Up and Running 6

I've now been using my iPhone 3G for about 6 months, so here I'm going to cover the 'page 1' apps on my iPhone. Top to bottom, left to right. (pages 2-4 will follow)


Calendar:- Pretty straight forward this one, I use iCal on my MacBook as my main calendar, so it's synched to that. Unlike on my previous Nokia phones, I can add an item to any calendar category I like, rather than having to specify just one iSync or something. Only bugbears with it are that there's no week view and the calendar colours don't match the one's in iCal, the latter at least seems like a no brainer!!

Maps:- Maps gets knocked by a fair few people, mainly for it's lack of "turn-by-turn" SatNav abilities, all I can say is that so far, it's got me everywhere I've needed to go. True every now and again there's a post code error and it takes me to the wrong street, but this isn't the application's fault as such, more the data it's using from Google Maps, or maybe even address having the wrong post code on it. 
Back to the "turn-by-turn" side of things, yes, this is is a tad fiddly in Maps, you have to tap through each waypoint and then re-engage GPS tracking each time, not the best thing to have to do while driving. Rumors still fly about the Tom-Tom software for iPhone and a guy from O2 told me there was another SatNav app coming out soon (same one as they have on XDA perhaps), but I've yet to see it, plus it'll be a subscription based model, not sure about that.

Contacts:- I don't have to delve into this that often, apart from via the phone book. It was dreadfully slow to begin with, updates have pretty much sorted that.

Camera:- For a bog standard phone camera, it's not terrible, yeah sure there's better phone cameras out there, but this is comparable to and better than some previous Nokias and Motorola's I've had. Does ok.

Twinkle:- I'm a Twitter addict. So until it goes bankrupt (revenue model yet anyone?) I'll keep going. There's a variety of Twitter apps out there, I've been happiest with the interface on this one, plus it's location aware. (iTunes)

Calculator:- It's a calculator...

Notes:- It does exactly the job I need it to do. If I need to make a note of something, this is where it goes.

NetNewsWire:- I got into the whole RSS thing a few months back, and I have both the mobile and desktop version of NNW, both pretty good, for collating the various sites I read. Still think the mobile one has syncing issues tho. (iTunes)

Facebook:- A pretty good interface for the site, they do keep improving it, there's more needed, but I'm sure they'll get there. I do get quite a bit of use from this. (iTunes)

Safari:- All in all, it does a pretty good job, can be a little fiddly with some sites if there's crowded text, you can easily tap a link when you wanted to zoom in, or tap an adjacent link to the one you want. Can be a tad slow at times and obviously doesn't cope well with pop-ups etc.

Evernote:- Thinking this may go soon. It's an interesting concept when combined with the broswer applet, you can clip to Evernote then it's accessible from pretty much anywhere. Thing is cell data isn't great and I rarely use it. Favouring emails, Notes and PDFs it seems. I want to like it tho. (iTunes)

Settings:- Cos there's no quick switch icon for Wi-Fi on/off

Air Sharing:- Brilliant, gives you wi-fi disk access to your phone, create folders, drag over docs, whatever really. I've got a store of useful docs on my phone and use this a fair bit. Be handy to have some integration to mail or something, to allow you to save docs to it tho. But that's probably more a restriction by Apple. Luckily I also got this when it was free, but well worth the £2.99 now! (iTunes)

Traffic:- WebApp, quick view list of traffic problems around the UK, listed by region, very useful (if I remember to check before I set off!), would be handy if it listed by Motorway, cos half the time I'm going somewhere of any distance, I lose track of which county I'm in!! (WebApp)

FireFone:- Recently discovered Fire Eagle, added it to my Twitter-style addictions and online explotation. Tried a couple of Fire Eagle apps out, this seemed to do the job the quickest. Apparently the recent update allows Location to Twitter posting, haven't tried that yet tho. (iTunes)

Quick bar.

Phone:- No complaints so far, sometimes the Visual Voicemail is a bit sketchy whether it will actually be visual or not, but that hasn't been a major issue so far.

Mail:- Again, this has been working okay, nothing has stopped me from working or anything like that, would like to be able to save documents tho, that did cause a minor delay in things the other day as I couldn't get the doc off the phone (no wifi to pickup email on my MacBook), but overall it's done well. My email accounts are all over the place, but I will be upgrading my server to Exchange which will hopefully solve all that (but not until Snow Leopard!)

SMS:- I'm pretty sure I text a hell of a lot more with this, the conversation format works well, only issues are me being too quick and accepting some of it's stupid spelling and word suggestions by mistake.

Checklist:- I tried various ToDo list apps, this one enabled me to add tasks the quickest, so it stuck. (iTunes)

Okay, so there's page 1, I'll cover pages 2, 3 and 4 when I can/feel like it/am bored/etc. Always interested to hear about useful and interesting apps, especially paid apps that are actually worth the money!





Pownce it! Pownce it!

1 comments:

I've had my iphone about a month and still going through the "oh let's just try this app" period plus I'm able to authorize it to install games that my kids buy for their ipod touch. Bought Air Sharing thing, agree it's very useful. I'd really like a TomTom app with maps stored locally but don't think I'd bother going for a subscription since I already have a TomTom Go but would love to carry one less gadget around.

5:58 pm, January 23, 2009  

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