I’m very happy with Pocket Informant and the decision to use Toodledo as the engine for task management. The recent update made it faster and more stable and future updates will bring more features to the task management portion of the app.

Until then, however, I continue to use an additional, more full featured task app. One of the best is Ultimate Todos. A new update brings even more features. It adds more customizations, more options to sort and access tasks, and more. It is a great update … but still no direct way to dial from within the app.

(Note:  The screen cap indicates it is free. That refers to the update, not the app.)

— Post From My iPhone

When Steve Jobs introduced iPhone OS 2.0 about a year ago he spoke about all the possibilities for new apps. He also, however, spoke about the restrictions Apple would put into place.

The display slide that appeared behind him was specific on many counts ("Porn, privacy, bandwidth hog") and intentionally obtuse on others ("bandwidth hog, malicious, illegal, unforeseen.”).

I assume that "unforseen" meant, "we reserve the right to restrict any app we want on whatever ground we can come up with if we are not happy with something submitted to us at a later date." which is smart on their part but confusing, and potentially frustrating, on the end-users part.

In the year since, however, even the more specific restrictions of "porn, privacy and bandwidth hog" have been continually refined such that the slide, if presented today would have to look something like this…

One of the unexpected benefits of the constant flow of app updates is that, at times, the appearance of an update reminds you of applications you loved but, for whatever reason, stopped using a daily basis.

That was the case yesterday when Simplify Media released an update for their application and service. While the update itself was just a bug update and didn’t add any new functionality, seeing the update reminded me of this wonderful service that, for some reason, I had removed from my iPhone a few months ago.

It wasn’t long ago that I was completely perplexed by the concept of a dual iPod charger. Unless a couple each had an iPhone who needs one? Fast forward a bit and the answer is… ME. Yup, with my iPhone, iPod Touch and Nano (for when I want to go super-light), I am the poster-child for needing a dual charger.

Fortunately the new dual-charger from RichardSolo has me covered.

Let’s take a look.

Come on, admit it… there was at least one time when you were in high school that you procrastinated a bit too long, backed yourself into a corner and were saved by the Cliff Notes of the book you never quite got around to reading.

Cliff Notes are great and they are still around over at https://www.cliffsnotes.com. But if you want to take the summary of a book with you instead of reading it for free online you’ll have to pony up $5.99.

The iOption is a new series of iPhone apps called Book Bites. They look like a great shortcut for the short of patience or procrastinator. Here’s the description-

Well, it took a whole lot longer than anyone expected but the long-delayed update for Pocket Informant just went live in the App Store. As expected this update brings-

-Improved sync (Performance of sync and Shared Google Calendar support)
It is noticeably faster with the beta of 1.01!!

– The ability to choose which calendars to sync
– Support for M-Su month view formatting
– Startup and Calendar Performance Improvements

Versions 1.0.2 will extend this further with:

* More Recurrence Types in editor
* Customizable List View
* More Performance Improvements
* Variety of small improvements

In the ten months since Dimitri, Ron and I started whatsoniphone I thought I had seen it all. Fart apps, burp apps, gun apps… you name it and "There’s an app for that!" I was wrong.    How in the world could I have not even considered this… iLeprocy. Yes, you too can take a healthy-looking friend and put them on death’s doorstep for just $1.99. As the app’s description puts it-

Make fun of your friends, colleagues or the local bully. Take a snapshot or choose a picture from your library and put some scars, abscess, spots and pimples on them. Show your friends the how much you like them – no matter if they are ugly as hell. Create some really disgusting pictures of those who you don’t like and have some revenge. Over twenty disgusting images to choose from, all of them created based on some real diseases like meningitis, xanthoma, plague and of course the all famous leprosy.

So my question is this.. what’s next? iNuclear Holocaust? iBubonic Plague?

I’m not even going to supply the link to this one.

Google Voice  is poised to make some big moves now that the rebranded GrandCentral is online and has added automatic transcription of voicemail. (It is unfortunately, currently open only to those of use who had a GrandCentral account)

For those of us who are able to use it, it is pretty impressive. It works well and just might prompt me to make the move to it full time.

The only thing left to position it well was an iPhone app. After all, Skype is now available through a variety of apps including their own.

Enter GVDialer. GVDialer allows you to…

Use Google Voice from your mobile phone with GVdialer. Enjoy these great features: -One number – Present your Google number when calling from your mobile, keeping your mobile number private.-Simple calling – call directly from your iPhone’s contacts.-Google Voice access – get instant access to your Google Voice features, like Voice mail, Inbox & Goog-411. Want to use Google Voice only on some of your calls? GVdialer gives you the flexibility to use Google Voice on international, domestic, or on all of your calls. You can also set GVdialer to let you decide on each & every call. Calls that you don’t make with Google Voice will go directly via your mobile provider.

When Julia Turner at Think Graphics asked me to review the ConnectDots app for the iPhone and iPod Touch I quickly downloaded it and went straight to work. I did not find directions or guidance when I opened the app but was immediately presented with16 black and white outlines- think coloring book pages. I selected one and started to connect the dots with my fingers. I realized my actions were not mirrored by the program. The lines were drawn with just my touch to the picture, much easier for little fingers, but a bit disappointing to me (can you say perfectionist). Once all lines were complete the green dots disappear and it was time to create my first masterpiece. I could hardly wait!