iPhone News Updated

App Smart Extra: Cook’s Illustrated for the iPhone

Last week’s App Smart column points out some of the best apps for dessert lovers.

One iPhone app, Cook’s Illustrated, didn’t make the cut, but not because of quality issues. In fact, I found the app more useful than almost any of the ones I tried.

It’s just that Cook’s is a little complicated.

The app is produced by America’s Test Kitchen, which publishes Cook’s Illustrated and acts as the cooking industry’s advertising-free answer to Consumer Reports.

The organization takes cooking seriously, and its recipes have earned a spot in my family’s regular food rotation. (See: pancakes; chocolate chip cookies.)

You can test the app for free and gain access to 50 recipes the publication has deemed its “all-time best,” along with video demonstrations and other ancillary content.

That alone should be enough to justify a download. But things get more complicated, and expensive, if you want to dig deeper.

For full mobile access to the organization’s recipe vault, you must first buy a magazine subscription, which is $25 annually (for six issues).

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Dropbox for iPhone

With Apple’s soon-to-launch iCloud storage service in the offing, it’s time to take a look at alternatives that exist now for those reticent to open a new online storage account.

Dropbox is one of the better-known, online storage services – along with Box.net and others – and among the reasons for its popularity is its drop-dead-easy setup and navigation. Begun as a browser-based service on the web, the iPhone app is just as simple.

The free download from Apple’s iTunes App Store took about a minute (on a Wi-Fi connection) and after logging in, we were ready to access our file library an upload more files in about another minute. Navigation is slick and intuitive. Inside the app, click the “Dropbox” icon to access the main file menu; there are also icons for “favorite” folders, to upload files from the iPhone, and to manage settings.

Moving back and forth between the iPhone app and the Web-based interface is a breeze and doesn’t take much thought work.

A couple of notes: You can open a Dropbox account for free and, with that, you get 2 GB of storage. For $99 per year, you can upgrade to 50 GB – essentially on par with the top-tier available from Apple’s iTunes once it launches. There are also options of 100 GB for $199 per year, and for work groups that need 350 GB , it’ll run $795 per year.

[Thanks: http://www.crn.com]