Archive for 'iPhone Utilities App Reviews'
PDF Expert iPhone Business App Review
Posted on 06. Sep, 2009 by iPhone App Reviewer.
PDF Expert: The ultimate PDF reader on the iPhone.
| Our Rating: 8.1/10 |  |
[Screenshots] |
Version Reviewed: 1.2.1
Developer: Readdle [iTunes Link]
Price as of Review: $4.99
Current iTunes Rating: 3.5/5
Size: 3.8MB
PDF Expert is a very professional PDF document reader though it mutli-functions as a small wireless harddrive, and other document readers. Unlike other PDF reading or eBook applications such as Stanza [iTunes Link], PDF Experts allows for nearly full support on PDF’s. This means that you can read a PDF and it will look almost exactly like it would on your computer, I mean, on a 3.5″ screen of course. Although you can pan, pinch to zoom in and double tap to focus using the iPhone’s multi-touch capabilities.
The interface is extraordinarly simple, but very effective. PDF Expert acts as a thumbdrive, you can place your PDF’s or other files on your iPhone via wi-fi or your free 512MB of storage on Readdle. When reading you can create bookmarks, search the document, read the entire table of contents, send the document to a friend and even rotate your device to landscape mode and read in a different orientation. If you get interrupted and leave the app it will save your reading progress and open the next time.
There’s a few glitches in the app that can make for an annoying experience, a few noteworthy ones as follows:
- When double tapping to focus, it generally zooms too far and cuts off text.
- No menu in landscape mode.
- Crashing unexpectedly.
All in all PDF Expert is still an exceptional reading application, with the next update hopefully this business app will become a gem. This one will be staying on my device.
Final Ratings:
Usefulness: 7.9/10 – Being able to read PDF’s and other documents without Internet access is a great concept.
User Interface: 8.3/10 – Pretty awesome, some glitches that knock this down some points.
Price: 7.1/10 – $4.99 is suitable.
Technology: 8.5/10 – Great job on online syncing and of course the Wi-Fi access.
Execution of Concept: 8.7/10 – Pretty good job on Readdle’s part.
Overall Rating: 8.1/10
Further Improvements:
- Fix noted glitches.
- Quick access to Table of Contents when scrolling through documents
- Ability to search titles and contents when scrolling through documents.
- Access to popular online office web apps such as Google Docs and Zoho
Screenshots of PDF Expert on the iPhone App Reviewer Flickr Page.
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Calc Zero iPhone Utility Review
Posted on 31. Aug, 2009 by iPhone App Reviewer.
Calc Zero: A unit converting app with a fun, quick interface.
| Our Rating: 6.2/10 |  |
[Screenshots] |
Version Reviewed: 1.5.4
Developer: Uplake Media LLC [iTunes Link]
Price as of Review: $4.99
Current iTunes Rating: 3.5/5
Size: 1.0MB
Calc Zero is a unit conversion calculator with a highly customizable user interface. Calc Zero has a lot of competition with apps such as Units [iTunes Link] and Convert [iTunes Link] and unfortunately it’s price and interface just can’t compete. However it does convert quite a few more units then other apps, like programming modes with hex, decimal and binary (as a programmer I loved these). For reliability, I, or the users I’ve shown the app to haven’t found any errors in the calculations/conversions this app produces.
There’s a few things I’m not so keen about in Calc Zero, first of all how much they’ve tried to integrate a regular calculator with a conversion tool, the mix just doesn’t work well. Next is how they convert, rather than a Category:From->To system, you must figure out how to navigate through the interface. Rather then having an easily accessible clear button, you have to backspace your work and then clear all units and metrics added. One benefit of the system however is you can easily make cross-unit calculations, i.e. 12mS multiplied by 13 seconds. I think they need to separate the app into a couple different kinds of interface modes.
As for just the user interface – what it is right now, it has some cool effects, each category of metrics are displayed with a tab. It uses the iPhone SDK’s default tab interface element which 
means you’re limited to four different tabs at the same time and then the “More…” tab which allows you to view the rest. You can press edit and drag around categories nonetheless. This allows you to put your most used metrics into the front tabs, easy access for whenever you want to make a quick conversion (there should be a button for “Most Used”
.
Some little effects are added such as the buttons vibrating when you press them, with the iPhone and it’s tiny keys, this is nice to know that you actually pressed the right button (considering how many are on a calculator). Calc Zero has a huge manual which is sort of tucked away in the More category right at the bottom. There’s some delay in navigating between pages, accessing the settings seems to delay quite a bit. Removing some of these effects would most likely improve response time. The settings allow you to change readability and all sorts of those “little,” making Calc Zero ideal for the tinkerers out there.
Overall Calc Zero is an interesting unit converter which at $4.99 doesn’t quite make the cut compared to the competitors who offer a lot of bang for a single buck.
Final Ratings:
Usefulness: 7/10 – Not something I’d use on a daily basis but definitely a concept I like having on hand.
User Interface: 7/10 – Awesome but really unresponsive.
Price: 4/10 – Competitors such as Units and Convert are offering an app just as good, if not better for a fifth of the price.
Technology: 5/10 – Not many glitches but very poor stability. High customization but no landscape mode.
Execution of Concept: 7.9/10 – Lots of different units and metrics – gets the job done.
Overall Rating: 6.2/10
More screenshots of Calc Zero on iPhone App Reviewer’s Flickr Page.
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Lingopal iPhone Travel App Review
Posted on 22. Aug, 2009 by iPhone App Reviewer.
Lingopal: A greatly executed phrasebook but unfortunately limited.
| Our Rating: 4.8/10 | |
[Screenshots] |
Version Reviewed: 1.0.2
Developer: Lingopal Holdings Pty Ltd
Price as of Review: $9.99
Current iTunes Rating: 4/5
Size: 192MB
Lingopal is a multilingual phrase book which allows you to translate around 300 phrases from one language to another. A wide variety of languages are available for you to choose from for translating to and from. Due to the small amount of actual phrases, Lingopal might not do so well as a real phrasebook app when you’re traveling in a foreign country.
Luckily the developer has done an excellent job on the interface, it’s darkly themed and very smooth. Browsing around all the phrases is a breeze with drop-down phrases, search, favourites and a categorized menu. The interface is controlled via touch, however there seems to be some lag and unresponsiveness in the interface. Each phrase can read and dictated to the user, a huge annoyance is the speed of the dictation and volume. At max volume you can hardly hear the phrases in a noisy environment (i.e. a travel environment), an no my ears aren’t getting old. Mix that with the speed of the dictation, it’s almost useless. Settings for this is definitely a need in the future. To make this truly useful, I think a pronunciation mode would be awesome – select a quip of the text and go through each syllable.
All in all, Lingopal is a great quick reference, with some of the categories such as Insults and Flirting it might even be entertaining for some (I mean who doesn’t want to ask “Are your parents cousins?” in over 30 languages?). Due to the limited nature and all the annoyances of the app, Lingopal fails to be a good reference. It’s got a great interface to kickstart future development, lets hope the developers continue working on this one.
Final Ratings:
Usefulness: 3.8/10 – Due to the small amount of phrases and the poor dictation mode it fails to be useful.
User Interface: 7/10 – Really slick but unfortunately unresponsive.
Price: 4/10 – Considering that Lingopal is more useful for entertaining, $9.99 is a poor set price.
Technology: 4/10 – Lacks settings and much needed abilities to customize. Poor touch responsiveness.
Execution of Concept: 5/10 – Quite disappointed.
Overall Rating: 4.8/10
Further Improvements:
- Theme settings – optimized readability in any environment (white on black isn’t always great)
- More advanced dictation mode
- Fix misc. glitches such as touch lag
- More phrases. Much more phrases
- Dynamic translator! Even if not for all languages…
- $9.99 isn’t worth it until we get some more features in there.
More screenshots on our Flickr Page.
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Numerus iPhone Utilities App Review
Posted on 13. Jun, 2009 by iPhone App Reviewer.
Numerus: An amazing scientific calculator right on your iPhone
Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
Developer: Balazs Faludi
Price as of Review: $1.99
Current iTunes Rating: 4.5/5
Numerus is exactly the app we need on the iPhone, it’s the best utility application I have ever used (and I use it almost every day). Although the iPhone has a calculator it’s features are limited and even in landscape mode it doesn’t compare to a real scientific calculator. Numerus can handle advanced equations and packs a large variety of features and functions in it’s small package. The app allows you to save all your previous calculations as well as email them. You can store variable data and call them in all the mathematical functions it provides (just look at the screenshots here). It’s highly stable and the calculations are always correct, I haven’t found a flaw in any of the functions, and have never had a crashing issue or glitches.
The user interface performs just like a real calculator, and there’s plenty of room to view your calculation, not to mention a great advantage of Numerus’ view area is that you can compute large numbers (over 10 digits) with ease. It provides a 2nd function button which unlocks a whole host of new abilities. Unfortunately it cannot rotate into landscape mode, a lot of people I’ve demoed the app to have noted and disliked the lack of mulitple viewing angles. Even if you’re not going to use advanced functions Numerus still beats the iPhone’s default calculator by far, it allows you do to long calculations with brackets, exponenents, and all standard operations (*/+-).
All in all Numerus is a great application to have on hand and should be on every student’s iPhone. I won’t leave to school without it!
Final Ratings:
Usefulness: 9.6/10 – The perfect scientific calculator, a few more feautres like graphing and it could replace an entire set of non-iPhone mathematical tools.
User Interface: 8/10 – Flawless but unfortunately does not have a landscape mode!
Price: 8/10 – Absolutely cannot argue with the two dollar price, obviously beats a real scientific calculators cost too
Technology: 8.5/10 – I haven’t experienced a single glitch or mathematical flaw, again though, no landscape mode.
Execution of Concept: 9.8/10 – You couldn’t expect any more from the developer, it’s an absolute programming masterpiece
Overall Rating: 9.3/10 – Average is 8.8 but I’m giving a 0.5 bonus point!
Further Improvements:
- Landscape Mode
- Quick access feature allowing simple quick equations
- Expression/Equation simplyfing ability
More screenshots here
Other Reviews on Numerus for iPhone and iPod Touch:
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