Playing With Sharp Objects

My Favorite iPhone Apps

The Apple App Store is a revolutionary addition to the world of PDAs, phones, and web pads.  Here are my favorite apps I keep on the iPhone.  Note that all of these are free.

1. Pandora vs Last.fm
   I find Pandora loses connection less when I’m driving, but I like Last.FM’s web site better.  Having music on the go, in the car, is better than any radio station out there.  Still not as good as playing the music I already have on my iPod directly from it, then scrobbled to a site like Last.FM for noting on something like Facebook or FriendFeed.  Last.FM’s desktop scrobbling sucks and misses music most of the time - sometimes for weeks.
2. Palringo
   A client for multiple IM serviecs.  Will benefit greatly from push notification.
3. Wordpress for iPhone
   I’ve been using it to compile ideas for the past few week’s posts.
4. Facebook - this gets aggregated into FriendFeed anyway, but this has integration with the camera.
5. Weatherbug - This is better than the built-in Weather app at showing more local conditions.
6. Evernote
   Web based notes I can pick up on any computer and my iPhone.  Better than the built-in Notes app, which I wish I could make disappear.
7. eBay
   helped me sell my 32GB iPod Touch
8. Remote
   controls your Apple TV or iTunes remotely
9. Bank of America
   I check my account balance with this.
10. Twitterific and Twinkle
    Twinkle gives you that twitterlocal capability and has a really slick interface.  I used to have Twitterlator but removed it since it’s redundant and less capable than Twitterific.  Will also benefit from push notification.
11. Movies
    References IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.  Pretty important this summer.
12. Convertor
    Good for when I can’t remember how many feet in a kilometer.
13. Shazam
    Fun for figuring out songs you can’t recall the name of.
14. Urbanspoon
    Fun for finding a local place to eat.
15. Aurora Feint
    Great MMO style Tetris game.  Other games: SudokuFree, Scribble, Moonlight Mahjong, Tap Tap, Morocco, More Cowbell, PhoneSaber, magic8ball, PegJump)

In addition, I keep these Home Screen Links:

1. Twitter
   Their iPhone interface is really simple.
2. Ping.fm
3. m.digg.com - Their mobile interface for the iPhone is really nice, but does not allow commenting or voting on comments.
4. iHaloStats
5. FriendFeed
6. Facebook (interestingly, can do a few things better than the iPhone app )
7. Wunderground Weather (http://i.wund.com - shows my home weather station KNJHILLS9)
8. del.icio.us bookmarks
9. Mint iPod interface (http://haveamint.com)
10. home Twonky Media Server - Can actually play music from my server that I did not have room for on my iPod.  The server also does Bonjour and UPNP for my XBox 360 and Netgear MP101.
11. Grandcentral (Google should really have a native iPhone app for this)
12. Socialthing - needs to add more feeds, but well organized aggregation.
13. PollenReport
14. MonkeyChow - my RSS reader (http;//www.monkeychow.org)

Apps I have on the iPhone that I’m not sure I care about:

1. NearPics
   Fun the first time, but no one really does anything with it
2. Notes
   No good if it can’t sync or save somewhere else.  If I can’t cut and paste from it, I can’t port it anywhere else.  Disappointing.
3. Smugshot and ShoZu
   Just more photo albums.  Need to pick one place for online photo storage and I think Flickr or Picasa should be it.  But they need apps that will integrate with the camera, not use a mailing address.
4. Loopt - Meh
5. Jott
   Thought it would be more useful.  It’s a voice controlled note app that doesnt require me using the iPhone keyboard.  I might keep it.
6. 1Password
   Kind of like Roboform, but needs to link into Safari to be useful.  it also needs a way to sync with PCs.  I’m praying Roboform makes something like this because I have tons of passwords I use with Firefox and IE that I hate to remember and type into Safari.  Especially with the way Safari crashe and loses the cookies.
7. MySpace - Meh.
8. Nearby - No one seems to be doing much with it.

What can you recommend, and why?