Another key point is that the three years have been relatively hassle free. My iMac failed to boot once but I restored from a backup disk and it’s been fine ever since losing only a couple of day’s worth of files which wasn’t much. Touch wood. During that time I’ve upgraded the O/S twice to Leopard and recently Snow Leopard. The upgrades have left me with a faster O/S each time which was impressive and surprising.

One change that I’ve worked on over the last three years is making sure the software I use on the Mac is either open source or I pay for it. It’s taken a while as I couldn’t afford to buy everything at the one time nor find good alternatives to some expensive software but I’m there now. Torrenting makes it easy to get any app you need to be honest but I felt more and more uncomfortable about stealing software especially as the Mac development community is smaller, tighter and does make some great software. Definitely the right thing to do.

So that leads me into year 4. No need to upgrade, everything working fine. Except my head. More specifically my gadget head. One thing I’ve toyed with buying for a couple of years was an Apple TV or a Mac Mini for the TV. I’ve an ever growing library of digital media and I want to rip my DVD collection. Out of the two products I’d prefer a Mac Mini – more flexibility when it comes to player choices with Plex being the favourite at the moment. But I don’t want a third computer!

So the plan I have formulating…

• Sell iMac and replace with Mac Mini for under TV.
• Sell Macbook Pro and replace with new Macbook Pro with larger local disk.
• Pick up a good monitor (not Apple as prices are eye watering!) for use on desk.
• Pick up a Drobo as I’m running out of disk space as my local media grows.

That would leave me a great setup that should do me for a few years except it will cost money that I don’t really need to spend but when has that stopped me before. Mmmmm. Also, new Mini’s and iMac’s are rumoured this month both at a cheaper price. Interesting.

I might not know what hardware I’ll end up using but I do know I’ll be sticking with Apple over the coming years. Hopefully year 4 will be as trouble free as the last three.

I think what’s key is that the range of app’s plus the power available in the iPhone make for a really good mobile platform. Some task’s are easier to do on the move – tracking weight, car costs, photo’s, twittering – the list goes on. Many tasks that I used to manage via spreadsheet on a desktop machine are now managed by a small app on the iPhone. One issue with some app’s is how to get the data out of them at a later date. Some allow for exporting or backup via e-mail but that is few and far between.

I last blogged about my app’s in January but since then there have been many many new app’s, some of really good quality that are worth mentioning. The problem I have is that the App Store and iTunes aren’t the best for finding app’s amongst the thousands. Easy to see top 25’s but I’m sure there are gem’s hidden away in the App Store just waiting to be found. Anyway, new app’s since January are (links open in iTunes):

Analytics – £3.49 – I use Google Analytics to track all my websites. This app allows we to pick any of the sites I track and see over 40 different reports on site traffic, visitors etc. I prefer this to the actual analytics website.
Deliveries – £1.79 – I order a lot of, mmm, stuff online. This app allows me to track deliveries of said stuff. Again, easier to see status via this app than it is visiting each individual website or courier company to check on progress. Looks great too.
Tumblr – Free – Good app that let’s me update my Tumblr site.
Convertbot – £1.19 – Unit converter with a great interface. Replaced the free Units app – it’s that good.
Skype – Free – It’s Skype on the iPhone. Not much else to say – installed as a just in case app rather than an essential for me.
Dictionary.com – Free – Many dictionaries on the iPhone cost around $20. This is free, lot’s of content and a thesaurus as well. Very useful and I use it quite often.
Night Stand – £0.59 – Gorgeous clock for the iPhone. Was never really sold on it but once I picked up a MovieWedge I know find it really useful when travelling. No need to depend on hotel having a good clock and it’s great to have it so large as my eyesight without glasses is really poor.

Runkeeper Pro – £5.99 – Use the app to track and later analyse my hill walks. Super reliable so far and new features added frequently.
Camerabag – £1.79 – Allows you to apply some nice post processing to photo’s. Recommended in this article in taking better iPhone pictures. Tried it a few times now and can work really well.
Pano – £1.79 – Allows you to stich together iPhone pictures into a panoramic of up to 16 images. I’ve found it a bit hit and miss when trying it. Interface is lovely though, overlaying current view over previous image allowing you to line up the photo better.
Flickit – Free – Let’s you upload images to Flickr. Supports tag’s, sets and geocoding of images. Best interface of any of the Flickr uploaders makes it really easy to use, and quick too. Highly recommended.
Audioboo – Free – Let’s you easily create audio podcasts/blog on the move. Has some potential but can’t see me using it that much.
GB Locate – £0.59 – Displays current OS grid position and latitude/longitude using iPhone GPS. Been very handy on the hill walks to confirm exactly where we are with the map.
iOSMaps – Free – Using GPS, the app will return the OS map for your current location. It downloads the map from a server so you need a good connection, hence can’t be replied upon for hill walking. I’ve found it to be a bit crash happy.
Google Earth – Free – It’s Google Earth. On the iPhone. Technically impressive but not often used.
Wikipanion – Free – Nice app for accessing Wikipedia articles – quicker than firing up Safari and searching.
Road Trip – £2.99 – For tracking car expenses. Always mean to do this but would forget how much I filled up by, what the mileage was etc. Being able to track on the iPhone is much easier as it’s easily done at the garage.
ITN News – Free – The best UK news app. Video reports and it’s quick too. Surprised by how good this is. More suprised that the BBC haven’t released their own app.
TED – Free – Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference app. While it replicates the podcast schedule the advantage of the app is that you can search for any published content and also bookmark favourites which I’ve done. Pretty fast to use too.
Qype Radar – Free – Search for local restaurants, markets etc. Difference is that there are reviews on each result so you can usually sort the good from the bad. Handy for frequent travellers.
Yelp – Free – Much the same as Qype – maybe slightly less UK content though?
WordJong – £1.79 – Cross MahJong with Scrabble and you get this great game. Every day presents a new game board and some of the challenges are really tough. Played this almost daily since I bought it and it’s still very enjoyable.
Frenzic – £1.79 – Fast based action/puzzle game that’s ideally suited to the touch interface on the iPhone. Played lot’s at first – now just an occasional blast.

Tap Tap Revenge 2 – Free – New version, better graphics, same Rock Bandesque gameplay. Nice but doesn’t draw me back.
Zen Bound – £2.99 – One of the most original games I’ve played on any platform. Concept is simple – wrap a rope around a 3D object. But the presentation polish, the graphics and the sound (wear headphones for this one) makes for a great experience.
Contraption – £2.99 – Build a machine to move a ball and complete a goal. Simple concept, complex puzzles but I got bored with it.
iDracula – £0.59 – Arcade shooter. Great graphics, can quite quite intensive but I got bored with it.
Lets Golf – £3.49 – Think Hot Shots Golf for the PSP and you’ve got this game. 4 courses, great cutesy arcade graphics but an accurat control method make for a challenging game. Recommended.
Flight Control – £0.59 – Surely everyone has this by now? Land planes by drawing their flight path. Simple concept, great fun to play and highly addictive. If you buy one game, get this!
Glyder – £0.59 – Fly around levels collecting orbs. Graphically superb but not much of a hook. Take this engine and make Pilotwings! That game would rock on the iPhone.
Who Has The Biggest Brain – £0.59 – Shakeel pointed this one out to me and it’s great. Think Brain Training on the DS and that explains the game. Uses Facebook Connect so you can see how your friends are performing. Cheap and a lot of fun – nice way to fill 10 minutes.
Scrabble – £5.99 – Fairly steep and only just out in the UK (been out for months in the US) but I love it. Can play against AI, another iPhone or two player sharing the one device. Only criticism I have is the dictionary – the AI comes up with some incredible words especially at the highest difficulty.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour – £5.99 – 7 courses and great use of the touch interface. The graphics are very good and it’s a challenging game. Only just out last week but already a favourite.
iFighter Lite – Free – Currently a one level demo game but the proper release is coming soon. If you’ve played 1942 before and it enjoyed it then this is for you. Best tilt control yet I think, probably due to the calibration in the game. There is some slow down when playing which will hopefully be addressed in the paid release.

There is one downside to this addiction. It cost’s money! So far my spend on the App Store is £156 since July 08. That’s a lot of money, far more than I expected. A few purchases early doors were regrettable as better app’s have been released or free alternatives have turned up but overall I’m really pleased with the app’s I’ve got. For another list of iPhone app’s have a look at Gordon’s latest updates – that’s where I found the Flickit app. Any good app’s that you use that I haven’t got?

It’s a client written specifically for the Mac and it shows. Great design, fast and clean with a great deal of functionality for a v1.0 release. Things I like? Images open not in a browser but in their own pop-up within Tweetie. Conversations are viewed in an iChat style like the image above. Search is quick and trends are easily available via the search bar. You can also create a new window to hold an individual search – keeps the screen clean and free of clutter but means you can see more if you really want to. Much prefer this over TweetDeck’s way of working which can feel really clumsy but there’s no doubting it’s power for major Twitter users.

Shortcomings are really again only for power users. No easy way to group other Twitter users together apart form creating another Twitter account and using it to follow certain users. It’s a solution but not an elegant one. I’m sure future versions will offer some grouping support. I’ve set-up cmd+T as a new tweet shortcut so I can easily post from any app without finding Tweetie. I’ve also added a bookmarklet to Firefox which will create a new Twitter post via Tweetie of the current site your browsing. I used this bookmarklet instead of the one mentioned on the official site as it also posted the site title. One thing that did trip me up – cmd+return saves and send tweet and not return. Be nice if that was documented somewhere.

Even after just a night of use I’m delighted with Tweetie so far. Good looking, quick and low on resource requirements. It costs $19.95 ($14.95 until May 4th) or is free with ad support. The ad’s are very unobtrusive although once my credit card is back in action I’ll be making a purchase. It’s app’s like this that remind me why I switched to Mac.

Twas the night before yet another Apple announcement and fanboy’s everywhere, especially those surgically attached to their iPhones, were kept awake by the sheer giddiness and excitement of the third software iteration of the Jesus phone. What will Apple announce? Are Apple really worried by the Pre? Are Apple listening to their customers? Where’s Steve?

It would be rude if I didn’t list out what I’d like to see in the next version of the software. Version 2.0 brought the Appstore plus a number of other improvements to the OS so 3.0 should bring quite a bit of new functionality. What would I like?

Background app’s. Over everything else I’d like the option to run an app or two in the background. Yes there would be memory issues but tell we what they would be and let me make the choice about how I want to run things. Chances of happening – Slim.

Cut and paste. Obvious and becoming more and more annoying as i use the iPhone more and more. I will be majorly pissed off though if Apple spend 10 minutes demoing this functionality tomorrow which should have been delivered in OS 1.0. Chances of happening – Strong.

App management get’s a bit crazy after five pages. Too much swishing to move around between app’s. Home button press helped but still not very good. No easy way to group app’s either. Chances of happening – Strong.

Flash. Chances of happening – Strong. I jest of course. It won’t happened and that suits me – I can’t think of anytime I’ve needed it to be honest.

Ability to remove default app’s. No more notes, stocks, weather etc which have all been replaced by better Appstore alternatives. Chances of happening – Slim.

Those four things (ignore flash) would make me very happy indeed. Add in MMS and video recording and I’d be very very happy. Especially as there will be plenty of other new things to ooh and ahh about. I hope.

So I plugged in my iPhone at home to get some podcast updates. After 10 minutes I realised the iPhone was still syncing. That’s not right! So I took a look at the iPhone in iTunes. Ohe feck – that’s definitely not right!

Why is iTunes uninstalling applications. Then the iPhone rebooted and the sync continued. When t finished I had no third party app’s on the iPhone. I checked the app’s tab in iTunes and all the app’s were deselected. I selected them and sync’d and sure enough they were installed on the iPhone. However they were all in different screens, some had lost their settings and some games had lost their saves.

Drat, drat, drat.

Feck, feck, feck.

This is the first issue I’ve had since the 2.1 update fixed all my previous application issues. I’m hoping it’s a one off. My app’s are all up and running but losing some games saves is a real kick in the nuts. Looking at the Apple discussions on applications it looks like there are a lot of people that still have issues with iTunes and/or applications running properly.

Still, I can’t help but feel this is karma. The revenge of Bill Gates. A reminder that no matter the platform you will get issues from time to time. I just hope that the last lesson for a while.

I started using Lightroom at Christmas and I love the finer control I get on my photo’s. However all my photo’s prior to Christmas are managed in iPhoto. The only way to get the photo’s from Lightroom into iPhoto would be to export from Lightroom into iPhoto and keep two separate sets of the same photo. Grrr. I hate duplication and I hate over complicating processes.

iPhoto’s most annoying feature is that it moves photo’s into it’s own library. I would love to have it create a library of images from across my drives but leave them in their location just like Picasa does. I tried Picasa when it came out for the Mac but iPhoto was by far the better tool for me.

So that leaves me with two photo libraries at the moment and none of my new photo’s on the iPhone as I didn’t want to create duplicates. There’s a couple of options in iPhoto for changing the editor which is a bit clunky in practice and for copying items into library but all that does is change the import from a move to a copy. I just hope iPhoto 10 has the options to manage files out with the library. That would be an update worth paying for. I guess there’s nothing for it but to export and duplicate the files I want to view on the iPhone into iPhoto. At least then I can take advantage of the new face tagging features as well. Or is there another option that I’m missing?

Two things have stopped me from buying one. It’s price and it’s spec which was starting to feel old. Today’s update has certainly sorted out the spec and it’s looking to be an excellent media device for under the TV. However I still have pricing issues.

Firstly, it’s price went up today in the UK. The cheapest Mac Mini before today was £391. Cheapest now is £499. Ouch. £499 feels expensive for what you get. I’ve always felt Apple overpriced in the UK when compared to dollar price so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the weak pound has lead to a price increase. Annoyingly the £499 priced Mini would be fine except it comes with only 1GB of ram. Surely that should have been 2GB by default?

Second is the comparison with Mac Mini and iMac prices. If I select the higher spec Mac Mini and bump up processor, memory and add I get the following spec:

# 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2×2GB
# 320GB Serial ATA Drive
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# None
# Apple Wireless Keyboard & Wireless Mighty Mouse
# User’s Guide (English)

That cost’s £928.02.

A 20 inch iMac with the same hard drive and memory but faster processor only costs just over £100 more at £1043. A 24 inch iMac with double the hard disk and a faster processor costs £1,199. With a gorgeous 24 inch monitor. The pricing just doesn’t add up for me. Will this be the last Mac Mini update? I can’t see these selling well with the iMac so keenly priced in comparison.

So I’ll still not be buying a Mac Mini. Probably. As I think through it more I do have a Denon DVD player that cost me around £500 and the Mac Mini would do a lot more than the Denon ever could or would. The Denon at the time didn’t seem expensive. It does now!!!

Doing this review has actually been useful for me. I’ve removed duplicate app’s and moved app’s around to more useful spots. I’ve also found some app’s that I really must try – Stanza, AllRecipies, WiFinder to name three. Oh, and pacman. Anyway, lets get cracking – this is a long one! If you want to jump to games then head down to Home Page 6. If you want a quick games recommendation without reading through the post then Fieldrunners, Warfare Inc, Wurdle, Virtual Pool and Rolando would top my list. Right – Home Page 1.

Home Screen 1 – My most used app’s:

These are the app’s I use most but firstly the dock icons (which are unchanged so far):

• Phone – Default – Used to make calls and shows missed calls and voicemails
• Mail – Default – Gets mail from my private account, mobileme and Gmail
• Safari – Default – Web browser, used all the time
• iPod – Default – Used daily for music and podcasts

The rest are as follows:

• Text – Default – Used quite often. Love the chat view. Want to send to multiple recipients though and forward. But can’t.
• Calender – Default – Syncs with iCal.
• Contacts – Default – Could probably be moved as contacts can be seen via Phone app.
• Evernote – Free – Captures text, image and audio notes. Syncs to the cloud and back to desktop app’s. Holds my notes, FAQ’s, idea’s and reference files like hex colours, desing guidelines, code snippets etc. Used daily.
• 1Password – Free – Syncs with the 1Password desktop client. Stores passwords, online identities and secure notes.
• Maps – Default – Excellent and used far more than expected. Has been used more than once to find hotels when I was lost.
• WeatherPro – £2.39 – Replacement for the fairly poor default weather app. 10 day forecast, detailed stats on current conditions, satellite and radar animations for the UK, support for multiple locations and graphs. Lots of graphs. Ideal for the weather stat whore. Yep, me!
• Clock – Default – Has a few functions but only used to get to alarms. I should really it from front page.
• Weightbot – £0.59 – Does one thing but does it oh so well. It tracks your weight and hence BMI. It’s on the front page as a nice way of reminding me to keep on with the weight loss and also to get easy access to a nice graph showing progress so far. It limits you to entering weight data up to a year ago but resetting the date on your iPhone allows you to enter more. It also backs up your weight data just in case you lose it.
• Settings – Default – For changing settings and turning off wi-fi etc. Used often.
• Tweetie – £1.79 – Best app on the iPhone for twitter. Trend searching, friend adding, follower searching, nearby tweets in an interface that’s faster than any other. Love this app!
• RTM – Free (but needs pro subscription costing $25 a year) – Superb companion app to the Remember The Milk website. I put all my tasks through this app and it really helps me keep on top of work and home commitments. Can’t recommend this app and website highly enough.
• iTunes – Default – Access to the store where you can buy music and download podcasts. Hardly used so I’ll be moving this off the front page.
• App Store – Default – Key to much of the iPhones 3rd party app explosion. Access the store from this one app. You can download and buy app’s from here and it will also check for updates, keeping your applications fresh and up to date. In some ways it’s too easy – don’t really know (or want to know) how much I’ve spent on app’s so far!
• TV Plus – £2.99 – Browse UK TV listings for Sky. Killer feature – send remote record requests direct to your sky box. Best app of this type at the moment.
• Google – Free – Google voice search (which only works well with an American accent), Google search and quick access to many of Googles features like mail, reader etc.

Home Screen 2 – The rest of the app’s that I tend to use often:

• Bloomberg – Free – Share info, market data and business news. Far more informative than the default shares app and far quicker than browsing the web for the same info. Presentation in this app is excellent!
• Twittelator Pro – £2.99 – Bought this on a recommendation from Shakeel. Was good at the time but recent updates made it worse, not better. Poor interface compared to Tweetie. Will be deleting. Now gone!
• Locly – Free – Great app for finding services close by based on your location. Garages, supermarkets, restaurants, pubs, banks, flickr images, wikipedia entries etc. Very handy and best of all free.
• Vicinity – £1.79 – One of the first apps I bought and does the same as Locly, except not as well. Until a recent update it brought back far less results and options compared to Locly. Now it’s much the same but Locly is free and so the app to get. I should really remove this.
• Aroundme – Free – Similar to Locly but again not as good. Time to delete.
• Facebook – Free – Fantastic app for accessing Facebook content. I prefer this to the website but I don’t have many Facebook app’s installed so that may be an issue for others.
• Aeroweather – Free – Reports back latest weather readings from any number of airports around the world. Used to use this quite a lot but the recent purchase of Weather Pro has made it less useful. Will keep it but move it back a page.
• Fring – Free – Great IM tool for MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Skype etc. I found this the best and most stable of the free IM tools. Current version supports free VOIP calling – next version will support Skype calling.
• Wordpress – Free – Allows you to manage your blog from the iPhone. Limited comment management at the moment but apart from that it works well.
• Units – Free – Allows you to convert from one unit to another.
• iFooty – Free – Uses BBC Sports content to display footie news for UK teams and leagues. Like many other app’s it’s easier to use this than it is to get the content on the BBC website.
• XBLFriends – Free – See who’s online on Xbox Live. Very slow to update friends list.
• IGN – Free – Quick access to latest game reviews from IGN. Handy with support for video reviews – annoying sound plays on start-up though!

Home Screen 3 – My Media page – photo’s, music and video:

• Camera – Free – Use this to take photo’s. The camera is pretty poor and why such a tiny virtual button?
• Photo’s – Free – View your camera’s photo roll and any albums sync’d from iPhoto. Simple but nice way to browse photo’s.
• Darkslide – Free (ad supported) or £2.39 – Access your Flickr photo’s, your contacts and photo’s taken from nearby your current location. Latest versions are much improved on early effort’s and it’s now much faster to use. You can also access your group photo’s and also places. Allows you to access so much of your Flickr content that it’s hard to fault – except I’d love to swipe between photo’s to browse. Newest update also introduced photo uploading to Flickr.
• Klick – Free – Another Flickr browser with an interface that I think is better than Darkslide but is let down with less search options.
• Movies – Free – Shows what’s on at local cinema’s (with timings) again based on your location. Also shows map to cinema for when your travelling. Trailers for movies (blocky) and release dates (US I think). Handy.
• Wunder Radio – £3.49 – Best radio app for the iPhone. Massive directory of stations from around the world including most of the BBC streams plus Real Audio support that unlocks even more BBC streams. Check if the station you want is available here.
• Last.fm – Free – Free music streaming over wi-fi and 3G. Great way of finding new music. Highly recommended and still impresses me every time I use it. Who needs a big disk when you’ve got this?
• Simplify Media – £2.39 (free when I got it) – Stream music from your home Mac or PC’s iTunes library. You can also add friends so that they can browse and listen to your library…and vice versa. Very impressive although not used often.
• Remote – Free – Control iTunes playback on the Mac from the iPhone. Pity it can’t stream to the iPhone.
• iPlayer – Free – Shortcut to the iPlayer website. The video playback of iPlayer content on the iPhone is superb and this is great for late night catch-up of TV. Works over wi-fi only.
• Shazam – Free – Play some music and it will try and tell you what it is. A bit hit and miss, with the misses sometimes being quite funny.
• Youtube – Default – Browse and playback Youtube content. Works fine but not used often.
• Animoto – Free – Only just installed – select some pic’s and a soundtrack and it will create a video for you to share online. First tests have worked well.

Home Screen 4 – More app’s, less well used:

• Air Sharing – £2.99 – Connect to the Mac over wi-fi and share files. Files can be later viewed on the iPhone. Handy but find I get more use out of Evernote than this app.
• OneDisk – £4.99 – Allows you to view documents on MobileMe or any other iDisk (like box.net). I also connect to my web space using the app. Handy but quite buggy and I’ve been disappointed with stability so far. Can’t recommend it to others despite it’s potential.
• SleepOver – £1.79 – Lets me wake my Mac using Wake over Lan (WOL) and Wake over Internet. My router is set-up to forward magic packets to my mac which lets me wake up my Mac from anywhere in the world – or Heathrow airport!
• Mocha VNC Lite – Free – Once my Mac is awake I can VNC to it. Sounds crazy for such a small screen but it works surprisingly well.
• Trapster – Free – Community based alert system for speed traps, red light camera’s etc. It’s ok but lack of user base makes it pointless in certain area’s. Coverage for Glasgow isn’t too bad though but then when you know the area you don’t need an app like this.
• Brightkite – Free – Allows you to sign in to locations and broadcast where you are – location based social networking. Not been impressed with it really. Time to delete.
• Domain Scout – Free – Easy way to check for available domain names.
• Google Earth – Free – It’s Google Earth for the iPhone and a great demo app for showing people what the iPhone can do.
• Ocarina – £0.59 – Blow into the mike and play the Ocarina. Listen to peoples efforts form around the world. Pointless but fun.
• Runkeeper – Free – Use it to track my walks using GPS. Been reliable so far.
• Flashlight – Free – Turn your iPhone into a torch. Used once or twice. Please don’t buy one of the non free torch app’s when this does exactly the same thing for free.
• Tioti TV+ – £1.79 – Another TV listings browser with support with remote record. It has a great now and next view but supports less channels than TV Plus. Links to iPlayer for BBC programs that are available. It also suggests programs based on those you like. Has so much potential but needs better channel support. Currently TV Plus is the better option.
• Snap Tell – Free – Take a picture of a cd, dvd or book and the app will tell you the best online price it can find. Currently does not support UK but that will allegedly come in a future upgrade. Accurate on the media I tested – one to watch.

Home Screen 5 – Final app’s page:

• Google – Free – Link to Google website. Will delete as app replaces this.
• Flickr – Free – Link to Flickr mobile site. Very impressive and could easily replace an app.
• Notes – Default – Use Evernote instead of this. Hate the comic fault.
• Stocks – Default – Not used. Shame I can’t remove the default app’s that aren’t used.
• Livestrong – Free – Calorie information on lots of different foods.
• MyRail Lite – Free – Amazing app that will show you local train stations and also train timetables and how late the current trains are running. Don’t use trains often but I think this app is excellent and very handy to have on the iPhone.
• ProPol – Free – Turn an iPhone snap into a polaroid. Simple app but pretty effective.
• Seadragon – Free – Microsoft’s first iPhone app and a great tech demo. Zoom in from a massive distance on a variety of different images. Works best on wifi.
• Twitterrific – Free (ad supported) or £5.99 – First Twitter app I bought. Works well but Tweetie blows it away especially when you compare price. Rumours of a v2.0 though that will try and address shortfalls and DarkSlide support keeps the free version on my iPhone.
• Weather – Default – No longer use the default weather app.
• Calculator – Default – pretty nice calc app which I’ve used once.

Home Screen 6 – Games!!!:

• Monkey Ball – £4.99 – First demo that really showed off power of the iPhone. First app that I bought for the iPhone. Great demo app for showing off the iPhone but it can get quite tricky. Later version at least saves where you are as I got a bit hacked off at having to start over. However the graphics are very good and if this was released on the PSP I don’t think anyone would mind the graphics.
• Wurdle – £1.19 – Addictive word game. This is my goto game if I’ve got a spare 5 minutes. Trace words in a grid – it’s that simple but the game is done so well, and it’s so suited to a touch interface that it’s a joy to play.
• Virtual Pool – £1.19 – Its 3D pool with a good interface and mostly accurate physics. It’s got a good career mode and it’s a game that I really enjoy playing. Couple of little niggles I have is around how accurate the physics are when cuing over ball – it’s just wrong what you can apply to the ball in certain circumstances but overall a great game.
• Fieldrunners – £2.99 – My favourite iPhone game. Tower Defence on the iPhone. Great graphics, simple to play, tactically very deep and again a great touch implementation. Games can take a LONG time though but it does pause the game when you leave the app. More towers are promised (and hopefully more maps) in future updates so a long life is guaranteed. If you buy one game, make it this. And Wurdle. It even made Edge magazines top 30 games of the year which is pretty impressive.
• MotionX Poker – £1.79 – Play poker with dice. The dice are nicely animated and again this was a first day purchase that I still enjoy today but it can get repetitive and I can’t really recommend buying it ahead of so many other great games. If you want to see the dice animations (which are lovely) check out MotionX Dice.
• Texas Hold’em – £2.99 – Lovely poker game from Apple. Recommended.
• Live Poker – Free or £5.99 – I use the free version of this to play live poker (but not for money) with facebook or Live Poker players. Crashed a couple of times but generally works well.
• Solitaire Top 3- £2.39 – It’s Solitaire. It costs money. It’s not worth it!
• Real Football 09 – £3.49 – Pro Evo for the iPhone. Not quite but better than I expected. Good 3D graphics, slightly tricky controls via the virtual dpad and buttons on screen and it comes with the FIFPRO license so 198 teams with proper names and players. When you look at what comes with the game it’s amazing value. Also has local multiplayer. If you like football I’d expect you to like this game.
• Enigmo – £1.19 – Great physics based puzzle game but the controls can be fiddly. If you tough it out your rewarded with some challenging levels.
• Aki Mahjong – £2.99 – I love mahjong games and this is my fav on the iPhone. Lovely graphics and sound and a tough challenge as you progress through the game. Recommended.
• Cube Runner – Free – Simple flight game – guide your ship by tilting the iPhone. Works well and is pretty addictive. Just noticed there’s a Cube Runner II on the App Store. Click ‘Buy’.
• Band – £2.39 – A first day purchase that was based on a great demo and a desire to own the app….with which I’ve done nothing. It is a great app but if I could get one refund it would be for this as it’s pretty pointless for me.
• Tap Tap Revenge – Free – Guitar Hero for the iPhone. Tap along to the song with a number of difficulty levels and songs. There’s also a challenge mode and also online play. Pretty slick.
• Trism – £1.79 – A puzzle game in the Tetris or Bejeweled style and one that plays well. Polished with great presentation and achievements to unlock. Recommended.

Home Screen 7 – More Games!!!:

• rRootgae – Free – Top down shooter that reminds me of Everyday Shooter. Simple graphics but the screen gets very, VERY busy.
• Deep Green – £4.99 – Gorgeous game of chess for the iPhone. Damned hard too. Interface is one of the best on the iPhone.
• touchPhysics – £0.59 – A really tough physics puzzler. Draw shapes with crayons to move a ball. Sounds simple and is but some of the puzzles get very challenging.
• Warfare Incorporated – £2.99 – Red Alert for the iPhone. This was a close second for my favourite iPhone game. Great graphics and gameplay again suited really well for the touch interface. 20 story missions and loads of add-on missions and 2-4 player multiplayer coming soon. Buy it!
• Space Deadbeef – Free – Think R-Type and this is it. Controls can be awkward though and it can get tough.
• Monopoly – £2.99 – Plays really well although the animations can get a bit grating. But it’s Monopoly – what is there not to like? One hint – this is a world edition so it’s not got the traditional place names which is a shame.
• Rolando – £5.99 – PSP quality game for a phone…and for only £5.99. A game that has all the polish of a console title and I love it. So much better than LocoRoco which everyone (follishly) thinks this is. Buy it!
• Frenzic – £2.99 – Bought this only a couple of days ago and it’s a favourite already. Arcade puzzler is probably best description. Addictive!

Phew. Done. Surely nobody is still here – the App Store is waiting.

1. New update to iPhone OS. Copy and Paste, MMS, more screen customisation options, ability to remove stock apps (Stocks, Notes, Weather etc), run background app’s if the user wants to at their own risk with reduced memory and reduced battery life but at least give me the option, wireless sync and the long lost push notifications that were due in Sept. Sept 08. Thanks.
2. Apple TV scrapped. Replaced with updated Mac Mini which is sold at a far reduced price. More capability, reduced price, new 10 foot interface. Boxee comes pre-installed.
3. Snow Leopard – free update in Summer 09.
4. One more thing – Mobile Me – it’s a great service and we’re really sorry about all the issues. Have it for free.

How great would Macworld without Steve Jobs be if those were some of the announcements tomorrow? I guess we’ll need to make do with some iLife news, some Snow Leopard news and predictable Macbook pro and Mac Mini updates. Oh well. Get well soon Steve.

P.S. Is anyone else, like me, expecting Phil Schillers keynote to be more entertaining than Steve Jobs?

A full list of the BBC radio stations I’ve got to work are:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/wm_asx/aod/radio1.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/realmedia/1xtra_hi.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/wm_asx/aod/radio2.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/wm_asx/aod/radio3.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/wm_asx/aod/radio4.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/ram/6music_hi.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/realplayer/bbc7.asx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/rams/asiannet.asx

Unfortunately Five Live doesn’t work which is allegedly due to broadcasting rights of sporting events outside the UK. Another solution is to try the Flycast app which again is free and search for BBC which should return radio station’s 1-4 which you can then select and listen to. At least there is a solution until iPlayer supports radio stations on the iPhone.