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Our weekly roundup of the best free and paid applications available for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Multimedia Messages At last, multimedia message are available on the iPhone. If Apple wouldn't do it, at least someone else did. Open Multimedia Messages and you can send a photo with a text message to anyone you like. The app lets you snap a new picture or grab one from your photo library, and it lets you select addresses from your Address Book. We love how easy this app (available here) makes messaging. There's a quick setup when you input your name and phone, but after that there's nothing to it. If you're tired of having to e-mail pictures when any other phone in the world lets you text them, this free app is for you.Tweetie With a full set of features and a low price ($2.99, available here), Tweetie has quickly become our favorite Twitter client. The app offers features we haven't seen in others, including themes (there's on extra theme, found under the iPhone's settings, that lets tweets take the form of conversation bubbles) and a location search that lets you know what people around you are twittering about. The best feature, though is the trend search. We've seen Web pages that offer this, but not iPhone apps. The trend search shows you what the hot conversations are on Twitter at any given moment, so you can get in on the conversation. Other great features include a search tool and the ability to block or unblock users directly from your phone.Post a tweet with Twitter and you'll be able to grab an image from your photo library or take a new one. At first we thought the app was missing a link shortening tool, but it simply does so automatically. There's no button. This was Digg co-founder Kevin Rose's top Twitter client on a recent episode of Diggnation and now it's our fav, too. By the way, once you've started Twittering go to @tdreier and hit follow. Thanks. DVR Remote If you've got a TiVo Series 3 DVR, you're going to want to get DVR Remote ($2.99, available here), which lets you remotely control your TiVo and browse the Now Playing information right from your iPhone. Any TiVos in your house are automatically detected, so there's no setup at all. We love that you can edit the button layout, and that it works the same way as button re-arranging on the iPhone's home screen.FreeSaurus - The Free Thesaurus We've seen reference books converted into iPhone apps before, but they've always cost as much as a printed book. That's changing as free titles come along. If you write and you're occasionally at a loss for words, keep FreeSaurus (available here) on hand. It'll provide you with colorful synonyms so that you can find just the word you need.Typing Genius - Get Emoji Enabling emoji emoticons has become a hot feature for iPhone apps. Sure, this typing app lets you practice iPhone typing skills, but the reason people are buying it is because it enables the Japanese emoticon library called emolji on your phone. After you load the app, go to Settings/ General/ Keyboard/ International Keyboards/ Japanese/ Emolji and turn emolji on. After that, you'll be able to use over 400 adorable emoticons when typing in any app. Just press the globe icon next to the on-screen keyboard when typing. Check it out here for $.99.WhatTheFont We thought the iPhone's ability to identify songs was amazing (such as with Midomi (http://blog.iphoneguide.com/2008/11/app-of-the-week-free-midomi.html), but this app delivers something we've never seen before. WhatTheFont (available here) can identify any font you throw at it, after you've snapped a picture of some sample words. It's great for designers or anyone who simply cares about good design.What's On TV? No mater how you receive your channels, What's On TV (available here) will let you know what programs are on at any time. Keep this guide on hand and you'll always know when your favorite shows are starting up. This app is free and ad-free, so snap it up.
iStat With iStat ($1.99, available here) you can see your iPhone's stats for memory, disk space, WiFi and Cell IP address, as well as uptime and load averages. You can also view and e-mail your phone's unique ID and MAC address. The polished app lets you view perfectly detailed stats about your iPhone, so you'll never wonder about system performance.Ultimate Todos Ultimate Todos ($0.99, available here) is a powerful and elegant to-do app for quickly managing and organizing daily tasks. It synchronizes with Toodledo accounts, lets you sort to-do items by importance, and lets you create custom folders. You don't even need to type in your entries with this app, as it lets you create voice notes just as easily. Paranormal State EMF Meter Ultimate Todos ($0.99, available here) is a powerful and elegant to-do app for quickly managing and organizing daily tasks. It synchronizes with Toodledo accounts, lets you sort to-do items by importance, and lets you create custom folders. You don't even need to type in your entries with this app, as it lets you create voice notes just as easily.
Click here to see the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps.
Multimedia Messages At last, multimedia message are available on the iPhone. If Apple wouldn't do it, at least someone else did. Open Multimedia Messages and you can send a photo with a text message to anyone you like. The app lets you snap a new picture or grab one from your photo library, and it lets you select addresses from your Address Book. We love how easy this app (available here) makes messaging. There's a quick setup when you input your name and phone, but after that there's nothing to it. If you're tired of having to e-mail pictures when any other phone in the world lets you text them, this free app is for you.Tweetie With a full set of features and a low price ($2.99, available here), Tweetie has quickly become our favorite Twitter client. The app offers features we haven't seen in others, including themes (there's on extra theme, found under the iPhone's settings, that lets tweets take the form of conversation bubbles) and a location search that lets you know what people around you are twittering about. The best feature, though is the trend search. We've seen Web pages that offer this, but not iPhone apps. The trend search shows you what the hot conversations are on Twitter at any given moment, so you can get in on the conversation. Other great features include a search tool and the ability to block or unblock users directly from your phone.Post a tweet with Twitter and you'll be able to grab an image from your photo library or take a new one. At first we thought the app was missing a link shortening tool, but it simply does so automatically. There's no button. This was Digg co-founder Kevin Rose's top Twitter client on a recent episode of Diggnation and now it's our fav, too. By the way, once you've started Twittering go to @tdreier and hit follow. Thanks. DVR Remote If you've got a TiVo Series 3 DVR, you're going to want to get DVR Remote ($2.99, available here), which lets you remotely control your TiVo and browse the Now Playing information right from your iPhone. Any TiVos in your house are automatically detected, so there's no setup at all. We love that you can edit the button layout, and that it works the same way as button re-arranging on the iPhone's home screen.FreeSaurus - The Free Thesaurus We've seen reference books converted into iPhone apps before, but they've always cost as much as a printed book. That's changing as free titles come along. If you write and you're occasionally at a loss for words, keep FreeSaurus (available here) on hand. It'll provide you with colorful synonyms so that you can find just the word you need.Typing Genius - Get Emoji Enabling emoji emoticons has become a hot feature for iPhone apps. Sure, this typing app lets you practice iPhone typing skills, but the reason people are buying it is because it enables the Japanese emoticon library called emolji on your phone. After you load the app, go to Settings/ General/ Keyboard/ International Keyboards/ Japanese/ Emolji and turn emolji on. After that, you'll be able to use over 400 adorable emoticons when typing in any app. Just press the globe icon next to the on-screen keyboard when typing. Check it out here for $.99.WhatTheFont We thought the iPhone's ability to identify songs was amazing (such as with Midomi (http://blog.iphoneguide.com/2008/11/app-of-the-week-free-midomi.html), but this app delivers something we've never seen before. WhatTheFont (available here) can identify any font you throw at it, after you've snapped a picture of some sample words. It's great for designers or anyone who simply cares about good design.What's On TV? No mater how you receive your channels, What's On TV (available here) will let you know what programs are on at any time. Keep this guide on hand and you'll always know when your favorite shows are starting up. This app is free and ad-free, so snap it up.
iStat With iStat ($1.99, available here) you can see your iPhone's stats for memory, disk space, WiFi and Cell IP address, as well as uptime and load averages. You can also view and e-mail your phone's unique ID and MAC address. The polished app lets you view perfectly detailed stats about your iPhone, so you'll never wonder about system performance.Ultimate Todos Ultimate Todos ($0.99, available here) is a powerful and elegant to-do app for quickly managing and organizing daily tasks. It synchronizes with Toodledo accounts, lets you sort to-do items by importance, and lets you create custom folders. You don't even need to type in your entries with this app, as it lets you create voice notes just as easily.Paranormal State EMF Meter Ultimate Todos ($0.99, available here) is a powerful and elegant to-do app for quickly managing and organizing daily tasks. It synchronizes with Toodledo accounts, lets you sort to-do items by importance, and lets you create custom folders. You don't even need to type in your entries with this app, as it lets you create voice notes just as easily.
See the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps. Twitterific Premium With Twitter now reaching the mainstream, we thought we'd look at several of the most popular iPhone Twitter clients. If you're new to Twitter, it's a messaging tool that allows you to broadcast short notes (called "tweets") to your online followers and to follow messages sent by other people. Sign up for an account here (http://twitter.com) and then follow this writer's Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/TDreier). Twitterific comes in free and premium versions. Both offer a simple interface that lets you view tweets as they come in. Twitterrific Premium ($9.99, available here) lets you view messages in black text with a white background, while the free version only shows white text on a black background, which is harder to see. The premium version is also ad-free, while the free version shows a small ad for each 50 messages. The app is loaded with helpful hints to help you get the most out of the features, and it allow for sending direct messages, re-tweeting a message (forwarding a twitter message with your own comments), and sending a Twit Pic (you can choose a photo from your library or take a new one). The downside here is, naturally, the price. While it has stronger features than other free Twitter apps we've seen, there are lower-cost apps that match Twitterrific Premium's features. We'll explore another of them next week.College Radio Tuner When we listen to streaming music, we're often trying to find the best new artists, the best sounds we haven't been turned onto yet. For new music discovery, you can't beat student-programmed college stations. That's why we're thrilled to see College Radio Tuner (available here) show up, an app that connects us to over 20 small but fascinating stations. A simple dial interface lets us pick the station we want and then, after a moderate buffer time, we're listening to new sounds. We wish this had been around in our own pre-streaming college DJ days, when our college's sub-1 watt signal almost covered the whole campus, but not quite. While there's a lot to like about College Radio Tuner, there's huge room for improvement. The station list doesn't identify where the colleges are, and many of them are new to us. Also, the app is supposed to display artist and song information, yet it doesn't for every station. A way to save favorites would also be a welcome addition. ControlPad With ControlPad ($2.99, available here) you an turn your iPhone into a wireless trackpad and keyboard. Even better, it works with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, with no installation required for Macs and some Linux systems. It's the perfect couch accessory if you're running a home theater off one computer.Super Monkey Ball Lite The iTunes Store doesn't let you demo apps, so we're always happy when a developer creates a free lite version of their app so that people can try before they buy. Now's your chance to get a lite version of the insanely popular Super Monkey Ball for free (available here), to try out the adorable/challenging 3D balance game. Super Monkey Ball Lite contains three stages from the game, plus a tutorial.iJobs It's not a Steve Jobs simulator, it's the iPhone's most successful job listings app, something useful to far too many people these days. Use iJobs ($.99, available here) to search thousands of sources and millions of listings from all over the Web. You can search for words in the title, description, or other fields; search by area; and filter by category, company, and more.Truveo Having an iPhone doesn't mean only streaming YouTube videos. With today's download (available here) you can find and play videos from several video hosts using Truveo's video search tool. The Truveo app makes it easy to find either professional or amateur videos, or to browse by category. With 133 million videos now searchable, you're sure to find plenty you're interested in.Sparks Part 1 Is this the future of comics? Sparks Part 1 ($.99, available here) features a superhero noir thriller presented as a motion comic, with simple animation effects. The story is performed by season actors, including Michael Pare, so that the effect is somewhere between a comic and a movie. This first of seven parts introduces Ian Sparks, a would-be masked vigilante.RSS Player After a few tweaks, the application that Apple denied under the name Podcaster has been approved under the name RSS Player ($1.99 for a limited time, available here). The app lets you subscribe to RSS feeds and download or stream the attached audio files, and it remembers your position in a file so you can start listening again at a later time. What it doesn't do is let you search for podcasts through the app, a feature that apparently troubled the folks at Apple.Sensi Dial Sensi Dial is an innovative phone dialer that takes advantage of the iPhone's touch screen. The app (available here) allows you to dial your friends and family by performing a sequence of gestures. With a series of taps and swipes, you can make calls to your favorite people. If you'd like to try it out act quickly, as it's only free for a limited time.Seeframe If you've got a Wi-Fi digital frame that's powered by Seeframe, such as this one from eStarling (http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/reviews/article.php/3799126), you can use the Seeframe app (available here) to quickly send new pictures to it. Sure, you could also e-mail your pics, but the app makes the process quicker and easier.See the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps. QuadCamera - Multi Shot Cam Here's a fun addition to your iPhone camera app arsenal: QuadCamera ($1.99, available here) which takes four shots in quick succession. If you like to photograph action sequences, such as a sports competition, you'll enjoy seeing how the scene changes from one shot to the next. We tested it with our pets and with people on the street, and the results were just as fun. One of the best things about the app is the range of settings. You can set the interval between shots, so that all four shots are taken in rapid succession or with as much as three seconds between them. You can also choose to view the results in a horizontal two on two configuration, or vertically with all four in a row. Shoot in color or black and white, if you prefer. We found taking pictures with QuadCamera to be just as simple as using the iPhone's built-in camera app, and the results were oddly fascinating. If you're looking to do more with your phone's camera, give this inexpensive app a try.Hot or Not This app makes us nostalgic for 10 years ago, when ratings sites caught on and we were suddenly spending free time judging people's faces, bodies, cars, and even pets. Apparently the best known rating site, Hot or Not, is still around, and it's just created this fun little diversion. Hot or Not (available here) invites people, typically attractive young people, to post their photos online for others to judge. You rate each face from 1 to 10, and then you can see how your rating compares with that person's average score. The site branched into a hook-up stop long ago, so if you're on the market you can try to meet your crushes. We didn't test that part. Now, the app is far from perfect. You can enter your preferences for whom you'd like to rate (male or female, age range, and so on), but it won't remember your settings from one session to the next. Also, it crashes reliably after a few minutes of use. But for a simple time-killer, a few minutes is all we need anyway.White Noise Storm Do you sleep better when it's storming out? The creators of the sensational White Noise now present White Noise Storm ($.99, available here) a sound-creation app that lets you produce your own perfect storm. Choose light or heavy rain, the speed of the wind, and the intensity of thunder. Randomized effects make sure no two storms are alike, and a timer lets you get as much storm as you want. The app even saves your settings for the next time you use it.Audiogasm Free for a limited time, Audiogasm (available here) is a music visualizer for your iPhone. Relax with some songs and let Audiogasm's hypnotic visuals fill your screen. If you see a pattern you like, you can swipe your finger across the screen to take a picture, which is then stored in your photo album. If you don't like what you're seeing, shake your iPhone to change the animation.WiPix With WiPix ($1.99, available here), you can view all the photos in your photo library's camera roll album (meaning the shots taken with your iPhone's camera) on a computer Web browser as long as you're on the same Wi-Fi network. Open the app and it gives you an address to type into your browser. You'll then get a simple Flash interface that lets you scroll through your photos and download the ones you want. If the app could browse all the picture on your iPhone, it'd be perfect.RepairPal: Auto Repair Expert Whether it's an auto emergency, a roadside breakdown, or just a small malfunction, RepairPal can help. This app (available here) tells you the right price to pay for your repair, finds you a great mechanic in the area, and gives you one-touch access to roadside assistance. Even better, it covers every zip code in the country.iNap: Arrival Alert Train commuters, you know how easy it is to fall asleep on the trip home and miss your stop. But you don't need to worry when you've got iNap ($.99, available here). Just use the Google map embedded in the app to show where you'll be getting off, then take a nap. As long as your iPhone can get GPS reception, the program will track your location and trigger an alarm at preset distance before your destination.DanceDanceRevolution S Lite The dancing game phenomenon has finally reached the iPhone. Just place your iPhone on the ground, step lightly on the screen … No, of course now. You play DanceDanceRevolution S Lite (available here) by tapping the screen to the rhythm. Time your taps to the arrows that scroll up from the bottom of the screen. A full (paid) version will soon be released with new songs and characters.Year of the Ox Celebrate the lunar new year with Year of the Ox ($.99, available here), a colorful arcade-style game. Since the year of the ox is following the year of the rat, you play as an ox defending your turf from greedy rats. Use the iPhone's tilt controls to charge around and stomp rats, then use the stampede mode for extra power. The app also include a celebratory fireworks simulation. Gung hey fat choy!SitOrSquat Have you ever had to go to the bathroom desperately and not known where the closest toilet was? Now, there's an app to help you find one. SitOrSquat (available here) uses the iPhone's built-in GPS ability to search based on your current location, and then it gives you a map of the address. In our testing, we saw few bathrooms listed for our area, but that should improve as users upload new locations.See the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps. Pocket Piano Song UniverseIt's half game, half teaching tool, and all fun. We're nuts about Pocket Piano Song Universe ($2.99, available here), which makes it easy to tap out favorites songs and melodies on a tiny on-screen keyboard. Pick the song you want and the notes descend to the correct keys, showing you just where to tap. The spacing between the notes shows you how long to hold each one and gives you a sense of tempo. You can tell the app to play the song for you, or tap the Learn button and play it yourself. The app comes with a sampling of songs you can play, or you can search its online directory and find many more that other users have uploaded. Players have the ability to rate songs, so you can scan the ratings first to make sure you're not downloading a dud. If you're feeling musical, you can even make your own player files, then upload them for others to enjoy. While the app doesn't teach fingering or any other piano skills, it could certainly teach you the notes to play for favorite songs so you can tap them out when you're near a real piano. It's a tiny piano teacher in your pocket. Slacker Radio Finally, some serious competition for Pandora. If you've had trouble getting hold of a Slacker G2 player (and boy, do we know how hard it is to get your hands on one), then you'll be thrilled to find you can get the same content on your iPhone for free.Slacker Radio (available here) is a personalized radio service that goes far beyond the basics. First off, it delivers over 100 stations that actually feel like they were programmed by people, not computers. You'll find music in whatever category you enjoy. But there's more: you can skip up to six songs in each category each day, so you're never forced to listen to something you don't like. You can flag songs you like with a heart, to hear more like that, or ban that song or artist completely. We like that it feels more like real radio than Pandora. Pandora insists on playing songs in three or four song sets, which cuts down on the variety we want from it. We also prefer Slacker's method of flagging favorite songs. It lets you nudge stations more to your ideal; whereas if you flag a song in Pandora is uses that song as a new starting point for a set, which gives it too much weight. The biggest downside to Slacker is that it has audio ads in the free version. Pandora only has on-screen text ads, which are easy to ignore. Audio ads are a little too intrusive. An ad-free premium account is available through the Web site (www.slacker.com) for $3.99 per month. Blood Pressure Helper If high blood pressure is effecting your health, get BP Buddy ($4.99, available here) and keep track of it. The app contains a log that you can update several times a day. You can even add notes about what stressors were upsetting you. A graph lets you view up to 60 days worth of entries. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the American Heart Association. Tag Reader The Microsoft Tag mobile tagging system instantly connects you to more information and entertainment without typing long URLs or texting shortcodes. Simply snap the tag with your mobile phone and Microsoft Tag takes you there. Download the app here. Light Use this clever photo app to add interesting light effects to a shot. Select the pattern of light and shadow that you'd like to add, then control the brightness, blurring, and other settings. The effects in Light ($1.99, available here) are grouped into the following categories: breakups, foliage, lights, sky, and windows. 43 Things What do you want to do with your life? The Web site 43Things.com has been asking people that for years. Members can make a list of the top 43 things that they want to accomplish, then see how many other members have the same goals. Now, members can access their life lists on their iPhones with the 43 Things app (available here). Use it to view goals and mark them as complete. Incognito Apple is finally allowing Web browsers in the App Store, and Incognito ($1.99, available here) is a must-have for sneaky surfers. This anonymous browser ensures that your online time remains your private business. Once you close the browser, it erases your entire session. You won't have to worry about clearing Safari's history by hand; use Incognito and it's done for you. Dice Bag Here's an app that really brings us back-back to a friend's basement on a sunny Saturday afternoon, when other kids were out playing football. The uber-geeky Dice Bag (available here) lets you simulate rolling all the basic Dungeons & Dragons dice, as well as the most common multi-dice rolls. Good luck and may all your character stat rolls be high. Shivering Kittens Cat lovers unite! There are some cold kittens in this game and it's your job to save them. Shivering Kittens ($2.99, available here) asks you to free sweet, little, blue-eyed kittens from their arctic confinement by arranging falling blocks.The blocks contain two kinds of cats: shivering and frozen. The shivering ones can be freed by grouping them in combinations of five or more. The frozen need to be freed from their ice blocks first, which you do by creating a line of blocks from the left side of the screen to the right. There are 10 levels of difficulty, but the game is pretty challenging right from the start. The requirements to free kittens are so steep that we could rarely play for long. Still, sweet graphics and simple gameplay kept us entertained. Shoutcast Radio Shoutcast Radio (available here) is one of the leading online directories of professionally and community programmed radio stations, and now you can get easy access to all of it through your iPhone. There are over 25,000 stations from around the world and over 500,000 simultaneous listeners at any given time. The app makes it easy to search the Shoutcast directory and keep a list of favorite stations. Plus, you can give your iPhone a shake to call up a random station. See the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps. Photonasis 2.0 Have a little fun with your photos with Photonasis 2.0 ($.99 for a limited time, available here), which offers 29 strange filters you can add to your pics. You have the option of shooting a new picture first or selecting one from your photo library. After that, you can apply filters such as negative, pinch, swirl, or oil paint; preview the effect; and save it to your library if you like it.Photonasis is a great way to have a laugh with friends. Snapping a friend's picture and then showing them what they'd look like with their face swirled sounds like a great bar activity. Some of the effects are artistic, while many are bizarre. While we like the variety of effects in the app, we'd like to see a little more polish. The preview screen lets you preview effects on a sample picture, not the one you've chosen. For that, you need to return to the main screen and apply the effect. That step should be eliminated by putting real previews on the preview screen. Also, the developers added warnings to some filters, like a warning to the motion blur filter about the length of processing time. These warnings come up every time and become completely irritating. They should be scrapped. Darkroom It's Foto Friday! Darkroom (available here) is the app formerly known as Steadycam, only bigger and better. If you can't stand all the blurry shots you get with the iPhone's camera, this is the app for you. Open Darkroom, touch the camera button, and the app will wait for your iPhone to be perfectly steady before it takes the shot. We've been testing it for days and we get a perfectly crisp, clear photo every time. The developers have added a few helpful features to this version. You can now have Darkroom autosave your photos to your photo gallery, saving you several taps. Also, it now offers a cleaner interface with a larger viewing window.For $.99 (available here), you can get Darkroom Premium, which adds a timer and a full-screen shutter touch. We recommend skipping the iPhone's built-in camera app and using Darkroom every time you shoot. Blurry photos will only be a memory. Gratitude Journal It's a simple task: write down five things you're grateful for each day. Do this for one month, the makers of Gratitude Journal ($.99, available here) promise, and your life will change forever. You can rate each day, add a personal photo to your entry, and search through previous entries. It's a charming way to remember to stop and count your blessings.Evernote Turn your iPhone into an external brain. Evernote (available here) lets you remember anything that happens in your life. Record notes, ideas, photos, or voice recordings. Use it with the Evernote service (there are both Mac and Windows desktop clients available, as well as an online version) to keep a synchronized list of all your notes. We're impressed by the text recognition feature: snap a photo of a whiteboard and Evernote will make the text in that photo searchable.iOwn iOwn ($4.99, available here) is a helpful inventory management system that lets you create a detailed list of all your possessions. If you've ever needed to report a loss to insurance, you know the value of having a complete inventory. The app lets you create an unlimited number of locations, containers, and items, then create attributes to describe each item. You can assign up to four images for each item and secure your inventory with a password. Best of all, there's a free online backup, in case you lose your iPhone.USA Today You know that colorful newspaper you read while traveling because it's left free at your hotel room door? Well, now you can get that same content on your iPhone. You can feel like you're traveling every day! USA Today (available here)lets you read stories from the News, Money, Sports, Life, Tech, and Travel sections. You'll even get those cute little graphs. Share your favorites by e-mail, text message, or Twitter.Desensitize Your Pet Pet owners know that the sound of a doorbell or fireworks can send pets into excited frenzies, and that getting them used to such sounds is difficult. Calm Pet ($8.99, available here) offers 15 sound samples that you can use to desensitize your pet to problem sounds. Connect your iPhone to your stereo, play sounds on low volume, and go about your day. Your pet will quickly get used to the sound and will lose any fear.Snaptell Snap a picture of the cover of any book, DVD, CD, or video game and within seconds get a rating, description, and links to Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, Barnes and Noble, and more. Use Snaptell (available here) while shopping to quickly find more information, compare prices, buy the product, or remind yourself to look for it later.Desensitize Your Pet Pet owners know that the sound of a doorbell or fireworks can send pets into excited frenzies, and that getting them used to such sounds is difficult. Calm Pet ($8.99, available here) offers 15 sound samples that you can use to desensitize your pet to problem sounds. Connect your iPhone to your stereo, play sounds on low volume, and go about your day. Your pet will quickly get used to the sound and will lose any fear.
See the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps. Rolando Stop the presses, we had no idea that iPhone was capable of running games this amazing. Rolando ($9.99, available here) is a stunner, and is certainly the best game we've seen yet for the iPhone. Everything about it-from the gorgeous, friendly animations, to the jazzy score, to the intuitive yet challenging gameplay-leaves us wanting to play more and more. In Rolando, you need to pilot a group of round and eager "Rolandos" through a series of levels. There are obstacles to block your path and many clever ways around them. As "finger," the Rolando's off-screen guide, you help them bounce up steps, twist through gears, and ride up elevators.The levels aren't long, but doing them in time while grabbing scattered diamonds takes practice. The game offers 36 levels that take you through 4 varied worlds. If you're open to paying $10 for a game, this is the best we've found. Watch out Nintendo DS, great games are coming to the iPhone. Crazy Penguin Catapult Lite Looking for some cheap excitement? It's doesn't come cheaper than this free app, which challenges you to catapult penguins to take down some bothersome polar bears. There are two parts to the game, one where you need to successfully launch your penguins (many of ours didn't make it past the catapult area) and a second where you plan their aerial assault, dropping them down on the bears. We especially like the power-ups, like one that lets you catapult flaming penguins. Crazy Penguin Catapult Lite, available here, is the perfect snack-sized game: it's easy to get into, the animations are cute, and the gameplay is just challenging enough to keep you hooked. This version includes 6 levels, but if you like it as much as we did, there's a full version for $4.99 that includes 30 levels.Things For reasons only known to Cupertino insiders, Apple has launched two versions of the iPhone but still hasn't released a robust calendar/to-do/memo app that syncs with the desktop. That strange void has left the field open to tools like Things ($9.99, available here), the best iPhone to-do manager we've seen yet. We love that it includes multiple areas, so that you can store scheduled or unscheduled to-dos. You can also store items to be done "someday," perfect for items you want to remember, but don't have the time to do now. Things will wirelessly sync with the Mac desktop version (available for $49.95 from culturedcode.com), although both programs need to be running on the same local network for that to happen.ManGo Looking for a bite? Or to do a little shopping? This tremendously useful location app (available here) lets you know exactly where to find over 240 national and regional chain stores. You can use it to grab a latte at a nearby Starbucks or find out if the town you're in has a Trader Joe's. ManGo lists restaurants, clothing stores, banks, and sporting goods stores (and more), so it's bound to have stores that you like.
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