Apple releases a list of the most popular free and paid iPhone and iPod touch apps in the iTunes Store with Pandora, Shazam, and Remote leading the charge in the free section. Compare to our list of what’s good (and free!) in the iTunes App Store which we posted shortly after the App Store opened its doors. [via Macworld]
iPhone/iPod touch only: Television and movie streaming service Joost officially finds its way to the iPhone and iPod touch. Joost started out as a desktop application, was quickly overshadowed by online offerings, then recently moved to the web in an attempt to keep up with the competition. With its new iPhone/iPod touch application, Joost is back in the drivers seat, beating the likes of Hulu to Apple’s popular mobile devices. Joost still doesn’t offer as much popular content as Hulu (not that Australians can use that – AU ed), but its 46,000 videos—which include 400 TV series, 1,200 movies and short films, and 18,000 music videos—are a pretty good start.
Danny Gorog at APC has picked out ten of the best Australian-developed applications for iPhone owners. There’s a useful emphasis on local information, with applications for travel information, weather and postcodes. We’d have thought there could have been a shout-out for perennial favourite Remember The Milk, but regardless there’s lots of stuff here you’ll want to be adding to your iPhone. Ten apps for Aussie iPhone users [APC]
iPhone and iPod touch only: A free, “lite” version of previously mentioned email composition app TouchType—which sells for US 99 cents in the iTunes Store—is now available. TouchType offers landscape view (and wider keyboard) for composing email on your iPhone or touch, and even better, can save and load reusable text snippets to reduce your typing and make sending repetitive emails a matter of a whole lot fewer taps. The two differences between the 99-cent version and the free Lite version? Twitter integration and spell check. TouchType Lite is a free download for the iPhone and iPod touch running the 2.1 software.
TouchType Lite [iTunes Store]iPhone/iPod touch only: With Mocha VNC Lite, iPhone and iPod touch users already have a tool for connecting remotely to their desktops, but what about those who like to get things done over a command line? Free iPhone app TouchTerm provides SSH-encrypted terminal access to any Linux, OS X, or even Windows system running a server, making mobile rebooting or service starting over Wi-Fi or EDGE/3G connections possible. The app supports landscape mode, a must for serious two-thumb typing, can save connections for easy access. The $US11.99 pro version adds advanced gesture and copy/paste support, amongst
Jailbroken iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application vlc4iphone ports the popular open-source media player VLC—voted as one of the best desktop media players by Lifehacker readers—to your iPhone or iPod touch. Apart from supporting virtually any media type you throw at it (I’d recommend using an app like previously mentioned DiskAid to get media to your iPhone), the VLC port streams internet radio, and can even stream media over your network. If you’re dying to play unsupported file types on your device and aren’t eager to transcode them to do so, vlc4iphone can do the trick. vlc4iphone is free, requires a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch. The app is still rough around the edges (some playback was buggy for me, and there’s no landscape mode), but it’s not a bad start. Thanks Niranjan! vlc4iphone [zodttd]
Leaked screenshots of the upcoming iPhone 2.2 firmware update show a cleaned-up interface for the App Store, but, more importantly, the ability to download podcasts directly to your device over Wi-Fi or 3G. Direct downloads will be limited, however, to 10MB or less, so jailbreak-required apps like Podcaster still have a decent half-life. [via]
When the iTunes App Store first opened up to eager iPhone and iPod touch upgraders (and iPhone 3G buyers), one of the first types of applications to show up was the to-do/task manager. From simple check-box lists to voice-transcribing tools, there’s a bewildering number of apps, many of them free, that promise to help you keep track of your necessary actions and projects while you’re away from your computer. Today we’re checking out five of them, all free except for one requiring a “Pro” account, and comparing their features and functionality side-by-side, as well as asking which app you use to keep their busy lives together. Read on for the full show-down.
The upcoming iPhone 2.2 software update, currently in beta, has already been jailbroken by the iPhone dev team. That means that when the iPhone 2.2 software update is officially pushed out, you probably won’t have to choose between your jailbroken apps and new features like Google Street View, emoji icons, and auto-correction toggle for long. [via]
Inspired by Nathan Barry’s iPhone alarm clock stand, do-it-yourselfer gbzphoto also used the plastic mold his iPhone shipped in to mount the phone horizontally, and installed the Alarm Clock app to display the time. Using the 2G clear plastic mold that shipped in the box, a stray piece of wood molding, and a furniture sticky, this version is a nice alternative (though it doesn’t have room for the charging plug, like this version). Finally, for more iPhone stand goodness, the Voltage Blog runs down in photos how to turn a paperclip holder into an iPhone charger—the end result can still hold clips, too. Thanks, Wade!
gbzphoto DIY iPhone clock [Flickr] iPhone 3G / iPod Touch Dock Build (DIY Instructions with Pictures) [Voltage Blog]
