August 4th, 2010 by admin

This recently released movie is called The Weathered Underground. Its USP is that it’s an interactive film - well,  actually, its an App that allows us to decide how the movie ends (so its gotta be a five star film, right!). The App  is currently on offer for the next week at 99¢ instead of the usual $3.99. It is billed as having hundreds of choices with dozens of endings.

The App was released about a month ago and has rave reviews (all are 5 star ratings - maybe a little help from friends?).

Take a look

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August 1st, 2010 by admin

Its early days still but the iPhonegizmo team decided to follow the new free CNN app for iPhone and watch how the process of adoption took place. Why the CNN App? Well, its an internationally known news provider and likely, we thought,  to get quickly adopted.So what has happened so far (day 10 of release)?

In the UK there are 27 reviews and 18 of those (66%) give the app a 4+ star rating. Main complaint is that ads appear in the middle of news reports rather than at the beginning.

In France there have been only 8 reviews and whilst most of these are favorable the most telling comment is: “A moins de parler anglais I appli n a aucun interet”. The app is in English and so has limited use for those who don’t speak it!

In Australia the complaints about the app surprisingly similar to the French! Because the news content is almost totally devoid of local content. The interest in the CNN App is there. There have been three times as many reviews as have been made by UK users. By contrast, a bigger percentage are negative. In fact of the 74 reviews, 40% give it a 2 star or less rating and only 40% give it a 4+ star rating. Significantly less than the UK reviews. And comments reflect displeasure with the total lack of Australian news.

It will be interesting to see whether CNN are interested in “internationalizing” their App. That is, making versions for countries that include local news and also is available in the national language! Remember though,  it IS free. Our guess is that CNN have made an App available to international fans who already use their service, speak English and want to keep in touch with news the CNN reports it!

PS: As a matter of interest, China has only 13 ratings with 7  (54%) giving it a 4+ star rating.  So far Australia has shown the most interest in the App. But not the most pleasure!

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July 28th, 2010 by admin

Great news for all you iPhone owners that live outside the US! CNN have just released a new international iPhone app that sends instant news updates to your iPhone - and includes images and videos as well. Now you can get breaking news with broadcasts from one of the top news reporting  channels in the world.

The app is well designed and allows users to customize the news they receive. For example, enter in a location and you can get the current weather conditions and the regional news for that area.

CNN take us for a quick guided tour of the app in this video:

Its free, its now and its CNN - whats not to like?

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July 22nd, 2010 by admin

Comic Lovers from around the planet are descending on San Diego for the Comic Con 2010 event that is starting today. And those that can’t make it are drooling from afar (BTW, the free Comic Con iPhone App can help us do that).Because this event has it all - if you are a comic lover/nerd! The special guest line up is enough to make those not able to get there weep! They have:

some of the hottest creators in the world of comics, ranging from the mainstream to the alternative…. also, of course, featuring Golden and Silver Age creators, sf/fantasy writers and artists, and longtime Comic-Con friends.

OK, you say, “enough of this blather, I want names, baby!” And there are some to make you green with envy!

Neal Adams - Legendary comic creator - prime mover on Batman, X-Men, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and Deadman.

Matt Fraction - from Marvel, works on Immortal Iron Fist, Punisher War Journal, Uncanny X-Men, etc. He and artist Salvador Larroca won the 2009 Eisner Award for ‘Best New Series’ for Invincible Iron Man.

Stuart Immonen - also a Marvel marvel has worked for a lot of top comic publishers on such comics as Nextwave, Superman: Secret Identity and Ultimate Spider-Man. “Stuart is currently the top-selling artist on Marvel’s New Avengers“.

The line up of star artists, writers, producers and publishers is too huge to list here but that gives you an inkling - check out the full program of special guests on the comic con site.

OK - but if you are a comic lover/ love-the-TV-show kind of follower, then you are going to be more interested in those kind of stars. And there are plenty of them as well!

For example, on Saturday at 10:00-10:45 there is a Chuck screening and a chance to talk to the producers and all the series stars including (of course) Zachary Levi, plus Yvonne Strahovski and Adam Baldwin etc. Here is a great opportunity to find out about the upcoming season four (thanks to the devoted fan base) plus there will be a special video presentation.

This is a massive event - so check out the site - or get the free App to find out more.

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June 20th, 2010 by admin

And this was almost great news!

The iPhonegizmop team went into immediate action on hearing about this update, which - according to facebook means:

You can now watch Facebook videos on iPhone.

OK, sweet, we thought! Finally a way to get round the restrictions of watching videos on our iPhone. So, having first updated our facebook app to version 3.1.3, off we trot to CBS and grab the latest NCIS vid:

Then, we send it to Facebook. And yes, that worked - we could watch the video there (OK, so that’s as expected). Looking good, so far.

Yep, here is Ziva being sworn in as a US citizen.

Step 3, open our iphone facebook app. And, yep - there is the video - woo hoo!

Click “play” and get:

So, what videos can we watch? Well, YouTube, of course. But now we can watch the YouTube Videos posted to Facebook on our iPhones. Hmmm - we are underwhelmed.

Now what was the latest NCIS episode called again? Oh yeah: Rule 51 - which happens to be “SOMETIMES -YOU’RE WRONG”. Something for Apple to think about!

Stop fighting you guys and just fix it so we can watch all the great videos out there on our iPhone. We don’t CARE what your argument is about! Just wanna watch this stuff on our iPhone. This is just too bad.

Oh, and BTW - there is no designated video button we can use to view the videos our friends have posted (like on Facebook). And THAT means we have to wait til one of our friends posts a video and then catch it in the “stream” before it passes by!!

We are underwhelmed by the update, I’m afraid. Coulda been good. Just too little to really get excited about it.

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June 14th, 2010 by admin

The iPhonegizmo team get all excited when they find another free iPhone download that is designed to work on user-juice! Waze is one of these apps - and is also currently offering users a fun way to get an iPad as well!

Waze is running a competition along side the world cup fanfare. All you have to do is compete in the “International Waze Worldcup”  for a chance to win a new iPad! The way it works is best explained by the people at Waze:

Like in the regular world cup competition, it’s an epic battle, country against country, to see who’ll come out on top – and in the Waze Worldcup, the final country left standing will not only get all the glory, but three lucky users in that country will also get a brand new iPad! Woo hoo!

You can get all the details from the Waze site Basically it involves collecting - or “munching” soccer ball goodies from all over ‘the map’ (Waze is a user-generated traffic warning system).  Users from the winning country will be in for a chance to win the iPad.

You just need to click on the Waze image above to get the app.

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June 5th, 2010 by admin

The PayPal App has been massively successful - not only in the USA but in UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Italy. So it was only gonna be a matter of time before other big players decided to try and get some of the action!

The release, a week ago, of Master Card’s rival Money Send, is the first of the big finance company attempts to grab some of the PayPal success. BUT….

Its only available for use in the US and its initial ratings in the iTunes store has not been impressive. And then, of course, there is… Ebay!

The big bonus for PayPal was Ebay “requiring” traders to have a PayPal account in order to do business on the site (whatever happened to “tied selling” being illegal per se?)  Well, Ebay purchased PayPal and that may give them a certain license to insist on its use!

The Ebay requirement, however, may have been a major factor in the adoption of the PayPal app.  In which case, Master card are going to have a big problem getting their App adopted. Especially when they charge for the “send” part of the transaction.

Still, if you are not a PayPal fan but still are looking for an “on the go” transaction system, and want to join American Express!! then the new app does make some maney transactions a bit easier. But there is the catch:

The Bancorp Bank will issue a MasterCard Prepaid debit virtual account that has the MoneySend service included.

So, to use the app, you must sign up with Mater Card. PayPal is not tied to any one bank - so is a bit more flexible - another likely problem for the new App that will limit its adoption. But if you are already with Mastercard, then the App could be appealing.

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