We’re all familiar with the usual suspects when it comes to must have iPhone and iPad apps, but if you’re tired of the same ol’ twitter, facebook, foursquare, instagram and hipstamatic, here’s a list of fresh apps that I absolutely love and I have a feeling you’ll love too… The order is random :)

Flipboard

This awesome app shows featured content from my social networks in the form of a magazine that I can flip through. It’s my new favorite way to check out twitter, facebook, instagram and flickr, plus loads of cool articles from select topics of interest, such as design, technology, cars and sports.

Path

This app gives me my own timelined path which I can update with photos, videos, the music I’m listening to, places I’m at, who I’m with, my status updates and even when I sleep and share it with my friends… Needless to say it also syncs with twitter, facebook, foursquare and tumblr.

Trover

It’s an awesome app for discovering surounding landmarks. I can also add my own discoveries and thank people who have helped me find new and interesting stuff to visit by adding theirs.

Fancy

If instagram and a luxury lifestyle glossy magazine had a baby and that baby were an iPhone app, this would be it. It’s an inspirational collection of the best things money can buy and I love the fact that I can literally fancy the stuff that I fancy (by hitting the fancy button of course).

Oink

If I had to pick my favorite new app, this little puppy brought to us by Milk Inc. would definitely tie with Flipboard for the #1 spot. It’s a cool way of rating the world around me and share my ratings with ma peeps on twitter and facebook.

Tiny Review

It’s never before been so easy to review stuff. Just add a picture of the item and write three lines of text on top of it and you’re done.

viddy

Just like instagram but with 15 second videos instead of photos… Need I say more?!?

Hope you found my end of the year app round-up entertaining and please don’t forget to holla at me with your favorite apps of 2011. Cheerios!

http://www.autoiq.ro/cea-mai-inteligenta-compacta-a-momentului-test-drive-hyundai-elantra/

I am thankful for all of my friends old and new, even though I haven’t had the chance to hang out with many of you guys in a while… Also for my four legged buddy Watashima.

I am thankful for my car, my computer and my phone. I am thankful for my hair ;)

I am thankful for realising that we are never going to feel younger, better and more alive than we do now and that life is like sex. Or pizza… Even when it’s bad, it’s still good :)

God bless! And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

http://fasport.gsp.ro/blog/2011/care-e-ideea-partea-a-ii-a/

While I am not necessarily a fan of this style of music, I must admit that this particular song is rather catchy.

Well done Alex! Or how some of you might say… Kudos!

And for my peeps, if you’re really into promoting Romania as an average size country, but a great people let’s also look at today’s accomplishments not just those of some dead dudes from the past.

Thoughts?

Introducing an iTunes for iPhone UI bug… And no, this is not one of those “let’s talk trash about the big guys” articles. Far from it. It’s just a small reminder of the fact that even though some people strive for it (or at least they think they do), there’s no such thing as perfection. Not in man made things at least :)

Last night before downloading Crazy, Stupid, Love which is an excellent movie by the way, I witnessed something very rare. An Apple Inc. user experience malfunction, a GUI bug if you will.

It seems that if you open up iTunes on your iPhone and access the page of a movie or TV show that offers both a Rent and a Buy option, the Buy button is overlaped by the Preview button.

And while it does not affect the functionality of any of the buttons, it does strike as something very uncharacteristic of anything that might have come from Cupertino.

Bottom-line, I think that everyone should practice understanding and tolerance in both matters of GUIs and UX as in almost anything else.

Having said that, I must also admit that Apple should feel a bit embarrassed by this bug.

iTunes is afterall a core component of anything Apple and the bug does not affect any device, but the world’s bestselling smartphone…

Thoughts?!?

You see, I’m not blaming anyone, and I’m not saying that this is the right way to go, but for me at least, having even a couple dozen friends who are not really my friends is proving to be uncool.

Generally speaking, it’s uncool because it prevents you from being your true self, it prevents you from sharing real life stuff that you would normally only trust your friends and family with, but no one else. It prevents you from sharing real experiences and from truly engaging your friends in a sincere, personal and thus meaningful way.

However, in my case in particular, it’s also a question of attention – I want to know what my real friends are up to, but I keep being distracted by mindless impersonal link sharing.

Because, you see people, despite what your self-proclaimed social media guru tells you, facebook and twitter are not marketing tools, and the number of friends and followers you have are not real online marketing metrics.

And also, what your so-called social media specialists credit as “linkless babble” most often makes the most important, the most interesting, and the most entertaining part of my facebook and twitter streams.

And sure, I occasionally publish updates with links, but they most often represent photos of me, my family, my friends, articles that I’ve written, places I’ve checked in to, and other stuff like that, stuff that’s part of my life, my work, personal stuff, meaningful stuff, not stuff that I read while taking a break and got mildly amused or intrigued by.

Again, I’m not passing judgement here and I’m not saying that my way is the only way, or the best way, or even a good way to approach it all, but let’s get real for a second… The truth is that social media has only been around for some time and anyone claiming to be a specialist is talking through his or her… you know where I’m going with this :))

I just wish that more people on social media were true, sincere, personal, real, and I’m starting with the man in the mirror.

Here goes nothing…