As Mac As I'll Ever Go

I have an iPhone. And that's as Mac as I'll ever go.

And fanboys, don't yell at me saying that I've never tried 'em. As a KU J-School grad, I've been using Macs regularly for many years. And I just prefer Windows machines.

Anyways, as most iPhone users, I have a buttload of applications (hereafter referred to as apps), some of which I use multiple times a day, and some of which I don't remember downloading.

So here's the first post in a series, regarding which apps I have, and why I have them. I'll skip the boring ones.

Page 1

Facebook. I use this app embarrassingly too much, even when I'm right

next to my computer and can use the real facebook. It's just handy, tiny, fast, and slick. The version before iPhone O

S 3.0 came out was way worse, and I used it only as a backup when my laptop was being silly, or when I was

on the road. The new version has pretty much every feature, save for watching embedded videos, and they say they're working on that.

Overall, quite the good app.

AP Wire. The AP wire is one of the best news sources out there. In fact, now that papers are firing a lot of their reporters (ahem, you can hire me!), most of the content you'll see in the papers today is AP wire feed. This app started out rocky, and it's first few iterations were embarrassing and often crashed my phone. The new one, though, is quick and reliable, and where I get most of my news.

The New York Times. It certainly does have a liberal tint sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's one of the greatest papers out there today. And, as far as I'm concerned, it is the only one that has a free app that works as well as the NYT. It's fast, it lets you read content offline (which I used on a flight to Florida), and it features most of the newspaper features. As you can see, I

really only read the headlines, the opinion section, the politics section, and a few tech headlines.

It's slick, and it's reliable.

Google Maps. An outstanding mapplication (see what I did there?) that uses the GPS chip very well. It plots directions pretty fast, doesn't have turn-by-turn, but I already have a TomTom, so who cares? The GPS

is surprisingly accurate, but you have to have a good cell signal to download the image of the map. Only problem.

Another cool feature is traffic status. Those squiggly green lines show how congested traffic is at any given time. As you can see, it's range is pretty limited, but it gives me most of the Kansas City area, and has actually saved my butt once or twice.

Very rich and useful app.

Camera and Camera Roll. Excellent as far as camera phones are concerned. I would love to have video, but alas, I do not have the $400 to pay for a 3GS.

The camera's okay quality, and the organization of the pictures is second-to-none. It allows for multiple albums, emailing, and even mini-slideshows.

Doesn't have any editing capability, but I use plenty of third-party apps to do that.

Weather Channel. Perfectly suited to quick updates. The geo-locating

works great, and the severe weather alerts are helpful. The radar map is also excellent, as I like tracking storms and seeing where they're going.

Never used the video section, but if I wanted to watch the weather, I get about five channels with my digital antenna to do that.

Shazam. It's like they built an app especially for me. I love music, and in public am forever asking "What's that song? I've heard it before!" Enter Shazam. You start it up, hit the tag now button, and hold the microphone up to the radio or speaker. Ten seconds or so later, it tells you what song it was!

It's surprisingly accurate, too.

My only beef with it is the tiny tag now button way in the corner there. It needs to be a deal like SayWhere (an app I'll review later), where you just hit a big button as soon as the app starts. The tiny button works okay when you're stationary, but while driving or walking or something, it's hard to hit that little guy.

Still a lot of fun, though.

Bible. Perfect for when I don't have one with me. It requires an internet connection to access most translations, but has a few (random) offline ones, too. I don't use it too often, but it's very useful for when I don't have a hard copy with me.

Google. The voice search is really the only app worth reviewing, as all the other options just open up Mobile Safari to it's Mobile Google equivalent.

Voice search is fun, and that's about it. My wife and I tried to search for "Funder Tharts," and Bunder Store was the closest it got.

As to why we were trying to make it understand Funder Tharts, it was late, and I have no recollection.

So it's fun, but not terribly useful. I usually just use the Google box in Safari.

Hehe. Funder Tharts.

AroundMe. A basic but helpful GPS located that helps you find things in prelisted categories. Pretty useful, and have used it when out and about in the city more than twice.

It cracks me up that they have "Apple Retail Stores" in there. Have you ever been on the road and REALLY needed to find an Apple store?

Now remember, you're finding this Apple store with an iPhone, so the idea of using the Apple store for it's internet access (which I've done MANY times) is a silly and moot point.

They were probably just sucking up to Apple.