Seeing as the appstore has been out for a bit now, figured I would bother upgrading my ipod touch to use the appstore. Anyone want to give a heads up on what they've found to be useful/fun?

I find the apps from the store to be fairly basic and boring - many are just one-shot tech demos that use a specific function of the device very well (e.g. the touchpad, accelerometers, etc) but you get over them after 5 mins.

There are a few exceptions (e.g. RDP client) but I find them to be limited or buggy in some way. The most useful programs I got after jailbreaking, outside the store: terminal emulator, SSH server, web server, ScummVM, etc.

If you're still keen on the store, just pick an App category, right-click the header (Name, Time, Artist, Genre, etc) and enable the Popularity column and sort by that. Usually there are no more than a handful of apps per category with more than 1/3 bar rating, the rest aren't even worth the effort.

last edited by parabol at 02:09:04 27/Oct/08

The most useful apps from the app store for me are:
Facebook, NetNewsWire (RSS), Things (paid app for Todos, syncs with desktop app), Remote (itunes control), Shazam (magic music identifying), IceTV (aussie tv guide), IM+.

Promising apps / apps that should be good but I just don't use:
Evernote, AusGamers, AirSharing

Then of course there's gaammes... FS5 Hockey (air hockey) is pretty cool. And Labyrinth is probably the most solid and cool use of the accelerometers.

the best app is that one that lets you add moar cowbell to your favourite music while playing

or the lightsabre app

Real Football 09 ftw.

+1 on facebook and NNW. But like parabol said, despite having a bunch of apps on my iPhone i hardly use most of them. Their just still there for convenience I spose.

i like 'tris' its a tetris clone

FourFree - Connect 4 (free)
Holdem - Poker (paid)
Brain tuner - basic math puzzles (free)
2 Cross le - Cross words (free)
ivote - opinions (free)
BOM Radar - rainfall indicator (free)
My 247 - Finds bars, restaurants, cinemas etc: in your proximity
Palringo - MSN (free)
Units - converts units of measurement (free)

BUBBLEWRAP!

There's a whole lot of useless/dodgy crap in the app store - I don't search past the Top 25/50. And I won't just buy an app - I've only bought one so far. Android store has the right idea with full refund returns within a few hours. If they want more of my money they need some way to trial these apps. I'm yet to use a 'Lite' app and had a need to buy the 'Premium' - although Labyrinth and SuperBalll2 are close I guess.

fring, cycorder, swirlymms, mplayer, runkeeper

APPSPAM!
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/148219/appspam.jpg

photoswap was fun for a while

iXpenseIt
Solitaire City
Kickscreen
Pocket weather AU

AroundMe, WhereTo and IM+

All other apps I use are from Cydia.

Cool, thanks for the info guys. I wasnt expecting the appstore to have anything super useful, just looking at convinence apps and games, an MSN app would be super as well. The only MSN app that was mentioned was from fade, farlingo? or does IM+ also support msn (i assume its an IM program by its name aha)

IM+ supports MSN, probably the best IM client around from the ones I've used too.

does IM+ also support msn (i assume its an IM program by its name aha)

yep :P I use it for Google Talk and MSN. (also does AOL, Yahoo, Jabber, ICQ, MySpace)

last edited by Farseeker at 14:54:38 27/Oct/08

BeeJive is the best IM client but its something like 18 bucks. Coz they have the background servers which keep you connected and notify you when youre not in the app.

I have IM+, Fring, around me, facebook, ebay from appstore

Cydia apps:
Categories, winterboard

Games:
Macman (pacman using tilt)
Fuzzle
FS5 Hockey
JellyCar
Maze Finger
NES ROM emulator
Spacemonkey (glitches and died after like level 10 or something)
Apache something or other (accelerometer moves the chopper around)

Where do I find "tris" I love tetris however I cannot locate it anywhere :( There was mytris in cydia but it was some ultra s*** tic tac toe game.

Also for those who have JB'ed whats the easiest way to restore youtube access?

I pretty much don't use any Apps except the Facebook one and only because the new version is actually slightly better than just using the website.

I have aroundme but havne't used it much yet ; I guess it has more potential if you have an iPhone and can get net access wherever.

Generally I find most of the apps (as parabol said) sort of limited. the fact they can't run in the background is a constant pain in the ass and prevents me from ever bothering to use things like IM clients.

what besides IM is useful to run in the background though? It sounds more like you don't have needs, rather than the apps being limited. I guess only having wifi access would be pretty limiting.

what besides IM is useful to run in the background though? It sounds more like you don't have needs, rather than the apps being limited. I guess only having wifi access would be pretty limiting.

Instamapper
iSSH
Chat clients
facebook
etc

Google earth for iPhone! just announced by google

Generally I find most of the apps (as parabol said) sort of limited. the fact they can't run in the background is a constant pain in the ass and prevents me from ever bothering to use things like IM clients.

Totally agree, although they are (apparently) enabling background application notifications in a free update (it was meant to be in 2.1 but they wanted to do it better). Give it a few years, they might even discover the concept of cut and paste.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/148219/IMG_0010_small.jpg cooool :D

rubba, I never lost utube access

Hrm how did u jailbreak? I used quickpwn

I can get into the app fine, when I tried to play youtube or ausgamers vid it would error.

Ziphone

Hey are there any actually good email clients yet? Oh wait, that's right, someone made one and Apple decided to block it.

I had a quick go at Google Earth and it was f***ing SWEET AS.

Question for y'all - I'm using an iPod Touch at the moment, and want to upgrade to an iPhone in the next week or so. Will I be able to put all the apps I have in iTunes on the iPhone? With apps that I have paid for, will they work on both devices, or do I have to buy them a second time?

Hey are there any actually good email clients yet? Oh wait, that's right, someone made one and Apple decided to block it.

Standard one works fine - what features are you missing?

Billy - should be fine, purchases are attached to your iTunes account.

Thanks Ticman. I posted that without a shirt on btw ;)

With apps that I have paid for, will they work on both devices, or do I have to buy them a second time?

the app is authorized to your itunes account, not to the device. Now go and work out why that is an awesome thing ;)

oh.. someone pass us their itunes ac :P

I am considering getting a Touch, but am wondering if there is an application I can use to upload ebooks to it? I'm traveling soon, and I don't want to have to be carrying about books, but I heard a rumor the Touch isn't helpful in this instance?

I am considering getting a Touch, but am wondering if there is an application I can use to upload ebooks to it? I'm traveling soon, and I don't want to have to be carrying about books, but I heard a rumor the Touch isn't helpful in this instance?

check out Stanza - http://www.lexcycle.com/ - I think it works by adding your ebooks to its desktop app, which you then sync to your iphone/touch. Worthwhile checking out the demo vid and the desktop app anyway.

I am considering getting a Touch, but am wondering if there is an application I can use to upload ebooks to it? I'm traveling soon, and I don't want to have to be carrying about books, but I heard a rumor the Touch isn't helpful in this instance?

check out Stanza - http://www.lexcycle.com/ - I think it works by adding your ebooks to its desktop app, which you then sync to your iphone/touch. Worthwhile checking out the demo vid and the desktop app anyway.

good find! Just had a quick bash of the iPod app too see what it was like and first glance looks good.

It uses simple left-right motions for page turning which is much better than up/down ones and not too bad (although again I'd prefer tactile buttons on the side for this action). Getting books on it is a bit lame - have to use their client software (downkloading now) or put your books online and download them from http urls (painful). Will update more later but this looks like it might be a good goer for ebookers.

Anyone found a decent voice recorder? I downloaded the free one by Griffin, but according to the review there's a major bug where you can't save recordings. I only downloaded cause it's free for a limited time, and I'll get the working update free.

I'd like one with different quality options and the ability to export the tracks easily.

Jailbreak it billeh you know you wanna :)

I've seen a few in Cydia

So cbf... I jailbroke my iPod Touch when I got it, and I found it more hassle than it was worth. I'm happy being a slave to Apple :)

I just paid $1.20 for one of the speedos - works pretty well! It's 100% gimmick, but still neat.

So cbf... I jailbroke my iPod Touch when I got it, and I found it more hassle than it was worth

I felt this way until recently as well, when I sat down watching TV and spent an hour with my phone on the wifi and downloaded a crap load of apps from cydia.

There is SOOOOO many cool apps that you will never find on the offical app store.
Even one to back up your cydia and apple apps in case you need to do a restore.

Catagories is frigging awesome as well.

plz gimme egs of apps that make it worth jailbreaking iphone

Categories
AppBackup
AptBackup
CopierciN (Copy and Paste)
SwirlyMMS (for MMS)
Themes/Icons/Ringtones
NES Emulator (old school games rock)
mplayer
Cycorder (video recording)
MxTube (to save youtube vids)

Thats all I really have looked at so far, but there is a heap more I want to check out when I get time.

Hah! But what do they do!?#!

Catagories is frigging awesome as well.

Whatever you do DON'T put the categories app inside one of the folders... otherwise if it f***s up like it did on my phone... you can't disable the bastard and get all the icons inside the folders back.

They now live in what I call the iphone void.

I even tried reloading from scratch and restoring my backup without jailbreaking which worked fine... but when I jailbroke cydia and installer went back into the folder which now did not exist on the springboard so I cannot launch them :(

I'll have to do a fresh load and jailbreak and start all over again...dangit D:
I was more concerned with losing all my contacts but I have figured out how to back them up to the WAB so thats all good now.


If they were smart they would've integrated categories into the settings menu so if this happened you could just go in there and still launch the damn thing to disable it.

last edited by rubba-chikin at 16:50:08 30/Oct/08

im loving the lifetick application - it's goal setting/management tool - got it off apples webapps page (also at www.lifetick.com )

i also like to make farts using my iphone

Standard one works fine - what features are you missing?

MESSAGE FILTERS OMG

I would love to be able to setup just ONE rule which deletes anything with a spamassassin header, oh the humanity

Hey are there any actually good email clients yet? Oh wait, that's right, someone made one and Apple decided to block it.

Standard one works fine - what features are you missing?.

uh, search? sorting? the ability to easily re-download an email over imap when your connection drops and you just get the email saying "this message hasn't been downloaded from the server" and you have to f*** around for ages to get it to actually download the email body? improved formatting of HTML emails? support for screen rotation?

That's off the top of my head, there's a billion other things that come to mind when i'm actually using it and marvelling at it's shortcomings. And I'm not even trying to use it for business, just s*** like carrying around my itineraries etc. I can't imagine using it for business purposes it's so ass.

I've been hanging around people with blackberrys for a month or two now and I'm amazed at how much better they seem to be for a lot of email tasks, if only cuz of the godddam awesome roller thing on the side.

will any of the omnifocus stuff do any of that for you?? i dunno much about it, just putting out there.. i believe its working around that kind of area

/edit scratch that, sorry it only lets you organise stuff *from* mail.. if you can't get the mail reliably then it won't be able to organise your stuff

last edited by Boxhead at 18:48:54 30/Oct/08

I use mine daily with an Exchange server so I cant comment on imap.

However I can open attachments, my phone gets emails before outlook does most the time and as for HTML formatting, it destroys windows mobile devices as far as rendering and formatting goes.

As for blackberrys.....blackberrys cost too much money, require software server side to alter your email into a format those ugly little devices can read and are generally just piles of crap. That's been my experiance anyway.

Searching for email would be good, there is an app I found tonight on the appstore that might do it, if I find it again Ill post it.

I've found it faster, more convenient and uses less data if I use the gmail mobile email site instead of Apple's application. It fkn rocks! So does gtalk mobile.

Has anyone used "fring"? I've used it for instant messaging, but you're meant to be able to use Skype with it as well to make voice calls.

I would love to be able to setup just ONE rule which deletes anything with a spamassassin header, oh the humanity

I don't even remember WM devices being able to setup rules with ActiveSync/IMAP/POP accounts. If you have IMAP then setup the rule an a full fledged client like ThunderBird at home.

uh, search? sorting? the ability to easily re-download an email over imap when your connection drops and you just get the email saying "this message hasn't been downloaded from the server" and you have to f*** around for ages to get it to actually download the email body? improved formatting of HTML emails? support for screen rotation?

I use IMAP and never had this problem, if the connection does drop out it tells me and I just hit the little refresh button in the bottom corner once I get a data connection again. HTML formatting is spot on, far better than any other mobile email client I've used and as for screen rotation - sure it'd be nice but it's hardly a deal breaker.

I've been hanging around people with blackberrys for a month or two now and I'm amazed at how much better they seem to be for a lot of email tasks, if only cuz of the godddam awesome roller thing on the side.

BlackBerrys were always designed as an email device from the beginning so it's no surprise they have better/smarter/enhanced functionality. However I'd rather get my email without having it resent to the RIM servers in the US or install some expensive piece of crap server software instead of just a straight OMA connection to my Exchange server.

The iPhone is the *only* device I've ever used where I setup email accounts and continued to use them. SymbianOS was awful for handling Exchange accounts (MfE). Folders weren't supported, screen size too small (E65, E63, N95), OS was unresponsive and god forbid if I got more than 10 new emails at once then the whole thin gwould crash. BlackBerries had nice bits but not enough to outweigh the bad points of what I mentioned above.

Searching for email would be good

Yep it's an all in one search app (email, contacts, bookmarks, etc) that worked pretty well. If I sound like an Apple fanboi then it's because there's finally a mobile device on the market that is alot more revolutionary than the latest LG Prada or Nokia Exx standard phone. If Dodo made the iPhone instead of Apple then I'd be a Dodo fanboi as the device itself is brilliant for what it costs and what you get in it.

The only thing apple need to do is get more battery life out of them some how... i look after the phone and phone plans for my company and all the sales team and managers would love one, but the battery life just doesnt cut it for them....

I get about 2 days on wifi with mine, but only since updating the firmware

The only thing Apple needs to do to the iPhone is add more DRAM... Crashes and major lag sometimes is so annoying.

Safari on remotely complex websites lags like a bitch when typing. As in 1 second between tapping and seeing it on the screen... Having more ram in the thing would seriously improve the performance of the iPhone.