ThingsAmongMany

I’ll keep this short and to-the-point: Camerabag is the only iPhone app that I’ve ever paid for. And I’m glad I did!

We all know that the iPhone camera leaves a little something to be desired, but this app definitely helps step things up to a presentable level. It’s simple to use too: just snap a photo - either directly from the app, or from the standard camera - and load it into Camerabag. From there, you can select from 9 filters. Think of them like Photoshop presets for your iPhone camera. Like what you see? Save the image and then jump back to your photos folder and there it is.

As far as functionality goes, I’ve only had a couple of issues. It does crash my phone occasionally, requiring a restart (yeah, that’s a biggie). And every once in a while, the images saved by Camerabag come out really small and low quality, but usally a simple resave takes care of that. It does look like they’ve updated it since I purchased it too, so maybe those bugs have been taken care of…

Either way, for 99 cents you can’t go wrong (on holiday special). And they’ve also introduced a Lite version that’s free.

Its almost that time. Yes, maybe I’m jumping the gun (it’s not even Thanksgiving).. but for all those people who’s New Years resolution is to lose weight, meet TweetWhatYouEat.

It allows you to use twitter as a food diary.
By sending direct messages to TweatWhatYoueat you can keep track of what you eat, instantly. It even allows you to log calories and your weight (which I will not be doing). Then you can view your diary personally via direct messages to Tweet What You Eat.

Tweetwhatyoueat also will link your food entries to  CrowdCal, a database of foods, allowing it to automatically figure out your caloric intake.  So far all you cheaters out there, beware. TweetWhatYouEat knows.

While many owners of this now-ubiquitous device would be hesitant to admit that its anything shy of perfect, the crew over at the FullSIX Group didn’t agree. While they’ll readily admit that they LOVE their iPhones, these guys were so adamant about some missing features on the device that they created a new site devoted to the missing pieces. Enter PleaseFixTheiPhone.com, a digital wish-list and peitition engine that anyone can add their iPhone wishes to in hopes that the God of all things Apple will hear their pleas.

Currently topping the list of desired features are copy & paste, MMS (picture messaging), and the inclusion of Flash in the phone’s capabilities. Of course, that’s only a few of the more than 1700 wishes that users have shared with the community in hopes of bettering their beloved devices. And those wishes have garnered more than a quarter of a million votes as of this morning.

But don’t mistake their wishlist as a fire-into-the-ether vocalization. The list of wishes that have already been fixed by recent updates is pretty impressive. So if you’ve got something that you can’t help but think would make your iPhone ownership experience just a bit better, get over there and let them know what it is. Hopefully someone in Cupertino is listening.

There’s a newcomer to the title of “most expensive iPhone app and it’s there to keep an eye on you. iRa, a new piece of software from a company called LexTechLabs, is designed to integrate with a surveillance and security system to allow you to keep tabs from anywhere. At $899.99, this one doesn’t come cheap, but compared to the old “I’m Rich” app that created a stir for doing absolutely nothing, iRa looks like it offers some true functionality to the right target.

The app is built to allow tracking of multiple cameras as well as pan/tilt/zoom functionality and much more. Here’s how LexTechLabs describes it:

Define multiple groups of cameras, each containing as many video feeds as you like, and quickly switch between them for managing multiple facilities. The iPhone or iPod touch pulls the video from the camera to wherever you are. Simply touch the screen of your iPhone or iPod touch for a full screen view or to manipulate a pan and tilt camera.

They’ve also got a YouTube vid that demonstrates the app (though without any sound or description):

Just stumbled across this one. The NY Times is reporting that Style.com, the online address of Vogue, is launching an iPhone app this week that will allow fashion week fans to watch the runway shows directly on their iPhone. It doesn’t appear that the feed will be live streaming, but will be available in an edited format shortly after the end of each show. For all the fashion fanatics who don’t have tickets to see their favorite designers (I’m assuming that covers most of them), this might just be the next best thing…

The article also digs into some of the shopping solutions that are currently available for mobile users. Ralph Lauren recently announced that they were planning to launch a mobile, commerce ready mobile site, and Chanel has also launched an app that provides video content as well as a direct-dial option to any store that carries the brand.

Yeah, yeah, so I took forever and then some to finally get my hands on an iPhone. Unfortunately, that’s what being locked into a Verizon contract will do to ya. But the wait is finally over. After a year of biding my time, I finally picked up an iPhone 3G last week (in the process, doing something I said I’d never do: switch back to AT&T).

And, of course, the purchase of an iPhone requires all the normal acoutrements. I decided to start with a case (can’t have the new toy getting knocked around the ground without protection!). It didn’t take much consideration for me to head straight to incase; they’ve been blowing away the competition lately with their products, IMO. Unfortunately, the case I wanted - the Slider - wasn’t quite out yet. One of the most popular cases created for the 1st gen iPhone, the slider finally dropped earlier this week.

Mine arrived today (ordered direct from incase last Saturday via their website. The matte black looks really nice and the fit and finish is as expected from the guys at incase. Here’s the uboxing photos:

I remember the first day I walked to work in New York with my iPod (yeah, yeah, I was a late adopter on that one). The feeling that I had my own personal soundtrack was awesome. Of course, so was the lack of incessant honking and shouting…

Well, for all you iPhone owners, the next evolution of your personal soundtrack has arrived…almost. It’s called synchstep. Designed by Greg Elliott (a fellow POKER), synchstep is an iPhone app that analyzes the music in your library and matches the beat rate to your current walking pace.

What does that mean in simple terms? Well, it means that as you strut down the street feelin’ like the bees knees, every foot strike lands with the beat of whatever song is playing. You walk to the music.

Synchstep is currently in beta testing, but from all the chatter around the office, it’s nothing short of awesome. And if you think the iPhone app is impressive, you should check out the earlier iterations of synchstep. Greg hand built the original mp3 players used for the experiment, which started as a grad school project, and finished them out in wood and brushed metal.

Keep an eye out for synchstep in the near future.