One of the most enjoyable educational apps I’ve yet experienced :
Join broadcast legend Sir David Attenborough to explore more than 1000 of the greatest wildlife moments ever filmed.
Explore the most comprehensive collection of Sir David’s work ever released online.
Includes six decades of highlights from more than 40 landmark BBC programmes, including Planet Earth, Blue Planet, The Life of Mammals, Africa and others.
Watch unique collections of films curated by Sir David and others.
Create and save your own collections and share them with friends and family.
Hunt for hidden films featuring Sir David, recorded exclusively for the app.
Explore extraordinary sequences of animals and plants, from iconic large species to rarely seen enigmatic creatures. See them hunt, mate, eat, travel and communicate in their natural habitats; ranging from the high mountains to the deepest oceans, across deserts, forests and the polar ice caps.
Watch lions, polar bears, whales, sharks, eagles and giant lizards and many more.
Available at no charge as a universal app for iOS, and on Android, this has barely been off the family iPad since we downloaded it.
Each Monday I’ll be selecting a couple of tried and tested apps that I use on a regular basis – one that is business or productivity-related and another that adds value during leisure or down time. Given my professional focus is on collaboration and community, and my work involves documenting and delivering strategic recommendations, facilitating workshops and training large groups of executives and community members, I’d expect that a good number of apps will be useful in those and similar scenarios.
Planning a conference session or work presentation anytime soon? This app might come in handy…
Ummo is your personal speech coach. Whether you are practicing for a presentation or looking to improve your day-to-day communication, use Ummo to track your filler words (“Umms” and “Uhhs”, “like”, “you know”), pace, word power, clarity, and more.
This iPhone app is definitely a version 1.x, and has its flaws, but looks extremely promising in terms of providing machine analysis of presentation and speaking styles.
Install the app, allow access to the microphone, click the mic button, wait for the countdown to complete and then start talking. The app will capture each work as it is said, looking for pre-defined filler words, any lack of clarity of tone, and any overly-long pauses. Once the recording is complete, it provides quite detailed reports and analysis of the effectiveness of the recorded session:
As I mentioned, there are some (um, err) issues – this needs a fast iPhone (it works considerably better on my iPhone 6s+ than it did on the iPhone 5 I tested, and even then, it does sometimes mis-capture the words. However, speech is by its nature imperfect, and I can forgive the app some teething pains.
For my use at least, it gave some good data, and helped me to spot some weaknesses in my speaking style that I hadn’t isolated previously. The reviews on the UK store are not great at present (1.5 stars! They are much better on the US store…), but this review from MacStories is, I believe, fairer to the developer. Anyway, it costs just $1.99 (£1.49), so it could be worth your time and hard-earned cash to give it a punt!
Do you host a site or platform that you need to make available to a wide range of desktop and mobile devices, including those Apple iThings running iOS9?
Then you need to check out Safari’s Responsive Design Mode (found in the Develop menu in Safari 9 for the Mac). Take a look at this (video courtesy of Casey Liss):
Yes, you can test your site in all the new split-screen modes available in iOS9. This feature is already proving to be useful for testing a number of my own sites, including this one:
I have a feeling it will come in handy for checking customer projects too, not least custom themes and layouts. This session video from WWDC 2015 covers the feature in great detail (and much more besides…)
Circle is the mobile app that’s in the know, anywhere you go. Circle keeps you up to speed by adapting to your location and letting you view what’s happening near you, now.
Our goal is to build on the lessons learned from traditional social networks to make a new kind of community: positive, local and useful, wherever you are.
Each month, more than a million people are joining Circle for real-time information and conversation about nearby crime, traffic, natural disasters – as well as places to go and things to do.
Lost dogs. Best fishing spots. Free kids events. Closed roads. Flash mobs. Amazing, scary, exciting and crazy are happening everywhere. The Circle community is there to help you navigate your world.
And we have some help. Circle is funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Ashton Kutcher, Ron Conway, David Sacks and other top investors. Headquartered in Palo Alto, the company was founded by CEO Evan Reas with the goal of truly connecting the mobile web to the real world.
Circle has truly beautiful design, a clever focus on local news and events, apps for Android and iOS, and excellent integration with existing networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
As ever, the key question is whether your friends and peers are on the network – that’s what makes it sticky. Right now, that’s not the case, and there’s precious little being added within 50km of my location – I’m sure it would be different in San Francisco, NYC or even London.
However, I’m hopeful that this will change – I like Circle and would like it to succeed.
One of the many advantages for those living in the USA is that so many innovative online services get offered there first. Some, despite many broken promises, never make it to the UK – a classic example being Google Voice. However, I’m also well aware that folks that live in less populous or non-English speaking places do even worse than we do.
Anyway, another example of a fantastic service that is US-only right now is the New York City-based startup, Oyster, which has been termed the ‘Netflix for Books’:
Oyster offers unlimited access to over 100,000 books for $9.95 a month, with new titles added all the time.
We created Oyster to evolve the way people read and to create more of the special moments that only books can offer. From anywhere a mobile device can go—a bustling subway car, a quiet coffee shop, or lost at sea with a Bengal tiger—our mission is to build the best reading experience, one that is both communal and personal, anytime, anywhere.
With apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, subscribers get access to a huge library of books available for download to their devices. Whilst the access is truly unlimited, the last 10 books are kept on your device for offline reading.
Having tried the service for a short period of time on a friend’s device, I was impressed by the range of titles available and particularly the beautiful typography used.
Whilst the range of books available is nowhere near that available on Kindle or iBooks right now, I personally found the reading experience to be more pleasurable – not least because there wasn’t the sense that I might be buying a book at significant cost that I didn’t enjoy and couldn’t pass onto others.
Lastly, the social features are pretty cool – with the ability to add networks of fellow readers and to share and comment on friends’ activity and libraries.
Having fully embraced subscription-based music (Spotify), movies and TV (LoveFilm and Netflix), I’m definitely ready to pay a fixed monthly fee for unlimited access to books.
If Oyster was available in the UK I’d be there in an instant. Right now, you have to reside in the US and can either download the iOS app, or else join via oysterbooks.com – there is a 30 day free trial available. You can also buy memberships for others as gifts – that could be a great idea this holiday season!
Most folks that know me well know that I am a huge fan of 1Password, the cross-platform app from AgileBits that allows passwords to be generated, stored and made available across your entire computing estate:
1Password is a password manager that goes beyond simple password storage by integrating directly with your web browser to automatically log you into websites, enter credit card information, fill registration forms, and easily generate strong passwords.
Your passwords, identities, and credit cards, are just some of the confidential information that 1Password stores in one secure place, protected by the only password you will need to remember.
For the Thanksgiving weekend, AgileBits dropped the cost of their universal iOS app by 40%, from $17.99 to $9.99 (£6.99). Right now, the app is still available at that price, so if you’re new to 1Password or else already have their Windows or Mac apps, now could be the time to get it on iOS…
A few days ago I promised a series of posts covering the tools that I use in Collaboration Matters on a day-to-day basis.
Some will be must-have applications, others will be gadgets or accessories and others just a bit left-field! All take an important role in how I go about doing business. I’m calling this series ‘MyTools’…
At previous conferences you may have seen me using the ever popular Zoom H4N digital recorder to record snippets of audio or entire podcast episodes. The Zoom gets amazing quality stereo audio, runs for hours on a set of AAs and allows a wide range of adjustments for audio quality, tone and recording size. However, it’s both too heavy and rather too bulky to carry in a backpack on a regular basis.
So I’ve always looking for a more lightweight replacement that retains the audio quality and flexibility. Back at the start of the year, I found one in the form of the RØDE iXY mic for iPhone and iPad.
RØDE iXY
This retains the dual recording mics of the Zoom, but dispenses with the rest of the recording hardware in favour of using the iPhone or iPad that you already carry. This significantly reduces the weight and bulk of the device and thus means that I can carry the mic all-day every-day. Just as the smartphone becomes ‘the camera you always carry’, the iXY means that iPhone is also the high-quality digital recorder I always have with me.
The iXY package contains four key components:
The dual microphone accessory, including 30-pin dock connector and LED to indicate recording activity
A small but robust case for the microphone including clip to allow attaching to a belt or backpack
A foam wind muffler
User Guide containing a complimentary download key for the RØDE Rec digital recording app
At this juncture you’ll have spotted one of the key points to note – the RØDE iXY currently ships only with a 30-pin dock connector, so is ideal for connecting to iPhones up to the 4S and the iPad 3 and early models. It does work with the Lightning to 30-pin dock connector and so can be used on the iPhone 5/5s/5c, the iPad Mini and the iPad 4, however this isn’t ideal. RØDE say that they are working on a Lightning-equipped model of the iXY so this issue should be resolved soon.
RØDE iXY on iPad and iPhone
So what does the iXY give you? A really high quality recording device that is excellent at capturing both music and vocals at a short- to medium-range, with exception noise cancellation abilities. A great example of this was my recording of podcast-quality interviews at the Connect 2013 conference. Nothing unusual about that, except that those recordings were made in the Kimonos bar during the final evening of the conference, whilst Karaoke was being ‘sung’ about 3m away! Truly, the recordings were both clear and suffered from remarkably little background noise.
It’s a tiny and beautifully-manufatured piece of hardware that records full 24-bit 96khz stereo audio. The mic weighs just 41g.
Whilst the iXY can be used with any iOS recording app, it does work best with the RØDE Rec app. This app combines professional audio features with an intuitive and easy-to-learn interface, making it straightforward to record, edit and publish broadcast-quality audio directly from your iOS device.
The app features real-time waveforms, a pretty cool suite of non-linear editing capabilities and powerful EQ and gain controls. It even allows sharing to the popular social networks direct from the device. The app itself works with the onboard mic in the iPhone/iPad as well as the iXY so if you regularly record audio from your device, this might be a useful purchase in its own right. RØDE Rec costs $5.99/£3.99 from the App Store if you don’t have an iXY.
The iXY costs $199/£149 from Amazon and other retailers.
I’ve found it to be an excellent investment, using it for podcasts as well as for recording customer reference interviews, meetings and workshops. In addition, using a mount that I’ll mention on this blog next week, I’ve often attached my iPhone and this mic to the top of a DSLR or camcorder to capture an additional audio source when recording video.
I’d definitely recommend the iXY for anyone that has a suitable device quipped with a 30-pin dock connector and needs to record quality audio on the move. If you have a newer iPhone or iPad then I’d suggest waiting for a few more weeks for the Lightning-equipped iXY. Either way, it’s a great device.
Version 4.1.0 of the IBM Connections app is now available from the Apple App Store and Google Play, including the following enhancements:
Support for Community Files, Forums, and Bookmarks on SmartCloud
@mentions for status updates (requires Connections server 4.5 and above)
Target status updates to individual profiles or a community
Support liking for status update comments (requires Connection server 4.0 CR2 and above)
Single tap to view a file
File usability enhancements for quick access to common actions
Access file downloads from the launcher
View Forum attachments
Show most recently viewed Communities
Enhanced viewing for Community description
Enhancements to the URL for launching the app
Performance and stability improvements
For me personally, the most important of these is the @mentions in status updates, which really does open up IBM Connections to be used as an internal Twitter-style tool. @Mentions are key in encouraging interaction via the stream, and having them available via the app makes them vastly more accessible and powerful.
The other enhancement I’d pick out is ‘Enhanced viewing for Community description’ – we are using the community overview for all kinds of enhancements to communities (probably way beyond IBM’s expectations when they developed the feature), such as dynamic image maps, embedded video carousels and much more. I haven’t tested the new app release yet, but I’m hoping that this will improve the integrity of these overviews via mobile devices.
As most of you will know by now, Apple iOS 5 becomes available for download later today after a beta test period of approximately 4 months.
As Collaboration Matters is a member of the Apple developer program, we’ve been running iOS5 previews on a mixture of iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches since June. It’s fair to say that I’m a fan, a big fan.
In particular, notifications is a massive step forward.
I know, I know, Android has had a similar feature for a while now (but then I could list thousands of features that Android has ripped from iOS, but I digress!). However, the Notification Center in iOS 5 is really well implemented and very customisable – if there was one feature of the new release that I could not give up, it would be notifications.
Otherwise, I think that the over-the-air updates, backups and restores is a very big deal. Again, other platforms have had it for a while, but iOS again implements it in a good way. The biggest step forward here is that any new products purchased will be usable straight from the store, no need to plug into iTunes to activate!
iMessage is tremendous, adding peer-to-peer data messaging to the SMS messaging on the iPhone, but available across all iOS devices. This has been a massive boon for communication between other members of the family that have iPod Touches and I. I really appreciate the notifications when messages are delivered and read, and also that messages appear on all devices I own – so I see it whether on the iPhone or iPad. The only slight downside for me is that SMS messages do not get replicated to all devices as well – this is understandable, but I’d love to be notified of texts on my iPad as well as the iPhone.
ICloud is the final major new feature for non-Siri equipped devices – sync of all music and app purchases across devices, photo streaming and iWork file sync. Even though this has been available through most of the preview phase, it still seems to early to pass comment on whether it is as big a step forward as Apple is suggesting it is. Services such as Dropbox are still more useful right now.
Overall though, I really like iOS 5 and would recommend you upgrade to it as soon as it is safe to do.
Explore the most comprehensive collection of Sir David’s work ever released online.
iMessage is tremendous, adding peer-to-peer data messaging to the SMS messaging on the iPhone, but available across all iOS devices. This has been a massive boon for communication between other members of the family that have iPod Touches and I. I really appreciate the notifications when messages are delivered and read, and also that messages appear on all devices I own – so I see it whether on the iPhone or iPad. The only slight downside for me is that SMS messages do not get replicated to all devices as well – this is understandable, but I’d love to be notified of texts on my iPad as well as the iPhone. 
ICloud is the final major new feature for non-Siri equipped devices – sync of all music and app purchases across devices, photo streaming and iWork file sync. Even though this has been available through most of the preview phase, it still seems to early to pass comment on whether it is as big a step forward as Apple is suggesting it is. Services such as Dropbox are still more useful right now.