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Do you ever end up texting the same group of friends over and over? Isn’t it annoying when you have to type in each person’s name or phone number each time? This process can be time confusing and frustrating.

If you want to solve the above problem, then Group Texting is for you! Group Texting allows you to create groups of people from your address book that you text frequently, and at one press of a button, you can text them all at the same time!

Group Texting has a simple and easy interface allowing you to manage your groups of friends and text them. If you have a group of friends that you usually text on a regular basis, why not buy this app? It will save you a ton of time, and is definitely worth the cost!

In Group Texting you can do the following

• Create an unlimited number of groups
• Groups can contain anyone from your address book
• You can easily add or remove people to your groups
• You can select any group that you have created, and click ‘Send Text’. This will pop up the SMS interface, allowing you to quickly and easily send them all a text message.

Group Texting is a must-have app for anyone who spends a lot of time texting!

Group Texting Pro in the App Store

To play, choose your game pack from a variety of themes. Let’s say you choose “Hot or Cold” . The game presents you an item, like “Ice Cream” and you need to decide, as fast as you can, if that item is Hot or Cold (In this case, it’s cold). Simply swipe the item “Ice Cream” towards the correct answer “Cold” as fast as you can to receive the most points. But be careful, wrong answers count against you.

There are several game modes all with their own high-score boards powered by our friends at OpenFeint.

We’re always adding new game packs, which you can find using on the “Choose a pack” page using the “Get More” button. We get that content from experts and comedians in our Content Network and from user’s like you!

For more information on the app, you can visit thisorthatforiphone.com

This Or That in the App Store

Are you a WordSpy??? Then prove it!

WordSpy is a fun word game where you must find hidden words which are embedded in scrolling text across the screen. As you find more words, the scrolling gets faster and faster adding to the difficulty.

There are several levels that you can play

• Easy – One row of scrolling letters with one hidden word
• Medium – Two rows of scrolling letters with one hidden word in one of the rows
• Hard – Three rows of scrolling letters with one hidden word in one of the rows
• Super-Hard – Three rows of scrolling letters with THREE hidden words total (one in each row). You have to find them all!

There are over 25,000 words included in WordSpy, so you are sure to have plenty of hours of entertainment.

If you are a word lover, looking to find new words, studying for verbal exams, or are looking for some fun and educational entertainment, then WordSpy is for you! If nothing else, you are sure to learn some new words.

For each word that you correctly identify, the words will scroll slightly faster. For each word that you miss, the words will scroll slower. You get three misses before the game is over.

Challenge friends to see who can get the high score!

WordSpy in the App Store

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Prank your friends with LookAlike! The ‘facial recognition’ application that allows you to make your friends ‘Look Like’ anyone!

LookAlike is a great way to play a Prank on your friends and get a bunch of laughs in the process. You can take their picture with the iPhone, and LookAlike will pretend to ‘process’ their facial features, looking for a matching person that they look like…The trick is that you are allowed to configure what the resulting match will be before hand!

Here’s how the application works:

1. Double-tapping any of the hidden buttons in the four corners of the screen will allow you to configure the resulting person for that corner.
2. Single-tapping any of the hidden corner buttons will ‘activate’ that corner. The person configured in that corner will be the result of the next LookAlike analysis.
3. Take a picture and begin the analysis…
4. LookAlike will then take several seconds while it pretends to analyze the face of your friend, then it will indicate that your friend’s face matched to the person that you setup for that corner.
5. A few seconds later, LookAlike will show the image of that person from Google Images (which you can also configure by scrolling to the image you want to use)

You can configure multiple corners, and prank multiple friends in a row for more realistic results! If you make a few of the results believable, and the last result absolutely ridiculous, your friends will be rolling on the floor laughing!

I have tried this on many of my friends, and I have had them all laughing hysterically at the results. Try it today!

Images by Vincent Boiteau (www.studio.es) — used with permission and remixed by Zach Poley

LookAlike in the App Store

Timed Turns  A common challenge for instrument students is often timed turns.  Timed turns require the pilot to turn the airplane left or right a given number of degrees to a new heading using only the turn coordinator, compass, and clock.  The stress created by the simulated instrument failures while under the hood can make doing simple math in your head very difficult.  This flash card trainer will allow you to practice timed turns arithmetic while on the ground so that the mental calculations become more routine and familiar.  Although there will be many things to worry about the day of your checkride, the arithmetic required to accomplish timed turns should not be one of them. 

Buy this Timed Turns flash card trainer and build your confidence today! This application is geared towards IFR pilots and students, pilots in training, etc.

Features of Timed Turns include:

• Randomized calculation questions
• Swipe to transition or click a button to transition to the next question
• Automatic transition after revealing the answer
• Timer to show how long each question is taking you

Timed Turns in the App Store

TimeTrak is a simple and elegant time tracking utility to help you stay organized. A perfect solution for consultants, physical therapists, contractors, or anyone else who has to keep a precise running log of their activities! At the end of the day, with the push of a button, you can have all of your time tracking information emailed to you!

TimeTrak lets you track your tasks like a stop watch. When you start a new task, you simply specify the start time of the task and the tag for the activity. While the task is running, you will see a real-time counter showing the duration time of the activity. When you are done with the task, you simply press a button to end it, and the information is saved. When you are ready to store your task information somewhere else, you can email all the data to yourself right from the application!

You can even use TimeTrak as a calendar, as it allows you to enter tasks that you have scheduled for the future.

In addition to task entry, TimeTrak has multiple ways that you can view your data, including a summary view mode (grouped into future tasks, tasks in the last 24 hours, task in the last week, and older tasks), and a view by date mode. TimeTrak enables you to add, update, and edit the tag of the tasks simply and easily with the swipe or push of a finger.

Here is a list of the great functionality you will get with TimeTrak

• Stop-watch style time tracking with sleek user interface
• View your data either by day or in a summary view. Easily scroll through all of your tasks.
• Email all of your tasks to yourself. You can either email all individual tasks (tag, date, and duration), or you can group by the date and tag
• All previously used tags for your activities are saved for easy entry later. This is great for when you perform the same tasks more than once
• Edit / Delete your tasks right from the views described above
• You have the option to automatically delete your emailed tasks upon application re-start (it will ‘clean up’ your previously emailed tasks)
• An ‘email icon’ is shown on each task row that has been emailed to you. This will make it easier to manage your tasks that you have already emailed.

This application is made for one thing –tracking your time — and it does it very well! If you need a simply utility to track your time, then TimeTrak is for you!

icons created by Joseph Wain / glyphish.com
main graphics created by Zach Poley

TimeTrak in the App Store

My Must Haves

• Pandora – This is by far my most-used App. A personalized radio station based on your favorite songs or artist goes incredibly far when I’m in the zone at work coding up some wacky stuff.
• Facebook – The world’s biggest time drain, now available anywhere you are! In all seriousness, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with my friends, and doing this while I’m on the move is a real plus
• Sportacular – Gotta follow my Wolverines, Tigers, Pistons, Lions (0-16 ouch!), and Brewers. Sportacular is the best way I’ve found to get score updates – I use this one every time my team is playing. The developers seem pretty active too, and have added many more features over the last few months.
• Mobile News – Gotta know what’s going on around the world! I usually check this to start out the morning. My one beef is that the ‘Local’ area for 53202 is Chicago — What about the good land?? — at least report on Brett Farve’s grandmother or something…
• TwitterFon – I am brand new to Twitter, and I just grabbed one of the Apps that I saw my buddy using. I’m not sure if this is the best one, but I’m loving Twitter! Is there a better one out there? Let me know!
• Bloomberg – I’m a geek for financial news – hard to read it these days! The news updates on this app are great for a world-picture of what’s going on financially. I check it every morning
• SnapTell - I don’t use this that often, but it works like a charm when I do. I was at the bookstore the other day, and snapped up a few pics of books that I wanted. It recognized them all without a problem (and they were all much cheaper used or on Amazon…) If anyone is interested in the books I snapped, they were: Hot Flat and Crowded, 13 things that don’t make sense, Rigged, and The Last Lecture
• LinkedIn - I don’t like visiting the website that often (is anyone else bothered by site usability? It just seems so clunky to navigate your connections). This App is a good way to keep up to date on your professional network, without having to be at a computer.
• Mint – This App could be wayyyy better (like why can’t I drill into my actual stock holdings?) I was surprised with it given how much I like the actual site. Regardless, I use it to check my finances. I am looking forward to bigger and better things from them in the future.
• iPhunny and IcanHazCheezburger - Come on, everyone needs a little fun once in a while! I could spend endless hours on these two, and, although I am glad I don’t, they are great when you are passing time at the airport. iPhunny is probably less well known – it lets you flip through all of the late night TV jokes. Cheezburger gives you those wonderful LolCats, and also 7 other hilarious sites, including one of my web-favorites: FailBlog

I like, but not crazy about

• I love the idea of the Loopt App, but I’m not crazy about it because I don’t know many people who actively use it. I’m looking for a one-stop shop for my social networking needs. What applications are out there? Let me know.

Shortest Lived app on my phone

Most applications that I had to register for, that I wasn’t already registered for – died a quick and painless death. The most entertaining part was the shaking button with the X on upper-right corner! (I’m sensing an interesting application — if only Apple would give us the data – shortest / longest lived apps)

I like, but never use

• Mocha VNC Lite - Being a super-geek, this was awesome the first time I used it!….and I haven’t used it since. I was surprised by the lack of choppiness…I was expecting much worse. Needless to say, if I ever would like to view my 2 19inch monitors again on a 2 by 3 inch screen, I will surely pick this application to do it.
• Trulia - When I start buying houses like they are Wii games, I will let you know…and my activity on this application will pick up.

Looking to Replace ASAP

• <Insert Random ToDo App Here> – I have a crappy ToDo list that I’m not thrilled about. Given that about 50% of the apps on the App store are ToDo lists (and apparently, 49% are Farting Apps that actually make money – glad to know entrepreneurship is alive and well!) — I am probably not willing to pay any money for a new ToDo list — unless you can convince me of a great one to buy. Anyway, help me out! I need a new todo list, recommendations for me?
• ! (Built-in iPhone calendar app) – I need something new for this too… Having little dots showing up on the dates just isn’t cutting it for me anymore. What are you using? Ideally, I want a free one (or maybe I can scrape together 99cents). If it is awesome, I will pay for it – give me some suggestions.

What I am missing

That is for you to tell me! Besides the above two apps above that I need… I’m looking for more to make my iPhone a better all-in-one gadget. What apps do you have that rock? Ideally, I’m not paying much for an App (99 cents has been my threshold thus far — and it was to download two apps that my co-worker built) —- unless I can be convinced that it’s definitely worth it

Please comment to this post and let me know…my iPhone is dying for some new bits!

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