Archive - iOS RSS Feed

Top 3 News Apps on iPad

November 29, 2010 in Gadgets, iOS, Mac with 0 Comments

I find myself reading a lot on the iPad.  It’s become my morning paper.  It took me awhile to find apps that made it an enjoyable experience. Here’s the 3 that I like best.

1. Flipboard-

I love the look and feel of Flipboard. It’s one of the nicest UI out there for the iPad.  The one thing that gives it the number 1 spot is the fact it will pull in my facebook and twitter feeds and turn them into a magazine like experience.  It’s the most enjoyable way I’ve found to keep up with all the info that flows through there everyday.  They also have a great curated group of feeds you can add, so you can keep up on other news topics also.  It’s also FREE, which is always a good thing.

2. The Early Edition-

The early Edition is at it’s heart a RSS feed reader, but it does it in a way that makes it look like a newspaper. It also comes with a nice set of suggested feeds for you, but you can also add any RSS feed you like and divide them up like sections of a newspaper.  I’ve been using it more and more.  It might not be free like Flipboard, but a few bucks isn’t bad to get all my reading in once place.

3. Pulse News Reader-

This one is more like honorable mention, but I thought I would add it in here.  It’s also got a real pretty look, but I don’t find it quite as nice as Flipboard.  It also allows you to add in any feed like Early Edition, but it’s much more linear in its presentation of the feeds.  The nice thing about Pulse is that it recently went free, and they also have an iPhone version also.

What’s your favorite?

21 Reasons Your Church or Ministry Needs a Mobile App

November 10, 2010 in iOS, Software with 0 Comments

At SYM we are in the midst of app development, so I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.  Why are there so many apps out there?  Do we really need another one?  The answer to these questions for me is: 1) Apps make people’s life easy, that’s why there are so many, and 2) Yes, see answer 1.

There’s a great post over at YouthMinistry.com from Matt McKee about mobile apps and why your church or ministry may need one.  The article points out that these mobile devices are not just for the geek anymore, but they are part of everyone’s life from age 2 to 90.

Here’s his list of why you may need one:

  1. It gives you another access point that your local community can access.
  2. It allows you to be location sensitive. You can send messages to a certain zip code if you want.
  3. It can integrate social media so that people can help spread your message across the Internet.
  4. It helps you get past a Sunday or Wednesday only mentality, and let’s people interact with content on a daily basis.
  5. It makes your message 1 or 2 clicks away.
  6. It makes your content more convenient, and the more convenient the more it is used.
  7. It makes your message more broad-reaching than just your local community.
  8. It can help drive people to your church building for special events or weekend services.
  9. It can make special announcements such as community wide prayer requests.
  10. It can stream your message in audio or video format.
  11. It makes reaching a new demographic even easier.
  12. It will differentiate your vision and values from others.
  13. It will create different engagement than your Web site.
  14. It drives loyalty.
  15. It puts your branding in front of potential guests before they walk in the door.
  16. It provides a new way to collect feedback.
  17. It can be a new place for people to contribute to your church or ministry.
  18. It encourages people to share your message with the people around them.
  19. It can reduce the cost of mailings and the frequency of mailings.
  20. It can highlight new books or resources that go along with current teaching series.
  21. It creates a buzz that you message is relevant in today’s culture.

Read the entire post here: 21 Reasons Your Church or Ministry Needs a Mobile App | YouthMinistry.com.

Do you think your ministry needs an app?

Media from Computer to Your iDevice Over the Web

September 21, 2010 in Featured, iOS, Mac, Media, pc, Software with 1 Comment

Zumocast is focused on helping you play/display the media you have on your computer to your iOS device.  After installing the app on your computer and iOS device and registering with Zumocast, you are able to do some incredible things.

You can watch any video you have on your computer on your iOS device.  When I say any, I mean ANY;  it even transcodes formats that are not viewable into viewable formats/resolutions.  It works over 3G or WiFi (though beware of your caps).  If you are about to get on a plane, don’t worry, all you have to do is click a download button and the item begins downloading in that appropriate format! (subject to the 10MB 3G cap)

More of a music person than a movie person?  Music works much the same way though for some reason it will not download.

Then, of course, you can view photos.  But that is not where the viewing stops.  I tried Word, Pages, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF, RTF and all opened perfectly for viewing.

As far as I can see there are only a couple of disappointments.  Why it doesn’t allow you to download the music is beyond me, but I understand having a healthy fear of the RIAA.  It is also irritating that the desktop utility installs with a default to prevent your computer from going to sleep.  While I am sure that is the best thing for ZumoCast to operate, I am glad I looked before I walked out the door tomorrow morning with a dead laptop.  It would also be incredible if you could make some simple changes to text documents.

The best part of this incredible app is that it’s FREE and cross-platform.  Zumocast supports windows, mac, and iOS.  They are working on an android version as well.

Apple to Provide Live Video Streaming of September 1 Event

August 31, 2010 in iOS, Mac with 0 Comments

This may make the live bloggers a little miffed, but apple announced they will live stream their event tomorrow. I love that they made this move.

From their site:
Apple® will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.

I’ll be sure to log in, how about you?

UPDATE: Here the link for the live stream: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1009qpeijrfn/event. Here are the system requirements: Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Safari on iOS 3 or later.  Sorry PC friends.

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