Applications add convenience for free on Apple’s iPhone
Mary Jessup, Staff Writer
The iTunes App Store has proven itself to be an open and accessible stage for programmers and developers to show their stuff.
Anyone can create an application for Apple’s iPhone and price it between free and $999.99.
But not all apps are created equally. Honestly, some designers did a superior job and did not feel the need for a price tag. Here are some of the best free applications iTunes has to offer.
Facebook: This is an obvious choice, but the app is so solid that every iPhone-equipped Facebook user should have it. Since the 3.0 update, more Facebook content has become available on-the-go. Feeds, events, notes and pages are all accessible. While stable, sometimes it is a little slow.
News: The New York Times, USA Today and NPR News all have free, quality applications that make it easy to keep up with the rest of the world. Updated throughout the day, these sources offer a wide variety of quality reporting to browse. The apps are great for everyone, from the constant news hounds to the casual user.
UrbanSpoon: This popular user-submitted online restaurant guide does a great job on the iPhone. Restaurants are categorized by neighborhoods, types of food, pricing and popularity. Perhaps the best feature is the randomizer, which allows the user to specify location, type of food and pricing—and the app suggests an eatery.
This is helpful in those dreadful “I do not know, where do you want to go?” conversations.
Flixter: This app is all about movies in theaters. Showtimes, reviews, trailers, directions, ticket purchasing, upcoming movies, even nearby restaurants are included in Flixter. Information on newly released DVDs is also available.
Pandora: This is an app for anyone who listens to music. Pandora is an online music service which suggests and plays music the user may enjoy based on submitted band names or song titles. Listeners can access an endless library of music completely tailored to their tastes.
Unfortunately, Apple will not allow non-native applications to run in the background, so the iPhone cannot do anything else while using Pandora.
Shazam: This application is more than a cool party trick. Ever hear a great song in a restaurant or commercial, but do not know the artist? Let Shazam identify it. Just pull it up and let it listen. Shazam analyzes the song and recognizes the audio, even providing links to buy it on iTunes or watch the video on YouTube.
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