Transcript
Hi, I’m Macworld senior editor Dan Frakes, and I’m a big fan of Contrast’s $5 Launch Center Pro (4.5 of 5 rating). This launcher-style app for iPhone and iPod touch saves me enough little bits of time here and there that it’s earned a place in my iOS dock.
But whenever I try to explain Launch Center Pro to people, I come up a little short, because it’s a difficult app to explain. So in this week’s video, I’m going to show you some of the ways Launch Center Pro helps me be more productive.
What is Launch Center Pro?
Launch Center Pro lets you create actions, which are discrete tasks based on a particular app or system service. The simplest action you can make just launches an app, but many apps allow Launch Center Pro to control them using specially formatted URLs. If you don’t know the proper URL syntax, that’s OK— Launch Center Pro’s Action Composer makes it easy to create common useful actions, such as creating a pre-addressed email message or, in my example here, starting a new custom timer in Contrast’s own Timer app.
Once you’ve set up some actions, Launch Center Pro sits at the ready, waiting for you to use it to perform those actions more quickly.
Real-world examples
So what can you use it for? Here are a few examples.
Emailing to a group: iOS still doesn’t support email groups, but you can get this feature using Launch Center Pro. For example, I have an action called Email Editors. When I tap it, it creates a new email message pre-addressed to all of the Macworld editors. You can create as many of these group-email actions as you need.
Contacting my wife: My wife and I communicate many times, and in many ways, each day. Without Launch Center Pro, when I need to contact her, I first need to decide how—text, email, phone (and which number?)—before I can even begin the process. With Launch Center Pro, I just tap and hold on my “wife” group, which presents me with all the ways I might get in touch: text, home phone, mobile, work phone, or email. I just slide my finger over the one I want and release, and the appropriate app opens. For text or email, the resulting message is pre-addressed; for phone calls, the phone app dials the number immediately.
Performing common Web actions: There are a dozen or so things I do on the Web, but I would normally start them in various different places. Instead, I’ve got a Launch Center Pro group that acts as a unified starting point for all these actions: performing Web, dictionary, thesaurus, or Wikipedia searches; opening or searching the Macworld and TechHive websites; searching for MP3s on Amazon.com; opening a URL that’s on the clipboard without having to launch Safari and then use iOS’s kludgy paste procedure; typing a URL, or even just opening a blank Safari page. It’s all right here.
Via: TechHive
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