Monday, July 21, 2008

iPhone Aps, Part Two

It doesn't take a clairvoyant to figure out that the iPhone and its competitors will be the new platform for remote controlling features- especially audio and video systems. To that end we've been checking out some of the Apple Aps. Some are quite interesting, some borderline useless, and some with obvious potential.

My feeling is the iPod Touch will be the platform of choice for some; essentially an iPhone without the phone. A pity you have to use headphones, the small speaker deletion a major omission.

Urbanspoon may be the most interesting application currently available. Essentially it mimics a slot machine, where you lock down your city, type of food, and price you want to pay and spin the wheels. We tried a new local Chinese delivery on Saturday using it and were very pleased indeed.

The French language tool was appallingly weak, the Bloomberg financial one very good, and the NY Times one much better than an internet read of the paper.

One can't help but think every manufacturer is currently busy at work writing code for their hardware this week... Essentially we have a couple of hundred dollar wireless touchpanel.