This week was all about iPhone applications for me. The iPhone finally arrived in Israel, and despite the fact that I have had an iPod Touch for two years already, I got excited all over again with all the new apps available to me now. What hit me at first was the fact that push-notification-apps are probably the best ones because they make our lives so easy. There I was, downloading tons of applications all week long just to find these three I really liked:
Blipr is a fun applica
tion that allows you to send messages to your iPhone buddies. There are several applications that do the same thing, but this one is free (for limited time) and works just great.
After installation, you first need to share your BliprID with your friends via email, Twitter, Facebook (unfortunately, you can't use the app to search and see who among your friends already has it). Once both of you & your friend have Blipr installed, and most importantly you know each other IDs, you can start sending fun messages that contain both text & sound (there are over 100 sounds). Since the app looks, feels & works like SMS, the notifications are pushed to your phone even if the app or phone are closed. Needless to say it can save you money... and you can also send blips to more than one person at once. Overall, I think it's a fun, refreshing, and useful application that adds some spice to traditional text messaging.
Direct download
I know, I know, there are so many iPhone applications for Twitter, and most people use Tweetdeck, but
Tweetings has lots of more features for you! I won't write the whole list but two important features are:
- Supports Twitter Lists! (in a very useful way)
- Push notification when you get an @reply or direct message
The settings in this application are so detailed. You can customize just about everything and make yourself a super-twitter client for your iPhone. Tweeting is now free for a limited time only - I truly recommend that you'd try it.
Direct download
My favorite app from this entire week of exploration is
Gowalla. Like
Foursquare, the service allows you to easily share your experiences and helps you keep up with your friends' lifestyles. What I loved about this app, apart from its nifty UI on both the website & iPhone app, is the fact that you can learn about your friends' habits, and learn so much about the community around you. People share where they eat, where they go out, basically, where they are now geographically - and it simply makes a big difference. When your friends check in somewhere, you'll get a notification to your iPhone even if it's closed (I love this push technology). Don't worry, you can easily choose which friends you want to be notification on.
Sadly, Gowalla works mostly on the iPhone and apparently people prefer to use Foursquare because its support more devices. But when it comes to UI and usability, this application is far much better and good looking than the one Foursquare has for the iPhone, and from what I know it is also easier to use. Having said that, ultimately, you'll use what ever your friends are using, because this is the whole point of the community aspect. As for now, I'm sticking to Gowalla, and I hope they'll support more devices soon.
Direct downloadOh, and if you read this Gowalla, please add Users Tips to the applications -
Scoble says so...!
