iPhone Hill

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch, and soon… iPad!) related, they’re fair game.

Confession: in all the iPad hubbub last week, Rene didn’t get around to posting everyone’s pick. Bright side, you get almost twice as many this week!

So who’s on deck this double-dose and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick I: MobileMe Gallery

Apple’s new MobileMe Gallery app is awesome. I really like the way it previews photos at the top (just like Apple TV) and you can easily share photos, albums or movies. Adding friend’s galleries are bonus too! I just wish you could comment on photos…

Just like with the MobileMe iDisk app, once you view an image, it saves it to your iPhone for easy access later. You can also tap and hold to save your images to the iPhone’s camera roll. [Free - iTunes link]

Chad’s Pick II: Engadget

This week I decided to look at some news apps, specifically Engadgets new app. What is nice is that they have all three of their sites available to view: Engadget, Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD. The app remembers the last news source and looks beautiful doing so. The standard fanfare is there too such as posting to Facebook and Twitter any articles that you find interesting. One nice bonus is streaming video, including the Engadet Show. Give Engadget a try for all of your gadget news from TVs to robots! [Free - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: TaxCaster Mobile

With tax season upon us, Turbo Tax has given iPhone user an easy tool for a quick tax estimate. With basic deductions and incomes, you can get a rough idea if you will owe money or (hopefully) get a nice hefty refund. You can enter exact amount or just estimates to see what your fate will be this year with the IRS. You cant export data for your return, but for a free app, this is a useful tool to have. [Free - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick I: Homerun Battle 3D

Homerun Battle 3D is hours of fun, mainly because it has online play. I’d suggest to try out the LITE version of this game and I’m sure you will love it and buy the full version. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick II: Booooly!

Booooly is a fun little puzzle game that is very entertaining and I would suggest it to anyone looking simply to pass some time. Even better, Booooly has a free version you can try out on the App Store! [$0.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick I: Readdledocs 2.0

I know in the past, I have picked Readdledocs before; however, with the version 2 having come out, it adds a whole slew of new features that make it easily worth mentioning! Readdledocs is a document viewer with so many feature, it’s ridiculous! I think it is probably one of the best, if not the best PDF viewer for the iPhone.

The new application includes numerous new features – a new interface, capable to view PDFs in “text reflow” view (allows the text to be made larger or smaller), better handling of large documents, zipping files, text file creation, file filter views/tasks and lots more! [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick II: SoundHound

Recently I have been digitizing my parent’s CD collection and quite often my Mom has come up to me humming and asking me if I knew the song. I rarely have a clue. So the other day I grabbed SoundHound and had her hum the tune and the app found it. We spent much of the evening using the app exploring songs from the same artists. I’ve been an avid user of Shazam, but SoundHound blows it out of the water with all it’s features! [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick I: DropBox

When MobileMe’s iDisk stopped syncing on me the last time, turned out it was also for the last time, and I decided to give the much geek-loved DropBox a try. It’s free for up to 2GB of data, and $10/m or $100/y for 50GB, but it’s features are so far ahead of iDisk that Apple really should buy them up before Google does. For those not familiar, basically it lets you store your files on their cloud server, and with the Dropbox desktop client, mirror that folder on any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer you own. You can see the sync status of each folder and file and easily share them, and the photo folder gets special gallery-style treatment. And, of course, it has an iPhone app that lets you browse your cloud-stored files, or star them to keep a copy locally on your iPhone. Note for the security conscious — you can, of course, encrypt files or directories before uploading them to Dropbox, but then you lose the web and iPhone access. The battle over convenience rages on! [Free - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick II: Classics

Interested in that iBooks app Steve Jobs showed off for the iPad and upset you can’t have one or both new? Users of the existing iPhone app, Classics, know from whence iBooks borrows a lot of its look and feel (with an even earlier nod to Delicious Library!), but that means that if you want to get your bookshelf storing, multitouch paper flipping, eBook read on, you can do it now… With one caveat: as the name suggests, Classics only contains free, public domain, classic books. As a bonus, however, following the iBooks announcement, the makers of Classics have decided to give it away from free, so it’s definitely worth a download. [Free - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

MobileMe Gallery, Engadget, TaxCaster, Homerun Battle 3D, Booooly, Readdledocs 2, SoundHound, DropBox, Classics — TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: FourSquare

I am really getting into the whole location-based check-in concept. There are several tools out there but my favorite right now is foursquare. The app and service is free, it scans Twitter, Facebook and your iPhone’s address book for friends. This makes finding friends that use foursquare easy. You have weekly leaderboards to compete with friends and a todo list of places to check out. Give foursquare a try! [Free - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: Ramp Champ

After all the buzz, I decided to download and try Ramp Champ, the skee ball style game. And I have to say it is a blast. Graphics are great, game play is smooth, background music is entertaining, and you even get tickets to trade in for prizes! This is a fun little game that.can be used as a quick diversion, or spending time to hone your skills. Add in the fact that you can use in-app purchases to add additional levels (or games) and we have ourselves a winner! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: Let’s Golf

Recently Let’s Golf was free and I decided to check it out. I don’t know why I didn’t buy it sooner. Let’s Golf is a fantastic golfing game for the iPhone. It’s a very well designed and I’d suggest it to anyone looking for play a few rounds on their iPhone. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Video Panorama

Video Panorama allows you to take a video with your iPhone or use a pre-recorded video. It then automatically selects frames from the video to be used in the panorama, stiches them together and then allows you to save the image to your library. A great way to quickly get panoramas! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Consume

Consume is another in a long list of simple, elegant apps from Bjango that shows how many voice minutes and how much data you’ve used on your iPhone. This may not matter to people on unlimited plans in the US, but those of us in other countries with tiered service, or those on pay-as-you-go plans (and reward cards) may just find it very welcome. Sure, some carriers SMS you when you get to 80% or 100% of your monthly limit, but being able to check any time, and as often as you like right from the comfort of your iPhone — priceless. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

FourSquare, Ramp Champ, Let’s Golf, Video Panorama, Consume — TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chris’ Pick: Hanged

My pick of the week is the game “Hanged”. I first saw this app as a “must buy” mentioned in Entertainment Weekly magazine. It is a hangman game that uses nice graphics, cut scene animation, and a continuing storyline. The words you try to guess are from am ongoing letter from one lover to another. It is nicely done, and at $1.99 it is cheap enough to give it a try! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: UPS Mobile

UPS Mobile helps you keep up to date on all your packages being
shipped, I recently ordered some iPhone cases and other items online
and this app really helped me keep up to date with my packages. [Free - iTunes link]

Georgia’s Pick: Trip Journal

I have always been enamoured with this application; It has a beautiful interface and many different ways in which to use it. It’s so fun an easy, even though I hate to write down trip information, I end up entering even quick day trips with my children. It can also keep track of my children’s growth and places we went and use it to keep in touch with family members overseas. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Hippo Remote

Hippo Remote is in all basic sense – a Wifi remote for your computer (Mac or Windows) Getting Hippo remote to work with my Mac was the easiest thing to get it to work than any other remote Wifi remote I have used, as for the PC, Hippo Remote has a free VNC software that you can install to make the process easy. The neat thing about Hippo Remote, is that it contains “profiles” for multiple programs & OS’s in addition to having a simple touch-pad-mouse. I ended up using Hippo remote for the Media PC I gave to my parents & they use their iPhones to simply control it. I highly recommend it. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Audible.com

Getting from Montreal to Vegas and back this week for CES involved four flights and countless hours of waiting before, in between, and after. While I often listen to tech-focused podcasts on my iPhone, given the tsunami of tech I faced at CES, I decided I needed a diversion, a palate cleanser… a break! So, I used up a few lingering Audible.com credits, got myself some audio books, plugged in my headset, and tuned out (and only once nodded off!) From biographies to biotech, science fact to far-flung fantasy fiction, Audible has an every growing range of books to suit a wide range of tastes. If you’re commuting across town, flying across country, or just trying to get through the daily grind, give Audible a try. Getting a monthly account gives huge savings on the individual titles. [Variable - Web site link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Hanged, UPS Mobile, Trip Journal, Hippo Remote, Audible.com — TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Documents to Go Premium

This new version of Documents to Go brings a couple of nice enhancements: PowerPoint editing/ creation and attachments through Gmail (Exchange only).

DataViz keeps making this app better and better. If you need the ability to edit or create documents (Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint compatible) on the go for work, this is an indispensable tool for your iPhone. One more thing, it can even open password protected Word and Excel documents; this can come in quite handy! [$14.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: Kids vs. Zombies

Kids vs. Zombies is a very fun game that has zombies and dogs that you have to kill to continue to the next level. It has many fun levels to play and is one of my favorite games on iPhone, Also they have a lite/free version you can try out! [Free - iTunes link]

Jeremy’s Pick: Playstation 3 Trophy Guide

I recently picked up a PS3 due to Rene constantly nagging me, claiming he can take me out in UFC 2009 Undisputed. That will never happen but if you own a PS3 you might as well download this app. It gives you complete details for every trophy you can earn for each PS3 game out today. Now all it needs is access to your friends list and you have a well rounded free app! [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: Pilates for Pregnancy

Being pregnant, I know the importance of physical fitness but also understand the dangers of exercising too much or making wrong movements. Pilates for Pregnancy provides exercises that are safe and healthy for each stage of pregnancy and gives me confidence that I’m exercising in a way that will cause no harm to my baby. You can choose exercises based on body part or Pilates for Pregnancy will build a well-rounded work-out based on the time that you have. The instructions are clear and the pictures are helpful. Not only is Pilates for Pregnancy a great fitness app, but it offers a checklist of things you should do each day and each trimester, a place to store pregnancy related photos, and a list of important questions to keep as notes. Pilates for Pregnancy has been added to my list of must-have pregnancy apps. [$9.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Pastebot

Pastebot, the 3rd app from iPhone GUI maestro’s Tapbots is a clipboard manager that lets copy in, store, and paste back out multiple items on your iPhone or iPod touch. Items, which can include text or images, can also be tagged and shared by email. Oh, and if you have a Mac, you can SHARE CLIPBOARD ITEMS VIA WIFI. Sorry for shouting, but already updated 2 or 3 times (I’ve lost count) the Mac sync is just — I need to make up a word — fantabutasmic. Rather than screen capturing and emailing myself pictures for posts, I can just drop them into Pastebot, copy to Mac, launch Preview, and hit “new from clipboard”. Boom. Time saved. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Documents to Go Premium, Kids vs. Zombies, Playstation 3 Trophy Guide, Pilates for Pregnancy, Pastebot — TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb — bloggers, forum crew, and occasional friends alike — bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game. Well, as 2009 winds to a close, we figured it’s time for the staff to bring you not just picks of the week but — PICKS OF THE YEAR!

So who’s on deck for the very best iPhone apps of 2009? What are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: N.O.V.A. — Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance

This game demonstrates what is possible on the iPhone from a 3D shooter. This game has set the bar. [$6.99 - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: Navigon MobileNavigator

Pick of the year, pick of the year…how do I choose a single app as my pick of the year? A game with which I have had lots of fun? A utility that I simply use all the time? A twitter app? After much debate and flip-flopping, I decided to go with Navigon as my pick of the year. Navigon (with the recent updates and improvements) is as close as I have seen to a turn by turn app done right. It has a plethora of features, has clear voice guided turn by turn directions, and really is one of the two or three utility apps that I use on a regular basis and gives the iPhone a feature that almost everyone was clamoring for from the beginning. [$59.99 until Jan. 11 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: Simplytweet

Simplytweet is not only my Favorite app but its my app of the year also,. It’s a great twitter app that has many features, including Multiple Accounts, Push Notifications, Photo Search, My favorite features are Landscape, retweet or quote tweets (via @theiphoneblog instead of RT @theiphoneblog), and Themes.
[$4.99 - iTunes link]

Dieter, SPE Editor-in-Chief’s Pick:

Since the iPhone has become my secondary device, I’m finding that my go-to apps on it have changed a bit. The one I use the most: the Kindle app. I love that I have my books with me all the time now and that I can read it in bed without a light. Amazon really nailed the ‘just works’ aspect with the way they have sync set up – just a few seconds of data access is enough to get myself synced up to the last page I was reading on my actual Kindle. [Free - iTunes link]

Georgia’s Pick: Skype

Skype gives you the ability to call anyone else who uses Skype, anywhere in the world, for free. You can also call landline or cell phones for a small fee, and send out IMs. Anything that combines “call anyone” and “free” definitely gets my vote for app of the year. (And if the 4th generation iPhone gets a front-facing camera, maybe we will even be able to have two-way video calls next year). [Free - iTunes link]

Jeremy’s Pick: Twitbit

Twitbit has been my Twitter app of choice for some time now. Is it perfect? No, but then again the perfect app does not exist. What really makes Twitbit stand out as my favorite app of 2009 is the hard work that goes into it and the frequent updates to the app (and the updates are free unlike some other over rated Twitter app who’s name I won’t mention because it would hurt Rene’s feelings). The developer, High Order Bit, constantly is striving to improve this app and it has evolved very well. I highly recommend you check it out. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: 1Password Pro

iPhone + Mac + 1Password for iPhone and Mac = best combination ever. Before my discovery of 1Password, I used the same 3 boring passwords for everything. Now I have a different randomly generated password for each login and 1Password makes this simple and hassle-free. When I first started using 1Password for iPhone, I was nervous that it was going to be a pain to have to launch 1Password to copy a password each time I needed it but the process is actually rather quick and worth it knowing that I have secure passwords. This combination is a serious must-have for iPhone and Mac users. [$7.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Appigo Todo

Deciding which app I feel is my Pick of the Year was immensely hard. I immediately thought to myself “well it’s my most used application…”but then I realized, that wouldn’t be it. It had to be something that filled in the gap where the iPhone OS left out, revolutionize the way I worked on the iPhone. Was it easy to use? Could I customize it to fit my work? Finally I came upon the conclusion of – Appigo’s Todo application. One of main things I missed coming from the Palm to the iPhone was a todo application. Appigo’s Todo, goes above & beyond what the normal todo application should go. With several options to sync & push notification reminders, this is a killer app & an app worthy as a pick of the year [$9.99 - iTunes link]

Mickey, the Cell Phone Junkie’s Pick: All-in-One WiFiRemote

WiFi Remote is one of the coolest apps I have. For $5, it allows me to control my Windows 7 media center that I have connected to my living room TV over my WiFi network without having to deal with a keyboard and mouse. It is like having a pocket control for the computer with me all the time. I can sit on the couch and either surf, or simply control the media I want to watch. The best part is that both my wife and I have it installed on our iPhones, so either of us can control it. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Boxcar

And here’s why — iPhone 3.0 introduced a couple innovations to the iPhone app space, namely (and finally!) push-notifications and in-app purchases. Sure, augmented reality like Gunman is coming on strong, we’re all looking forward to Unreal Engine 3 powered games, and one day we may see the fruits of app accessory access, but for today, for 2009, Boxcar is delivering. Not only is it an innovative example of push-notifcation and in-app purchase, it uses both fill gaps both in other apps (like the PNS-challenged Tweetie, Twitterrific, and yeah, Facebook), for Apple and Google who still haven’t delivered push Gmail without taking up the lone ActiveSync slot on the iPhone (which GoogleSync requires), and in the latest version, for Growl and RSS notifications as well. Bottom line, Boxcar has leveraged iPhone 3.0 to make great apps and services better, and that makes it my pick of the year. [Free + in-app purchase - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick of the year? In 2009, what was your most used, most eye-popping, most “this changes everything” iPhone app?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Picks of the Year — Nova, Navigon, SimplyTweet, Kindle, Skype, Twitbit, 1Password, Appigo Todo, WiFiRemote, Boxcar

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this holiday-centric week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Christmas C@rds

Christmas C@rds is a fun little app that can take a bit of hassle out of holiday cards and make it fun on your iPhone. This app comes with more than 30 templates you can customize with colors, text and your own picture! If I wasn’t married, I would go this route for my holiday cards, but the Mrs. put a stop to that. If you are in a pinch and need some great looking, fun eCards, you can’t go wrong with Christmas C@rds! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: Dr. Seuss Camera Grinch Edition

I was trying out a few holiday themed apps this week, and my pick of the week is the Dr. Seuss Camera. With this app, you can take a photograph with your iPhone, and super-impose a “Grinch” scene on it to give it a holiday vibe – pretty similar to many of the other “insert your face in a scene” type of apps. From simply putting someone’s face on the Grinch’s body to creating more of a Christmas card type of image, there are 23 difference scenes to choose from. It’s a fun way to add a little holiday cheer to your images! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: Crazy Snowboard – Holiday Special

Crazy Snowboard is a very fun snowboard app that has many fun levels to play, What I love about Crazy Snowboard is that the developer has updated the app just for Christmas and all the levels are christmas themed![$2.99 - iTunes link]

Georgia’s Pick: Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition

With all of the Holiday stress of finding gifts and busy shopping malls, my holiday pick is Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition. Whether it is removing candy canes from a generic elf or taping back together a reindeer, this game is a stress reliever. [Free - iTunes link]

Jeremy’s Pick: Elf

Elf is a very simple, yet highly addictive game. The objective is to
simply is to collect stars and candy canes to make your Elf fly,
glide, and jump as high as he can. Toss in the Christmas touch and you
have yourself a $.99 holiday time killer. [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: ?

“sniffle Bah, Humbug! sneeze Get off my snowless lawn!”

Matt’s Pick: Christmas Camera

Christmas Camera ™ is a pretty cool application that allows you to take photos of people and overlay different themes or a Santa hat on top of the image – creating one whole Christmas themed photo. The app has numerous different themes as well as a Santa hat and photo frames. Had a bit of fun updating several of my friends photos! [$0.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Ramp Champ’s Holiday Giveaway

Ramp Champ is skeetball done beautiful and in-app purchase done right, and what’s righter than a free for the holidays? If you’ve already got Ramp Champ, just jump into the extras, download your free gift level, and flick the yule out of them elves and reindeer. And if you haven’t, get Ramp Champ first, then get the free level! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Christmas C@rds, Dr. Seuss Camera Grinch Edition, Crazy Snowboard – Holiday Special, Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition, Elf, Christmas Camera, Ramp Champ – TiPb Picks of the Holiday Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Dragon Dictation

Dragon Dictation is one slick app. You can dictate then email, text or copy your text to the clipboard. I found the app to be accurate as long as there is no background noise. Oh, did I mention it’s free? [Free - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: Pizza Hut

Scenario: you are at a bar, loud music, a couple of beers, and you are hungry. How can the iphone help? Pizza Hut app! Set up an account, order your pizza through the app (no talking and not being able to hear on the phone), and in 30 minutes- fresh, hot pizza. Used it each of the past Fridays during the faculty bar night, and saved many a faculty from , well, being hungry. [Free - iTunes link]

Derrick’s Pick: What’s On TV

What’s On allows you to see what’s playing the not only on your TV but also what’s in the movies, Its one of my favorite apps and did I mention its free? This app is definitely a must have. [Free - iTunes link]

Georgia’s Pick: TED

The TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Talks application allows you watch their cutting-edge videos on your iphone. Each year TED hosts some of the most awe inspiring, fascinating people. No matter what I am interested in learning about there is a TED talk about it. Here are some of my favourite iphone related TED talks: Jeff Han – Multi-Touch Interaction, David Pogue – Simplicity sells, Sir Ken Robinson – Do schools kill creativity? (And is that why Steve Jobs dropped out?!) I would be really interested to hear which are your favourite TED Talks as well! [Free - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: SmartScreen (for Jailbreak)

If there is one thing I would like to see in iPhone 4.0, it would be widgets on the lockscreen or any one my my app pages. Android does and it really adds a nice customization touch. Luckily I don’t have to wait until 4.0 for widgets, as SmartScreen offers that functionality. Only a few widgets are currently available, but the developers behind the app have released a SDK for others to develop widgets. [$5 - via Cydia]

Jeremy’s Pick: ESPN ScoreCenter

My pick this week is ESPN ScoreCenter. If you want to know why you can read all about it here… [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: BabyBump

When I found out I was pregnant a few days ago, I started looking for a pregnancy app almost immediately and BabyBump is excactly what I was looking for. For each new week of the pregnancy stage, BabyBump provides information about the developmental progress of my baby including its approximate size/weight, an object that is similar in size (this week, Baby is about the size of a poppyseed), and a picture of what my baby looks like. BabyBump also gives weekly information on what changes I can expect with my body and a place for me to store a picture of my belly for my records. In the journal, I can keep a daily record of my weight, waist size, moods, and anything else I want to record. BabyBump also has a kick and contractions counter that can be shared directly with Facebook and Twitter. BabyBump is the pregnancy app to have and I highly recommend it for all pregnant women. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Waze

Waze is a community map navigation application. Waze has an initial base map in it, which users then help verify the roads by simply leaving the app running while driving. The application will also notice if traffic is getting heavy (live traffic reporting) and reports it to the community map so other people that might be traveling that route can avoid that area. That is one of the numerous features that Waze offers. Overall, the routing was decent and the turn-by-turn prompts are is very good. [Free - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Tweetie 2

Trying to do this year’s @SPERoundRobin (#RoundRobin) without a good, nay — great Twitter app would be very, very difficult. I’m not using Tweetie 2 with it’s excellent re-tweet, search, saved-search, and other functions has been a sanity savor. I use tons of Twitter apps. I try new ones whenever they come out. Thus far, I’m still going back to Tweetie 2 because it’s a powerhouse and it just suits my brain — such as it remains. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Dragon Dictation, Pizza Hut, What’s On, TED Talks, SmartScreen, ESPN ScoreCenter, BabyBump, Waze, Tweetie 2 – TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chris’ Pick: The Wars

I don’t know what it is about this game. It’s not complex, the graphic aren’t that great, I just find it very addicting! Always have to try to beat the next level. I am up to level eight, but I have stalled out. Give it a try – you may have as hard a time putting it down as I am!. [$0.99 - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: AT&T Mark the Spot

AT&T coverage in my condo is not good. I have to keep my iPhone in certain spots and if I move it, the call will most likely be dropped. AT&T have released an app to help iPhone users pin point dropped calls, no coverage areas and slow data downloads. Mark the Spot uses GPS to send your location and the type of service issue you had to AT&T. The real question is whether or not AT&T acts on the data they receive… [Free - iTunes link]

Georgia’s Pick: Cribbage Lite

It’s and easy, fun game that you can pick up and put down in a moment. It allows you to mug points and though I suspect the AI cheats slightly (not that I can prove it — yet!), it’s challenging, especially when you’re stuck, unable to move, lest your sleeping baby wake up and start crying again. And yeah, I know it’s not a trendy FPS, but I played it with my parents when I was a kid, and it still relaxes me, — and it’s FREE! — so no making fun! [Free - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Doodle Jump

Doodle Jump is one of the most simplistic, yet addicting games I have ever come across! The developers constantly update the app adding features or “hidden” themes within the app. There are number of maneuvers & objects to interact with that make this game much more interesting than just “jumping up platforms,” so you will not get bored of the same ‘ol movement. [$0.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Airport Express

32 smartphones, 7 editors, 1 weekend, and everyone needs wireless connectivity NOW! So what was Dieter to do? Bust out Apple’s Airport Express, connect it up to the hotel ethernet, and then crack the whip and set the 3rd annual Smartphone Experts Round Robin in motion. A tiny, rounded rectangular box in iPod white, the Airport Express also packs a speaker jack for Airtunes, so you can play your iTunes music on remote speakers, and a USB port so you can plug in a printer and use it from any computer on the same network. Awesome power, itty-bitty box. I bought one. And I bought one for my father for Xmas. [$99.00 - Apple Online Store link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

The Wars, AT&T Mark the Spot, Cribbage Lite, Doodle Jump, Airport Express — TiPb Picks of the Week!

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Lumines

This week I am picking Q Entertainment’s Lumines. This game came out a little while ago with poor fanfare due to the horrible controls. Good news? There is now and update that fixes these issues and this game is now a pleasure to play. You even have in-app purchasing for additional theme packs. The music is not as good as the original IMO, but still fun!! [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Chris’ Pick: BitFlip

BitFlip is a matching/lineup style game in the style of bejeweled, where you try to match up tiles with the same color and shape. It is a little more complicated however, because in addition to swapping two tiles to line them up, you can also “flip” them to change the tiles. With two play modes, an easy interface, smooth graphics, a fun sound track, and a $1.99 price tag, it’s a fun game for those that enjoy the Trism/Bejeweled style games. [$1.99 - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: TripIt

As a consultant, I am on the road each week. In order to keep my life organized, I would always enter my trip details (hotel info, flight numbers, etc.) into calendar entries. TripIt makes my life easier by automatically creating my trip entries for me. The service syncs with various iPhone apps like FlightTrack Pro [$9.99 - iTunes link] and they even have their own free app. If you don’t have any room for one more app, you can subscribe to an iCal feed right on your iPhone. Perfect for the road warrior. [Free - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: KENKEN

As someone who loves math and anything involving logical thinking, I am quite the sudoku fan. KENKEN took it to the next level. Just as with sudoku, each row and column must contain every number exactly once with the additional requirement that the bolded groups of blocks must add, subtract, divide, or multiply into a specific number. I love a great challenge and KENKEN is a great way to get that brain working and have fun at the same time. [$4.99 - iTunes link]

Matt’s Pick: Pocket Tunes Radio

II was initially wary of purchasing Pocket Tunes as there where other apps at a much cheaper price, however, more recently Pocket Tunes made some significant changes and addons that blows all other competition out of the water – with the ability to play streams in the background, record your favorite stations(& play them back later), and the ability to play AAC+ audio ($3 in-app purchase, but highly recommended), and if you have sirus/XM subscription, pocket tunes will play that as well! Quite frankly I got rid of my XM subscription because I could use Pocket Tunes instead! [$6.99
- iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: NetNewsWire Free/Premium

I need to keep up with RSS, and I’ve tried every RSS reader on the iPhone. Each have their pros and cons, each makes a tradeoff somewhere between interface and feature sets, and while I wish I could just stuff several in a Hadron-esque collider and god-particle myself the one perfect reader, they just won’t (and shouldn’t) grant me access to CERN. So, I’ve been using NetNewsWire Premium a lot lately, simply because it gives me my Google Reader-synced news fast enough, lets me see the most recent updates across all my feeds, allows me to star and email out complete articles, and/or save them to Instapaper for later offline perusal. It’s not perfect, but perfectly usable for me, for now.
[$4.99 - iTunes link] or [Free - iTunes link]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Lumines, BitFlip, Tripit, KENKEN, Pocket Tunes Radio, NetNewsWire — TiPb Picks of the Week

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Reeder

I love Google Reader. The web interface is nice, but I desperately want an app to sync it with. I have found the perfect app; Reeder. Why? It looks great, has the fastest sync there is and the interface is fast and clean. At only $1.99, this app is a steal! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: iPod

One of the reasons that I purchased my first iPhone is that I have always been looking to converge all of my devices into one. I travel every week for work and carrying around an iPod, a digital camera, a cell phone and a portable DVD player can be a real pain while trying to go through the security line at the airport. With all of my cords, etc. I almost always get stopped and searched. Now while it seems I am picking the iPhone in general, I most use the iPod function. While being stuck on the runway, delayed at O’Hare, or long cross country flights, I need my music to help me get through the flight. If music isn’t what I want to do, I can always catch up on my latest TV shows and movies. [Built-in]

Justin’s Pick: Maps

I know everyone frowns on picking built in apps, but I haven’t tried any new apps worth talking about so my pick is the Map app. In the past few weeks it’s helped me, more than once, navigate new roads after getting fed up with traffic and turning off the highway onto some random street. Plus, I’ve used the traffic feature to avoid some routes in the first place. Besides TweetDeck, Weather, and Facebook it’s probably my most used app. [Built in]

Matt’s Pick: Notifications

I’ve never regularly used an RSS reader, because I would add a lot of feeds, then when I’d open it, I had all these things to read and that little number badge would be in the hundreds staring at me from my springboard. I happen to be one of those people that if there’s a number badge on an app, then it needs to be resolved immediately. So I deleted the app. Resolved, right?!? The resolution to my issue was using the Notifications app. This allowed me to set up certain RSS feeds to be checked and Push notifications to be sent to me. Notifications doesn’t only do push for RSS, but Twitter, Gmail & more, This allows me to pick and choose which RSS articles (or whatever) to view when they pop up instead of putting them off for later. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: Bejeweled 2

PopCap Games sure knows how to feed into my addiction of puzzle games. A few months back they successfully took over my life with Peggle and now I’m addicted to Bejeweled 2, more specifically, Blitz mode. Bejeweled Blitz is a one minute speed version of the classic game that is also available on Facebook. With Facebook Connect, Bejeweled Blitz is now with me everywhere I go! Not only is this game terribly addicting, but it looks and sounds amazing as well. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Instapaper (Pro/Free)

I learned a while ago that I had time to either read, or write — not both. Luckily, technological advances like RSS and Instapaper have let me squeeze in some honest-for-pleasure reading again, if only newsy/opiniony web matter. Still, with drop-dead simple bookmarklet integration on the desktop (find an article, hit the bookmarklet, it’s saved), and transparent syncing between desktop and dedicated iPhone client, no longer is my day filled with “boy I wish I had time to read that non-iPhone-related post” but rather a single tap on Instapaper and it’s now “boy I hope I have time to read this non-iPhone-related post later!” (I purchased the Pro version to support the developer, but there’s also a free version if you want to try before you support) [$4.99 - iTunes link] or [Free - iTunes link]

Crackberry Kevin’s Pick: BlackBerry Bold 9700

[Er, thanks Kevin. We think. Check it out on CrackBerry.com if you must... - Rene]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Reeder, iPod, Maps, Bejeweled 2, Notifications, Instapaper – TiPb Picks of the Week