Using my iPhone in place of a computer?
March 24, 2009 11:23 AM   Subscribe

I just wanted to post a question regarding my iPhone. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or app recommendations to use my iPhone to it's full potential.

I don't have a computer yet, so in the meantime I wish to use my iPhone for mainly for the purpose of reading and studying. I'm currently in the USAF, so I spend a lot of time with reading PDF files related to my position. Also more documents related to outside study. Any inputs would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

PS. I know this is off topic, but this is my first post on Metafilter! I have been a long time reader. Glad to finally be apart of the HiveMind! Thanks!
posted by Junior687 to Computers & Internet (9 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Stanza has a number of books available for free or purchase. I also heard something about Amazon releasing kindle related software for the iPhone, but haven't checked it out myself.
posted by valadil at 11:32 AM on March 24, 2009


Stanza is a great app for reading documents - I read books on it all the time. It supports pdf files, and I've never had any trouble with it, but I know some people have had difficulties with pdf files not working.

eReader is another app for reading, but I believe it only opens pdb files.

For studying, I like to use Evernote to remind me of all the things I forget (deadlines, etc), and Anki is an excellent SRS app for iphone.
posted by spockette at 11:33 AM on March 24, 2009


There have been some past threads, and the applicable ones I've found are this search for good apps, and this one on the iPod Touch.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2009


Kindle for the iphone is pretty good, and the selection seems pretty broad.

I've been having a great time playing a game called Eliss - really fun, uses multitouch.

Stanza is really good too- they seem to have a fair amount of golden age SF as well as most of project gutenberg on there.
posted by jenkinsEar at 12:23 PM on March 24, 2009


AirSharing lets you copy all sorts of files to your iPhone over WiFi from any computer. Once they are there, you can view any file that apple has a built in file viewer for (video, audio, office documents, PDFs). An added bonus is that they've enhanced the PDF viewer to make it easy to scroll in big jumps, which is nice for big documents..

On other fronts, Tuner is one of a few apps that lets you listen to streaming MP3 (shoutcast) stations.
posted by Good Brain at 2:59 PM on March 24, 2009


Nthing Stanza for reading, I love that app.

Best game I've found: iDracula (used to be $5, I think it is still on sale for .99)
posted by misha at 3:01 PM on March 24, 2009


I thought you had to have a computer to activate an iPhone?
posted by Brian Puccio at 4:19 PM on March 24, 2009


Response by poster: @ Brian P. I got the phone activated at Best Buy when I purchased it.
posted by Junior687 at 7:40 PM on March 24, 2009


Best answer: I use Briefcase for PDF storage/reading, but I haven't found *any* reader that is a great experience with large PDF files. Briefcase is only marginally better than just having the PDFs in a IMAP folder of a GMail account that I've checked so the files are cached on the phone. It (and most third party readers) at least saves your location for the next time you open it.

If anyone has experience with a good program specifically good for large PDFs, I'm all ears and I suspect the files the OP talks about are not tiny either.

Note to original poster: might want to consider a netbook for size/cost reasons. I just bought a Dell Mini 9 yesterday for under $200 new; deals come out occasionally. Check Dell's outlet site or wait for a deal on a non-refurb by browsing Fatwallet or Slickdeals.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 9:30 AM on March 25, 2009


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