AppShopper

Though the recent record-setting Powerball jackpot of nearly $600 million has been won by some incredibly lucky person in Florida, another jackpot is already building. And if you’re a regular player or you only buy a ticket when the jackpots are big, Formigas’s Clever Lotto for iPhone will keep your numbers straight and alert you when there’s a significant pile of money to be won.

Clever Lotto focuses on the Mega Millions and Powerball lotteries available in the US. The app will show you the current jackpots for each lottery and the most recent winning numbers. You can also keep track of your own tickets by entering the numbers you’ve played and if you win, Clever Lotto will even send you a push notification to you alert you.

Clever Lotto shows you the total amount you’ve spent on tickets, how much you’ve won, and other assorted statistics as well. It even shows you statistics about the winning lottery numbers, displaying how often each number has been drawn over time if that’s something you like to consider as you make your ticket selections.

I’m the type of person who buys a lottery ticket only when the jackpot is large enough to make the evening news (I try to play one set of the same numbers each time and let the computer pick the rest) but Clever Lotto has still been useful for me, a once-in-a-blue-moon player. If you missed trying your luck with this last jackpot and don’t want to miss the next big one, Clever Lotto is worth a download. It’s $2.99 but if it helps you win thousands or millions in the lottery, it’s totally worth it, right? All you need is a dollar $2.99 and a dream and all that jazz.

• $299Buy Now
  Utilities
  

  Clever Lotto - Mega Millions...

  Last Changed:

  23 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (10)

  Version:

  1.1

  iOS iPhone

  “Tons of lottery news and information right at your fingertips...” » ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ tapscape.com « “Clever Lotto is easily worth its price of entry.” » ★ ★ ★ ★...

If you’ve ever wanted a quick way to ensure that others can’t use your Mac when you step away from it and you’re the type of person to keep your iPhone with you wherever you go, developer Appuous has a solution for you with its new Mac app, Keycard.

Keycard is a tiny app that lives in your Mac’s menu bar (you can opt to keep its icon in your dock while it’s running as well) that locks your Mac when a paired Bluetooth device goes out of range. Once you and your device get back into range, Keycard will unlock your Mac automatically.

To use Keycard, you must first pair it with an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (Appuous states that it will work with almost any other Bluetooth device as well though I’ve only used it with an iPhone and iPad mini). The pairing process with Keycard is not as involved as with a headset, speaker, or most other devices since all Keycard does is detect the device, log its identifier, and keep track of its Bluetooth signal so the Bluetooth indicator on your iOS device won’t light up to indicate the pairing.

Here’s a demo video showing Keycard in action:

After using Keycard for the past week with my MacBook Air (a mid-2011 model) and my iPhone 5 and iPad mini, I’ve found that it works as shown in that demo video. The Keycard lock screen appears when my iPhone gets anywhere from 15 to 30 feet away as the crow flies (with walls and furniture interrupting the Bluetooth signal in my house) and disappears by the time I get close enough to my Mac to type. While it’s locked, you can’t access any applications or use keyboard commands to force quit or switch applications. You can still power off a Mac and turn it back on manually, so you should enable a log-in password for your Mac for more security.

Click to enlarge

While Keycard works with multiple devices, it will trigger based on the Bluetooth signal of only one device at a time. For me, pairing it with my iPhone is the best method since that’s the device I almost always carry with me wherever I go, which is not the case with my iPad.

In situations where your iPhone or iPad is out of Bluetooth range and you still need to work on your Mac, you can designate a 4-digit passcode that will unlock your Mac. I found this passcode to work as expected but entering it was a little buggy from time to time, with the cursor skipping backwards as I entered the code for no discernible reason. Also, once unlocked this way, my Mac would periodically re-lock as if Keycard momentarily detected my iPhone on the other side of the house and then lost the signal, requiring me to enter the code again. If your iPhone or iPad are going to be away from your Mac for a while, it makes sense to just quit Keycard to avoid this.

Despite these glitches, Keycard does what it promises. If you have mischievous coworkers who might take advantage of a brief absence from your Mac to post something inappropriate through your Facebook account or if you simply want to lock down your Mac to keep its contents relatively secure when you step away for a short period of time, Keycard will be ideal for you.

Keycard debuted in the App Store yesterday and is on sale for a special introductory price of $6.99 and its regular price will be $8.99. I have a hard time reconciling its regular price when comparing Keycard to an app like Clear, which is $9.99 and offers far more functionality albeit in a different category entirely, so I’d recommend you buy Keycard now before its price goes up.

• $699Buy Now
  Utilities
  

  Keycard

  Last Changed:

  8 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.00 (10)

  Version:

  1.2

  Mac OS

  Keycard is undoubtedly the easiest way to keep your Mac secure when you're not around. Using Bluetooth®, Keycard locks your Mac using your iOS device when it detects you are leaving your computer....

I can’t believe that I’m going to post about a flashlight app but the lack of light at my treadmill desk in the late afternoons thanks to the noticeably shorter days of fall brought this to mind. Flashlight apps could probably have their own category in the App Store given how many there are and it takes a lot for one to stand out but 25dev’s offering managed to catch my eye thanks to its use of the iPhone’s proximity sensor.

Most flashlight apps only give you an on-screen button to turn the LED light on the back of your iPhone on or off. While this kind of virtual button certainly works and there’s not much that can or needs to be improved about it, the ability to use your iPhone’s proximity sensor (the same sensor that detects when you’re holding your iPhone up to your face during a phone call and turns off the screen so you won’t accidentally touch any buttons with your cheek) can be useful in many situations.

When you open FlashLight, your iPhone’s LED light turns on automatically. To turn it off temporarily, you simply need to make sure the proximity sensor control in the bottom right corner is toggled on and then cover the iPhone’s proximity sensor by putting your iPhone in your pocket or putting it face down on a table. Once you uncover the proximity sensor by pulling it out of your pocket or picking it up off the table, the light turns on again. Clever, huh? This feature can easily result in a little less fumbling when you’re using your iPhone to find your keys in the dark or are working on that top secret spy mission you chose to accept.

FlashLight costs $.99 (ignore the recently updated free version since it doesn’t have the feature that makes use of the proximity sensor), requires iOS 4.0 or higher, and works with the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and the new 5th-generation iPod touch. It’s not yet optimized for the larger screens of the iPhone 5 and new iPod touch but that’s not critical in a flashlight app.

This will probably be the last time I write about a flashlight app until someone makes one that can do my dishes too, so don’t worry.

• $.99Buy Now
  Utilities
  

  FlashLight: Proximity Sensor...

  Last Changed:

  23 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (9)

  Version:

  1.0.2

  iOS iPhone

  Finally a Flashlight with Proximity sensor programmed for iPhone 4 and 4S !! Turn your iPhone into a useful LED torch/flashlight with completely new features implemented in this application and get...