Comments on: Iphone app filter 2009

Question: Iphone app filter 2009

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:49:03 -0800

What are the most fun and useful I-phone apps?

It's been about a year since the last general round up of the gems of the Iphone apps.

I'm a total noob so I just have Facemelter and Urban Spoon so far...what are the wackiest party-tricks, most useful (but not work-related) tools, and most oddball and addictive games that you all use?

I'd rather spend nothing but if its something you swear I'll use more than once I would pay a few bucks for it.

By: Flood

Flood — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:49:49 -0800

shazam is great

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 07:51:41 -0800

Also if you could explain a little about what it does that would rock.

Shazam I have heard of but I am way too smart to ever need help identifying anything at all.

By: harriet vane

harriet vane — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:03:03 -0800

I like Things as a to-do list - sits in that nice space between too-simple and too-complex.

If you use Delicious for bookmarking, I've found that RedDelicious is the best app for it. Mobile Fotos is pretty good for Flickr, although I've heard they've improved their mobile site so it might not be necessary anymore, I'm not sure.

Stanza is the best e-reader, in that I'm regularly using it to finish reading novels instead of just starting to read them then giving up. Haven't tried the Kindle though, because of Aussie limitations.

Instapaper Free is pretty good - bookmark longer articles then read them as a text-only version on your phone later on.

The TED talks app isn't that great - you can stream the talks to your phone, which chews up your data rates, or wait until you've got free wifi. But you can't download them to watch later.

By: blaneyphoto

blaneyphoto — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:04:26 -0800

My most useful apps:
iTrans NYC
Airsharing
Facebook
Flashlight
Google earth
i.tv
Ny Times
Remote
Usa Today
The Weather Channel

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:06:12 -0800

What The Font (take a picture of some writing, it locates the font) is pretty mind blowing. As is SnapTell (take a picture of a book, it pulls it up on Amazon, et. al)

Skype for the iPhone is also great. Free calls (on wifi)!

By: Tomorrowful

Tomorrowful — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:08:08 -0800

Note that streaming TED talks is much less problematic when you've got unlimited data - as Americans like Potomac Avenue do.

By: the_ancient_mariner

the_ancient_mariner — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:08:23 -0800

Pandora is probably the best application I've used so far. It's an internet radio station that plays songs that sound similar to the songs you like.

The Facebook application is fast, user-friendly & good.

"Ambience" plays looping sounds of seawaves, birds etc to create, uh, an ambience.

"USAToday" is one of the nicer news applications in my opinion -- they have a photo gallery that's very well done.

"Phoneflix" lets you control your Netflix queues.

"The weather channel" is a good application for looking up detailed information about the weather.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:22:04 -0800

Frenzic, a game, is an excellent time-waster.
iNeedStuff is one of the only (if not the only) grocery-list app that lets you sync between two phones. This has proven to be really handy in my home.
Amazon.com's app
Google Earth
Labyrinth—like the old wooden tilty maze game. Excellent demo of the accelerometer.
Now Playing for movie listings and Netflix queue management
What's On? for TV listings.
Simplify Media lets you stream the music collection from your computer at home, in case your collection is too big for the phone's storage. Kinda slow to read in the library, though.

By: birdwatcher

birdwatcher — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:25:33 -0800

Below apps are all free and come highly recommended:

Sportacular
Pandora
Public Radio
Google
Remote
Flixster
Lose It
RepairPal
craigsphone
RunKeeper
Trailguru

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:35:36 -0800

AirSharing - Drag and drop files from your Mac/PC to your phone. Great if you have a PDF or two you'd like to have on hand.

Mega Man II - Seriously. It's Mega Man II! The controls take a bit to get used to and it can be pretty easy, but hey, Mega Man!

Pandora - Love it. Although if you listen to it long enough, they really start to scrape the bottom of the barrel for genre matching.

Kindle - If you have a Kindle already. (I do)

Most social networks have some sort of app, so if there's one (Yelp, Facebook, etc) that you use a lot, look it up in the App Store.

By: craven_morhead

craven_morhead — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:51:03 -0800

Wikipanion for looking stuff up on Wikipidia. I like weather bug for current doppler info.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:09:29 -0800

AppVee have a site dedicated to reviewing Iphone apps. They provide - usually helpful - video reviews and a ratings system that seems less bozo-skewed than that on the AppStore.

By: minicloud

minicloud — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:12:20 -0800

I'm not a big game person, but Eliss is addictive and really REALLY well designed. The music and sound effects are soothing as well.

I also use gFlash a lot because I'm trying to learn French. its a flash card app which is free and you can upload your own flashcards from a google spreadsheet.

By: empath

empath — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:18:41 -0800

The ones I tend to use the most:

games: Sneezies, iDracula, Passage
Twitter: Lounge, Twitterific

By: empath

empath — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:22:06 -0800

Shazam I have heard of but I am way too smart to ever need help identifying anything at all.

Shazam is absolutely fucking worthless for trainspotting during DJ sets. Just playing around with it at various clubs around town, it gets maybe 10%, and it's almost always in cases where I already knew the track title.

Though, I have found it useful for iding songs in stores and restaurants. I'm still bitter about hearing a beautiful song at Urban Outfitters a couple of years ago and never iding it, so at least I know that will never happen again.

By: rtha

rtha — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:26:49 -0800

Seconding Stanza. If you use the desktop client in conjunction with the iphone app, you can open Word docs and pdfs that you already have and sync it with your phone. If you just use the app on the phone, you can download free books from gutenberg and books you pay for from other sites you can access via the app.

I downloaded wurdle (a boggle-like game, $2) recently. I'm finding it addictive, fun, and frustrating - totally worth the two bucks if you like that sort of thing.

Nthing Instapaper and Airsharing.

The Drinks app is fantastic if you like cocktails - it has recipes, you search by ingredient, and you can add your own and modify existing recipes. I think it's about six dollars, and I don't regret buying it at all.

NPR Addict aggregates the various NPR programs (the news shows, Fresh Air, the music shows, etc) and you can pick through and listen to stuff you missed. Very handy. Also, free.

By: Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:43:32 -0800

Other people have already mentioned Stanza, so I'll throw in Drop7. Great game.

By: Kellydamnit

Kellydamnit — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:47:50 -0800

Google was indispensable while on a road trip, for the maps feature using "current location" alone.

I've lost almost 15 lbs since installing the "lose it!" app. Just the act of counting calories and tracking my food did it, and it makes it easy. It's very west-coast centric, though, in terms of the chain restaurants included. I wish they would update more... I'm not expecting something as regional as Tim Hortons or Mighty Taco, but even Dunkin Donuts would be nice. (that seems to be a running theme for all the calorie count apps, so if anyone has a suggestion for one with better Northeast coverage I'd be thrilled to hear it.)

Phoneflix is the best netflix-management app I've found so far. I found the management portion easier than Now Playing (and i.tv's listings are better for tv than it, so I ditched now playing completely.)

Stanza, like others said, is great

Twitterfon is the best of the free twitter apps I've found so far.

Shozu is kinda neat- it interfaces from your phone to more than a dozen photo sharing sites, so you can send your phone pics to them without uploading via the computer. Flickr, photobucket, but also blogger, facebook, livejournal (pay), picasa, twitpic, etc.

Oh, and puzzlequest? you'll drain your battery and not care, it's so fun.

By: thebrokedown

thebrokedown — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:59:23 -0800

Though it has flaws, I have enjoyed Scrabble, but i am a big Scrabble nerd. Textropolis is another word game that is fun and you can play it a few minutes at a time.

I have the Metafilter app and use it occasionally, though I prefer it on my desktop.

By: valadil

valadil — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:02:33 -0800

Just going to nth Airsharing. I *love* having bus schedules and maps in my pocket at all times.

By: Fleebnork

Fleebnork — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:11:14 -0800

What The Font (take a picture of some writing, it locates the font) is pretty mind blowing.

Oh my god, thank you.

By: craven_morhead

craven_morhead — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:11:56 -0800

Anybody use box.net? Looks like a free option to airsharing.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:15:29 -0800

the Metafilter app

Stop teasing.

By: spilon

spilon — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:19:27 -0800

Quordy is a very fun and addictive game. It is sorta like Boggle.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:43:28 -0800

Flight Control is a perfect addictive casual game (with great graphic design if that sort of thing makes you happy).

By: mce

mce — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:22:14 -0800

In addition to the excellent suggestions made above:

touchterm: a handy terminal with a connection manager for frequent ssh'ing

night stand: a led clock sim. I can read it without glasses or contacts.

tap defense: fun!

flixster: for movie reviews, showtimes & trailers. works well in the western canadian cities I've tried it in

hanDBase: a port of the venerable palmOS uber relational db manager. yeah you can do lists with it but you can do a helluva lot more.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:36:29 -0800

Another vote for Flight control. Scramboni is a fun networked multi-player game.

By: karizma

karizma — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:22:12 -0800

Bookmarks (del.icio.us client)
Yelp
GPSLite
Twitterfon (free Twitter client)
Now Playing
Easy Wi-Fi

By: maryrosecook

maryrosecook — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:49:26 -0800

Tweetie is a genuinely great Twitter client.
Deep Green is a fantastic Chess app. Really lets the beauty of the game shine through.
Rolando is, by far, the best iPhone game I've played.
Eliss is quite a good iPhone game.
Instapaper Pro is good - the tilt scrolling is great.
Facebook app is fine, though doesn't show nearly enough data.
WordPress app is very clean and provides a very reasonable interface for writing prose.
WikiTap is a handy Wikipedia reference app.

By: yarrow

yarrow — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:28:38 -0800

No one's said Evernote, so I will. Syncs notes among your computers and your phone/Touch.
"Ruler" is a ruler
iDb is a funny little database program - I have the free version and haven't played with it too much, but I believe you can import/export small amounts of data; one of the little prefab dbases lets you log notes with a timestamp
Scribble is a very simple interface for drawing pictures
Multiconvert does a variety of conversions
Kayak for flight reservations
EasyWriter gives you a horizontal keyboard (roomier) to compose an email on, then sends the text to the email program
Oh, and I have an app called MiniPiano that lets you play notes on a one-octave keyboard but I can't say I've found much use for it

By: yarrow

yarrow — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:33:51 -0800

Oh, and I think it's worth figuring out how to back up your apps before upgrading (google around for directions, I think it varies by OS); that way if you upgrade and don't like a change that's been made you can revert to an older version of the app.

By: peagood

peagood — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:04:58 -0800

mr. peagood and I have used the level about a dozen times now. That's all it is, a level. But there are no longer any arguments about picture hanging.

By: karizma

karizma — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:17:33 -0800

dictionary.com (the app, not the website) is also fairly awesome.

By: talldean

talldean — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:34:13 -0800

The Amazon Kindle app is the app of the year, hands down, no questions asked for me.

Fieldrunners was a super addictive game until I ran out of new strategies.

By: cyborgirl

cyborgirl — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:04:21 -0800

Apps I use often that might be useful for a wide range of people:

Twitteriffic: Free Twitter client.
Day Bank: Keeps track of bank account balances and tracks spending. FABULOUS customer support from the company too.
Lose It: Already mentioned above, gotta second it.
Around Me: Shows restaurants, gas stations, banks, etc that are... well, around me. Great on trips.
Flickster: Tells you what movies are out, what's coming, show times, reviews, etc.
Bookworm: Freakin' addictive make-a-word game.
Stanza: Already recommended by several people here, I use it daily.

By: exceptinsects

exceptinsects — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:13:33 -0800

Glyder is my new favorite game and by FAR worth the 99 cents.

Other fun games: Mancala, Lock & Roll (kind of like Yahtzee but not really) and Lux (basically Risk).

By: banannafish

banannafish — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:12:37 -0800

I downloaded Drop7 (lite) and played it for almost three hours the first night I had it - absolutely love love love it. My boyfriend also downloaded it and now we play for an embarrassingly long amount of time.
Word Warp is free, and good. Like Boggle, but free.
And my nieces and nephew (ages five and six) love the Bolt game as well as Whiteboard.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:49:14 -0800

For lists (To-do, grocery, gifts, etc) I got Listomni. You can email lists in spread sheet format, and the recipient can then move the email into their copy of the program. You can enter a list on a spread sheet on Google Docs, and load that into the program as well. The support is great and the project very actively making improvements.

I like the Weather Channel app for their hourly forecast.

In Switzerland, the SBB app is indispensable, if you use public transport. New version due out this month (June, as I post), will even sell you a class upgrade that you show the ticket people.

Touch Physicis is the most interesting game I've found. I bought the full version, the Lite was so much fun. Also, "Enjoysudoku", if you're inclined to arrange digits on 9x9 grids (LOL). "MarbleMazeUltra", if you like running marbles through mazes. This one has maze parts that move, too, making it trickier.

"Weightbot" is a nice weight-tracking program, with a very simple yet clever interface.

By: snarfois

snarfois — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:48:28 -0800

Another vote for Eliss, a beautiful and original game really that really exploits the potential of multi-touch.

I also use Instapaper a lot.