The old year is over and it’s time to look back. I joined the hype and got the iPhone 3GS last year and have used it extensively. I also spent more money in iTunes and the App Store than I originally wanted to. Not all of the applications I downloaded were worth it. Some however, I use day to day. My usage of applications is very specific to the way I live my life, so you’ve probably come up with a different list yourself.
Social applications
Depending if you’re into the microblogging hype at all, you’re probably using a Twitter client on your iPhone. It’s difficult to pick one since there’s so many of them. I tried a couple of the freely available Twitter clients and decided to pick Twitterific Premium after trying the free (but advertised) version. Twitterific is a sleek and beautiful Twitter client with a lot of features. It doesn’t get into your way and helps you filter the information you’re looking for. Posting text, links, images and your geographical location is easy too. If you’re twittering, check out Twitterific Premium. I had to disable that annoying bird sound and the vibration feedback whenever new tweeds were loaded. It drove me crazy…
Another microblogging service of kinds is Tumblr. While Twitter’s essence lies in its 140 character limit, Tumblr is not limited in such a way and is much closer to regular blogging – if you want it to be. Tumblr offers templates for uploading text, photos, quotes, links, chat dialogues, audio and video files. Creating an account is free and you even can connect a domain name to your Tumblr blog (you must own it of course). You can customize your blog by choosing a theme, modify existing themes or create your own HTML theme from scratch. While services such as Wordpress basically just host your blog, Tumblr lets you maintain a social network with other Tumblr users, much like on Twitter. There is a great (and free) Tumblr iPhone application that let’s you use the Tumblr service from your iPhone. What’s great about Tumblr on the iPhone is that you can easily upload text and media in style while you’re on the go.
Facebook is probably one of the most hyped web sites on the Internet. To sum it up: I was reluctant to sign up, now I’m reluctant to sign off. Although I’m not a die-hard user who’s using an insane amount of applications, ranging from “what kind of pet are you” to “wasting time playing some farm games online”, I like to leave messages and check back with overseas friends from time to time. For these core features, there’s nothing better than the iPhone Facebook application.
Spending money, managing money
One of my hobbies is photography with Minolta manual focus cameras as they were produced and sold in the 1980s and earlier. I’ve spent quite some money on obtaining what I desired and the place to go for these sorts of desires is eBay. The most annoying thing about eBay is to miss the end of an auction. If you don’t want to miss out on an auction, then you should use the eBay application. It will send you push notifications about events on eBay and you can perform all the usual actions you would otherwise perform on the eBay site.
Do you own a checking account in Germany? Do you hate balancing your checkbook? Do you lose track of your checking account and your spendings? Would you love taking control of your finances whenever you feel like it, even if you’re just sitting on a bus? Maybe iControl – Onlinebanking und mehr can help you. iControl is developed by an individual by the name of Truong Hoang, a software developer of Vietnamese origin living in Germany. He steadily improves the application. Recently, the application became Paypal account aware for example. The application offers everything you can expect from a good online banking software. Data is AES encrypted on your phone with 256bit. A password unlocks the application. It will also help you set up and monitor budgets. Just check out the application’s web site for a walkthrough. I’m afraid much of the documentation is in German, the application is available in English though as well. The application’s author is very responsive to support requests and helped me out fast when I had trouble setting the application up for my bank account. Compared to the more expensive banking applications, this one is probably a real insider tip and a true bargain.
Out and about
I’m a frequent flyer since a couple of months now, taking two flights a week with Lufthansa. They offer a very basic but decent iPhone application that let’s you check in and retrieve useful information about flights and such. Basically, Lufthansa Launcher itself acts as a bridge to Lufthansa’s mobile web application. You start the iPhone application, it takes your credentials (Miles & More account…) and opens Safari with the Lufthansa mobile website. Essentially, the app is a better bookmark with an icon you can place on the screen. This is convenient enough for me though. What’s positive about the app is that you can retrieve your mobile boarding pass from the application anytime as long as you have Internet access. Usually, the mobile boarding pass is sent to you by text message or email. The critical part about the boarding pass is a two-dimensional barcode which is included as an attachment. I usually retrieve the mail from my employer’s Exchange server and save the barcode attachment to the Photos on the iPhone. Once in a while I get sloppy about that and forget – usually at 06:00am while I’m already sitting on the train to the airport. That’s also usually the time when the Exchange server decides to break down and I’m stuck without the email. If you can see yourself in that situation, then you’ll be glad to know that Lufthansa Launcher can save your butt.
When I’m on the road, I love to take walks and take pictures. I rarely travel without a camera, even if I can’t use it at all or just do some random snapshots. Most of the time, I’d like to be able to know where I’ve been. I want to be able to retrace my steps and potentially link those pictures I’ve taken to their geographical location. Geotagging is the keyword here. There are a lot of apps for that purpose but few are suitable to my needs. Most apps require that you sign up for a service account on the Internet that you use in conjunction with recording your route. Most apps don’t allow export of the recorded data in a common format like GPX or KML files. Most apps also require you to use bandwidth while you’re using it – a real pain if you’re roaming. The application of choice to counter all that – and a lot more – is Trails. It’s highly acclaimed – rightfully so.
How do you kill time while you’re on a train or waiting to board a plane? You can “waste” time by playing games on your iPhone or you can actually do something useful and read. The iPhone’s display is just barely big enough so you can enjoy it to read eBooks and the eBook application that’s on almost every list of useful iPhone applications is Stanza. Stanza lets you download countless classics for free. It also connects to a number of bookstores (even O’Reilly books). You can add any book you’ve got in ePub format. I did that for a tech eBook I bought from Pragmatic Programmers. It works great. Especially with tech books, I need to read most bits at least twice until my brain permanently stores that information. Either I read it the first time on the iPhone while on the road, or I rehearse the information on the iPhone after I read it on the big screen the first time.
Photography
When talking about photography and the iPhone there is a lot of utter crap available in the App Store. Most of that crap actually costs money. Two absolute gems however are CameraBag and Photogene. If you had to pick only two photography related apps for your iPhone, it should be those two. Photogene is as good a photo editor on the iPhone as it gets. It lets you perform the most essential photo manipulations plus some extras. CameraBag offers a set of filters you can apply to your image. It makes a crappy mobile phone picture look like a picture taken with a classic camera. It features a number of black&white filters as well as stuff ranging from fisheye to Polaroid. CameraBag has its own Flickr group you might want to check out. There’s some really creative shots there.
What about you?
I picked ten useful apps I used a lot last year. What about you? What are your picks?