Best iPhone Apps

I know what you are thinking. Why read another post by someone claiming to know what the best iPhone Apps are? Well, I am not claiming to know which ones are the best, just the ones that I like the best and use routinely on my phone. So here goes - in no particular order:

1) Lose It! (Free) Lose It is my favorite app. It is a simple to use method of keeping track of your calories and exercise (complete with large data base of foods and exercises). Using Lose It - just by logging my meals and exercise, I have lost 8 pounds in three weeks and am now down to my lowest weight in 10 years (178) with 10 more to go.

2) Sportacular (Free). Forget Sports Tap, Sportacular is must easier to use. It tracks real time scores of every major sport and includes tons of stats.

3) Evernote (Free). This app rocks. Basically it is an app that lets you keep track of everything. Input thoughts in your phone and they appear on any PC via Evernote's website and vice versa. It has an integrated camera function which enables you to photograph things and store the photos. Better yet, it can full text search the photos so you can snap a shot of a business card and search for it later. It also puts a GPS tag on photos so if you photograph your car, you can find it by a linked map. You can also click a button while surfing the Net and either the full web page you are looking at, or selected portions of that page will be saved to Evernote. So if you are shopping for cameras as I was yesterday, if you see one or more you like, just hit the button and the info and web page will be saved. And it has a voice recorder.

4) WhitePages (Free). This app rocks too. It does three things. It searches for people. It searches for businesses. And it does reverse searches using phone numbers. When it finds matches - and it always seems to do so - it provides addresses and phone numbers and maps.

5) Wikipanion (Free). The iPhone version of Wikipedia. It is easy to use and the results are formatted perfectly for the iPhone.

6) Express (Free). Great little app that collects weather, sports scores, news, entertainment, travel, and 411 in the same place.

7) Now Playing (Free). The best movie app out there. Period. It combines move locations and show times, with Rotten Tomatoes and all movie review, synopses and running times, upcoming flicks, video trailers, dvds, and more...

8) Pandora (Free). The best free radio app available.

9) Shazam (Free). This app blows me away every time. Any time you hear a song on the radio or anywhere, just hit Shazam and the app will identify the song and the artist and other info. It's incredible.

10) Digg (free). Not a bad way to find out what news people think is important at any given moment.

11) Memengo Wallet (a few bucks). This one costs a few bucks, but with it - and an encryption key - you can store all your important info - credit cards, passport numbers, etc., and they'll be available on the Net and your Phone and be protected.

12) Recorder (Free): A great and very basic voice recorder.

13) WebMD (Free): While not a substitute for a real doctor, it contains tons of info for self diagnoses and on tons of prescription drugs.

14) Dictionaire and iThesaurus (both free): To quote Dennis Green, they are what you think they are.

15) NY Times (Free): Great version of the great paper.

16) Google Earth (Free): I am not a huge fan on the PC, but this version does all the same tricks on the phone.

17) Stanza (Free): Good little app that collects all sorts of free reading materials (as well as some that cost $$).

18) Big Oven (Free): 160,000 recipes.

19) The Weather Channel (Free): Best weather info will all the bells and whistles.

20) Games - some free, some a few bucks: Bejeweled 2, Shanghai (mah jong game), Sudoku, ESPN Camerman, Cross Light.

And if your iPhone is jailbroken: Categories. With it, you can consolidate your apps in folders - such as a Games Folder.

That's it for now.

American Idol, March 31, 2009: iTunes

The theme for this week's Idol is iTunes downloads. Or iTunes top downloads. Or hits. Compounding the lack of clear theme, the contestants visit Ryan Seacrest at the American Top 40 studios in Burbank where he plays some totally awesome sound drops and they laugh and laugh because Ryan is so fucking "The man." Now, after a brief interlude from the dean of the countdown, on with the countdown...



(So many Kasey clips to choose from; this one is more current.)

Anoop Desai. Some Usher song. The snare drum is so damn loud that he’s hard to hear throughout the song. Not sure if his vocals are low or he's not loud. We know he can dance but he picked some awful non-dance Usher song. Terrible song choice and for once, I agree with Kara. (Kill me now.) Give me a funnel and some sticky floors because that was a fraternity party performance. Pretty lame.



Megan Corkery. Or Joy? Maybe she’ll be like the Bills terrible cornerback JD Williams who changed his number mid-season, then later switched his name to James (I stick with analogies I know people). Will I forget shitty Megan Corkery and be amazed by Megan Joy? Umm, no. She sings some Bob Marley song. Her island affect in the middle of the song might be her most painful work yet. Even her appearance, which can sometimes be almost OK, wasn’t on this week. Could she please string together all the blingy chains and hang herself? America: please be rid of her.

Speaking of crazy people, could Paula look any more frightening?

Danny Gokey. What hurts the most. I love this song and predict he’ll WAY oversing it. It’s a better song sung without power—letting the words leak in. And here it goes. My first tip: In a slow ballad, DO NOT move about. He's a good dancer on stage and it pains him to be locked to the mic. This is apparent as his hands are up and down non-stop in Tin-Man like fashion.



Clothes, look, and overdone vocals CLASH with the song choice. He sang well but it was not what it should have been. Judges loved it. Randy said he should rock around on stage—terrible advice for that particular song. Wrong.

Here's what that song is supposed to sound like (with a Kelly Clarkson guest appearance.)



Allison Iraheta. Don’t Speak. Cyndi Lauper look in full effect—odd, but only if you don't appreciate Cyndi, which I do. She changed the song up…very slow at the beginning. The early chorus didn’t grab me but fuck she can sing and got me again. I love this girl. Judges spent way too long on look—teen girls will pan her tonight, overlooking her stellar vocals. She could be in trouble because the judges were so fucking dumb.



Scott McIntyre. Just the way you are. This is one of the most beautiful songs. Scott said he’s stripping it down? Since the original is just a piano and voice, could we be so lucky that he's stripping out the vocals? For fuck’s sake, what has he done with his hair? Between that and the collarless black leather jacket, someone’s been hassling the ‘Hoff. Also he’s unshaven and has a caterpillar ‘stache. Probably his best effort so far—vocal riffing and oversinging is anything but stripping down the song but it was almost OK, which for him is amazing.

Matt Giraud. You found me by the Fray. I hate the Fray so much. They suffer from "every song sounds the same" disease, or as DSM-IV calls it: Loverboy Syndrome.



(One of the worst Bandstand performances ever? Between the lip- and guitar-syncing, it would be hard to be "suck" more than Loverboy. (Wife thought the last sentence was a typo. It was not.))

He’s going to have to sing his nuts off to overcome my bias. Doesn’t do it. Performance was not great but not terrible. He tried to sing like a superstar with fawning teens all around him. He looked like a pedophile DJ (redundant). On a positive note (dog), he’s the 2nd best musician on the show after Scott. No one ever gives him props for the piano. Judges crammed it up his ass.

Lil Rounds. I Surrender by Celine Dion. It is a pretty good song choice for her—she can blow out a Celine song and she does it. Judges basically tell her to not sing white songs, which is obnoxious and borderline racist.



The dress is not flattering and it actually distractingly bad—showing off her junk in the trunk. That, fair readers, is obnoxious and borderline racist. (Though I like junk in the trunk so if anything, I’m an anti-racist.) Actually, the problem isn't the junk as much as there's material bunching in the junk so her trunk looks like it's bungie-closed around a protruding couch.

Her daughter giving Randy a big hug is really cute—she’ll make it through an unfair judge panning.

Adam Lambert. Play That Funky Music White Boy. Couldn’t be a bigger dance hit. At every wedding. Risky to pick kind of a cheesy classic. If he doesn’t win it all, it will be a C.R.I.M.E. That’s really all there is left at this point. The look is 70s and goes great with a rearranged version of the song. Even though it’s self-indulgent, he’s earned the right to be self-indulgent. That’s how talented he is. The rest of the field has been and continues to be playing for second. It’s not even close. He’s touched every kind of music and been the best of the night every time. Just like last week, I can’t wait to see him again next week. STAR.

Kris Allen. Ain’t no sunshine. I haven’t liked this Archuletta wannabe for a while but I liked this. It’s distracting that his feet barely reach the pedals. Is he shorter than Seacrest? He did well until the final falsetto, which was off. Some member of his support team is fucking frightening looking. Wish I could show the video.

Top: Lambert, (country mile), Allen, Iraheta/Gokey.

Bottom. Like Thunderdome, there can be only one: Megan.

P.S. Someone wrote a limerick about my lack of blogging Idol last week. A limerick? Egads. Well, I'm back and now expect a sonnet at least.

W II? Congressman Michael Scott? Incredible.

Per Shimkus, I guess that there were no plants prior to the Industrial Revolution, because we hadn't yet created any food for them.

Who votes for these people?