iPhone Apps Wishlist

Now that the worst kept secret of the year is public knowledge its got me thinking about what applications I would like to see on the new 3G iPhone

Firstly, I haven’t yet got an iPhone Whilst being impressed with the first model, and the several friends I have who do own one have yet to say a bad word about it, I felt that several things that I wanted were lacking.

GPS

The major consideration for me was GPS, both for navigation, location findings and geo-tagging.

The last iPhone software update added location finding in an all be it simple fore, but true navigation was missing. This looks like it is now available with the 3G iPhone and it will be interesting to see if the rumours that TomTom and others will bring their products to the App Store.

Currently you can use applications such as Geophoto or HoudahGeo to insert the location a photo was taken in to the files IPTC fields. This does however rely on you having a compatible GPS device that will record your travels.

I would be particularly interested in an application that records your GPS location to a log so you could load this on to your Mac/PC and geo-tag photos taken on your camera (as opposed to the iPhone which will be automatically geo-tagged so I am led to believe)

This feature is of particular interest when you upload you photos to sites such as Flickr. You can browse the global map and see photos from the areas they were taken.

Privacy issues aside (you don’t really want to record your home location when photographing the un-boxing of your new iPhone/computer/TV etc!) this is a really fascinating way of exploring places or creating visual diaries and prompts for your self.

Games

Whilst its easy to be dismissive of games and gaming, many a time I’ve found myself waiting in a train station for a delayed train, or outside a supermarket whilst my wife just ‘pop’s in for some milk. Its at times like these that taking your phone out and having a quick game of Poker or Golf. No mean feat on a screen 2"

The iPhone takes this to a whole new level. Whilst it is currently possible (and legal) to use any number of freely available WebApps you can only do so much with what is effectively a web page. The demos of Super Monkey Ball, Enigmo and Cro Mag Rally demonstrates what you can achieve when you develop and application that has access to all the features of the iPhone

Just watch the demo of Super Monkey Ball and you can start to see the possibilities of being able to interact with the iPhone’s Accelerometer. Its not hard to see a huge number of games being released within the first few months in time for Christmas.

Blogging

TypePad announced that they would have a free blogging tool available at the July 11th launch to post to TypePad hosted blogs. Again, it will only be a matter of time before other 3rd party application will allow you to blog to other sites.

Part of the problem with writing a blog (and I am as guilty as many) is having the time and discipline to actually add to it. Days become weeks and weeks become months, at which point you look at what you last posted and invariably think of starting from scratch with new and better intentions.

The other part of the problem is access to a computer. At work, its probably best not to be caught updating your personal site, and at home… Kids, housework, shopping, bills, taking various children to/from parties/friends/A&E/Brownies/Football/Ballet all get in the way of sitting down and writing.

Even if you do find the time you then run the risk of being accused of sitting all night at the computer and ignoring the wife!

Now if I can stop playing all these new games I could actually use the time waiting in train stations or outside supermarkets more constructively.

Again web based applications such as iPhoneSlide already exist which enable you to create a simple post, but a more feature rich application would be the perfect partner for your iPhone

RSS

The final application that would make my iPhone wishlist is a good RSS reader. I currently use the rather awesome NetNewsWire on my Mac and its sister application FeedDemon on the PC. Apart from being very simple to use with a number of use features both applications use Newsgator to keep my feeds in sync. This means if I add a new feed on my Mac, the next time I log on from my PC it will be available and vice versa.

In addition to this when not at one of my own machines I can still see all my own feeds using the web based service at NewsGator. Therefore the news that NewsGator were releasing NewsGator Mobile for iPhone was music to my ears. Looking at a preview seen by Ars Technica its a sight for sore eyes as well.

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When you see the iPhone version next to the Blackberry version for example, you begin to appreciate just how much better the iPhone display environment is.

So whilst I’m still a little miffed that the iPhone camera is a rather limited 2 mega-pixels and that it can’t shoot video, on the whole the addition of 3G and GPS with the ability for developers to create proper applications means that I will probably be spending the next couple of weekends on eBay trying to raise enough money for one.

(Did I mention the eBay application?)