Track Hurricanes on Your iPhone or iPad, Part 2

Last year I mentioned a great app called Hurricane for the iPhone and Hurricane HD for the iPad in my post entitled Track Hurricanes on Your iPhone or iPad.  With Tropical Storm Isaac (soon to be Hurricane Isaac) bearing down on the Southeastern United States, I thought it best to expand on my previous post.  I barely touched on the features that can help you understand what is coming with a tropical system like Isaac.

The heart of these apps is the tracking map, which is the obvious, go-to feature for determining where the storm is projected to come onshore. However, a lot of focus is put on exactly where the middle of the storm will hit. However, the destructive forces of a hurricane can easily reach a couple of hundred miles away from center, especially in the right-front quadrant of the storm.

Fortunately, with Hurricane and Hurricane HD, the tracking map isn't the only feature. The satellite view, for example, will give you a good idea of the size of a tropical system. These apps also can show you forecast models with expected wind probabilities and long-range tracks.  See the pictures at the bottom to see examples of what is available in the iPhone app.

Use Your iPhone to Protect Your Email Account

The Internet is a dangerous place. Every service you sign up for requires an email address. If someone is able to hijack your email account, that person can cause a lot of damage. This happened to Mat Honan, Senior Writer at Wired.com, a technology news site.  The hacker in this case seemed more concerned with vandalism, but having your email account hacked can lead to even worse, including identity theft.

New Features in Pandora for the iPhone and iPad

Pandora is one of those essential apps that I've written about in my Tips for Listening to Pandora on the iPhone post. The latest update has a couple of really big improvements that make for a better user experience.

Hitting the thumbs up or thumbs down on a song teaches Pandora what you like and what you don't, in essence, training your station to play more songs you will enjoy and less songs that you won't enjoy. However, in the past, if you were busy listening while doing other things, you might miss the opportunity to press the thumbs up or thumbs down. Once the song was over, it was too late. With the latest update, you can tap a button on the upper right portion of the screen that gives you access to information about the songs you've already listened to since you started the app. You can swipe to get to anyone of them and then hit the thumbs up or thumbs down after the fact.

Creating Diagrams on Your iPad or iPhone

If you're a visual person, you realize the power of a diagram over prose for communicating a point. You've probably used either Visio on a PC or Omnigraffle on a Mac to create a-your picture-is-worth-1000-words diagrams. But what about on your iOS device. If you have an iPad, there is Omnigraffle for iPad.  It's very powerful but comes with a high price tag for an iPad app at $49.99.  Besides that, it will work only on your iPad, not on your iPhone. If you have an iPad and have to frequently create professional looking diagrams or charts, it may be your best option. What if, however, you only need to create occasional diagrams and want to do them easily?

Accessing Cloud Storage of Your Files on Your iPhone or iPad

Apple has iCloud but sometimes you need a universally accessible place to store documents and other files. One of the most popular cloud storage services is Dropbox.  With it you get 2 GB of free storage for files. Recently Google added it's own competitor to Dropbox called Google Drive, which is an evolution of their already popular Google Docs service. Google Drive gives you 5 GB of free storage. Both services have software you can download that treats them like just another drive on your Windows machine or Mac. Both services also allow you access to your files via a web browser. Both allow sharing of files and folders.

Stuff I Like

I've added a new Stuff I Like section that includes items, mostly accessories, that I use or would like to use with my iPhone. You might find them helpful too.  I've added a link to the menu above for easy access.

Independence Day iPhone & iPad App Sales

Tomorrow is Independence Day and as often happens around holidays, the apps are on sale (especially the games). Many Electronic Arts games are $0.99 or free, Real Racing 2, the Lego Harry Potter games, Batman Arkham are all only $0.99 each. Download the AppShopper app and look at the popular apps that are on sale to find these and others while they are still marked down.

I don't typically buy games unless they are on sale for $0.99 or free.  I don't have a lot of time to play games and you'll notice, that I don't talk about them often on Practical iStuff (hence, the practical). However, the iPhone and iPad are great platforms for occasional game play. It's times like these that I'll go get a few while they are cheap.

If you aren't in to games but are into photography, Hipstamatic is half price at $0.99 right now.