iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource » Reviews

The Crown in Canada iPhone App Launched to Celebrate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee

Gary Ng — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:24:52 +0000

Queen Elizabeth II recently celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, 60 years of ruling the throne and to celebrate the Government of Canada has launched the Crown in Canada iPhone app, as part of Diamond Jubileeweek. The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, James Moore:

“Our Government supports commemorating important milestones in Canadian history, such as the Diamond Jubilee,” said Minister Moore. “Part of commemorating such a special anniversary involves trying to reach new audiences, including young Canadians. These new applications will provide an opportunity to encourage Canadian youth to participate in this celebration of our country’s traditions, history, and institutions, and encourage all Canadians to learn more about the role of the Crown in Canada.”

iTunes app description:

The official Crown in Canada app is here!

Get updates from the department of Canadian Heritage on the Crown and monarchy in Canada.

This app will be your main source for photo and video updates regarding the Crown. Check out what is being said on Twitter or RSVP for public events via the official Crown in Canada Facebook page. You can also send postcards to Her Majesty and access the calendar or events related to Royalty.

Itineraries will also be included within the app so you are always up-to-date on where the members of the Royal Family are during their stay in Canada.

This app allows you to send a postcard greeting to the Queen to help celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, plus has other information such as calendar events and itineraries of visits by the Royal Family to Canada.

Click here to download the Crown in Canada–it’s free.

The Crown in Canada iPhone App Launched to Celebrate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Air Miles iPhone App Offers Points Balance and Special Offers On the Go

Matt Watterworth — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:57:31 +0000

The popular Air Miles program has released the Canadian version of their application in the App Store and it comes with the features you’d expect such as checking your points balance and browsing rewards available to you. There’s also an interesting feature which borrows from Foursquare allowing you to check in at Air Miles sponsor locations.

Here’s the App Store description:

Here’s what you can do with the AIR MILES® App:

- Check your account balance
- Easy access to your account number (turn it sideways from the home screen!)
- View a Sponsor map near your current location. Zoom in and out to see all of the Sponsors nearby!
- Browse featured rewards

What they’re calling the “Check-In Challenge” appears to be a fun feature that allows a user access to certain rewards or offers based on their location.

- Check in at a Sponsor locations. GPS technology will find your current location and allow you to check in at a Sponsor location close by. By telling us you’re shopping at a Sponsor, we’ll show you all the relevant offers for you at that Sponsor and information about that location. Plus, watch for special bonus offers that will reward you for checking-in!

The glaring omission here is a scannable barcode for your account so that you don’t have to carry your card around with you. Cineplex does this well with their Scene points program in their app.

This app seems to revolve heavily around location-based services and check ins but is the chance for “special offers” enough to make it something you’d use regularly?

Air Miles iPhone App Offers Points Balance and Special Offers On the Go is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Everpix iPhone App Now Available to Unify your Photos to the Cloud

Matt Watterworth — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:24:11 +0000

The Everpix iPhone app has been released in the App Store. This app lets you essentially store all of your pictures automatically into their cloud storage from your Camera Roll, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and more. The iPhone app is the companion app to the original Mac-only application (Windows version coming soon). Everpix wants to solve your issue of having pictures scattered all over the web:

You have thousands of photos spread out across various devices and web services: your computer, phone, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, etc.

Setting up Everpix once will automatically, and continuously, import all your photos to the cloud, where they can be accessed in one place: anytime, anywhere.

According to Everpix, they want to solve the problem of having all of your pictures spread throughout the web and unify them into one place. All your pictures will be organized by date and your best photos can be curated with one tap of a button.

Here’s the iTunes description:

Everpix™ lets you have all your photos in the cloud, automatically uploaded, organized and curated. View, rediscover, and share your best photos all in one place, effortlessly.

App features:
? All your photos in your pocket, beautifully presented and accessible anywhere, even offline.
? Automatically uploads your iPhone camera roll photos to Everpix.
? Super simple photo sharing directly to your Facebook or Twitter.

Visit Everpix.com to download the Mac uploader and get all your photos into the cloud. You can also sync Everpix to fetch photos from services like Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and more.

Download Everpix here from the App Store and tell me if you think it’s yet another photo app or something special. The company was previously a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist.

Everpix iPhone App Now Available to Unify your Photos to the Cloud is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Time Waster of the Month – NFL Flick Quarterback [Video App Review]

Kris Meador — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:09:37 +0000

I’m starting a new monthly feature called Time Waster of the Month, or TWM for short. Every month I’ll give you a look at an app that I can’t stop playing and that I feel is worth the download.

With the Super Bowl set for this Sunday, I figured the perfect way to launch this series is with a look at NFL Flick Quarterback.

This is a simple, straight forward game where you’re the quarterback, and the goal is to complete as many passes as possible without throwing incompletions, interceptions or being sacked.

There’s also a couple of skill modes where you have to throw the ball into giant trash cans, all while trying to compensate for the wind.

This is a very addictive game that also takes advantage of Game Center so you can compare your scores with those of your friends

What are some of your best scores? And who do you think is going to win this year’s Super Bowl? My money’s on New England.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future videos!

Time Waster of the Month – NFL Flick Quarterback [Video App Review] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

REVIEW: Mujjo™ Touchscreen Gloves For iPhone & iPad [Hands On Video]

Usman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:24:28 +0000

Winter is upon us and majority of us would prefer to keep our gloves on at all times unless we really need to take them off for something like using a capacitive touchscreen device. Yes, that’s true and frankly speaking, it’s not a pleasant experience especially in a scenario when you are driving in extreme cold with your thick woolen gloves on and suddenly your iPhone rings only for you to find out that ‘Slide to Answer’ won’t work unless you take the damn gloves off. It’s a major annoyance in cold climates but apparently, “there’s a glove for that”.

Designed by Mujjo™ in Holland, these capacitive touchscreen gloves are woven throughout with silver-coated conductive fibers which makes them compatible with an iPhone, iPad or any other capacitive touchscreen device. I’ve had the opportunity to personally try a pair of these, thanks to Mujjo™ for sending these in.

For €24.95 (approx. $32.7 CAD), Mujjo™ Touchscreen Gloves come in a minimal packaging (as shown above) and are offered in two sizes, a Small / Medium and a Medium / Large. The website advertises the two sizes as for females and males respectively but they are Unisex gloves nonetheless.

The gloves are made of slightly stretchable material that provides a nice snug fit which helps optimize the contact with your touch screen device as well. The gloves are black in color and are composed up of of 13.5% silver yarn, 66.5% acrylic and 20% spandex.

Mujjo™ Touchscreen Gloves function really great. I’ve had no problem using them with my iPad or iPhone. They even work flawlessly with my Macbook Pro’s trackpad. The best thing about these gloves is that they are sewn throughout with silver thread which allows full 10 finger functionality. You can literally use your knuckles and even the palm of your hand on a touchscreen with these gloves on.

I’ve also noticed that my typing on the iPad’s larger touchscreen with these gloves on wasn’t in any way worse than with my bare fingers.

While the Mujjo™ Touchscreen Gloves are perfect in terms of touchscreen usability, they don’t seem to deal so well with the the extreme cold of a day. Even with these gloves on, I frequently feel the need to use my pockets or blow some hot air into my hands. This is quite unfortunate since keep you hands warm should be the first and foremost purpose of any pair of gloves, isn’t it?

Apart from my only complaint of them being not so cold-resistant, I would gladly recommend a pair of Mujjo™ Touchscreen Gloves to anyone with a touchscreen smartphone living in colder climates, especially to the iPhone owners who don’t have a hardware button option to answer a phone call. With Mujjo™, you won’t need to worry about taking them off to answer one!

Check out a little demo video I made:

REVIEW: Mujjo™ Touchscreen Gloves For iPhone & iPad [Hands On Video] is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

iTunes U iPhone App Now Available for Download

Gary Ng — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:43:16 +0000

As part of Apple’s education event today in New York City, Eddy Cue took to the stage to announce a standalone iTunes U app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app will bring easier access to the thousands of lectures and free education content. The app will also allow professors and teachers to announce assignments and updates to their classes.

The iTunes U app gives you access to complete courses from leading universities and other schools — plus the world’s largest digital catalog of free education content — right on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. Whether you’re majoring in molecular biology at a university, taking Spanish in high school, or just interested in European history, you now have a valuable tool to help you learn anytime, anywhere.

Features:

Free courses in a wide array of subjects
• Take free courses created and taught by instructors from leading universities and other schools
• See all assignments and updates from the instructor in one place, and check off assignments as you complete them
• Take notes and highlight text in iBooks and see them consolidated for easy reviewing in the iTunes U app
• Access course materials, including audio, video, books, documents & presentations, apps, and new iBooks textbooks for iPad

The world’s largest catalog of free education content
• Choose from more than 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects from Algebra to Zoology
• Browse collections from education and cultural institutions in 26 countries — including Stanford, Yale, MIT, Oxford, UC Berkeley, MoMA, the New York Public Library, and the Library of Congress

Can’t wait to try out iTunes U, finally we get easy access to all of this wonderful free content. The universal app requires iOS 5 and iTunes 10.5.3 (available now) for syncing to your computer.

Click here to download iTunes U, it’s free.

iTunes U iPhone App Now Available for Download is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

HSBC Canada iPhone App Now Available for Download

Gary Ng — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:42:21 +0000

After a quiet launch of their mobile banking site last September, HSBC Canada has finally released a standalone iPhone app for their customers. Other countries have had their own HSBC apps for a while, but as you know sometimes Canada is on the ‘slow bus’.

This app will allow existing internet banking customers to view account details, pay bills, transfer money between accounts and more. Here’s the iTunes description:

With HSBC’s Mobile Banking app, you can now:
·Securely access Personal and Business Internet Banking
·View your account details and recent transaction history
·Pay your bills
·Transfer money between your HSBC accounts
·Check currency exchange rates
·Authorize payments and transfers (Business only)
·Send and receive secure messages
·Locate your nearest Branch or ATM
·More features to come…

HSBC Canada finally joins the plethora of iPhone banking apps in Canada. Which bank are you still waiting for to release an iPhone app?

Click here to download the HSBC Canada iPhone app–it’s free.

(Thanks Philip!)

HSBC Canada iPhone App Now Available for Download is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

T-Mobile’s Bobsled iPhone App Allows for Free Calls to Canada and the U.S.

Gary Ng — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:51:44 +0000

T-Mobile has launched a free app called Bobsled that was recently updated to allow for free calls from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to landlines in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico over WiFi or 3G.

The app requires a Facebook account to login. Once connected, you will have access to all your Facebook friends and iPhone contact list. Moreover, there’s the dial pad that allows to make free calls (similar to what we’ve previously seen with MagicJack’s iPhone app).

I tested it out by calling a local Starbucks (no, I didn’t order 4000 lattes to go) over 3G, and ringing is replaced with a funky tone. Once connected, the quality was decent (I only had three bars of service) and the employee was clearly able to hear what I was saying over speakerphone and vice versa. Bobsled recommends using a headset to make and receive calls. Who doesn’t like free calling?

Below are the features of Bobsled:

FEATURES
- Call Facebook friends on Facebook (web) or Bobsled Mobile
- Free outbound calls to anyone in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico using DialPad
- Receive calls from your Facebook friends using Bobsled
- Post Voice Messages to your friends’ walls
- Favorites
- Conversation History

Technical
- High definition audio for Bobsled-to-Bobsled calls
- CD quality audio on WiFi and cellular connections

Apps such as Bobsled are great when you’re travelling to make free calls back home. Of course, Skype is always a dependable option too.

Click here to download Bobsled–it’s free. Let me know how the free calling works for you.

T-Mobile’s Bobsled iPhone App Allows for Free Calls to Canada and the U.S. is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

TrapCall Blocked Call Unmasking Service Debuts in Canada for Rogers, Telus, and Bell

Gary Ng — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:54:42 +0000

Update 1: Congrats to the following winners of TrapCall trials (check your emails!):

- Tim
- Derrick Rockwell
- Belsim70

TrapCall is from TelTech Systems, and first made headlines in the U.S. with its initial free blocked call unmasking service. The company has now officially expanded its service outside U.S. borders to launch today in Canada to support customers on Rogers, Fido, Telus, and Bell.

TrapCall users subscribe to a monthly service, setup the program, and then login with the free iPhone app. When you receive a blocked call, you decline it on your phone where the number will be routed to TrapCall, and sent back to you revealing the identification of the caller.

How is TrapCall able to do this? All businesses that own a toll free number are privy to extra information on calls received, such as caller ID and more. Essentially you are subscribing to your own toll free number via TrapCall, thus enabling your own service.

It’s a loophole that some see as controversial based on the premise that some blocked calls have their purposes (i.e. people in dangerous relationships), but on the other side of the coin it allows others to discover the ID of those constant blocked calls from telemarketers (and stalkers). You can even blacklist callers so they hear a message that your line has been ‘disconnected’.

Monthly price plans start at $4.95 and go as high as $24.95 with the most features, such as call recording.

Regardless of your intentions, TrapCall is a service that has expanded to Canada to work on the ‘Big 3′ carriers. Since TrapCall includes its own voicemail service within its plans, Rogers and Fido customers will have to disable their voicemail in order to have it setup.

You can check out the TrapCall iPhone app here and check out their website here.

Enter to Win a Free Month Trial of TrapCall

TrapCall is offering iPhoneinCanada.ca readers a free month trial of their call unmasking service to celebrate their Canadian launch. Leave a comment below and three lucky winners will be picked before the week’s end. Good luck!

TrapCall Blocked Call Unmasking Service Debuts in Canada for Rogers, Telus, and Bell is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Telus Releases Optik TV Remote App Update to Address iOS 5 Crashes

Gary Ng — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:11:33 +0000

More and more cable companies are offering iPhone apps to allow customers to control their PVRs. The Telus Optik TV remote was released last Fall, and was eventually updated for iOS 5 last October. However, customers still reported issues with the app crashing incessantly even with the iOS 5 update.

Just yesterday, Telus released a further update for the Optik TV remote app with ‘improved iOS 5 compatibility’. Early reviews by users have reported success with this new update. Let us know how this latest update works for you.

Click here to download the Telus Optik TV Remote Recording app–it’s free.

Telus Releases Optik TV Remote App Update to Address iOS 5 Crashes is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource