iPhone Fu

[thorfinn]

There's a small spate of people around me obtaining the iPhone. A few pointers for those people:

Cloud Services

Google

Google is an excellent cloud replacement for MobileMe. Google Sync Help has calendar sync tips. GMail Mobile Help has how to access GMail in a variety of ways (I recommend IMAP in the iPhone Mail client). Set yourself up a gmail account and google calendar, and that will work fine and dandy. Don't sync with Google Contacts, it does suck. Keep syncing to Address Book on your mac (not sure what the Windows equivalent is), or use MobileMe.

MobileMe

I do actually like MobileMe - in particular the Find My iPhone feature is excellent, and the Push email for my me.com address I do find useful on occasion. (Push notifies you that you have mail immediately, whereas normal email relies on your device to contact the server every so often.)

Physical Accessories

• Contour Hardskin - you need this, or some equivalent. This is nice and grippy, and the raised edge on the screen front is well worth it. I literally dropkicked my iPhone under a car on the street, sliding it face down, and there is zero damage.

Free Apps

These are not linked to - just search for them in the app store.

Geographic

• Pkt Weather (Australian Bureau of Meteorology backed, includes radar views)
• AroundMe (many categories of stuff)
• Urbanspoon (specifically restaurants)
• Take Me To My Car (parking location rememberer)
• tramTracker (dingding!)
• Metlink (a bit of a monolithic application, but comprehensive Melbourne Public Transport timetables)
• Here I Am (quickly send a pre-configured email with google map link)
• Google (everything google here)
• Free Wi-Fi Finder (list of free wi-fi spots)
• Wi-Fi Finder (list of non-free wi-fi spots)
• Layar (3GS only - "augmented reality" nearby stuff overlay)

Social/Chat

• Twitterrific
• Facebook
• Fring (variety of chat clients, including Skype and VoIP)
• AIM Lite
• Skype
• Livejournal

Informative

• Whole Foods (recipe database - US based)
• Allrecipes.com.au (Australian recipe database)
• ShopShop (very simple and easy to use shopping list utility)
• NetNewsWire (backed onto Google Reader)
• Chronolite (configurable multiple timer utility)
• Wikiamo (Wikipedia browser with cache)
• AusPostcode
• Stanza (ebook reader)
• Shakespeare (the complete works)

Utilities

• Dropbox (if you are not already using http://getdropbox.com/ then you should be)
• Darkroom (take the shot once your hands are steady, there is a Premium version with more features)
• Zen Piano (1 octave piano with loudness controlled by tap strength)
• Tuner440 (instrument tuner, including "free mode" with different notes)
• inTune A440 (strobe tuner for A440 specifically - only)
• A Free Level (a bubble level)
• Metronome (tick tock)
• Units (conversion calculator, includes currency fu)
• Convertbot (conversion calculator, includes currency fu)
• Blizzard Mobile Authenticator (for World of Warcraft nerds)
• Scan (in case you're curious what's running under the hood, or want to check your phone's RAM usage)

Silly Things

• iStethoscope (badoump)
• Banner Free (big scrolly banner)
• Labyrinth Lite (rolling ball maze puzzle)
• Lightsaber (vrwoomp)
• Zippo Lighter (fsshwwomp)
• iNeko (meow, purr, zzzZZZ)

Netgeeks

• PwGen (Password Generator, useful for normal users, not just techies)
• TouchTerm (SSH client)
• Net Utility (bunch of net utilities rolled into one)
• Ping Lite (includes a handy ping-whole-subnet display)
• RDP Lite (Windows Remote Desktop)
• VNC Lite (VNC client - mac, linux, etc)
• Speed Test (bandwidth speed tester)

Computer/Math Nerd Utilities

• UNIX Epoch (you too can know the number of seconds since 1970-01-05T00:00Z)
• cmpxRPN (complex number and reverse polish notation calculator)
• GraphCalc (Polynomial Graphs Curve OK)
• PCalc Lite (alternative calculator)

Non Free Apps (unsorted)

• Darkroom Premium (take the shot once your hands are steady, guide lines, etc, good camera app replacement)
• OzWeather (Another australian weather app)
• BOMRadar (Just the BoM Radar)
• WiFiFoFum (awesome WiFi scanner app - includes 2D radar view)
• Fantastic Contraption (the game of website fame)
• Flight Control (finger trace land the planes - quick and fun)
• Cluck It! (chicken crossing road - very hilarious and fun, Frogger style but much better)
• Sally's Spa (surprisingly fun "time management" genre game - there is a Lite)
• Underworlds (basic Diablo type game - melee only)
• Paper Toss (surprisingly fun game)
• Strategery (hex based conquest game - there is a Strategery Lite)
• Ocarina (an ocarina!)
• Koi Pond (splash!)
• Civilisation Revolutions (basic, but recognisable and still fun)
• Catan (The basic Settlers of Catan game, no expansions)
• Midomi (what's that song that's playing?)

Comments

[inspiral_rose]

so. jealous.

want. iphone.

[drwally.livejournal.com]

OzWeather kicks BOMRadar's butt. It's got the radar plus wicked forecast/current tools.

Units is invaluable - even has currency conversion.

For fun I like Lilt line and Labyrinth lite - the latter really shows off the very fine accelerometer hardware.

[thorfinn]

Huh. Didn't know about OzWeather or Lilt line. :-) I go play with them now. PktWeather does the forecast/current thing plus radar. Mind you, the Melbourne Radar has been non-funct for a week now.

[drwally.livejournal.com]

OzWeather is right up there in the best sellers... Lilt Line is really cool - it doesn't look like much but it's great fun.

[thorfinn]

Ah, OzWeather is Non Free! I should have a section for non free apps. :-)

[drwally.livejournal.com]

Sure but you get what you pay for. Same with Lilt I think.

[thorfinn]

Is true. :-) I do have *some* paid-for apps, I just haven't listed them. Might go do that now.

[badpauly.livejournal.com]

The Contacts sync does suck. Syncing on Win = Outlook only. That sucks a lot more.

[autopenguin.livejournal.com]

You can sync contacts to Windows Contacts under Windows as well as Outlook.

What annoys me is the insistence on Internet Explorer for bookmark sync, completely ignoring Firefox, and also the fact that camera photos don't sync at all..!

[thorfinn]

Hrm. Is there some utility to push your firefox bookmarks back into exploder?

As for Photos...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3603

[autopenguin.livejournal.com]

You can get Firefox's bookmarks into IE8 easily, it has an import utility to do exactly that. (I'm running the Windows 7 release candidate, hence IE8).

As for that Apple document, it's misleading. Yes, when the backup is done each sync, the Camera Roll is backed up with it all. However, that it not in a user-readable format. Camera Roll photos are not synced at all. The only way to easily get them over to the PC is to open the iPhone Camera device that appears in Windows and grab them that way.

It's a serious omission that'll likely see people losing photos they presumed would have made the trip to iTunes along with everything else.

[thorfinn]

This is one of those "windows does things differently" problems.

On a Mac, plug your iPhone in, and iPhoto fires up (as well as iTunes) and you import your Camera Roll within iPhoto.

On your Windows box, you have to do that step manually (fire up the appropriate windows camera program).

If you don't do that, you don't risk photo loss - if your phone dies, you just restore your phone from iTunes, and your Camera Roll with all the photos goes back onto your phone.

And if you really want to, you can unpack your Camera Roll, provided you're not using encrypted backups. The iPhone app data storage files are SQLite databases. :-) That's getting well into the too-much-work zone though. Much easier to just fire up your camera app.

[elissande.livejournal.com]

I second OzWeather. Also note that WiFinder is broken under IPhone 3.0 as is Darkroom if you ever use that. Both are promising updates RSN.

Other favourtite apps - Stanza is a must if you want to read books as it has auto links and downloads to a lot of free booksites (including Project Gutenberg) as well as some paid ones.

[thorfinn]

Oo, I forgot to link to WiFiFoFum as a paid app. It is teh awesome. 2D radar!

And yes re WiFinder and Darkroom. :-/

[elissande.livejournal.com]

Ok, must check it out.

[drzero.livejournal.com]

Does Stanza do text files that you make yourself?

[thorfinn]

Yeah, there's an app that you use to upload them.

I've heard reports of using the built in voice synth to turn text into audio files as an alternative ... :-)

[drzero.livejournal.com]

Great, not only do I have something to read my poetry from, I can get it to perform in my place! Bugger the missing jetpacks, this is the future! :)

[thorfinn]

... You know, that would actually be awesome, at least once. :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/raven_/]

I have iphone envy.

Wonder how much it'd cost to up my contract. Hrm.

[thorfinn]

Going price seems to be around another $20 on top of whatever your contract is. Unless you're already on a rather big monthly contract.

[drzero.livejournal.com]

Thank you Thorf, I've rather been looking forward to you making this post since I got my phone on Friday :)

[thorfinn]

:-) Yeah, you were one of the people I was thinking of.

[qamar.livejournal.com]

Oooh! iStethoscope danke!

[thorfinn]

What have you been listening to with it? :-)

[qamar.livejournal.com]

Nothing yet! I haven't found my headphones [tricky to move around]. But, I love your question. I will let you know when I explore. :)

BTW, another free app for your list Live Happy (http://www.signalpatterns.com/iphone/livehappy.html). A good idea that I'd like to extend.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

I've found two iphones on the beach. One of them worked, and I use it mainly as an ipod now.

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

Bloody brilliant, thank you! Especially the Google Sync!

[thorfinn]

:-)

[frogworth]

So what's ya problem with Google Contacts sync? I've been using it for ages, partly through NuevaSync, then briefly using Google's own Exchange service, and now back to NuevaSync, who rather wonderfully have setup an Exchange conduit with their (very cheap, $25/yr) Premium service so that my IMAP email is now pushed to my iPhone.

I sync my Google contacts with Thunderbird seamlessly using gContactSync, and with my iPhone, and I have no problems to speak of. I had to clean them up a bit at the start.

[thorfinn]

The native Google Contacts sync on Windows and Mac has a tendency to get confused, essentially. MobileMe push sync seems to be pretty bulletproof, particularly on the Mac platform.

If it works for you, awesome. :-) I just had bad experiences trying to set it up, and the documentation is quite non-obvious.

I think my wife is using Google Contacts sync using BusySync as a conduit... So via a third party app seems to mostly be good, it's just the Google implemented direct sync that seems to be non-bulletproof. Surprising, but there it is. :-/