Yahoo OneConnect Brings Free SMS to Your iPhone

iPhone/iPod touch only: Yahoo OneConnect is a free application that brings a handful of communication and social networking tools to your iPhone or iPod touch. Off the bat, the most notable thing about OneConnect is that it supports sending SMS messages to contacts in your Yahoo Address Book (provided you have a phone number in their contact card). That means you can text all day long from your iPhone (or iPod touch, if you have a Wi-Fi connection) without taking any texts away from your meager AT&T SMS plan.

The app's Pulse feature also supports a ton of social networking sites, from Facebook and Flickr to MySpace and Twitter. (Oh yeah, it works with Yahoo Messenger contacts, too.) It connects to and retrieves contacts from every single service, and you can update your status on all supported services from one box. Aside from all the functionality, it's also one of the more slick apps we've seen. OneConnect is a free download from the iTunes App Store, requires a Yahoo account to use.

Crashing problems aside, I am loving the App Store. I have no problem spending money on an app, but there are definitely a surprising number of quality freebies out there. With that in mind, I am kind of curious to know how much money iPhone owners have been willing to drop on apps given all of the free choices.

I have not purchased an app.  36.8% (2285 votes)

$1-10  17.8% (1104 votes)

$11-20  13.2% (816 votes)

$21-30  9.3% (579 votes)

$31-40  5.6% (346 votes)

$41-50  4.1% (253 votes)

$51-60  3.0% (186 votes)

$61-70  1.7% (106 votes)

$71-80  1.2% (72 votes)

$81-90  0.7% (45 votes)

$91-100  1.3% (80 votes)

$101-120  1.3% (79 votes)

$121-140  0.5% (33 votes)

$141-160  0.4% (24 votes)

$161-180  0.2% (14 votes)

$181-200  0.2% (15 votes)

More than $200  2.7% (165 votes)

iPhone/iPod touch only: Free iPhone app Wikipanion searches Wikipedia through a fast, native interface. Complete with autosuggest, landscape mode, and large, readable text, Wikipanion offers a fantastic way to browse Wikipedia on-the-go. The application's bottom row of buttons provide simple navigation (back and forward), links to sections for quick navigation of large articles, and access to every link on the page, including Wikipedia category links or external links. The free Wikipanion is simple, but does exactly what it promises.

Facebook has posted a huge preview of the next version of its iPhone app. Due in September, Facebook for iPhone 2.0 will look and feel a lot more like the real Facebook. The News Feed will be exactly the same and profiles will use tabs and the combined Wall/Mini-Feed from the site's latest redesign. Perhaps more importantly, the functionality will be much closer.

You'll be able to search for people outside of your friends, make/approve/ignore friend requests, and search your inbox and sent folder, for starters. Notifications will also arrive in real time while the app is running. The version of iPhone for Facebook after this will deliver them to you even if the app isn't running using Apple's push notification service. Overall, it's pretty excellent, check it out. [Facebook]

credit - http://gizmodo.com/5039788/preview-of-facebook-for-iphone-20-more-like-real-facebook

Palringo IM Client For iPhone Adds Push to Talk

The folks behind Palringo have swiftly delivered on a promise to add Push-to-Talk functionality to their multi-client IM app for the iPhone. Like their desktop version, the new update allows iPhone users to send vocal IM messages by holding down a contact button while speaking. When released, the audio recording will be delivered directly to the recipient.

Playback can be initiated automatically or manually depending on your preference, and if your chosen client does not support PTT, the message will be delivered as a link that the recipient can follow. Whether you are into PTT or not, it is a nice addition to an app that won't cost you a dime. [Comunicano via

credit - http://gizmodo.com/5038452/palringo-im-client-for-iphone-adds-push-to-talk

iPhone Apps We Like: Frotz, the Text Adventure, errr, Emulator

Well, it's not an emulator in the strictest sense of the word, but it does play the massive catalog of Infocom Z-Machine interactive text adventure games. If you're tired of expensive, tilt-happy titles that tire out your pale, strangely thin wrists, you can now slowly piece your way through hours of exhilarating "Open Door"
"CANNOT OPEN DOOR. WHAT IS DOOR?" action.

Nobody plays interactive adventure games for the adrenaline rush, but the stories are often great and occasionally brilliant. They're also great fun for a stop-and-start time killer, as you can resume where you left off without too much trouble, working your way through a game at whatever pace you choose.

The app is surprisingly full-featured, considering the stripped-down aesthetic of the games. It handily organizes your downloaded titles and even provides an in-app web portal to the Interactive Fiction Database, where you can download more public domain text-based games than any single person could play their way through. The most obvious downside here is that you're stuck with the on-screen keyboard, and during the course of a typical game you can expect to peck out thousands of words, many of which will do nothing.

Any text gamer that hasn't been held up by social stigmas or distracted by flashy new games and their "graphics" won't be stopped by a slightly undersized on-screen keyboard, and its hard to argue with Zork, The Hobbit and The Hitchhiker's Guide in your pocket. [TouchArcade via Kotaku]

credit - http://gizmodo.com/5036810/iphone-apps-we-like-frotz-the-text-adventure-errr-emulator

GrandDialer Brings GrandCentral to Your iPhone

iPhone/iPod touch only: Free application GrandDialer integrates with previously mentioned GrandCentral—Google's phone-consolidation service—so you can seamlessly call contacts from your iPhone using your GrandCentral number. The beauty of GrandDialer is that the call you place will display your GrandCentral number instead of your AT&T number, so contacts will call back on the right number (assuming you use your GrandCentral account as your main number). The app integrates with your contacts, so dialing is just as easy as dialing with the default phone application. If you're an iPod touch user, you can still use GrandDialer to place calls as long as you've got a Wi-Fi connection—you'd just set it to call a phone you have nearby. GrandDialer is freeware, iPhone and iPod touch only, requires iPhone 2.0 software.

Fitsync tracks, organizes workouts on your iPhone

If you're too cheap to pay for a personal trainer after dropping two or three hundred bucks on a new iPhone or iPod Touch, Fitsync might be just what you're looking for. This Web application will track and organize exercises, help you put together a solid workout, and log results with a tap or two.

Included are a slew of exercises you can browse through and stack together. There are also recommended workouts you can borrow from others. The application makes use of the iPhone's video-playing capabilities to provide demos of each exercise so you'll know what to do. Most of these are only a few seconds, so they'll load pretty fast, even on first-generation iPhones on a weak signal (which can be typical in most concrete-laden gyms).

As the name would suggest, Fitsync's iPhone app will sync up workout data from your phone to your Fitsync.com account. You can the see how far you're progressing with each muscle group or particular exercise, and even get recommendations for other exercises based on what you've done in the past.

Fitsync is free to try out for 15 days. After that, you've got to upgrade to the $4.95 monthly plan to retain access to the mobile version, though you'll still be able to enter your workout data through the less iPhone-friendly desktop iteration.

Fitsync lets you organize a workout, track it while you're excerising, and even check out demos of excerises--all in one place.

(Credit: CNET Networks)
credit webware

How To Tether Your iPhone With NetShare

We've been covering NetShare a lot the last couple of days, and with good reason: Apple consciously left the ability to tether out of the iPhone, yet for some reason has no problem letting someone else sell an app that does just that. Some users, though, might find the concept of tethering confusing, or at least intimidating. It's actually quite straightforward, and the staff at Apple Insider has put together a really handy and detailed step-by-step guide that shows how in just a few minutes you can configure your MacBook (or other Wi-Fi device) to share your iPhone's internet connection so you can have truly mobile access anywhere you get coverage. [Apple Insider]

credit - http://gizmodo.com/5032248/how-to-tether-your-iphone-with-netshare