Swirly MMS

Swirly MMS

The lack of MMS support on the iPhone has been discussed greatly on the webisphere. Apple made a conscious decision to leave MMS out in favour of encouraging email (which can achieve the same result). However my wife doesn’t have an internet plan enabled on her phone. Now while the only MMS’s we send each other are usually of cute cats or dogs, its nice to be able to do so. Swirly MMS gives full MMS support for US$8, with a free 14 day trial. It works seamlessly and as expected. While you have to manually enter your carrier’s SMS network details, there are numerous listings for all the major carriers for you to reference. MMS notifications come through in a similar manner to standard SMS notifications. 

Cycorder

Cycorder

Cycorder allows you to utilise the iPhone’s camera to record video (with sound) at 6-15 frames per second. While not superb quality – it does let you record those moments when you have nothing else in decent enough quality for play back. The video is saved as .mov files on the iPhone, which can be played back with Cycorder, or moved to your computer with the help of other jailbreak file sharing applications (see netatalk below).

PdaNet

PdaNet

PdaNet lets you use your iPhone as a wireless access point, so your computer can access the internet via your iPhone’s internet connection. Assuming you have a data plan that has enough bandwidth quota – this is great for when out and about. PdaNet works fantastically and without slow overhead. It does cost US$29, but a free 14 day trial  will let you make sure it works fine before buying. For me, last week we were in a hotel for 4 nights. The internet in the hotel room cost AU$11 an hour, or AU$22 for 24 hours. A once-off fee of US$29 to let me use my already paid for (and not really used to the full extent) iPhone net quota is just good economics.

netatalk

Those familiar with running linux machines that talk to Apple computers, may be familiar with netatalk. It provides AFP network file sharing support. Running netatalk lets you access the iPhone’s file system easily with OSX’s finder. While you can do things like replace standard iPhone system files (such as images and sounds) and do other tinkering – the most practical use for this for me is to copy videos made with Cycorder (see above) off the iPhone. netatalk is a GPLed, and thus free. It runs via the standard launchd process and is thus invisible on the iPhone side – and only uses iPhone resources when a connection is initiated by a computer.

openSSH

openSSH lets you SSH directly into your iPhone. This doesn’t really have too much utility, unless you really want to start hacking at your iPhone system. What it is mostly useful for (for me) is to change the default root and mobile user passwords. Changing the default password is important if you connect to public accesspoints and are running netatalk – otherwise knowing people could browse your iPhone file system. This can also let you transfer files using SCP, so you can avoid using netatalk completely if you want and are very security conscious. openSSH is also GPLed and thus free. It too runs via the standard launchd process and is invisible and light weight.

See also… Bed’s Top Five Essential iPhone Apps, Bed’s Top Five Useful iPhone Apps

Still to come…  Bed’s Top Five Useless iPhone Apps and Bed’s Top Five iPhone Games.

IM+ Lite

IM+ Lite

Its always handy to have an Instant Messenger application around. While I don’t need always-on-push instant messaging on my iPhone – having the ability to log on and talk to someone quickly can be useful. Just the other month I was relaying technical support to a work colleague while in a busy loud shopping mall. It was much easier via IM than trying to talk on the phone through all the noise. IM+ Lite isn’t fancy, but it supports pretty much all IM protocols (AIM®/iChat, MSN®/Windows Live™ Messenger, Yahoo!®, ICQ®, Jabber®, Google™ Talk and MySpaceIM) and is free.

AroundMe

AroundMe

This App has been shown on the Australian iPhone tv ads. It uses the GPS to help you find stuff around you, banks, petrol stations, restaurants, etc. It can then take you straight to google maps to give you the directions to get there. The potential usefulness of this is just fantastic – this is what future connectivity is all about. Its also free (it is funded by some very small ads that stay out of your way and are easy to ignore).

Starmap

Starmap

Starmap is really only useful if you like gazing at the sky at night. It uses your current GPS location to find out where you are, and then presents a sky to you with all the stars, planets and universe objects in the right positions. This sky is rotatable and zoomable. You can search for particular objects (such as a particular planet), and turn on or off objects like deep field galaxies. The other weekend I went camping and we noticed two stars looked particularly bright. “They must be planets”, I thought, so I took out Starmap and within a few seconds had verified that we were looking at Jupiter and Venus (this was a few weeks before they teamed up with the moon to form a smiley face as they did last week). When I get a chance to do more star gazing with my telescope – this application will be well worth the price tag of AU$14.99. This has been the most expensive App I’ve bought – but the functionality is well worth it in my opinion.

Trails

Trails

Trails is a simple GPS tracking application. You turn it on and it will track your co-ordinates and elevation. Once you’ve been where you need to be – you can view your trail on-top of google maps services or email the trail file, which can be imported into Google Earth, or any other application that supports GPX files. This works well for visualising hikes, rides or adventures. Trails costs AU$2.49.

Wikipanion

Wikipanion

There’s nothing extraordinary about Wikipanion. You can ultimately achieve the same end result by opening Safari, navigating to Wikipedia and doing your search. But the accessibility and speed of utilising Wikipanion (along with the price tag of FREE) make it useful to have. Just the other month I was in a discussion about what the various colours of urine mean (dehydration, asparagus etc). There was some debate on some colours, so I quickly looked it up with Wikipanion and we had our answers. For all of those times you’re in a conversation and can’t remember something – Wikipanion comes in very useful.

See also… Bed’s Top Five Essential iPhone Apps, Bed’s Top Five Jailbroken iPhone Apps

Still to come…  Bed’s Top Five Useless iPhone Apps and Bed’s Top Five iPhone Games.

However there is also some of the best software I’ve ever seen for a mobile internet device. Here are my top five, best value, most essential applications that I use regularly.

NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire Feed List

The best RSS Feed reader for the iPhone – this will sync with a free NewsGator account. Using the identically named NetNewsWire for OSX – this combination is the ultimate in automatically synchronised news reading. Read some items on your computer, go on a train, and keep reading – without worrying about coming across articles you’ve already read. And best of all, its all free.

Pocket Weather AU

Forecast

There are alot of sources for weather forecasts on the internet. However, if you’re in Australia, there’s only one source that is worth a damn – The Bureau of Meteorology. The weather app that comes with the iPhone doesn’t use the bom – and because of that its often very wrong. Pocket Weather AU does use the bom – and not only that, it exposes all that the bureau has to offer, and does it in awesome iPhone style. View animated rain radar images with ease! This app costs $2.49AU, and is easily worth all of it. I would pay way more if I had to.

Evernote

Notes

The default iPhone notes application is pretty crappy. It doesn’t sync with anything and I hate that font that it uses. The Evernote iPhone app works hand in hand with the Evernote Web Service - which also syncs to the Evernote OSX application too. This means I can write a note on my iPhone, or snap a photo and attach it to a note – and then access this on the web while at a friend’s place – or on my computer directly. This kind of automated syncing is the way of the future and is what these portable internet devices are all about. All of the evernote components (account, iPhone & OSX apps) are free – with a 40MB a month quota. This quota is counted as data uploaded to their servers. Now so far I’ve maxed at about 2MB per month, and thats only because I took photos of stuff and added them to a note. You can then upgrade to a paid account if you’re going to use more data – which I think is damn fair enough for such a useful service. This is internet 2.0 at its finest.

1Password

Secure

I have a gazillion passwords – for web forums – for bank accounts, for on-line billing and more. I keep all of these stored securely with 1Password. Like most of my favourite things, 1Password syncs my secure database with my computer – of course it does this directly with my computer via wifi, not over the open internet. The 1Password iPhone app syncs directly with the 1Password OSX application (which also integrates with Safari/Firefox/Opera for secure password filling). On the iPhone side you set a master 4 digit unlock code to access your searchable list of secure items. When accessing a secure item, you can then configure especially secure items to require entering a secodary alphanumeric master password to view the secure details. Then you can do funky things like use the built-in browser to go to a webpage and automatically log in. This way I can access my online banking securely and quickly on my iPhone anywhere I am. 1Password for iPhone is free and can be used standalone. The OSX application costs $39.95US, a free trial is available, and is IMO absolutely worth it.

Units

Convert stuff!

There are heaps of conversion utilities available for the iPhone – but this one is extremely comprehensive, with every measure of unit you can think of and the ability to convert between them. Its not fancy, and it doesn’t need to be, it couldn’t be simplier to use. Plus its free! And its got a bonus ruler too. There is no reason not to have this app, and every reason why it can be useful.

See also… Bed’s Top Five Useful iPhone Apps, Bed’s Top Five Jailbroken iPhone Apps

Still to come…  Bed’s Top Five Useless iPhone Apps and Bed’s Top Five iPhone Games.