The iPhone Mom

The WeeMee Avatar Creator is one of my children’s favorite apps. They love creating WeeMees and assigning them to the contacts on my phone. When people call I never know what’s going to show up on the screen and I love seeing their creativity. The app was updated at the end of July and now includes closets. Closets that contain additional items for your WeeMees can now be purchased from within the app. Who knows what I’ll find in my contacts next!

Skintimate shaving gel has sponsored one closet that is available for free. The remaining closets can be purchased for $.99 each.

See the app in iTunes

Seller: WeeWorld

Just sending out an FYI about an app called WeReward. It’s a free app that gives you points for checking in at businesses in your area. You can also earn points by performing different tasks around town.  To give you an example of a task I could earn 52 points by taking a crazy picture of myself with the Target logo at the store. Another task was to take a picture of myself holding a tube of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste and explain why I like the product. That would earn me 62 points. Each point is worth a penny and once you’ve earned enough points you can cash them in for cash through PayPal. I haven’t tried out the app beyond downloading it and browsing through the screens.

The app is free and if you’re interested in building up some points to earn cash check it out and then let me know what you think.

I saw the Wee Mee Avatar Creator in the “What’s Hot” section of the App Store this week and had to give it a trial run. I use the Wee Mee creator to create my Windows Live Messenger avatar. Alright, actually my kids are the ones doing the creating. They love to get on and change up my Mee’s hair and clothes. Not to mention all the accessories that can be added on. Right now she’s wearing a pink cowgirl hat, sparkly shoes and standing by a windmill and daschund.  Random, I know but somehow it works. There is a website for the Wee Mees called Wee World but we don’t use it. It’s more of a social networking type site  so we stick with the Messenger Wee Mees and everyone is happy.

I got off on a bit of a tangent didn’t I?  Back to the Wee Mee iPhone app. You choose a body (and yes, they do wear undies, albeit skimpyish ones) and head shape. You can customize your skin color and then it’s on to facial expressions and hair. That is my daughter’s favorite thing to choose for me. My own brown locks are so boring that having the endless possibilities of long, colorful, beautiful hair is irresistible to her. The app lets you pick clothes, accessories and backgrounds. There aren’t as many choices as you’ve got online but I’m hopeful more will come in updates. (Online there are oodles of choices, so just because I say there aren’t as many in the app doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty. Make sense?) Go through all the avatar options and it’s just a matter of tapping and swiping until you get THE perfect look.

So having the Wee Mee Avatar Creator can be fun, like elaborate paper dolls on your iPhone, but what can you DO with them? Well, once you’ve finished an avatar you can save it to a Wee Mee gallery. And then you can email it out or save it as a photo for one of your contacts. The next time my kids tell me that they are bored I’m going to let them loose with this app and have them create a Wee Mee for every one of my contacts that needs a photo. Can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: WeeWorld

Here’s another clever and fun app – PixyMe. With PixyMe you type in some text and the app then incorporates it into an image or photograph. PixyMe calls it “image personalization”. For example, I can type in my name and then see it in a photograph of a cake with my name as the birthday candles. Or written in the snow on a car’s windshield. Or on the back of a baseball player’s jersey as they walk onto the field. The amount of choices are overwhelming and the text blends right into the photograph and doesn’t look tacky or out of place at all. It certainly doesn’t look like a cut and paste job, it’s simply a very cool part of the image. The images are grouped into categories. There’s “What’s Hot”, holidays, celebrate, travel, animals, entertain, love, kids stuff, nature, food or sports. Literally something for just about everyone.  These categories can all be seen along the bottom of the main screen. Swipe through them with your finger. You’ll also see a favorites button along with one for camera and library. More about those later.

To create a customized photograph you first browse through the images and select the one that you like. Tap on it and then enter in your text at the bottom of the screen. I found that names and short statements worked best. If you type in too much the text in the photo will become small and make less of an impact. From this screen you tap the star at the top left and save the image to your favorites. If you were to now tap on the favorites button on the main screen your image would be there. When you’ve chosen the right text and it’s all perfect you can tap “Send” at the top right of the screen. Next comes more choices. Should you save the image and then send it out as an MMS? Do you email out your image as an e-card? Send it as an actual postcard or post it to Facebook? If you choose e-mail then you’re taken to a screen where you enter in the appropriate email addresses. Don’t forget to add some text in the message body before you tap send. When the email is delivered the message will look like a postcard. On top will be your image and underneath is your message, written next to a cancelled out stamp. It’s framed by a rectangle so it looks like a postcard.  If you’d like to post the image on your Facebook wall you’ll need to connect through PixyMe. I tried it out and all it took was entering in my Facebook login information. Lastly, you can order an actual postcard. You’ll fill out the addresses, message, etc. in the app and then PixyMe prints and sends the postcard for you. It costs $1.99 for addresses in the U.S.A. and $2.99 for other locations.

Back to the camera and library buttons on the home screen. If you tap those then you can either take a photo with your iPhone’s camera or choose one from it’s photo library. Once you’ve done that PixyMe lets you select a frame to go around your photo. These frames are different from the images you chose from earlier.  You can also enter in text to be incorporated with the frame. When you’re done you’ve got the same sending options that I mentioned above.

I’m not sure what type of magic the developers wove into PixyMe but I’m sure it took hours and hours. They’ve created a fantastic app -these images are wonderful and the image personalization is perfect. I love, love, love this clever app.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Tukaiz, LLC

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

The idea behind the FunMail app is to take an ordinary text or email message and turn it into a picture. All you need to do to begin is type in your message. FunMail will pull up several images that relate to your message. Your text will be worked into them somehow. Next you choose the image you like and then enter in the number you’d like to send the text too. You can also send it as an email, just enter in an email address instead of phone number. The app works with your contact list which is helpful. Something to note is this – if you send a text you will first get your own text asking for verification that you are the one trying to send this message.  Within this text there is a link to tap and once you’ve done that your Fun Mail text message is sent.

FunMail is a cute app and I really like the way it takes your words and fancies them up a bit. However, I don’t have unlimited texting so using up two text messages to send one isn’t going to work for me on a regular basis. I usually go over my text limit as it is. Maybe if I’m near the end of my billing cycle and I’ve got something really special to say I’ll send a special text. Thankfully FunMail lets you send emails and since those are free I can jazz up my messages to my hearts content.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Seller: Fun Mobility, Inc.

Are you someone who enjoys social networking? I recently heard about Groupie, a new app that lets you create, join and manage groups on your iPhone. At first I thought it was a way to manage groups that you were already a member of, like google groups, but it’s actually a way to create entirely new groups and connect with people via the app. I haven’t tried it out myself but it seems like a good way to try social networking out without having to use a website. Anyone tried this type of app or Groupie?

Groupie is free and available in the App Store.

What an awesome app!! Catalista connects you with local nonprofit groups who are in need of volunteers. It brings opportunities that you might not know about right to your iPhone. I was a little skeptical about finding anything in my area. I live in the largest metropolitan area in my state but I wasn’t sure if it was large enough to show up on the app’s radar. I was wrong. There was a wide variety of needs listed for my community. Everything from tutoring to being a Girls on the Run coach to a reader for the library’s books on tape. Not just random volunteer assignments but things that I could actually see myself doing.

Catalista is extremely easy to navigate. You can view a list of all the opportunities for your area. Or you can select areas that you’re interested in and search within those parameters. You can sign up through the app (it will direct you to the appropriate websites), share the information with friend, rate the volunteer experience or add it to a favorites list. The app itself is very nice looking and the developers have done an excellent job keeping it clean, easy to read and fun to use.

If you’re looking for chances to get out and help your community then you must get this app. It’s free and the opportunities it can provide will be priceless. Well done Catalista.

Price when Reviewed: Free

Seller: Catalista, LLC

iLOCi2 allows you to pinpoint the location of another iPhone user without having to type out a text or give them a phone call. It allows you to send them a request for their location. If they accept then the app sends you back the details on where they’re at. You can view the address as text or see it on a map. A couple catches – iLOCi2 is only going to work if both people have the app on their iPhone. The app doesn’t have to be open on both phones because it uses push notification but they do need to have it installed. Also, when you are adding someone to your iLOCi2 contact list you must use the same email address they registered with.

How did it work? Very well actually. I tried it out with my husband. I have the paid version of the app on my phone. He has the free version. The difference? I can store up to eight contacts, he can only store two. We both registered and then went about testing out the app.  I sent him a request for his location. The request popped up and he could either choose to send his location or not. He accepted and the location was sent back to me. We tried this back and forth a few times and the location was spot on most of the time. Once it was off but only by a little bit. The app will even tell you that the location is accurate with “x” amount of distance.

So why would you want iLOCi2 on your iPhone? For me the main reason would be to keep tabs on my kids when they get old enough to go places without me. Of course that’s assuming they’re lucky enough to get an iPhone. Big assumption.  In order for it to work they’d have to accept my location request but I think my kids know if they tried to pull a fast one on me there’d be big, big trouble. The benefit to using the app would be knowing where they’re at without using up a text message or embarrassing them with a phone call from mommy. The other reason I’d use the app would be with my husband. There’ve been days where he’s swamped at work or stuck in meetings and we don’t talk all day. Sometimes if the weather is bad I start to get a little panicked. Did he make it to work? Is he hurt somewhere? Will it be like “While You Were Sleeping” and he’s got amnesia and Sandra Bullock will come steal his heart? Normal thoughts, right??  So I could use iLOCi2 for the neurotic purpose of making sure he’s safe and sound without ringing and ringing his phone.

If you’re looking for something to help you keep track of your family and they also happen to own iPhones then I’d suggest trying the LITE version first and going from there. I found iLOC2 to be easy to use and can see it being useful at my house down the road.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99 for full version

Free for LITE version 

Seller: GTX Corp

How many of you out there are on Facebook? I am and I think it’s a nice way to kill time and stay in touch with folks. I’ve reconnected with old friends from college and high school, even elementary school. I’ve also found a way to keep tabs on my siblings even though we’re spread out and all in different phases of life. The Facebook app on my iPhone has been one of my favorite ways to kill time when I’m waiting somewhere in the car. Waiting for soccer practice to be over? Let’s see what my brother’s got going on. Oooh, he just got the new Rock Band so I know his evening will be more exciting than mine. I need a life, I know. I didn’t have a problem with the old Facebook app. It functioned. But I’d heard all the hype and Twitter chatter about the new Facebook 3.0 so I was curious to give it a try. It’s almost like an entirely new app. Still Facebook for the iPhone/iPod Touch but much cooler. Here are the things I like about the new Facebook 3.0

1. The ability to “like” someone’s status or photo or wall post. You could “like” all of this on the website but not on the old Facebook app. Sometimes I appreciate someone’s clever status but I have nothing witty to add as a comment. That’s when I use the “like” choice. I can like what you have to say without saying anything in return. Now I can do that from my iPhone.

2. Favorites – Now I can select friends who are my “Favorites”. They’ll show up on a screen of their own and I can tap the one I want to peek in on. I don’t have to search through all my friends to find these lucky folks.

3.Notifications show up on the main screen and they’re easy to see. Tap it and I see a list of my most recent notifications. If that elementary school friend left me a warm and fuzzy comment earlier in the day and I need a pick me up, I can tap on that notification and read it all over again. Easily.

4. The news feed is cleaner. Underneath posts you can clearly see how many comments or “likes” there are. All I have to do to add my two cents is tap the plus sign next to a post. Then I have the choice to like or comment.

5. On the Friends screen I can see my list of friends and the list of pages that I’ve joined. I am a fan of Mr. Darcy and now I can visit his fan page while I’m on the go and read what’s going on with that group. Did you know that women regularly comment about Mr. Darcy, as if he is a real person? Which he is to many of us, whether we want to admit it or not.

6. Now I can see and write notes in the app. All those silly tags and did you know such and such about me are there.

7. On the news feed I can easily sort what I want to see. If I tap the button in the top right corner of the screen I’ll get some choices. I can roll through and choose to see only updates from pages, status updates, photos, etc. I make my selection and get the filtered list.

8. I can zoom into photos. Not always a good thing to do but I can do it.

9. It works in landscape mode.

10. You can visit links in a window that opens up within the app. So if you click a link it’s not going to take you out of Facebook. When you’re done with the link it’s easy to get back. No more pressing the home button and starting over.

11. It just looks sharper all around.

I’m sure there’s much more that I haven’t discovered about this app. I don’t go for all the games or trading goodies back and forth. I have no idea what Farmville is. I use Facebook to communicate with my friends and family and the Facebook 3.0 app has made that an easier and slicker experience.

If you haven’t updated to the new version click here and get on it!

Facehack is a brand new app that lets you create unique profile pictures for your Facebook account. It’s simple to use – take a picture with your iPhone or choose one from your camera roll. Now resize it, rotate it, get it exactly how you want it. The next step is to use your finger to erase the background of your image. A trick I learned the hard way: in order to get around the image you’ll want to use the “pan & zoom” button to really get in close to the image. That way you can outline the image and then swipe your finger to erase the rest. If you make a mistake tap the ‘”unerase” button and then swipe your finger over the mistake. That part of the image is restored.

In later releases it would be nice to have the ability to change the size of your “finger swipe”. Maybe it’s just my chubby fingers but I had a tough time controlling what I erased from my image. You can see that the edges on my image are a bit jaggedy. It’d be great if there was a way to adjust that feature.

This is a fun app that gives you the chance to make your Facebook profile photo stand out. When you’re done tweaking your photo you can use Facehack to upload it directly to your Facebook account and impress all your friends.

Facehack is available FREE to the first 1000 people who download it from the app store. After that the price will be $.99.

Price when Reviewed: Free to first 1000 downloads then $.99

Seller: Airgini