Chelsea Clinton, Pimpjuice and Cocaine have nothing on the addictive — and likely unhealthy — effects the new iPhone Apps store has in helping to AppsJuice up your day.  I’ve had my new iPhone 3G for a week today and, as you can see, I’ve gone a little crazy pimping out my iPhone with over a Gig of new AppsJuice experiences:


I have gone zonkers gonzo crazy for the sweet Apple AppsJuice nectar of the Netter Apps suite that detail and dissect the body.  I love the Quizzes.  I lust for being able to zoom in and out of body parts.  I enjoy the Flash Card mentality of the semiotic teaching.  I have all five of the Netter Apps as of yesterday and, at $40.00USD a pop, you can see the poorhouse is directly in line with pimping out your iPhone with AppsJuice.

I’m also wild for the iTrans suite of transportation Apps.  I have the NYC Subway, PATH and DC Metro Maps.  You tell the iTrans software your transportation start and end points and it will step you through the right transfers and stations found along the way.  As well, when you start up the Apps, you can see the next time the train is scheduled to run and, if you’ve ever waited for a PATH train to show up early in the morning or late at night, it is truly lovely to get the next four arrivals in a live-updated timetable in the palm of your hand.

iTrans also provides live updates for train troubles, delays and other excuses delaying your arrival and if you’re new in town or lost in an area, click on the circular “find me” button and iTrans will use your iPhone to geolocate you and give you the train station nearest to your location.

Other amazements include the Aqua Rainforest for a glimpse into the future of shake-and-pinch computing, I use aSleep for listening to waterfalls as I drift away and Trism is a challenge for both mind and wrist.

I have a lot of games on the iPhone like Super Monkey Ball, Cro-Mag Rally, Moto Racer and Crash Bandicoot — but I find them hard to play because they rely too much on the accelerometer and that means the gameplay is not easy to control.

Amusements include Enigmo for controlling water and fire, Amazing Zen for making my own garden of tranquility, Koi Pond for swimming in my own little world, Pandora for streaming music, and Internet Radio Tuner for finding the best sounds on the web.

Disappointments include AP Mobile news and The New York Times.  Both Apps have severe trouble keeping up with the ever-changing news world.  They prefer to shrivel up and die instead of presenting the latest headlines.  I’d burn them both if I had a match that wouldn’t take down my entire iPhone.

I’d be lost without utilities like MyWeather Mobile for getting hourly weather trends for temperature, precipitation and wind speed, Teleport for controlling my network computers, NetShare for the possibility of sharing my internet connection with my laptops, Byline for reading my Google RSS feeds and iNetwork Test for finding out the truth about the speed of my 3G connection.

The new iPhone isn’t about just 3G speed — the iPhone is about quenching your thirst to go beyond ordinary knowledge and into the land of AppsJuice to pick your mind and feed your joy.

15 Comments

  1. I think itrans may have sold me on the iphone. 🙂 I love that kind of information. Then again, sometimes the mystery of the arrival time of the subway train has a bit of romanticism about it. Never when you’re in a rush, of course.

  2. Fascinating, David!
    i checked out some of the apps in the iTunes store. I had no clue you could so much with the iPhone!

  3. Gordon —
    Right! The key is knowing what’s going on when you need to get somewhere. iTrans also gives you service alerts so if you’re wondering where you train is, or if you’re kicked out of a subway station for some reason by the police, you can fire up iTrans, click on the “Advisories” link and find out what’s up and what to do about it.
    When you’re on the trains during Rush Hour, you’ll never have to worry about getting a fast train — but after 10pm and until 5 am or so — the PATH and NYC Subway worlds change, and the trains run on a much less frequent schedule. iTrans makes it easy for you to pick your departure time instead of relying on blind luck and having the trains try to find you by waiting.
    There’s another Subway program called “CityTransit” but it isn’t as smart looking or as robust as the iTrans stuff.

  4. Glad you checked out the store, Dananjay! It can be overwhelming to sort through everything, so I like to browse by category like “education” and “business” to find the undiscovered gems.
    Apps are also re-downloadable for free, so if you buy something and have to later reset your phone, you just “re-buy” your Apps from iTunes and the store will give them to you for free because you already paid once. I wish the iTunes songs purchases worked the same way!
    Apps are also auto-update-able in that new versions are available on your phone or in iTunes for instant upgrading to new feature sets and bug fixes when you’re ready to install.

  5. That’s a relief, David!
    I hope somebody figures out a way to make a few killer apps like iTrans by the time the iPhone is launched in India.
    i remember, once in a mall in dubai, they had installed a bluetooth-enabled, soda-vending machine and it was great to be able to pay with my phone have the soda pop-out!

  6. Dananjay —
    I think the direct delivery of changing information is a strength of the iPhone, and I do hope something like that can be enabled for India. Sure, I could check a paper map and timetable to see when the next train will arrive and where I should catch it, but with iTrans I don’t have to worry about paper and iTrans takes my geolocation into consideration to find the nearest train station in NYC of Jersey to me and then gives me precisely the next four times the train will arrive. That kind of dynamic information delivery is extremely keen.
    Love that use of bluetooth! I don’t think we have that kind of purchasing power here yet!

  7. David,
    Yes! Mobile computing power combined with high-speed internet connectivity and simple, human ingenuity makes so many new things possible that were perhaps conceivable before but never implementable.

  8. It is terribly exciting, Dananjay! Information gets smaller as it gets faster and it lasts longer — you wouldn’t think that would be physically possible but that’s the greatness of science and innovation at work.

  9. That’s some neat stuff, David. What does the baseball thing do? Can you buy tickets with it?

  10. Hi Anne!
    I love the MLB.com App. You can get live updates as baseball games progress along with video! You can go back a day to get yesterdays scores and video and you can get tomorrow’s game info, too.
    They just did an App update that now allows you to pick your favorite team — so now the NY Yankees are at the top of my list and I don’t have to scroll down to find them!

  11. Wow David!
    No wonder you are falling head over heels for this one!!!
    This is a traffic jam of all brilliant features…enjoy!!!

  12. Thanks, Katha! Every day there’s something new and great in the Apps store. Many of the coolest stuff is free!

  14. Love it, Katha! I hope you get a 3G iPhone on August 22 — and if you do, be sure to write up your experience in grand detail for us!

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