iPhone App Reviews

Facebook

This app does exactly what it says on the tin – lets you access "Facebook" anywhere you go. This is an official app so no need to worry about some shady third party source stealing your login details. The app presents itself a lot like the iPhone OS, with a home screen of two pages. One has the standard functions you get on the web page, such as News Feed, Chat, Photo’s and Requests. The second page can be used to store your favourite pages, whether they are people or fan pages. Obviously this app is limited when using an iPod touch as you must be connected to the internet to use it, but on iPhone the app will function as long as you have any internet connection – no matter the speed (as long as you’re willing to have to wait for the occasional load). Added bonus; its free just like the main website.

Spotify

This app is the iPhone counterpoint of the freeware program Spotify for PC which allows you to legally listen to a massive library of music, as there is no download involved. The app lets you listen to your offline playlists wherever you go and listen to any music available on the program wherever you go as long as you have an internet connection, which is an amazingly useful ability. As great as this seems, this is where the good parts of this app end. Firstly, you need to be a premium member of Spotify to use the app, which means you need to pay £9.99 a month to use it, which is a lot of money to essentially rent music. The app also eats battery life, meaning when out and about you need to be sparing about when to use the app if you need your phone to last until you get home after a day. Lastly, the app needs to be open so that you can listen to it, unlike the official iPod which carries on playing while minimized. This means that while listening to Spotify music you cannot do anything else with your iPhone, which can be infuriating. This has the potential to be a great app but falls flat because of those 3 major kinks.

Skype

Skype for the iPhone – a great way to VoIP call your friends using the internet on your iPhone. Okay, does anyone else see the blatant irony and essential pointlessness of this app? Place a phone call using a third party app to someone on your iPhone. Even though I’m a big fan of Skype on my desktop, I just fail to see the point on iPhone. Some may argue that it helps you cut down on your contract minutes or credit, but at the same time you’re putting a massive dent in your battery using an internet connection for any length of time to make a phone call, also if you’re on credit you could be paying for your internet usage out of credit anyways. Maybe if they incorporated the back video camera into the app to facilitate video calling to surpass the iPhone’s native calling app then there would be more of a use for this app, but at the moment in my eyes it’s pretty pointless.

Pianist

Pianist is a piano emulator on the iPhone, and it did its job beautifully. It had a simple to use interface, it was very responsive with hardly any delay between key presses and sound, and it supported multiple key presses at once, meaning you can play chords. Unfortunately, if you read my first sentence again you’ll see that I said it did its job beautifully. As the app evolved and changed new features were added to it, like recording function, two pianos on screen at once at different octaves and different zoom levels to have more keys onscreen. All of these extra features seemed fantastic at first, but they don’t work completely like the core of the app, resulting in many glitches occurring while trying to record tracks resulting in multiple crashes while trying to do the things that should work with ease. In summary, this is still the best piano app providing you use just the piano and don’t try to use any of the extra features unless you enjoy constantly restarting apps.

Simples

Everyone knows Aleksandr, founder of compare the meerkat.com from those lovely adverts. Well this app is a basic soundboard containing all of his highlights, which brought a cheap laugh to me. It also contains all the adverts and some bonus videos such as bloopers from the adverts and Aleksandr's interview with the sun. Totally pointless but does its job and makes me laugh.

iDaft

Most people will have heard of the daft punk song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, either if it’s the original or the cover by Kanye West. This program is a soundboard with all of the sound clips used to create the song and the backbeat without words allowing you to add in the words, where you choose. Simple enough to pick up and sounds realistic when you figure out the knack to patterns of buttons and rhythms.

Remote

An official app from apple that lets you control your iTunes library on your computer with your iPhone as long as they are both on the same wireless network. This app took seconds for me to set up and then works beautifully. It can also be used for a quick laugh when someone else is using your computer just to see their face in shock when every time they turn the music off it mysteriously turns back on again. Well if you’re as evil as me it can...

Lightsaber

Simple app that turns your iPhone into a lightsaber, using the inbuilt accelerometer to make the sound effect used in star wars films every time you swing the device. A neat addition is to play some star wars music in the app which adds to the atmosphere of really being a Jedi. Just don’t let go of it when you swing...

iDrag Paper

Unravel a roll of toilet paper as fast as you can by flicking down on the screen. Let’s face it, this is probably one of the most childish apps available at the moment, but let me assure you that if you get a group of people who are bored enough this can make minutes fly by in immature nonsensicalness. For some reason there’s a pro version so you can submit your time to a leader board, but that it really unnecessary.

iTimbales

This app gives you a virtual pair of timbales to play, with extra percussive instruments added – a cymbal, woodblock and cowbell to be precise. This is a fun app to mess around with if you’re bored, but if you’re a drummer of percussionist it can be used to construct some pretty solid beats, so worth a look.

Logitech Touch Mouse

This is a great gem of a free app to emerge, giving your iPhone functionality of a touchpad that comes with most laptops. After downloading a simple piece of software from the Logitech website the app sets up pretty sharpish and then work with hardly any delay. There is a keyboard function on it but without a shift key it can be difficult to use this without needing to go over to your keyboard every few seconds. Stick to the mouse part and this can come in quite handy.