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My wife and I enjoy eating out a few times a week. We aren’t crazy spenders when it comes to eating out, but during a typical week we eat out between 1-3 times. We have a handful of restaurants we visit and rotate visits between those choices. After a while though, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut of visiting the same places. Scoutmob allows us to try new restaurants and save a little cash in the process.

Scoutmob is similar to Groupon in form, but functions a little different. Both Groupon and Scoutmob allow you to experience local restaurants and businesses at a discount, but unlike Groupon, Scoutmob is completely free to use.

Each day, Scoutmob has a different daily deal. You can visit the Scoutmob website and enter your mobile phone number and you’ll receive a text message with the deal information. The deal is good for about 3-4 months, after which it will expire and you cannot use it. You can only claim the deal if you visit the website and enter your mobile number during the time the deal is being offered; unless you have an iPhone. If you have an iPhone, you can download the Scoutmob iPhone App and you can see all current deals (ones that have yet to expire) and there is no need to “claim” the deal.

Using the deal is simple. If you have the text message, just show the text message when you pay and your discount will be applied to your bill. I’ve never used the text message method, but I imagine you have to delete the text message on the spot to prevent reuse. If you have the iPhone App, just open the App, select the deal, and click the “Use This Deal” link. The App will verify your location and then just show the screen to the server.

I’ve used the Scoutmob iPhone App about 3-4 times and have never had a problem getting the discount. The first couple version of the App were horrendously slow, but those problems were fixed some time ago. My only wish for the App would be a way to hide deals I know I’ll never use. Scrolling through the deals can take a while, and having the ability to hide unwanted deals would be a time saver. A simple hide flag would be fairly simple to implement, and a button to removed the “hidden flags” would be a great way to get any accidentally hidden deals back.

Scoutmob is currently offering deals only in Atlanta and New York, but are looking to expand to other cities. The handful of cities they are expanding to next are listed on the Scoutmob homepage. Sign up to be notified if you want to know when they launch in your city. Scountmob is completely free to use, and I highly recommend it.

Popularity: 3%

I use all of Sophiestication Software’s apps (CoverSutra, Groceries, and Tipulator). When I found out that Sophiestication recently released the Wikipedia app “Articles,” I had to try it. I am very pleased with it.

The look of Articles is reminiscent of Mobile Safari. The interface includes a progress bar, back and forward, bookmarks and history, and page selection. Up to 9 pages can be opened at once, which is 1 more then Mobile Safari.

Articles remembers the last Wikipedia page that was accessed from the last session, as well as the position left off while reading it.

The bookmarks section includes bookmarks that can be organized into folders, recent history, a link to a random Wikipedia article, as well as a map showing nearby links. Recently viewed are saved for offline viewing

Wikipedia articles are displayed nicely. Clicking on a picture zooms into it, and after loading the picture can be saved or copied. Separate windows are used to open tables, graphs, and extra information.

28 different languages can be chosen to search from, including French, Spanish, and Chinese.

There are a few things I did not like about Articles. There is no way to quickly go to a section. Any section must be scrolled down to. Also, there is no queue.

Even with these flaws, Articles has shaped up to be a great app. Articles is available for $2.99 (iTunes link) for iPhone OS 3.0 and above.

Popularity: 5%

For a few months now, I’ve been wishing for a Groupon iPhone app. Recently, the folks behind Groupon have granted my wish. The free Groupon iPhone app (iTunes link) is now available.

If you’re not familiar with Groupon, it’s essentially a group coupon purchasing website. Each day in a number of large cities across the United States, there is a daily deal. The deal is essentially a gift certificate/coupon to the location featured that day. You have the remainder of the day to purchase the deal before it changes, but enough people need to purchase the deal before the coupon is issued. If the required number of people don’t purchase the deal, you aren’t charged and the coupon is not issued. I’ve never seen a deal not purchased by enough people to trigger the deal however. The deals vary by city, as does the cost, value, and expiration date of the deal.

Up until now, you had to login to the website to purchase the Groupon. Once you purchased the Groupon, you had to print it and present it to your server/cashier. With the release of the iPhone app, you can now purchase and redeem the Groupon right on your phone!

After opening the app, you select your city and the daily deal will be shown. You can sign in with your existing Groupon login, create a new login, or sign in with Facebook Connect. Once signed in, you can see your existing Groupons and purchase new ones. When using a Groupon, your iPhone displays the same code that the printed out Groupon displays. The retailer just needs to verify your code and then you receive the value of the coupon.

I enjoy Groupon as it gives my wife and I a chance to visit different restaurants and save some cash. We don’t eat out a lot, but Groupon has provided good motivation for getting us to try different places. If you live in one of the cities with a Groupon site, I highly suggest you check them out.

Popularity: 5%

I am too forgetful, so I am constantly taking notes to remember anything. There are many options to take notes on my iPhone. The bundled Notes app does not sync to a web site, which is a deal-breaker. Simplenote is very minimal, which is a blessing and a hindrance at the same time. Evernote is too cluttered. Synotes, by Syncode, finds a nice balance between features and getting out of the way.  Syncode also makes Syncopy, which was reviewed previously on Apple Mac HQ.

Notes are easy to make. After hitting the plus sign in the corner of the screen, I am brought to the “New Note” screen. Then I put in a title and write my note. When done with the note, an icon can be assigned to label the note. Hopefully a future version of Synotes has a wider selection of icons to better match the note I have wrote.

Notes can be shared easily via e-mail. The web site provides an rss feed as well.

Searching in the app not only searches by title, but also by content of the notes. Being able to search within notes is great and quite helpful.

I can access my notes when on my computer too. The app quickly syncs with the Synotes web site. Notes can be made at the web site, which syncs back to the app. The web site has a few downsides. There is no way to search through notes. Also, there are minimal ways to organize notes.

Each note has important information including creation and last modified dates, where the note was created (in the app or on the web site), as well as version history. Any note can be reverted back to its previous version.

I am pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to make notes in Synotes, and I highly recommend it for users seeking a way to make notes.  Syncode is coming out with an iPad version of Synotes too, and it will be interesting to see how well it turns out. Synotes 1.1.1 is compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 or later for $1.99 (iTunes link).

Popularity: 3%

When I am looking for interesting pictures, I usually go to Flickr. It has a wide selection of great pictures and wallpapers to view. Flickit Pro is a great way to see what Flickr has to offer.

Browsing for content is easy. My pictures as well as my contact’s pictures are broken down by sets, galleries, tags, and favorites. Searches can be done by my pictures, friends, contacts, or everyone in Flickr. Nearby pictures are shown on a map based on my geolocation. Groups I am subscribed to is also included. There is even a section for Flickr Interestingness which features many engrossing pictures.

After finding some pictures to look at, there are a couple ways to view them. Each picture can be viewed taking up the whole screen in portrait or landscape. Photoflow is like Cover Flow, which is seen in many Apple products. Photoflow has tilt scrolling like in the Instapaper Pro app. When photoflow is on, I can tilt my iPhone forward and back to scroll through pictures.

Uploading pictures is a snap. I can take pictures on the spot with the camera in-app or choose them from my Photo app. Details of pictures can be changed, including title, description, sets, tags, groups, who can see it, geolocation, and if you want to post it to a blog or Twitter. Any pictures posted to Twitter tweets the name of the photo and provides a compressed URL to the picture on Flickr.

Flickit Pro is very beautiful. The theme colors are gray and black with a tile wallpaper.

The only gripes I have about this app are that it would not update my recent activity and it does now allow deleting pictures. I am not sure if this is disallowed in the Flickr API for 3rd-party apps, though the official Flickr app can delete pictures.

Flickit Pro is a great app to find pictures. It is currently on my first iPhone page, which is where my favorite and most used apps are. Version 2.0 is available for iPhone OS 3.1 or later for $3.99 (iTunes link).

Popularity: 2%

I love to cook. Unfortunately that also means I visit the grocery store on a weekly basis. My typical grocery store visit begins like so. I look through a few cookbooks, cooking magazines and MacGourmet to find the recipes I want to make. After I’ve found the recipes, I head to the kitchen to see what ingredients I have on hand and what I need to buy. As I go through each recipe I write down what I need to buy on a small sheet of paper. Once I’m done, I take the list with me and hit the store on the way home from work the following day.

This week my routine changed for the better. Instead of writing down my list, I decided to test out the Groceries iPhone App from Sophiestication Software.

The very first thing you’ll notice about Groceries is that the UI is beautiful. The App is very responsive and you can tell a lot of thought was put into the design. After opening the App, you immediately begin adding items from the extensive default database to a new shopping list. Items can be added via a search or browsing by aisle. If you don’t find an item, it’s a simple tap to add it to the database.

Groceries makes it very easy to customize your grocery list. You can add notes and amounts to each item with just a few taps. You can add frequently purchased items to your favorites list for quick access. You can even email your list with ease. The ability to email the list is a nice touch in the event that you need to send your spouse to the grocery store instead.

Perhaps the greatest feature of Groceries is how your grocery list is organized. When adding items to your list you’ll notice they are organized by aisles. This small design decision leads to a huge payoff. Within each list, you have the ability to reorder the presentation of aisles. Essentially you can match up the aisles within Groceries to the layout of the grocery store you shop at. This allows you to easily see when you have finished shopping on a particular aisle and can move to the next one. I no longer have to continually scan my shopping list to make sure I’ve crossed off every item. A quick glance at Groceries will confirm that I’m done with that aisle and can move on.

This App has a ton of other fine detail. The ability to keep the list at exactly the same spot even if I lock my iPhone is a nice touch. A quick tap will reduce my list to just the remaining items, useful for long lists. I can clear out a finished list easily as well.

If possible, I’d like to see some kind of integration with MacGourmet or MacGourmet touch. I’m not even sure if that’s possible or what integration I’d like, but I’d be willing to bet the developers are smart enough to think of something good. Comments in iTunes also mentioned some type of indicator for coupons and I concur that would be a good idea. Maybe a little coupon icon right beside the item name.

Groceries (iTunes link) will set you back $1.99 and is available now in the App Store. After my first grocery store visit using Groceries, I can’t see myself ever going back to pen and paper. This App saves me time in the grocery store and that fact alone is worth the small price of Groceries. In fact, I’d say that this app is the best $2 I’ve ever spent on “Groceries”.

Popularity: 2%

There are many moments in the day that I want to keep track of because they are special and memorable. A simple note taking app just will not cut it. That is where the diary app Momento, from d3i, comes in.

Momento helps record these “moments”. Moments can be described with text and/or images. Images can be from the Photo app or the iPhone camera. Any moment I enter into Momento can be tagged in numerous ways to make searching through them easier. These tags include people (which can be pulled from the Contacts app), places, events, and custom tags.

Some of my moments were not recorded in my Momento personal diary and instead were put on my social networking accounts. These “social moments” can be from Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Twitter. Momento focuses on my life and experiences so it only includes my posts and excludes what my friends have posted.

Momento will not replace full-fledged Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Twitter apps. This would make the app cluttered and it would lose its simplistic appeal. Momento does not allow tagging of social moments.

This app is very pretty. I am a sucker for a wood grain theme and Momento is filled with it. Each day of moments is viewed from a spiral notebook theme. A lot of attention went into the look of this app.

There were a few things I did not like about Momento. Only one of each type of account can be linked to Momento, so for instance I can only have one of my Twitter accounts. This probably will not be a problem for most since they do not have multiple accounts for each of these services. Also, moments that are deleted will only erase them from viewing in Momento, but it does not delete them from the social networking services. This is mainly because Momento is not meant to replace your main social networking apps. Other things I didn’t like include not being able to open URLs or enlarge photos to view them more easily.

Momento is a great diary app and I am excited to see what the future holds for it. Momento 1.0.2 is available now for $2.99 (iTunes link) and is compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 and above.

Popularity: 2%