iPod/iPad/iPhone Apps

I know I'm a geek, but I am really loving some of the apps for my iPhone. Best of all is that there's a great selection of free ones
Right now I'm into Adventure Bay and Godville. They're both frustratingly slow, yet addictive at the same time. I did fork out the money for Scrabble and I'm glad I did. I play that one a lot too.
Anyone else find any interesting apps to play with?

Have you ventured into the Angry Birds fray yet?

Tanya

Ooooo I can play too!

I got myself an iPod Touch just before Christmas and have been having a terrific time with it. Bought two $15 iTunes gift cards to go with it and I still have ~$7 in my account.

I can recommend LoseIt! for weight management; I've lost 11 pounds since Christmas with the help of this app.

Cat Physics has been another favorite of mine, at least until I hit Level 45 and am now stumped on how to get past it. lol

Martha Stewart Makes Cookies (paid), the Betty Crocker Cookbook, and iBooks are all good. I've downloaded several astronomy apps, one paid, the rest free, and I'm enjoying them all.

Yes, I've gotten into Angry Birds. I started out with the entry-level drugs....err games (Angry Birds Lite, Angry Birds Seasons Free, and Angry Birds Free) then finally caved and bought the 99 cent one plus the add-on Eagle.

I'm also learning the Russian Alphabet with an app by the same name, and now I've discovered iTunesU, I'll be downloading the podcasts for RY1001 from a Swedish University that teaches Beginning Russian. I see tons of other free lectures and concerts in the iTunesU I'd love to sample!

Having a Touch instead of an iPhone or 3G iPad is frustrating since I'm on dialup and have to download stuff slooooowly and I can't access many features of some of my favorite apps (Hockey Night in Canada being a biggie) without being in a WiFi hotspot of which there are almost none locally. I hope that will improve once the new county library is finished this spring. I can go there to download the mega-sized apps.

My husband and kids are into Angry Birds and play it all the time on his iPod touch. I love iBooks too and have downloaded several free books. It comes in handy having a few books in your pocket sometimes!

I've been listening to a "learn Japanese" pod cast and using an app that goes along with it to learn a few phrases in Japanese just for the heck of it. I also found another free app that has police scanner feeds from around the world and much to my surprise even my little town in on it.

I am lucky -- we have wireless here at home so my phone uses that to download content quickly and without using my data plan.

I've got an iPod Touch that I never use. I would listen to language courses, though. Thanks for the tips!

I bought my iPod Touch specifically to use as a PDA, so at first I concentrated on getting stuff to help me with that. I've been more than pleased that it's so much more versatile with the languages, calorie data bases, logic games, etc.

I admit I had buyer's remorse after I ordered it since it's so freakin' expensive, but given how much I use it, plus the added weight loss, and brain exercise from the logic games and languages, I have no regrets at all.

Heck, I'll be saving a ton of money just being able to fit into the clothes I already have again instead of having to buy new ones! ROFLOL! That should be enough to pay for the gadget right there!

Oh, and I think the Scrabble app cheats.

As for in-house WiFi, it's only a distant dream. Verizon has no plans on extending DSL service much less FiOs out into these here boonies within this half of the current century even though I bug 'em about it relentlessly.

My husband has the Sodoku app. It was a freebie. I had never tried Sodoku before. I'd see them in the paper and think "One day I'll learn what those are all about". I love them now. Another brain-builder!

The Scrabble app does use a very interesting dictionary...

Not only is the dictionary "interesting" Rebecca, the game allows the iPod player to use proper nouns as words. I was always told that proper nouns were no-nos in Scrabble.

But funny, whenever *I* try to use a proper noun, it's disallowed! CHEATER!!

And I can't believe my getting four the same letter (usually a U, I, or N) in an opening draw isn't cheating either. Hrrmph!

The app that really has me scratching my head is Boggle. I swear that half the words they claim are "real" are ones I've never heard of...at least not in English. And there's no way to challenge them or to look them up. Very frustrating!

I have never tried Sodoku, but I guess I should take a look.

I've been doing the Parking Lot section of the All in 1 Logic Gamebox app. It was free when I downloaded it, but I don't know if that was a one-day deal or not.

I snapped up a LOT of the EA games when they had them on 99 cent special around Christmas and noticed that they're $2.99 now. Yikes! (I've only paid that much for two apps so far...Easy Stitch and Star Walk.)

I have the Soduko app also..... I.LOVE.it!!!

I have some more of the games like word searches, and other stuff like that ...

However, STAY AWAY FROM THE PIMPLE POPPER APP!! It.is.DUMB! I only had that one b/c my girls were begging me to add it b/c it was so gross and hilarious. ::rolling eyes::

I have a couple retro camera apps. Love them! Also scrabble blast. Helps pass time but those lil bombs tick me off! I also have some kind of glowcoloring one for my kid. It's cool too! So far all my apps have been free because I'm such a cheapie! Lol.

The pimple one just was too icky for me to even look at, so no worries there. Ditto the ant smashing one. Bleah! I'll have to check out Scrabble Blast.

I don't mind paying for a well designed, well programmed app, especially when the programmer/developer has a "lite" version for free for you to try out first. As a former programmer, I can really appreciate good design and coding and the work that goes into it. 99 cents for an app is more than reasonable if it is useful or fun. I refuse to pay some of the really high prices some developers think their app is worth though. I roll my eyes at some that are as high as $9.99! Are they nuts? They'd do much better to reduce their price and get more sales (and more profit) in the long run.

The $2.99 for Star Walk was worth it because of the high level of programming that went into it. I just wish I could take full advantage of all the features that are blocked out for me since I don't have WiFi.

Ditto the EasyStitch app since there are a lot of how-to videos and diagrams plus a several patterns are included. For those who haven't checked it out, EasyStitch is a reference for crochet, knitting, and basic embroidery stitches. It's a nice review for experienced needleworkers and a basic introduction to newbies.

Down another pound this morning. Thank you LoseIt! app! Only 14 more to go. (Sigh.)

Nyssa, what does the LoseIt app do?

I agree, if there is a lot of thought put into an app and I enjoy the "lite" version I'll pay for the whole thing. I do wait for the more expensive ones to go on sale though. I've seen apps for almost $90! There's no way I'd pay that for one!

LoseIt! keeps me honest.

Seriously, it helps me with portion control, which has always been my downfall in long-term weight management. Living alone, it's too easy to say "there isn't enough of this to bother saving, so I'll just finish it all now." With this, I have to be honest about how much of whatever I've eaten to input the data, so I'm more aware. It doesn't tell me *what* to eat at all, but it helps me keep track of how much. Like a handful of potato chips instead of sitting down and eating half the bag.

Otherwise it's a very good over all tool. You enter your current weight, your desired weight (or that you want to maintain your current weight...this will be VERY handy for me after I'm finished losing), and how much you'd like to lose per week. It will then calculate your maximum calorie intake per day based on height, age, sex. You can then track your calorie intake daily and weekly.

It also has a nice built-in database of common foods and calorie and nutrition information including brand names and restaurants. One of the best features is that you can create a recipe by inputting whatever you use to make a dish and it will calculate the approximate calories per serving for you to use in the rest of the app. This is terrific since we don't all eat just packaged foods!

There is also exercise tracking with a lot of built in calorie burn values for common exercises including stuff like vacuuming and gardening.

And the app will adjust your max calorie intake as you lose the weight by 7 calories per pound. It sort of feels like a penalty, but it's the right thing to do to keep losing at your desired rate.

There are a bunch of other features I don't use like sending diet info to friends, setting up an account on the LoseIt.com main site, and syncing my iPod data with it, and so on. Even if you don't have the app on an iPhone, etc. you can still set up an account on their site and do the exact same things I'm doing in the app. It's just less convenient to have to log into a website to enter that you had a banana for a snack and so on.

I had told ia2ca I'd do a review of the app for her blog, but haven't gotten around to finishing it yet. When I do, I'll give a heads-up here and a link to it.

I've also downloaded a really good app called "Fast Food" that has a ton of information on menu items at dozens of restuarants and is much more comprehensive and detailed that the onboard database in LoseIt!. Between the two, I've pretty much got things covered.

BTW both apps are freebies. YAY!!