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rayzoredge

What Are The Best Ipod Touch / Iphone Apps?

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I just recently got myself an iPod Touch and was wondering what apps were available that are actually useful and maybe worth paying for.So far, I've added the following:PS Mobile - Not as cool as I thought it was, but still pretty neat. It allows for you to throw your existing photos on your iPod Touch / iPhone through filters, save your work, and upload them online to download them onto any computer. You need an account to upload pictures, I'm sure.Dictionary - Much cooler than I thought it was. You don't need an online connection to look up words, but you do need one if you want to look up similar words and to view the Word of the Day.Google - Easy access to Google tools. You can access your Gmail, Calendar, Latitude, Docs, Talk, Tasks, Reader, News, Book Reader, Notebook, Photos, orkut, Translate, Maps, YouTube, and Earth from this one app. Selecting anything will launch the Safari app or run the appropriate app within the suite. Obviously, you need Internet access.Google Earth - Probably redundant, but if you want this and not everything else included in Google, it works.iHandy Level - Very nice and great application of the accelerometer. Seems like it's pretty accurate too.PAC-MAN Lite - Not as cool as it seems. You can play ONE level of Pac-Man using swipes on a virtual D-pad, swipes anywhere on the screen, or use the accelerometer to play. After you beat the one level, it will ask you to take a look at other games or quit.Pandora - I haven't tried this out just yet, but it should be as awesome as its web counterpart.Skype - Haven't tried this yet either as I'm waiting for a microphone adapter to come in from eBay, but this was one of the reasons why I wanted to get an iPod Touch 2G. It's sad that you can use the iPod Touch 2G as a better phone than the iPhone will ever be...textPlus - Haven't used it yet, but the idea seems great. You can text people using your iPod Touch / iPhone via WiFi, and I'm guessing that incoming texts will go to your web account, viewable by the app. And it's all free!The Weather Channel - I know there's already a weather app on the iPod Touch by default, but TWC brings it up a notch by noting hourly, 36 hour, and 10 day forecasts, not to mention check severe weather updates, explore a weather map, and watch local weather-related video.XKCD - One of my favorite comics. It's not as good as I thought it was though, as it requires a WiFi connection to access xkcd.com. I'll probably end up just syncing my xkcd image collection and just browsing my "photos" on the iPod itself.-All of these applications were free, which is what I'm aiming for, but if there is truly an amazing app that doesn't break the bank, I truly welcome the suggestion. I'm looking for utility, entertainment, and even stupid apps that are free (like the shotgun app). Might as well have fun with it, right? :P

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The ones you listed aren't bad. Free ones I'd suggest Cube Runner, Tap Tap 2 (they have some very good songs), Topple, RSS Free (great for updates), and iWoopie (download videos straight to iPod).Paid ones I'd suggest Bejewled, Topple 2, Police Radio (pretty cool to hear the police radio from your country. Only works in USA I believe).Don't get Tap Tap 3 unless you want to pay for the premium songs or know of bands that have songs on there for free. The free songs aren't that good. Also do NOT get the paid version of AIM. It isn't any better than the free version.If you decide to jailbreak, which is a GREAT idea (I've done it), I can give you names of jailbreak apps. There are a ton of good ones out there, and some good emulators (GBC, SNES, NES).

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The ones you listed aren't bad.

Free ones I'd suggest Cube Runner, Tap Tap 2 (they have some very good songs), Topple, RSS Free (great for updates), and iWoopie (download videos straight to iPod).

Paid ones I'd suggest Bejewled, Topple 2, Police Radio (pretty cool to hear the police radio from your country. Only works in USA I believe).

 

Don't get Tap Tap 3 unless you want to pay for the premium songs or know of bands that have songs on there for free. The free songs aren't that good. Also do NOT get the paid version of AIM. It isn't any better than the free version.

 

If you decide to jailbreak, which is a GREAT idea (I've done it), I can give you names of jailbreak apps. There are a ton of good ones out there, and some good emulators (GBC, SNES, NES).



 

 

 

I tried Cube Runner, Tap Tap 2, and Topple. All of them are pretty simple and plenty entertaining. I second TheDisturbedOne's recommendations. :P

 

Of course, I've been looking up even more apps to entertain myself as well as make this iPod Touch as useful as it can be, so I did some more research. I haven't gotten a chance yet to try them, but I'll let you guys know if they're good or not. Note that all of these apps are free or are so awesome that it's worth forking the money over. (Mostly free though... I'm a cheapskate.) :P

 

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More that I've tried:

 

USA Today - Basically a news cast. Useful if you want to keep on top of national news.

 

 

Jelly Car - A very, very entertaining game with physics and full utilization of the iPod's accelerometer. You can tilt, swipe, zoom, and do whatever you need to do to get a car to its goal... complete with physics.

 

Apple Remote - Now with Genius, apparently. I couldn't get this to work though. Seems like a nifty idea that really is more of a novelty than anything else. Then again, isn't the iPod Touch more of a novelty? (I'm aiming to change that for myself.)

 

Tap Tap Revenge 2 - Not very awesome if you are cheap like me and never buy good songs to play with. There aren't a lot of popular songs available for free, but it's still entertaining, nonetheless. Think of Guitar Hero on the iPod Touch and you get TTR2.

 

Newton's Cradle - Novelty. You can tilt and "swing" the balls wherever you want, and touch to hold a ball or balls in place to achieve your very own cradle tapping away at your desk.

 

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More that I have yet to try out:

 

Aardvark Mobile - Sounds like a Yahoo! Answers app, but questions are answered by your friends on Facebook and on Aardvark instead of random strangers.

 

Last.FM - An alternative to Pandora. Streams music.

 

Setinel 2: Earth's Defense - A pay tower/desktop defense game. Trailer looks pretty good for what it is.

 

Ragdoll Blaster - Pay game. It's much like the Flash games online where you blast something out of a cannon and see how far you can get. Ragdoll physics are involved, I imagine.

 

USAA - For those of you who have USAA accounts (military or military families), this is probably very useful for financial utility. Too bad it only works with the latest firmware, which is $4.95 to update. (Sickening to know how Apple nickels-and-dimes you for everything you have... but in small portions so that you don't mind until you get the total.)

 

MyPaint2 - Paid paint app. Probably entertaining with being able to "finger-paint" with your iPod Touch.

 

iNinja Lite - Throw throwing stars like a ninja at targets. C'mon, it's a ninja game! :)

 

Doom Resurrection - If I would pay for any app on the iPod Touch, this would be it. This really opened up my eyes to what the iPhone / iPod Touch is really capable of. Watch the trailer and you'll know what I mean.

 

Tap of War - Stupid simple game that will still take away some of your time. Tap as fast as you can to win your tug of war with a computer opponent or with someone else. It's probably pretty fun, but I'm on the fence with this one.

 

Good Food - Sounds like a good deal when you don't know where you want to eat in an unfamiliar place or want to try something new without getting gypped. Reviews are from peers.

 

Wired Product Reviews - Useful to make sure that the neat gadget you're about to get doesn't suck.

 

Amazon Mobile - If you love Amazon, you'll love this app. Apparently it's so good that you won't miss being able to do it on your PC.

 

eBay - Again, if you love eBay, you'll love this app. Useful for watching bids, placing bids, and realizing that your impulsive bid to win the auction was way too much.

 

Instapaper - Sounds very promising. It doesn't need an Internet connection to run, but it does need Internet to download blogs, articles, stories, and other literature for you to read later. This is on my must-try list.

 

White Pages - Self-explanatory.

 

Yellow Pages - Self-explanatory.

 

Wikipanion - Wikipedia on your iPhone / iPod Touch. A must-grab.

 

Twitterfon - Tweet from your iPhone / iPod Touch. I still don't get Tweeting unless you have something useful to share... which is why I use Twitter more as a tool (with its many useful bots) instead of tweeting myself.

 

Fring - The Trillian of the iPhone / iPod Touch. It supports a multitude of instant-messaging and communication protocols, including AIM, Skype, Twitter, MSN Messenger, ICQ, SIP, Google Talk, and Yahoo. A must-grab.

 

Facebook - If you like Facebook, you'll love this app. I am now more of a FB guy so MySpace isn't much of a choice for me. Go figure that they block FaceBook at my work but not MySpace. :)

 

MySpace - Same as FaceBook, but for MySpace.

 

LinkedIn - Same as the above, but for LinkedIn. Honestly, who actually does social networking on LinkedIn? It seems like once you put up all of your information on LinkedIn, you don't touch it. Or maybe that's just me and a hundred other people I know.

 

WiFinder - App to help you find hotspots and poor, unsuspecting victims that leave their WiFi networks unsecured. Mwahaha.

 

A2Z Pro - Sounds like a conversion app. I'm sure it's a must-grab.

 

myLite - Flashlight app with color options. But I already use my cell phone for that. :P

 

Units Free Converter - Another conversion app. Probably as versatile as A2Z Pro.

 

Chess - Free chess app. Not very impressive graphically, but simple is good, right?

 

WebMD Mobile - For all you hypchondriacs out there.

 

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Keep the app recommendations coming!


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Ragdoll Blaster is a must have. It is $.99 and I would pay much more for it. The free version is very easy, but the full version is very challenging. A must get (I can't believe I forgot to list it).Last.FM is great, however you can't do anything else while listening to the music on it. Best used on jailbroken iPods with Backgrounder.The facebook app is great as well. You can do much more than on the previous versions than on the old version.

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Haha... I just jail-broke my iPod Touch last night.Amazing potential, although it's probably like a Pandora's box. I used BlackRa1n's super-easy jailbreak executable, and lo and behold... that was easy. [Cue in Staples royalties for rayzoredge] The only pain-in-the-butt part was updating my firmware. I had 2.1.1 on my 2G, so in my research, I found out that I could update to 3.1.1 by downloading the firmware online, actually run the latest version of iTunes (as I ran into trouble with version 6 or 8 or whatever I had, which I installed to get my iPod Touch to be recognized under Windows 7 x64), then hold down Shift before clicking Restore to update the firmware. After 3.1.1 was updated, I could access the 3.1.2 firmware update legitimately through Apple for free (as opposed to the $4.95 they wanted).Where there is a will, there's a way. :P After the firmware update (which wiped out everything on my iPod Touch), I ran BlackRa1n's executable, let the iPod Touch reboot, and ta-da! it was done. I restored my backup (which, strangely enough, didn't restore my music), added Cydia, and now I'm good to go.With the jailbreak, I would like to recommend even more applications now:Backgrounder - Allows for you to constantly run apps in the background. I would imagine that you can leave an e-mail app or an IM app to run so that you can continue to receive calls, IMs, or check for e-mails constantly even with your iPod / iPhone in sleep mode. Haven't really used it quite yet, but I can tell that this can be a good thing and bad as well... since available RAM is going to be an issue.SBSettings - More advanced settings to help you save power on your device, like turning off WiFi, Bluetooth, hiding icons, etc.Categories - You have to get this if you have a million apps. Allows you to organize your apps into folders so you don't have to thumb through and scan through all of your icons.WinterBoard - This is what WindowsBlinds is to Windows XP. Customize the look of your iPod Touch / iPhone. Another must-have if you like being personal.There are still a bunch I haven't tried, but I'm looking to check out.iPhoneModem / OpenSSH - Use this to tether your computer to your iPod Touch's WiFi connection. I still don't really find a use for it, but maybe someone here will. Or maybe it's moreso for the iPhone's broadband capability, but I'm sure that data plan's going to rear its ugly head.IntelliScreen - Another must-have. It makes your Lock Screen informative so that you can check stuff without having to unlock your iPod Touch, then find the app that you want to check.Navizon - Pseudo-GPS for the iPod Touch / iPhone. Not sure how well this would work since it would need WiFi to find where you are, but it's worth a shot.DropCopy - Apparently, an easy way to copy files to your PC from your iPod Touch / iPhone.

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iPhoneModem / OpenSSH you can use to connect a computer to wifi. Lets say you have your iPod Touch on you and your wireless card just happened to break. With that app, you can connect your computer to the wireless internet with the iPod Touch.Just don't go crazy with the jailbreak apps. They WILL slow down your iPod (go to safe mode, and you will see the difference).And yep, backups take a long time to make, and don't include music. How nice.

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iPhoneModem / OpenSSH you can use to connect a computer to wifi. Lets say you have your iPod Touch on you and your wireless card just happened to break. With that app, you can connect your computer to the wireless internet with the iPod Touch.

... but if your wireless capability on your laptop goes kaput, how do you tether the iPod Touch to your laptop...?

Magic? :P

And if you get a WiFi signal to share with your iPod Touch, what are the chances that your laptop is probably getting that same signal too? The only reason that I can see here to use this is to expand your wireless coverage using the iPod Touch as a repeater... but that's just a waste of battery power, not to mention that you leave your iPod Touch out of your hands. And I'm not willing to leave my iPod 10 feet away from me. I've already had a $300 Creative Zen Vision M stolen, thank you very much. :P

[Am I missing something here?]

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LOL... duh me. I'm retarded. :P

For those of you who want free apps that have a jailbreak iPod Touch / iPhone, check out Appulous. :P

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Can I just point out that, theres no need for facebooks app if you can go on safari and go on that way : ) and allsso traffic rush is my favorite app. Believe me its worth getting it and its free: )!-reply by Lauren

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@Lauren: I'll have to look at Traffic Rush... it sounds like a simple yet fun and addicting game.

 

Also, some of the Internet apps that you can just go to the website for can actually still be useful because of an interface designed specifically to be more mobile-friendly, not to mention that the apps themselves can give you audible and visible alerts and notifications if you decide to run them within the background. eBay Mobile is pretty useful when it reminds you of auctions that are nearing their ends.

 

So far, these are the apps that have actually stayed on my iPod Touch 2G:

Games:

Assassin's Creed

Block Breaker Deluxe 2

Bookworm

Brain Tuner

Cannon Challenge

Dactyl 2

Doom Resurrection

Earthworm Jim

Fieldrunners

iShoot

JellyCar

KamiCrazy

Labyrinth 3D

Need for Speed Underground

Rolando

Rolando 2

Sneezies

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

Spore

Tetris

Topple

Trism

Zen Bound

 

Tools:

a2z Pro

Around Me [WiFi]

Carpenter/iHandy Level Free

Dictionary

DocViewer

Google Earth [WiFi]

Instapaper Free

iTranslate [WiFi]

LogMeIn [WiFi]

Midomi [WiFi]

Night Stand

textPlus [WiFi]

WebMD Mobile

White Pages

Wi-Fi Finder

WiFiFoFum

Wikipanion

 

Internet:

Amazon Mobile

eBay Mobile

Google Mobile

Facebook

Fring

Pandora Radio

Skype

 

Finances:

Chase Mobile

Paypal

USAA

US Military Handbook

On a side note, here's an interesting article pertaining to how the iPod Touch is helping U.S. soldiers with military applications.

 

What else are you guys finding useful for your iPod Touch / iPhone?

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Here are some more good apps to look at and consider:

 

Games I've Tried

 

Archers - very much like the Bowman flash game

 

Paper Toss - stupid game, addicting and challenging

 

Crayon Physics - loved it on my tablet PC and love it here... draw objects with your finger to get a ball to the star

 

Flight Control - swipe and guide planes and helicopters to land at the airport... without crashing

 

Frogger - the classic

 

Hangman Pro - another classic with different word modes

 

Military Sniper - not great with graphics, but not bad for gameplay

 

OMG! Pirates - fun... and you play as a ninja; what's not to like?

 

Para Panic - very fun and very well done: keep your jumpers from dying and land them on boats

 

Finger Physics - use real-time physics and pre-made objects to build upwards... kind of like Topple

 

Waldo - classic

 

Cooking Mama - a surprisingly-fun game that's been out for a while but I found to be delightfully-implemented for the Touch

 

Traffic Rush - +1 to Lauren's recommendation

 

Games You May Consider (I haven't tried these yet)

Battleship

Clue

Life

iCommando

iGuerilla

iSniper

Monopoly

Need for Speed Shift

Rock Band

Rope Raider

Operation Sandstorm

Scrabble

SimCity

Speed Forge

The Sims 3

Trivial Pursuit

Utility

 

Background Checker - outdated database, but it's neat to know that you can try to check up on your daughter's latest boyfriend

 

Utility Apps I Haven't Tried Yet

 

Splash Notes

Splash Photo

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