After my earlier rant I finally managed to upgrade my iPhone to iOS 2.0 at around 8pm Friday evening.
It wasn’t a good user experience and days later the MobileMe service is still a bit clunky so it’s hard to get a handle on how useful it will be to me.
I’ve just discovered there’s now a Windows MobileMe control panel to set sync preferences and now my email, contacts and calendars on iPhone, Mac and PC are all in sync which is cool.
I’ve just spent some time in my happy place (new tech toys to play with) browsing around the new Apple Apps Store downloading and playing with some of the excellent Apps.
Here’s my first thoughts:
The Facbook App The original web app was great and although this app doesn’t really offer anything new it feels more seamless and it’s cool to instant message with other online Facebook users.
Shazam Load this up and play any piece of music and in around 15 seconds it’ll tell you the track, the artist along with links to YouTube videos and more – perfect for setting arguments and combating brain freeze. The only downside is this is a time limited version – so how much they want for it will decide whether it remains on my iPhone.
Remote Control your Apple TV and iTunes music libraries from your iPhone. It’s free and works really well but I also want to be able to play the music on my iPhone via remote speakers. There’s also a remote control web app which replicates the Apple remote features and I’d like to see these two remotes combined into one killer app.
Twittelator Twitter on the move from your iPhone and it will also update your Facebook status (if you have this set this up in your Twitter account preferences).
In addition to posting twitters you can add photos from your camera roll or take a snap. There’s a “panic” feature which posts your location along with a shout for help which is bound to save someone’s life before long.
There’s also Twitterific which is available as a free ad sponsored version or a premium version costing £5.99 which removes the ads but Twittelator gets the job done for free so I’m not sure there’s a future for a paid version.
Shanghai Mahjong I’m not into console games but I do have a weakness for Mahjong when I need to chill for half an hour. There are already 6 different Mahjong apps on the Apps store priced from £0.59 to £5.99 so I plumped for this version from MobileAge which cost me £2.99 and it’s an excellent implementation with some great features and a wide range of tile designs and backgrounds. I do need a zoom feature for this app because my eyes soon became tired of staring at tiny tiles.
