Tuesday, October 27, 2009

App-etizers



Since I got my iPhone a few weeks ago, I have become addicted to searching for cool apps to load on to it. For those of you who don't know what an app is, it's a third party program that you load on to the iPhone. It's just like loading a program on to your computer, such as a game or accounting software. There are over 85,000 apps available for download, many of which are free or cost just a few dollars. Unfortunately, many of the apps I've come across are either useless or cheesey. There are a few though that really make the iPhone a lot of fun. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Star Walk - This app is a virtual night sky that you hold up over your head at night. It takes your location and calculates where things are in space and points them out to you as you pan the night sky.

2. MotionX Drive and MotionX Sport - Both of these are GPS maps for the road or off-road respectively. Why spend hundreds on a GPS when for $2.99 you can get turn-by-turn directions right on your iPhone. The catch seems to be you need a strong 3G signal or the app lags behind your actual location, not great when it tells you to turn 2 miles ago.

3. The Weather Channel - Finally an app with a looping radar. It's primitive but it works.

4. eBay - Now I can bid on items no matter where I am and not be outbid.

5. 13WHAM - Rochester's channel 13 has an app to connect you to local news and sports.

6. Thunder N Lightning - A simple program that calculates how far away lightning is by timing the gap between the lightning and thunder. Simply tap the start button when you see the lightning and tap it again when you hear the thunder and the program does the calculations for you. You can fine tune it by entering the ambient temperature which effects the speed of sound. Great for weather geeks like me.

7. Facebook - We're all slaves to it, now we be slaves 24/7.

8. Fly Cast - This app has nothing to do with fishing. It is a like having satellite radio in the palm of your hands with streaming audio of hundreds of stations and dozens of genres.

9. Sportacular - Almost real time stats and scores from most major sports except NASCAR. Now I can see Yankees beat the Red Sox from anywhere.

10. iHandy Level - This cool program turns the iPhone into a bubble level.

I'm sure I'll find more but these are my favorites for now. If you have any cool ones post them here.


No comments:

Sign up for our eNewsletter
Email:
For Email Marketing you can trust