Whats on my iPhone.

I have now had my iPhone 3G for a couple of months and it pretty much lives up to the hype. It is a wonderful device which does its job well and with class, yes the battery is awful, but being able to plug your phone into a USB socket to charge is a saving grace in that department; it is just a shame you really have to do it to survive a day of use.

iPhone Screenshot

The main reason that I need to charge my iPhone at work, is that I use it all the time, for a variety of activities all of which mean that the  beautiful bright screen is in use a lot and kills my battery by mid afternoon quite often.

Now onto the subject at hand, what applications have I got on my phone that cause this battery consumption, well I have about 64 (whoah never counted them before) apps on my iPhone from the AppStore. Here is the list, the ones with asterisks next to them are the really good ones I would recommend to anyone:

*FaceBook (V2.0)
*eReader
*1Password
*Last.fm
*NetNewsWire
Spore
*Things
*Twitterific
Saber Unleashed
iPint
VS Chess
eBay
Shazam
*FileMagnet
midomi
WritingPad
Remote
Eventful
Wordpress
CrazyMouthLite
Nearby
*Speedtest
Truveo
*BBC iPlayer
Stanza
*Tap Tap Revenge
Frotz
Showtimes
FireFone
WeatherBug
Mobile News
*DizzyBeeFree
Top 40
SFNetNews
MightyDocs
Domineer
Garagebuy
*Funambol
Google
iPhunny
Locly
*Palringo
*Aurora Feint
*Airsharing
Movies
Twinkle
Cannon Game
Tris
iSSH
Motochaser
*ShoZu
*Evernote
Flycast
GooSync
*LinkedIn
2d Sense
Twittelator
Cube Runner
iGCT
Seekcache
Graffitio
iRibbit
Pop Quiz
Traffic Info

So, yeah, quite a few and actually quite a few there that have asterisks next to them too.
below I’ll describe some of them in a little detail.

FaceBook.
So the original facebook app would have been on this list, the new version (just released) is even better, gives a better experience and brings pretty much everything from Facebook to the iPhone.
Of course the value of this app to you completely depends on how addicted to Facebook you are.

eReader.
I have two ebook readers on my iPhone at the moment eReader and Stanza. Of the two I prefer eReader although both are really good. Partly this is because eReader made use of my previous investment in ebooks from Fictionwise and also the support for free books from manybooks.net. Reading eBooks on the iPhone is a great experience, both applications allow you to “turn pages” in the book by swiping your finger across the screen. There is plenty of text per page, so the reading experience is pretty good and I am enjoying using it to read. I just finish the Cathedral and the Bazaar, which is ironic I suppose on such a closed platform.

1Password.
This a paid app, it is a password store and it syncs with a desktop client on my Mac. 1Password is preventing me from lazyness and using weak passwords and repeating passwords across sites, etc. I looked at tools like KeePass (KeepassX on Mac) but the lack of iPhone app ruled it out after a while. The Sync feature is the killer feature for me. On the desktop it integrates into my browser and is pretty great.

last.fm (and flycast)
Okay the iPod feature of the iPhone is… well iPod like. But I have a WiFi device and I want access to internet music. Last.fm and flycast deliver that for me.
last.fm give me it’s awesome recommendations and tag based music playlists. Flycast delivers shoutcast streams direct to your iPhone so I can listen to things like WeFunk radio via their streams.

NetNewsWire.
NetNewsWire is the RSS aggregator for Mac and on the iPhone netnewswire is pretty good. It’s not awesome, but it works great. More importantly it syncs with the Mac desktop client and also with Newsgator online, so all my RSS reading stays in sync and I don’t end up repeating myself. The only thing missing would be a Google widget for iGoogle (if anyone is listening).

Things.
Getting things done (GTD) is pretty well known and I have David Allens book, so I was really pleased to find Things. Things is a terrific app for keeping your mind clear and your tasks and projects on the right track. Again, the killer feature for me is the sync to the desktop client. I can capture things on the phone and they end up on my iPhone, it’s the first time that this has been so smooth for me, I love this app. Okay I love it!

Twitterific / Twinkle / Twitterlator.
Twitter is so powerful and so perfect for a mobile platform, I am torn between Twitterific and Twinkle as my favourite. Both are great, twinkle might be winning and it has a great location awareness feature. I can get a view of all the tweets from within 1km, 5km, 10km etc. Great for finding new people to follow. That said twitterific is the one I use most often. Twitterlator I installed so I could use a different account and have yet to remove. So far none allows me to use multiple accounts, which is not a huge issue for me, but I know for some people it is.

BBC iPlayer.
Okay I really feel dirty pimping the iPlayer, I have been very critical of it in past. I hate the proprietary format, etc. I hate that we, the non-windows universe can’t download BBC content etc. That said, the BBC iPlayer streaming on your iPhone is VERY cool and lets face it, it is still better than ITV, Sky etc. of course it is not actually an app, it is a web app. That is one of the great features of the iPhone I can save a web bookmark as an icon on the main “desktop”.

I have not covered everything here, not even all the ones I have on my must have list… sorry, I am lazy okay.
The one that I have not covered and should is Evernote, mainly because I am only just getting into using it, but Evernote is pretty much right up my street. It has an iPhone client and also a desktop client for Mac AND Windoze. It basically lets you collect and edit notes. Thats it really. But that is really cool as I am starting to realise. for example, started this article on my desktop by listing the apps, I added some of the descriptions on the iPhone itself and then added the rest on the laptop. It all sync together and works really nicely I am starting to understand why it has so many fans out there, you should definitely give it a look.

So there it is, I hope that it gives you an idea of what to try. Most of the above are free by the way.