Best iPhone apps, continued

Gigi-the-iPhone is a goofy little beast. As I’ve said ad nauseum, I’m willing to put up with her crummy phone service because she’s taken over so many other tasks. And what gets her there are the apps.

If you’re using a barebones iPhone, i.e., only the apps that came in the box, you’re operating at about half-strength on the utility scale.

If you’re not sure how to add apps to your iPhone (you can do it directly from the iPhone by tapping on the Apps icon, or through iTunes on your computer), Apple has a pretty good tutorial on their apps site.

I described what were at the time the ten most useful iPhone add-ons I’d so far found. That was a whole three weeks ago, and a lot has happened since then: Apple has released an iPhone OS upgrade (2.2) that offers some real enhancements,* the Google monster released what has to be the single biggest search engine breakthrough since Google Maps, and I’ve fallen in love with Ocarina.

In addition, I’ve decided that games-playing, which I’d hitherto kept off the useful list, shouldn’t be excluded. We live in tedious times, and it’s nice to be able to escape into something fun every once in awhile. So here’s the NEW list, to add to the one I’ve already made:

Google Mobile (Google, free). For me, lack of voice control is probably Gigi’s single biggest failing, and the apps that so far have tried to add it fail dismally. Google hasn’t; Google Mobile cleverly combines voice-controlled searching with the iPhone’s accelerometer (the sensors that cause the iPhone to swap from portrait to landscape when you tilt it) to make it one of the most useful information search tools I’ve ever owned. All you do is open the app, bring the phone up to your ear and tell it what you’re looking for. When you stop speaking, it automatically Googles that phrase and presents results.

Search can encompass the Web, your contacts list, Wikipedia, and can be location-specific. If you search for, say, “Lebanese restaurants,” it’ll display the ones closest to you first. The screen is rearranged for optimal iPhone-ing so it’s very easy to manage, and includes a list of your recent searches. A second screen makes it very easy to get to other Google apps, i.e., GMail, Google Calendar, PicasaWeb, News, etc.

About the only gripe I have with it so far is the less-than-seamless integration with actual Web browsing, but that’s more a function of the slow network. All in all, this is the Swiss Army knife of iPhone apps and rapidly becoming my favorite.

Ocarina (Smule, 99 cents). Smule mostly produces what I call the “fratboy” apps, like Sonic Lighter (“TURN YOUR IPHONE INTO A VIRTUAL CIGARETTE LIGHTER!!”), one-trick ponies that are essentially useless once the oooooing stops. Ocarina, however, is very, very different and may just be groundbreaking.

It uses the iPhone microphone, sound system, accelerometer and geolocation features to become a musical instrument–they call it a “virtual whistle.” Choose a scale (there’s a selection of diatonic, harmonic and minor) and a key, and the screen of your iPhone literally becomes a wind instrument. You blow into the microphone at the bottom of the device, press the “holes” on the screen, and play music. Tilt the iPhone in different directions to adjust vibrato.

You can also hear others play music; the Ocarina has a world display that shows active Ocarinas and it scans them so you can hear what’s being played in, say, Australia. So far “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” seems to be the crowd favorite, with “Joy to the World” a close second. Most of the time it sounds like human whalesong but when a real musician comes online, wow. A little heart icon lets you send “love” to an especially appreciated performance.

There are a bunch of Ocarina tutorials and videos on the website, a few dozen scores already written for it. I can see all kinds of possibilities here–add a feature that allows multipart collaborations, and you could play duets, quartets, even whole orchestras. I’m still trying to figure out if there’s an option that lets you save the really gorgeous performances, or a place online where you can download and listen to them.

New York Times (NYT, free). The good thing about the New York Times app is that it gives you one of the most useful iPhone news interfaces I’ve seen to date. You can browse each of the major sections of the old gray lady individually, scan the latest news or–my favorite–view the latest edition’s photos and illustrations and see the story that lies beneath. It’s far more nimble than the top-heavy CoolIris, less self-aggrandizing than ABC News and free, which is always good.

The bad thing about the New York Times news app is that it’s the New York Times, i.e., less and less relevant the farther you live from Manhattan. Still, some of the best news and features writers in the business work for the NYT, so even if you could care less about the latest Broadway musical review, it’s an interesting read.

iMapMyRide (MapMyFitness, free but requires registration and a LOT of salespitches). The iPhone’s GPS capabilities (well, sorta GPS) and the fact that most iPhoneists rarely leave them at home make it an excellent choice for activity tracking. iMapMyRide is aimed at cyclists who want to manage their training programs, track distances and find the best routes, but you can also use it to track walking and running.

It lets the iPhone do real-time tracking of how far, fast and long you run/walk/ride, where you do it and how many calories you burn with all that rushing around. It lets you map favorite routes or find the best routes from others in your area (and join local clubs), then it logs all that data into the MapMyFitness.com site and gives you an up-to-date picture of how you’re doing. You’ll need a MapMyFitness membership to use it, which is free but with a lot of nudges to upgrade to the paid premium membership.

I suspect it’s more for serious athletes than us casual lumpalong folk, because it doesn’t play particularly well with other iPhone apps, i.e., if you like to walk and play Scrabble on your iPhone this isn’t the app for you. You can listen to music during your workout, but you MUST start it before you open iMapMyRide, or it won’t record, and it’s useless if you lock the iPhone. And I’d love to have it also accept other forms of physical activity–weight lifting, aerobics, yoga–as well.

WiFiTrak 1.5 (Bitrino, 99 cents). You can buy little sniffers that identify local WiFi networks, or you can sniff out WiFi from your laptop, but WiFiTrak lets you do it from the iPhone, with a greater level of detail and more control than you get from the built-in WiFi scanner. It will scan the immediate area for WiFi connections, then present them in a list from strongest to weakest, and offer details about connection strength, authentication method, noise levels, etc.

You can use it to connect and open network apps such as the Safari browser, develop preferred network lists and establish signal strength thresholds and “forget” lists. However, it only connects to open WiFi networks; to authenticate and connect to a protected network you’ll need to note access information and go back to the regular iPhone connector. That makes this more of a sniffer than a real connection utility, in my book.

Scrabble (Electronic Arts/Hasbro, $7.99). This full-fledged Scrabble game lets you play against the computer or connect and play against someone else via WiFi. It uses the authorized Scrabble dictionary, allows a best word hinting system that’s absolutely cheating but a fun way to test yourself, and makes pretty good use of the iPhone navigation system–shake the phone to shuffle your tiles, use the two-finger salute to enlarge and contract the board, etc.

Spore Origins (Electronic Arts, $7.99 although a lite version is free). Absolutely perfectly integrated iPhone version of Spore, in which you help an amoeboid-like critter evolve in the primordial ooze. As a game, it’s fascinating, although the iPhone version is nowhere near as complete as the PC. Still, this little time-waster had me enthralled through the wee hours (a couple of times I ran out the iPhone battery) until I reached the top level.

Super Monkey Ball (Sega, $9.99). This has to be one of the most aggravating games on the planet, but it can also be addicting. You pilot a monkey in a glass ball through a series of in-air mazes and traps to a goalpost, tilting the iPhone to speed him up, slow him down and change direction. The glass ball is a lot trickier to control than it looks at first sight, and at times I indulge my inner beast and just send the nauseatingly cute little monkey over the edge for fun (he achieves speeds topping 275 mph as he drops).

Wurdle (SemiSecret Software, $1.99). Wurdle is a variation on the old wordconnect games; you draw lines between connecting letters with your finger to make as many words as possible in the allowed time. It’s absorbing (and deflating, particularly if you check your list of found words against the computer’s), but the Wurdle dictionary has some annoying gaps. Still, it’s a good time-passer.

Enigmo (Pangea Software, $1.99). From the Rube Goldberg school of engineering, Enigmo has you building contraptions to contain falling drops of water, lava and oil and get them into the right pot. It’s an interesting physics exercise if nothing else, and I must confess it usually takes me many tries to make it past a level.

Stay tuned; I’m sure I’ll be coming up with more…

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*For example, the ability to get walking and public transit as well as driving directions, much better sound quality for some applications, podcast downloads through iTunes and improved iPhone screen navigation. There is still, however, no voicedial. Get with the program, Apple, and do that one little thing next, OK?

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