The iPhone Mom

Looking for a few good “Yo Mama So…” jokes?? This just may be the app for you. Begin by choosing a Yo Mama category (fat, ugly, lazy, old, etc.). You’ll see a list of insults to choose from. Tap the one you want and there’s a screen that shows you the entire joke. From here you can email it out to friends, mark it as a favorite or get rid of it. From what I can tell choosing “dump it” will ask you if you can write a better joke. If you choose no, the joke stays on your list. If you choose yes you then submit your own joke. To be honest, I don’t know what happens after that because I couldn’t come up with a joke of my own. Anytime you have a joke to share you can tap the “Add a Joke” button at the top right of your screen. Along the bottom of the screen you’ll see several buttons. “Favorites” pulls up the jokes you’ve marked as favorites. “Popular” pulls up a list of the most popular jokes. (I’m not sure how those are chosen.) “Sent” will show you the jokes you’ve sent out and “Received” shows you the ones that have been sent to you.

Yo Mama So…is an amusing app that’s good for a chuckle. I shared some of the jokes with the husband and we did laugh, a lot. I’d be curious to see how often the jokes are updated and screened. One suggestion (and yes, this is said mostly tongue in cheek), how about an optional lock code for those who want the laughs but don’t want their kids sharing the jokes with their entire fourth grade class?

A note – Yo Mama So….Lite is supported by ads on the screens. Yo Mama So…Pro costs $.99 but is ad free.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Price of Yo Mama So…Pro: $.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Clever Twist, Inc

Life with a newborn baby means endless feedings, diaper changes, sporadic sleep patterns- it all blurs together in those first few weeks and Baby Brain is designed to help you keep track and make sense of it all. It’s an easy to use app with a great built in help system. Hints pop up as you work your way through the app. You can read them and then choose to hide the hint until next time or never see it again. I left them on for a bit until I had the hang of the app.

You begin using Baby Brain by adding babies to a list. Enter in their name, birth date, and the amount they take in a bottle. Now you’ll just need to tap the baby on the list and you’ll go to a main screen where you can start tracking your information. It’s very straightforward. Tap the appropriate button for what you want to track – nursing, bottle, diaper or sleep then enter in your information. Once you’ve entered it in and saved it you’ll see it on your main screen. At the bottom of the screen you can choose whether to view the information by day, week or month. At the top of the screen is a “Share” button. This allows you to email out your information log. The app will open up your email and you’ll see a nicely laid out table of what the baby’s done for the day.

I could do without the use of “boob” and the graphic on the nursing button. But I’m well aware that having growing daughters has turned me into a bit of a prude. Overall Baby Brain is thorough and would be very helpful to new moms.

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Maternia, LLC

Oh my! Popper Lite is tricky and completely addictive. You play the game by shooting oval shapes called Pops (they remind me of pills, Tic Tacs and Chiclets) at other pops. Match up the colors and the pops disappear. There’s a button that will rotate the pops before you fire them. By tilting your iPhone you’ll make different things happen on the screen. You complete a level when all the pops have been cleared from the screen. Each level is different. For example level one has you firing at a circle made of pops. Tilt your iPhone and the circle rotates in the direction you’ve moved your phone. Level two is made up of rows of pops. Tilt your iPhone to shift the rows from left to right. Move the iPhone quickly and the pops move quickly. Popper Lite sounds simple enough but adding in the motion of your iPhone gives it a whole different challenge. Especially if your hands tend to shake like mine do when it’s time for a Diet Coke hit.

Something for my husband- if you’re left handed you can move the fire button to the left under settings.

Popper! Lite is free but it only has six levels and you’ll see advertisements. If you purchase the full version ($1.99) you’ll get ten levels without the ads.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Price of full version of Popper!: $1.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Clever Twist, Inc.

One of the perks about doing this website is hearing about apps that I might not otherwise find. Apps that don’t make it onto the iTunes featured lists but are perfectly wonderful. The Elephant Song app is one of these. Apparently the original song and video by Eric Herman have been on You Tube and had over 5 million views. I’m not really dialed into You Tube so I’d never heard of it before. The developers of this app have taken “The Elephant Song” and turned it into a delightful app.

The app is a mini-music video that’s also interactive. The song lyrics are funny and the graphics are simple, colorful and entertaining. My four year old overheard me playing with this app and said “That one’s funny mom”. Each section of the screen goes with a different part of the song. The app moves through them on it’s own but you can also press the pause button and touch the animal on the screen to hear noises. When the song is over you can build your own elephant from puzzle pieces. I couldn’t figure this out but my son told me the song starts over again if you put it together. I think that’s my only complaint with the app – the puzzle pieces were small and tricky to use. Maybe smaller fingers would have better luck than I did.

I really liked The Elephant Song app and I’m hoping that we’ll see more from of this kind of app from the folks at AppsNminded.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: AppsNminded

The Free Shipping.org app is brought to you by the folks behind the Coupon Sherpa app. This app gives you a list of online stores offering free shipping and other internet offers. So even though the title is “Free Shipping” you’ll find other great online deals to be had. You can view the offers by store list, categories or see only the featured offers. If you find one that looks interesting tap it and then tap the coupon you’d like to view. You’ll see a details screen and from there you’ll want to touch the “Use Coupon” button. This button pulls up the store’s site within the Free Shipping.org app. (If you don’t want to view it this way you’ll see a small button that says “Safari” in the bottom right corner of the screen. Tap that and the store’s site will open up in the Safari browser.) From here you can go ahead and make your purchase directly from your iPhone, using the coupons.

This app is a bit slow and I did have problems with some crashing. I think that given the graphic intensive nature of the online store sites it takes time to load them all within the app. The Coupon Sherpa app (which I love) works very smoothly for me, so I’m sure the developers will be ironing out the bugs with this one.

The Free Shipping.org app is free (fitting isn’t it!) and if you’re a frequent online shopper I’d check this one out to see what deals are available in the vast frontier that is internet shopping. The app is updated daily so you’ll be able to stay on top of all those wonderful online coupon codes.

*There is also a website to go along with this app – www.freeshipping.org – definitely worth checking out as well.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Seller: Kinoli/Free Shipping.org

I really, really wanted to like this app. And I do, to a certain degree. I like that it brings Cooking Mama (a fantastic Nintendo game, we have the wii version) to my iPhone.  You’re still chopping and mixing like you do in the original game but it’s been adapted for the iPhone. Now you tap, slide your finger, shake your phone, that sort of thing. It is fun BUT the Lite version only gives you one recipe. That seems a bit skimpy to me, even for a Lite app version.

From what I’ve read of the reviews at the iTunes store, the full version is limited in it’s number of recipes as well. I’ve got nothing against the game play itself. I enjoyed it and I know my kids would be thrilled to see this one show up on my iPhone. My quibble comes down to what you get for your dollar and right now it’s not enough for me to download the full version unless more recipes show up or the price drops.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Full version of Cooking Mama available for $6.99

Seller: Cooking Mama Limited/TAITO Corp.

I was really excited when I found the Cell Minute Tracker app a few weeks ago and downloaded it to my iPhone. I thought to myself this the app that is going to save me some money each month and keep my husband from asking if I know how many text messages I’ve sent each time he hears my iPhone ding. I wasn’t very big on texting before I got my iPhone but it’s so easy to do now…and why get on the phone for a ten minute conversation when you can quickly type something up and send it off? You save nine minutes and spare the person on the other end of the phone from listening to the screaming chaos going on in the background of your home. But back to the app and my initial excitement. It lasted until I was telling my husband about Cell Minute Tracker and he asked me why I didn’t download the free AT&T My Wireless Mobile app instead. Oh. Ok, so apparently there’s a free app that’d give me the same information about my cell phone usage. Now granted Cell Minute Tracker is only $.99 but if I can get a free replacement that’s just as good it’s a no brainer. So I downloaded the AT&T app to see how the two compare.

Cell Minute Tracker pulls up your cell phone’s account information and shows you how many minutes and texts you’ve used up in your billing cycle. You can look at it and know how close you are to having to pay for those pricey overage charges. You’ll need to have an AT&T online account to use the app but it only took me a few minutes to set mine up. Once you’ve done that you open the app and enter in your cell number and AT&T password. It takes a few more minutes for the app to update but after that you can view your usage. (You won’t have to enter your information every time you open the app.) Our information shows up as a “Family Talk Group” and also as our individual phone numbers. The data information (including those pesky text messages) won’t show up on the group screen. You have to select the individual number to see those. You can also view your current bill from within the app and go from the app to the AT&T website to pay your bill.

AT&T’s myWireless Mobile gives you the same information, but in a slightly different format. You’ll also need to have setup an AT&T online account to use this app. The first time you use it you’ll have to enter your wireless number and AT&T online password. It’ll take a second but then your account information will be available.The “Usage” button takes you to the screens that show you how many minutes you’ve used. To see your data charges you have to navigate to the “Individual” screens. Here’s where you’ll find the text messages. With the “Features” button you can add on new features to your cell plan directly from the app. The “Bill & Pay” button will show you a summary of your bill, including your last payment and your current balance and due date. You can view the full bill as a PDF and make a payment through the app. It’s all very well laid out and easy to read.

So what we’ve got here are two apps that do almost the same thing but one is free and the other isn’t. For me the plus to using AT&T myWireless Mobile  is being able to access my bill and make payments from within the app. You can also do this with Cell Minute Tracker but you have to go through the additional step of logging into the AT&T website and the information is harder to read and navigate through. The plus to using Cell Minute Tracker is that you DON’T have to enter in a password every time you open up the app. For me, personally this is more important than being able to easily pay my bill. I don’t think I’d do that very frequently but I do know that in the short time I’ve been testing out the apps I’ve had to repeatedly ask my husband what the AT&T password is so I can login to myWireless Mobile. That is a deal breaker for me and why I’m going to stick with the $.99 app.

*Cell Minute Tracker*

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Pageonce, Inc.

*AT&T myWireless Mobile*

Price when Reviewed: Free

Available at iTunes

Seller: AT&T Services

Birth Date calculates your child’s exact age in months, weeks and days. Just use the plus button to add a child’s name and their birthday. When you tap save the dates are calculated and displayed.

This could be a helpful app if your child is young enough to still calculate age by months. I always gave up after 18 months because the math got to tricky for me. The Birth Date app would solve that issue for me.

Something I noted is that the age isn’t displayed in years. This would be a nice addition to future updates.

*Review Update on 5/27* – Carla, the director of  Silver Bunny Books, tells me that they considered including years in the app but because they are easily remembered they decided to include days for something beyond weeks and months.  Makes sense to me.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: Edward Povazan/Silver Bunny Books

I really like the idea behind Family Vault. It’s an app that allows you to store important ID information about family members on your iPhone. The first time you use the app you’ll need to create a user account with your email address. You’ll also establish a password and PIN. (If you have other apps from IconApps on your iPhone – Giftster, Key Dates – you use this same password and PIN to log in to those apps) Each time you open up this app you’ll need to enter in your PIN so your information is protected. Once you’re logged in you simply tap the plus sign to begin adding family members. Type in a name and then you’ll be able to add in the person’s birthday, social security number, blood type, license number and passport information. The data entry is smooth and very easy to move through.

Tap the “Settings” button at the bottom of the screen and then go to the “Family & Friends” section. From here you can add contacts that will be placed on a special family and friends list. This list is shared between the other IconApps apps and is an easy way to create a master list and save yourself from extra typing for each app.

One thing I’d love to see in an update – the option to enter in your own “miscellaneous” information. Maybe an “other” section in the information list, a place to store health insurance information and IDs perhaps?

I found Family Vault extremely easy to use and a nice app to have on my iPhone. I’m the main paperwork filler-outer at my house and it’s nice to have all this ID information right there in my purse, instead of floating around in my brain or on a piece of paper filed away somewhere in a mystery box.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: IconApps, Inc.

Another great app from the folks at IconApps, Inc. Key Dates is designed to keep track of important dates and events in your life. If this is the only app from IconApps on your iPhone then you’ll first need to set up an account. If you already have one of their apps (Giftster, Family Vault) then you’ll use your existing password and PIN to login.  From then on you’ll need to enter your PIN to open up Key Dates.

Entering in the dates and information is extremely easy. Tap the event category you want to add too – they’re shown at the bottom of your screen – Anniversary, Birthday or Holiday. Now add in the information asked for on the screen. If you have already set-up a “Family & Friends” list within Giftster or Family Vault then all you have to do is tap the “Family & Friends” button and choose from the list that is shown. If the person isn’t already on your list go ahead and enter in their information. Key Dates has smooth data entry and the typing goes quickly. You can choose to set a gift reminder and a call reminder. This will display a red exclamation point next to the date as it approaches. You choose how far in advance you want your reminder. There’s also a section to enter in notes about gift ideas, etc.

You can view each event category separately or tap “All” to see a master list. You’ll see a “By Date” and a “By Type” button at the bottom of the “All” screen.  Tap these to change how the events are sorted. I like the letter icons that show up to the left of the event name. A for anniversary, H for holiday and B for birthday. Gives you a quick visual reminder about why that date is important. Also, Key Dates comes with many holidays already pre-entered into the app so that will save you some set-up time.

One thing that I think could save even more time with the data entry is to have the ability to add to the “Family & Friends” list directly from the screen where you’re entering someone into the app instead of having to go to the settings to create this list. Extremely minor detail though.

I like the straightforward nature of Key Dates and the ease of the data entry.  If I’m going to take the time to enter in multiple events into an app I want that app to be easy to use and then easy to understand. No messy symbols or extra screens to navigate my way through. Key Dates gives me that and I like being able to look at only these types of events without having to sort out the birthdays from the T-ball games on my main calendar.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Available at iTunes

Seller: IconApps, Inc.