iPad By Davis: “Smarter Stand hits Kickstarter, a kickstand and ear bud untangling solution for iPhone” plus 4 more

Smarter Stand hits Kickstarter, a kickstand and ear bud untangling solution for iPhone
How to use your iPhone or iPad to help you eat better
iMore Editors' Choice: Uber, Little Inferno, Jot mini, and more
Best Free iPad App of the Week: Sound Uncovered
AirPrint – How to Find Compatible Printers

Smarter Stand hits Kickstarter, a kickstand and ear bud untangling solution for iPhone

Posted: 17 Feb 2013 01:12 AM PST

Smarter Stand hits Kickstarter, a kickstand and ear bud untangling solution for iPhone The Smarter Stand has arrived on Kickstarter and it looks like a great solution for anyone who suffers from the annoying problem of constantly tangled ear buds or the need to prop your device up at an angle to use it hands free or in a more comfortable way. Yes the Smarter Stand offers a solution to both of these problems and is looking for help on Kickstarter.

Ever tried to prop-up your iPhone to watch a video, read email, do a video call, follow a recipe? It never stays up! And let's face it: the iPhone kickstand options out there are clunky at best. The Smarter Stand is the first iPhone / iPod touch kickstand that can be used with or without a case AND also keeps your earbuds tangle free.

How much time do you spend every day fighting with tangled-up earbuds? Life's too short! You just casually roll-up your earbud cord around the Smarter Stand, tuck the buds in and you're done! It won't come undone even if it's tossed around in your pocket or handbag all day.

The Smarter Stand clicks into the iPhone's 3.5mm headset jack and uses it as an anchor point. It can then offer an angled stand for your device which makes it much easier to use than flat on a table. Because of the way it works, it can be used with any iPhone or iPod touch, with or without a case.

If you like the look of the Smarter Stand for iPhone or iPod touch you can back it over at Kickstarter. Pledges starting from just $9 will get you one when or if they make production. The Smarter Stand for iPhone has already blasted through its pledge goal of $15,000 and currently sits at just over $18,000. The project still has 54 days to run so plenty of time if you would like to get involved.

What do you think of the Smarter Stand for iPhone? Could you see yourself using a product like this?

Source: Kickstarter

How to use your iPhone or iPad to help you eat better

Posted: 16 Feb 2013 04:15 PM PST

How to use your iPhone or iPad to help you eat better

February is Fitness Month at iMore and Mobile Nations, and that means our whole community is involved -- readers, listeners, viewers, and most of all, forum members. All week you've been sharing how you use your iPhone and iPad to stay in shape, and the apps and accessories you use along with it. Sure, we sweetened the deal by putting a $100 iTunes gift card up for grabs -- and we'll do it again next week -- but you guys brought serious game.

So what did you tell us?

Our winner, mjcostajr, had this to say:

Keep track of your nutrition can be cumbersome and disconnected, but there are definitely some great apps/devices which can make it quite simple.

Evernote Food: Not just a great app for keeping track of what you've eaten at a restaurant. It's great to remind yourself of what ingredients you used, how you cooked the meal and when you ate during the day. Of course since it syncs with Evernote, it's a great food journal that's accessible everywhere. Also, if you're busy and unsure of calories, serving sizes, etc, you can always use this to snap a picture of the meal quickly and enter the details into other apps (MyFitnessPal, Lose It) later in the day when you are winding down.

RunKeeper: Manual data entry is a must! It's crazy that Nike+ still doesn't natively offer this option. Also, RunKeeper lets you distinguish between different activities: running, elliptical, rowing, etc! Of course, when the weather is beautiful and you are ready to hit the pavement, the GPS records all your running stats quite nicely!

Withings WS-30: Keep track of your weight without writing anything down! Just simply step onto the scale and let it record your weight and BMI. Doesn't get much easier than this!

Definitely looking forward as Health/Fitness apps/gear continues to integrate and make staying healthy easier!

Thanks mjcostajr! We also had great tips from many of the other entrants.

Fausty82, among others things, likes to track food intake:

MyFitnessPal: I love this app, for many reasons, but primarily because it's so easy to use. I use it on both my iPhone and my MacBook Pro. The iPhone version has a barcode scanner for entering packaged food items. But whether you use the scanner or not. MyFitnessPal has a very extensive database of foods with their nutritional values. The database also contains a good assortment of menu items from popular restaurants, which allows me to choose healthy (ier?) meals when my wife wants to go out for a meal.

iDonev, among other things, tries for caloric restriction.

Calorie Counter: Even though recent studies show restricted caloric intake doesn't affect longevity, I restrict mine as a part of a two-year plan to bring down my weight. Here I'm heavily invested in Calorie Counter by Viaden. Their iPhone and iPad app is quite pleasant to work with and is bursting with options. In the app I have set up a personal plan by inputting my biometrics and setting a goal for the summer of 2014. The app calculated my needed caloric intake based on my lifestyle (mostly seated and actively training).

djayme7, among other things, like getting help with recipes.

VeganXpress and the Vegetarian How to Cook Everything: These apps help me eat right the low fat veggie way! The fitness buddy and full fitness apps help me keep my bod looking Aotay! I highly recommend all four of these apps and a vegetarian diet to look and feel the best you ever have for 2013!

We had a lot of other great posts as well, and a lot of great recommendations, so make sure you check them all out, and if you haven't already, please add yours to the thread!

How the iMore community uses their iPhones and iPads to eat clean

iMore Editors' Choice: Uber, Little Inferno, Jot mini, and more

Posted: 16 Feb 2013 02:33 PM PST

Every week, the editors and writers at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a stylus, a service that will make it easier than ever to call a taxi or car, an app that will tell you everything you need to know about your favorite brands by simply taking a photo of their logo, a news app that speaks to you, a fiery hot game, and a nutrition app.

Little Inferno - Simon Sage

Little Inferno brings the simple joy of lighting things on fire to your iPad. This more-than-slightly-off-kilter game has players toss various objects into a Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace to earn Tomorrow Bucks. Tomorrow Bucks are spent on ordering new objects from catalogs, which, when burned up in certain combinations, award Tomorrow Stamps. Tomorrow Stamps can speed up the delivery of new objects, while achieving a certain number of combinations will unlock new catalogs.

Every object you can order has a high amount of visual polish a reacts realistically to being light on fire and moved around, right down to sound effects, physics, and the way it crumbles under a blaze. Little Inferno was made by the same crazy people that made World of Goo happen, so pick this one up if you're looking for something out of the norm.

$4.99 - Download now

Jot mini - Chris Oldroyd

As part of my quest to become paper free I decided it was about time to start using my iPad to take hand written notes at meetings etc. I currently own a Pogo Sketch stylus and to be honest it's like having a marshmallow on a cocktail stick. I needed something more accurate and more like a pen.

I did some research and decided to pick up a Jot mini stylus and I am so glad that I did. The Jot started life as a Kickstarter project and is known as the stylus with the small clear disc on the end but the feel of an actual ball point pen. Well I can tell you one thing, it is absolutely superb. It is highly accurate and feels just like you are using a real pen and I can't praise it highly enough.

The Jot mini is simply a cut down version of the Jot Pro stylus and it may not be the best choice if you have bi hands. For me it is perfect and if you are in the market for a stylus, you would be mad not to get one of these!

$21.99 - Buy now

BizVizz - Ally Kazmucha

BizVizz is one of those apps that doesn't have any real world application but does provide a lot of interesting information. The main concept behind it is that you can scan any company logo by taking a photo of it, BizVizz will then spit out all kinds of information on that company from their tax rates to campaign contributions they've made.

While it's not something that everyone will want to know, for those who are interested about their favorite brands, how much they make, what political parties they've been affiliated or contributed to, and more - it's definitely an interesting find.

BizVizz may be intriguing to iPhone users that have strong political affiliations or the ones that care about who they are buying from and what they're doing with the money they put in their pockets. I've been scanning random logos for a few days now and have found BizVizz to be very enlightening in some cases.

Free - Download Now

Winston - Joseph Keller

Sometimes I wish Siri would bring me information at certain points in my day, telling me about news items while I do other things. That's exactly what Winston does. Winston is an app that speaks to you, reading out news, weather, and your social feeds. There are a number of channels to to choose from as news sources, with politics, technology, and gaming just a few examples. You can also allow Winston access to your Twitter and Facebook feeds so that he can read them out to you. When you enter the app, tap the Briefing section at the top of your screen to get a rundown of the news since you last opened the app, along with the time and weather.

Winston isn't perfect. Pronunciation can be an issue, and when parsing social feeds for relevant information, Winston sometimes fixates on a single word that is strange out of context. But though it's still definitely a work in progress, Winston is still solid enough to use for quick information updates. Winston is currently free on the App Store.

Free - Download Now

Uber - Rene Ritchie

I don't have the Uber car service here in Montreal yet, but they sure do have it in San Francisco and I made use of it several times while at Macworld|iWorld 2013.

Here's how it used to work: I'd leave a restaurant or party, walk for blocks looking for an ATM, make sure I was secure while getting money, walk a bunch more blocks looking for a taxi, and then finally, maybe, get a ride, then fumble for cash and change and stumble off.

Here's how it works with Uber: Leave a restaurant or party, tap a button, get told a car is 2 to 4 minutes away, watch the car approach on a map, get a call to make sure it finds me, get in, go, get out, get on with my life.

It feels like a luxury, but when you need a car to take you some place, it also feels like a necessity.

The app is free, the rides get billed to your credit card.

Free - Download now

Healthy Diet & Grocery Food Scanner by ShopWell - Leanna Lofte

Nutrition Week at iMore and Mobile Nations Fitness Month is coming to a close, so this week I went on a hunt for an app that promotes healthy eating and stumbled upon this app that tells you if your groceries are good for your diet. It's called Healthy Diet & Grocery Food Scanner by ShopWell and here's how it works:

After you sign up with an account, or login with Facebook, you go through a series of menus to tell ShopWell what your diet goals are, what foods you value, which ones you want to avoid, and which ones you're allergic to. Once you've completed the setup, you simply scan the barcodes of food in the grocery store or your cupboards and ShopWell will tell you if it's a good match for your needs and why, and color-coded nutrition facts and ingredients.

If you're trying to be a little more health-conscious with what you eat, ShopWell is a great app to help you with that endeavor.

Free - Download now

Searchpath - Rene Ritchie (Bonus!)

Searchpath

Noted developer Manton Reece has just released a new web service called Searchpath. It's a fast, easy, elegant way to add search to a website. Results are returned in a fancy popover interface, which not only keeps people on your page, but keeps your page visible to them around the popover. It comes in the form of a JavaScript snippet, gives stats, and doubles as a handy site backip.

There's a free demo, and if you like it, you can get the whole service for $8 a month.

$8/month - View now

Your choice?

Now that we've chosen our favorites for the week, we want to hear yours! Did you pick up a killer app, accessory, or game this week? Let us know in the comments below!

Best Free iPad App of the Week: Sound Uncovered

Posted: 16 Feb 2013 10:21 AM PST

One of the best things about using an iPad is all the great apps that we can run on it. There are excellent apps for just about any purpose you can think of. Better still, there are lots of great free apps for the iPad. Our Best Free iPad App of the Week posts highlight these apps.

This week's pick is Sound Uncovered by Exploratorium. This is a very unique and original app presented as an interactive book that explores 'the surprising side of sound'. Here's a little slice of its App Store intro:

.. this app puts you at the center of the experiment: Hear with your eyes, see with your ears, make and modify recordings, test your hearing, and more.
How do you make a saxophone growl? Are there secret messages in music played backward? Can you talk and listen at the same time? Why does the sound of gum chewing drive some people mad?