I’ve compiled 8 applications that I love having on my iPhone. There are some more, but I can only blog so much in one night and these are good enough. I don’t know who else checks this page, but the GVSU Apple club alone doesn’t have many iPod touch / iPhone users, so this might not be in high demand. If it’s well-received however, maybe I’ll do another.

For each application, click on the icon to be directed to the iTunes App store.

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Check Tubes: free

This is a handy little application for checking connection speeds! Okay well I suppose they’re all “little” but you know what I mean.

If I seem to have a slow connection on my mac at home, I can check the current bandwidth of the wifi with my iPhone, or I can go on the 3G network and see if that’s any faster.

There isn’t much more to it. You get a neat little summary after each check and can compare your recent checks to see if certain locations are worse than others – or whatever you can think of.
I use this one once-in-a-while, but more often than most other “junk” apps, so I believe it’s worth featuring.

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Space Deadbeef: free

Aside from a really stupid name, this game gets high marks from my highly critical rating system:

I played it. It was fun.

This is a side-scrolling, alien-blasting game. I expected it to suck my battery dry, but in fact, about ten or fifteen minutes of play only takes up a small portion. That’s more than I can say for a lot of other applications. This doesn’t use any data, so that is likely the biggest reason.  I haven’t kept many iPhone games around for very long, but this has a pretty high replay value in my opinion. Check it out.

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Daily Quote: $0.99

I will say right now that I would not pay for this application. I got it for free on a Black Friday ‘web-sale’ and I use it quite a bit. Well, only once a day. It has some good quotes. There isn’t much more to say. I think if you like coming across some new words of wisdom once in a while, look at this program or some free alternatives.  If you have a gift card or don’t mind giving up a buck, I’d say it gets used enough to be worth it… but I personally avoid paying for anything unless it’s a last resort.

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Twitterrific: free

I don’t really have to review this one do I? This is a client for folks who use twitter. So basically, it’s an application for cool people. It shows you tweets from people you follow within the last two hours, or the public timeline. You can post photos with an integrated twitpic uploader, you can update your profile’s location field with iPhone GPS or post a Google Maps link of your current whereabouts. Of course replies, direct messages, favoriting, and profile views are more common options also included in this app.

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Tweetie: $2.99

Whoa! Not only is this not free, but it’s more than the regular ole ninety-nine cents! Now now, hold your horses. There’s no cheaper bastard in the land than Robrogan here, and I’m considering making this purchase. On twitter, users that have experimented with iPhone clients say that this one is “the best.” Even in a review on the twitterrific app page, a user says that if you’re willing to pay, this is the best client. Go to the app page to read all about it if you want. Here are a few standout features for me: retweets, searching, trend-views, link sharing, get nearby tweets . . .

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Remote: free

This is a very simple, very easy application for controlling music on your mac. I don’t really need to explain this to you. You get on wifi, have your mac on wifi, and open iTunes. Using your iPhone or iPod touch, you can select a song/playlist and play it from anywhere in the network’s range. I can imagine this would be most excellent hooked up to massive speakers at a house party!

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FontShuffle: free

I’m one of those people stricken with the typography obsession fad thing… Whatever. I’m not going to justify myself. If you’re into this crap too, then you’ll love this application. You simply pick a font family, and then a sub-category of font, and if generates a list of fonts that fit that description. Shake your device to shuffle up more fonts of the same kind. Then you can type in a short message, and even save it as a photo. I think this might have limited interest, but it works perfect when I think of something clever and short that I would like to post as a tumblr quote, only in style!

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My SUPER favorite application so far!

Remote Buddy for iPhone/iPod touch:

19.99 € (about $27)

Yes, this is a lot of money! It’s a mac application, not just a hand held app. I use my regular IR remote in addition to this application. I’m using the trial currently. After the first day I really wanted to be able to keep it. Sadly, I couldn’t find a way to steal it *cough cough* so I just might pay for it when the trial runs out. There are some handy features and I recall doing a whole video podcast episode on this application a few years ago when Nick and I had a podcasting site…. but aside from that, let’s talk about the iPhone app!

• Remote: this looks like the IR remote. up/down/left/right/pause/play. You can use it to open and control applications with different behaviours specific to the application.
• Keyboard: simply put, you can use the iPhone keyboard to type in a text field on the computer. I’ve never found a place to use this, but it sounds cool!
• Menu: A list of your applications (that can be controlled via the remote) shows up on your phone, you can execute programs from your hand, dude. Seriously, play with this feature now.
• Trackpad: The new macbooks have a glass trackpad, and now so do you for any mac you have. And it’s wireless! What’s more, you get a live (but tiny) view of your monitor sent to the phone for orientation.
• Music: this is like the Remote app above.
• Camera: I love this, even though it has limited necessity. Your iSight webcam is streamed to your iPhone/iPod and with the click of a button it will save a picture for you.
• Movies: This doesn’t work very well for me because the files have to be in a certain directory, but in theory, it would be like a movie version of the “Remote” app above.
• EyeTV: Again, I can’t use this one because I don’t have EyeTV. I imagine it would be awesome if I did though.

So now. I actually use two, maybe three of the features on here and I still feel like it’s worth the money. If you can find more uses, it’s definitely a winner for you. Sorry for sounding like a salesman. I’m not affiliated with them, I promise. I simply love the application.