iPhone 2.0 Apps Review

I was fortunate enough to be able to get a hold of the iPhone 2.0 upgrade today. I installed it and tried out a few applications. Here are my thoughts on the first applications I installed.

Super Monkey Ball

This is a pay application ($9.99 and the only app I have purchased), it is actually a game, that you seem to collect bananas for points. It is controlled by the accelerometer in the iPhone. I spent about 5 minutes playing and got to the point where I could control the monkey, but you really need to be sitting up looking down at the screen for the controls to work well. There was no “tips” pop ups letting you know how to do things or even what to do.

Overall I like the game so far and want to find our more about it, how to play it and what other things you do besides running around collecting bananas.

AIM

AOL Instant Messenger for the iPhone is free and works great. You don’t get messages when not in the application but once you go back in they all come through. There is an option to also sign out when you leave the application so messages can then be forwarded to you via SMS (if you have set that up already).

I like AIM and will probably use it for chatting when I need it.

Twitteriffic

If you use Twitter, you probably know what Twitteriffic is; if not, you can skip this one. You don’t get ‘push’ notifications, that is what I somehow hoped for, it did completely halt and reboot my iPhone when I opened it once yet it is still very likable. You can take and tweet photos from it, you can press a button and it will update your Twitter profile with your current location (mine just says “iPhone: 33.866241,-117.953552″ now…) and you can do pretty much all of the other normal things Twitteriffic Desktop does.

I like it, but think I’ll still be sticking to the default m.twitter.com.

Evernote

Evernote desktop and web versions are very cool, they let you take clippings from pretty much anything on your computer and place them is a virtual notebook. You can type notes and search notes very well, you can even search text in images too! This iPhone version is great for reviewing notes you have already created on the web or desktop. It also allows you to make text notes, photos notes, and audio notes right from the iPhone. Unfortunately you cannot edit any notes once they are created.

Since I already use Evernote on my desktop to save notes, I’ll pe happy to have access to them anywhere I go.

Facebook

Looks like it would be a great app, but it will not let me connect.

UPDATE: Wow, Facebook is an awesome app (it also made my iPhone reset once though). Perfect interface, feature rich, and very fast. If you are a Facebook use you will love it.

iTunes Remote

Nice!!! Try it out, it is free. it is literally a remote for your entire iTunes library on your desktop. Setup was really simple, a code came up on the iPhone and you enter it into iTunes when it asks you. Done.

WeatherBug

I live in Southern California. I’m sure this application will be much more appreciated in other parts of the world. It gives you lots of weather data including map overlays to see rain, a forecast, current weather conditions and even access to weather webcams!

I like it but my weather forecast is usually the same every day; not many surprises here in so cal!

Where

I have just used this one for a few minutes, but already like it. Think of Google maps with a few cool overlays you can use. The one that caught my eye was the GasBuddy one. he application first locates you, loads the map, then shows you where the nearest gas stations are with an overlay. When you select the gas stations it also gives you the price of gas at that location!!! Sweetness. There are a bunch of overlays you can use, but I’ll get to those later.

Well, thats all of the apps that caught my eye right off the bat. I’m sure I’ll be installing many more.

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