iPhone/iPod touch Must Have Apps

[Tyler]

So I was able to jailbreak my old 1st Gen iPhone, and I've been spending most of my work day checking out the iTunes app store.

Was only planning to spend $10 bucks or so, but I'm already at $45

Some early reviews:

Games

Super Monkey Ball - $9.99 - Excellent graphics. Game takes a couple tries to get used to. Unfortunately, I got bored after about 5 minutes of it.

Tetris - $9.99 - This game is awesome. Very well done. Cool controls. Worth the money

Critter Crunch - $9.99 - Bought this over Cro-Mag Rally. Probably shouldn't have. Its a cool puzzle game, but again, not great for someone with a short attention span.


Other Apps

Remote - Free - Absolutely awesome. I have 3 macs and an apple TV. All are now paired, and I can control my apple tv from outside in the backyard over Wi-Fi. Score!

AIM - Free - My entire company operates basically over iChat. This is great. Plus, they'll never know when I'm away from the office

Shazam - Free - This app is amazing. Hold your phone up to any music source, and it automatically figures out what the song name is and who it is by. Great for when you're listening to the radio or watching tv/movie and want to know who sang a particular song. Definitely recommend (plus it will astound your friends!)

I bought a few others, but they sucked and aren't worth reviewing.

[Devils'Advocate]

BTW - I tried tuner on my 1st generation iPhone and it doesn't work well at all. I get about 2 notes of any song and then it dies. I'm going to assume that my Edge connection isn't fast enough to keep up with song.

[burn_this_city]

I got Texas Hold'em and Crash Bandicoot Racing.. Both games were definately worth the money.. Also d/led the free iPint, Light, Magic8ball and a unit conversion tool.

[jtfrogger]

I set up a US account, and downloaded a couple of Free apps. The two key ones that I downloaded where Google and eBay. They are great. It is worth the hassle of setting up a US account just for those two.

[kermitology]

If anyone doesn't have the last.fm application, it's probably the best of any I've ever used (I'm still using the free one from an unlocked 1.1.4 phone)

I love last.fm.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I got Texas Hold'em and Crash Bandicoot Racing.. Both games were definately worth the money.. Also d/led the free iPint, Light, Magic8ball and a unit conversion tool.

Ah yes ... the one I downloaded is called "Units" and it works pretty well. The display leaves a little to be desired though and it's a little awkward to use. Is that the one you use?

edit: there is a new one called "convertor". Only free for a limited time, but I prefer the way this one works as opposed to units. Convertor uses the standard "scroll wheel" thing while Units has you tap the mode button to change from weight, mass etc. and then you have to tap the "from" and "to" buttons to cycle through the various options (kilogram, pound, ounce etc.). There is a way to select from a list but it requires you to travel to an extra menu. I know, it's a little petty to complain about having to give one extra touch, but it did cost money whereas Convertor is free (for now).

I've also stumbled upon:

labryrinth lite: the free version only has 10 levels, but it's a solid time waster and the calibration setting doubles as a level. Oh ya and it's freakin Labyrinth.
WeDict: Pretty solid iphone dictionary. Also works as a chinese-english dictionary if that's what you're looking for. Very fast results and free.
Here I Am: Tells you the gps co-ordinates of your current location and lets you email them as a link that opens up in google maps. If only the maps application would let you email your location to somebody this app would be useless, but because it doesn't I find it a pretty awesome find. As an added bonus I can feel like Jack Bauer when I say "I'm sending you my location now".

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Russic

Ah yes ... the one I downloaded is called "Units" and it works pretty well. The display leaves a little to be desired though and it's a little awkward to use. Is that the one you use?

edit: there is a new one called "convertor". Only free for a limited time, but I prefer the way this one works as opposed to units. Convertor uses the standard "scroll wheel" thing while Units has you tap the mode button to change from weight, mass etc. and then you have to tap the "from" and "to" buttons to cycle through the various options (kilogram, pound, ounce etc.). There is a way to select from a list but it requires you to travel to an extra menu. I know, it's a little petty to complain about having to give one extra touch, but it did cost money whereas Convertor is free (for now).

I've also stumbled upon:

labryrinth lite: the free version only has 10 levels, but it's a solid time waster and the calibration setting doubles as a level. Oh ya and it's freakin Labyrinth.
WeDict: Pretty solid iphone dictionary. Also works as a chinese-english dictionary if that's what you're looking for. Very fast results and free.
Here I Am: Tells you the gps co-ordinates of your current location and lets you email them as a link that opens up in google maps. If only the maps application would let you email your location to somebody this app would be useless, but because it doesn't I find it a pretty awesome find. As an added bonus I can feel like Jack Bauer when I say "I'm sending you my location now".

I have the convertor one. Units cost $3 and I thought I would try the convertor first.

[Russic]

units is actually only $1, but I still prefer convertor. Units does have a currency convertor though ... I guess that's where my dollar went!

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Russic

units is actually only $1, but I still prefer convertor. Units does have a currency convertor though ... I guess that's where my dollar went!

My one complaint about Convertor. It lacks many common units of measure. It has m3 but no cubic yard. Kind of annoying for people working in the construction industry...

[photon]

Kind of OT but is the phone "buggy" for anyone else?

I often find the phone crashes back to desktop and I have to relaunch the app in question. Once or twice the phone has slowed to a crawl where it takes 3-4 seconds to respond to anything, a hard reboot seems to resolve that. Quite frequently it seems to just start playing by itself. Sometimes it will lose track of whatever item I'm listening to (i.e. paused in an audiobook, go back later and it's at the track list and I have to go through and figure out where I left off). One time I even had it start playing by itself and it played in like double or triple speed.

I have had to reset the network settings once as it couldn't pick up the edge network where I was at all.

Anyone else having these issues? Just a 2.0 firmware thing, or could my actual phone be messed up?

[@theCBE]

my touch has been buggy since I updated to 2.0 .. it has frozen a few times already this week... as well as been slow to respond like you mentioned above. A friend of mine and he has had the same problems when he updated his touch to 2.0

[Devils'Advocate]

Yeah, I've had issues with 2.0. I was clicking on some apps and they all crashed back to the main menu. I had to resync my apps to get them working again... even a reboot didn't help. So it is likely not your phone... 2.0 is just buggy.

[photon]

Ah ok thanks. Very annoying sometimes, I went down to BBQ some steaks and took it with me, went to continue listening to my book only to find that it'd been playing for hours again. No wonder my battery life is shorter than it should be.

EDIT: I would kill for a bookmark feature. I wonder if iPod apps can access the music files and playback API, I would write an audio book playback program.

[jtfrogger]

Mine has been buggy as well (random application stopping and occasional phone crash requiring a reboot). But I haven't had a problem since I started powering it down overnight.

[Russic]

i've had one problem (all apps would boot me back to the home menu), but after a hard shut down and restart it was all good. Nothing more severe than that ... looks like I'm relatively lucky so far.

[Barnes]

Some apps seem to crash a lot but they are getting updated. We are very much the beta testers for a lot of these. I find that the pause button doesn't work sometimes so maybe you think youve stopped your audio books but really they continue to play? It's happened to me were I see the button highlght but it never gets paused.

I also get stuck in coverflow mode a lot.

I do really like that you can watch video in 3 different ways now though.

[burn_this_city]

Looks like I've been lucky with the 2.0 update. Its running better than ever before. I like the change to music videos, now when you play them as regular songs the video plays rather than showing just a screenshot. I also love the new icon sorting feature.

[HotHotHeat]

If you hold down the centre button and hold button at the same time for a couple seconds you do a quick reset...Since I did that I haven't gotten any freezing really. I agree though, we are very much beta testers for these apps.

...And no, quick resets don't wipe your iPhone's memory.

[photon]

It's not even 3rd party apps that I'm having problems with, it's the main stuff.

[photon]

A few more apps to add to the list:

Cowbell App for when you need more cowbell...

and Palringo, which lets you IM with all the major IM providers! Works well, doesn't run in the background of course but still useful.