• Post Information
  • Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009 Time: 2:55 pm Category: Tools Tagged apps, iPhone Discussion: 5 Comments

• Post Navigation
  • « HighEdWeb, From Applications & Standards to Technical Propeller Hats
  • Facebook Applications and Third Party Ads »

This is an introductory look at making the most of your battery, and a small list of what I think are must-have apps.

Extend the time between charges.

This section is a list of things you can do to increase battery life.

Go to Settings> …

Notifications
Unless you have an app where Notifications are needed, turn this off.

Sounds
Turn off as many alert sounds as you can.

Brightness
I keep my brightness at about a third. If I need more light, I adjust as needed. The backlight is a big energy hog, and less than full Brightness is perfectly usable.
Enable Auto-Brightness. It adjusts the light level a little to compensate for changes in ambient light.

General
If you don’t use Bluetooth regularly (daily), turn it off.
Set Auto-Lock to 5 minutes (default). If you’ve set your iPhone to never Auto-Lock, you’re wasting a lot of juice while you’re not using the device.

General> Network
Unless you absolutely need it, turn 3G off. 3G is much faster than Edge for Internet activity, but it drains the battery Q-U-I-C-K! Most people don’t do enough intensive browsing and downloading to warrant the speed boost. If I need it (or want it) for something, I turn it on and off at my discretion.

What applications should I get?

This section is a list of free and paid applications (apps) I (and others) recommend–complete with clickable links that go directly to the app store so you can learn more. There’s a lot of text below. Weed through it and I think you’ll be rewarded with at least one app you’ll love.

First, if you’re at WVU, you should grab iWVU and WVU Mobile Web. iWVU is an actual iDevice app, whereas WVU Mobile Web is a webpage.

To create an icon on your iPhone for WVU Mobile Web that acts like an app, follow these instructions:

1. Use the Safari app to open m.wvu.edu


Go to m.wvu.edu in Safari

2. Click on the plus symbol.


The m.wvu.edu mobile interface.

3. Choose Add to Home Screen.


Add to Home Screen option.

4. I leave the name alone, but you can name the link whatever you want =)


Rename m.wvu.edu if you want.

5. Now the link shows up as an ‘app’ on your iDevice. Click it to open, move it wherever you want–just like a regular app.


Icon is now on you iDevice.

For other useful apps, try these:

• Free
• Paid
• My games

Free

Pandora: If you don’t already listen to pandora.com, and you love music, get to the page and sign up for a free account–now! You enter songs or artists, and Pandora creates stations for you based on the qualities of the entries. It accesses the Music Genome Project, and makes connections between songs you would probably never make on your own. It’s done more for broadening my musical interests than any other thing in my life.

Facebook, MySpace, and TweetDeck: I think these are self-explanatory, and Tweetdeck has a standalone version for Mac, PC, and Linux =)

FiatLux: A free flashlight app with different colors. Hint: red is great for not disturbing sleeping partners in bed.

WhitePages Mobile: Find people and places with relative ease.

Inquisitor and Google: The only two search apps you really need. I find myself using Google less, and Inquisitor more. Google has a neat voice recognition feature.

Wikiamo: A great Wikipedia-specific search tool. I use this less since I started using Inquisitor.

AroundMe: Find everything from Bars to Zoos, based on your current location (GPS enabled).

Evernote and Dropbox: evernote.com is offsite memory storage for your mind. See something worth remembering? Evernote it! dropbox.com is offsite file storage, accessible on your computer or iDevice wherever you have an Internet connection.

iCraig: Craigslist app.

Dictionary: Everyone needs to look up a word now and again.

Mint: mint.com is a finance tracking site. You might find it useful to keep tabs on your bills and bank accounts.

Now Playing: The best app for finding movies and schedules.

eBay Mobile: eBay search and management app.

BigOven: Recipes!

Google Earth: Great fun with maps. Fancier and slower than the built-in Maps app.

PhoneFlicks: Manage your Netflix account and queue.

Kindle: amazon.com’s book reader, in iPhone form. FREE!

Skype: Chat/VoIP app.

WootOn!: A woot.com watcher. One day, one deal… except when there’s a wootoff! That’s where they put an item up til it sells, then another, and another, until their stock is manageable again.

WebMD: Good tool for basic medical info.

Urbanspoon: Get restaurant reviews and let the app choose a restaurant for you.

Shazam: Hear a song? Don’t know what it is? Let Shazam find out what it is for you. It’s like magic- really.

Paid

Recorder Pro: Feature-rich recording app. I like it better than the built in memo recorder.

Photogene: Think of it as more Photoshop for the iPhone than Photoshop for the iPhone is. Follow that? It’s my go-to app for adjusting images. Worth every penny.

Camera Genius: Great app with built in anti-shake, digital zoom (digital zooms look like crap, but I take what I can get), timers, and other features in a nice replacement for the built-in camera app.

TiltShift Generator: Apply the in vogue Tilt Shift blur to your images. Fun.

ColorSplash: Bleed color from your images to make striking, if not slightly cliched, images.

AutoStitch: Arranges photos in to panoramas. Very cool.

QuickOffice Mobile: Office lite clone on the go.

WeatherBug Elite: My choice over the paid version of The Weather Channel and the built-in weather app.

Convertbot: A diverse measurement conversion app. Not the best interface in the world, but I like it.

RemoteKu: Turns the iDevice in to another remote for your Roku (a Netflix streaming box).

RedLaser: Wonder if the deal you found at Target or Sam’s is the best around? Use this app to scan the barcode and see if there are better deals online.

1Password: Companion app to the standalone Mac program. Helps keep my passwords/logins together and safe.

MotionX GPS Drive: Awesome, low-cost, GPS app for driving.

QuickRoll and MachDice: For my fellow rpg’ers. Customizable dice rolling apps.

BrainHack and AmbiSci BP: Brainwave apps. Tone generators for inducing different modes of consciousness. I like the tones for relaxation and concentration =)

iStumble, ICHC, FML, Flickr, Cooliris: These are fun apps. Time wasters, if you like… well… Flickr is actually a productive app if you have an account and store your images there. There are pay and free versions of most of these.

Air Mouse Pro: Turn your iPod/iPhone in to a multi-touch remote trackpad/keyboard to control your computer.

VLC Remote: App to specifically control VLC on a Mac/PC remotely. VLC is, for those who don’t know, one of the best video file playback apps available–and it’s free.

My games

I’m not listing all the games I recommend. I’ll just throw up screenshots of my game pages, and you can decide if anything strikes your fancy.

iphone games graphic