iphone apps to get?

[Ernest Burden III]

Yesterday I bought the new iphone. A MacAddict friend wanted to go with me just to watch me purchase my first Apple product ever.

 

I went to one Apple store to learn that they only have phones in the mornings, then went to another to line up early to build up my worthiness to enter the shrine and sacrifice my money to Steve Jobs. After almost three hours to get the phone, it was off to an AT&T store to fix the screw-ups on the new account. But now I have the thing, a black-backed 16Gig. Yea.

 

I looked at the stuff in the app store, but don't know what's worth getting. There are a few drawing/paint apps, which look like fun, but you can't draw with anything but a finger (a rounded plastic pen cap, for example, doesn't work--it must read heat or electric changes instead of touch/pressure alone) so I doubt I could draw anything precise. There are a few navigation apps that add to what Apple/Google has built in, right? Anything I should get?

 

Speaking of the navigation, in my house the phone could only figure out what town I was in. I went outside and it located my exact driveway, with the sat. photo of my house with the car parked. My wife came outside so I walked back to where she was to show her what my silly new phone could do and the blue dot followed me to the back of the house. But will it work as well in my car? I haven't tested that yet. I don't have a nav system for the car, I was hoping this phone would be useful for general navigating while driving.

 

Any suggestions on what to get from the app store? And is that the only place to get things for the iphone?

[AJLynn]

Heh, the hassles of the early adopter. (And the demand is so damnably high that "early" seems to last 2 months - hopefully it won't last as long as with the Wii.) I took 3 hours to get mine but at least they provided bottled water and I could pizza delivered (it was an outsidee line) and when I got in the Apple guy was really friendly.

 

I've used the GPS in the car and it seems to work though it seems that, as with other situations where you don't have a really clear view of the sky, it takes longer to figure out the GPS. But it does work in cars, even in cities. It works in my office, but we're on the top floor.

 

The reason it worked but not accurately is that when it can't get a read on the GPS satellites it falls back on using the signal strength of various cell towers to approximate. This is the accuracy you'd get if you were using a location app with a 1st gen iPhone.

 

My favorite apps so far are MLB At Bat, Facebook, AIM, NYTimes, Mobile News, Moonlight Mahjong Light, TyroTuner and the one that I've spent the most time with by far, Stanza. Stanza is way more useful if you have a Mac because when you're running the OSX version and your iPhone is on the sam Wifi network you can download whatever the Mac is viewing to the iPhone.

 

Some cool location apps are Where, Vicinity, LocalPicks and Urbanspoon (which are all things you use to "find me a ____ near here"). Movies, JirboBreak, Baseball, Tomatoes, ShoppingList, MyToDos and Shakespeare also have spots on my Springboard.

[Ernest Burden III]

You lost me there at the end. Those apps in the last paragraph are from sites on the web, not the 'app' button on the phone 'desktop'? Also--you mention four location apps--which do you suggest I use?

 

The phone links just fine to iTunes on my XP laptop, also mounts as a drive volume so I can grap any pictures stored on it. I wonder if I could put files on it in standard formats like .jpg or .mov or .aac and have the phone play them without using iTunes and therefor dealing with the DRM it probably has encrusted onto everything it touches.

 

Yes, while waiting in line for the phone, the ApplePeople visited frequently with info on the wait, answering questions, passing out snacks and bottles of lime-infused water. No, it was hinted lime, my bad. I just read that USairways will now charge for a bottle of water. While standing there I was thinking I'm getting better in-flight service from Apple than most airlines. And the person setting up the acount was super nice.

 

I haven't made a call from the iphone yet, waiting for my MacObsessed sister to wake up (in SF) so she can be the first call. She'll appreciate that, just not too early.

Edited August 3, 2008 by Ernest Burden

[manta]

pandora Internet radio is pretty cool...also something else which is not on the app store but I think is cool is logmein, which I can use to access my home network from anywhere...

[Dave Buchhofer]

Fun stuff... I haven't gotten the phone yet, I'm a blackberry nerd for at least another year.. but i do have the ipod touch, and there's a few interesting toys/apps there. from the store i liked UrbanSpoon if you're near a covered area it has a decent directory of restaurants for.

 

Remote is wonderful, Aim, AOL Radio, Pandora Radio are the main things i've actually used so far.

 

nice tip on the logmein there, that's a great service, wasn't aware they'd enabled the iphone!

 

as for paid things, i haven't bought much yet, BeatMaker looks downright amazing, a few of the games are somewhat interesting, but not really for me.

 

for my money i use it mostly for Music, as a wifi web appliance while at home, and to watch TV Episodes while I'm at the gym

[AJLynn]

Everything I mentioned came from iTunes or the App Store button (they have the same stuff) but I might have missed some spaces in the names...

 

They're all useful for different things, like Urbanspoon lets you choose by location, price and genre; Where is basically a savant at finding very particular things - Starbucks, gas stations, Zipcars, and has a search feature where you type in something like "sporting goods" and it finds you sporting goods stores. Local Picks finds restaurants with ratings and Vicinity has the most useful feature of all - a "find bar" button. And a bunch of other things.

[illegalalieninbeijing]

Hi All,

 

This will be pretty lame. Exploring the free stuff, so far I find the To Do very useful for me. The other My To do kept on crashine when I tried entering dates and times.

 

The rest are useless stuff but quite entertaining:

iPint - a game and your virtual beer! Cheers!

iSaber - be your own Jedi

Scratch - rule the turntable and be the DJ you've always wanted

Flashlight - with several friends with iphones, you can instantly convert a room into a discothèque.

iMaze - time killer

JawBreaker - time killer

Break Classic - time killer

Cube Runner - time killer and just like playing wii

Alarm Free - probably good for emergencies

Lonely Planet Phasebooks - they should have came up with these when I was in those countries.

[BrianKitts]

My favs are......

 

Eventful - all current events/concerts in your area

Yelp - reviews local restaurants and venues

Urbanspoon - random picker for eateries

Boxoffice - all local movie times and locations

Shout it - scrolling marqee tool for your phone

Convertor - (self explanatory)

SudokoFree - (ditto)

Weatherbug - local weather including conditions report, radar over the google map, and feeds to local webcams.

Pandora - streaming radio stations

 

and the best ever.... "More Cowbell" a must have app for any BOC fans, or those who love SNL and Will Farrell / Christopher Walken

 

I'm ticked I used to have the iSaber on my iphone and deleted it, now it's no longer available. They were worried about how Lucas is pretty strict about the rights on star wars content, so they took it down. I'm not that big of a starwars fan, but it's still the fact that I got rid of something that I probably could have sold on ebay for a boatload of cash to some uber starwars nut

Edited August 11, 2008 by BrianKitts

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

As far as apps go, I think in the next couple of months we will see some really useful stuff come out. The phone has only been out a couple of months.

 

I would be interested in a David Allen style "Getting Things Done" app..

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Games :

 

iReversi - Reminds me of Othello from childhood, play against other iPhone users

Labyrinth LE - This is the free version, I think I will get the full version. The best marble maze game I have found.

 

Also, does anyone have a recommendation for a RSS reader? I am testing NetNewsWire right now. Trying out the CGarchitect RSS feed with it to see how robust it is, and what I can actually do with it.

Edited September 21, 2008 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[Kurt]

Shazam: lets you identify music from any loudspeaker or radio near you.

[GeraldH]

The *only* app worth anyone's time....Level

 

 

;-)

 

 

http://www.iappaday.com/

[GeraldH]

http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2007/11/26/first-potentially-useful-iapp-a-day-level/

[Dave Buchhofer]

couple i've been enjoying lately have been:

Stanza (e book reader, but also lets you grab some newspaper/magazine texts for reading also)

MLB at bat.. finding myself in a baseball kick, and this thing has been nice since i can't get too many of them on TV.

AirSharing lets you store some files on it over wifi

Simplify Media - view and share itunes librarys with friends