My iPhone Apps List

Some friends of mine just bought iPhones and they wanted to know what apps to get.  Other than the built in apps, below are the apps I use on my phone.   For a list of hacked apps, see my pervious post.  

Apps I'm currently using: 

• Facebook - Free.
• Google Voice – Free. Ring multiple phones, find me features, txting on your desktop, Call Screening, voicemail to email, voicemail transcription
• Navigon $60.  I happen to use this for navigation, but any nav app will do
• Drop box – Free App.  Click the link to get a free account first. Great for file syncing. 
• Chipoltle – Free.  I mainly have this because they just built a location below my office but their iphone app rocks.  It's great being able to jump the line with a prepaid to-go order.   
• Google Search App - Free.
• Flashlight - $1. You can probably hunt for an ad supported free one.
• Epicurious Free. iphone/ipad for cooking recipes
• Twitter –Free
• Mint.com Free. For personal finance tracking.
• Airfoil speakers Free with purchase of desktop/laptop software.  (Turns my iphone into an airfoil /Airplay location) 
• NY Times – 20 articles a month are free.
• Instapper – $5.  Great way to store articles to read stuff later
• Dragon Dictation – Free.  Your voice to Text for SMS or e-mail. 
• Pandora - Free.
• Go DC Metro- Free.  Great map with metro times for Washington, DC
• Google's Latitude Free. If you want to share your location or find where your friends are, consider this tool.
• Paypal – Free.  I don't use this very often but it is nice to have.
• Zillow – Free. Look up how much surrounding houses around my current position are selling for. 
• Foursquare - Free.  This is a huge waste of time but I still use it. 
• Itap Remote control - $ If I need to remotely control a computer, these suite of apps are nice to have. 

Must have apps when traveling

Kindle Free. I used it for e-travel books and this allowed me to carry only one device.

zGPS - Free. Only for hacked iphones allows you to cache gooogle maps when traveling. 

City maps to go Paid. Gives you cached maps when international roaming is expensive or not available.

Apps I'm trying that I like so far

Cardmunch.  Free. Scan and OCR your cards with a photo.  Just got bought by LinkedIn.

Day one– $2 - A daily journal tool.

Apps I used in the past. 

Slacker – I switched to pandora.  I like Pandora's randomized music selection better but really miss slacker's caching feature.

Worldcard – If all goes well with cardmunch I'm switching to that app. Card munch is free and uses real humans for the OCR.

Independence or Addicted? Thoughts for Independence day.

Did you see Exxon spilled 40,000 gallons of oil at Yellowstone today? Do you think Americans have independence?  Maybe so, but certainly not from oil and that is killing our economy and our environment.  Out of all the oil produced in the world, US cars burn 1 out of 9 barrels. Americans are pushing $1billion a day of wealth out of the country on oil imports.  This is exacerbated by US inflation and the declining value of the dollar. If you want to read more about the dizzying array of factors that impact oil prices check out this article from the Washington Post, The unpredictable forces behind oil prices. The Economist also wrote a relevant piece on our crippled transportation infrastructure  http://econ.st/lmaS6R

Just for kicks let's try swapping the Mayo Clinic's drug addiction symptoms list with oil.

Drug addiction symptoms or behaviors include:

• Feeling that you have to use the drug regularly — this can be daily or even several times a day
• Failing in your attempts to stop using the drug
• Making certain that you maintain a supply of the drug
• Spending money on the drug even though you can't afford it
• Doing things to obtain the drug that you normally wouldn't do, such as stealing
• How about war? Hurting your loved ones like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Exxon's Valdez in Prince William Sound and today's recent Exxon spilling in Yellowstone
• Feeling that you need the drug to deal with your problems
• Driving or doing other risky activities when you're under the influence of the drug
• Focusing more and more time and energy on getting and using the drug