So, TheWife and my friend Tim both picked up new iPhones this holiday season and both asked me what apps I recommended. Well, to be specific, TheWife asked me first, then Tim asked me, so when I typed up the reply email to Tim, I was already prepared with a few suggestions. So, here is the reply email I sent Tim when he asked me which App Store apps I recommend, short of jailbreaking:
No.
There are none.
Jailbreaking is the only way to go.
Hell awaits if you do not.
:P
Uhhhhhhhmmmmmm....
iTalk for recording, though you can't get the recordings off without
buying the full version.
Pandora
Evernote
NYTimes
BBCReader
Mobile News
Wikiamo
Shakespeare
Currently using both Nimbuzz and Fring for Skype/IM stuff, can't
decide which is better.
I like Palringo for IMing because it has a voice feature that I
haven't been able to test with anyone yet. I've only sent voice
messages not received any, so I don't know how practical it is. Plus,
I can't really tell when it logs you off. That's the problem with IM
on the iPhone, in general. You just can't tell when it disconnects
you, so you may be offline for a day and not know. As a result, I am
never online. This is one way I really miss my Sidekick.
Pinger Phone seems interesting, but since I haven't gotten a new data
plan on my iPhone it's hard to test it.
If you use Netflix, I recommend PhoneFlix
Joost seems pretty cool for watching TV shows (if you can find any you
like in their library)
Google Earth is a blast.
Rulla is a neat little message scroller for, uh, no real practical use
that I've found yet.
Brain Lantern is a fun app for ogling chicks (or anything else you
want to look at pictures of) on Yahoo Images.
Lightsaber (duh)
GPS Tracker allows you to track your movements--you need an account,
which I keep forgetting to get, so I haven't tested it yet. Sounds
cool though.
iWant is great for finding services in your area--like restaurants, cafes, etc.
There are also iPhone versions of websites I recommend--you can create
shortcuts to them on your iPhone by clicking the "+" in Safari and
then tapping "add to home screen".
I like WeatherUnderground.com's iPhone page at http://i.wund.com
m.cnn.com I prefer over the full CNN.com
getdropbox.com/iphone is great for accessing stuff on your home
computer while you're out. You have to have a dropbox account first,
though--which I recommend, too.
http://krypton.durgle.com is a great free SMS sending service that
allows you to text people for free. Very cool.
Of course, there's a stack more stuff I could suggest if you wanted to
jailbreak, but first you should find the limitations of your iPhone on
your own. If you can't find any, you probably don't need to bother
jailbreaking.
Personally, shooting video was a must and now I can shoot and even
stream video live. Pretty sweet. Aside from that, you can skin your
UI, add an extra icon to your dock, make apps run in the background
that wouldn't normally run in the background, access your SSD from
Finder (there's a MobileFinder for the iPhone). You can also fake
Fring into thinking that you're on wifi when you're not so you can
make Skype calls without using cell phone minutes. It's amazing what
technology can do when you don't have someone intentionally limiting
what it can do. :) But again, see how it works for you and you may or
may not see the need to JB. Feel free to ask if you have any
questions. I'll try to help if I can.
...
I should also mention that, for the Japan-o-phile (like me), you can check out the following reasonably inexpensive apps:
Hiragana (from Evil Boss)
Katakana (from Evil Boss)
Kanji Flip
Japanese Flip
Also, Tim doesn't Twitter, but to my wife and to anyone who does Twitter, I recommend using both TwitterFon and NatsuLion. Since Twitter's API is annoyingly ungenerous, it's a good idea to have more than one Twitter client on your iPhone. See, as I understand it, Twitter only allows each client to access it's site 100 times per hour--that's not 100 times for YOUR client, it's 100 times for everyone who uses that client, combined. Yeah, stupid. So, having more than one client on your iPhone is a good safeguard. However, even then sometimes both max out. Makes you wonder why we put up with it.
I'll have to do another post soon about my jailbreaking exploits on the iPhone 3G, not to mention my "fun" unlocking the iPhone. It's nice to see that "T-Mobile" up in the corner there, but it'd be even nicer if they had a data-only plan that I could use--but more on that later.
Posted via email from thepete's posterous
Orignal From: ThePete's iPhone Suggestions
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