the new apps available for the 2.0 software make the iphone a much more useful and entertaining device. they’re all very stable, unlike the hacked versions that were previously available for a jailbroken phone running installer.app. of the 500+ apps initially released on the itunes store, i’ve only bought 2, monkeyball (which looks amazing, but the controls are too difficult to enjoy the game) and hold ‘em poker which i am completely addicted to. i imagine that there will be hundreds of new apps this year, turn-by-turn directions for the gps being one that i’m anticipating the most. here are some of the apps that i have that i love:

hold’em poker

this game was written by apple and is only $4.99 in the itunes store. amazing graphics and intuitive controls aside (you can throw your cards away by dragging them into the center of the table, and push all your chips in doing the same thing), the ai of the other players are really good. they bluff unexpectedly, and usually play their cards exactly as they should. they do seem to hold on to pocket pairs a little too long, and they don’t seem to understand the concept of “pot-committed”, folding to my all-in $20 raise when there’s $5000 in the pot. Other than those few glitches though, it’s a great game and i’ve wasted plenty of hours playing. it’s a great game for anyone who plays hold’em, and well worth the 5 bucks.

streaming radio apps

aol radio and pandora are two other apps that make the iPhone much more useful. both stream music over wifi, 3g, and even edge directly to the phone. aol radio lets you select local stations like kroq and jackfm (it knows your local stations from the gps locator), so i can listen to kevin and bean in the morning when i get to work. pandora allows you to make radio stations based off of artists you like. my “weezer” station plays weezer, jimmy eat world, killers, foo fighters, and other bands that i would’ve never knew about but that play similar music. pandora also pushes the cover art of the album it’s playing, and looks just like you’re playing your own mp3s. whatever song is playing also links you to the itunes store, so you can directly purchase the music. the only problem with both apps is that you can’t use other programs at the same time. once you leave the app, the streaming stops.

location based apps

the revolutionary aspect of the gps feature in the iphone is that it interfaces with social network sites, making them much more current and interactive. twinkle, a twitter client allows you to include your exact location while you twitter, so not only can other people know where you’re twittering from, but i can view on the phone, everyone twittering within a mile of me, or any other distance i set. the yelp app has awesome gps integration, allowing me to find all restaurants of any type closest to me, with all of the yelp reviews. whrrl and loopt are two other location based apps that some friends are using that i haven’t set up yet, but plan to.

midomi

midomi isn’t that useful, but it’s definitely fun to play with, and an amazing app seeing that i can’t sing worth a damn. midomi let’s you sing, or even hum any song (it has english and japanese support) and it will tell you the name of the song, play you a sample, and let you purchase it directly from itunes. it’s been very accurate with the songs i’ve sang to it in english and the japanese songs taka has tried. we haven’t used it for any songs we were trying to find the name of, but it’s kept us entertained.

in the pursuit of all things web 2.0, i signed up for a twitter account and installed the twitter widget on the sidebar of this blog. i also installed an app called twinkle on my iphone that uses the tower positioning to automatically identify my location and upload my “tweets” and images more easily than using the standard sms mobile function.

i figure this will be perfect for random things that aren’t quite blog post worthy but that might be interesting to some, nonetheless.

i just upgraded the blog software, so let me know if anyone notices any problems.