It’s no secret that Computer Courage is a big fan of the iPhone. While the news about the new, slightly faster iPhone 3G has been big news around the internet, we’re sticking with our old iPhones and enjoying the onslaught of new applications that are available for any iPhone. Here are a few of our favorites:
Name: JirboBreak
Price: Free
Type: Game
This is an awesome, free, fun game with unique controls. Sure, it’s basically BrickBreaker, but this is way more interactive and pretty than anything i’ve seen on other phones. And this is just the beginning.
Other notable games: Cro-Mag, Cube Runner, MonkeyBall.
Name: Yelp
Price: Free
Type: Information
We love Yelp, and this little App is one of the best ways to access it. Take advantage of localization – the iPhone’s ability to let applications know where you are. Yelp will find you restaurants, movies, or any other type of business in whatever area you happen to be in (or search other areas to plan trips, etc.) I used it to find pizza in Lake Tahoe, burritos in San Francisco, and restaurants in NY. You can even sort by price or distance, read reviews, or even post your own.
Name: Movies.app
Price: Free
Type: Information
Movies.app makes finding movie times and information as easy as possible. Just put in your zip code and you can find movies by name or theater. You can see an impressive amount of information about a movie including length, rating, and full video trailers. Best of all, movie times are loaded quickly and easily – no more waiting around for web pages to load. Amazingly useful on the go, possibly even ideal at home.
Name: Pandora Dadio
Price: Free
Type: Media
This is brilliant. Panorda is one of our favorite websites at the office. You put in the name of an artist you like, and it creates a custom “radio station” for you. The station will stream full quality audio to your browser, and mix it in with other similar artists. It’s got semantic feedback as well – you can give songs the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, and it will adjust the station accordingly.
Now it’s here for the iPhone. Wow. You can stream any music you want, free, straight to your iPhone. It works perfectly over WiFi. We haven’t tried it on 3G or EDGE, but it reportedly does work. This turns your 4, 8, or 16 gigabyte iPhone into an unlimited source of new music.
Also see: Apple iTunes Remote Control. Use the iPhone as a WiFi remote control for your iTunes library or Apple TV – very cool!
Note: We are still waiting for an application that will allow you to stream your own music collection to your iPhone, preferable without using iTunes. We’ll let you know if/when it happens.
The Future
This is the tip of the iceberg. Opening up the iPhone to custom applications is really going to make this device into a landmark in the history of computing. We’re looking for applications in the future that will let us stream our music, sync our calendar/contacts, access computers remotely, edit documents, play social games, give us turn-by-turn GPS, and more. Thanks Apple – this one is a true winner.