Simplify Media just launched Simplify Photo, a new iPhone and iPod Touch application that allows you to browse all the photos on your computers at home while on the go. Just like with Simplify Music, the appeal of Simplify Photo (iTunes link) is that you don't have to store all of these files on your iPhone, laptop, or netbook, where storage space is often an issue. Instead, Simplify Media's desktop application just turns your Mac or PC into a media server and you access your music and photos remotely. Simplify Photo is currently on sale in the App Store for $0.99.
I tell people about the Rachel Maddow iPhone app all the time; almost no one has heard of it, but it's great. From now on I won't just tell them about it - I'll share a link to it by email with just a few clicks in the new iPhone app from Appsfire, just approved by the App Store last night.
Appsfire is a handy little service that makes it easy to share collections of your favorite apps with other people. There are a variety of ways to use it, but using it on the iPhone is the most pleasing, straightforward and clearly useful. This app indexes all your other apps, makes it easy to share with anyone and shows off the most popular apps shared by all users and users in your geographic region. It's far from perfect, but it's so useful anyway that we recommend you get it.
According to a new study from social media solutions provider Rapleaf, the most popular Twitter client is the web. After looking at the 20 most recent tweets from over 4 million Twitter users, it was clear that updating your status online via Twitter.com is still the dominant way that most people use Twitter, with 65% of tweets attributed to this method. As far as the third-party clients go, only a small handful of clients had enough users to warrant their own slice of the pie chart, and those slices were in the single digits.
Los Angeles residents recently began seeing a new sort of Obama poster plastered across their city. Instead of promoting "hope," these posters feature U.S. President Barack Obama wearing the Joker's clown makeup from the Batman movie "The Dark Knight." Even those outside of L.A. have likely seen this image somewhere as it soon took on a viral nature, appearing both online and in other cities across the country. The politically charged (and rather disturbing) photo serves as a counterpoint to the prolific and iconic "hope" posters that became popular during Obama's campaign. Regardless of which side you favor, one thing can be said about this photo: it definitely grabs your attention.
One year ago today we first asked that question, so now is a good time to ask it again. What 3 web apps or services do you find the most exciting right now? Note that 'exciting' is the keyword, so they won't necessarily be your 3 favorite or most used web apps or services. For example Facebook would make many people's list of 3 favorite sites, but does it get you all tingly with excitement these days? So, what we want to know is: what 3 apps get your juices flowing right now.
We did an informal poll at the ReadWriteWeb office (actually a Skype room) and our picks are below. We'd love to know yours as well, so please leave a comment telling us the 3 web apps or services that excite you the most.
The Federal Communications Commission launched a Twitter account and Blogband - a blog that will chronicle the progress and development of the National Broadband Plan. Said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, "We want it to be a two-way conversation. The feedback, ideas and discussions generated on this blog will be critical in developing the best possible National Broadband Plan". Genachowski has until February 2010 to submit a plan for broadband deployment to Congress. Telecoms, net neutrality lobbyists, tech companies and regular citizens are tripping over themselves to weigh in.
The Free Software Foundation's Defective By Design campaign just added the Amazon Kindle to its list of DRM-related offenders. The organization started a petition against Amazon for restricting readers' access to their own books and effectively discouraging reading options. Complaints include Amazon's switch to publisher-controlled text-to-speech disabling and the removal of several pre-purchased works from the device. Most recently, 17-year-old Justin Gawronski filed suit against the company for removing George Orwell's 1984 from his Kindle and rendering his electronic notes worthless.
Twitter is working on an automated method of discovering interesting 3rd party applications and websites built on its service to promote to users in the top right corner of its home page. Until that automated method is established, co-founder Biz Stone told us by email today that Twitter should do a better job of highlighting more projects and that he is open to suggestions for projects to feature.
We would love to make some suggestions, but we thought we'd start by asking our readers for ideas.
The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the popular Wikipedia, just released its first official iPhone application for Wikipedia. Wikipedia Mobile, which is available for free in the App Store now (iTunes link), gives users access to iPhone-formatted Wikipedia articles. The truth, however, is that this isn't a very good application and doesn't really go beyond anything the regular mobile Wikipedia website doesn't already do. Indeed, the app is basically just a wrapper for the mobile Wikipedia site.
We have seen our fair share of screencasting tools, but we immediately liked Screenr when we first saw it a few days ago. Screenr, which just launched today, lets you record screencasts of up to 5 minutes in length and stands out because of how easy it is to use. Just enter your Twitter credentials and press 'record.' Screenr runs inside your browser, so you don't need to install any software. Once you finish your recording, you can immediately send your video directly to your Twitter followers from within the application.
