DirecTV for iPhone/Touch

DirecTV is a very handy free application for subscribers to that satellite television service. The application allows you to search for shows up to two weeks in advance and then remotely program your DirecTV DVR to record them. Very nice little app!

Pocket Informant for iPhone/Touch

Pocket Informant was a favorite PIM application for me back in the days when I owned a Pocket PC PDA. It provided a wonderful view into all of the critical data for managing my daily activities.

Now there is a version of this program available for the iPhone/Touch. I’ve been using it for over a week now and I must say I’m quite pleased with it. Be aware, however, that this is definitely Version 1.0 of this application and it does not yet have all of the features available in it that the current Windows Mobile version of ths application does. It is quite a bit nicer than anything else I’ve seen in PIM applications for the Apple platform, though. It syncs very nicely with Google Calendars and Toodledo.

One warning should be noted – appointment alarms don’t work unless the application is actually running at that time. This is a limitation imposed by the current lack of access to the Notification Manager by developers and should be remedied by the release of Version 3.0 of the iPhone/Touch firmware this summer. In the meantime, I’m syncing both Pocket Informant and the built-in Calendar application to Google Calendar and just using the built-in Calendar application as a way to set off audible alarms when appointments come due. Although this sounds kind of kludgy, once it’s set up it works flawlessly.

Flight Control for iPhone/Touch

Flight Control is a very fun little game I recently bought for my iPhone. It’s very simple to play, but quite challenging. It puts you in the role of air traffic controller directing landings into an airport. There are two runways and a heliport for accepting aircraft, and four different aircraft types arriving: helipcopter, private plane, jet and jumbo jet. I’ve wasted hours playing this game. It’s easy to pick up during odd moments of downtime and play. I really like it’s combination of simple play and challenging strategy. You’ll quickly become overwhelmed at first, but with experience you’ll be able to safely land more and more aircraft. Highly recommended!

Wundrbar for iPhone/Touch

Wundrbar is a very handy application for the iPhone/Touch. It really serves as an on-device portal to a wide variety of Web sites. It offers quick access to a plethora of sites, and allows the user to create a Favorites page of the sites they most frequently visit. It creates custom interfaces to many of these sites and remembers the site options you have previously selected. It’s a wonderfully handy little application and I highly recommend it.

Startech USB Docking Station with VGA

I first started blogging about my Startech USB Docking Station with VGA back in August of last year. Now after over 7 months I’m still extremely happy with this unit. I’m using it right now at my client site and it’s allowing me to attach a full-sized HP keyboard and mouse, an Ethernet cable, and an HP 17″ LCD monitor to my little Asus 1000H netbook. What more can I say about this device other than it works, and it works flawlessly. If you’re looking for a very powerful and relatively inexpensive docking station for a laptop or netbook, I highly recommend that you check out this device.

Kindle Books on the iPhone/Touch

Amazon now has a wonderful free application for Kindle owners available for download from the App Store: Kindle for iPhone. It gives you access to all of your Kindle books archived on Amazon’s Web site.  You can change the font size and set bookmarks and the overall reading experience on my iPhone is excellent. It doesn’t seem to support subscriptions to magazines and newspapers – at least not yet. It even claims to sync current reading locations between a Kindle and the iPhone/Touch, although I haven’t figured that out yet.  I’m really happy to see this application as I’ve been a big Kindle fan since they were first released.

CBS Video Application for iPhone/Touch

 

CBS recently released a streaming video application for the iPhone/Touch called TV.com. This application is obviously in a very early stage of development, however it does allow some entire episodes of CBS (and affiliated networks) shows to be streamed to and viewed upon an iPhone/Touch. Hopefully CBS will be providing lots more content in the future!