Non-Game iPhone Apps Catch-All

Malor wrote:

I don't know anything about expense apps, sorry. But I wanted to chime in with:

They apparently just released a "Kindle" app for the iPhone, so you can use it to read the same Kindle books that the 'real' reader can.

Theres a few cool things about this. It's free (duh), if you buy books to read on your iPhone if you have a Kindle (or buy one) you'll be able to access the same books on that. Also, if you read a few pages on your iPhone and then come back to your Kindle to read some more, it will synchronize the last page you were on between the two.

I bought PlugPlayer to listen to my music shared on my UPNP NAS and it works rather well. I need to figure out how to enable flac>mp3 transcoding on it to really listen to the majority of my music but otherwise, it's nice to listen to way more music than could fit on my 8GB iPod. It makes me a sad panda that this can't run in the background though, as it'd be awesome to stream my ton of music while playing a few games.

Katy wrote:

Can anyone recommend a good expenses/receipt tracker? I'm jumping ship from the palm-based PDAs I've had for years, and I need something to replace PocketQuicken. I'll be back to manually keying spending into Quicken -- what I want is an easy way to track things while I'm on-the-go.

I was using an older and free version of SplashMoney on my Palm. I only used the most simplistic functions and kept track of my sole checking account. I used it essentially like an electronic checkbook. When I switched over to my iPod Touch, I briefly tested SplashMoney (paid app) and a few other ones, but decided on the free PocketMoney Lite.

I've been using for about 2 months and it's simple and works well.

And how about a shopping list application? I've been using HandyShopper on the Palm devices, and like some of the features, like storing per-store pricing, and organizing my list by aisle per store. Essentially I use it as a price book. I wouldn't mind seeing something that was web-based somehow, however, so I could share lists with my husband. (Really, the feature that tipped me over to buying an iPhone was actually being able to sync and share the family calendar easily. That and finally converging my MP3 player with my PDA and phone. Only one device to carry! Hooray!)

Katy wrote:

That and finally converging my MP3 player with my PDA and phone. Only one device to carry! Hooray!)

Yeah, that kind of convergence was what finally pushed me over the edge to get a G1. But I traded that back to a Blackberry+iPod Touch set up. Long story.

I have no experience with shopping list apps. I always just wrote it on my hand and stuff. SplashData actually make a whole suite of apps (including SplashMoney and SplashShopper) but it'll cost you an arm and a leg at $60 (http://www.splashdata.com/splashwall...). They also provide desktop apps to sync with your iPhone, but it's not web based.

You'd probably be better served browsing the iTune app store and search for 'shopping list' or something like that. For something this simple, I'd hate to pay money for it.

Katy wrote:

And how about a shopping list application? I've been using HandyShopper on the Palm devices, and like some of the features, like storing per-store pricing, and organizing my list by aisle per store. Essentially I use it as a price book. I wouldn't mind seeing something that was web-based somehow, however, so I could share lists with my husband. (Really, the feature that tipped me over to buying an iPhone was actually being able to sync and share the family calendar easily. That and finally converging my MP3 player with my PDA and phone. Only one device to carry! Hooray!)

ShopShop is a pretty simple shopping app; no pricing, it just does lists. The items persist in the background once added once, so next time you just have to tap on them. You can email your list out from it, which would allow you to share with your husband. Nice 'n' free, too.

It's been changed now, but the application icon originally had "toast" as a list item. Not melba or anything, just "toast".

Katy wrote:

And how about a shopping list application?

I use Grocery iQ. I think it costs a dollar or two, but it works quite well. There's a favorites section that can be used to save commonly-purchased stuff so you don't have to re-key the names, and there's some sort of built-in database that is used for auto-complete. Items can be grouped by aisles, etc. I only wish that it allowed multiple lists to be made, since I don't always want to see stuff to buy from the hardware store on my grocery list.

I was curious if anyone had any thoughts on some of the finance apps - Citi, Bank of America, Chase, etc. My wife wanted to try a few but was concerned about security, ease of use and all that.

I'm still kinda bummed that 3.0 has launched and there's no TomTom app in the appstore yet.

I just got my 3GS set up yesterday! w00t! After playing around a bit, here are a couple comments on apps not yet mentioned:

For those looking at financial-type apps, do yourself a favor and go to mint.com. There's an iPhone app to control it, too (it's free), but it's easier to get set up on a big-boy computer. The iPhone app is intriguingly named "mint.com".

Second: SimplifyMedia 2. Every person with an iPhone or iPod Touch should own this app. What does it do? Well, I'm glad you asked, Timmy. It allows you to stream everything in your iTunes library to your iPhone. Instead of fighting to cram a few playlists I love on 14GB of usable space with apps, photos, and everything else, I have literally 100s of GB of music at my beck and call. Sound quality is pretty darn good; you won't notice a lick of difference on anything encoded under 192kbps. It pulls even more information than iTunes does by querying the last.fm database. The only exception I know of is that it won't play DRM-laden .m4p files. No router setup, IP hassles, anything aside from leaving a computer on at your house connected to the internet. Best $6 you will ever spend. Seriously.

For non-game apps,

I really like WeightBot (an application to track your weigh if your dieting) and ConvertBot (an application for converting from one unit measurement system to another).

Both apps are from TapBots.

I also use WeatherBug Elite and MLB At Bat 2009 a lot.

This isn't an app, but I just picked up 2 usb cables, 2 power adapters, and a skin for my 3Gs, all for $13 including shipping from monoprice.com. Even a single cable from anywhere else was more.

I've bought incredibly cheap hdmi cables from them, I didn't know they sold iPod cables.

For financial apps, I already had a yodlee (an aggregator like mint.com (in fact I think mint uses yodlee under the covers)) account, so I'm just using the yodlee iphone/web app which works fine. I think a lot of the financial apps are just web front ends.

I'm interested in getting Simplified music but do you need to have a good upload stream from your PC?

How well does it work over 3G? Any choppiness?

Also Google Sync is totally awesome.

TempestBlayze wrote:

I'm interested in getting Simplified music but do you need to have a good upload stream from your PC?

How well does it work over 3G? Any choppiness?

Not really. There's a buffer at the beginning of every song, but I haven't really noticed that buffer being longer over 3G than over Wi-fi...but maybe my work's wi-fi sucks. At any rate, it's usually only 4-5 seconds between songs. No stuttering during playback, at least for me. That's with a wired, 368k upload bandwidth at home.

For the Palringo users: check out Fring. Good for : Skype, msn, google talk, ICQ, SUP, Twitter, Yahoo and AIM.

Well, it's an app related to a game, but not really a game itself, so I suppose I'll post it here...

The World of Warcraft armory iPhone client is now available. It's pretty slick allowing you to check out characters, look up items and even manage your calendar. Definitely a must-have if you're a WoW player.

Some I use for my Touch:

ooTunes is a pretty nice radio app. I use it to listen to AOL's comedy station
Wikipanion
iCED Pro is a really nice Chinese-English dictionary. It's expensive ($25) but regularly updated, intuitive and perfect for those studying Chinese
Bebot is an awesome robot synthesizer. It's fun making songs with this little guy
SkyGazer and SkyVoyager are two astronomy apps (the latter being more in depth), which I got for free on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Both are fantasitic, particularly if you have any interest in astronomy at all.
BigOver is a free cooking app, that links to a website with thousands of recipes.

ChiSoxKeith wrote:

MLB At Bat 2009

Just came in to back up MLB At Bat. They've just added video functionality for MLB.tv subscribers (me), so you can watch games on full-screen. Its great thinking on their part. And the feeds play pretty well on all types of connections that it is actually watchable.

My only complaint about the app is you have to keep it open to get the audio feed. So no playing games while listening to Mike Shannon.

I've just discovered TonePad. Its a neat little music/beat/tone creation app. There are a bunch of tiny circles and each one represents a different tone. You touch a circle to make the tone play. It loops over and over and you can create little music tones out of it. (Wow, is that the worst description, ever, or what?)

Anyway, its super addicting and you can upload what you create and download what other people have created. I made one for this dreary Saturday morning.

If you get the app you can download my tone with the code ardln. I'd really like to see what more talented GWJers can come up with.

Oh yeah, the app is free.

Uno was updated and now has its own version of Xbox Live. New rules, and all sorts of stuff. Well worth it.

If no one has already mentioned it, Kotoba is the free Japanese-English dictionary that I find quite useful.

I'd like to recommend the use of Mint for finance. It is arguably my single most used app. Takes a little time to setup your account on Mint.com but once you're setup, your entire financial portfolio is at your fingertips. Be sure to set your phone lock and tell it to wipe all data on 5 bad login attempts.

To Do's - task app. Free. Much less cumbersome than other task apps like Remember the Milk and others.

Cardstar - Paid $1.99 for it. You know those little membership tags you get from Shop Rite, CVS, etc.? The ones that give you discounts? Well instead of latching 50 of them to your keychain, just download Cardstar and enter them into the app by barcode #. Then when you hit CVS or Shop-Rite, whip out your iPhone and let the cashier scan your membership right off the screen. Seriously lightens my keychain and the wow factor is cool too. People really like it.

TipStar - Was free when I bought it. Simple tip calculating app. Much less cumbersome than other tip apps.

Sportacular - Free. Keeps tracks of all sports. Scores, standings, games, etc.

Shazam - Free. Music identification app.

Dictionary - Free. Does what it says.

LinkedIn - Free. iPhone app for the website.

Facebook

mSecure - $4.99 - set a master password on this and you can keep track of everything. Website logins, email account logins, automobile information, credit card numbers, drivers license #'s, social security numbers, bank accounts, etc. Pretty much everything in your life that is confidential, this app can keep track of. Insanely useful for people like me with bad memories.

Wikiamo - free interface to wikipedia

AP Mobile - free news source

Pandora, Slacker, FlyTunes - various free radio apps

ChefRef - Free. cooking enthusiasts quick reference

Conversions - Couple bucks. Converts everything. Useful at work (engineering).

MLB.com - so worth it.

Now Playing, Flixster - free. movie information apps.

Stanza

Craigsphone - free. craigs list interface for iphone.

eBay, Amazon - free interfaces for respective sites

Night Stand - turns your iphone into a beside clock.

RepairPal - tell it what's wrong with your car and it tells you how much you should pay to get it fixed.

Wordpress - admin interface for your Wordpress powered website

Offender - Lists all registered sex offenders in your area. Also places them on a map within a 5 mile radius of your location. Gives pictures, descriptions, and offenses committed. We're new parents so this is good to have. Very scary too how many sex offenders are in your area.

Takes a little time to setup your account on Mint.com but once you're setup, your entire financial portfolio is at your fingertips.

Theirs, too.

I need some help with Remote. I can see my ipod in the device list with the remote icon next to it. I click that device and enter the 4 digit code that Remote is giving me on my ipod. iTunes says it's verifying then the four digit form blanks out again. No error. Just goes blank and my ipod is not synced.

Correction: When I pause iTunes, there is the sound of a Windows dialog box popping up. But without the dialog box.

Anyone know of a good Panorama app? There are a couple in the app store, but they all seem to have pros and cons. For instance, it seems like they are all can't be more than 800 pixels tall. Right now I'm leaning towards Autostitch.

One app I missed from the few weeks I had a G1 was Locale. It's essentially a location-sensitive profile manager, so it'll automatically turn your phone to vibrate when you enter the office, turn off the wifi when you are driving, automatically turn off at midnight, etc.

From my quick Apple App store browsing (and some quick googling) there doesn't seem to be anything like it for the iPhone. It's kind of odd because it seems like such a simple app. Or maybe it's too simple no one seem to want it.

One app that I found that seems pretty good is Sportacular. First, it's free. It has many sports leagues that you can track (most of them being US-centric) and have favorite teams. If you are interested in following sports it might be worth a look.

Also, I like the NY Times app.

I am sure everyone has heard of it but I am amazed by it. Trapster, it saved me a speding ticket already this weekend.