Be a space expert with the iPhone!

I love space, anything to do with space, stars, planets, satellites, rockets, asteroids (from a distance) and iphones! Combine a couple of these together and I'm as happy as a pig in the proverbial mud!

NASA is a free iPhone application on iTunes that allows me, the spaceman wannabe, to know just enough about what's going on to sound like I know what's going on, without actually getting hurt.

With this iPhone app you can track space shuttle missions and launch schedules. There are plenty of satellites up there to view as they pass over your house at night. The map shows the trajectory of the pass from the location on your iPhone's GPS.


For example, the ISS (International Space Station) has been in orbit for 4136 days, 13 hours, 17 minutes, and 9 seconds... NOW! There has been a crew onboard for 3423 of those days. There are pictures, movies and even a link to the latest ISS news. The application map (similar to the iPhone map) shows the ISS passing over New York right now at about 18,000 MPH and will be over France in just 17 minutes!

A great iPhone application that adults and kids will enjoy!

RISK!!!

Do you remember the old game of Risk? Well there is an iPhone app that is similar, not the same of course, that is called Conquest. In the game you combine risk and strategy to conquer the world!



Conquest is a great combination of playing a fantastic retro-like game on a modern day format!

Photoshop Mobile for iPhone

A quick perusal of Apple's iTunes store and you will be overwhelmed with choices of photo editing applications for your iPhone and iPod Touch. Adobe has just released Photoshop.com Mobile that lets you quickly and easily edit and share your photos with simple gestures directly on your iPhone.


Simply take pictures with your iPhone and either edit them on the device itself or save your photos at the free Photoshop Account. Signing up is easy, then you can upload, store and share all of you iPhone photos, saving you space on your iPhone.


Some of the editing features:
-crop, rotate and flip
-adjust exposure, saturation, tint and black and white
-sketch, soft focus
-various effects (vibrant, blur, blow, warm vintage)

Adobe has done a great job of filling a void where there wasn't one before. This is one of the better photo editing and storing applications available right now on the iTunes store, and it's all free. It definitely Kicks Butt!

RedLaser for iPhone

One interesting observation I've made with the iPhone is that the device, the plan and all the associated applications have helped me part with money even faster than I ever could before. For starters I pay more than I did for the Blackberry, I use it far more than I ever used a mobile phone before and I purchase a huge number of applications and songs that I didn't before.

Now I can even use my iPhone to purchase airline tickets, books, groceries... whatever! Sometimes I come across an app that can help save money. RedLaser just happens to be one of these great applications. Using the camera device in your iPhone (first-gen, 3G and 3GS) the application scans the barcode of any item and tells you about what item you've scanned. It then searches Google Product Search and Amazon for the lowest online price for that item.



This is a great iPhone application that lets you shop smarter and be confident that you've made a smart purchase. The app will also keep an inventory of what you've scanned and email a list of products.

Data-less maps for travel!

Unless I need it, I usually don't carry my iPhone with me when I travel out of country. The charges associated with data and long distance calls are outrageous. I've used the GPS map feature on my iPhone to find my way around a new city, but at a huge cost.

Thanks to Dubbele's Mobile Street Maps, you can now pre-download an entire map of a place you will be traveling to. It works where Google Maps isn't accessible, or when you have data turned off (Flight mode) on your iPhone. Even without internet access you can still search for locations. The Dutch company has applications for a huge number of cities, over 400 to date. Some are free apps and some cost up to $2. It will pay for itself every trip, and once you've downloaded it once, it's on your iPhone until you delete it!



You won't have the GPS location of where you are but using these maps will help you get around without the worry of paying extra for the data.

Bryan Adams 11

Last night I saw Bryan Adams play in a smaller venue, which was very nicely done. I've been a big fan of his for the last 25 years and I've always enjoyed seeing him play live. He played only with an acoustic guitar and harmonica, his voice and a pianist who played along for about 2/3 of the songs. He started off by playing one of his classic songs off the Reckless album, Run to you. Bryan then played a mix of his new songs (from the Album 11) some older songs and some I've never heard of. He entertained us with stories and also explained the inspirations for some songs.


Now you might be wondering what this has to do with iPhones but there is a connection, I promise! I bought the four tickets in June using my iPhone because I was away at the time. I also had a bid on some premium seats that gave the ticket holders a post concert meeting and photo op with Bryan. I was tracking my bid while in Vegas but got outbid by someone who was willing to part with more money than I was. Last night I was kicking myself thinking that I should have kept bidding, but considering I was losing money in Vegas at the time I was trying to be financially prudent.

The story continues... I used my iPhone last night to find the venue and work our way through the one-way streets to find parking that didn't require a cab ride to the concert. Nearing the end of the excellent performance Bryan Adams put on, a member of the audience yelled out "Bryan can we take pictures?" His answer was "sure" and out came the cameras! I've never seen anything like it. At once point I looked around and saw many iPhones up getting shots of the show. There were a few 3GS iPhones taking video too. Funny thing was, i kept my iPhone in my pocket and resisted the urge to bring it out. I was enjoying the show too much!

2 Billion App Downloads

Apple announced today that more than two Billion (2,000,000,000) applications have been downloaded from its app store. That is one heck of a big number. There are now over 85,000 applications available on the iTunes store. Apple has more than 50 Million (50,000,000) iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. The iPhone is now available in 77 countries with some recent huge market entries just announced!


Another incredible fact about the number of downloads is the speed at which downloads are increasing. Apple's app store had half a billion, that's 500 Million, downloads in the last quarter alone. It will eventually slow but at this point sales are going ballistic.

What surprised me about the big 2 Billion number is the yawing and lack of incredibleness reported about it! I was thinking last week about Apple's great success recently, and more specifically how great the iPhone has been for them. It got me thinking... "what's next?" I wonder this because there are some other very serious players out there making moves and unless Apple has another big hit in the next year or two, they too could end up a thing of the past. RIM learned a hard lesson about being late with the Blackberry Storm and bringing out a device that doesn't compete well with the iPhone. Will Apple get taken down a peg or two by Google or Microsoft?

It's going to be interesting to watch in the next year or two!