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.

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.

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).

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).

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”.

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.

If you’ve been reading Apple Mac HQ for a while, it should come as no surprise that I like cycling. The 2010 Pro Tour starts today with the Tour Down Under in Australia.

The event organization has made it easy to keep up with the Tour Down Under with the Santos Tour Down Under App (iTunes link). The App features the latest news, images, stage maps, and more. Since the race just began, content is a little light but that’s to be expected so early in the race.

If you enjoy cycling events, download the Santos Tour Down Under App now. The race is being held in Australia from January 17-24, 2010. The Santos Dour Down Under App is a free download.

Transferring text and images between my iPhone and Mac has been a pain in the past. I have tried a combination of ways to get this done, including Simplenote, Dropbox, and e-mailing to myself. In this App Showdown, I will compare 2 clipboard iPhone apps, Syncopy and Pastebot, to figure out a better way to get this done.

Syncopy is from the Australian development company Syncode. Upon opening this app, the most recently copied text is shown. After choosing to upload the text to the Syncopy server, the Mac companion toolbar app receives the copied text automatically or by manually refreshing it and then copies it to your Mac clipboard. Syncing is usually quick. The iPhone app has a history section which shows all synced text when the companion app is open. There is no way to batch delete the history for the iPhone and Mac companion app unfortunately. They must be deleted individually. Previous copied text is shown in the companion app, but it only shows the past 7. Both versions show where the text came from (iPhone or Mac).

Pastebot, by Tapbots, works under the same premise as Syncopy. The most recently copied item in the clipboard appears and is automatically added to the history. iPhone images can be from the clipboard, camera, or photo library. Unlike Syncopy, Pastebot can handle both text and images. Pastebot’s Mac companion toolbar app does not show a history of synced items, nor are copied items automatically pushed to the Mac. Instead, the item is selected on the iPhone and then is chosen to be pasted on the Mac. It will then paste into whatever app is open (assuming it can accept a pasted item at the time). Copied text from the Mac will show up in Pastebot whenever both the iPhone and companion app are open.

Pastebot is a very pretty app, especially compared to Syncopy. It is just as beautiful as Weightbot and Convertbot, also made by Tapbots.

The history in Pastebot is far more functional because of folders, unlike Syncopy’s flat organization which only sorts in reverse chronological order based on when it was added to the history. Pastebot does not do batch delete as well.

The Pastebot Mac companion app and iPhone must be on the same network to work together. Syncopy syncs via the cloud, so this is not an issue.

Pastebot provides text filters and editing. The filters are very useful and include changing the case, find and replace, and encoding and decoding HTML entities. Image filters and cropping is also available. The image filtering is rather basic and includes altering brightness, saturation, and sepia. Syncopy does not offer any type of altering.

Outputted text from Pastebot can be used as a Google search query via Mobile Safari or e-mailed in app. Images can also be e-mailed, as well as saved to the iPhone’s Camera Roll. Syncopy cannot output in any of these ways. Both iPhone apps cannot send to a Twitter client like Birdhouse.

Pastebot wins this App Showdown. Though I do have some nitpicks with both apps, Pastebot has more features then Syncopy. Syncopy feels too barebones at this point to be recommended. Pastebot 1.0.5 (iTunes link) is available now for $2.99 for iPhone OS 3.0 and above, while Syncopy 1.0 (iTunes link) is available for iPhone OS 3.1.2 and above.

For both 2007 and 2008, I listed a number of applications I couldn’t live without those year. It’s now time to release the same list for 2009. Some applications remain unchanged from 2008, but a few have dropped off the list all together and a few more have been added. I’d like to say “Thank You” to all the Mac developers out there who make beautiful Mac software. These are the applications I couldn’t live without in 2009, in no particular order.

1Password remains one of my favorite Mac applications. It makes managing your online passwords incredibly easy. I recently upgraded to 1Password 3 in advance of my move to Snow Leopard. 1Password 3 adds some nice features, including the ability to manage software license information. The 1Password iPhone App (iTunes link) gives you the ability to make your login information mobile.

I still write every AMHQ post with MarsEdit. Not much has changed over the last year with MarsEdit, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Blogging with MarsEdit makes blogging easier, so I’m going to continue to use it. Alas, MarsEdit still doesn’t have bullet and numbered list support. Maybe it will happen in 2010?

Towards the end of 2009 my wife didn’t use Google Calendar that much, but BusySync still remains incredibly useful. Since I upload my work Outlook calendar to Google Calendar, I’m able to sync it to my iPhone with the help of BusySync. For work and home, BusySync keeps my calendars in sync.

Nearly every time my Mac is turned on, Caffeine is running. Caffeine easily allows you to suspend your power settings to prevent your Mac from going to sleep. This year they added the ability to suspend your power settings for 7 different time periods. If you watch video on your Mac, you need this application. Best of all, it’s free!

It’s 2010 and I still use Cha-Ching to manage the finances for my family. The iPhone App was released and I love having the ability to add transactions while on the go. I liked the Cha-Ching touch beta so much that I purchased version 1.0 the first day it hit the App Store. Cha-Ching for Mac is still in Beta however. In fact, I’ve begun to loose faith in the developers as the app has been in beta for well over a year and communication from them is thin at best. I’m slowly beginning to think that I need to look for another application to manage my finances.

Rising from the ashes of VisualHub is Video Monkey. Video Monkey is my go to application when I need to convert video. The very first version I tried was slow. Since then however, Video Monkey has turned into a very solid application. I use it often when converting video for my Apple TV.

I don’t watch many TV shows when they are first aired. Instead, I plug in my EyeTV Hybrid and use the accompanying software, EyeTV, to record shows onto my Mac and watch them later on my Apple TV. I just upgraded to version 3 which included Snow Leopard support and a updated UI among many other updates. There is also a companion EyeTV iPhone App.

Cooking is one of my passions and MacGourmet is what I use to keep my recipes organized. I watch a lot of Food Network show and have added countless recipes from their website. MacGourmet includes a very easy method to import recipes from the Food Network site and a handful of others. For recipes on any website, the text clipping feature makes adding a recipe dead simple. MacGourmet touch (iTunes link) allows you to take your entire recipe collection with you on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Despite still being in beta, Skitch was rock solid in 2009. I use Skitch to capture and resize pretty much every picture you see on this website. After capturing and resizing the picture, I just drag it straight from Skitch into MarsEdit and click insert. I wonder if 2010 will finally bring a 1.0 version?

When I needed to handle multiple Twitter accounts, I found Nambu. Nambu allows me to manage every aspect of the Twitter accounts I use. The ability to unfavorite tweets has been one of the most used features of Nambu. When I upgraded to Snow Leopard, Nambu started to crash randomly. Nambu moved from an open to private beta so I haven’t been able to update it for Snow Leopard support. Because of poor Snow Leopard support, I’ve been on the lookout for another Twitter app in 2010.

Digital distribution has help spurn new pricing models for software. One company embracing alternative models is The Application Cubby, which is now offering a free ad-supported version of their popular gas mileage and vehicle maintenance app Gas Cubby.

What makes this collaboration unique is that only one company, Honeywell, will provide ads for the app. The only products that will be advertised are from the Honeywell subsidiary FRAM, which makes auto parts such as oil filters.

This app has ranged in price from $0.99 to $9.99. Gas Cubby is still available without ads for $6.99.

If developers can make the economics work, it is great to see apps being offered in both paid and free ad-supported versions.

Grab Gas Cubby FRAM edition for free now (iTunes link). Gas Cubby requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.

Nearly everyone in the world has to manage tasks on some level. Wether it’s a simple to-do list, project management, the “honey do” list, or nearly anything in between, task management is a way of life. There are a ton of to-do list applications for the iPhone, but are any of them any good? I’ve narrowed down this article to three services that offer both an iPhone App and website. All three iPhone Apps provide offline access which is a must these days.

Zenbe Lists

Zenbe Lists is a free service offered by Zenbe. The website is free to use, but the iPhone App (iTunes link) will set you back $3. I’ve been using the iPhone App since it first came out and was free. The iPhone App and website are pretty basic, but do provide a usable product.

One nice feature of Zenbe Lists is that it allows you to share a list with someone else. This can come in handy for certain lists, especially something like a grocery list. You can rearrange lists and items within a list with ease. The Due Date functionality is pretty basic however. When an item is overdue, it does not show an icon badge or move that item to the top of the list. Once items have been checked off, they move to the bottom of that list instead of removing them from view. I’ve had issues of items duplicating and I can’t seem to figure out why. Items can’t contain notes or really any other information. The Zenbe Lists website is also pretty barebones.

Remember The Milk

Remember The Milk (RTM) uses a freemium model. The basic service is free, and a Pro account costs $25 a year. Though the iPhone App (iTunes link) is free, you need a Pro account to use it. The combination of iPhone App and website make for a great experience.

I really can’t think of anything that Remember The Milk doesn’t do well. You can assign due dates with ease, which then rise to the top of your lists and also show up via a icon badge. You can create multiple notes per item and give tags, URLs, time estimates, location, and more. The iPhone App is organized well and the UI is great. It’s easy to see upcoming task and to browse your lists. The website offers the ability to share and publish your tasks, RSS, iCal support, and much more.

Google Tasks and GeeTasks
Google Tasks are accessed inside of your Gmail account and is absolutely free. For the iPhone App, GeeTasks (iTunes link) by Memengo costs just $3. If you want to use Google Tasks with your Google Apps domain, you’ll need the $6 GeeTasksPro (iTunes link).

As with many Google products, the UI in Google Tasks is minimal. You can access Google Tasks as a little pop up while in Gmail or expand it into its own browser tab. While the UI is minimal, you do have functionality that goes beyond the basics. You can print your task lists, email the lists, create sub tasks (indented tasks really), purge your completed tasks, and see your completed tasks separately. You also have various sorting options when viewing your tasks. You can also assign notes to your tasks. You can also turn any Gmail message into a task and view your tasks on Google Calendar and iGoogle.

You can do a lot with GeeTasks that you can do inside Google Tasks. GeeTasks shows a icon badge with your number of tasks. I’d like the icon badge more if it showed the number of overdue or tasks due today, instead of the total number of tasks. You can create and edit tasks, add and remove notes, and change due dates. I didn’t find a way to add lists, but that may be a Google Tasks API limitation. The 4 different view options inside GeeTasks is a nice touch. The developer mentions on the iTunes page that sub-tasks and task rearrangement is coming in the new year. If those two additions and list creation are added, it will really round out the GeeTasks App. When I spoke with the developer over email, he was really responsive; that’s always a nice touch.

So where does this leave us? If task management is really important and you have the money to spare, I’d go with Remember The Milk. The features of the website along with the iPhone App make for a high quality task management solution. I’ve had a RTM Pro subscription for the last year (it actually ran out today), but I don’t think I’m going to renew it. If you need task management but aren’t a super task management ninja, I’m recommending the combination of Google Tasks and GeeTasks. The combination of Google Tasks and GeeTasks provides above basic task management with superior Google integration and offline support at a good price. I’m going to switch my task management to Google Tasks and GeeTasks and see how it goes.

Update (12/27/2009): Just as I was finishing this post, I ran across another website and iPhone App combination, Toodledo. The iPhone App (iTunes link) costs $2 and the website uses the freemium model. I didn’t have time to test Toodledo, but it does look promising.

Update (1/1/2010): Denis, the GeeTasks developer, emailed me to let me know that the update containing the sub-tasks and task rearrangement is now live in the App Store. In addition to that, you can go into the Settings App and change the behavior of the GeeTasks icon badge to show the tasks due today/overdue just like I commented about in the original article. Thanks Denis!

If you spent any time at an arcade, carnival, or fair growing up, there is no doubt that you remember Skee-Ball. For those not in the know, Skee-Ball is a game where you are given a set number of balls which you must roll up an inverted lane with a ramp at the end. When the ball reaches the ramp, it’s launched into the air and hurled towards a number of holes. Each hole has a point value, with the more difficult holes having a higher value. The game gives you tickets based on the number of points you scored. The tickets could then be redeemed for prizes like stuffed animals, little toys, radios, and even TV’s. Though there is a Skee-Ball (iTunes link) iPhone app, that won’t the the one I’m talking about today.

Ramp Champ takes two carnival games and combines them. Part Skee-Ball, part bean bag toss, Ramp Champ is a perfect time waster while waiting. I’ve used it a number of times while waiting for my wife to finish shopping, and it’s been a great distraction.

The game comes with 4 levels, each with three goals. As you score points you collect tickets. When you reach a goal, you earn a trophy. Your tickets can be redeemed for virtual prizes. When you start the game, a tutorial is played which gives you the basic rules of the game.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the game is the ball rolling. The flick to roll motion is pretty sensitive. A faster flick results in a faster roll. The slower roll is much harder to master than the fast roll.

I’ve spent a good hour playing Ramp Champ and it has yet to loose the appeal it had when I started. Reaching the goals are not easy, but they don’t seem impossible either. Reaching all 12 goals included with the game should provide many hours of game play. The game includes exceptional music and sound effects as well.

Though Ramp Champ (iTunes link) is usually a paid app, it’s currently free “for a limited time”! Once you solve the included goals and master the four included levels, you can purchase four different add-on packs for $.99 each. One tip: mastering a diagonal roll to hit multiple targets at once is critical to reaching some of the goals. This game is a blast and I highly recommend giving it a try!

Mind mapping is a great way to organize ideas, create outlines, brainstorm, make to-do lists, and much more.  MindNode is a program I use on my Mac to mind map because of its simplicity and ease of use.  Thankfully, there is a version for the iPhone/iPod touch called MindNode (touch) which has these same qualities.

When first using this app, I was expecting it to be clunky and unintuitive.  This is not the case though.  It is quite easy to make new nodes.  Since this app is not bloated, making alterations to nodes is painless.  Nodes can be changed to any color you want and can be added or detached from other nodes.

A list view is available as an alternative way to display mind maps, which is a great view on the small iPhone/iPod touch screen when mind maps get large and have tons of nodes.

Importing and exporting can be done between MindNode Pro for Mac when both apps are open and on the same Wi-Fi network.  This occurs very fast.  The mind maps from the regular version of MindNode work in MindNode (touch), but the process of importing and exporting takes a step or two more compared to MindNode Pro.  A browser interface can be used as well for importing and exporting.  MindNode (touch) can e-mail mind maps in multiple formats including MindNode document, FreeMind document, PNG image, text outline, and OPML outline.

The biggest downside, according to the app’s page in iTunes, is that “due to the low memory of mobile device, working with mind maps with more than 150 nodes may appear slow and unstable in the current version.”  Hopefully this will be fixed in a future version as mind maps can get large quickly.

MindNode (touch) is a joy to use.  If you purchase the app, you get a coupon to get 20% off of MindNode Pro.  MindNode (touch) 1.1 is now available for $7.99 in the
App Store (iTunes link).

I spent two weeks last year in Belgium, Netherlands, and France. Despite being in France for about 5 days, the only time we spent in Paris was in the airport and subway. One of the places I wished we had visited was the Louvre Museum. Now I can experience at least of a little of the Louvre through the App Store.

The Louvre Museum has released the app, Musee du Louvre (iTunes link). The application feature pictures, videos, and information about a handful of the masterpieces on display at the Louvre. It also serves as a quick FAQ about the museum including directions, hours, admissions fees, and more.

Once you open the application, you’re presented with Cover Flow style navigation. You can navigate between bookmarks, a tour of the Louvre, artworks, the palace, and visitor information. Tapping the star you see on some of the information pages bookmarks that page for quick access. As you browse through the application, you’re likely to play some videos. The videos will automatically play with French subtitles, but you can switch between English, German, and Japanese subtitles by tapping a playing video and hitting the far left icon near the play button (it looks like a speech bubble).

The application features the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Napoleon III apartments, and many other treasures. If you’re the slightest bit interested in this great French museum, I highly suggest you download this free app. I really enjoyed navigating through the app and looking at a few of the treasures housed in the Louvre.

After downloading Twitterrific for iPhone, I thought it would be my Twitter app of choice.  The interface is great and the app looks very appealing.  Tweetie 2 has changed all this.

There are many great features within Tweetie 2.  Multiple Twitter accounts can be logged into simultaneously.  Tweets can be viewed offline by caching them or sending them to Instapaper.

Sometimes I want to just put down my thoughts before tweeting them.  Drafts can be done within the app instead of using an app like Birdhouse.  If you use Birdhouse, drafts can be sent from Tweetie 2 to Birdhouse.

My favorite feature is that Tweetie 2 can show nearby tweets on a list or map.  It is great to see exactly where and who is tweeting near you.  Seeing local tweets is more interesting to me.  It feels like I have more a connection with people that live in my area versus them living far away.

There are a few downsides to the newest Tweetie.  There are no push notifications, which mean constantly checking Tweetie 2 to see if new tweets have arrived.  Alternatively, an iPhone app like Notifications (iTunes link) can be used to send push notifications when a new tweet appears for you.  The appearance of Tweetie 2 is rather plain looking.  It is not an eyesore, but more attention could have been made to make it look better.  Also, Tweetie 2 is not available for Mac yet, which is unfortunate because it will be great to see how the Mac and iPhone versions work together.

Much has been made over the pricing of Tweetie 2.  It costs $2.99 whether or not the previous version was purchased.  What is controversial is that some people feel there should be free upgrades if the original Tweetie was bought.  This view is rather troubling.  Tons of hard work goes into developing apps and developers should be rewarded with pay if they want to charge for their software.  Certain things probably should not be charged for, such as bug patches.  Overall though, if there are feature upgrades that are worthy of payment, by all means consumer should pay for them if they want the features instead of feeling entitled to free upgrades for life.

The price of Tweetie 2 is not high.  The developer, Loren Britcher of Atebits, is not forcing users to upgrade from the original Tweetie.  Britcher was on a Macworld podcast talking about this issue and will be providing support for the first Tweetie “for the foreseeable future.”

Tweetie 2 is compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 and above is available now (iTunes link).