I split the list in 3 groups: Apps, which survived this update of my best of list, the new ones and those which are out. I am also making a difference between true iPhone applications and webapplications. So first let’s see which apps from the old list made it again on this list?

The Survivors:

• NetNewsFire
  NetNewsFire is my favorite RSS Newsreader and one of my most used apps. It syncs with my desktop reader and has just all features I need.
• Instapaper
  Offline Reader I am using often, especially now that i am in Spain without 3G data roaming. With Instapaper i allways have some interessting articles with me, which i can read in a spare minute.
• Zenbe
  One of many, many ToDo apps for the iPhone. It is very basic and thats what i like. You can create different lists and you can share them with friends.
• Twinkle
  My favorite Twitter client. Works just fine, so I stopped checking out other twitter clients.
• Tuner
  Internet-Radio application, where you can choose between thousands of streams. Just by searching for genre or artist.

Newcomer Apps:

• Fring
  Multi protocol instant messenger for Skype, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM and SIP/VoIP. First app which combines all networks i need. In addition it allows me cheap VoIP calls outside of Germany, as long as i have WiFi connection.
• Facebook (Me on Facebook)
  The new Version 2.0 of their iPhone app is a huge step to the better. Now it’s truelly funny to log on while on the go.
• Datacase
  Easy and powerfull tool to convert your iPhone to your personal WiFi-storage. Connect with every device you want to your iPhone and access your files (after a security check). There is even a “dropbox” where your friends can copy files into, but no one can list this directory or download from it. It supports all major file formats from ms office to pdf, all kinds of pictures, music files and videos… so you not only carry all your documents, but you can open and read them anywhere you want.
• WiFinder
  WiFiFinder is a WiFi Scanner, which lists all WiFi Networks near you. It checks if they are open and when positive, it checks if there is internet access. Optional it scans every xx seconds and alarms you, as soon as it finds an internet connection. Perfect when traveling. Just leave this app running while walking through the streets.
• HotSpots
  This app is using an online directory of mostly german WiFi Hot Spots. It uses the GPS to show you the nearest WiFi from your location.
• Last.fm (Me on Lastfm.de)
  “Social Music Streaming Plattform”. It learns your music taste and after some listening time, it plays only music you really like. Awesome! The reason, why the the last.fm client for iPhone wasn’t on my first “best of list” was because this version was one huge bug and barely unusable. Allthough the idea and user interface were very nice from the beginning. And now with the latest update it runs smoothly and reliable. With Tuner and Last.fm there is no need to waste place on your harddrive for music.

Newcomer Webapps (not in App Store):

• FriendFeed (Me on FriendFeed)
  Friendfeed is a great service for sharing and discussing your online activities with your friends. Since they launched a special user interface for the iPhone you can use this service perfectly on your mobile device.
• Flickr (Me on Flickr)
  Flickrs new User Interface for iPhone is better then every other Flickr app, i’ve seen before. exposure might have some additional features, but i don’t need them most of the time.
• Verkehrsinfo
  Free german traffic reports and alerts. You are getting real time traffic and general road conditions over a convenient, easy to use Web-UI. Very helpfull.

Kicked Out:

• Evernote
  Still an awesome application, which i still love to use. Very hard descission to put this app off the list.
• Apple Remote
  As long as I don’t have a static workstation or apple tv to control remotely, i don’t need it very often. My Macbook Pro is always close, so no need for Apple Remote. The value of this app defers extremley depending on your equipment and livestyle.
• Palringo
  Superseded by fring because of Skype support.
• Truphone
  Superseded by fring because of VoIP support.
• Exposure
  Superseded by new Flickr Webinterface. A native App would be nicer, but the new Flickr Webinterface extra for iPhone ist even better then Exposure.
• Shozu
  I liked the concept, but in the end i didn’t use it any more. Other apps do a better job.

Hope you can use this information. Let me know, if you have tried any of these apps and how they worked out.

Apple sent out an invitation today for a special event october the 14th and the invitation looked like this picture. So Steve is going to show us the new MacBooks and MacBooks Pro. Finally!

Hmm… looks like, i can’t hide, that i became an Apple fanboy. :-)

[via Engadget]

• ICQ
• Google Talk
• MSN – Windows Live Messenger
• Yahoo Messenger
• AIM
• Twitter
• and again SKYPE!

In addition you can call using 3 different options. Call by:

• GSM
• SIP / VOIP
• Skype Out Call

First tests are promising. Everything I tested worked very well, but i will do extensive testing of all fring features tomorrow and update this article. Die interface is easy to understand. Everybody should be able to use fring in under 5 minutes.

As Sykpe is my primary instant messenger client, having no app on the iPhone for that service was painful gap. Thank you fring for this application, but especially for the Skype support.

[update]

Still, i am very satisfied. I don’t had any major problems. No crashes, no dropped calls. Till now, this is definitely the best multi protocol instant messenger for the iPhone. But there is also some potential to optimise:

• I don’t see the network of the contacts in my buddy list. A small skype, icq or gtalk icon would do a perfect job.
• It seems, that battery usage with running fring is much higher, than without.
• Twitter is getting pretty annoying, because you can’t switch the “ring tone” for single channels off. I deactivated twitter, until this option is here.
• No VoIP over 3G, because of the carriers. Jailbreak users can be happy, there is a 3G enabled version around.
• Some other users report lag and echo when talking over Skype, SIP or in general VOIP. I can’t confirm that.
• no Jabber support (beside of Google Talk)
• an incoming gsm call will disconnect any fring calls.

I don’t like to write super-quick reviews, written just a few clicks after installing a new application. I rather take some time to try those apps seriously. After weeks of usage, it gets pretty clear, which apps i actually use, which one i like or what i miss. A lot of those apps just don’t make sense, are buggy or don’t work at all… so in the end, there are only a few real must haves :-)

so lets get started: (more after the jump)

Instapaper: Nice app to save websites (or parts of it) for offline reading. Just add a “read later” bookmarklet to your browser or iPhone/iPod Touch and whenever you stumble over a website which you would like to read later, hit this new button: “read later”. I use this a lot, when i scan news and blogs very fast. Interesting stuff gets saved, so i can read it later – even offline – when i’ve got the time.

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Evernote: surprisingly helpful, because it organizes pretty much all your notes and makes them easy and fast accessible. Think of writing some notes to a paper (whiteboard etc.) and quickly take a photo with Evernote. Not only that it is automatically synchronized to your desktop-application, but you can search for any word containing your notes. Evernote will show you all results which contain this word, no matter, if it is handwriting, colored or in low dpi. Try it! It’s lot more than great OCR.
Nice Article: Why Evernote will make ist and 20 Awesome Ways to Use It.

Apple Remote: original Apple application, which uses WiFi to remotely control your iTunes and Apple TV. In addition to the standard features like play, pause, next, volume etc, you can search your library and it shows you all your covers. Most important feature imho is how it connects to your iTunes/AppleTV. It uses WiFi instead of infrared or bluetooth. This way, you can move through your entire building… as long as you are connected to your network, the Remote-app works. This is really neat :)

NetNewsWire: This is a RSS Newsreader, which syncs with your desktop-app and the web-app. Newsreaders are nice tools to conveniently control the daily flood of information. Although i use those tools for a long time now, i never became familiar with them… something bothered me all the time, but i never got to know what problem i had. NetNewsWire for the iPhone changed my news-reading behavior. The difference is, that i can read my feeds on the go now. There are so many moments, which you can use to read over some of your feeds without the need to take dedicated time to read those news sitting in front of the PC. Another Feature i would not like to miss is the synchronization. Every device knows, which news you already read… so no waste of time with re-reading old news.

Palringo: First multi-messenger app (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, Jabber etc.) on the iPhone and to date the only one in the app-store. I would love to have my Adium on the iPhone, but till then, Palringo does it’s work. As Adium, Palringo does not support Skype, which is quite painful, as lots of my contacts use Skype only.

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Exposure: A flickr tool, which allows you to surf and upload photos. Nice but creepy is the “near me” feature. Hit the button and you’ll get geocoded photos of places near your location, uploaded from other users with proper geocodes. The results are surprisingly good in a town as small as Nürnberg (500k inhabitants).

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ShoZu: Multi-Social-Network Application. It supports sites like Facebook, Flickr, Blogger, Photobucket, Twitter, Friendtser, LiveJournal, Picasa and over 20 other websites. It checks all websites you use and gives you a quick overview of all the updates in all your social networks. Proactive participation is not supported for every network, but most.

Twinkle / Twitterrific: Twitterrific is a famous twitter client for desktop and was the first one in the store. It is straight forward, easy to use and has basically all the features you need. Definitely good choice. Twinkle does the same with a slightly modified user interface (which is imho a little bit better) and one additionally major upgrade: geocoded tweets. Like this, you can define to read only tweets in a specific distance of your position. Imagine the possibilities :-)

Zenbe Lists: free, simple and easy to use ToDo-List. It syncs with the corresponding website lists.zenbe.com, so you can manage your lists also in your browser, which still is much faster, than writing all on your iphone screen. There exists a basic sharing feature, which lacks some important features. It’s easy to share your list to someone else, but to date you won’t see a friends shared list your account. In other words, it won’t show up in the iPhone app. That’s something they add hopefully soon :)

Truphone: Voip-App for iPhone. Compared to other voip carriers, truphon is rather expensive. Quick: comparison

* Skype to landline/mobile usa : 0,02€ –> Truphone 0,06€
* Skype to landline germany: 0,02€ –>Truphone 0,06€
* Skype to mobile germany: 0,23€ –> Truphone 0,30€

but still for many situations, this is cheaper than calling directly over your mobile carrier. (At least while traveling in other countries, it’s definitely cheaper then roaming.

Important: Because of Apple’s (or the carrier’s?) restrictions, Truphone can only be used when connected to a WiFi Network. NOT working, while connected to 2G or 3G.

Tuner: i bought it, when it was still the only app for internet radio in the App Store. I’m not sure any more how much i had to pay in the first days, but definitely less then 4,99€, what the charge now. For me Tuner works nice, is very easy to use and has thousands of internet radio broadcasts. Although there are now similar free apps in the App Store, I did not try them… so no comparison possible right now.

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The following apps are not yet tested, but might be interresting or worth to mention:

perhaps interesting:

Filemagnet (move files from your mac/pc to your iPhone and open most popular file formats), audio recorder (if you use a dictating machine, it‘s perhaps a substitute)

worth a mention:

Facebook (already 1 Mio Facebook apps installed on iphones around the world), Geopher Lite (tool for geocaching), Mocha VNC (Desktop-Remote-Administration)

Finally, what apps do I miss in the App Store?

• Skype
• Paypal
• Online banking app
• a working lastfm app (the version in the app store is way to buggy, just won’t work)

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… I: wait… Top: wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

This app instantly jumped into my favorite app list. Which reminds me of my plan of Sharing this favorite list here. Still at work I guess :)

* explaining “partly”:

to figure out, what the Pwnage Tool is able to do with your device, it depends on what you own:

• first generation iPhone with software 2.0:  jailbreaking and unlocking
• iPod touch with software 2.0: jailbreaking (no unlock needed)
• iPhone 3G: ONLY jailbreaking (unlocking still in work)

I’m still waiting for some brave beta testers to share their experiences… Did you try it? Then leave a comment :-)

Source: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

And because i had a special interest in those articles *smile* i read so much of them that I now want to share the very best resources with you.

iPhone News:

1 Mio iPhones sold over weekend
iPhone 3G now supports Screenshots
iPhone 3G’s mediocre battery life still beats rivals
Set Up Push Email, Contacts, and Calendar on Your iPhone for Free

Detailed Reviews:

Overall Review from iLounge or Macworld
iPhone Software Version 2.0 Review from Macworld or Gizmodo
battery life and MobileMe tests
Ten things the 3G iPhone is still missing

iPhone Apps:

10 Million Downloads
iPhone Apps For Social Networks
iPphone Mobile Social Networking Application
App Gems: a few Apps worth seeing
Twenty cool third-party iPhone apps
Techcrunch: iPhone Apps Overview
Pandora Usage Stats Prove It’s iPhone’s Killer App

iPhone Games:

19 Sodoku Games for iPhone 3G tested
Best Free App Store Games

iPhone accessories:

iPhone 3G Dock
Cases and other nice cases

I am still testing lots of those iPhone Applications. My next post will be my Top 10 favorite Apps list :)