Mike Baldwin

A friend of mine recently purchased an iPhone and was asking for application recommendations. I’ve had the iPhone 3G since day one so by now I’ve accumulated quite a collection (5 pages! That amounts to about 1 GB!!) As I was writing my recommendations I realized others might find it useful so here they are (no particular order, I was thumbing through the pages)..

 [also, assume that all the apps are free unless I say the price]

Say Who – Voice dialing at it’s finest. Press the button, say the name, wait a few seconds and it’s dialing. Great tool when you’re driving or multitasking.

Twitterific – An obvious one, it’s free with minimal ads and has a clean interface and plenty of functions. Especially great because of its integration with twitpic

Facebook – Very easy way to access Facebook, upload pictures, change your status. Great time killer app!

Sportacular – Easy way to check the up to the minute sports scores and standings.

Datacase (pay app) – turns your iPhone into a thumbdrive! Instead of using docking cable it uses a WiFi connection. You can also setup an adhoc network on your computer if there isn’t a nearby router.

iTalk – great voice/sound recording application. Incredible quality and easy to use.

Wikipanion – Need to look something up in wikipedia very fast? Look no further!

Pandora – Streaming radio on the go! Sounds great with 3G, iPod like interface, great app if you want to listen to music that isn’t on your iPhone.

WunderRadio (pay app) – Mad that the iPhone doesn’t have a FM tuner? Well turn that frown upside down because with WunderRadio you can listen to thousands of online streaming radio stations as well as police/fire/EMT scanners!

The Weather Channel (TWC) – A little bit more accurate than Weather.app also gives video forecast updated daily based on your geographical location.

RotaryDialer – Ok, this app isn’t that useful but it is cool looking. Allows you to make phone calls with a rotary dial.

Fring – Skype and other chat services on the go. For skype it’s chat only on 3G/EDGE but WiFi allows phone calls. Great for when WiFi reception > cell phone reception or calling long distance.

Light – Very simple app, turns the screen white. Very useful when it’s dark.

TouchMines – Mobile version of the windows classic Minesweeper.

Backgrounds – Tired of the same background? Download tons of stock images to spice your background up. Sol Free – Mobile Solitare! Another great time killer.

PAC -MAN lite – Pac man on the go! w00t!

Tiltsnake -anyone who owned a Nokia phone back in the day can appreciate this updated version of Snake

Google Earth – Just like the google app but on the go!

Shazam – Ever heard a song and wondered what it was or who it was by? Wonder no more. Simply let Shazam record 10 seconds of music, allow it to process, and you should have an answer shortly. Great for settling bets on who sang that song.

Remote – Remotely control an iTunes library, great for changing the songs if the computer is in the other room.

SnapTell – Ever wanted to get more info about a CD, DVD, or piece of software but didn’t want to type in the information? SnapTell allows you to take a picture of the item and it will give links to amazon as well other retailers to get comparison prices and description. Also a great app for making a wishlist as it will save the last items you snapped.

AroundMe – Great app for finding points of interest in a city. Maybe you’re travelling and want to know the nearest sushi restaurant. AroundMe takes your GPS location and compares it to their database and gives you the information you need.

PhotoSwap – Bored? Want to see what life is like for other iPhone users? With this app you can literally swap pictures! Take a photo and submit it, after you have submitted it you will get a photo in return, you can choose to reply to the photographer or keep taking pictures. Very cool app for seeing what it’s like around the world.

Lightsaber – turns your iPhone into a motion sensitive lightsaber, nerdtastic!

Last.fm – like Pandora but also scrobbles (check out last.fm’s site to find out more about scrobbling) your streaming station. Disadvantage: longer buffering times.

MochaVNC – VNC client to control computers while away from the desk. Not particularly fast but works if you’re in a pinch.

TouchTerm – SSH client for the iPhone, great for checking stats or running commands while away from the servers. 

Echochops (pay app) – Takes your ambient sound and allows you to put a delay and effect the distortion of it, very interesting experiment in sound.

Units – Great app to convert units of measurement, area, currency, speed, etc.

More Cowbell – because everyone needs more cowbell in their life!

Flixster – check on movie listings and the latest DVD titles

Brain Tuner – Bored again? Want to sharpen your brain a little bit? This app is a lot like the math portion of Brain Age. See how fast you can complete the problems.

iSlots – Want to play some slots but don’t want to lose all your money? Look no further!

Scribble – Paint for iPhone. ’nuff said…

iBowl – Bowling for the iPhone, similar to Wii Sport’s implementation, just make sure to hang onto your iPhone!

Drinks Free – Want to look up a drink recipe quickly? Drinks Free has thousands of drinks so you can look up the ingredients you need while at a store shopping for cocktail ingredients.

Hope this helps! If you have any apps to recommend, send me a link to them: mike (at) mikebaldwin (dot) org