FULL DISCLOSURE: A representative from Visible Market Inc. requested that I consider a review for the iOS app, StockTouch. I accepted, and they covered the cost of the app.

StockTouch brings a unique and engaging way to visualize and analyze stock data. Its interface is smooth and professional, and the way you interact with it is natural and intuitive. Even the subtle sounds add to the experience without being distracting. And it’s just darn pretty!

The app couldn’t be easier to use. Tap into a sector or stock and pinch out of it.

There are 3 levels: Market, Sector, and Stock. Market shows (count ‘em) 900 stocks segmented into 9 sectors. Tap one of them, and you’re transported to that sector and presented with the top 100 stocks. Tap an individual stock, and you’re transported to that stock’s report that includes company description, stock performance data, and links to related financial news.

On the right edge of the screen are several settings that allow you to customize your data visualization. You can change the timeframe, display by price change or volume, arrange by market cap or activity, along with several other settings. Tweaking these settings offers a great range of permutations, and it demonstrates the real power of StockTouch. The app also offers a unique spiral arrangement with the largest stocks in the center and spiraling out to the smallest ones.

The tiles are color-coded to give you a visual impression of stock performance. Bright green tiles show the winners. Black shows flat performers. Red tiles show the losers (or investment opportunities, perhaps?). You can specify favorite stocks and those tiles will stand out prominently so you can find them quickly in Market and Sector views.

StockTouch is a universal app, meaning it will run on all iDevices. It works well on the iPhone and iPod touch displays, but it really shines on the iPad.

On the iPad, StockTouch uses the screen real estate without overloading the eye. At the Market level, the stocks are small but readable. Drill down to the Stock level and the information is visually balanced and easy to understand.

On the iPhone, the app compacts and presents the data neatly. The only real sacrifice is that I couldn’t read any of the 900 stocks on the Market level screen even with the retina display of the iPhone 4S. Here, the Sector labels (complete with aggregate price change) save the iPhone. Down in the Stock level, you can swipe left and right to view the detailed charts and news.

Using StockTouch does not require creating an account, so you’re off and running right after you install the app. The only drawback is that your favorites won’t carry over to other iDevices.

Of course nothing is perfect, but the only thing I can complain about is that StockTouch doesn’t include commodities markets. I’d love to analyze energy (crude and refined gasoline) and agriculture (corn) in this interface.

Overall, StockTouch is a fun even if you’re not a Wall Street Whiz. The goal of the Visible Market team appears to have been to organize and present a very large amount of complex data in a way that makes it all quickly understandable. And they succeeded. StockTouch is the epitome of data visualization.

This post was originally created for BizGeek, a sister blog to iTips.

Anecdote: I got bit a while back when upgrading my wife’s iOS version on her iPhone. After the restore step, no contacts were on the phone (!). I went digging and digging, but the backups didn’t include Contacts. Also, her phone was never properly configured to save to Google or any other service. So the upgrade cost her many contacts that were difficult or impossible to replace. And I’m still paying for it.

If you’re not so trusting of Apple’s backup capabilities, then you’ll be glad to read that IDrive offers a great free service that backs up your Contacts with the tap of a button. And IDrive maintains versions of your backups, so you should be able to dig up bygone contacts many moons from now. Once the backup has been performed, you may use the app to review and restore contacts individually or in batches.

Other IDrive services include backing up your iDevice’s photos and videos (in case you really don’t trust iCloud).

Learn more at the IDrive Web site. There is a comprehensive backup service for your Mac, PC, and smartphones. They offer 5 GB free storage and paid tiers beyond that. There is also a focused service just for Contacts called IDrive Lite.

UPDATE – May 7, 2012

I noticed that the IDrive app was not backing up contacts that were saved exclusively in the iCloud Group.After researching different settings, I came to the conclusion that it just won’t backup the iCloud contacts.  So I looked at the IDrive Lite app, and it will backup contacts from the iCloud Group*. Therefore, I recommend IDrive Lite over its sister app.

* IDrive Lite saves contacts from your iPhone’s default account for Contacts. You set this in the Settings app. Go to Settings/Mail, Contact, Calendars. Scroll down to the Contacts section and tap Default Account. Tap the account you wish to set as your default account. Then you can close the Settings app (press the Home button).

When the iPad’s keyboard is in Split Mode (so you may type more easily with your thumbs as you do with your smartphone), there are six invisible keys for your convenience.

To the right of the T, V, and G keys are the Y, H, and B keys, respectively.

To the left of the Y, H, and B keys are the T, V, and G keys, respectively.

Cool, eh?

1. Log into iCloud Calendar at icloud.com.
2. Publicly share the calendar you wish to export. Click the small circle to the right of the calendar’s name. A dialog box will appear. If it is not already shared, then click the radio button next to Public Calendar and click Share.

   If you’re privately sharing the calendar, you need to stop that first, then share that calendar publicly.

3. The dialog box will update with a URL that begins with webcal:// followed by a fairly cryptic address.
4. Select the URL with your mouse cursor and copy it to your clipboard (right-click and select Copy or press Ctrl+C on your keyboard).
5. Open a new browser tab or window and paste the URL into the address field. DON’T PRESS THE ENTER KEY!
6. Change “webcal” in the pasted URL to “http“.
7. Press Enter. Your browser should initiate a file download. That file will have an extension of ICS. These files can be imported into a wide range of calendar applications and online services.
8. Make sure you return to iCloud Calendar and stop publicly sharing the calendar.

Turn On the Accessibility Feature

1. Go to Settings/General/Accessibility.
2. In the Hearing section turn on Custom Vibrations.

Create and Name Your Custom Vibration Pattern

1. Go to Settings/Sounds.
2. In the Vibration Patterns section, tap Vibration.
3. In the Custom section, tap Create New Vibration.
4. There will be a large area of the screen that says “Tap to create a vibration pattern.” Once you begin pressing on the screen, the iPhone will begin recording the pattern and you will feel the vibration feedback as you record. Press for any length of time. Short. Long. Something in between.
5. When done, tap the Stop button.
6. Tap Play to review your pattern.
7. Tap Save to name and save your pattern.

You’ll note that there are a handful of preset patterns in the Settings app if you don’t want to make your own.

Assign a Vibration Pattern to a Contact

1. Open either the Contacts app or the Phone app and tap Contacts.
2. Select the contact to which you want to assign a custom pattern.
3. Tap Edit.
4. In the same area you assign a ringtone, you can select a vibration, as well.
   You can also create one here, too. You can do that next time, right?
5. Tap Done.
6. Tap Done again.

Now, you’re done!

This post discusses the first part of that equation. Keep an eye out for a post that goes over the latter issue.

Researching this topic, I found plethora articles on how to import events using Apple’s iCal. Problem was that I don’t have a Mac. So I kept digging and testing. Here’s what I learned:

Export Your Google Calendar

1. Go to your Google Calendar and log in, if needed.
2. In the far upper right of the Web page, find and click the gear icon. This is the Optionscontext menu.
   
3. Click Calendar settings from the context menu.
4. Click Calendars.
   
5. Click the Export calendars link.
6. Depending on your browser, this will initiate a file download. The file will be a zip file that contains your calendar events in a single file in ICS format.
7. Open the zip file using the built-in Windows functionality or another zip file utility like 7 zip (www.7-zip.org).
8. Copy the file from the inside the zip file to your desktop or another easily accessible folder.

Email Your ICS File to Yourself

1. Open your email on your computer.
2. Compose a message and address it to yourself.
3. Attach the ICS file that you placed on your desktop or an easily accessible folder.
4. Click Send.

Import the Events into Your iCloud Calendar

1. On your iPhone, open the email message that you sent to yourself.
2. Find the attached ICS file in the message and tap it.
3. You will be shown the entire list of events in chronologic order. Tap the Add All button.
4. The events should now be copied into your calendar.If you have multiple calendars, your iPhone should prompt you to select which calendar to copy the events. Select the calendar and tap Done.

   You can delete the message with the attachment.

If iCloud calendars are set to synchronize, then the events will be available on your phone and the iCloud Web app.

And it’s free!

Learn More

To use this tweak, you (obviously) need a jailbroken iDevice. And you need to add http://cydia.pushfix.info/to your Cydia Sources.

1. Open Cydia
2. Patiently wait for Cydia to do its start-up thing…
3. Keep waiting.
4. Tap Manage at the bottom of the screen.
5. Tap Sources.
6. Tap Edit in the upper right.
7. Tap Add in the upper left.
8. Enter http://cydia.pushfix.info/ in the dialog box.
9. Tap Add Source.
10. Wait for its packages to load.
11. Tap Search at the bottom of the screen.
12. Tap in the search box near the top of the screen.
13. Type “TCP Optimizer”.
14. Tap the entry titled “TCP optimizer“
15. Tap Install.
16. Tap Confirm.
17. Reboot by pressing and holding the Power button (top right edge on iPhones) until “slide to power off” appears.
18. Slide the slider to the right and wait for it to shut down.
19. Press and hold Power button again until it begins booting up.
20. Wait.
21. Enjoy.

Da. Doo. Zippity.

1. Open Safari
2. Visit http://amazon.com/cloudpayer
3. Ignore the warning that your browser is not supported by clicking Continue.
4. Wait for your music to list to load
5. Select a song and click Play.

You can then go into other apps if you wish. Note the Play icon in the top status bar. Also, go into the App Switcher (double-press the Home button) and then swipe left. Notice the iPod button tile/icon is replaced by the one for Safari, and the buttons now control what’s playing in Safari.

Very cool. But watch your data if you’re not on an unlimited plan!