Tag Archives: App of the Day

wp_ss_20130429_0005
wp_ss_20130429_0003 wp_ss_20130429_0004

After the release of the updated Broadsheet iPhone app, Dublin based indie developer Neil Turner (of Bus Nearby fame) asked if we’d be interested in servicing that vital 1% of our mobile users – Windows Phone – for the killer price of the fame and glory it’d bring him.

The app went live over the weekend and Neil has done a brilliant job. if you have a Windows phone, do us a favour and download it from the store.

Android users: We’re still working on an app for you and hope to have it pass final muster sooner rather than later. Sorry.

Broadsheet.ie on Windows Phone

 

Last year we told you about Storymap by Tom Rowley and Andrew Flaherty, a site which ties stories to locations around Dublin. The natural progression is to provide it all wrapped up in an app so you can find out about where you’re standing.

Enter Jamie Osler and Eoin Rogers, two final year DIT students who developed the Storymap iPhone and Android apps under the supervision of Bryan Duggan.

The app has all the current stories (with more promised) from the site grouped into various categories (but you have to guess at what the colours mean as there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for them).

It also strings them into a variety of themed walking tours across the city, but the killer feature of the app is to create a custom tour for you between where you are and where you’re going.

An annoyance though is that watching a video takes you out of the app and into Safari (obviously this is on the iPhone).

Storymap.ie

Available on the Apple App Store (€2.69) and Google Play (€2.69).

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

No favours, cuddles, or pints were given for this post.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir93QOqPqRk

You may be familiar with the Newswhip widget thing on Broadsheet’s home page.

The box on the right which tabulates the most shared stories on social media.

Yes, that thing.

Now – finally! – Dublin-based Newswhip.com have created an app that may well become literally indispensable among the mediarati and news hounds of all breeds.

Founder Paul Quigley writes:

NewsWhip now comes in a pocket size App format for anyone with an iPhone. Like our site, it shows the news spreading fastest now on social networks, and lets you filter for news from different countries and loads of niches (like environment, psychology, or gaming).

Unlike our site, it’s really easy to use while sitting on the toilet, remembers your preferences, and has a neat picture of the Cliffs of Moher (on our Ireland page)

It’s actually a fantastic app. The best of over 100,000 stories each day, as picked by your peers, i.e. the other billion people on social networks.

Before anyone asks: Android version is on the way. 8 weeks-ish.

 

iTunes link here

NewsWhip Launches iOS Flipboard-Style News App Which Scans Facebook And Twitter (Mike Butchder, TechCrunch)


The weakest part of iOS are Apple’s own apps bundled in with it.

When so much effort is put into pretty much every other aspect of iOS the apps only seem to get a cursory look. This has resulted in a host of apps that aim to replace the default apps.

My Artists by Oisin Prendiville is one such app, being his interpretation of the music player.  On top of playing the music stored on your device, it will also pull information about the bands from the net giving you detailed bios as well as letting you buy their back-catalogue in app.

But playing your existing music just doesn’t cut it in today’s world of online music discovery.  By leveraging last.fm, the app can suggest and play music you may like as well as create a customised iTunes Store based on your tastes.

It was €2.69 but the latest version is free so there’s no excuse for not trying it out.

My Artists is available now on the Apple App Store.

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

No favours, cuddles, or pints were given for this post.

We’ve documented the graffiti around Dublin to the delight of some and the foam-flecked loathing of others.

To the latter: behold our first dual platform app, Fix My Area.

It encapsulates what I love about having a small networked camera in my pocket at all times. You take a picture of something the council needs to deal with, tag it with some details and off it flies to the relevant authority.

It’s a shame you can’t track what you’ve reported in app instead of having to go to the website.

And being picky little shit, it’s letterboxed on iPhone 5. An absolute bugbear of mine.

On Google Play for Android

On the App Store for iPhone

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

No favours, cuddles, or pints were given for this post. Review based on iOS version.




As some of the commenters pointed out in our post about My Dublin Bus, it’s only available for iPhone.

Up steps Dublin based mobile developer Stephen McBride (he happens to do both iOS and Android apps) to fill the gap for Android.

While not as cutesy as My Dublin Bus, it does provide a clean interface to getting at the bus timetables. All the expected functionality is there – searching, favourites and maps. But the killer feature is the ability to add shortcuts to your home screen to a bus route so you don’t have to fiddle with menus to get at your bus home.

It’s available as an ad supported free version as well as a paid download (you do realise developers can’t just survive on crumbs from their keyboards right?).

Next Bus Dublin (free)
Next Bus Dublin (€1.99)

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

No favours, cuddles, or pints were given for this post. (Full disclosure, Karl used to work with Stephen)


Timetable apps have been a staple of the app store since it opened its doors. They’re often as dull as their subject matter.

But the people in Tapadoo have managed to both make a useful, functional app with a humorous twist

The app follows founder Dermot Daly‘s mantra to perfection – do one thing well.

A couple of taps and your daily commute buses can be set up so there’s no fiddling about every time you want to use it.

In fact, it works far better than Dublin Bus’s own effort or even the signs at the bus stops.



When something does go wrong (more often than not the fault of the Real Time Information rather than the app) it will show a southside/northside appropriate error (above) based on your current location.

And how much for a beautifully crafted app like this?

Not a brass farthing.

My Dublin Bus

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

No favours, cuddles, or pints were given for this post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7P0dmV_AXM

We like Redwind Software.

On top of being the only company we know of that is using Job Bridge properly, they also really are at the forefront of the much touted ‘smart economy’.

This week they launched their latest game Draw-it, Push-it.

It’s a Pictionary style game where you use the iPad to draw your word and the other players buzz in using their iPhones/iPod touches.

This is the first game of its kind in the Apple App Store making it a pretty impressive  technical achievement by this small indie developer.

Okay, so you inevitably end up with the usual sweary/shouty slagging match as people accuse you of drawing badly and you must have an iPad and 2 iPhones to play but once you’re over these hurdles it’s a devilishly fun game to play.

In fact you could say we’re strangely drawn.

Drawn.

Nevermind

Redwind Software – Draw-It, Push-It

Draw-it, Push-it

Push-it

Do you have an Irish app? Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie

No favours, cuddles, pints or free versions of the app were given for this post.

It’s the time of year when parents have the ultimate sanction of a Naughty or Nice list to make their children behave.

Broadsheet code monkey web master Karl’s partner recalled to him a time when a lump of coal on the mantle would send children into an apoplexy of fear, regret and temporary good behaviour.

So rather than fixing theBroadsheet app in a few moments of his spare time Karl whipped up Santa Report.

Then kids’ mums from all around looked for their own copy and so up onto the iPhone app store it was thrown.

Since it is Christmas apparently we have 10 free copies available – just tap on one of the links on your iPhone

 

And yes, it is iPhone only, because, sez Karl: “those elves that make the toys can’t code”.

The Santa Report is available on the iPhone App Store for the Scrooge-friendly sum of 89 cents.

Have you a new app you would like to share?  Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie