Personally, i think the apps are over rated
All 225,000 of them??
probably about 224,000 of them are rubbish....
True, but if you can't find [i]something[/i] useful in that lot then I'm impressed!
Some apps really make my interweb life easy.
Sky+ Remote Record
BBC News
Facebook
Sky Sports Football Score Centre
I don't see how any of those could be 'over rated' - they perform simple functions and do them well.
Having never looked at all 225,000 of them, i can't say catergorically they are all over rated but from the ones ive used, id say they were.
For instance, i installed a fuel tracker thing that logged the MPG of the car. The ipod lives in the car, so its allways availible but in the 6 months ive had the app, i've used it twice. I found out that it didn't tell me anything i didn't already know.
After a software updated stuffed up my ipod, i hadn't re-installed the apps. It took me 2 months before i even noticed i hadn't done so.
I'm not a techno-phobe, nor a apple basher but an app that helps you to boil an egg? Come on...its a bit of fun, but ultimately pointless.
So is there any consensus on which deal or network to get? I find all the options pretty confusing. I'm pay as you go with O2 at the moment, is it a good idea to stick with that to get the iphone?
Hmm so a mileage app that you didn't use and an egg boiling timer.
I don't think you've exactly exhausted the limits of the app store. 😀
Personally I use quite a few apps pretty regularly, some every day, and I find them genuinely useful:
BBC News and The Guardian: for my news.
Reeder: for my RSS feeds.
Facebook: for my friends.
MotionX GPS: for navigation and route recording.
NatWest: for banking.
British Gas: for bills and meter readings.
epicurious: for recipes.
Wolfram, Wikipanion, IMDB, Dictionary: for reference.
TV Guide, TV Catchup, iPlayer, TuneIn Radio, Now Playing, Orange Wednesday, : for TV, movies and radio.
Various geeky apps (VNC,RDP,SSH etc): for geeky stuff.
Myriad of games: for entertainment and passing time.
I use an app for Copenhagen airport that gives me push updates on flights I'm interested in. As I a) live in Copenhagen and b) fly in and out quite a lot, that's a very useful thing to have.
I also use an app that gives me live times for trains from my local station to my work.
2 simple examples of apps that are very useful to my daily life.
YMMV
GrahamS - where do you get the iPlayer app from? App Store version seems to be for something entirely different.
Some of the cool apps I've running (in addition to those mentioned already)
Evernote
Dropbox
TwitterDeck
Wikipanion
Battery Doctor
Skype
Autotrader
Rightmove
Met Office Weather (localised throughout the day)
National Rail
Amazon
Ebay
Paypal
TV Guide
National Trust
Photoshop
B&Q
Mobile RSS
ECB Cricket
Omnifocus
LinkedIn
Tubemap
TuneInRadio
TalkSport
Pocket First Aid and CPR
Tesco Finder
WordPress
Gorillacam
Games - Angry Birds and Ninja Fruit
iPlayer isn't an app - it's just a bookmark that you add to your homescreen so it looks like an app.
iPlayer isn't an app - it's just a bookmark that you add to your homescreen so it looks like an app.
As in a bookmark of the iPlayer homepage?
EDIT: Ignore becaue I've just sorted it - cheers
iPlayer isn't an app - it's just a bookmark that you add to your homescreen so it looks like an app.
goto bbc.co.uk/iplayer and then hit the + button - you can then add it as a shortcut.
I'd also recommend tvcatchup.com along the same lines - basically an online streaming freeview player. You need to signup but it's free (and very good).
Oh yeah, sorry I was just listing my apps off the top of my head. It is indeed a Web App rather than an App Store app.
Just go to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/iplayer/
Then press the "+" and choose add to homepage and you'll get an app-like icon for iPlayer.
Edit: dammit typed too slow. That'll twach me to try qnd eat lunch while replying. 🙂
Mansonsoul a lot depends on how much you want to spent? If you got to www.moneysavingexpert.com
They have done a break down on the best deals. I want approximately £35 worth of deal, so for that price per month the cheapest is with Tesco, £229 for up front price of 16G i phone 4, then £35 per month for 750 min, unlimited text messages and 1MG of data (unlimited if on wi fi). This contract is only for 12 months so after that you can drop onto a SIM only deal which is significantly cheaper. If you want more info then feel free to drop me an e-mail and I can tell you about the others.
I'ved messed about with 30 or so apps, none of them had any lasting appeal. The egg timer one was a reference to a incident whilst doing some cooking for a friend. I went to boil some eggs, at which point he pulled out his phone and said "i have an app for that...."
I'd like to say its an isolated incident, but sadly its an all to common phrase.
Horses for courses gents, you find them useful. I find them overated, hence why i said "personally".
That's a little like saying you find all books unhelpful because you once read a Mr Man book and thought it was crap.
tbh if you took off all the preloaded app (maps, weather, google earth etc) and didn't look at any of the optional apps that might suit you, you might as well buy one of those phone things instead!
Horses for courses gents, you find them useful.
I find them overated, hence why i said
"personally".
Indeed, but there are so many apps that I find the idea of someone saying they are overrated pretty much the equivalent of saying [i]"personal computers and the internet are overrated"[/i], which given you say you are not a technophobe, I find all a bit perplexing. 😕
One question though: if you just wanted an mp3 player with no fancy apps, why on earth did you buy an iPod Touch??
I got suckered in by the marketing basically, being all shiny, shiny like.
Munque-chick: thanks for the link, and telling me about what you did, it was really useful.
I've almost been thinking of just buying the unlocked phone from Apple, then getting a sim only deal. I'd rather have a large upfront cost and then the flexibility of moving and spending as much as I like later.
But I didn't realise Tesco did mobiles!
@Clong: okay, assuming you have literally no other hobbies, interests, activities or work that could be served by any apps and ALL you want to do is use it for music then surely [i]even then[/i] there are still some genuinely useful apps for that???
e.g. (off the top of my head)
TuneIn Radio - pretty much every internet radio station in the world in one app.
Shazzam - instantly identify a song, artist and album that your hear playing somewhere.
iTunes Remote - use your touch to control iTunes playback on your PC from anywhere in the house.
Spotify - access to a huge catalogue of streaming music.
No??
May I suggest banging your head against a brick wall as a more productive use of your time? 😉
It's this or working... 🙂
Horses for courses gents, you find them useful. I find them overated, hence why i said "personally".
Same for PC software. So many different pieces of software for your PC, but how many do you actually use? Much ado about nothing in my view. Just stick with the box and ... err .. Windows.
Mansonsoul that's what I thought as I didnt' really want to be stuck in a 24 month contract! So you pay a little more up front, think it was £299 for the 32G i phone 4 on the £35 a month contract. But with Tesco you also get a lot more minutes than on other networks. Some I've looked at do 600 mins and 200 texts (the unlimited texts is up to 3000!!!!!!).
Definately with on the working front Graham 🙂
As far as those apps go:
TuneIn Radio - Ive used internet radio on previous phones, its okay
Shazzam - Had this ability on my phones from 6-7 years ago, the novelty wore off after the first couple of goes. My current phone has a similar ability, never used it though.
iTunes Remote - Not something i'd worry about, my music collection is on a PC (or should i say imac?) but the speakers for it are in the room. If i want to listem to music on it, im in the room anyway, where there is a remote control for it anyhow's.
Spotify - Interesting, whats the quality like? One thing that bugged me about the internet radio was the low bit rate. And the commercials.
I tried PDF reader's, hoping to read the Singletrack magazine on them but i didn't get on with it.
Various gym/training apps that record your workouts. I found them tcaky and so dumbed down that i just stopped using them.
I tried epicurious, but i found that i didn't use it. When cooking a meal and thinking of what to cook, i don't think "ohh, where's my phone..."
Iplayer apps, can live without it TBH. News feeds, mleh. Dont listen/watch the news, anything of importance i hear about eventually anyway.
One thing i do like about the touch is the ability to download podcasts direct to it, rather than go though the process of conecting it to the computer.
No idea what the quality on the Spotify app is like cos you need a Spotify Premium subscription to use it which I don't have.
The quality on the desktop one is good though, so I can't see why it'd be any different.
Likewise the quality on internet radio depends on choosing one with a decent bit rate. Most decent stations will offer 128kbps upwards which is fine.
If I had a gun to my head I would say the apps I use the most are:
Logmein (remote login)
Navigon (sat nav)
Cyclemetre (track rides with loads of bells and whistles)
Dropbox (its dropbox innit)
iFitness ( so much for so little)
PDAnet ( turns phone into router to use with laptop....need JB tho)
Weather Pro ( erm...it's the weather?)
TVGuide (it's a tv guide....like radiotimes but for now/next plus full listings)
Layar/Acrossair (augmented reality apps...ok they are more proof of concept than anything but swish all the same)
eBay
Echofon ( twitter nerdom)
IMDB (Solve pub arguments in seconds...oh it's that guy!)
NAtional Rail (pricey for what it is but very polished and works)
etc etc
Apps, other than web app/bookmarks I refer to regularly:
WeatherPro, pretty accurate over the course of a week, much better than the Met Office,
iBooks/Kindle/Stanza/3D Bookshelf: I read a lot, and I have a lot of books on my phone, and I've just found out how to get PDF books from the net and convert them to ePub using Stanza Desktop and transfer to the phone, plus I've found a site with 27 pdf books by a favourite author for four quid!
Orange Wednesday: yes, I had it on my old Orange Sony, but it works even better on my O2 iPhone
Flicks: cinema listings better than the O/Wednesday app
Flickr,
Facebook,
Viewranger
GB OS (1:10000 free mapping)
Starwalk
Red Laser, on the spot price comparisons using product barcodes
There's a conversion app I use a lot for price comparisons, and various others that I use from time to time, that are just handy, like a spirit level; came in handy a week or two back when a machine was moved at work and the engineer wanted a quick check to see if it was level. Just everyday utilities.
how are none of you mentioning FML probably one of the funniest things on the internet!
I've just found out how to get PDF books from the net and convert them to ePub using Stanza Desktop and transfer...
iBooks will display PDFs without any conversion and let you flick through them like an ebook.
We've just discovered that anything running IOS4 won;t send email via our exchange server, reads fine, contacts etc but sending - no way. Seems a common problem and 4.1 'might' fix it. Nice, only noticed as this was the first time i have needed to send on it. ****n thing. I'm getting something else cos my iPhone annoys me too much.
NZCol, have you checked out the Apple forums? I read yesterday that various people could no longer send email via Exchange after upgrading to iOS4 ... not sure if I read about a solution because I was looking for a different fix at the time ... still, worth a look though.
NZCol: they changed the default timeout for Exchange server connections with OS4 which causes a few problems with older, slower exchange servers. That is probably your problem.
Google "EAS Default Task Timeout" to get a new profile with a longer timeout.
iBooks will display PDFs without any conversion and let you flick through them like an ebook.
True, but viewing as *.epub in Stanza gives you more control over the page sizing and an all round better experience. For the record I use Calibre to convert and run a server to sync the books from macbook pro to iphone....or just drag and drop as usual in itunes.
spacemonkey-Yep have been through all of that and exhibits the same issue as everyone on that thread sees.
GrahamS-The server was built last week on new hardware, it worked fine until we went to OS4 and sometimes, just sometimes if i send a one letter email it works, sometimes. Everyone on v3.x.x works perfectly. I'll have a look at that suggestion though ta - we have been through Xch with a fine toothcomb
EDIT: I'm on 4.0.1 but it looks like 4.1 Beta fixes the problem. However, i can;t get that. I hate my iPhone so much I am going to put it on a tee and smash it with a driver into the Ocean.
Our exchange server works fine with our three iPhones (two 3GSs, one 4, all on latest software).
ok, why are we all ignoring the elephant in the room?
WHERE IS THE STW APP?!?!?
Spotify is good quality (160kps IIRC) and obviously has the benefit that you can choose what music to have on it. You can have upto 3000 tracks on the phone at any one time, and has an off line mode than means you only need to sign in every 30 days (so you can take to the states and use as a dukebox in the car like I just did without any data charges)...
You do have to pay a 10er a month tho.
NZCol: check out [url= http://blog.diverdiver.com/2010/06/unable-to-verify-account-information.html ]this[/url] ...
... and follow the instructions to download the Apple config (via Safari on your phone). This worked for me when trying to connect my iPhone 4 to Exchange 2003 - it might also help with the sending issue. If not, check out the official Apple forum - there's load of talk on there about it.
WHERE IS THE STW APP?!?!?
Not ideal, but I have a bookmark on the homepage. Rather than an app I would like to see a mobile version of the forum.
[img] http://is.gd/e22i9 [/img]
Spacemonkey - yep we've done everything, the phones been totally reset, the Sch server has been patched , HFA's everything - we are a specialist IT co. so we sort of know what we are doing. Its really interesting, because there is no way to actually see what its doing we put in a Squid box to debug what its sending - the headers between the 3.1.3 and os4 are totally different as per that thread on the Apple board and this is Xch2010 that we are on. We've got a OS4.1 beta that I'll put on the phone tonight, going back to 3.1.3 fixes it which is what I have done for the moment anyway.
m_f: It works with Exch 2008 running on a VM, just not Xch2010. But the 3.1.x OS phones all work fine, its just something between OS4 and Xch 2008/2010 it appears.
Its all so proprietary and hidden it makes fixing and diagosing problems really quite hard.
Have you tried that new profile that I suggested?
If installed correctly it should say "EAS Default Task Timeout" under "Profile" in Setting->General of the iPhone.
oh, you NEED the Daytrotter app, currently loving the Daniel Johnston sessions!
GrahamS - yep did that, no difference, i don't think its a timeout issue anyway, the phone was on 4.0.1 which allegedly had that timeout change in it . But in the interests of trying all solutions we did. The headers that come from the 0s4 requests are very very different to the 0s3 variants which the suspicion is confuses Exchange, the 4.1 headers look more like the 3.x.x ones apparently so i reckon there is a problem with 4.0.1.
Oh well, bit weird that it doesn't seem to affect everyone using Exchange tho. Even Google Sync is Exchange based and that works fine.
Its v odd but def something with Exch 2010 on the latest service pack and IOS4 even 4.0.2 on the phone. Its consistent now - all 3.x.x work fine with Exch 2010, as soon as you go to a 4 variant it stops being able to send. Receive OK, contacts, calendar all OK, auth OK just no sendy. Gone back to 3.1.3 for the moment. Apparently 4.1 fixes it. Aye right i'll be testing that long and hard. AFAIK Google synch uses the Exch 2008 variant of ActiveSync (which interestingly MS doesn't even follow its own standard for !).