iPhone Apps I Like

Things

I talked about Things plenty when I compared it to OmniFocus a couple months ago. I'm still using it several times a day and love it. It has been updated a couple times since then, and now supports tags in the mobile version. No support for Areas yet, but it still serves my needs pretty well.

Byline

Byline is a pretty slick Google Reader client. I've gone back and forth between Byline and the mobile version of the Reader site, but Byline sealed the deal by adding folder support a little while ago. It allows you to share, star, and note items, and you can sync up to 200 items for offline reading - great for reading on the Metro, where I don't get any cell service.

Instapaper

I fiddled with Instapaper on my desktop and didn't really see the point, until I got the iPhone app. Instapaper gives you a bookmarklet that will save the content of a web page to their service, and for most sites, figure out which part of the page contains the content so you can just view the actual text.

Sort of useful on a computer; way useful on a mobile device. It will sync the articles you choose and save them on the iPhone for offline reading. Again, great for Metro rides. I typically use this in conjunction with Google Reader: when I come across a longer article or blog post that I want to read later, I save it to Instapaper and read it on the train.

There are two versions of Instapaper available in the app store: the free basic version, and the $10 pro version. The pro version includes several extra features, but the most important is that it will remember your place for you. The basic version just drops you at the list of articles every time you start it, which is a pain if you close the app halfway through a long article.

Evernote

Evernote is a web app for collecting your notes, and they also have clients for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Windows Mobile devices. I'm finally getting comfortable savings things in here, like all the stuff that was in my "Reference" e-mail folders and personal wiki, and a bunch of information about our wedding.

Viewing the notes does require a net connection - it seems that they are cached temporarily but not stored long-term. However, they recently added a feature to mark your favorites notes, which will be saved on your iPhone. I used this for notes about prescriptions and medical information, and information about upcoming flights - basically, stuff that I need to be able to get at whether I have cell reception or not.

Tweetie

I've only been using Tweetie for a couple days, but it's way better than the other Twitter clients I've tried. Granted, it's been a while since I tried any - Twinkle was so slow and weird when I used it months ago that I've been using the Twitter mobile site for a long time now. Tweetie is really quick and has a pretty full feature set, so I think I'll keep it.