Peeps by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

Peeps is a new and interesting way to view your contacts- by their pictures!

When you first open the application, all you contact are loaded into the app. For me it only took about 5 second to import all 150 or so contacts.

After that you’ll see a screen that has about 9 of your contacts pictures and their names are listed below them. You can scroll up and down to see your contact via their pictures. If you tap on a picture you will be able to see your contact’s info. Also within the multi-contact screen, you can create a new contact via the app by tapping on the “+” in the upper-right corner.

By tapping the “Peeps” button in the upper-left-hand corner you will be able to view your groups and to create them as well.

In the screen shot below I created “Mi Peeps.” Since I don’t have a whole lot of contacts with pictures, I began to create a list of contacts that do have pictures. I also accidentally added someone that didn’t have a picture, If you need to remove a contact from a group, tap and hold on the contact’s picture and you will have the option to delete the contact, remove contact from group or cancel.

In creating the group of your choice, you can either select contacts from your existing Address book or create a new one.

While viewing you contacts, if you turn you iPhone on it’s side, then you can view you contacts in an “cover-flow” format as your would on you iPhone’s iPod.app. Just like in the iPod.app when you tap on the abum cover, you receive a playlist of that album, well in Peeps, when you tap the photo, you get all there contact information. This is a neat adaptation from the iPod.app.

I however, found that the screen turned back from the cover-flow with the slightest tilt out of “landscape” view.

[Editor's note: Since Apple has not made the CoverFlow API public, Peeps built a home-made version to emulate the functionality, which caused some confusion and delayed the release of the app]

Overall

I think this an interesting app especially if you have a lot of contacts with pictures, if you are like me and only 5% or so of your contacts have pictures, then this application is probably not for you. For people that do have a lot of contact pictures, I think this will be a “cool” way to casually flip trough your contact and show your friends, but, I don’t think it will be of great use in the event you need to call one of your contacts, especially if you are in a hurry.

I’d really like to see adjustments made to the accelerometers in viewing contacts in “cover-flow.” After writing this review once and then speaking with the Peeps support, I found out a little more about the app than before. So and information screen explaining how to display and edit contact would be a nice feature to have. At $1.99 I recommend this app for people with lots of photos in their address book. It also seems to be a nice way to update the photos of a contact a bit quicker than going through the contacts one-by-one in the Address book.

Pros:

• Cover-flow viewing of contacts
• Easy and quick setup
• Create your own groups.

Cons:

• Viewing in Cover-flow is fickle

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[Peeps is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Podcaster was rejected from the App Store for duplicating the (at that point upcoming) functionality of the built in iPod app. Seems like Podstreamer (Streamcaster in the Canadian store?!), however, made it in. While the two apps might not be identical, the situation does nothing to alleviate the appearance of capricious, near-random behavior from Apple’s approval department. (Thanks benstinson for the tip!)

Next up, Daring Fireball reports that a CoverFlow-esque contacts app was rejected by Apple for using the private CoverFlow API.

The problem? According to developer Landon Fuller, they didn’t use any private APIs — they created their own Cover Flow implementation using the public APIs.

Gruber rightly notes the apparent hypocrisy in Google publicly flaunting their use of private API’s in the Google Mobile App, while Peeps is rejected for the mere (apparently wrongful) suspicion they’re using one.

Lastly, Ars Technica says Apple has added a new category to the App Store… one that allows for Pull My Finger to make its inglorious return:

“The very kind Apple Team Member told me that they didn’t want to reject it originally, but that they were sorting out how this ‘genre’ of apps were going to be handled,” he added. “She told me they’d be lifting the restriction on them, and more apps will follow that may have been previously not allowed.”

What else will this new “Entertainment” category cover? What else will it allow? Your most creative guesses welcome in the comments!