When you are close to finishing your iOS project, it is a good idea to reserve the name for your app on the App Store. You do this by creating a new entry for your app in iTunesConnect.

Don’t squat the app name too early though, because Apple expects you to upload your binary at least three months after you created the application in iTunesConnect.

iTunes requires you to also provide an icon when you create a new entry in iTunesConnect. What is given below is a placeholder icon I use when squatting my app’s name in iTunesConnect.

Feel free to use this icon in your projects, be they private or commercial. Do whatever you want with it. As long as you are happy, I too will feel the same.

You can also download the Opacity Project file and adopt it to your needs. Opacity is a nifty graphics editor at a low price. It has some really nice features, you won’t be able to find in other graphics programs. For example, Opacity can generate Objective-C code which you can use in your iOS projects. Cool.

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Yes, yet another todo application for the iPhone. Why bother? Honestly, I didn’t. I stumbled upon it in AppSniper and, since it was free, I downloaded it. What a stroke of luck! I’m using it for nearly two weeks now and I am more than pleased by the design and usability of this little productivity helper. It has all the features I want from a decent todo application.

• Detached todos
• Priorities for todos
• Search through the complete todo and project list
• Sorting of todo lists and projects. Can be activated by tilting the iPhone
• Quickly enter new todos by copying other entries
• Projects with separate todo lists, notes and contacts
• Automatic archiving of completed todos
• Different views on projects and todo lists with filtering for completed entries
• Sync with Google Calendar
• Nice built-in help

Personally, I do not need the syncing capabilities with Google Calendar, and I haven’t tried it. But it should be pretty straight forward. Just enter your credentials in the iPhone’s settings and tap the big sync button. Syncing seems to be an important feature for most iPhone users, therefore I added it to the list above. Most of you will be aware of the possibility of syncing your Google Calendar with desktop applications like Microsoft Outlook.

What is much more important to me than syncing is the start-up time and the possibility of quickly entering new todos. Also the search capabilities are important to get a quick status of my various projects. All these work perfectly in TouchTodo.

The possibility of organising your todos in projects is also a big plus of TouchTodo. I try to organize all of my todos in projects, since the most important thing for me is to bring my projects forward. I am not a big fan of the Getting Things Done method (GTD) as proposed by David Allen. For those of you following David Allen’s approach the Things application might be better suited, though I haven’t tried it yet.

TouchTodo is also a great complement to GoalKeep.

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If you do not have children yet, then bookmark this page and come back when you have. You will appreciate this app in your future family live. Fathers and Mothers, read on.

This application does exactly what its name implies. It works like a real baby phone. When your little one starts crying, BabyFon will call the number you have denoted in the settings. You can also define the sensitivity. This will prevent the application from causing a false alarm, when your baby just coughs or turns around in bed while sleeping.

In our homes we do have two sets of baby phones. One set is the best rated baby phone on Amazon, yet it does not work satisfactorily. Our dwelling is surrounded by other buildings which block the baby phone’s signal when we are farther away than 50 meters from our home. The excellent Italian restaurant is 200 meters away, though. No signal there. No such problem in the case of the iPhone with BabyFon running on it. Just start the application and lay the phone in the room where your baby sleeps. If your sweet little one starts to cry you will get a call immediately. You can listen and decide whether you need to rush home or can stay and enjoy your bruschette.

You need to make sure, however, that you divert incoming phone calls on the iPhone running BabyFon. An incoming call will interrupt BabyFon and you won’t get a call afterwards.

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I got the tip from a friend of mine to play Platypus. He knows I love these old school games. He was quite right – I do love it. The game is beautifully crafted. And crafted is undoubtedly the right word because the whole world in Platypus is made from modelling clay. You can see by the art work that these guys loved what they did.

It not only is very nice looking, but has excellent game play too. You can choose from two different controls.

1. The touch control, where you steer your ship by holding and moving your finger on the touch screen. You can define an offset between the ship and your steering finger.
2. Accelerometer control, where you steer Platypus by tilting your iPhone in the direction you want to fly. You can adjust the angle and the sensitivity in the settings. I prefer this control as it is very well suited for this kind of game.

The sound track is a good fit for the game and, it reminds me of the good old Amiga games. When you are in the middle of a gaming session you can quit playing and pick up the game in a later session exactly where you left.

Here is what the makers of Platypus have to say:

Based on the cult Mac classic from Idigicon, Platypus is a fast, fun side-scrolling arcade shooter with a unique difference – every tree, cloud, ship, and enemy was created from modelling clay – so explosions don’t bang, they splat!

Defend peaceful Mungola from the invading Collosatropolans using only your trusty F-27 Platypus fighter plane. Shoot down the enemy ships, and collect fruit bonuses and a range of weapon power-ups to aid you in your quest!

Choose to control your Platypus using accelerometer-based tilt, or guide your ship with your finger across 4 massive clay areas each with several challenging levels.

And here is the video they made to promote their game. Though I think you might end up with the wrong impression looking at the video, the game looks much better when you see it on your device.

Since I generally write only about apps I like, I do not give ratings or stars. But, if I did, Platypus definitely would deserve a full five star rating. Well, I rate it with five stars in the App Store.

Total cuteness alert!

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Footnote: I know, I know, funnest is not a valid word; but it’s funny.

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Do you know Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret? Actually it is quite simple. Suppose you have a life goal, but have not got there because the goal seems insurmountable. The life goals may be something like I want to run a marathon once in my lifetime, or I want to give up smoking. There is a simple method to reach your goal: write it down and then make sure you take one little step each day in your goal’s direction. If you want to have success in anything, you must ensure to take action every day. For example, to quit smoking is easy: but just avoid the next cigarette. Take baby steps.

This is exactly what GoalKeep is good for. Define your goal by writing it down and then check off each day whether you did something to reach your goal. After a few days you will see a chain of check marks in GoalKeep’s calendar view. You will be proud of yourself and this will give you the motivation not to break that chain.

I know this may sound a bit theatrical, but I think this little app really has the power to change your life. In the last weeks I succeeded in remaining a vegetarian. Moreover, I am exercising every day and formed other habits which seemed important to me. Though it is really too early to tell whether the success is sustainable, I wholeheartedly recommend this little app to you. It is well worth its price.

Here is how I use it.

• I open GoalKeep each morning and go through my life goals and plan the actions I want to take that particular day. This encourages me to go after my goals.
• Throughout the day I take my baby steps I planned in the morning.
• At the end of the day I add a little check mark to the chain.

As the app description states, it is really a great motivator to have a visual feedback and see what you have done in the past to reach your goals. 

And remember, don’t break the chain.

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With 2.1 it was cumbersome to keep all of your apps up to date. In 2.2 Apple brings back the Update All button, which does what it indicates. No more jumping between App Store and Home screen will be necessary. You will also find that with 2.2 the applications get updated right where they are on your Home screen.

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Although only about 0.79 (74 / 10,000 * 100 = 0.79) per cent of all App Store applications are installed on my iPhone, it got crowded: five pages filled with 74 icons. If you need to get from your last installed application to the very first, that means a lot of swiping. But Apple made the Home button even more intelligent with 2.2. When you are on one of your Home screens (where your application icons are) a press of the Home button will propel you right to the first Home screen. Maybe this will convince you to finally upgrade.

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