The new apps for iPhone 2.0: What's good?

by Tim Conneally

July 10, 2008, 1:05 PM

Now that the iTunes App Store is officially open, BetaNews has pushed aside the dozens of card games and social network companion programs to look at those apps that best take advantage of the iPhone's capabilities.

A viral video which was immensely popular not long ago featured two iPhones and a Nintendo DS creating improvised ambient music, the first "iBand." Of several apps available adding to the quiver of instruments for the budding iMusician, the most comprehensive is Band from Moocowmusic. This app offers touchable drums, piano, guitar, bass, and even applause which can be recorded, mixed and sequenced into full songs. This $9.99 app is already among the top ten most downloaded.

Foreflight Mobile is the most expensive app you're likely to find on the App Store today, coming in at $69.99. This "Preflight Intelligence" software offers airport information from over 220 countries, aviation weather imagery (including METAR and TAF), flight plan filing, route maps, and more. It's a shame you can't use it DURING flights. A desktop companion to the app adds another $28 to the cost.

Foreflight and its extensive feature list, as well as heavy pricetag

Talking Panda's iLingo is not unique to the iPhone or iPod touch, nor is it the only set of translators available in the App Store (Lonely Planet and UltraLingua both offer their own versions) but it concentrates on quick and simple use for situations where it would actually come in useful (being lost, needing help, making transactions) and the iPhone's interface speeds this up. Each language pack costs $9.99.

Mobile-exclusive social network Whrrl has been in beta since October 2007, but was quick to pounce on the iPhone. The location-based social utility shows nearby points of interest which are suggested according to friends' choices and user ratings. Whrrl has databases of 16 major US cities and is also available on Blackberry Pearl and Curve, Nokia N95, 5300, and 6085, as well as the Samsung A920, M510, M520, and SPH-M610.

Netsketch is a collaborative drawing application made by a young computer engineer at Vanderbilt University. Similar to the Graffiti Facebook application and inspired by CodingMonkeys' SubEthaEdit text editor, it encourages groups of users to "finger paint" in real-time on a shared whiteboard.

While the top for-pay app is the highly anticipated velocity controlled game Super Monkey Ball, the most downloaded piece of free software thus far is Apple's own Remote app. This effectively eliminates the need for Apple's easily-lost Front Row remotes, at least for the purposes of iTunes and Apple TV. Instead of IR, it works over the Wi-Fi network, allowing non-line-of-sight control, and gives the user a portable window into his iTunes or Apple TV.