Gallery: Top 10 free iPhone applications
It's a boon for people that like to play music at parties from iTunes (via AirTunes) but don't like to have to leave the conversation to change the music.
Remote gives you full access to your entire iTunes music library and allows you to search, play, pause skip and shuffle tracks and even see the cover art on your iPhone or iPod. Simply brilliant.
The free version displays ads periodically but not so much as to be annoying. The also offer a "premium" version for $10 that lacks ads and has an extra theme. Avoid this version and stick to the free one. It's overpriced and the "theme" is basically an ugly white background. Yuck.
Pandora is a free personalized Internet radio service based on the music genome project. It allows you to create custom radio stations that stream to your computer and now to your iPhone or iPod touch. When you log in your stations are available and you can stream music directly to your iPhone, and the iPhone 3G's improved speaker makes it a very capable portable juke box thanks to Pandora. the best part is that it works on Wi-Fi, 3G and even Edge.
Shazam can identify music from radio, film, TV or even in a store. Remarkably, it performs amazingly well even driving down the highway at 65MPH with the windows down.
Once a song has been identified you can tag it to build your own soundtrack, see related videos and even forward tags to your friend. It's brilliant and definitely worth the download.
Move buffs listen up. If you enjoy seeing movies in the theater you should download Box Office right away. It allows you to easily see what's playing in theaters near you with a tap. You can also read reviews from RottenTomatoes.com and order tickets directly. I just wish they would add movie trailers. Oh well, maybe in the next update.
For starters it should have the option of running as a full-time background application. I know that it will impact battery life, but it would be nice to have the option. Instead AIM uses Apple's unified push notification service, which is supposed to start in September.
AIM also is single protocol, meaning that it doesn't support Yahoo!, MSN or Jabber, but this leaves open a definite opportunity for third-parties. Adium to the rescue?
Another fantastic iPhone application is the free eBay client. After logging in it allows you to search, bid and check auction activity from anywhere you have a 3G or Edge Internet connection. A nice summary screen gives you a count of auctions you're watching, winning and ones that you've won and been outbid on. I can't wait to see where this application goes and I'd like to see real-time auction status so that you can watch auctions count down in real time - without having to reload.
The clipping feature allows you to save interesting items to view later on your other computers.
Bloomberg is what Apple's stocks application should have been. Once you've looked up a company you can add it to your portfolio and keep track of the stock price with a beautiful stock chart and links to news headlines related to a particular stock.
In addition, Bloomberg offers company descriptions, market leaders/laggars, intraday and historical price charts and tons of analysis. Really nice and well worth the download.
Eventful bills itself as the world’s leading events web site “enabling a community of millions to discover, promote, share and create events.” It allows you to set up a group of events that you like and it notifies you when performers, events and other related things are happening near you.
The coolest feature is that Eventful can tap iPhone's location awareness to show you what's playing near you. Extremely useful feature to use when traveling.