iPhone 3g Review: Things I’m looking for.

     After one week I’m still loving my new iPhone. I’ve found some limitations, but most of them are things I can do without. If you have suggestions, feel free to share them here or email them.

Things I really want:

 Wireless Signal Indicator

I’m looking for something like NetStumbler or WiFiFoFum for the iPhone 3G. If you know of an app that searches out hotspots, let me know.

 Voice Command Program:

Though I haven’t yet tried it on my iPhone, I’ve been told the voice commander interface isn’t present in the iPhone. I’d really like an app that makes this possible, though I’m pretty sure it would be a complete rewrite of the source code, so I’m not holding my breath on this one.

 Wav/MP3 Ring Tone Application:

I have a few wav and MP3 ring tones I’ve located over the years that I just adore, but I can’t put them on the iPhone. Shak told me about a program that will do it, but I can’t remember the name.

 Loopt to Work Right:

I’ve got a few friends using Loopt on their phones, which is really a pretty cool app, though very Big Brother in its design. Basically it broadcasts my current location to anyone on my friend’s list using the built in GPS feature. It’s accurate to about 300′ feet or so. The only con so far is that I can’t add certain friends. It seems that if I have those friends on Facebook, the loopt application seems to know that and refuses to add them to my Loopt friends on the phone. I disabled the Loopt application on Facebook, because truly I just don’t want the ENTIRE world to be able to pinpoint my location anywhere in the world at any time they want to. However, for trusted friends and especially for work, it would be a great application. I could pinpoint my staff’s location in relation to the next service call and automatically know which tech to send on a job. I’m going to continue playing with it and see how it works out. Are you a Loopt user? Add me and we’ll test it out together.

 Screenshots:

How do you capture your iPhone screenshot again?

 File Transfer Application

I know Apple disabled this feature on purpose to avoid the possibility of hacking their OS files (this didn’t work by the way…) However, purchasing a 200 dollar hard drive that you can’t access seems counter-intuitive. I just assumed this feature would be built in to the phone. There is NO drag and drop interface for the iPhone and the camera folder is even read-only so you can’t easily copy pictures from your computer to your iPhone without using iTunes, which I don’t want to do.

 

One Response to “iPhone 3g Review: Things I’m looking for.”

1. Burke says:

   September 5, 2008 at 4:43 am

   Hey T-T-Tommy.

   You should ping me on IM or call me with these sorts of questions.
   Wireless Signal Indicator:

   Try Wifinder in the app store for $2.99. Seeks available networks, test them, and provides a signal strength in numeric form. Also shows networks below the iPhones standard signal strength limit (so you see more of what’s out there).

   Voice Command
   Sadly, not currently available, and one of the few major drawbacks with the iPhone. Given Apple’s voice engines, I’d imagine this is coming but on a very long timeline.

   Wav/MP3 Ringtone:
   There are several websites that will convert ringtones from arbitrary formats and provide you with an iphone compatible version. I’m told http://www.audiko.com is pretty decent; alternatively, you could grab Mp3 to Iphone Ringtone from Rogue Amoeba (haven’t used it, just saw it mentioned on MacRumors).

   Loopt:
   Not sure what’s up here. I’d email Loopt and ask them WTF.

   File Transfer Application:
   3 main options here, at various pricing and all available via the App Store. Hit the links to bring them up in Itunes and check out features and reviews.

   Files from Olive Toast Software for $6.99

   FileMagnet from Magnetism Studios for $4.99

   Datacase from Veiosoft

   Other things you might be interested in:

   Stanza by LexCycle for $free

   Do you like ebooks? I looooove ebooks, and have quite a collection of HTML ebooks. Stanza’s iPhone app talks to it’s Windows or OSX desktop client and synchs whatever book you have open in Stanza Desktop to your phone for reading. I currently have 8 novels on my phone and rotate them about once a week. Setup is easy and I like the interface. Highly recommended.

   Shazam from Shazam Entertainment Limited, for $free

   What IS that song!? Shazam accesses the iPhone microphone and attempts to identify the song playing in the background. Fairly accurate and pretty spiffy.

   Shozu from Shozu, Inc. for $free.

   Blog poster / photo uploader for iPhone. Handles blog posts, uploads to flickr from the iPhone, the works (May not work with DataCase/etc files – I’m not sure, haven’t tested.)

   Zenbe Lists from Zenbe Software, for $free

   The iPhone doesn’t use a decent task list program. This annoys me. It also doesn’t have to-do lists. Zenbe is a deceptively simple program which at it’s heart lets you make checklists. Which is nice. The real power is that these lists can be automatically synched to the Zenbe.com website, and you can then publish your lists and make them editable by other Zenbe and/or web users. This is pretty awesome, especially in a team environment.

   Now Playing by Cyrus Najmabadi, for $free

   Developed by one of the guys over at ArsTechnica, Now Playing is one of my -favorite- apps. It grabs your location using the iPhone’s GPS and then does a search for all the movie theaters in your area. It then displays all the movies playing in your (user configurable) radius, with the RottenTomatoes review scores listed. You can click on the movie and retrieve per-theater showtimes, click through to the RottenTomatoes reviews and check those out, and click on a showtime to go directly to the Fandango website for the theater and showtime in question, to buy your tickets – all from within the Now Playing application. This is one of those apps that will make someone buy an iPhone, it’s just that slick.

   iWant and Urbanspoon are other cool applications. iWant will do a google maps search for you to find the nearest set of a variety of things: movie theaters, department stores, cafe’s, etc. Pretty cool for someone who travels.

   Urbanspoon is a godsend for people who have trouble deciding where to eat. It grabs your GPS location, then does a search for all the restaurants nearby. It then breaks them down by Type of Food, Price, and neighborhood. You then shake the phone and spin the wheels, providing you with a random restaurant. Pretty nifty.

   Okay I’ve spewed enough info for now. Let me know if you have any more questions!
   Also bearing notice are iWant and UrbanSpoon.