For those giving and getting iPhones and iPod Touches from Santa and elsewhere, here are a few apps to have a look at. Apps.ie also contain an impressive list of Irish-made apps. Not being big into games, I’ve gone for more utility apps.
1. Encyclopedia Wikipedia App
Encyclopedia Wikipedia App for iPhone. Made by Patrick Collison. Costs €6.99. Allows you to view and search the whole of Wikipedia on the iPhone/iPod Touch with and without an Internet connection.
2. Shazam – Guess that tune iPhone style
Shazam is simple. Put the phone near the radio and it’ll tell you the song playing and you and you can go buy it.
3. eirtext – Use your free webtexts directly on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Made by Vinny Coyne, eirtext is an Irish App allowing you to use the free Webtexts from Irish mobile providers via your phone.
4. Flickr App – Upload your photos and see what others have
Upload photos from your iPhone to photo sharing site Flickr. Stamp GPS coordinates on the photos and also see other photos taken in the location you’re in.
5. Echofon – Nice Twitter interface on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Allows you to use Twitter on your iPhone. Really handy application. Easy interface.
6. Evernote – Information taking and retrieval
Evernote is a document management system, a note taking application and more. Take a pic, it converts it to text. Add notes to it. It synchs with their website and your desktop if needs be.
7. Facebook
Everything on Facebook except on the iPhone. Very powerful and simple to use.
8. Daft Layar – Snoop on local houseprices
See details about houses around you for sale or rent with this Daft.ie Layar app. Whip out the iPhone and as you look through it via the camera then you can see notes, photos and videos tagged on to buildings and streets. This uses Augmented reality to show off the data (adds links and notes as you look through the screen with the camera).
9. Irish Phonebook
Irish Phone Book. All phone numbers in Ireland, all on your phone. Free and pro versions. €2.39 for pro.
10. Dublin Bus app
Nice app to find our routes and timetables for Dublin Buses. €2.99 to buy.
11. Entertainment.ie iPhone app
Concerts, events, TV and movies. The Entertainment.ie Entertain me app is very handy for finding listings and then connecting to the venues to make a booking. Location aware too.
12. Phantom 105.2 radio app
Phantom, one of the best radio stations in Ireland with some superb music choices now has an iPhone app so you can listen to their web stream from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
13. Skype
Make and receive Skype calls on you iPhone. Crystal clear phonecalls and they can be done for free when you are in a WiFi zone.
14. Foursquare
New to Ireland, Foursquare is building up a healthy following worldwide. Right now a consumer application, it will become more interesting when businesses in Ireland start to use it.
15. Dublin Bikes Layar
Despite the Dublin Bikes people banning a previous app about this. This app is here to use. It uses augmented reality to show off data.
16. WiFiTrak
Via James Cridland is WiFiTrak, a way of searching for open WiFi networks and seeing can you connect to the net via them. Picks up more networks than the iPhone scanner. €0.79 for it.
Way way more out there to put on your iPhone too. Add your own to this list.
for what it’s worth i think the jelly sms app is pretty great for sending free texts on the iPhone
RoadWeather shows road contitions for 52 locations around the country updated hourly by the NRA.
http://o-regan.org/2009/11/26/road-weather-see-road-conditions-on-major-routes/
http://bit.ly/roadweather (itunes link)
No 1 should be Dessid
Hi Damien, I caught some of your interview with Dave Fanning on 2fm last night and you mentioned an app that could read barcodes and let you know if a product is available cheaper else where, can you remind me of the name of this app please?
Another great one is Dublin Buster, which is _really_ useful if you use busses in Dublin regularly, as I’ve been doing since I broke my elbow. 🙁 It can discover the nearest bus stop to your current location, display the routes that go through it, and click through to the timetables. It can also display each route on a Google map. It can even path-find bus connections that travel from one location to another.
There’s another bus app, Dublin Bus, which attempts to compute guesses at when a bus might be travelling through that stop, but I haven’t had any luck getting that to come up with anything remotely resembling reality. So it’s not as useful as Dublin Buster 🙁
The Georgina Campbell “IrelandGuide” app is great for finding places to eat nearby — it’s been quite reliable for me in finding good spots I hadn’t tried before at the drop of a hat…
PatrickC’s wikipedia app was very useful when I was on holliers in Sicily and unable to use data roaming to access the site itself. However, the app’s database is *incredibly* painful to download. I’ve had to dl it twice now, and each time it’s taken a *week* of leaving the iPhone plugged in, lock turned off, data trickling in from some sluggish server over wifi. Given how expensive it is, I’m not sure I’d recommend it to be honest.
PS: If we’re not just talking about apps — as you’ve noted before in your Fluffy Links, I came up with a version of the Met.ie forecasts customised for the iPhone. That makes for a great springboard link if I say so myself. 😉
i’m new to ipod, just received one as a present. wife was trying t o upgrade my phone to iphone but was unalbe as i am account holder on bill. just wondering is there an APP which will allow me gain internet access.