My iPhone apps, February 2010
Peter just got an iPhone — which is especially good for him, since he’s a Mac guy, and the calendar and contacts will automatically sync up with the Apple applications on his home computer — and I figured it might be worth listing what apps I’m currently using on my iPhone. Note that these aren’t all in alphabetical order, because I’m going screen by screen (I use three screens) and some of the apps are in there as ways to distract James.
* Facebook – Free, and arguably better than the actual Web client
* Pennies – Low-cost (I don’t remember the exact cost), and a not terribly detailed budgeting tool. My only gripe with it is that it’s based around a monthly budget and automatically resets the money available on the first of each month.
* Stylebook – The AP Stylebook, on my phone. It’s not super-fast on the iPhone 3G (to put it mildly) and it costs real money, but it’s extremely useful for a working journalist.
* Tipulator – For the lazy people like me, who don’t want to engage their brains when splitting complicated checks. Great graphical user interface. Low cost.
* Twitterific – An ad-supported Twitter client that can handle multiple accounts. So I can switch between my personal account and the Hesperia Star’s account at will.
* Wikipanion – A very nice Wikipedia client (and much easier than reading it via the Safari Web browser). The free one, which I use, doesn’t save data for offline viewing, so the paid one is probably a better choice for iPod Touch users.
* Armory – A free World of Warcraft Armory client. If you know what that description means, you want it. If you don’t, skip it.
* Authenticator – A free Blizzard Authenticator, to keep your World of Warcraft account secure. (You even get a free in-game pet for attaching it to your account.) Again, you either know what that means and should want it, or you don’t and can skip it.
* Balloonanimals – Blow up balloons via the phone’s microphone, twist them into different shapes by shaking the phone and then touch them to interact with them. The free version comes with just a green Tyrannosaur. The pay version has 12 or so balloon animals. A keep-James-from-acting-his-age application.
* Bejeweled 2 – A great game from Popcap. Modestly priced and it connects via Facebook to show up on your friends’ scoreboards.
* Civ Rev – Civilization Revolution, the handheld version of the classic strategy computer game, in which you take your civilization (the Romans, the Egyptians, the Zulu, the Aztec, etc.) and take them from thinking that fire and the wheel are pretty clever technology through colonizing Alpha Centauri, all the while dealing with other world civilizations. Not free, but worth it.
* Koi Pond – The equivalent of a screen saver: A top-down view of interactive koi fish and a pond. Modestly priced.
* Lux Touch – A free Risk game. It doesn’t save games when you leave the program, but unfortunately, the pay version is slow, buggy and ugly, so just stick with this free one for a fast Risk game whenever.
* MachDice – A modestly priced dice roller. Good at what it does, but has memory leaks.
* Magic8Ball – A free Magic 8 Ball.
* Morocco – A free Othello game.
* Peggle – Another Popcap game, and amazingly fun, and surprisingly deep. Modestly priced, and worth twice as much as the cost.
* Scrabble – A pay game again, but this also connects via Facebook, letting you play your friends who play the Facebook game
* Solitaire City – The only card game you’ll ever need. In addition to the good interface, graphics and speed, this has something like 10,000,000 different games in it, including Freecell for the Windows XP users.
* Toy Story Mania – It’s supposed to be based on the Disney Toy Story arcade ride, where you play different carnival games. Unfortunately, each phase has a completely different control scheme, making it hard for a little guy like James to master it. It’ll probably be a big hit with him once he’s a year or two older. A pay game, of course.
* Amazon – A free Amazon.com client. I now prefer it to their Web site.
* AOL Radio – A free radio client that includes most CBS stations.
* AP Mobile – A free news client with push notifications. Unfortunately, you can’t yet customize what gets pushed, and unless you’re in an urban area, you get some odd choices for “local” news it that section, but it’s otherwise a great client.
* IMDB – A free client for the Internet Movie Database, for when you’re watching TV and wondering “where the heck have I see that actor before?” Again, better than the actual Web client.
* KCRW -A modestly priced app that includes all of KCRW’s audio streams, links to upcoming events and even video of in-studio performances.
* KPOA -A free app that gives access to the Maui radio station I fell in love with on my honeymoon. Imagine the radio station from “Northern Exposure” set in Maui. So nice.
* Now Playing – A free app that pulls together your Netflix account, Rotten Tomatoes reviews and what’s playing locally. You can even buy tickets through it.
* Pandora – The amazing Internet radio station, on your phone. Free.
* PS Mobile – A free Photoshop program. It’s very stripped down, and desperately wants you to post your photos to their site, but it does what you need it to quite well.
* Shazam – A free program to identify music you hear playing (you aim the phone’s microphone at it). It will also give you links to buy the song on iTunes, watch the video on YouTube, read the lyrics if they’re online and to other related sites.
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Keep your eye out for the new PayPal app, coming very soon. It’s got lots of cool new mojo. (and I had borderline nothing to do with it, I’m just cheerleading)
Comment by Joel Y — February 16, 2010 @ 23:50