Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category

LA Weekly Goes Mobile

October 12th, 2009 by AV Flox in iPhone

Heads up, L.A., the LA Weekly has just launched its iPhone app.

LA Weekly goes mobile.

LA Weekly goes mobile.

The app is simple. It has five main categories: a calendar of events to see what’s happening around town; a music guide to see who’s playing where; a restaurant guide to get the noms on; a late night section chock full of reviews; and slideshows, featuring the work of some of L.A.’s best photographers on their nights around town (not that I would know or anything, but loading an LA Weekly slideshow on Safari takes much too long to really show off how popular you are as you stand around outside some other event smoking a cigarette, so thanks for this. Not for me, of course–for other people who are shallow and self-absorbed).

The app also features a “Nearby” option that uses your location to discern what is happening nearest to you. This is not quite UrbanDaddy’s The Next Move (as it doesn’t enable you to search by time, location and other criteria), but then, it’s not supposed to be. UrbanDaddy gives you options. LA Weekly tells you what’s hot, what’s happening, what’s right now.

And if that’s not the way of L.A., I don’t know what is.

Drawbacks? There are no articles to be read here, just reviews (which is a good thing, as I would like to keep the print version of this publication around for as long as humanly possible), no form of interaction with other users (like you have on lalawag’s app–which is vital to growing and fostering community), and no way to add places to a favorites list.

They don’t absolutely have to do anything about the first two. But the third would be nice.

Oh, and PSFYI: Fishbowl LA’s suggestion merits careful consideration: “a constantly updated emoticon for the mood of editor Drex Heikes. ‘I feel like pitching a series of articles about the plight of parking enforcement hybrids, I’ll just check to see if Heikes isn’t already bored.’”

There should really be an app for that.

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Happiness–There’s An App for that

June 27th, 2009 by AV Flox in iPhone

There seems to be an app for everything, but an app for happiness? Really?

I’ve been following the work of Signal Patterns Labs since I took a personality test of theirs a year or so ago. Signal Patterns develops psychology-based web applications like the personality test I took. Recently, they’ve been expanding their efforts and moving into the mobile territory with self-help, positive psychology apps that are supposed to “help people improve their well-being and relationships with others.”

livehappyLive Happy is one of these apps. Developed by the iPhone by the Signal Patterns Labs research team together with Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of the book The How of Happiness and a professor of psychology, Live Happy offers mood tests, a diary for random acts of kindness, an album for photos so users may “savor moments,” and a way to track goals.

I bought it on impulse early one morning after receiving an e-mail from Signal Patterns. I’ve had it for a few weeks now and been surprisingly active in recording things like goals and things that make me happy. When my friend Atherton Bartelby and I were discussing useless but fun iPhone apps, I suggested it to him.

“That’s way too California hippie for me,” the Manhattan-based designer told me.

Maybe it is. But you know what? I kind of like it.

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  • AV Flox writes about web culture; new media’s gradual overthrow of old media; trends in social media; and the complicated entanglements people get themselves into as we venture forth into this new world where, more and more, the analog is colliding with the digital.

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