Skype Wi-Fi, the Wi-Fi hotspot service formerly known as Skype Access, is now available on your iOS device. With the new, free Skype Wi-Fi app, you can connect to over one million Wi-Fi hotspots around the world, paying only for the Internet minutes you use.
Skype says that prices will start at 6 cents per minute, with no data limits. You launch the app, login with your Skype credentials, tap Go Online, and you’re good to go. Skype says your iPhone or iPad needs to be running iOS 4.1 or above to work with Skype Wi-Fi.
Although the new Photovine iPhone app in the App Store appears to be from a developer of the same name, it’s actually a Google joint. (Google owns Photovine.) It’s a free app for photo sharing that seems to fall somewhere between Instagram and Color.
In Photovine, you browse vines—shared collections of photos connected by a single caption. In the promotional video on Photovine’s website, one woman starts a “Warm and Fuzzy” vine with a snapshot of her puppy; a picnicking couple’s self-portrait and a hirsute sunbather’s chest soon join the mix.
Shake-a-Phrase is an education app that uses silly sentences to teach kids vocabulary and parts of speech. Your kids might get a kick out of the oddball phrases randomly generated by Artgig Studio’s $2 offering for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, but there are few features to recommend this middling app.
Aimed at kids between the ages of 8 and 12, Shake-A-Phrase has three modes, the most prominent of which is Shake It. In this mode, you shake your iOS device (or tap a handy button) and the app auto-generates a sentence using a library of 1700 or so words—something along the lines of “A cowardly diver tempted then heard an anxious senator” or “The brainy parent painted a quick baker by the salon.” Tap the adjectives, nouns, or verbs in the sentence, and a pop-up window shows the part of speech and a quick definition (usually covering up a chunk of the sentence in the process).
Way with Words: The Shake It mode in Shake-A-Phrase produces a randomly generated sentence. Tap on any of the nouns, verbs, or adjectives, and a pop-up window provides a definition.
It seems like hardly a day goes by without Apple and its competitors taking various legal actions against each other. We round them up—the legal actions, not the companies—and summarize them for you in a little intermittent segment we like to call “Under the Gavel.” You must provide that distinctive Law and Order “DUN DUN” on your own.
Despite text messages, email and a constant stream of notifications, it’s still pretty easy to forget things these days. TellMeLater from Sixfoisneuf42 is a helpful iPhone app that makes it easy to remember things by offering a simple yet effective take on task management.
Friendly Reminder: The reminder screen in TellMeLater lets you set a reminder that includes a due date and a notification option such as email and reminder tweets.
Think of the $1 TellMeLater as a set-it-and-forget-it task management app. When you launch TellMeLater, you’ll notice a large green New Reminder button at the bottom of the screen. It’s easy to spot—it’s the only button in the app.
Whether you want to fly through the air, sit on your couch, or simply be productive, this week's roundup of iOS accessories has you covered. Here's what's on our radar this week:
Belkin's Keyboard Folio
Belkin: The accessory-maker wades into the crowded Bluetooth-keyboard-case market with its $100 Keyboard Folio for iPad 2. Belkin says the case has a “suede-like feel,” while the keyboard itself provides 60 hours of active battery life and 2,000 hours of standby battery life. The function-specific keys let you copy and paste text, as well as control the iPad's sound volume and several other features.
Google on Tuesday announced that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for a cool $12.5 billion in cash. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the acquisition should finally afford Google the sort of mobile-focused patent portfolio the search giant has longed for. According to Google, Motorola Mobility will continue to operate as a separate business.
Earlier this year, Google missed out on acquiring the Nortel patents to a consortium involving Apple, Microsoft, RIM, and other large companies. Earlier in August, Google complained on its blog about companies bidding on Nortel’s patents as a means of competing with Android (despite the fact that Google, too, bid billions for the patent portfolio).
