iPhone Apps that You Actually Use
If you are like me, your iPhone home screen is full to the brim with apps, but you probably only use a handful regularly. There are lots of 'cool' apps for the iPhone, but I find myself opening these apps once, admiring the craftmanship, and then forgetting all about them.
So I thought it would be interesting to get a discussion going of the most useful 3rd party iPhone apps — the ones you actually open regularly. Even though this is not strictly a subject for this web site, the fact that it is taking place here will slant the list to apps that researchers find useful.
I'll get the ball rolling by listing the apps I use regularly. I invite others to post their list to the comments.
Productivity Apps
- NetNewsWire
- Use this daily to follow RSS feeds.
- Fizz Weather
- You wouldn't think that you could improve much on Apple's Weather app, but 'Fizz Weather' is considerably more powerful.
- SplashShopper
- A powerful list manager. Useful for all lists, not just shopping lists. Can also sync to your computer.
Web Sites
- Safari Books
- I only have a few web sites on my home page. This one I use a lot. It's O'Reilly's online technical book service. (Note that I also have O'Reilly's native 'Book Bag' app, but was very disappointed by it. To begin with, it is only useful if you have the most expensive subscription. I even upgraded to use it — which is no doubt the intention — only to realize I couldn't even download a book a month on a $40 subscription. I'm now back on the cheapest subscription.)
Entertainment
- Spore
- Fun game from EA. Build a 'being' in the primordial soup, and watch him evolve in real time. Makes real evolution seem decidedly drawn out.
What I don't use
I thought it would also be interesting to consider the apps that I thought I would use a lot, but ended up using only intermittently.
- OmniFocus
- I use OmniFocus on the Mac daily — it's the ultimate GTD system. But I rarely open it on the iPhone. Omnigroup seem to have made the mistake of developing an iPhone app that includes the kitchen sink. They basically ported the whole Mac app over, and it is far too complex for the iPhone. It is also extremely slow to startup and sync. They would have been better making a more lightweight portal for your data, that only kept track of the most pressing items, and allowed you to very quickly add new items.
Comments
I use Omnifocus on my iPhone
I use Omnifocus on my iPhone all the time. Depending on the class I'm taking I'll use Mental Case and PCalc. Tweetie for Twitter. 1Password comes in handy at times. Epocrates Rx for looking up info on drugs.
I use Evernote on my laptop and on the web all the time but rarely on my iPhone. I splurged on Mosby's iTerms for medical abbreviations but usually it doesn't have what I'm looking for.
NetNewsWire frustrates me to no end. It constantly hangs up and crashes.
List Software
For grocery lists, I use Zenbe Lists because it sync's with my girlfriend's and daughter's iPhones, so we can all edit the grocery list(s). It also has a nice small font size so you can avoid excessive scrolling while shopping.
For a task list, I use Appigo Todo, which is nice because I can set due dates for tasks to pop up. But most of my professional Todo stuff is done using Omniplan on the Mac. I've found that trying to schedule complex projects on the iPhone itself is a lost cause; an iPhone app should just sync with a larger planner for immediate tasks (as you said about Omnifocus).
Flashlight!
The apps I use (or have used) the most are a free flashlight app (with 3 kids in the house, this is one way to walk around at night), Frenzic and Air Sharing. My daughter uses iGotchi and Labyrinth quite a bit too.
Re: Flashlight
It's funny that one of the things iPhone is best known as is a flashlight.
I was very enthusiastically explaining to a friend what 'Tuner Internet Radio' did: "The cool thing is you can stream over the 3G network, so I can listen to radio streams when I am riding my bike."
My friend: "You mean, the iPhone can emulate a 30 year old walkman."
Point taken. A lot of the stuff people are using the iPhone for are hardly new. Luckily, there are plenty of things that are.
Drew
---------------------------
Drew McCormack
http://www.maccoremac.com
http://www.macanics.net
http://www.macresearch.org
Re: Flashlight
Ahhh... But can you use a Walkman as a Flashlight, while riding your bike?
I use Mental Case the most on my iPhone. Initially for learning Spanish, but more recently as a place to keep code snippets.
Dave
SCI-15C, HP-15c Calculator emulator
I bought an HP-15c calculator around 1982 and the damn thing just won't break. The only physical change in over the years is that the rubber feet mostly came off. The main downside is that I have to replace the batteries about every 10 years. 8^)
So--I couldn't resist getting SCI-15C for my iPod Touch. It is a mature project that just happens to have been ported to iPhone/iPod Touch. The graphic emulation of the front (and back!) of the original calculator is uncanny. Even more uncanny is (I'm pretty sure) that the fabulous numerics of the calculator are also emulated. (No C-level numerics here.)
I looked closely at other calculators and am the first to admit that it isn't necessarily the best idea to emulate a physical calculator on a computer (RPN Calculator is a great example), but the other iPhone/iPod calculators just left me cold. I really want to like Pcalc, but it has no addressable memories, isn't programmable, and doesn't know complex numbers. Phooey on that.
Omnifocus, et al.
Omnifocus is a heavyweight, but they've been consistently improving it.
I also use frequently:
- Facebook
- AirSharing (sets up a DAV server that you can connect to via HTTP or as a WebDAV mounted fileserver). Store files from other computers on the same wireless network and then view them on the device.
- Now Playing for movie times -- better than any such website
- Yelp and Open Table are both excellent for finding restaurants. Open Table purportedly lets you reserve a table.
Touchterm
Currently one of the "science" programs that I like best is Touchterm. It allows me to ssh into any of the clusters/servers that i have access to. This is really helpful when I need to check on something but don't have access to my laptop.
I would like to get TouchTerm Pro, which will allow me to set up some custom commands.
AirSharing versus Suitcase: Access your Mac files from anywhere
I like AirSharing but you must see Suitcase as well. Complementary features, but getting files onto your iPhone/iPod Touch with Suitcase is __MMUUCCHH__ better with Suitcase. It uses Rendezvous and with a little tweaking on your Mac, you can access your Mac's files from anywhere that you can access the internet. With AirSharing, you basically have to be in the same room as your Mac, use your Mac to connect to the device as a server, and then drag and drop files across.
Omnifocus
By far Omnifocus is the program I use the most (iPhone and Mac). The over-the-air synchronization between computer and phone through Mobile Me is the single most important feature of my iPhone use. It is also extremely "safe" in keeping multiple backups, so I actually trust it. I also trust it will be supported for a long time.
I also now use multiple calendars on iCal (personal, work, wife's work and personal, group, research center events, etc..), with over the air synching. BTW, some of these calendars are hosted on Google Calendars and are managed by other people (assistants, students, etc...), but I synchronize with the excellent Spanning Sync to benefit from over the air synching.
Apart from that, I use:
Netter's Neuroscience Encyclopedia (I am a physicist working in Neuroscience, this is extremely useful to me).
Traffic (for cameras: why bother going home if there is a traffic jam?)
Google Apps
Facebook
Light Saber
NNW
For NetNewsWire, the NewsGator iPhone-optimized site works much better than the NNW iPhone app. The app performs very poorly, in my experience.
--
http://macinscience.com
Keeping Kids Entertained
I have found that the iPhone is very useful for keeping the kids entertained, and those kid-centric apps follow only the phone, e-mail and safari in terms of use on my iPhone. The two apps my 2 year old loves the most are I See Ewe and Preschool Adventure. My 2 year old also loves to watch the short Disney films you can download from iTunes.
Have you got the latest OmniFocus ?
The last update I did (1.14) fixed the slow launch for me. Have you got that one? It's the one that introduced the wifi sync.
I actually like the fact I can pull out my phone and do a mini review (or even a full weekly review) without needing my laptop. So I don't mind the size of it.
Michael
Jaadu VNC
Has anyone tried this?
http://www.jugaari.com/
Apps I use
- Things
- AP Mobile News
- Byline
- WeatherEye
- Flixter
- UrbanSpoon
Games
- Subway Shuffle
- Wurdle
- FieldRunners
- SmartGo (just to solve Go puzzles)
And of course my own app:
- Juxtaposer
Re: Omnifocus
I do have the very latest omnifocus. I keep up-to-date, and run it probably once every two weeks, just to see if things are better, or to change something that can't wait. But the experience is usually pretty bad, even with the updates: I open the app, and wait maybe 10-30 seconds for the document to load. Ouch! Then I wait for it to sync via MobileMe, which -- I am not joking -- usually takes about 5 minutes. I actually put the phone down, go do something else, and come back.
For a iPhone 'todo' app, these waiting times are not really acceptable. They improved things a bit by allowing you to change some things while a sync is running, but it is still far from instant on and ready to go, which an app like that really needs to be.
Drew
---------------------------
Drew McCormack
http://www.maccoremac.com
http://www.macanics.net
http://www.macresearch.org
OmniFocus, PCalc, Solutions…
Are the three apps I probalby use the most.
I also have NetNewsWire, but I mostly use it on my Mac (I want to be able to send artiles I'm interested in to Papers).
In addition to the apps
In addition to the apps already mentioned, I use:
Say Where, which is excellent for locating stores and streets. The voice recognition is the best I've found.
The Weather Channel b/c it shows hourly weather information. Very important in Cleveland where the weather conditions can change rapidly.
Beejive IM. Definitely the best IM client available for the iPhone. It works fairly reliably, has a ton of options, and I love how it will email you when you get an IM and provide you a link within that email that automatically launches Beejive.
i.TV. Excellent, though a little slow, TV guide. Useful for me to know when to get out of lab so I can make it back home for the latest Lost or 24.
Medical uses for IPhone
mebiel - what you mean about medical abbreviations?
I know it could be possible to make IPhone applications for working with medical devices but the question is - would it be OK with the hospitals? is it allowed to get IPhone? I mean like working and not just in "Flight Mode"...