Posts Tagged ‘Ed Lea’

Ed Lea’s TV Plus storms the iTunes App Store Chart

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

London mobile developer Ed Lea is, I suspect, smiling brightly.

Why?

Well, his second iPhone application, TV Plus, has stormed up the iTunes UK App Store charts and dominates the number one slot.

And we love it.

Big congratulations are due to Ed!

If you recall, we first covered Ed Lea’s services when he emailed to let us know about his ‘Over-Here’ mapping application for the iPhone.

Well, Ed’s been busy with TV Plus.

TV Plus is a gift from the Gods if you’re a TV fan based in the UK. We have a satellite provider by the name of Sky (owned by Fox) who provide a home recording box as part of their premium package called Sky+ (”Sky Plus”) With Sky+ you can ‘Tivo’ television programmes — record a series, or just a one off event or show.

Of course this brilliant functionality is rather useless when you’re sat on the train and some bright spark mentions the name of that programme (”I’m OK, I’m recording Spooks” for example). You slap your forehead in annoyance and know that although the show starts in 20 minutes, you won’t be home for at least 50 minutes. Spend the next 50 minutes getting really annoyed.

OR download TV Plus for £2.99. It’ll interface with your Sky+ box and allow you to control it from your iPhone, anywhere.

Now, the concept isn’t new. Back in 2006, I downloaded a Symbian application from Sky themselves that did this. But it wasn’t nearly as sexy nor as easy as TV Plus.

With this app, you simply browse the television schedule on your device (that, in itself, is really useful) then when you find a programme you’d like to record, bish-bash-bosh, simply click record:

And you’re done.

If you’re new to remote recording, you need to setup your account for the facility — it takes no more than 15 minutes and you simply follow the instructions on Sky’s site here.

This is the type of application that will keep folk locked to their iPhones. 212 folk have, to date, written reviews, the vast majority of them topping out at five stars:

Super work Ed. TV Plus is a winner!

The Over Here iPhone App - by Ed Lea in London

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I had a note in the other day from Ed Lea. Ed has knocked up a new iPhone Application, now available in the iTunes store. He wondered if we’d be interested in reviewing it. Of course! In fact, here’s what he wrote:

I’ve been reading the various commentaries you guys have been writing about iPhone experiences and I was just wondering if you were thinking of doing any form of reviews of applications?

As a London-based developer I’m basically being very cheeky and asking for a plug for my app, “Over Here”. I appreciate it falls a bit outside the sort of stuff you normally write about but “if you don’t ask…”, etc

It’s not cheeky, Ed. We’re well up for plugging. To any other developers out there: Do send us details and we’ll do our very best to get a piece up about on the site.

I wrote back to Ed and told him ‘bring it on’ or words to that effect. He sent me back this description:

It’s a pretty basic app, but one that I’ve personally wanted for a while. It uses iPhone’s location services (so works on the original or 3G phones) to locate you, shows you the position on a simple map, allows you to fine tune the position and then email it someone as a Google Maps link. That link opens on an iPhone straight into the Google Maps application so the receiver can see where you are and hopefully come and meet you.

The version on the App Store at the moment is 0.99. I’ve got a more polished version, that allows you to change the default email text from my slightly cheesy one, pending approval from Apple. Hopefully that will get reviewed and released by them soon, but unfortunately there’s no telling how long it might take.

You can download Over Here at this address. (It’ll pop up iTunes on your machine, or, if you’re on the iPhone, it’ll pop you straight into the iTunes App page for Over Here).

It is £0.59.

Here’s how it works.

1. Run the application and tap the pin.

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2. Give the application permission to access your location.

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3. Let the map briefly load.

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4. The map loads and magically shows where you are. Joy. I’m in Essix.

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5. Then simply click the pin to email your location.

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6. This fires up an email with some default text — including the Google Maps link to your location.

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Genius.

I can think of so many uses for this. If your friend is trying to find you. If you want to show someone where the BBQ is. If you want to tell your mates to meet you at this Starbucks or what not. Brilliant.

Good work Ed!


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