Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break
Tweetbot (v1.0.1)
Picked by: Brandon
My pick of the week is Tweetbot by the graphically amazing Tapbots. Does the world really need another Twitter client? Arguably, no we don’t need JUST another twitter client. But Tweetbot isn’t your run of the mill, thrown together to make a buck client. This app oozes sexy in all the ways I would expect a top iPhone application from the likes of Tapbots. It starts with a great icon and keeps right in going through the timeline and into every other aspect of the application. The animations are smooth, navigation is intuitive and the sound effects are cute without being obnoxious. You can pick up Tweetbot for an introductory price of $1.99. It’s not going to change your twitterverse, but it’ll definitely make the view out the window a heck of a lot better!
($1.99) iTunes Link
(On sale for a limited time)
WatchESPN (v1.0)
Picked by: jhrogersii
One of the big missing pieces when it comes to trying to stream video content on the go is often live sports. Sure, there are apps from Major League Baseball and the NBA, but they are expensive, and at least in the case of the NBA app, will blackout your home market games. The free March Madness app that allowed for free streaming of NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament games wasn’t perfect, but it was a big step in the right direction. ESPN3 is available on PC and MAC for those on participating cable or satellite providers, but unfortunately there has not been a solution for iOS users to take on the go.
Until now, that is. ESPN has released their new WatchESPN app for the unbeatable price of FREE. The only drawback? Only a select few can use it at this point. Right now, BrightHouse Networks, TimeWarner Cable, and Verizon FIOS TV subscribers can stream all the ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3 they can stand. Well, at least as much as their data plan can stand. For those Verizon subscribers who have only High Speed Data service, they can access only ESPN3 content, but that’s certainly better than nothing.
Unfortunately, everyone else is left out in the cold at this point. However, this will most certainly change over time as ESPN negotiates deals with different providers. The same thing happened when ESPN rolled out what was then called ESPN360 (now ESPN3). It was released
with only a handful of providers signed on, but that list has grown much larger over time. I had to wait about a year before Comcast, my cable Internet provider, provided access, but it eventually got done. Hopefully, things will go a little faster this time around, and the
big providers will get this done for all of us sports nuts out there.
Right now, WatchESPN is available as a native iPhone app only, which means your viewing experience on the iPad will be ugly. However, there are reports that a free HD version will be coming sometime in May, so that is definitely good news if it turns out to be true. Being able to
watch ESPN from anywhere, even if it is just ESPN3, would be absolutely KILLER. I just hope I won’t have to wait a year this time to be able to use it.
(Free) iTunes Link
2Do: Tasks Done in Style (v2.4.62)
Picked by: Thomas
2Do ($6.99) is a universal app that was covered in one of our January Picks of the Week, but I want to highlight the iPad portion because I’ve been using the crap out of it over the past couple of days.
First of all, here is a quick recap of why I think 2Do is so awesome:
– a gorgeous app and icon design that makes me want to load the app up
– a really efficient UI: adding tasks is quick and painless, sync-on-exit rocks, and you schedule things using a 30-day calendar instead of a stupid Rolodex slider, err, thing (you know, the one that the default Calendar app uses)
But here are two big reasons as to why the iPad version has simply been blowing me away:
Great use of space. The landscape mode, in particular, is awesome. Along the left side are the various calendars (read: task categories) and your actual list of tasks, and on the right side of the screen is a monthly calendar that shows all the dates on which you have tasks. These two sides of the screen work very nicely together. You can either tap on a date on the right side of the calendar, and after that every task you add will already have a due date assigned. On the other hand, if you want to reschedule tasks, you can simply drag them from the left side of the screen onto a date on the monthly calendar, and presto, rescheduled task!
The second reason I love this app is a lot easier to explain: it features over-the-air sync with the iPhone version of the app via Toodledo. This is a feature I’ve wanted in the Things task manager for quite a while, and yet 2Do is able to deliver it 1) for free and 2) within the same universal app. Way. Too. Cool.
($6.99) iTunes Link
Netflix (v1.2.1)
Picked by: Renkman
So I finally took the plunge a couple of weeks ago and bought my first Apple TV. We have been looking for ways to drop our ridiculous cable bill down to a reasonable amount, and a friend of mine had told me how much he loved watching Netflix on his Apple TV. In addition, I had recently received an email form Netflix advertising one month free. Right from the start I knew it would be a family favorite. Already my 8 year old knows how to work the Apple TV/Netflix setup better than my wife and myself–so he was thrilled with the content available for him and his 3 year old brother. It is so nice to start watching a movie on the TV, and continue it right where you left off on your Netflix iPhone App. Streaming video content is better than I thought it would be, even on my son’s first generation iPhone over a Wifi connection! The app is pretty straight forward. You can search by genre, choose from titles saved in your instant queue, or resume a movie or tv show that you had previously started on one of your other media devices. Give it a try. Even without an Apple TV you can sign up for a free account, and start watching movies in minutes.
(Free) iTunes Link
There you have it! Hope you enjoyed this week’s installment of Picks of the week. Please let us know what you think, and share with us some of your favorites.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
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