I have tried too many iPhone RSS apps and I still couldn’t find a good one. Until MobileRSS came along, at least for now.

Apps of these categories I’ve tried are either slow, too fancy, crashes often, doesn’t let you navigate your folders etc.

MobileRSS seems to solve these problems. It’s blazing fast (I am impressed), easy on the eyes and there are some features that are just plain useful, although they seem to be copied from Tweetie and ReadItLater (which is a good thing for this instance!).

User Interface

MobileRSS spots a straightforward interface, but they didn’t just leave it as that. You can also choose a darker theme if you like.

You can hit “Show All” at the bottom if you also want to see all your folders, otherwise leave it as “Show Updated” so that your screen won’t be cluttered.

This is the alternate theme of the interface which the developer call it “Black”, doesn’t look exactly black to me but, it sure looks like a decent alternative to the default theme.

Set your preferences or add a feed all on this screen.

Speaking about “add a feed” function, I never get it. I have never added a feed on the go (have you?) because if I do, I must be spending way too much time on my iPhone when I’m out. But MobileRSS’s “add a feed” function is different. It allows you to search for a feed using a keyword instead. Type a keyword and boom, you’re able to add the feed in an instant via the search result. But please note that this function is only available on the Pro ($4.99) version. Read on to see the differences between different versions of the same app.

Pull Down To Refresh

NibiruTech aren’t the first to copy this useful feature.

In fact I wish that more developers would follow this, if Loren wouldn’t mind.

Swipe For More Functions

Swipe and you will be able to do more with a feed, star, share, write a note etc.

For even more functions, hit the very familiar arrow icon on the right most side of the interface.

Sharing

You can share articles on Twitter, Facebook, ReadItLater, Instapaper, Delicious and good old email.

Don’t use some of them? Turn them off from the menu in settings.

Orientation Lock

Guess what? This is actually copied from ReadItLater.

When you see this “lock” icon, you can choose to lock it so that your orientation will be locked and vice versa.

Remembers Last Position, Offline & More

MobileRSS also remembers your last screen so that when you re-launch the app, you won’t feel like you left the app. Though, I find it sometimes buggy especially when I’m on the main article reading screen.

When I re-launch the app and the feeds are refreshing themselves, the article I was reading changes to another random article. This is what I hope the developer will eventually fix.

On a train, underground, or at anywhere with no internet access? Your articles (and images too) are stored offline so you can read it when you’re not connected.

Conclusion

The only problem I have is that there isn’t much distinction between the paid and free versions, except that the free one has ads. I used the free version for quite some time without getting annoyed at the ads as they’re surprisingly unobtrusive, but decided to part with my money just to support the developer.

If you decide to buy this app, here’s the differences between the three versions of MobileRSS:

• MobileRSS Free (Free, green icon) – Full Featured | Ads supported | No search and subscribe function
• MobileRSS ($2.99, orange icon) – Full Featured | No Ads | No search and subscribe function
• MobileRSS Pro ($4.99, blue icon) – Full Featured | No Ads | With search and subscribe function

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I have the privilege to demo Permute, currently unreleased, an app for converting between a huge list of media types.

Permute, by Fuel Collective, are also the makers of other extremely well designed Mac apps like Snippet, Swatch and PunchClock.

Permute is a media conversion application that converts videos to other video format like AppleTV, iPhone, iPod Touch, FLV, PS3, XBox, MP4, DVD etc. Not only that, it will also convert the resulting video into the correct aspect ratio of the resulting format.

I have a similar app that I bought last year, Xilisoft Video Converter, that does the same thing and I never thought the same app can be re-designed to be so much easier to use, not until Permute came along.

User Interface

I’m sure you will agree with me how easy it is to use this app when you look at this user interface the moment you launch the app. Start dropping your video files to convert!

Drag & Drop

You can drop one, two or any number of files into the drop zone. This is the screen you will see next after dropping. From the drop down menu, choose a format you want to convert to.

List Of Formats

There is a huge list of formats you can convert your video to. Converting a video to an audio file is also possible. I find this very useful for me. Recently I’ve been to YouTube to search for Andrew Garcia’s acoustic covers (yes I support him on American Idol!), downloaded and converted the YouTube FLVs to audio formats so that I can listen to it on my iTunes.

Had I known this app earlier, I would have used it to do the same. I’m sure there will be opportunities for the same kind of task in future. :)

As you can see there is a pretty good list of formats, kudos to the developers for the amount of work done for this.

Settings

There are some very thoughtful settings like putting to your Mac to sleep after conversion. Meaning you can go to sleep resting assured that you’ll save some electricity.

You can also convert .dvdmedia / VIDEO_TS folders to ISO’s for better compatibility with media center software.

The individual settings for the different formats can also be tuned. How flexible!

Conclusion

What can I say? Fuel Collective has done it again.

The developers have released the last built before the official release, so lookout! Follow @FuelCollective for updates!

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**********************
Winners! – 8 Dec 09
**********************

Congrats to the winners for this giveaway! You’ll receive an email shortly with your promo code, if you don’t receive it, please check the spam folder.

1. pemmax
2. Ethan
3. Chris H
4. abulafio
5. Mathieu

Previously, I reviewed Foobi and I mentioned that the developer was running low on free promo codes.

The good news is that Tap.plox contacted me for more promo codes to giveaway!

I have not one but five free promo codes that you can redeem Foobi for free on the U.S. App Store.

How To Win?

Very simple, the first 10 readers to leave a comment will be entitled a chance to win a free promo code. That’s 50% chance of winning! If you follow @SUBERAPPS and @tapplox, tell us in your comment and you have an even higher chance!

Also worth noting is that Tap.plox also have other apps in development, so follow @tapplox to get notified of future apps.

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1Password Pro iPhone App

[Discount: FREE! | iTunes Link]

The best and wildly popular password management tool for the Mac also comes with an iPhone version, the pro version of the iPhone app normally cost $7.99. But today, it’s absolutely FREE! Download it now already!

Textexpander

[Discount: 50% off $12.95 | Coupon Code: SMILEONFRIDAY | Website]

Textexpander is a utility app I can’t do without. Type an abbreviation and Textexpander (as the name suggest) will expand the abbreviation into a full text, image or both that you previously defined. Saves me so much time! Also worth noting that all other apps by SmileOnMyMac are also on 50% discount!

Fuel Collective’s Snippet & Swatch

[Snippet Discount: 20% off $12.95 | Coupon Code: thanksgiving | Website]
[Swatch Discount: 20% off $4.95 | Coupon Code: thanksgiving | Website]

Snippet & Swatch are beautifully crafted by Fuel Collective to help designers and developers save time on managing code snippets and colors. Very useful utilities for passionate designers and developers!

Layers

[Discount: 50% off $24.95 | Website]

Layers is a great screen capturing tool that takes screen captures even further. Taking a snapshot of your screen immediately turns every single application into individual layers perfectly sorted out in Photoshop waiting for manipulation. Latest feature includes web shots!

Equinux Family Of Apps

[Discount: Stationery Pack Bundles ($39.95) & Top 10 Mac app bundles ($79.95) | Website]

Equinux is bundling their top Mac apps that saves you up to 66%! Key apps included in the bundle are CoverScout, SongGenie, iSale and more.

JumSoft’s Money

[Discount: 50% off $39 | Coupon Code: BF2009 | Website]

I have used Money before and I can vouch for its quality, even though my needs have changed (need a more scaled down version) and no longer using it, I think it serves lots of others’ needs for finance management, invoicing etc. Even comes with an iPhone app that syncs with the Mac counterpart!

Postbox

[Discount: $10 off | Coupon Code: EP24355 (via @storiesofmac & @MarcEglon) | Website]

Postbox lets you work with email the way you’ve always wanted. Powered by an ultra-fast email engine and a sharp-looking, intuitive interface, Postbox will help you focus, save time, and get more done.

284 iPhone Apps on Sale!

[Visit 148Apps for full listing]

148Apps compiled a monster list of iPhone apps that are currently on Black Friday sale! Sale items include apps from lots of big names like Namco, EA Mobile, GameLoft, Konami, Pangea! Be sure to check out the page!

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Developer’s Site | iTunes Link | Price: $1.99 | Free Promo Codes: 1 code (U.S. store only)

For most things I dread to do, I need a reason. I have never “want” to track how balanced my diet is, or how much of what I’ve eaten. Not after I discovered Foobi.

Just like how Nike Plus makes me want to run, Foobi makes me want to track my diet!

If you’re a body builder, nutritionist, vegetarian, or anyone who just wants to track their diet, there has been no easier way to do it.

Not only does Foobi look absolutely gorgeous, it is extremely easy to use. Tracking your diet doesn’t require you to type any numbers. As they say “.. if you can flick, you’re an expert”.

Meet Foobi

Foobi greets you with a beautiful opening screen unveiling the app itself.

Launching Foobi

Whenever you consumed a category of food, launch Foobi, flick the screen left or right to choose the type of food, tap “+” to add a serving to the record.

Clicking the 3 stripes button on the left lets you take a quick glance at your diet for today or any date that you select:

For Foobi to be useful, you need to tracking your diet daily. Overtime, weekly summaries of your diet will be displayed on a graph. To see the graph, just flip your iPhone / iPod Touch into landscape mode.

As you can see from the graph below, I have been eating more meat (red) than vegetables (green).

If you have been wanting to eat more vegetables than meat, this graph will tell you you’ve been doing otherwise.

Planning Your Diet

Foobi is great for planning diets. In order to have a well balanced diet, you need to consume more of this and less of that. How do you know how much of what you’ve already consumed? By using Foobi to track your daily servings, it is easy to maintain a well balanced diet.

To plan your diet, simply go to Settings by clicking the “i” icon on the bottom right.

From here, you can set a daily servings limit for each food category or change the category name. If you don’t like the name “Poultry”, you can name it “Birds”. :D

If you can’t find a category from the default list, you can add your own. You can also change the color label of the food category, for example vegetables would most logically be green, not red! By using the right color to label your food category, it’ll be easier to read your weekly consumption graph.

Conclusion

I have not been able to find fault with the app except that I was not able to subtract servings. Other than that it does what it says and does it well.

Foobi might be the best looking diet tracking and balancing app you can ever find on the App Store yet.

Giveaway

The developer is running low on promo codes. Unfortunately I only have 1 promo code to giveaway! The first commenter gets the promo code to download Foobi on the U.S. App Store!

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Developer’s Site | iTunes Link | Price: $0.99 | Free Promo Codes: 10 codes (U.S. store only)

I usually receive a number of request per month from app developers about their new iPhone apps. As a designer myself, I tend to pay more attention to well designed apps and icons.

And yes, I mentioned icons, far too many apps have great functioning apps but less than attractive icons. A good icon should be easily identifiable, iconic and ties in well with the actual app itself.

Pleasant wood design

Jukebox ($0.99) is one of those apps with a beautiful design topped with a consistent icon.

For me, I’m not a hardcore gamer, I don’t get addicted easily. It’s usually because most games requires too much thinking and learning of controls. Call me lazy, but I use too much of my brains in my day to day work as a designer/developer so when I unwind I want to “shutdown” as much as possible.

Jukebox really lives up to how they describe their app, “..addictive, attractive music quiz.”. Apart from it’s addictive gameplay, Jukebox also spots a pleasant looking design.

Swipe Interactive sent me a promo code sometime ago, I redeemed the app, started playing and boy it got me hooked within a minute or so!

Gameplay

Tap the correct song

Basically Jukebox tests you on your entire music collection. It plays a a random portion of a song for a few seconds and you’re suppose to choose the right title from a list of four.

Sounds simple, but the longer you play, the more nervous you will become. Jukebox progresses on a relatively fast speed leaving you no time for dilly dally which increases the challenge. This game actually gave me an adrenaline rush. With each incorrect song I chose, it made me want to play on and choose more correct ones to increase my score percentage.

Scoring System

Your Statistics

One good thing about this game is that whenever you end the game, your current score will be accumulated as a total score under ‘Statistics’. When viewing your statistics, your results will be optionally uploaded to Swipe Interactive’s servers which will in return your ‘World Ranking’ score.

It’s pretty interesting to see how well you fair compared to players around the world, a good incentive to keep on playing.

Conclusion

All in all, an addictive game coupled with a well designed interface.

Jukebox is great for situations like “in a queue, waiting for the next train or bus etc”, as there is no limit to how long or short you should play this game in order to achieve your best score.

Certainly a good game to keep!

Giveaway

The developers are kind enough to provide 10 promo codes for SUBERAPPS readers to redeem the game on the App Store for free!

The first ten readers who comment will be sent an email almost immediately with the promo code!

The promo codes works in the U.S iTunes store only.

Comment now to redeem this wonderful game!

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I’ve just got an opportunity to review a spanking new to-do iPhone app, thanks to Nick from Spiffing Apps. This app will be out in the App Store next Monday is now available at the App Store. But now, I want to share with you my experience with this lovely iPhone app.

The Laid-Back Todo List

We have seen way too many feature packed ‘to-do’ lists apps on the App Store. Having lots of functions in an app of this genre works for some people but there are also people I know who cannot be bothered with the GTD system, the hassle of syncing with a desktop counterpart, sub grouping tasks and so on.

This group of people only need something as simple as a “pencil and paper” type of system. Only needing a place to quickly pen what they need to do.

Put Things Off fulfills this beautifully with a cute wooden interface coupled with subtle sounds to compliment the experience. Using this is a joy, it kinda makes me feel happy using it, mainly due to the light hearted design.

Launching The App

Launching the app greets you with a wooden background and the name of the app.

I am not a fan of splash screens as most of them I’ve seen are outright ugly and inconsistent with the app itself.

This one makes me a little more forgiving because of its consistency and it’s lovely laid back design.

Interface And Function

Using the app is extremely straightforward. Can’t get any simpler than that:

Tap the ‘+’ icon and add your tasks right away! Whatever you have added lands in your Inbox, ready for you to file to other boxes of different context.

There are only 3 boxes for you to file your tasks:

1. Today (tasks you need to complete today)
2. Put Off (tasks you will complete later)
3. Done (completed tasks)

Very straightforward and logical. This simple way of organizing tasks gets you up to speed very quickly. It doesn’t force you to learn and adjust to complicated systems.

Navigating Around

Navigating to other sections is only a matter of taping on the other boxes at the bottom.

You can move your tasks around or delete them as you wish.

Once you’re done with any tasks, just tap the “tick” icon.

Price

This app will require $2.99 to own. I must say the price is directly proportional to its feature set, definitely reasonable for its concept, design and execution.

Watch The Video!

The above images probably won’t do much justice to the actual usage of the app itself, so i suggest you end off by watching this cute video featuring the app. Once again, this app will be out in the app store next Monday. Stay tuned!

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If you run any kind of business (freelance, a company etc), you’ll need to keep receipts for any purchases made under the name of your business. The problem with keeping receipts is that the ink wear out very quickly. In the course of one year when it’s time to do your taxes, you’ll realize that most of your receipts become unreadable.

Scanning receipts and keeping them digitally, either on a dedicated folder on your Mac, or attach them in a finance software like Cha-Ching, can be a much better idea. But most people don’t like the idea of spending too much time scanning receipts with their scanner (steps include powering up the scanner, loading a preview and scan). Yes you can conveniently use Shoeboxed to scan your receipts for you if you don’t mind forking out a monthly fee ($9.95/month to start).

2 iPhone Apps To Digitize Your Receipts

If you have an iPhone, you only need to get two apps (5 bucks in total) to handle the digitizing of your receipts:

JotNot Scan
[$3.99 | Website | iTunes]

JotNot can scan your receipts by taking a picture of the receipt (can be done in the app itself), define the four corners of the receipt, the app will process the image of the receipt into a sharp looking version. I was skeptical about the image quality at first but was impressed by how the end result looked so sharp and “scanned-like”.

QuickPic
[$0.99 | Website | iTunes]

QuickPic basically lets you get an image out of your iPhone’s photo library or camera roll easily. You only need a web browser to do this. This is a time saving tool to get the scanned receipt using JotNot Scan out of your iPhone.

Here’s 4 steps to digitize your receipts with your iPhone:

Step 1

Take a picture of your receipt using JotNot Scan or import the image of the receipt you’ve previously taken before launching JotNot Scan:

Step 2

Define the 4 corners of the receipt by dragging the red circles to every corner:

Step 3

Once done, hit the “Process” button at the top right and you’ll see the result after the app processes the image. Save the image (your saved receipt will appear in the camera roll).

Step 4

Use QuickPic to get the receipt out of your camera roll easily, without this app you’ll need to email the receipt to yourself or use iPhoto to extract the image after docking your iPhone.

Launch QuickPic and choose your previously processed receipt using JotNot scan.

You’ll see your receipt in the window with a URL to download the image.

Enter the URL into your web browser and you’ll be able to view / download the receipt simply by dragging and dropping the image onto your desktop!

—–

The process looks like a long one with this seemingly long post, but I just want to be as detailed as possible by listing down all the steps clearly with the appropriate screenshots. Try it and you’ll find that it’s actually just two simple steps, snap your receipt with JotNot Scan and getting the image out of your iPhone with QuickPic.

I hope you find this tip useful, if you have any thoughts or suggestions please leave a comment.

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iPhone apps are extremely useful in our day to day lives, great design and user interfaces enhances our experience and makes us want to use it more, thus solving  day to day problems become whole lots of fun while enhancing productivity. Here are 21 essential iPhone apps that are extremely useful, coupled with visually appealing interfaces. If you have any recommendations please feel free to leave a comment. Enjoy!

Groups

[$2.99 | Website | iTunes]

A highly potential iPhone native “Contacts” app replacement. With groups you can manage your contacts easily, organizing them using drag and drop. Your created groups will synchronize with iPhone’s Contact app. Email groups of people easily with this app, call or SMS anyone easily, all with a very sexy interface.

User Interface

Cha-Ching

[$2.99 (Introductory Price) | Website | iTunes]

Cha-Ching was originally a Mac app (current version 2.0 beta, free until 30 April 09) designed for personal finance management. The highly anticipated iPhone app was only recently released at the App Store. I’ve tried many similar apps of the same genre and this is the best looking one in my opinion.

User Interface

Analytics

[$5.99 | Website | iTunes]

Analytics lets you check your Google Analytics data and reports on the go. At times you might find this app even easier to analyze Google Analytics data than the web app.
User Interface

Ego

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

Ego gives you one central location to check your Mint (number of visits), your total number of Twitter followers, Feedburner stats and Google Analytics stats on the go. Very convenient way to streamline the checking of your numbers, or your ego so to speak.
User Interface

Weightbot

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

Weightbot is a weight tracking app designed to let you meet your weight losing goal. Set your goal weight, record your weight at any interval (one weight per day max), view your BMI, and see your progress on a beautiful graph.
User Interface

Tweetie

[$2.99 | Website | iTunes]

Tweetie is (in most people’s opinion) the best Twitter iPhone app available on the App Store. The most distinctive difference between Tweetie and the rest of the Twitter apps in the store is it’s extremely smooth scrolling. You can do most major functions like reply, direct message, retweet, Twitpic, Instapaper integration, search, save searches, trends or even look at tweets by nearby tweeple (using the GPS) etc.
User Interface

Tumblr

[Free | Website | iTunes]

If you use Tumblr, you’ll love this app as you’ll be able to update your Tumblr blog easily.  Most often than not I use this app to quickly snap pictures and upload it to my Tumblr.
User Interface

Byline

[$4.99 | Website | iTunes]

Byline is an RSS reader that synchronizes flawlessly with Google Reader. The best and most good looking Google Reader app I’ve found, the plus point of this app is that for every article you marked as favorite, the whole article will be downloaded into Byline so that you can read it offline, good feature if you want to read your favourite articles without having to wait for the article to be downloaded while on your daily commute.
User Interface

Tags

[$2.99 | Website | iTunes]

Tags is a Delicious app that syncs all your bookmarks from your Delicious account. I guess the reason why this app is named “Tags” is because of the unique way your bookmark tags are displayed (as seen from the screenshot). If you’re a Delicious user and there is only one app you can download, make it this one.
User Interface

Satisfaction Remote

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

This is an accompanying app for Get Satisfaction users who wants to check discussions on the go. Find companies, products or people, find and read support topics of your favourite apps. Reply or comment on a topic.
User Interface

iStat

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

iStat lets you remotely monitor your Mac’s CPU, memory, disks, temperatures, fans, uptime and load averages all from your iPhone. This app also lets you see your iPhone’s stats for memory, disk space, WiFi and Cell IP addresses, uptime & load averages, plus view and email your iPhone’s Unique ID and MAC address. Pinging and traceroute functions are also supported.
User Interface

CompareMe

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

This app lets you compare any 2 product’s prices by their quantity, volume, lengths etc. A simple example will be – 3 for $1.75 or 2 for $1.35, which is cheaper? CompareMe will tell you that in a split second. Good for price conscious shoppers, helps me heaps when doing grocery shopping!
User Interface

Tipulator

[$0.99 | Website | iTunes]

Having trouble doing mental calculations on the tips you need to pay on top of the total price of your dinner and how much each of your friends need to pay? Tipulator solves this problem, with a literally “sweet” looking interface.
User Interface

Measures

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

Measures lets you convert units like currencies, temperatures, weight, distance etc. What I like about this app is not only the interface and the icon, there is an inline calculator built into the app for calculations while letting you view the converted value during the process. Great when shopping for multiple items at a foreign country.
User Inteface

GuitarToolkit

[$9.99 | Website | iTunes]

GuitarToolkit is packed with a slew of utilities to compliment your guitar playing experience. It includes the most notable guitar tuner (using the iPhone microphone) which proves to be extremely accurate, a metronome, a library of over 1500 chord variations which is highly recommended for beginners learning guitar.
User Inteface

Inquisitor

[Free | Website | iTunes]

The very popular Inquisitor browser plugin now comes to the iPhone. With the same sleek interface, Inquisitor lets you quickly search anything on the web. Keep in mind that the search engine used is a Yahoo search engine, if you’re a staunched Google user you might not be very fond of that. But if you’re a staunched designer, the sexy interface will make up for it.
User Inteface

Flickit

[Free | Website | iTunes]

At last, an iPhone app that lets you upload multiple photos to Flickr! Via a beautiful interface (and can’t believe it’s free!), you can snap a photo or choose your desired photo(s) from your photo library for upload.
User Interface

Night Stand

[$1.99 | Website | iTunes]

Night Stand displays a beautiful, vintage LCD clock on your iPhone or iPod Touch. It sports two variations: flip clock and vintage LCD display. There’s also an alarm clock built into this app.
User Interface

Faces

[$0.99 (Sale for a limited time) | Website | iTunes]

Faces is a visual quick dial application. Calling or SMSing a friend is just a click away upon launching the app, launch time is quite fast I would say. You can also sort contacts into groups so that you can find your desired person to call/SMS more easily. Yes you can find many quick dial apps on the store, but spotting one with a pleasing interface is hard. You can even customize the background by using a picture from your photo library.
User Interface

Classics

[$2.99 (Sale for a limited time) | Website| iTunes]

Classics has one of the best user interface for reading classic tales including Gulliver’s Travel, The Time Machine, Frankenstein, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (illustrated), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, among many other books. Highly recommended for classic tales fans, even if you’re not you might just fall in love with it.
User Interface

Things

[$9.99 | Website | iTunes]

The very popular and extremely useful GTD (Getting Things Done) productivity app deserves a mention here. If you have not heard of Things, this app lets you handle your to-do lists systematically. Also check out the awesome Things Mac app.
User Interface

ConvertBot

[$0.99 | Website| iTunes]

For only 99 cents, you get an awe-inspiring unit converter that converts angles, area, currencies, length, mass, power, pressure, speed, temperature, time, volume etc. One thing to note is that only a couple of currencies are supported, do check if your country is supported at the App Store before buying.
User Interface

Outpost

[$12.99 | Website| iTunes]

I have always wanted to try Basecamp but haven’t found the reason to, but if you are one proud user, you’ll be able to appreciate this native iPhone app for Basecamp. Outpost brings the power of Basecamp to your iPhone or iPod Touch, with comprehensive support for messages, milestones, to-dos, and comments. Outpost is also the first app for Basecamp which offers full offline capabilities.
User Interface

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A new Mac OS X Twitter app on the block, Lounge, is a multiple account Twitter app that allows you to do most things with ease, tweeting, replying, direct messages, favourites, retweet and even lets you learn more about a particular user by displaying a user’s profile, followers/following right in the app itself (very useful).

Lounge for Mac is currently in beta, you can download it free at the website. Lounge’s accompanying iPhone app is now at 1.0 and is currently available at the App Store.

Lounge’s User Interface

The user interface is straightforward with tweets on the right and functions on the left.

Features

Notice that all the frequently used functions are displayed on the left. You can also hide the sidebar by hitting a hot toggle key “Cmd+Opt+C”. Here’s an explanation of the various sidebar functions:

My 2 Cents: All the tweets by you
Favourites: Tweets that you marked as favourites
Friends: Your friends twitter stream
Replies: Your @replies
Vanity: All the tweets from the Twitterverse that mentions your user name
Everyone: Main timeline
Search: You can do a Twitter-wide search here with option to save result
Received: Private messages that you’ve received
Sent: Private messages you’ve sent
Followers: All your followers
Following: All tweeps that you follow

Reply Chains

One of the problem that most Twitter users face is that there is no obvious way to view what your friends are replying to when they send you an @reply, and vice versa. With Lounge, viewing reply chains is a breeze.

Tweeting Options

For every tweet, you can choose to retweet, link to tweet, copy tweet or tweet URL etc.

However there is no way for you to set the retweet format, eg. “RT @username” or “(via @username).

There’s is also no feature to let you conveniently shorten a URL. But keep in mind that Lounge’s Mac app is currently in it’s beta, if we’re lucky we might see these feature in future releases.

Check a User’s Profile

Checking a user’s profile is only a click away (click on the user’s avatar). There is no need to launch the user’s Twitter profile page as the information is shown in the app itself, which is a very neat feature.

Multiple Accounts

For people with multiple Twitter personalities this feature is a god-send as it streamlines all your account in one place. Switching an account is a click away. This is something I have been waiting for from Eventbox which is still lacking.

Growl

A growl notification is triggered each time Lounge checks for tweets. It’ll only show one latest tweet and tells you how many more new tweets were fetched.

You can only turn off growl notifications from Growl’s preference pane.

Preferences

This is all there is to the preference pane.

Set your hot key to activate Lounge window (very similar to Twitterrific and Eventbox) and an option to use your return key to send tweets.

Lounge iPhone App

The iPhone app is a a little half-baked when compared to popular Twitter iPhone apps like Tweetie and Twitterlator. There is no retweet or Twitpic functions, means that there is no easy way to retweet your friend’s tweet, or share a pic via Twitpic with your friends on your iPhone app. The current version is 1.0, hopefully the later versions will bring these major functions into the app.

User Interface

The look and feel is the same compared to the Mac app, which is a good move to tie both apps from different platforms together. You can do pretty much the same things that you can do with the desktop version.

Landscape Mode

One of the first I’ve seen, displaying tweets in landscape mode while letting you switch accounts with just one click.

Search

The search function lets you group a combination of different criterias and save it, much like using smart folders.

Ultimately, I’m not sure if you should buy this iPhone app now if you’re comparing features with Tweetie or Twittelator. But the perks about this app is that if you’re also using the Mac app, the next version of Lounge iPhone App (1.1) will let you synchronize various kinds of meta data so the transition from your Mac to your iPhone and back again will be seamless.

UPDATE (22 Mar 09):

Retweeting via the iPhone app is available but it wasn’t very obvious to me when I was using it – tap a tweet’s body in the tweets detail view and you’ll be presented with a number of options, retweet, link to tweet etc.

Check out SUBERNOVA online project management tool: