If you didn’t manage 30 Best iPhone Apps + 14 Games – Part 1 yet, it probably makes sense to check it out.

 

Jumping right along then…

 

 

20.  Pocketpedia

 

Pocketpedia is basically a media-specific database.  It’s straightforward, simple, and has caused me very few problems.

 

Start out by creating a new Collection, name it anything you want, then search Amazon for titles.  Find movies, books, CDs, or Games, and put them in your collection.  Once added, your collection items will give you Amazon reviews, and other information about the title (director, actors, etc.), as well as the Amazon reviews.

 

Depending on which category you’re in, you get different information.  Once you’ve got your collection together, you can move items from one collection to another (like “Borrowed”), in order to give a lot of options for keeping track of your stuff.

 

 

Now, the majority of the time this works like a charm.  But, I have to mention that getting your collections setup to begin with can be a pain.  Once you have your collections established, having to wait a bit to add the next new thing isn’t a real big deal, but if you’re searching for the wrong thing it can be pretty slow.

 

Searching for “Criminal,” for example, because let’s say you are looking for the movie Criminal, brings a jillion possibles, takes forever, and lists Criminal on about page 14 of the choices.

 

If you have a massive collection you want to keep track of, you’re going to want to really pace yourself on the initial input of your items.

After that, this is a pretty nifty little option for keeping that info handy, and it lets you rate items and then list your collection a variety of ways.

 

 

 

 

19.  Photogene

 

Here we go with things that have a lot of App options again.

Our problem here is that the iPhone camera doesn’t give you a lot to work with.  Point, take picture, that’s about it. Now, you can always load that picture up to your desktop/laptop, and do massively great things with it if you’ve got the right software.  But, while it’s just sitting on your iPhone, you can’t do anything out of the box.

Photogene gives you several options once you’ve opened it and opened a picture.  You can probably figure them out just by looking at the bar you get.  Like I said, it’s nothing really complicated or fancy.  Crop, rotate, clean up the color…kind of… your basic options, but options that are handy.

Now, yes, a lot of the time I probably just want to get my picture on my computer, and fix it up more seriously.

 

But, a slightly different lot of the time, I want to have a picture on my phone and mix it up a little, and email it.

 

Or, I just don’t want to have to upload a picture just to download it again, if I want to keep it on my iPhone.

 

Okay, and Photogene has little gimmicks on it as well.  Put frames around the images, and add bubbles with customized text.  And, yes, there are several options for different style bubbles, and a choice of fonts.

 

You’re going to want something, and this is the option for anyone who isn’t too serious about things.

There are Apps that give you better controls, and more options for playing with the images, but they cost, and you have to ask yourself if you really need it.

Once the thing can do enough, and costs enough, then I’ll just move the image to my computer.

 

 

 

 

18.  Shopping List

 

Yep, it’s just a shopping list.  I’m not going to include a picture either, because… imagine a list… with things you might shop for on it…

This is one of those Apps that gets more and more useful as time goes on.  At first it actually seems like nothing all that special, and you might think you could just as well use a Notes tool.

 

This one is really handy though, and like I said, it’s smart, and becomes more useful.

Also, once you look this up at the AppStore, go to the Apps website and check out the tutorials on how to use all its features, which will tell you more than I can.

Ok, so, you first setup categories of items, and add items to those categories.  You just do this as you’re making your first list, and with subsequent lists you keep adding.  In future, you just need to select items to put on a new list.  Shopping list, check.

Now you go to the store.  When you get to the store, you open your list and start a shopping session.  The App will ask to find your location, and ask you the name of the store.  Now you go in and do your shopping, checking off things as you go.  If you have a large list, there are options for organizing it if that helps as you’re going through the store.

When you’re done, end the shopping session.

Little disclaimer here—  The thing will ask you how much you spent, and there are further features for keeping track of how much items cost, and potentially telling you where things are cheaper based on where you have purchased them.  I’m not messing with that, but for your information there is that option.  See the App website for more on how powerful that might be.

 

Now, assume some time has passed, and you’ve had several trips to several stores.  Pretty much everything you’re going to be putting on your lists is already in a category, so making your list is just bang bang clicking on things.  At this point, you can, if this is interesting to you, just ask the thing where to go.  It will find your location, and tell you where the closest stores you have been to are, and which items on your list have been purchased there.  When you get there, your list will be organized with items in the order that you are going to find them in the store based on when you have checked them off on your past trips.

Hey, I think it’s cool.

 

 

 

17.  i.TV

 

Yes, pretty much just find out what’s on TV.  There are other features though, and supposedly more to come (like maybe set your Tivo from the App).

 

 

 

Start off telling it where you are and where you get your TV, and then when you open it up you get this little shot over here.

 

 

 

Scroll around, switch time, the usual stuff.

 

 

Then you can select a show, and get this.  So, you get your episode information, and you can rate shows, and so on.

 

 

Now Watch doesn’t mean watch the show, it means send yourself an email reminding yourself to watch it.  Share is a similar idea, but you’re telling someone else it’s a great show.

 

 

 

You can also get options for writing reviews of the show through your iPhone, viewing your favorites, and a few other nifty little things.

 

 

 

 

Move on over to Theaters, and you get this –

 

 

 

Pick your theater and you’ll get times for shows.

 

 

 

Glenn Beck gets a free ad now of course, but what can you do.

 

 

 

 

You can also select a film once you’re in the showtimes, and you’ll get info on the movie.

 

Like so—

 

 

The App, thus far (it’s relatively new to me, and new in general) works like a charm.  Once in a while it has to download new data, but it doesn’t take long, and you get a wealth of info and options.  I suspect they may even be serious about the many features coming soon.

 

One stop shopping for a lot of things you might want info on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16. GoSkyWatch Planetarium

 

This would actually be even higher, except that I suppose it just isn’t going to appeal to everyone.

 

Open it up, let it find you, and get an image of the constellations.  This one also has a great website you can visit through the AppStore which will show you a lot of the features, video included.

 

You can adjust the settings to turn off the outlines or pictures generated for the constellations as well.

 

Now, if you let the app locate you long enough, and get a very good position, you can hold up your iPhone and point it at the sky, and the sky in the App will move along with you as you aim it at wherever you want to look.

 

Really.

 

You can also search the sky for any constellation, planet, or several deep sky objects, and click what you want, and you’ll be taken right to it.  The search list automatically greys out what you can’t actually see from where you are, but will show it to you if you select it.

 

Just like with many iPhone Apps, use your fingers to zoom in or out, and get up close and personal with constellations or specific stars.  (Much much closer than this shot by the way).

 

This also has a very cool feature that lets you fast forward through time to see what will be where in the future.

 

Better still, I’ve yet to run into even the slightest problem with it.  Like I said, you want to kind of sit and let it get a really accurate reading of where you are for maybe a minute, just for functionality, but everything works great.

 

 

 

 

 

15.  Midomi

Now, a lot of people are going to say Shazam.  That’s the other big App that does basically the same thing.

I’m just going to have to go with my experiences.  Lots of people say Shazam is better, or at least just as good, but it never worked for me at all.  I mean not at all.  Not it worked, but it sucked.  I tried getting it going any number of times, remove it and reinstall it, and who knows what.  Since I first had it there have been, I think, three updates, and it doesn’t matter.  Won’t get out of the gate for me.

 

So, Midomi, which has always worked, and worked great, is actually a strange little App.  Short story, it will tell you the song you are trying to figure out the name of.  You’ve got a lot of options for doing this too.

 

As you can see, you can sing or say.  Just select that, tap where it tells you, and starting singing or saying lyrics.  Now, why both these options exist I have no idea. 

 

 

I can certainly imagine (given the other options) that it makes some difference, but why not just the Sing option?  Whatever.  Works fine though.

 

 

This is the page resulting from my saying “Who Can It Be Now?”  Hooray.

 

 

 

You can also type in something to search for, but why bother?

 

 

Of course, the real wacky fun of this crazy thing is Grabbing.

 

 

You can just hold your iPhone up to any source playing music, and Midomi will analyze what it hears and tell you what the song is.

 

 

This result was the same when I grabbed the first ten seconds (it only does ten seconds at a time, if it can’t get it you have to try again with wherever you are in the song now), or a couple different middle ten seconds of this song.  I thought that was pretty cool, because the first ten seconds have no words… and barely any music.

 

I’ve played with this a lot, and it does what it claims.  You have to be careful with the truly obscure, but I haven’t run into too many things it didn’t know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14.  WeatherBug

 

If you don’t already know, the Weather App that comes with the iPhone sucks.  It gives you very little information, although, if you live somewhere that doesn’t actually have a lot of weather I guess you’re fine.

 

I live where I have a lot of weather, and I want some serious weather information… let’s say, within reason for what an App is going to give me.

 

You might already know WeatherBug, and here’s the App.  This picture will call me a liar, but most of the time I’ve used it the update was not more than 5-10 minutes ago.

 

Tap on the day down at the bottom, and you get a somewhat extended forecast for the day.  You can also save several locations to get weather in different cities.

 

 

Then tap on Radar—

 

And, if it’s interesting, you can move all around, although that can become a bit slow.

 

It was not so much a fun day here.

 

 

Pretty simple, helpful App that is miles better than the standard issue version.

 

 

It also has a Cameras option which I think is really cool, but is probably more functional for those in bigger cities.  I only get three camera options, and none of them are close to me.  I’ve heard (and correct me if I’m wrong) that major metropolitan areas can find this very useful, because you’re bound to have a couple of options wherever you are, or are going.

 

I have a “when I’m going skiing” option, but that’s about it.

 

New York had a billion options, and none of them meant anything to me, so I just picked this one.  It says (2 of 3), but that’s 3 of the options after I picked Central Park as an area, out of at least a score of choices.

 

This is a live picture fed to you when you tap on the App.  Now, someone’s clock is off and don’t ask me to explain that.  I went back and checked any number of places, and they all gave me the right time, including this one, but here it’s off.  Seriously, it’s live.  Well, sometimes it’s liveish.  The ones near me especially.  They seem to only snap once every 15-45 minutes, and that’s the shot you get.  I haven’t found any others that were in the future though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13.  Snap My Life

 

Here’s an App that you’ll either love, or find ridiculous.

 

Use your iPhone camera abilities to take a photo, and send it directly to the Snap My Life map of the world.  Then you can explore around the map, and find out what’s around by looking at other people’s shots.

 

Theoretically, this is another one that will just keep getting better.  Zoom in on this shot, and you will find a lot more pictures, but there aren’t as many as would really turn this thing into something awesome.

There are like three anywhere near me.

 

This is another App with competition.  There are several other Apps that do more or less the same thing.

 

 

I chose this one, because it worked pretty fast, seemed to have at least a pretty good start on a fair number of users, and gave me some results internationally.

 

It loads up pretty quickly after finding you, and you can move around and zoom without the thing crashing or loading forever.

 

 

This is the pick for now, but I rather assume that this is the sort of idea where some App is going to “win,” and that’s the one everyone is going to have to get, because that’s the one everyone gets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12.  Instapaper

 

This is actually one of my favorite Apps, and it would be higher, except that the whole numbering thing doesn’t mean that much to me anyway.  But, just to be clear, I LOVE this App.  There is a free version, but buy the expanded one.  I don’t know if I’m going to say that it is absolutely worth it, though it is for my purposes, but this is so cool and helpful that the creator ought to get the money.

 

So, you install this App.  Then you sign up at the website.  Then, depending on your browser, you in some manner create a “bookmark” that knows who you are.

 

Now, as you surf the web, read your feeds, go to links from your emails, or whatever, when you find something that looks cool you click your “bookmarker.”  So, let’s say you find something that looks good, but you don’t want to read it all right this second, or you want to save it, or you just want to make it available on the go, one click is all you need.

 

Once you “bookmark” it with your Instapaper, you just go to Instapaper on your iPhone, and you will find a “textualized” version of that article, or whatever it is.

 

Like, suppose you were reading something right now, and you wanted it snapped into a newspaper-ish form that you could get whenever you want on your iPhone… that would be cool.

 

 

This is one, of course, where you have to ask yourself if you’re going to use it.

 

I use it all the time.  You can blitz through feeds, and whatever you find that might take a while to read, give yourself the option to read it on the go.

 

 

 

 

 

11. Easy Relax

 

This spot on this list was held by Ambience until about four days ago.  That’s when I found Easy Relax, which does the exact thing, does it better, with a slicker interface, and for free.

 

Here again, it’s either cool and you’ll use it, or you’ll think it’s really stupid.  

 

It’s just a background-noise maker.  Ambience is one of the big two versions of this same idea, and I liked it better than the competition.  Easy Relax destroys them both, and not just because it’s free.  It works better, has miles and miles better sounds, and builds in the timer feature better.

I know, this is crazy, but if you want to just get rid of other noise, or fall asleep on a plane, this is really cool.  Almost all the options on Easy Relax are actually decent background type noises.  Compare that with Ambience which is a huge file and fully 75% of the noises are just frickin irritating.

 

 

 

 

Well, you’ve made it through stage 2.  Stay tuned for the top ten, and two posts worth of games.

 

Once again, The 30 Best iPhone Apps + 14 Games – Part 1

 

 

 

Are You Screening?

 

 

 

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