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iPhone apps

Since getting my iPhone I have downloaded a lot of applications. Here are the ones I find I use regularly:

Stitcher Radio – This streams radio and podcasts straight to your phone, no need to download it in iTunes. The downside is that in order to comply with copyright the controls available to you are restricted. Still, it’s nice to have when you’ve listened to everything in your iPod, and it’s an easy way to get the NPR top of the hour news updates.

Pandora – I don’t listen to a lot of music and as a result when I do want to find some I’m overwhelmed. Pandora lets you plug in an artist (or artists) you like and it will play songs by that person and similar artists that other Pandora listeners liked. You can vote songs up or down as you go along. Like Stitcher, in order to comply with copyright the controls are limited and occasionally a song will just stop playing, but for somebody like me who just doesn’t have all that much mental space to devote to music it’s perfectly great.

Stanza – A nice ebook reader. The controls are simple and the free library is huge. Right now I’m reading Grimm’s Fairytales. I have to remember to load more books next time I find myself without a signal, rare but it happens.

Twitterrific – Easy to use Twitter thingy. Free and paid version.

Instapaper – Installing this on the iPhone was a little tricky, but the developer was a charming mixture of apologetic/exasperated/detailed. Simply, when you find an article in Safari you’d like to save for later you hit the Instapaper bookmark and it saves it in a text format which you download to the Instapaper app. It’s not perfect, but it is a space to keep things I want to read later on without filling up my Safari bookmarks. Also, it’s fun to rediscover that thing I wanted to read.

Jott – It takes recorded messages and sends them back to you as text. Easy way to save that thought you want to remember without having to type. Good for when you’re walking.

Toy Bot Diaries – This is an adorable little game and, like the reviews state, was the first time I played a game and forgot I was holding an iPhone. This is the first episode, $3.99, also has a free version.

TentsManiak Lite – A basic deduction game that I was glad to have while sitting in a waiting room where I couldn’t get a signal. Free version.

Cubicman Lite – It plays like Bloxorz. Free version.

Labyrinth LE – This is a metal ball in a wooden maze but the controls are superb, you get the illusion of real weight. Free version.

The two sites I use to keep up with iPhone news are iSmashPhone and Touch Arcade.

· comments [8] · 10-22-2008 · categories:iphone · technology · things I think are neat ·

8 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Jen // Oct 22, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    at brunch on Sunday, one of our friends was showing us some of his many ridiculous iPhone apps, and the universal favourite was the one that made the sound from Super Mario when Mario jumps when you shake the phone. So you stick it in your pocket and jump and you get sound effects. It was just endlessly funny :P

  • 2 pam // Oct 22, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    thank you for this! i find it overwhelming to keep up with some of the iphone blogs. i’m just not the target audience, you know? so i really appreciate recommendations and reviews from another geeky girl. :)

    i will have to give toy bot diaries a second chance. i downloaded it awhile ago but it seemed buggy and slow.

    also, now i have to go find the super mario app!

  • 3 Anna // Oct 22, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Your app list looks eerily similar to mine (except for the games, because I would just play them all day). I’ve also added Air Sharing (lets you drag & drop files so you can carry them on your iPhone), Shazaam (audio recognition software that magically ID’s the song you love from 1983 that’s playing on the radio), the NYT reader (some people don’t like it, but I do), SmugShot (so I can automatically upload/download photos from my SmugMug account), and Things (a gorgeous GTD task manager).

    And the Bubble Wrap…oh, the Bubble Wrap.

  • 4 muckdog // Oct 22, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    tanx. buying iphone in a few weeks and getting up to speed on the apps. this is a great list. appreciate it. apple makes it so much easier than windows mobile….

  • 5 Weaver // Oct 23, 2008 at 3:46 am

    I MUST thank you for sharing the stitcher radio ap with us. I immediately chatted my husband (who is working in New Jersey while the kids and I, and our Mac, live in Wisconsin). He can’t use the work computer to get his World Soccer Daily and has been so sad. He is now listening to it in less than five minutes and he is chatting me in all caps saying THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! So, I thank you and so does my husband

  • 6 Rachel // Oct 23, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Do you use Flicker? I love Klick for instantly uploading pictures to Flickr. Also Shazam allows you to hold up iPhone to any music source and it will instantly identify it. And MacMan-an iphone PacMan implementation, is the most ADDICTIVE and FUN game I’ve played on the iphone, lol.

  • 7 Josh // Oct 23, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Does anyone know the name of that Mario noises app? I’d love to get it!

    Also, does anyone have Showtimes? I a lot of people have Movies, but I just had so many problems with it, I switched to much-better Showtimes. And I tried Now Playing, but I didn’t like it either. Showtimes just seemed to be the best. Is that the same with everyone else?

    Great post/blog btw.

  • 8 gina // Oct 24, 2008 at 11:47 am

    Thx for your list!! I 2nd (or 3rd or whatever) Shazam. What’s the name of that song that’s playing RIGHT NOW? The hub is currently hooked on Risk and has the Darth Vader light saber sound app.

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