Wednesday March 11, 2009

My iPhone Applications

I promised a friend new to the iPhone that I'd post a list of the applications I'd used, tried, found useful, or found useless. That was a long time ago. The list keeps getting longer and it is really hard to keep up with the list of applications (mostly free) that I've downloaded and deleted.

Wins:

• TWC (The Weather Channel); I live in an area with volatile weather and I travel a fair bit.
• Facebook; I only became interested in social networking when good mobile clients became available. Now the clients are useful. They make the stop on the trail or the grocery line easier to deal with.
• Fitness; this diary application is a good chunk of the reason I'm 40lbs lighter after 1/2 a year or so.
• LinkedIn; Probably unnecessary given the frequency that I interact with LinkedIn but it is a reasonable client.
• Twitterific; Do I like microblogging? Not sure, but this was my favorite of the twitter clients that I tried.
• Google; I use mostly reader, docs, notebook, and news. I think web based applications are at least somewhat painful to use. But for reading blogs syncing with desktop reading is necessary and for the other things standalone applications that I've tried havn't come close.
• Flixster; I'm not a huge movie goer but the ability to look at times, see reviews, and see a trailer wherever is starting to change that.
• MySpace
• HanDBase; I've only used the iPhone software but this seems to be a really good personal database manager. I plan on getting the PC software. I used some free software on my treo to maintain poker and other databases and was bummed when such things didn't initially exist on the iPhone.
• Pandora; Streaming audio based upon my suggestions: what a killer idea. This program is hurt by being made to be a second class citizen by Apple's silly rules against backgrounding.
• Stanza
• Kindle; wrt ebook readers for the iPhone see http://blogs.sun.com/mph/entry/kindle_2. Right now it is second rate but I see no reason why it shouldn't equal or surpass the other readers. When I got this I dumped some of the standalone readers I had for specific documents (e.g. US constitution).
• eReader

Purgatory:

• HoldEm; gets boring fast
• GraphCalc; wish I had this when I was in school
• DarkRoom; the camera on the iPhone just isn't good enough to usually care
• Night Stand; mostly amusing because of the icon
• WiFiFoFum; scopes are cool but useful?
• Frotz; bring back memories
• Ping Lite
• Lighter
• iMapMyRun; none of the run/hike mapping software was useful to me maybe 'cuz most of my runs and hikes are in areas with fairly poor GPS reception
• RunKeeper
• Everytrail
• Amazon.com; not a bad application but I'm going to do most of my buying on something with a keyboard and a useful screen so this is just really about tracking packages
• Backgrounds; I think these were initially a lot cooler. I suspect copyright issues got in their way.
• Lifestream; of the low authentication social applications this is one of the most amusing.
• Zippo Lighter; the kids like playing on my phone.
• Jelly Car; My niece's favorite game.
• Enigmo; My favorite game!
• Tap Tap Revenge
• Gigotron; this database for the SF Bay Area really isn't very complete
• MoodTouch
• Woopie; a little bathroom humor is good for anybody.
• Fart For Free
• Sound Box
• USA TODAY; gotten little use as I've used google news more and more.
• iHandyLevel; trendy but probably not very useful.
• Cradle; mesmerizing
• EccoNote; I thought I mgiht use this more but I havn't.
• Trailguru
• Google Earth
• DigiLite
• Shazam
• TouchTerm
• LivePoker
• AroundMe; searching on the maps program is good enough that this gets little use.
• midomi; I would have though this and shazam would have been more fun for me but they rarely get used.
• VNC; a gimic?
• SportsTap; occasionally useful to those around me.
• Wikipanion
• Labyrinth LE
• Loopt
• Yelp
• YPMobile
• GoodGuide
• iPickupLines; way funny
• FreeWi-Fi; this has been useful a few times
• UPL; stupider then iPickupLines but it still has its moments
• TV.com; I don't watch enough TV to make any of the TV viewers/guides very useful
• What's On?

Downloaded but havn't tried or don't remember:

• Strat Assault
• Sudoku
• PuzzleFree
• FourFree
• TypePad
• PAC-MAN
• iTick
• SnapTell
• Easy Wi-Fi
• Joost
• Tangram Pro
• S.deadbeef
• CraigSearch
• Hotelsnearme
• Bookmarks
• Reign Free
• EyeTricks
• DoneDrinkn
• Checkers
• Mancala FSS
• FallingBalls
• DDR S Lite
• Fastlane Lite
• Bounce Lite
• Public Radio
• LightBike
• vlingo
• Hotels
• Hotel Sites
• HotelRadar
• Geotags
• GRAMMYs
• iJiggles
• iBurn
• Watchmen
• MadSheels
• Whiteboard
• MobileFiles
• MarbleMash
• Brain Tuner
• PocketGuitar
• Translator
• Cube
• LiveJournal
• YouNote
• iDoodle2lite
• Shanghai