Tuesday, July 27, 2010

What's on my iPhone

iTunes says I have a 180 apps, not all are currently on the phone. Here's a list of apps I use most often (not including the built-in ones).

Faces Lite - lets you create up to two pages showing pictures of up to 12 contacts on each. Clicking can start a phone call, text message, email, map of their address, or whatever else you want. Works much faster for me than going to one of the apps (Phone, Mail, Messages) directly. This is the free lite version, the $2 version gives you up to 14 screens though development seems to have stopped.

Echofon - my favorite twitter client. Free with ads, which aren't bad (the ad-free version is $5 which seems high). Does location, pics, completion, lists, searches, etc. I like it better than the official Twitter app (formerly Tweetie) because you can click on links directly in the main list instead of having to first select a specific tweet. Also it syncs with the desktop client which is fantastic.
Facebook - works reasonably well for keeping up with facebook. Wish it supported groups
Instapaper - I use this app to access the web service that saves articles for later viewing. It's a great app for reading, with tilt scrolling and nice formatting.
NetNewsWire - I have this to read my RSS feeds and it integrates with Google Reader so I can sync with the desktop app. But it doesn't keep my folders in the same order and syncing is slow and the formatting is just ok. As a result I don't use it all that much. Would love to find a better RSS reader.

Yelp - Good for getting restaurant and business reviews, phone numbers, locations, etc.
Grocery iQ - Just found this and it's a nice grocery list app, with favorites, stores with custom aisles, and bar code scanning. Was easy to populate with items I buy and sort them store. I used HandyShopper on the Palm and this is the closest I've seen to it. If you give yourself time to populate it all it becomes much easier to use.
Lose It! - Pretty good for keeping track of calories and exercises and is free.
Amazon - I use this all the time when shopping to check prices and reviews of a product before buying it. Great feature is that you can take a picture of the product, upload it and amazon will figure out what product it is and link to the page usually within 30 seconds.. Works best on books but also on other things. Also gives access to wish lists.

WeatherBug - my favorite weather app. There's a free version and I bought the full one (I don't remember the difference and it was cheap). Shows forecasts and animated radar maps.
NPR News - Yes, you can get audio stories but this is also the app I turn to for text news.
NYTimes - I had problems with early versions, but the current one works well.
Sportacular - Gives me enough info about the sports I do follow and let's me know if local teams are playing in town so I can avoid traffic.
Bloomberg - great market info
Flixster - I used to use Now Playing for movie times but it seems to have died (no updated info). This works almost as well showing info by theater or movie and upcoming films. Also gives access to my Netflix queue and integrates (a little too much) with the Facebook app and lets you buy tickets (which I haven't used it for).

Google - I use the voice search all the time and it works great, almost never makes an error.
Wikipanion - great formatting of wikipedia pages and does completion so you don't have to type out the whole search. I use the free version
IMDb - Does well for movie info searches and formats things nicer than just surfing to the web page, but doesn't include all the info (though there is a link to display in Safari)
Wolfram - I don't use it much but lately I've been using it to find when the ISS is visible or when sunset is. The web site works well, but the app does better at knowing where I am which helps in those searches.

AppBox Pro - a collection of little utilities like a flashlight, tip calculater, battery meter. Cheap (there's also a free lite version I think) and replaced a number of apps, but I don't use it that much.
Solve - a cute calculator that lets you draw numbers and operations with your finger. Surprising good for quick calculations
PCalc Lite - a free RPN calculator
Tip Box - a tip calculator that does bill splits, rounding, tips without tax and even separating out drinks from food.
Light - a free flashlight that uses the LED flash on the iPhone 4

Soundhound - Was originally Midomi and my choice for hearing a song playing and telling me what it is
Remote - a free iTunes remote from Apple. Works great when sitting in the living room away from my mac which is streaming to the stereo speakers over the AirPort Express
Pandora - everyone else uses it but I rarely do, I really should use it more

GoodReader - great reader that can handle very large PDFs with tons of well explained options. Also can read many other formats. I have some documents to read and maps to look at in it. I set it up as a file server and copy files over via the Finder, there are other ways too
Dropbox - a great web service for syncing files across various machines. Easy way to put files on your iPhone.
Simplenote - I've just started using this. It's a web service for simple text notes, but there's an open API and several client apps on various platforms. The syncing is fast and this app works well for reading and writing notes on the iPhone. I use Notational Velocity on the Mac.

Starmap - my favorite astronomy app and by far the most expensive app I've bought ($12). I've even bought the iPad version already while it's on sale for $1 for when I do get an iPad at some point in the future. On an iPhone 4 (and 3GS) it's great with the compass, just hold it up and it shows you what's in front of it. I also use the Tonight feature to see what's interesting to look at. Great app.
iCSC - Shows a graphic representation of how good the viewing conditions are at night. Basically you want the squares to be darker and if so it's worth looking at the stars.
NASA - Nice news on various missions and great images of the day.

I don't play a lot of games an tend to play quick puzzle like ones. I'm open to more suggestions.

Gems 3D - This is an iPhone version of my favorite Palm puzzler called No Mess. Great small game that you can pick up and put down and play for any amount of time.
Strategery - a risk-like game. I played the free lite version for a while and finally bought the full game. The epic size is huge. Great way to kill 3-10 minutes
Moonlight lite - My mahjongg puzzle of choice
SmartReversi - the best othello port I've found, I still suck at this game
FourFree - ConnectFour
Archon - this is a faithful port of the game I played on the Atari 800 in high school. It's a chess like game, except when you take a piece, they fight on a field and each piece has a different power.
NetHack - a year and a half ago I got Rogue on the iPhone. Last weekend I got NetHack which seems to have been ported by the same person. Great job, great dungeon adventure game that's been in development for over 20 years.
iQuarters - Just got this and it's surprisingly fun. Lots of richochetts.

So what else is there that should be on my iPhone?

6 comments:

AM said...

Thanks for Archon

I use Google reader for my rss reader

iwant to find things near me (restaurants, ice cream, bathrooms,...)

The weather channel

AP mobile for news

Games
Enjoy Daily (Sudoku)
Cryptograms

Redlaser for price checking
Take me to my car (marks where I park)

Richard said...

You have a great list here.

Some things I have that you do not are:
MLB at bat, though I don't think you care about baseball that much.
Stanza, book reader with a good database of free books.
Scrabble
Conquest (a free Risk like game)

I will check out the ones you suggest, this is a terrific resource, thanks for putting it together.

Howard said...

That's just the web page for Google Reader right? I might try that. AppBox Pro also has a GReader app...

I had tried iWant a while ago and it didn't have much. Yelp serves that purpose for me now, but I might try iWant again. It could be a regional thing too.

I liked WeatherBug over The Weather Channel app.

I use AP Mobile too though it's alerts are a little too chatty or too difficult to make go away. It's improved in the last update, but it's 3rd on my news list after NPR and NYT.

I've been looking for a good Sudoku player. I use Sudoku and Sudoku2. Still all of them are a pain for switching in and out of note mode. A pencil is so much easier.

I just recently got red laser and have to try it more. I have Take Me To My Car too but don't use it much. It's a little too slow to setup, particularly when it still thinks you're parked somewhere else because you didn't need it to get back to your car last time.

I know about MLB at Bat and am impressed but not interested.

I have iBooks, Stanza and Kindle on the iPhone but don't use any of them much. I use Instapaper for long articles and that seems to be enough reading for the device.

I don't have Conquest but Lux Touch which is also Risk. Strategery is a little more abstract and can have a much bigger map, so it won out for me.

AM said...

Yes, the web page for Google Reader. I made an icon for it so I think of it as an app.

The Dad said...

Many of the above, plus:

Scramble - very well designed Boggle game. The wife is addicted

Froggy Jump - Frogger-esque game the kids constantly use up my battery on

Naturespace - a headphones-only ambient noise app. If you work in a noisy environment, put this app on and work to the sounds of the ocean, nature, or nighttime.

Flipshare - for Flip camera owners to view their shared online videos

Zippo Lighter - great for Def Leppard concerts

PNC Mobile - specific for PNC Bank customers, but excellent app for checking funds, paying bills, and balance transfers.

Comcast - reasonably good app allowing you to check mail and listen to voicemails on your home line. Push notification allows you to be notified when you have voicemail.

FamilyTree - ties to the MacFamilyTree application. Loads your tree on your phone for easy reference at family reunions. Fanstastic visuals of the tree, mediocre ability to edit and add records.

iBurgh - for reporting potholes on Pittsburgh streets.

Carnegie Mellon - podcasted lectures, monthly newsletter, etc.

Sherwin williams colorsnap - allows you to take a pic of a wall and have it approximate the color of that wall to a SW paint color. Also allows you to search colors and make a pallet of colors, which is very handy when deciding on colors for a room and bringing those colors to furniture stores, etc.

Anonymous said...

Howard, thanks for these. Do you have a link for the faces app? I can't seem to find it.