So here’s my take on the Boxee remote app. For those of you that don’t know, Boxee is an open source media center app. I’m fact, it’s THE media center app out there to use if you have a media center. I guess for those of you who don’t know what a media center is, a media center is a computer that is used to serve up media… and mostly all media centers are done through TVs, like mine. I snapped a pic of mine.

So Boxee is the most popular media center app. There’s the Windows application called “Media Center”, which is a media center program. And I happen to have the latest version of it with Windows 7 (still not released yet), and if your not getting cable, satilite, fios or digital tv into your house, then there’s no reason to use Windows’ Media Center, but instead, use Boxee and Hulu desktop (a seperate “media center” type program, used strickly for Hulu). All of my entertainment, my “tv”, comes from the net and I don’t pay for any TV services in my house.

So back to the point of the Boxee remote app. What this is, is a free app that turns your iPhone into a remote control for Boxee. It works via your wifi connection and requires ZERO setup. I’m for real, all you gotta’ do load up Boxee, load up the Boxee app (making sure your iPhone and PC / MAC is connected to your wifi). That’s all. It’s really simple.

The app itself is great. I LOVE the gesture mode. It functions really well. I don’t think iPhones should be used for something like a remote, but if you don’t have one and are usin’ Boxee, this app’s bad ass.

It’s really responsive and just plan works. If you have Boxee, even if you have a remote, I recommend getting it… it can also be a great way to mess with somebody who’s watchin’ something on Boxee. In fact, considering it works over wifi, you can actually control it from another room or from outside and mess with the person watchin’ it. It’s pretty funny, especially if you don’t tell them you have the app.

Peace, J

Well Stanza, the world’s best ebook reader program (and it’s free by the way), is now on my home screen. Having an icon on my home screen means you gotta’ be one of the absolute best apps out there… free, paid, stock, it don’t matter… the only way you can get on the Neocell’s home screen is if you’ve proven yourself worthy.

Well two things have happened… one, I’ve been using Stamza multiple times a day because I’m reading a bad ass ebook (included a screen shot of it) so Stanza’s usefulness had gone up, and because I don’t have cable TV and watch all my TV from Hulu, the free What’s On app has lost most of it’s usefulness. So Stanza replaced What’s On.

I suspect it’ll take a long time before another icon gets changed from my home screen.

Peace, J

You know I’ve been usin’ Pandora a lot lately. And although it can take a long time to start up or can bug out if you need to change songs ‘n’ crap via Edge, it’s been workin’ out nicely. I’ve been listenin’ to it a crap load when I’m out drivin’ or if I take a walk somewhere.

I’ve been impressed with it’s constant great quality and reliability over Edge. I’ll leave it docked in the Lexus, playing through the sound system and I sometimes forget I’m playing muisc over the Internet… music over the Internet anywhere you go… it’s a crazy concept.

Peace, J

The free What’s On app had an update I noticed tonight. The What’s On app is the free TV guide program that I use. I use it so much in fact that I keep it on my main springboard page

I downloaded the app and guess what… it’s a whole new freakin’ redesign with a bunch of really kick *** features installed. One of the features they added is channel icons. Look at the screen shot at the bottom to see what I’m talkin’ about. That’s a really great feature, it’s like… it makes it feel that much more professional, ya know?

Um, what else… oh yeah, the ability is go to a specific date and time is a fine *** feature. “Baby, do you know if a new episode of The Office is on this Thuraday?” How do you answer? You say “Let me find out What’s On…“. And the animations they added is really a great touch for moving to different dates.

Now this is something I probably didn’t know about and existed in the first version, but the ability to easily and quickly add different locations for where you are is nice. What do I mean by that? I mean if you travel to another city and wanna’ know what’s on cable or digital over the air or (yuck) Verizon FIOS, you can. You can search by entering your location or by letting your iPhone find your location. And it doesn’t do anything stupid like merge different channels together, it switches out your channel line up. Got a channel you hate (like all those Spanish channels)? No prob, What’s On will remember what channels you add or remove, even when you switch saved providers. Like at home, our TV’s are programmed to skip all the Spanish channels, public access channels and spam channels (i.e. QVC). So, I programmed the What’s On app to do the same thing. Nice.

Another great thing I love is the new look of it. It just looks so nice ‘n’ polished. I honestly can’t believe this is a free app!

This is something completely new they added. Normally any kinda’ apps that add a news feed kinda’ system end up bein’ useless. But what they added is something really interesting. They added a news feed from somewhere that tells you what happened last night. Now I’m the type of person who doesn’t care anything about celebeties… at all, or give a **** about entertainment news. But this is something really interesting. If you wanna’ find information about something… “Was it just me or did that episode seem really odd last night?”, you can find out. Or, maybe just find out what you missed. I love that.

They also even have a really great feature for finding movies that are out, or will be coming out, in theaters. I don’t go out to watch movies (why watch what you can steal online, he-he-he), so I don’t want an app on my iPhone just for movies… forget that. That’s why I love it being part of the What’s On app. When someone does ask one day “I wonder what new movies are coming out this weekend?”, I know I’ll have the answer with What’s On.

This company may not be making any money with their ad-free! product, but look at my main springboard screen. Notice they’re there, along with WordPress, Cycorder, Balance and Pandora? All free programs. They may not be makin’ money, but they remain one of the very BEST apps for the iPhone. Much respect.

What about y’all, any of you usin’ What’s On?

Peace, J