Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 69 of 168)

App Review: iWhiskey

iWhiskey app for the iPhone.Few things entice me more than a glass of small batch bourbon. Over the past several decades, the list of quality craft whiskeys has grown exponentially, yielding a market place that can be as confusing as it is rewarding. F. Paul Pacult wants to help you navigate the sea of options and blends with an iPhone app called iWhiskey from Jolt OS.

This app is definitely the best resource I’ve found on whiskey for the iPhone. It opens on a “shelf” of whiskey bottles with options for American, Canadian, Irish, single malt Scotch, blended Scotch, and whiskeys from other parts of the world for browsing. There’s a search function if you’re looking for a particular brand and a feature that allows you to save some favorites to your own “My Barrel” section.

Each individual whiskey has a feature page, complete with tasting and bouquet information and a picture of the bottle so you can more easily locate your preference at your bar or the liquor store. There are quite a few with missing pictures, something I’d assume will be updated in the future. The app also features a selection of cocktails made with various whiskeys. The list is small, but again, easy to update.

The app only has two drawbacks. First, it needs a home button. The front screen is so pretty, but there’s just no way to get back to it without closing the app and reopening. The second problem is the price. It’s tough to say whether $10.99 is really worth this kind of information on a phone with web access. Pacult’s reviews are top-notch, and it is a one-stop shop for more than 600 whiskey reviews, but I think you’ll likely only see this on a very serious whiskey lover’s phone.

iTunes Link

Motorola Devour is like the Droid’s weird cousin

Motorola Devour.Verizon and Motorola announced a new phone today. Called the Devour, the phone looks like a mini-Droid, or as my title suggests, the Droid’s weird cousin. It’s got a smaller display, a presumably smaller keyboard (yikes) and runs Anroid, albeit through Motoblur, Motorola’s odd Android distro.

I would guess the phone is going to fall somewhere around the Droid Eris in terms of price. It’s not a bad phone for $100, but like the Eris, it seems like a waste for what you’d get if you spent another $99. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Motorola is so obsessed with the physical keyboard, either. The pad on the Droid sucks. It really sucks. Android’s software keyboard is just so much nicer, why not rely on that?

If Motorola is your thing, you can get the Devour in early March.

Presented with options publishers turn on Amazon

iPad running iBooks.During News Corp’s quarterly earnings conference call, Rupert Murdoch finally revealed his true feelings about the deal between HarperCollins, which News Corp owns, and Amazon for ebooks in the Kindle Store. “We don’t like the Amazon model of $9.99….we think it really devalues books and hurts all the retailers of hardcover books.”

That pretty much says it all. Now that the company has an option coming with the iPad, it no longer needs to succumb to Amazon’s demands. Things are just the opposite, in fact, thanks to flexible pricing options from Apple. The competition is forcing Amazon to renegotiate prices with publishers for fear of losing market share or publisher support altogether.

It’s tough to say that increased ebook prices actually preserves the value of the book, particularly after prices have been so low. Fortunately for publishers, the ebook reading population was small enough that the rest of the world might not know to care about the difference.

This American Life gets a dedicated app

Ira Glass.A few weeks ago I was in a crisis. I had an 11-hour drive in front of me and for some reason I missed a week of my This American Life podcast. It took a good bit of scouring, but I finally found a place to download it (no, it wasn’t available on iTunes any longer). Well no more!

My favorite radio show (and many others’ as the podcast rankings prove) finally has its own iPhone app, replete with on demand access to any episode of the show. You can stream for free or download any episode for the usual $.99. The app itself will run you $2.99.

If you haven’t listened to TAL, you need to. It’s just that simple. There are some truly incredible stories on the show, and often some very informative ones as well. They did a show about the sub-prime mortgage crisis that simply blew my mind. For my money, there’s not really a better way to spend a long drive.

No-glasses 3D display to debut with 64 viewing angles

Autosterescopic 3D TVs don't require glasses. One of the big setbacks of 3D tech today is the glasses. They’re necessary in order for most audiences to get a good view, whatever their viewing angle. While there are autostereoscopic displays (no glasses required) in the wild, they typically only work from 8 or 9 viewing angles, which severely limits their functionality.

Sunny Ocean Studios in Singapore is hoping to change all of that. The company plans to debut an autostereoscopic set at CeBIT this year that supports 64 viewing angles on its 27-inch screen. That’s a huge upgrade from the current status quo. I have to wonder what the thing will look like, though. It has to take a significant amount of resources to produce the frames for 64 different viewpoints.

And how much is this thing going to cost? Armin Grasnick, founder of Sunny Ocean Studios, says he can do displays up to 100-inches both quickly and inexpensively. Something tells me that won’t keep the price tag from climbing.

Source: Engadget

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