Hipstamatic User Interface Demo from Synthetic on Vimeo.

I came across Hipstamatic for iPhone today and was immediately smitten. I’ll spend a lot of time with it this weekend and review it on TUAW next week.

If you saw my earlier post about determining which apps will live on my iPhone’s home screen, Survivor-style, you might be wondering where the result post is. It was initially delayed by Macworld Expo (note to self: Don’t start a project prior to leaving the state for a week), but now I’m ready for the reveal. And the exciting follow-up announcement.

I’m very happy to announce that it’s at First & 20. I’m thrilled to be a part of that project. So … go see who won!

Microsoft’s naming conventions continue to baffle me. “Zune” was good. “Windows Phone 7 Series” is too long. People will feel compelled shorten it.

“Nice Zune.”
“Nice iPhone.”
“Nice Windows Phone 7 Series.”

To all the Microsoft fanboys who’ve dismissed the iPhone because it doesn’t support Flash and lacks a physical keyboard: Suck it. The Windows Phone 7 Series* doesn’t support Flash and lacks a physical keyboard.

Update: And no copy/paste.

*See? Way too long.

There’s an interesting article at The New York Times today which states that most iPhone owners only use 5-10 apps with any regularity.

I’ve noticed the same behavior in myself. My iPhone has pages of apps (iTunes even more), but I don’t use most of them. So, this week I’m going to identify my most popular apps and vote the rest off the island.

Introducing iPhone Survivor. For one week, I’ll note each app I use and how often I use them. At the end of the week, they’ll be sorted on my iPhone by frequency (the most popular app in the upper left-hand corner and working down from there), while the apps that remain unused get deleted.

Update: Here are the results.

With the App Store, Apple has mastered the art of the impulse purchase. Much like the candy that’s displayed at a toddler’s eye level at the supermarket checkout counter, those shiny iPhone apps are right at your fingertips whenever you have a spare moment to flick around. “Only a dollar … why not?”

Last summer I listed the apps I’ve paid for but don’t use, and today I’m doing the opposite. Here are the 12 apps that I use every day without fail. Each has won a coveted spot on my iPhone’s home screen.

Messages (free, Apple, Inc.) From push notifications to quick chats with my sisters, text messaging has become a part of my life. At first I thought the notion was ridiculous. Sending text messages with a phone? It’s a phone. That’s like dipping a typewriter into an inkwell and using it as a quill. But now I get it. Some things are just faster and not worth the time or cost of a phone call. Call me a convert. 4real.

Calendar (free, Apple Inc.) My wife keeps this updated with our family schedules and MobileMe syncs it to all of our devices flawlessly. It’s a must in our family.

Photos (free, Apple, Inc). I mentioned the kids, right? That means ridiculous amounts of photos and video. But that’s not all. I’ve used it and Camera, my next selection, to remember where I’ve parked in a large garage, send photos of business cards to myself, send photos of receipts and ask, “Is this the [product photo here] I’m supposed to buy?” via SMS.

Outside ($2.99 with optional in-app purchases, Robocat) As a New Englander, I’m obsessed with driving directions and weather. Outside runs laps around Apple’s Weather app with a beautiful UI, push notifications, great-looking animations and an overall sense of fun. A blizzard? Yippee! Look at how cute that animation is!

Maps (free, Apple, Inc.) This is the iPhone’s wonder app. Let’s say you’re in the middle of Nowhere, Maine and you want to find some coffee. Open maps, locate yourself with GPS, enter “Coffee” into the search field you’re on the phone and driving to a great little shop that you didn’t know existed 20 seconds prior. I recently drove from Boston to Valley Forge, Pa using only the Maps app and it was flawless. I think it’s powered by magic. Or GPS. Either one.

Birdhouse ($1.99, Adam Lisagor & Cameron Hunt) In all honesty, when this app was released I thought it was a practical joke. “A Twitter app for writers? They’re kidding, right?” Now I get it. I tend to be a bit verbose on Twitter, and posting every random thought that my brain fires up into Birdhouse before inflicting it upon my followers is a handy little buffer. Plus, it does offer a chance to re-write something that frankly could use it. My Birdhouse is always packed with several chambered tweets, ready to fire.

Twitterrific Premium ($4.99, The Iconfactory) Still my iPhone Twitter app of choice. It’s beautiful, well-executed, supports multiple accounts and frankly does everything I need in a manner that I enjoy. Use it, love it.

Billings Touch (Free or $15 for invoicing and syncw/the desktop app, Marketcircle) I recently reviewed Billings Touch so for now I’ll just say it was able to lure me away from Freshbooks.

Daylite Touch ($49.99 per year, Marketcircle) The mobile companion to the powerful Daylite for the Mac is the one app out of all of these that I couldn’t go a day without. Between TUAW and my other gigs I have a lot going on and Daylite Touch lets me manage all of them elegantly. It’s very powerful and the back end server app runs beautifully on a G4 iMac in my basement. Before you balk at the price know that I was paying that in two months time with Basecamp. Just like its sibling Billings Touch, Daylite touch is fantastic. I can’t say enough good about it.

iTunes and App Store (Free, Apple, Inc.) are self-explanatory and got me into this mess to begin with.

CNN Mobile (Free, CNN) Regardless of your opinion of the Cable News Network, you must admit that this app is very well done. The news is timely, navigation is clear, the app is snappy and the streaming video is the clincher. I actually watched the balloon boy saga unfold on my iPhone. Plus you can sign up for keyword alerts, push notifications and even submit  your own photos, videos and stories. I love it.

Facebook (Free, Facebook) Yeah, it’s Facebook. But this app is well done.

Pastebot ($2.99, Tapbots) It’s a clipboard manager for the iPhone but so much more. Enable wireless sync with a Mac and you’ve got super-easy photo transfer, a clipboard history from  your Mac and more. I use it to hold boilerplate text that’s now a tap away. Want to insert it into an email message? Click “Send to Mac” and you’re done. Like all of the Tapbot apps, Pastebot is gorgeous and downright useful. You need to own it.

Trip Cubby ($6.99, App Cubby) My job (and Uncle Sam) requires me to keep close tabs on mileage. Trip Cubby makes recording my trips simple and fun, and version 2 improves upon a winner.

To get started, add a new trip and fill in your destination, purpose, any tags you’d like and so on. Designate a vehicle and its starting odometer reading. You can also categorize a trip (business, charity, etc.) and add relevant notes (tip: Add frequent trips to favorites for future reference).

From there, click done and you’re off! Once you arrive, select your trip again, enter the final odometer reading and click Done. Trip Cubby assumes a mileage rate of $0.550, but you’re free to change that if need be.

Here’s where it gets good. You can sync all of your data online at App Cubby, should you lose anything. Also, you can mail all of your data to yourself from within the app as a CSV (a HUGE time saver at tax time). Typically I’m a pen-and-paper guy, but Trip Cubby has replaced the notebook in my glovebox. I absolutely rely on it.

Above is a quote from my sister. She’s not alone.

In the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast, young Belle is admired by the townsfolk for her ethereal beauty and charm. The Beast is feared for his strength and power. Beauty and brawn are mutually exclusive.

Often times this phenomenon is found in software. Gmail, for example, is a great service that’s not long on looks. The folks at Marketcircle, however, have created a near perfect synthesis in Billings Touch for the iPhone and iPod touch. In the two weeks that I’ve been using it, I’ve upgraded to the paid version, purchased the companion desktop app and abandoned Freshbooks. Here’s why.

Brawn

What are the necessary components of a time-tracking client manager?

• Client management Easily enter client information on the fly, edit existing contact records, delete clients (it happens).
• Time tracking Start/stop timing for given tasks and projects, assign time spent “on the clock” to the appropriate project, move from project to project easily, generate invoices based upon time spent on individual clients/projects, report on time spent/money earned.
• Task management What are the tasks that must be completed to mark a project as done?
• Reporting Time spent, money billed, money received, money overdue, projected earnings.
• Invoicing Getting paid!

Special attention must be paid to mobility. Let’s say you’re working for Client A. Upon finishing Project A, you’re assigned Project B. It’s tremendously wonderful to be able to create that new project on the iPhone right there “in the field,” complete with a breakdown of all tasks with a timer for each.

Billings Touch satisfies all of these requirements beautifully.

Client Management

You’ve got three options when adding a client to Billings Touch: Create a new contact from scratch, import one from the iPhone’s Contacts or collect existing clients into a new group. Each works as you’d expect and contains all of the fields that are a part of the iPhone’s built-in contact manager.

Assigning a project to a client is easy. Just navigate to that client and click the “+” icon. From there, you can assign the project’s name, due date, status and project code. What’s really nice is that Billings Touch provides extra fields that you can customize to suit your needs.

As you assign and complete projects, they’re listed on that client’s page, sorted by completed and open projects, along with a running tally of what’s owed.

The fact that you can create a new client, project, task or timer on the fly while in the field, perhaps no where near your computer, is huge. “Dave, can you run up to the projector room and update the slideshow, transfer it to the Mac mini and make sure it’s set to run automatically at 4:00 PM?” Sure can, and I’ll set up in Billings on the way. No more scribbling in notebooks or (gasp) relying on my memory.

Time tracking

This is beautifully executed. The main UI of Billings Touch is divided into 3 areas: Home, Work and Timer. Clicking Timer produces a list of all timed “sheets” that are currently in play. To get started, click anyone and hit “Start.” You can pause and resume at anytime, and the app needn’t be running to keep timing. Has a phone call or text arrived? No problem.

You can create a new slip just as easily. Hit the “+” icon and select your rate, give the task a name, assign it to the proper client/project and begin. It couldn’t be easier.

Task management

This is really an invoicing app, not a project manager, but it sill does an admirable job of keeping things orderly. Click the “Work” icon to browse all clients, overdue invoices, unbilled slips and a list of recent projects. Click any project (or create a new one) and easily assign it to the proper client, note the start date, assign a project code, etc.

Reporting

As modest as they are, the “reports” that Billings Touch offers are fun: On the home screen, you can toggle between two bar graphs that depict the number of dollars earned over the last seven days and the number of hours worked.

You can absolutely use Billings Touch as a stand-alone app, but the paid version syncs with its desktop companion over Wi-Fi.

Invoicing

Once that magical time comes, the app is ready. Just navigate to the client and all of the completed projects are listed. Simply select “Make invoice” and choose from one of three templates, set the terms and add a note. Then click “Create” and it’s converted into a PDF that’s attached to an email message.

Beauty

Plain and simple, this is an attractive app. The homepage presents a lot of information in a readable, organized fashion and the blue-and-grey color scheme is quite nice. Moving from screen to screen is quite snappy on my 3GS.

The icons are especially impressive. Each would be instantly recognizable even without the accompanying text. The whole thing feels absolutely at home on the iPhone’s screen.

Two complaints

My first complaint is the business of sending invoices as PDFs. Freshbooks handles this online, and I can see when an invoice was opened by a client. Also, Billings Touch doesn’t offer easy online payment options. Instead, you must forward  your Paypal address for example.

But wait, there’s more

There are additional features here that I didn’t mention because I don’t make much use of them, like expense and mileage tracking, modest inventory tracking and something called “blueprints,” which are templates that can be used over and over.

—

While using Billings Touch, I realized how an application’s features and benefits affect its longevity. Specifically, the features attract your attention, while the benefits grab you for good.

Here’s an example. Billings Touch provides super-simple task and project management, client management, invoicing and (modest) reporting. All of this is presented in an attractive, readable UI.

Those are the features.

The benefit is a feeling of confidence that you’re using the right tool for the job. That you needn’t worry about timing this correctly, being on task or getting billing done right. It’s that piece of mind that’s the benefit. I know I can leave this app alone and do my work. That’s worth a lot more than $15 to me.

I’ve been enjoying Yoritsuki for iPhone ($1.99US) all week. It doesn’t do much, other than look nice and help me relax, but that’s enough to earn a permanent spot on my iPhone. Plus, the folks at HYBRIDWORKS have released gorgeous Mac & PC icons and wallpapers to go along with it. If you’re the meditative type, you’ll enjoy this app. In the meantime, check out my review at TUAW.

Nice, but it will be even better on a tablet.

[Via freshome]

I love the Apple Newton and still use one. The NewtonTalk email list is a permanent part of my inbox. Yet, even I cannot stand pointless posts like this one from CNET, comparing it to the iPhone:

“If the iPhone is Megan Fox, the Newton is Marilyn Monroe. It was standing over windy manholes in short dresses, making our pulses race long before the iPhone was tattooing weird, incoherent nonsense about butterflies on its back.”

Forget that they make me click through five pages to read the whole thing. The Newton is dead. It’s never coming back. A small group of enthusiasts enjoy using the remaining units. Leave it at that.

Even better than the article is the second comment:

“Next year I want to see the Newton pitted against the Apple Tablet.”

Yes, let’s compare a defunct gadget to a non-existent one. Can’t wait to read that page-turner.