My Fave iPhone Apps

I'm at home for the weekend, pretending to be "normal". That is, I watched some tv, am washing some clothes, made a Walmart run, you know...normal stuff. Also, this is the first time I've turned on my computer in about 24 hours. Wow.

Anyway, I've spent some time this week rolling my iPhone over to the new version (which I LOVE) and updating my apps (small downloadable "applications" that run on the phone itself). I thought I'd share with you some of my favorites.

Word Tower

My newest kill-a-few-minutes-while-waiting time killer, this is one game that I really love. Of course, I'm all about word games, and adding the time a speed challenges just ramps up the fun a bit for me. Add to that the fact that, at the time of this posting, I am in 2nd place on the Global List of winners, well, you get the idea. (Currently $.99)

Pandora

I don't often use my iPhone to listen to music, but when I do, Pandora is my favorite choice. This one works first by allowing me to type in a song, genre, or artist. Once I do, it pulls up songs that it thinks are similar, or fall into the same category as my original selection. As the songs play, I can "tweak" the suggestions using a thumbs up/thumbs down method. I've not only found some great new/different artists this way, but I love the way that this allows me to select music by my mood.

TweetDeck

If you don't know about Twitter, explaining this one will be difficult. If you do, then you probably already know about TweetDeck. Basically, it allows me to enter short bursts (140 characters or less) of what's going on in my life, then posts them to Twitter, FaceBook, and this blog for others to see. This is a small part of what is called "Social Networking".

NYTimes, ABCNews, and WSJ (Wall Street Journal)

Well formatted, timely, grouped and categorized, and FREE access to these news services makes these tops on my list. It doesn't matter that I don't always agree with them or don't trust what they are telling me, the fact that I can find out what they have to say quickly is very useful. If there's anything going on in the world that is of interest to them, I can find out about it so very quickly and efficiently here.

Ocarina

The first time I downloaded this app and tried it out, I spent a couple of hours marveling over the fact that someone figured out how to turn the iPhone into a musical instrument that I could play. After the newness wore off, however, I discovered the part about this app that makes it amazing and really cool in my book. With a tap of my finger, the app shows a view of the globe lit up with lights showing where others are in the world that are using this application. It then hones in on one of the lights, shows the user's name, and allows me to listen to them play for a bit before moving somewhere else in the world. Now THAT's amazing.