Phant is joining the future (Smartphone)

[Phantasee]

So I finally got around to getting myself a smartphone. I settled on the iPhone 32GB, and hunted down the best deal, called my current provider, and got a better one by mentioning that I was interested in switching companies (yay for no contract!). I pay much less for a fair bit more than the other plans on offer. And I also (re)learned that you should never go by what's in the brochure for price plans, since you can always get a better deal from the customer service agents by mentioning a better offer from the competition.

Unless you're talking to Bell. Then all you get is "I'm only telling you the facts. For every two tower Rogers has, Telus has one, and Bell has eighteen. Facts." Fact is, cellular reception isn't an issue with Rogers in the cities. Oh well.

So, iPhone users, are there any apps you think are worth what you paid for them? I'm not super interested in the free ones, since there are gajillions of them, but I'm a cheapskate and I don't like trying by buying. I'm interested in pretty much everything except games, unless it's a simple game like Tetris or something. I dig those.

[FSTargetDrone]

Simple games? If you like tower-defense-type games, go for geoDefense and Geodefense Swarm. geoSpark is fun. Fieldrunners is another good one. Plants vs Zombies is a lot of fun.

InfinityGene (aka Space Invaders). Tetris is of course available. Cogs is an entertaining, if short, 3D puzzle game. GloBall is nice.

Solebon is a nice Solitaire collection.

Pocket God may be worth your time, though it's one I play the least. It comes with a fairly extensive amount of content for what it is, but it's not my favorite.

They are all simple games, for the most part.

Star Hogs is an artillery-in-space game which I like a lot. It offers free online multiplay as well. But I don't know if it's too involved for what you are looking for. Dungeon Hunter is a nice Diablo clone. Maybe that is too complicated, I don't know

Many of the games update frequently.

If you are interested in a very good and inexpensive turn-by-turn GPS and are in North America, look at MotionX GPS Drive. It is a high-quality subscription-based app (first month is free) and hell of a lot cheaper than TomTom. If you are going to be spending as much as you will for TomTom, you may as well buy a stand-alone GPS unit. If you don't like GPS Drive, you aren't out more than a couple of bucks.

[Stark]

You're not interested in free apps because there's a lot of them? Some of the apps I use most are free, and better than paid alternatives.

[Phantasee]

Thanks, FS, but like I said, I'm not big on games. I'm more interested in the other categories of apps. I don't know why Apple is advertising 100 000 apps as a feature, seeing as most of them do the same thing, or are games or pointless things. It just makes it hard to find things, and casually browsing the app store is like reading Youtube comments (you go through hundreds of crap things and occasionally come across something that is interesting).

I'm more interested in the other categories of apps, things that a person may not think of to search on their own, or things that a user would recommend to others. The issue I have is that a lot of the better things cost money, and I figured I'd ask to see if anyone would recommend apps for various things so I wouldn't be stuck paying $20 for an app that had glowing (fake) reviews or something.

[Phantasee]

You're not interested in free apps because there's a lot of them? Some of the apps I use most are free, and better than paid alternatives.

It's not that there's a lot of them, it's that they're free and I can try them out to see if I like them on my own. I just don't want to pay for an app and find out it's junk. It's less of an issue for free apps since that just costs me time.

What do you find yourself using regularly?

[Stark]

I use portable shopping list stuff (ie email to other people, it's good when Sherry wants me to get something I always forget), Xbox Live thingo, Facebook thingo, Ping for free messaging, Stanza for books, wikipanion for wikipedia, my ISPs account status thingo, my bank thingo, shift, geodefence, a few free photo-editing apps, the transformers comic reader, and Blue Defence.

Most of those are free; while it might only be $2, I don't like paying for shit either. Many apps have free/demo versions, though.

[Phantasee]

What's Shift? And is Wikipanion better than Wapedia? I'd try it out but it won't let me use it on the iPod touch (I'm not paying $5 to upgrade the firmware for an iPod that's not mine). I could wait until Wednesday to see, which is when I expect to get my phone, but I'm still in that post-purchase excited phase.

I see that Photoshop is free, is that good enough or would you recommend other image editors? And is Ping like BBM for iPhones? As in, just iPhone to iPhone? And does it go international?

[Stark]

I don't know which wikipedia thing is best; Wikipanion works fine and I can't be assed trying another one. Shift is an interesting platform puzzle game.

Yeah, Ping is a direct phone-to-phone data messaging thing. No idea if it does international, but it's popular enough that Telstra kicked up a shit about it over here. One day someone will just implement a platform-independent data messaging service and we'll all be happy.

[FSTargetDrone]

Frightfully sorry Phantasee, thought you said simple games were okay.

Just to clarify, do you have a 3GS or just the regular 3G? Some apps will only work to their fullest on the 3GS.

Anyway, free (I use all of the following)...

Wikipedia has its own official app.

Check out Google's app (uses voice to search if you like), Google Earth (most of the functionality of the desktop version.

NASA's app is great if you are interested in that. It has access to the status of the various missions, thousands of images plus Astronomy Photo of the Day.

IMDb has a free app.

Do you do any Geocaching? Geocaching.com has its own app, including a simplified free version (though I Geocache enough to have the paid version).

There is an official Skype app.

Photoshop has a basic photo editor (best with the better 3GS camera, of course).

Flickr and Photobucket have their own official apps.

Do you use Twitter? Try Echofon (I use the free version).

Dragon has Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search which both work well.

SpeedTest's app has its uses.

The New York Times has a (currently) free app. Also Thompson Reuters.

Pandora has its own app.

I use Urbanspoon for restaurant-finding.

XE Currency is a useful currency converter.

The Louvre Museum's app is nice.

Interested in astronomy? Check out Distant Suns (Lite). I have the paid version and it allows you to use 3GS' compass to pan around the sky and the screen moves with you in real time, showing you what you are looking at.

[Phantasee]

Yeah, should have specified in the OP. It's a 3GS model.

Distant Suns looks interesting, what's the difference between Lite and full?

[FSTargetDrone]

Yeah, should have specified in the OP. It's a 3GS model.

Excellent.

Distant Suns looks interesting, what's the difference between Lite and full?

The Distant Suns' website:

* Compass aware for the 3GS. Just aim at it a the sky and see what you’re looking at!
* Over 130,000 pinpoint stars scintillating like diamond dust in the palm of your hand
* Realistic ghostly band of the Milky Way
* All 88 constellations with images and articles on their mythology
* Preference panel to change the way stars are rendered in over a dozen different ways.
* The Messier catalog of galaxies, nebula and star clusters
* Dozens of photos from the Hubble Space Telescope
* All 8 planets (Pluto is optional) • GPS aware
* Red interface to preserve your night vision
* What’s Up? Gives a quick one snapshot overview of where all of the important stuff is
* Landscape panoramas from observatories to ancient Greek ruins
* Easy one-handed operation.
* Point and Identify mode reveals a wealth of hidden data for each star, planet or deep-sky object

Primarily, the free version lacks the augmented reality/compass aware features, which are among the most interesting to me. It has fewer stars, fewer filter settings and the like. I can't copy and paste from iTunes, so search for "Distant Suns" and you can compare the versions (remember to click on "...More" at the top for the full product descriptions). Do check out the Lite version, play with it and see what you think. Currently the paid version is 4.99 USD.



The above video doesn't cover the compass-enhanced features, such as the moving sky option, but you can see what it's like. Features are added fairly regularly and that video is from 2008. The app performs well on the 3GS (better than on the 3G--it's just faster). Pocket Universe is another, similar app, but there is no free version.

EDIT:

This site describes some free and some paid apps which are geared toward augmented reality. Of them, I use Theodolite ($3.99) and Layar (Free).