How To Keep Google Now From Killing Your Battery

Today, Google updated their iOS search app to included the much-loved, previously Android-only "Google Now" feature. Unfortunately, many users are seeing that the default setting has location services running at all times which is an enormous battery drain.

Thankfully, there is a fix for this, but it's buried in the settings. To disable it, simply click on the settings icon (the gear on the top-right corner of the Google app, before you're in Google Now mode) and navigate to Privacy. From here, you can turn off location reporting. Google describes this as:

Location Reporting helps Google Now show you cards related to traffic alerts, directions and more. The Location Reporting setting affects whether this app accesses and stores your location data when the app is not in use.

There's also a link below that takes you to much more info on location reporting. If you don't rely on Google Now for directions, this is a great feature to disable to keep the other useful cards working without draining your battery.

Turning off Location Reporting will be a huge battery saver in Google Now for iOS

The Best Apps for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch

It's no secret that I'm an Apple fanboy. I've owned every iOS device that's ever been released and know the platform probably just as well as anyone on the Apple development team. Perhaps this is why I'm often asked what are the best apps people new to iOS should download. Unfortunately, that's a very loaded question since everyone uses their devices differently. There are core apps that are great for most users and those have been coved ad nauseam and are available with a simple Google search. The purpose of this post is to highlight my favorite and most used apps of 2012. Not all of these are brand new apps that debuted this year – these are some of my most used apps on iPhone & iPad that I would highly recommend anyone download from day one. (These are not ranked in any particular order and if "iPad" is listed next to the app's name, it means it's optimized for iPad in addition to iPhone/iPod Touch)

Tweetbot (iPhone / iPad)

Tweetbot is hands down the best Twitter app around. It features more power-user features than anything else out there by far including iCloud Timeline Sync. This ensures that where you left off on Tweetbot for iPad will stay in sync for Tweetbot for iPhone or Mac and vice versa. It's almost embarrassing to Twitter how much better Tweetbot is than their official app. 

Instagram (iPhone)

I'm sure I don't have to explain what Instagram is – it's pretty much on par in the level of brand awareness as Twitter is now. It's the social network that has cracked the photo sharing space and made filters mainstream. Facebook now owns it and there's been some drama around their updated terms of service, however don't believe the hype - even if Instagram eventually does move forward with selling user's photos, people will still be using the service like wildfire. It's not going anywhere for now.

Spotify (iPhone / iPad)

You can only use the full Spotify app if you're a paid subscriber, but there's no better way to spend $9 a month than a Spotify subscription. Unlimited access to music that you can download and listen to on your device offline - what's better than that?! If you have even the slightest interest in music, get Spotify. (If you're not a paid subscriber, you can still listen to the radio features.)

Letterpress (iPhone / iPad)

The most addicting word game since "Words With Friends." It does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you get it, it's the perfect blend of word-meets-strategy game. It's also designed by the wonderful developer Loren Brichter who's responsible for the creation of "Tweetie" - the best Twitter app around (before Tweetbot) that was eventually by Twitter and ruined of all the features uses loved. For more on Letterpress, read my previous post on it as well as watch a video that was hugely helpful in getting me over the learning curve.

CardMunch (iPhone)

If you are like me, you get a lot of business cards. CardMunch is a free app that allows you to take a photo of the business card which is then sent off to be transcribed by actual humans and delivered back to your phone ready to add to your address book. It also has one-click integration with LinkedIn so you can quickly follow those you've scanned. A absolute must-have for anyone doing a lot of face-to-face networking.

Google Maps (iPhone)

Look, Apple Maps gets a bad rap. Is it as good as Google Maps? No, but it's certainly not the steaming pile of crap some people will have you believe. If you live in the USA, chances are Apple Maps will be fine, however now that Google's finally released their native iOS app, the only time I ever use Apple Maps is for turn-by-turn driving navigation. Google Maps has the most accurate data around and the app features transit directions which are key if you live or work in a major city like I do. My only complaint with it, which isn't Google's fault at all, is that it doesn't have the lock screen abilities that Apple Maps does with navigation. That's a killer feature and the reason that I continue to use Apple's offering for my GPS turn-by-turn navigation.

Pocket (iPhone / iPad)

Pocket, formerly known as Read It Later, is one of those apps I can't imagine how I lived without. In a nutshell, Pocket allows you to save links that you find on the web, Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else link sharing is occurring and have them curated and reformatted for easy offline, mobile-friendly reading. There are some competitive apps out there that do a similar thing, most notably Instapaper, but Pocket is a much richer experience and has integration into so many popular apps already for one-click saving that this app should be a staple on every phone. Apple's "Reading List" feature is also very similar, however Pocket still blows it out of the water.

Snapseed (iPhone / iPad)

Snapseed is probably the best photo editing app on iOS around. Needless to say, many of its users were freaked out when they were acquired by Google since Google is infamous for ruining companies that it acquires. (Sparrow, anyone?) Thankfully, in a very un-Google-like move, they have kept Snapseed true to form and actually are adding to it with some great features like new filters and editing options and some pointless stuff like Google+ sharing. Regardless, they made it a free app and it's something that anyone that ever shoots photos on their phone should have.

Dropbox (iPhone / iPad)

Dropbox started out as a small startup and is now a behemoth in the cloud storage space. Their app is fantastic and something that has saved my butt a few times on the road. The ability to access all of my files and easily email them to people has been immensely helpful when traveling. I can also use it to edit and send presentations when I only have my iPhone or iPad. You can get free storage space right off the bat and earn more with referrals. It also has a feature which will automatically back up your photos from your device which can be extremely helpful for people who tend to keep their precious memories stored only on their phone.

Zite (iPhone / iPad)

Zite is a fantastic news app that gets smarter the more you use it. You simply input the topics you're interested in and it creates a customized digital magazine for you. If you "like" an article, Zite will learn your habits and curate more stories tailored around you. Personally, I find Zite to be the perfect app if I'm extremely busy  and unable to keep up with the daily news. Zite is free and a must-have for any news junkies out there.

I could literally go on-and-on with app suggestions. I tried to create this list to be as broad as possible, however if you need any  recommendations on apps that you should download in a specific category, hit me up in the comments and I'll be happy to help.

Filters, Filters, Filters!

"Filters" is pretty much the biggest buzzword in mobile applications these days, mostly thanks to Instagram and in part, Hipstamatic. Love them or hate them, photo filters that provide faux vintage effects have taken the world by storm and show no sign of slowing down. The trend is so big that this week, Twitter and Flickr both incorporated filters into their upgraded apps, and the Google-owned Snapseed app upgraded their app to include even more filters.

Professional photographers love to  bitch and moan about filters saying that they are "ruining photography," but I disagree. No professionally released photo is devoid of any sort of color editing anyway, even their "filter-free" shots feature some amount of color correction, saturation or exposure editing, but that's besides the point. You see, the elite class of photographers has as much clout as audiophiles does in the direction of technology, which is none at all. If audiophiles had their way, everyone and their mother would be buying and downloading FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files instead of mp3s. 

I've had a chance to test out all three aforementioned apps new filters and have to say that I'm severely disappointed in Twitter's effort and really pleasantly surprised by Flickr. Twitter's filters are very boring and with many photos it will be hard to even see what effect they've had on the original picture. Flickr's effort is a much closer take to Instagram and offers strong contrasting choices that really can give your picture that unique pop that it won't get with Twitter's effort. Snapseed's new filters are pretty good, although very busy and add lots of useless artifacts and light-leak effects which often ruin the image in my opinion.

It will be interesting to see how the filter game plays out. Personally, I wish that Hipstamatic would allow their app to post-process photos using their filters and effects. Hipstamatic has by far the most gorgeous filters of all the apps, but they have to be turned on before the picture is taken, which has turned many users away.

Have you tried Twitter's & Flickr's filters? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

GasBuddy Launches Tool To Help Sandy Victims Find Fuel

GasBuddy, the service to find the lowest priced gas in your area, had just launched a dead-simple web-based tool that crowdsources information on local stations to help you see who has fuel and who doesn't. Check it out and be sure to help keep it up-to-date. http://www.gasbuddy.com/sandy

2 Great Ways to Help Hurricane Sandy Victims

Aside from the normal methods of donating to the Red Cross (e.g. Website, SMS, donating via iTunes), I found two really unique ways to help Hurricane Sandy victims yesterday and wanted to share.

When Things Fall Apart

When Things Fall Apart is a really innovative way to show support for Sandy victims using your Twitter avatar. The way it works is simple: connect your Twitter account to the service, donate a minimum of $10 to the Red Cross and the tool virtually "destroys" your avatar and  slowly rebuilds it over time. I've personally seen a handful of my followers doing this so it's obviously got some "wow" factor that is encouraging people to donate.

Occupy Sandy Amazon Registry

This brilliant Occupy Sandy "wedding registry" lists items that victims need most, including blankets, flashlights, candles, batteries & generators. There are items on here that will only cost you a few dollars and will ship directly to the headquarters in Brooklyn.  

What are some other innovative ways that you've seen to help Hurricane Sandy victims? Let me know in the comments.

Letterpress – Finally Game Center is Useful!

Letterpress is the latest app from Tweetie developer Loren Brichter. If you're not aware of Tweetie, it's basically the app that Twitter purchased, bastardized, and relaunched as their official iPhone app.

Letterpress is a super-addicting word game where you have a 5x5 tile of letters and you go head-to-head via Game Center to challenge your friends in making words. It's a fresh new take on the "words with" genre that has become very tiresome of late. It's also the first app that I've found that has heavy Game Center integration and actually makes use of that hideous icon that nobody ever used.

The game can be confusing at first and the pithy in-app instruction provide very little to go on. This video below does a great job of summarizing the game and how the scoring works.

If you want to play me on Game Center, my username is TimBaker. Just let me know you found me from this blog so I don't think you're some creepy spammer. :)

The Best Music Apps for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch

One of this blog's most popular posts is a rundown of the best free music apps for iPhone & iPod Touch. Well, a lot has changed since that post was written in January 2010 in the world of music apps and I feel it's time for an updated point of view. I still stand by each one of the apps listed in the original post and highly recommend that you check them out in addition to the following apps.

Spotify

If you're a fan of music and not aware of Spotify, you're missing one of the best things to happen to music since Napster (well, from a fan's perspective at least – the music industry won't agree with that statement.) Spotify allows you to listen to any song or album in their vast catalog for free. You will have to sit through some audio ads, which can be annoying, but for less than $10 a month, you can get unlimited streaming in pristine quality from their "Premium" model, all ad-free. Being a paid subscriber also lets you use Spotify's mobile app to stream and download songs for offline listening. (Non-paid members can only use the online radio portion of Spotify's app.)

Spotify's mobile app is fantastic. It's robust, frequently updated, and optimized for iPad. The iPad version is gorgeous and really must be experienced – it makes browsing music a delight.

Spotify's iPad app makes full use of the screen and makes music discovery a breeze!

Amazon Cloud Player

Amazon's Cloud Player is a fantastic deal. If your'e familiar with iTunes Match, it's just like that, only 10x better. You see, iTunes Match allows you to upload and "match" up to 25,000 non-iTunes purchased songs into the cloud. Amazon's Cloud Player offers the same service for the same price, however instead of limiting your uploads to 25,000, Cloud Player gives you a max of 250,000! iTunes Match is my preferred service if I have to choose just one, mainly because of the integration into iOS and iTunes, however if you have an enormous library and require more cloud storage space, Cloud Player Premium is definitely your best option. They also throw in 50 GB of Cloud Drive space as well which you can use to store any files your heart desires.

Ecoute

Ecoute is a beautiful alternative to Apple's built-in music app. Rather than using text to sort all your music, it places the focus on artwork to make a much more efficient experience than Coverflow. It also includes social integration with Facebook, Twitter and Last.FM to make sharing and cataloging your listening a breeze. Ecoute also features full iOS integration with the music APIs so you will see your cover art when your screen is locked, just like the built-in music app, and will resume playback when restarting your device. Lastly, it fully supports iTunes Match so there's really no reason you'll have to use Apple's music player again. Ecoute is currently $2.99 in the App Store.

Ecoute takes a visual approach to navigating through music, reminiscent of flipping through stacks of CDs.

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments!

Here's Why the iPad Mini Will Be Huge

Many people are bashing the iPad Mini's $329 starting price and some are saying it will be a flop. These people couldn't be more wrong. The iPad Mini is not aimed at the fanboy market or Apple shareholders. It's aimed at the nearly 50 million "tweens" and teens that buy the iPod Touch and want an iPad but don't have $500+ to spend. It's aimed at the secondary market that values the portability that a smaller iPad offers them that they don't get with the standard 10" device. It's not a device that the bleeding edge Apple geeks (like myself) need to have, and that's totally fine. I'm happy with my iPad 3 that I had since day one and was subsequently made antiquated today with the release of the 4th generation iPad!

Don't let the stock price dip fool you, the iPad Mini is going to be the most desired Christmas gift this holiday season and I expect millions of these things to be sold over the next couple of months. Is $329 too much? I don't think so, especially when you look at the build quality that a device like the iPad Mini comes with compared to Android tablets. But what's even more important than build quality and the sexiness of the device? The App Store ecosystem. That's what is going to make customers pay $129 more than a $200 7" tablet.

My Biggest Pet Peeve with Google Search

My biggest pet peeve with Google search is the inconsistency between the desktop & mobile experience. If I conduct a search on mobile and want to jump to the results for the same search term in Goole News, here's how you do it:

Do a Google search on desktop and click on "News" on the top header takes you to the front page of Goole News, only without your search results pre-populated.

Front page without the search results pre-populated

This inconsistency drives me crazy. It's the little details that Google always forgets that really affect the user experience.

Hey, Apple – Wake Up and Add These Features Already!

I've been an iPhone loyalist since the day the very first device was released. I've seen each iteration of the operating system (iOS) mature from a very limited platform to one that's immensely robust and innovative. I've also witnessed a few no-brainer features that Apple has still yet to implement, and if iOS 6 remains close to what beta 1 looks like right now, it's going to be another year or so of waiting (and hoping) for these to see the light of day. Before you comment with "you can get that if you jailbreak," let me just say that I've been there and done that and the hassle of keeping up with jailbreaking every time an iOS update is pushed out is too annoying, especially if it takes a while for the dev team crack it.

Hopefully Apple will finally wake up and add these sorely needed yet simple tweaks to iOS 6 before it is released to the public this Fall.

Bigger Folders

I have hundreds of apps on my iPhone. With 64GB of capacity, it's pretty much begging for apps. Unfortunately, if I want to lump all my "productivity" apps or "social" apps together, I must create multiple folders since Apple only allows 12 per folder. This is an annoying feature that could very easily be fixed. How hard would it be to implement scrolling into folders? Answer: not hard at all!

More Sorting Options

This is a minor one, and something that I've never really heard a big rumble about but I believe would be extremely useful. Apple should have a sorting option that automatically arranges your iOS icons from most-to-least used. Not only would it give you a truly useful homescreen, it will also help you eliminate those apps that get tucked away and take up space that you have no use for anymore.

Simple Access to Bluetooth, WiFi and other Settings

Android has had this feature pretty much since day one; why doesn't Apple allow me the one-click ability to turn on/off Bluetooth, WiFi and other commonly toggled settings? A simple placement in the notification center or multitasking bar would be perfect and eliminate all that navigation under settings. Granted, iOS 6 has moved Bluetooth up one level, but still – give me access without having to go to the settings app.

Better Multitasking Pane

I get that Apple doesn't want people to "kill" apps they're not using, but there's no denying that it can help free up some memory, especially with some apps that require a lot. A one click "Close All" would be much simpler than having to manually "x" out of each app running in the background. Additionally, when you are in the multitasking mode, 80% of the screen above the bar is useless. Why not make the bar height three apps talland eliminate the extra swiping to get other apps? I never understood this from the beginning and it's a huge oversight that still remains.

Notification Center Tweaks

I'd love to see the stats on the number of times people miss the "x" to clear a notification. The button is so small that it often takes a couple tries to hit it. Also, why not add a "clear all" option to erase all those notifications at once? I often come back to find my phone full of tweets, alerts and other missed messages that can be easily be consumed and erased in one fell swoop, however I must clear each alert by group. It's stupid and time consuming and don't get how it was ever this way to begin with.

iTunes Match Settings

Anyone that uses iTunes Match and commutes on a subway knows that it can be a real hassle trying to scroll through music that's on your device versus what lives in the cloud. Currently, to view music locally synced, one has to go to the settings app, navigate to music settings and toggle the switch that only show downloaded music. Apple needs to put a simple toggle right within the Music app that shows local versus cloud-based files on-the-fly. Oh, and while we're talking iTunes match, can we please lift that 25k song limit?

What are some of the no-brainer features that Apple has yet to implement in iOS that I missed? Let me know in the comments.