Just did a quick videocam intereview with a guy named Justin who has a show called TalkingheadTV and he was asking me which iPhone apps I like best. Um, well, uh, I had to admit that I’d only tried a few. Flashlight (stupid but it’s only a buck and possibly useful someday); Facebook, AIM, Tetris, WeatherBug, VoiceRecord. And that was it. Justin turned me on to Jott, SpeechCloud and SpeedDial. But this made me wonder. What are the best ones? Which ones should I check out? Which are the must-haves? Any and all recommendations appreciated.
34 Comments
Comments are closed.
Hi! buy pure hoodia
LoL… I actually used the myLight app. I was on a greek island and the electricity went out. Everything turned pitch-black and we had to walk down some stairs to get to our studio. My iPhone turned flashlight totally saved us.
best iphone app is jiggles:
http://linearlabs.net/jigglesfortheiphone/
PHONESABER RULES
… the off button
Screw Flashlight, Light, etc., just double tap the home button and use your favorites as a flashlight. Works great. Or open a new Safari window
I would have to recommend Shazam, though. Run the app when you’re listening to the radio and it will ID the song for you, and provide links to YouTube and iTunes. It doesn’t work well with Classical music (which is honestly where it would be most helpful as those songs are 15 minutes long and the DJs never get around to telling you what you’ve been listening to), but works great with pop music.
Weatherbug is indispensable, and if I were Yahoo I would cry right now because my weather widget sucks so much.
The other ones I use all the time are NetNewsWire, Facebook and Twitterific.
I got a fever. And the only prescription.. is MORE COWBELL.
This app uses such a simple idea – the ability to play along to your collection. Now all we need is iTambourine – then I’ll be tying ribbons on my iPhone and will be shakin’ it like a Polaroid picture.
By FAR the best I have seen is PangeaVR! It is a great viewer for interactive panoramas which uses OpenGL acceleration. Even better – it is FREE. Go get it!
Sketches, Pandora, Yelp, Pianist (just for the thrill of it), G-Park, HangmanSim, WritingPad
VNC Lite lets you manipulate your Windows desktop through your iPhone, putting something beautiful in the service of a truly lost cause. Kind of like Susan Decker.
OmniFocus is indispensable to me because I also use the desktop version;
Evernote is great and very handy for taking notes;
Twitterrific is a good, solid app, though I’d like to be able to switch profiles like I can on Twhirl on the desktop;
The WordPress app is surprisingly nice;
Midomi kicks Shazam’s ass, because you can sing to it, and it’ll identify your songs, as well as playing prerecorded ones;
CritterCrunch is a surprisingly awesome puzzle game;
Super Monkey Ball is okay, but the calibration on the controls is WAY off. Labyrinth LE feels pitch-perfect, though.
things. netnewswire. I bought the touch so I could have things.
Of the 30+ app I have installed, I use Scrabble the most.
Seconding Mocha VNC as well as the WordPress app.
Third and fourthing (is that a word, hmmm?) Pandora as well as AOL Radio – both perfect for a 3g area.
videocam interview? what? is this the new scoble blog?
Super Monkey Ball. To quote the great Andy Ihnatko: “Monkeys are like bacon. They improve just about anything.”
sorry for the double comment.
you know that “sense of child-like wonderment” every time i use shazam i have a big toothy grin as it finds the song i’m not smart enough to recognize.
and cowbell makes me laugh hysterically, especially when i play don’t fear the reaper.
Remote, hands down the best app. I have 200gb of music in my iTunes and it’s absolutely brilliant to be able to control that from my iPhone.
After that I love Comic Touch – it lets you put comic word balloons on your photos. Really great if you want to annotate a photo and send it to someone. There’s a slew of other apps like Comic Touch but none are as visually appealing.
Finally, I second iPint. A fun little app for making people double-take.
P.S. Please ask FSJ to blog here occasionally. The web is just not the same without his SIOOMA.
APPLE remote. Great.
Phonesaber. While showing off my iPhone’s ability to do a Google search wasn’t that impressive. Making my iPhone into a lightsaber with cool sounds made my Nephew laugh and giggle for an hour. And that makes it a great app.
absolutely, without question, Shazam.
and if you could get a note to fake steve: real iPhone handheld checkout app for the apple stores. and get rid of those damn ugly things they’re using now.
I would have to say it’s Mocha VNC (free, remote access your computer on the iPhone)…
Joe S has it right, Shazam is the most magical of the current crop of iPhone apps…and if you’re in the productivity realm, check out “Things”…GTD for iPhone.
Bloomberg (free) is a great financial app. I also just downloaded Shazam (free) which can identify any song. I have to say it works great. It has been correct everytime.
Pandora, as mentioned. Twinkle and Twitteriffic (for Twitter). AOL Radio. And, of course, Apple’s Remote.app.
This is really just a fake question, right?
I actually like the Bank of America mobile banking one (ok, so I’m a dork.
I also like Pandora (internet radio for your iphone).
I have to second on the whole… there is a free flashlight application! Aurora Feint, Pandora, Last.fm, NetNewsWire, Enigmo, JirboBreak, Facebook are all pretty good so far.
My favorite is Pandora. I live in a good 3G area, and I can have my Pandora channels playing in the car with me whenever. Also free.
Aurora Feint – amazing game, more amazing is that it’s free
iPint – Watch a frosted mug fill up with beer and then you empty it by pouring it, i.e., tilting the iPhone. Always good for a laugh when introducing someone to theiPhone.
iWash – OK, this isn’t a true app. It’s a cute and clever video by Big Brain Studios. You launch it and a girl in a bikini comes out and washes your screen.
Cube Runner – Great game. Simple dodge the squares coming at you.
BoxOffice – A simple way to see what’s playing at your local theatre.
Where – A simple app the let’s you locate various pre-programmed items, e.g., gas stations, events, Starbucks (personally I’d prefer Dunkin’ Donuts) and a view of the night time stars.
MobileNews – Read the latest AP news. Nice implementation.
Google – Google for the iPhone. Not bad if you use Google as your RSS reader.
And my favorite – Shazam – Launch the app when you hear a song (not on the iPhone) and the app listens to the song for a moment and then provides you with the name of the artist, song title and album. Incredible.
Is this comment by Dan Lyons, the human being, or “RealDan”, the character?
I am struggling to understand the identity of this blog. What I want is the old fsj back or at least the same style as the old fsj.
Thanks for listening!
Movies and Yelp are location aware and handy to have.
Keep an eye out for the free 1Password port coming out soon. The app completely rules on the Mac, and the dev team is going to give it away when it gets final approval for the Appstore.
OmniFocus: combines a To-Do manager, a voice recorder, and location-aware task planning. I add in things I know I have to pick up at the grocery store as they come to me, or odds-and-ends tasks, and then next time I’ve got some time to spare, I press the Nearby button and up comes “Safeway [<2 miles]” and the list of items below it, or “Office [here]” and things I’ve been meaning to take care of outside of downloading new apps.
More Cowbell: Free, and sometimes you need more cowbell (completely brainless, but sometimes tech can be fun).
Urbanspoon: Want to go for a meal but don’t know what? This takes the slot-machine method to it. You can randomise by your city’s neighbourhood, style of meal, and even price level, or if you’re dead-set on certain requirements (say “Nob Hill” but no preference for price or style) you can lock parts down. A total First World Problem solver.
Sorry, Dan, but if you read the reviews for Flashlight (they were there before July 11 even) you’d have noticed that a free app by Erica Sadun, Light, was also available at the same time. You lost $1 to a guy who came first alphabetically. How does it feel?
A good one: BoxOffice. It beats Movies.App.
Here’s a good list: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/07/21/2-weeks-later-iphone-apps-i-actually-use/
Aurora Feint, Things, Galcon, WordPress