last week alone. He contrasts this with Zynga's Draw Something DAU numbers, at 4.4 million DAUs with a loss of 400,000 in the past week.

Song Pop is currently a free download in the App Store, following the business model of oh so many other social games of this sort. Interestingly, however, developer Fresh Planet has also just released a premium version of the app for $1.99. What do you get for your two bucks? You can play with twice as many friends at one time, listen to extended higher quality music clips, and the app will never have ads, ever, or so promises the App Store description. Sounds good to us! It's a free app, so you can't have much to lose. Except, maybe, your free time.

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Here's an app ideal for the romantics amongst us. Weesh is all about generating romantic relationship timelines from the user and their partner's Facebook profiles. Essentially, it's a lovely way of keeping track of the history between a couple.

Right from the outset, the app collates information from each person's Facebook account, thus creating a timeline of the memories. Weesh then offers a shared photo album for the couple so they can upload moments they've had together, as well as a mapping feature to keep track of where they've visited together.

Weesh helps plan for the future, also, with the introduction of the Weesh board, allowing couples to add things they'd like to do, as well as a section that reminds them of special events such as birthdays or anniversaries.

Ultimately though, Weesh is a sweet way of bringing together a variety of memories. Couples are bound to enjoy this free experience.

I covered a social trivia game a couple months ago named TriviaPad. That particular game provided a trivia experience on the iPad only. A new trivia game, Trivie, has recently been released that provides a social trivia experience on the iPhone (and is playable on the iPad). Players can play Trivie with their friends by challenging them over Facebook, by contact list, or by username.

The asynchronous system for multiplayer games has become the go-to method for playing games with friends. Like most of those games, Trivie gives players a push notification when their friend has completed their turn and it's then their turn to participate. Trivie is built to look and feel like a game show (reminding me slightly of my favorite game show-like trivia game, You Don't Know Jack).

The game has over 75,000 questions in over 60 categories. The game also users slot machine mechanics and wagering to add to that game show feel. Trivie may also have real-time multiplayer in the future; the MMO infrastructure has already been built to handle it.

Trivie is available now for $1.99.

Taptu, the social news reader for the iPhone and iPad (also known as the service "DJ-ing the news") has expanded its service to be usable on any browser. The new HTML5 Taptu app will let users create and share their personal Taptu streams just like they can on their iOS devices.

Even if a user has Taptu on both iOS devices and wants to view it on the web, all of those streams will be synced across every device. Taptu even has plans to update the service with a mobile web app so that nearly any mobile user can be in sync with the Taptu service on nearly any device.

In an update to both the iOS, Android, and new web platforms, Taptu has added the ability for users to create a stream based on a search term. So if a user wants to keep up on "Justin Beiber" news, they can make a stream for that.

Taptu is a social news reader app that aggregates all of a users important streams (like Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, and more) into one, visually focused app. Like most news readers, users can save articles to read for later on their favorite services (like Instapaper and Pocket).

Taptu is a free, universal app.