Apptastic

Do you remember when my new phone showed up, then I wrote a post shouting about how brilliant it was? I do. It was exciting.

So I’ve had it a month now, and I’ve been fiddling about with different apps. I thought I’d give you the rundown of what I’ve been using lately. It’s like micro reviews, but I’m not giving them scores because you can assume they’re all decent. After all, if they weren’t I wouldn’t be still using them.

Onwards!

TweetDeck

There’s roughly a bazillion Twitter apps out there, but I consider this one to be the best. A quick swipe shows you your timeline, mentions and DMs, and posting videos or pictures is easy. (If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably seen a sharp upswing of picture uploads from me). Good stuff.

Facebook

Self explanatory. It’s Facebook on your phone, you can do pretty much anything you can do on the web based version on your phone. My only quibble is that I can’t create a new photo album when I upload pictures, it all goes to Mobile Uploads. Plus, I haven’t found if I can tag people in pictures yet. Hmm.

Hotmail

Yeah I still use Hotmail. Hush. It’s handy for keeping up with your emails, especially if you have multiple accounts like I do. Only issue is that there doesn’t appear to be an option that allows you to reply to emails. Maybe a kind soul in the comments will help me?

Brightest Flashlight

Like it says on the tin, it’s a blummin’ bright flashlight. Handy for, well, when you need a torch. I’m not sure why it insists on making a weird boot up noise every time you use it, but ah well.

Plants vs. Zombies

The only app on this list I’ve actually paid for, so you know it’s good. There some issues with system crashes when I bought it, but EA got them smoothed out eventually. It’s almost a straight port of the PC version, but I am missing the minigames. I haven’t completed the main game yet, so let’s hope they’re unlocked afterwards.

Shazam

Shazam is a proper handy little app. If you don’t know about it already, it’s a program that will ‘listen’ to any music you happen across, then tell you the name of the artist and song. We were out at a club for Hulse’s birthday last Friday and I the thing out constantly. Sometimes it can’t get the song on the first try, but mostly it works. Plus, it keeps the results listed for you for when you’re back home. Cool.

Alarm Clock Xtreme

The only problem with my phone is that alarm is set at ‘OMGWTFBBQ’ volume level and had no apparent way of turning it down. This app is nice as it lets you fiddle with the settings to your heart’s content, even letting you disable the alarm by doing maths puzzles if you so wish. I like it because you can hit snooze by slapping anywhere on the touch screen.

Angry Birds

What is there to be said? It’s fun. Go play it.

Fruit Ninja

Also fun, Fruit Ninja lets you slice fruit by attacking it with your blade (i.e. finger). Very satisfying somehow.

IMDb

Basically a nifty compact version of the main site. Handy for people like me who’ll be sat at the cinema going, ‘Who is that actor? I KNOW THEM’. IMDb can quickly be checked and then I can carry on with my day.

Jewels

Bejeweled knockoff. Just as good and more importantly, free.

3G Watchdog

A nifty app that watches how much of your 3G allowance you’ve used, and keeps a tiny little tracker on your homepage to let you know how much you have left. There’s also a more complicated breakdown if you really want to look at it, but I just want it to shout at me before I go overboard.