App Review: Disc Golf GPS

Disc Golf GPS by StealthStormLava is an app designed to help you with your disc golf game by telling you the distance and accuracy for which you throw each of your discs. The app uses the changes in your GPS location to tell you how far you have thrown the disc. 

I setup each of my discs by first taking a picture of the disc then going to edit and adding it by pressing the plus sign. I have no idea what the temperature gauge is doing on that add disc menu. Hit the box with no image inside and add the pic of your disc. Add the name and save it.

Then you can click on a disc in my discs to select a disc:

After that, click start on disc menu to begin measuring the distance:

I find this app to be sub-par for a number of reasons. First of all there is no backgrounding. As of iOS 4.0, a developer can keep the GPS process running in the background so if you have to do something else as you walk to the disc it could keep measuring. Second, I could never find out how to change the accuracy setting in the throw screen. I tried everything to be able to change the accuracy but couldn't. Also, the app measures the change in location so, if you are walking all around the course looking for your disc it is still measuring. Instead of measuring the change it should measure the actual distance, by the way the crow flies. Finally, this app would be much better if it could tell you which disc you should use in a given circumstance. Many of the high dollar golf gps apps do this. Even if you had to walk out the course first to get the tees and hole locations that would be ok. I realize that is a difficult task and a much more time consuming task to program than this effort took. This app is only 99 cents. Which is a huge advantage for it. But, for an app that did the things I have outlined I would pay much more.

Really though, I like to enjoy my walks around the disc golf course and having my phone in my hand the whole time was pretty annoying, I couldn't really enjoy my time out there. While this app could potentially be decent at lowering your disc golf course, that is not the whole point of disc golf to me. Sure I would like to play well but that is less important than just getting out there, having fun, and experiencing nature a little bit.

2/5 - If you really want it go ahead it's only 99 cents but remember you get what you pay for.

I forgot to mention in my little jailbreak blurb that SBSettings is working well and I even have a nice retina display theme working for it. For those that don't know SBSettings allows you to change many of your settings by simply swiping the top of the screen. It's a great app I suggest you give it a try and it's free in Cydia.

App Review: Golf Log - A Pirate Golf Card

On Sunday, I went to the North Atlanta area disc golf course at Oregon Park outside of Woodstock. The course has been refurbished after what looks like a flood. They have added more benches, trees, refortified some of the tees and moved the second hole a little closer, which is good for me as you will see by my scores. Here is a picture of the new signs they have added at the entrance.

Golf Log - A Pirate Golf Card:
So now your saying "hey this isn't a disc golf blog, is it?" No it is not but I felt it was worth mentioning before I dug into the App Reviews. The first app I am going to review is the app Golf Log - A Pirate Golf Card. At first glance, you, probably like me, will think pirates and golf what do the two things have to do with one another. Initially, I thought nothing. Then I started to think about something deep within my past, Spring Break at Panama City Beach, FL. Pirates Cove Mini-Golf Course was where we would spend at least one day a trip playing Put-Put. Although, this app appears to be made for a big golf course it can be used for almost any type of golf scoring including disc golf. Pirates are a central theme of many putt-putt courses and I think this may be where the app's developers, Salem Pirates, may have come up with the idea or maybe not. Who knows? They may just like pirates or in fact be pirates themselves. ARRRGH!

Setup:
Add a course. Touch courses down at the bottom of the app. Then, press the addition button at the top, input the name of the course, choose if it is a 9 hole or 18 hole course (the pirate skull will designate your hole number selection, matey) and input the par for each hole (more dead pirates!).

After that, you need to add at least one golfer or maybe more, you know, like if you have friends or something. Touch golfers at the bottom then the plus sign at the top, type in the golfer's name you wish to add and boom your done... like a cannon blast.

Then in order to start a golf card touch the cards tab at the bottom and go to start new card:

Select your course and golfers and then your off to score some booty maybe... Here is what the Hole Score Input Screen looks like:

One of the greatest strengths of this app is the auto-save feature. At least, I think it is auto-save and not backgrounding. Once you have started a score card, you can close the app while you take your swing or toss and the app will bring you right back to where you were. 

Once the course and golfers are setup the app is very easy to use. Although, I am not a serious golfer or a golfer at any level and the app has a sort of pirate kitsch thing going on I would still recommend the app. However, I doubt this app would appeal to more serious golf crowds. I think the app is great for what it is a, a simple score keeper and it can be used for not only "real" golf but for putt-putt and disc golf as well. Say goodbye to those tiny pencils and that ancient process we call writing. Your iphone is here to save you using it's pirate powers of score keeping.

4/5 - If you need a score card app this one will suffice.

Tomorrow, I will review the app Disc Golf GPS. An app for disc golf enthusiasts that measures the distance of your disc tosses and figures the statistics for you. Later in the week App Face Off between two undetermined foes. I am trying to decide between twitter clients or office style apps. If you have a suggestion let me know.

p.s. I wanted to show off how good my iPhone springboard or home screen is looking right now:

Notice the new AT&T logo and lettering not to mention the five icon dock. Winterboard seems to be working ok but I when you open a folder your background goes to black, not good for the aesthetics. Five Icon Dock and many other things are working well on the 4. Many other things are being updated as we speak. I have not tried the FaceTime over 3g using My3G yet or tethering using MyWiFi but they are reported to be working, I hear that FaceTime over 3G's data transfer is about 3 mb per minute so watch out for those with data limits.

Jailbreakme.com How-to and Implications

It has been over a week and the dust has settled on much of the iPhone world over the jailbreak. First, I will do a how-to, then a analysis of the implications of this implementation and then Apple's response. 


These instructions will work with almost any Apple iOs device including iPad even those using 3.2 or 3.2.1 and of course the big news is it will work with the iPhone 4 and it could not be simpler to do. On the first day the jailbreak was released there were issues with facetime and MMS but those have now been ironed out.


How-To: 
1. First thing you should always do it back-up your iPhone before you do anything like this. So plug it in and load iTunes and back that thing up. I also like to transfer my purchases as well just to make sure I have those in case I need them later.


2. Then take your device and point the safari browser to jailbreakme.com and swipe the swiper to the right. It will begin and download the jailbreak and install cydia on your home screen.

3. Really that is all. Such a simple jailbreak it could be counted as one step. Read further for steps to secure your phone.

Implications: It is very troubling that an iOs device can be exploited like this. A hacker could simply make a website that looks like this and then install anything onto your device like malware, trojans, or a virus. Comex and friends used an exploit in the pdf viewer that is built into safari in order to accomplish this feat. Somehow using certain fonts enabled them to make changes to the phone. Apple needs to fix this exploit as soon as possible, The security implications of this exploit are enormous and this does not just pertain to people who jailbreak it applies to all of the millions of users of iOs devices. So how can you stop it or prevent it? The only way currently is to jailbreak your phone and install the app PDF Loading Warner until Apple fixes this problem on thier own.

How-To Install PDF Laoding Warner

1. Open Cydia and let it load completely.

2. Search for PDF Loading Warner and install.

3. Now when you are browsing in Safari and attempt to open a pdf file it will prompt you like this:

If you are confident of the source then let it load. If you were not attempting to load a pdf file and this screen comes up then you have probably found someone trying to exploit you and your device. 

One last thing about security, if you plan on using ssh to browse your devices file structure through wifi you will also need to change your root password. This can be done by following these steps.

1) In Cydia, install OpenSSH. Respring phone.

2) Google for PuTTY and install on your computer.
3) Startup PuTTY. On main page, type in your IP address. Make sure "SSH" is dotted then click "Open."
4) If this is your first time, a window will appear saying something about saving authentication key. Just click on yes.
5) When you get to the screen that says "Login as:" type in: Root. Password: alpine.
6) Now, it should say your iphone name. Type in: passwd. Enter new password and repeat. Once done, just exit PuTTY.
7) Repeat step #3. This time "Login as:" Type: mobile. Follow rest of instructions.
8) If you don't want OpenSSH, go back into Cydia and remove it. Respring phone.

You should really do this if you jailbreak at all. It will make your phone more secure. All iPhones are shipped with the Login of Root and Password of Alpine. If you install OpenSSH and do not change your password this can open your phone up for hackers to do anything on it while you are connected to wifi. See here about the SSH exploit.

Coming tomorrow, I went out to the Disc Golf course and tested two apps Golf Log and Disc Golf GPS. I will review those two apps and how they can help your game.

If you want to jailbreak and need help send me an email or post a comment. I will help.

Request App Reviews & Jailbreak Update

Now you can request any app to be reviewed by me. Just leave a comment
in an app review or send an email with your request to:
theiphoneidiot@gmail.com
My iPhone 4 is jailbroken, after a restore. I am still testing it out
all appears to be working well. Cydia is very snappy on this thing.
Sbsettings is working smoothly. Seems to be fully functioning. The
situation of the security exploit used by the iPhone Dev Team and
comex has me a little worried. I will have a comment about it and a
set by step guide to the jailbreak coming later this weekend.
Sent from my iPhone 4

Jailbreak and Computer issues

Yesterday I jailbroke my iPhone 4 and have not had the greatest results. Something went wrong when adding a repo to cydia and it never worked for me. I am getting a malformed line error. When I went to try and fix it by unjailbreaking it, my pc crashed and now will not boot up. My dell inspiron had blue lines on the startup screen and crashed during boot. According to some research on the net this was caused by the video card. So, I tried to the onboard video card and the computer still crashes during boot. Then I formated the hard drive and tried to reinstall windows 7 and it crashed during reinstall. At this point I have pretty much ruled everything out except a hardware issue. I guess it might be the motherboard itself. I really don't know what I should do about it. Now I am transfering purchases to my laptop and going to try a restore on my phone to see if I can get that to unjailbreak my phone and possibly restore it to where it was before. I must admit I am a little hesitant to redo my jailbreak but I am thinking I will. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

iPhone 4 Jailbreak Coming Now! Updated!

The tweets coming from those in the know have been cryptic and intermittent today. With @Comex posting "This is exciting." around 4:30 pm est. Seems to indicate that the iPhone 4 Jailbreak is imminent. Supposedly, the boot strap that Comex had been waiting on from Saurik was delivered last night. Comex seemed to indicate that today was the desired day of release but qualified that if it's not ready yet then it will not be posted because of the date. It sounds like they are attempting to make this release perfect which is certainly understandable. I will post another update as soon as word comes down. You can follow the sources on twitter and see for yourself how this all plays out. It will look kinda stupid if the jailbreak is not released for some time but at this point it seems that people are expecting it any minute now. With Comex's "This is exciting" tweet getting over 100 retweets the pitch has reached fever levels.


Go To: Comex Twitter to follow the leader.


It appears as if the jailbreak has been posted at http://jailbreakme.com/ this according to Comex on twitter:  Have not been able to get the page to load right now. Report back soon as I do and get the jailbreak working.... Wait do I even want to jailbreak? I have not even decided yet.
According to MuscleNerd  

  

Congrats to @comex for all-device JB and for reviving http://jailbreakme.com -- JB right from your device!


Also You Can Follow Me on twitter as well @theiphoneidiot


If you want the inside line go to: jailbreakme.modmyi.com working right now!


The server appears to be overloaded. I decided I am gonna do this thing. I will have another post later with my results y'all enjoy your jailbreaking! 

App Review: Sleep Cycle alarm clock By Maciek Drejak Labs

I have spent 10 nights with the Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock. I am pretty impressed by this app. I believe that the alarm function of this app is really not the most important part of the app. It is really the analysis of your sleep patterns that makes this app invaluable to me. The idea behind the app is that our bodies go through different stages of sleep from deep sleep to light sleep. This app wakes you up when you are "dreaming." Which, is supposed to be an easier way to wake up.

Setup: The app uses the accelerometer or gyroscope to detect your movement. So, you are going to have to put the phone on top of your mattress and under the fitted sheet. Also, you will want to keep your iPhone plugged in so that it does not die because if it does the alarm will not go off, obviously. It is actually kinda funny that I had an old LG flip phone that you could turn off and the alarm would still go off and it had 3g before the iPhone... but I digress. The idea of putting your phone under a fitted sheet while charging and sleeping near it may turn some people off. I usually sleep with my phone somewhere near me but not quite this close. However, there was no problem. You may want to talk to an oncologist about this. 

Validity: The validity of this app must be called into question. The question is about how accurate the app can measure atonia. Atonia is the state of paralysis that the body goes through during deep sleep. I am not sure that the accelerometer and gyroscope are sensitive enough to measure this properly. They may be but I have also read sleep doctors that say sleep is not necessarily tied to the amount you move in a night. 

Should You Get It? So the validity of the actual graphs of your sleep maybe somewhat diminished. Surely though this app will wake me up at a good time to wake up though... Right? Well, chances are you are already waking up in the sleep phase that the alarm would go off in. The deal is as we age we do a lot more light/dreaming sleep instead of deep sleep and as the night goes on the amount of time we spend in deep sleep each sleep cycle get progressively smaller until you are barely going in to deep sleep. So if you are getting enough sleep during the night then you are probably already getting up when this alarm would wake you up. That was my experience. I was already awake laying there waiting for my alarm to go off.

My graphs showed basically two different kind of nights. The graphs claimed that some nights I got barely any sleep and other nights it seemed to be like it should. 

A Good Night

A Bad Night

Overall, the developer did a good job on the app with what he had to work with. The app may be somewhat good for measuring the amount of movement you make in bed. The app makes judgments based on those movements. If those are valid or not I can't really say. 

3/5 Stars = Maybe You Should Consider IT.
The app only costs 99 cents
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320606217?mt=8