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Title: Cloth by Clothes Minded
Cost: Free ($.99 for the Cloth Weather upgrade)
Platform: iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation) and iPad Wi-Fi + 4G. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.
The new school year is quickly approaching, and the first day of school is an excellent opportunity to make a fresh fashion statement. This week’s app, Cloth by Clothes Minded, will help teens archive images of their favorite outfits for later reference. Feeling uninspired on a rainy morning? Simply click on Cloth to remember some of your closet’s best combinations.
After downloading the app, Cloth walks you through all the features with a simple tutorial. However, this app was easy to use even if you decide to skip the intro and go straight to the wardrobe. Click “Snap” to take a photo or load one from your phone’s library. After taking an acceptable shot, Cloth presents you with several editing options. Add a flattering effect, cover up blemishes, whiten your teeth, or add a fun mustache sticker. Once your picture is ready, write a brief description, create tags, and add it to a category. Later, when you have trouble remembering the best pants to wear with your striped shirt, search your tags for striped shirt or visit the casual wear part of your wardrobe.
There was much to love about this app:
1. Organization: If only your real closet was so organized! Categories and searchable tags make finding the right outfit for the right occasion an easy process. My overall favorite organization tool was the weather addition. The app uses wunderground.com and your location to match your outfit to real weather conditions. If you wake up to an unexpected snow storm, simply refer to your “Snow” or “Freezing” categories for quick inspiration.
2. Social Networking: This app is also integrated with several social networking sites. Link your Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr accounts to share outfits, or if you are particularly proud of your apparel, send a photo off to clothapp.com for a chance to be featured on the site’s homepage.
3. Badges: One more reason to try Cloth – you unlock badges and points as you add and share outfits. They are fun, collectible, and competitive.
If I could change one thing about this app, I would add a category for “wish list.” It would be useful to save snapshots from dressing rooms into a separate folder that you can share with family and friends. Even without this feature, teens will love the app. Recommend it to the young people you know that like fashion or even just taking photos. They will enjoy sharing and getting feedback on their favorite wardrobe pictures.
For more YALSA App of the Week posts, visit the App of the Week Archive.
Title: Flashcardlet (also called Flashcards* in the App Store)
Cost: Free or $2.99 for no advertisements
Platform: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.
Finals and AP exams are almost (or already!) here for many of the teens we serve. Top-rated study applications can help students organize their notes and prepare for end of the semester tests. This week’s app, Flashcardlet, lets teens create, share, and use study materials anywhere.
There are several flashcard apps out there, but students that need more than text to study will appreciate Flashcardlet’s features. A step beyond the traditional pen and paper flashcard, this app allows you to view images. Create your own deck or download one from Quizlet.com to study SAT vocabulary, science and math diagrams, art history, or any other subject imaginable. If you find or make a study deck that will be useful for a friend, share it by using Dropbox or email.
After loading a study deck, you can select from a few options to customize your study experience. The cards can be displayed alphabetically, randomly, or in their original order. Filter the deck to display only starred or non-starred cards, or reverse the order in which a card displays (i.e. show the back first). You can also combine multiple card sets into a new, shuffled deck.
Once you begin your study session, tap a card to view the answer or swipe to skip to the next card. You also have the option to view a searchable list of the entire deck. As you work your way through the cards, you can mark cards as mastered or flag them by starring.
A few adjustments could make this app even more useful:
- I strongly suggest paying the $2.99 fee to remove the advertisements. I found it difficult to ignore the colorful, little ads while flipping through lists of challenging vocabulary. For about the price of a pack of note cards, you will get an enhanced experience.
- Another improvement would involve both strengthening the share feature and increasing the ability to modify decks from other applications. Currently, share allows you to email or Dropbox a FCD file, which can only be opened with the Flashcardlet app. If your friends don’t have an Apple device with the app installed, you will not be able to share cards.
- Finally, audio support would be a boon for foreign language or music studies.
Some of these desired features are already supported by other flashcard apps, but unfortunately, it is hard to find one that offers them all (and for free). The Flashcardlet developers do have a poll where users can suggest future upgrades. With thousands of votes already cast, new tools like iTunes syncing, card categorization, and multi-sided cards may be coming soon.
Suggest this app to teens who are looking for mobile supported study methods or a way to practice vocabulary for the SAT.
For more YALSA App of the Week posts, visit the App of the Week Archive.
Title: WordFoto
Cost: $1.99
Platform: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.
Too often innovative ideas are quashed by questions like “How will we fund that?” or “How will staff have enough time?” Inevitably, change requires a bit of sacrifice–if you are going to fund a new idea, you either have to generate more resources or take a little bit from somewhere else. Even with shifting dollars, there still might be only a small available budget. This is why I love apps! Apps often help you produce something new and interesting with only a small cost. The app I tested this week falls into the “cheap with big results” category. For only $1.99 and some patience, you can use WordFoto to generate colorful, eye-catching publicity materials.
WordFoto turns photos into word collages. With several pre-generated themes, creating a piece of art is quite simple. To start, take a picture with your iPhone or select a saved photo from your Camera Roll. After choosing an image, you can crop, type in words to use, and select from preset or custom styles. You can use the “Finetune” option to adjust the edge threshold, and color tolerance. I played with the options until I got the effect I desired, but WordFoto provides a more detailed description of how to adjust each setting.
I created a wordfoto of my library (Belgrade Community Library), and I was pleased with the results (see above). The app was easy to navigate and produced fun, unique results. Testing revealed that some photos and words work better than others. Close-up photos with few details were the most successful. Shorter, action words also were more effective.
There are a few things about this app that I would change. First, it would be really nice if I could manually shift a few of the words on the image. For example, at the bottom of my picture of the library, I really wanted the three big words to be Read, Discover, Create, but no matter how many times I re-rendered and fine tuned the image, I could not get that combination to appear. According to the FAQs on the WordFoto website, the developer’s are aware of this weakness and are “thinking about different ways to implement” manual placement.
The custom styles were also a bit confusing. It was unclear how to save a new custom style without changing what you have already created; tapping to edit changes the word configuration before you can adjust settings. There is also no way to rename the custom style so that you can select the correct option for a new picture (i.e. they are labeled Custom 1, Custom 2, etc.).
How can you use this app in the library? I used some of the art I created for my library’s Facebook cover image, but you can also use the photos to create fun posters and prints. WordFoto does not hold any copyright or legal claim to your art and permits printing for commercial and public use. The art you generate is saved at a high resolution (either 5MP or 3MP, depending on your device), allowing for quality prints. The Teen Librarian’s Tool Box suggests that you cr
By: Beth,
on 2/1/2012
Blog:
YALSA - Young Adult Library Services Association
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Title: Oscars
Cost: Free
Platform: iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. iPad version requires iOS 4.2 or higher
Teens interested in movies and the Oscars can gear up for the annual event (this year on February 26) with the Oscars app. The key to the app is the Backstage Pass feature that will be available the night of the Oscars. But, before that content is available there are still aspects of the app that are worthwhile as movie lovers of all ages prepare for the red carpet evening. These include:
- A Twitter feed that includes posts with the #oscars hashtag. While the Oscars are still three weeks away, that doesn’t mean people aren’t tweeting about them. The feed is a good one stop shop for keeping up on Tweets about hosts, Oscar related events, and more.
- My Picks, a section of the app where users can make their predictions of winners. Use of My Picks requires logging in with a Facebook username and password. However, the picks are not available to others unless the user turns on the Play with Friends component which makes picks visible to Facebook friends. There is also a countdown clock in the My Picks section which tells users how long until the ballot choices are locked in. A good idea in case a teen wants to change a choice along the way.
- A video series called Oscar Dailies made up of short clips showing nominees in specific categories and providing analysis of the chances for each contender. Users of the app can watch all of the supporting actress or actor nominees at once and compare the performances. I can definitely see teens sitting around, watching the videos together, and debating who gave the best performance in their favorite movie.
- Video of the announcement of the nominees for the 2012 Oscars.
The Backstage Pass is likely to be the big draw for teens interested in the Oscars. As reported in the Huffington Post, “On the big night, February 26, the app will host a dozen live feeds from the event captured by strategically placed cameras — including the thank you cam that gives winners an extended period of time to thank their supporters, or any of the other backstage cameras capturing behind-the-scenes action.” This section of the app will go beyond what teens can see in the network airing of the Oscars and is also likely to provide Facebook and Twitter worthy postings.
Any teen, or librarian, interested in movies will want to take a look at the Oscars app as they get ready for the big day on February 26.
For more YALSA App of the Week posts, visit the archive.