New York, Tony Karakashian, Jan 26 2010

I’m a bit behind on reviews I’m SUPPOSED to be doing, but I’ve got a ton of little apps that I’ve wanted to write a blurb about so I figured I’d at least get them out.  The fact that most were written and just sitting in my drafts folder waiting to be sent really sealed the deal…

Dragon Dictation: a lot of other sites have reported a lot on this already, but I thought it was worthwhile to give it a quick mention. The voice recognition on this app is not at all overrated, it really does a great job of converting what you say into text which can then be sent via e-mail, SMS or placed into the clipboard to use however you like. I’ve used it a couple of times to dictate e-mails while driving, it really is a time saver. And, here’s an interesting feature: if you swear, it’ll transcribe it, but it replaces the vowels with asterisks. Nice touch.

Space Art (Banzai Labs): 26 images of objects in space that appear to be mostly computer generated. You’ve got the Moon, Jupiter, Mars and a couple of other objects further out like a binary star and the Milky Way. It was free the day I got it, not sure if the price is going to go up or not.  Worth it at free as the images are very well done and can be saved to your camera roll to be used as wallpapers. Wouldn’t actually pay for it, though.

Giftbox: a nice little app that I found out my wife was already using when I started playing with it.  It’s a very simple app. Setup a list of folks and when you think of things you might want to buy them as a present, enter it into their list. Easy. My wife uses it all the time, but frankly I already have a system in place I use to keep track of potential presents that works reasonably well for me. But, this is a really nice app that’s easy to use. I highly recommend giving it a look if you’re looking for something like it.

iPierce: Silly little toy that allows you add piercings to people in your photos. Unlike a lot of apps that modify pictures on the phone, this one actually does a really good job. The fake piercings can be placed very granularly, moved and even sized to make them appropriate. As you can see from the pic of my punked out daughter, the additions blend in nicely. It was fun to play with, but I can’t see myself doing even a second picture with it.