Podcast Zeitgeist: February 2013

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I do listen to about 10 to 15 hours of podcasts a week, while walking around, doing chores, working out or dozing off.  I use the Downcast app on my iPhone now that Apple has crippled podcast functionality in iTunes and released a buggy app. Here are the latest ones holding my interest, in alphabetical order; it's heavy on Mac stuff and comedy. Downcast has a good search, auto downloads in background and a simple playlist function that can serve you up the latest episodes one after another.

Generally speaking, the best talk podcasts produced these days come from several networks: Leo Laporte's Twit, Dan Benjamin's 5by5, Jesse Thorn's Maximum Fun and Mike Monteiro's Mule Radio.  Public radio outlets also offer most of their shows as podcasts (This American Life, Planet Money), and I listen to some of them but have not listed any here. Many also offer video versions, but I generally stick to audio, both to conserve storage on my phone and to avoid sitting around so much. Schedules, links and other details listed here were current as of February 2013.

Back to Work: Merlin Mann ostensibly discusses productivity and working life with Dan Benjamin, but often they just riff about comics, music and tech. Nearly every Tuesday. About 1.5 hours.

Boars, Gore and Swords: A humorous discussion of the HBO series "Game of Thrones" and the books on which they are based. Weekly, Sun. or Mon.; 1.5 hours+. 

Buddhist Geeks: Discussions of and interviews about modern Buddhism with a technological bent. Weekly; day varies. 20 to 35 minutes.

Bullseye: Jesse Thorn's followup to "Sound of Young America," the public radio pop culture program. Usually Mondays. About an hour.

Generational: Living with technology, with interviews by Gabe Weatherhead. Usually Saturdays. Up to 2 hours.

Ihnatko Almanac: Andy Ihnatko, the tech writer and mutton-chopped ubernerd for The Chicago Sun-Times, talking about films, movies, comics and whatever else catches his attention, with Dan Benjamin. Thursdays. About an hour.

iPad Today: Leo Laporte and Sarah Lane with the latest news about iPads and iOS apps. Thursdays. About an hour.

Jordan, Jesse, GO!: Extremely vulgar comedy discussions from Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris, with regular guests from the worlds of standup comedy and podcasting. Mondays or Tuesday. About an hour to an hour and 45 minutes.

Let's Make Mistakes: Design and tech discussions from @mike_ftw and company. Mondays. About 45 minutes.

MacBreak Weekly: Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko and assorted guests talk about Macs, Apple and iOS. Tuesdays, about 2 hours.

My Brother, My Brother and Me: The three McElroy  brothers are humorous advice experts. Mondays. About an hour. 

Quit!: Dan Benjamin wants you to quit your corporate stooge job. Takes live calls. Fridays. About 1.5 to 2 hours.

Risk!: Dramatic and humorous real-life stories by comedians, celebrities and ordinary people, often told before a live audience, hosted by Kevin Allison. Variable schedule. About 30 minutes to an hour.

Roderick on the Line: John Roderick, of the Long Winters band, and -- yet again -- Merlin Mann talk about arcane history, music and life in general. Erratic schedule. About an hour.

Savage Lovecast: The sex columnist Dan Savage gives advice to people from all types of orientations. Ear-opening. Tuesdays. About 45 minutes to an hour.

The Talk Show with John Gruber: The blogger behind Daring Fireball talks with guests from the world of tech about Apple, movies, books, coffee and gadgets. Erratic schedule. One to two hours.

This Week in Tech: Laporte and assorted guests talk about general technology news. Released late Sunday, early Monday. About 2 hours.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour: Comedy in the style of old time radio broadcasts. Thursdays. Vary from 30 minutes to an hour.

Uhh Yeah Dude: Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette with a weekly audio news of the weird roundup. Thursdays. About an hour.

You Look Nice Today: Surreal conversations with Merlin Mann, Scott Simpson, and Adam Lisagor. Erratic schedule. About 30 minutes. 

iPhone Apps I Actually Still Use, 2012

See my updated October 2014 list.

So it's been about three years since I did a post like this, and there are now thousands more of what used to be called "third party" iPhone (and iPad) apps that run on Apple's iOS platform. These are the apps I use regularly on my iPhone 4S.

My first home screen and launch bar. Don't worry; most of those e-mails aren't urgent. 

Social Media

Tweetbot - My preferred Twitter app. Multiple accounts and timelines, mute functions, easy switching between lists, Instapaper integration, great search, highly customizable, with traditional RT retweets.

Tweetkeeper - Twitter will only let you download 3,200 tweets at a shot. With this app, you can download all of your tweets from this date forward -- and the tweets of others -- and keep storing them, for a permanent record. I save the tweets of some funny accounts I like, as well as my own.

Facebook - I'd rarely look at my timeline without this.

StumbleUpon - Serendipity in your hand. A way to find the stuff you didn't know you were looking for.

Buffer - With this scheduler app, spread out your tweets, Facebook apps and Alpha.app.net posts so you don't overwhelm your followers.

Alienblue - Makes Reddit less ugly. 

Launch Center Pro saves me a lot of time.​

Foursquare - A waste of time, perhaps, and an obsessive compulsive addiction, but it pays off when you're in a New York neighborhood and want to find a place to eat or shop -- or remember the place with the great espresso that you stopped in two years ago. 

Utilities

Launch Center Pro - When you have as many apps as I do, it's helpful to have this in your menubar. It can dig deep into some apps and iPhone functions (like using the flash as a flashlight) and take you quickly to bookmarked Web pages. Create an Omnifocus to-do item or a Simplenote or search IMDB with just a few taps. Now if only Apple would let it toggle Wi-Fi. 

1Password - Secure access to your sensitive sites; protects your passwords and generates strong ones. If you lose your phone, this important data is encrypted.

TextExpander - Create typing shortcuts for longer phrases and even email form letters. Get a snippet dictionary for commonly misspelled words and words with accents and let this app do the work when you type. Syncs across all devices via Dropbox.

iTransNYC - I don't typically need a lot of help navigating the New York subway, which is this app's specialty. But I do find it useful on weekends or late nights. First of all, believe it or not, the New York subways have a schedule and trains are pretty much on time, so this app can tell you when the next train will arrive on a given line. And it also knows about all the construction detours. I am moving this one back out of a folder where it was hidden, now that Apple has apparently downgraded the Maps application with iOS 6. Updated. 9-25-12

Reading

Reeder - When I want to read or share articles from RSS feeds on Google Reader, I use this. 

Instapaper - The attractive "read later" app, with integration across all devices. Dark screen mode for low light conditions, attractive fonts, smart suggested readings list. I paid for search.

Flipboard - Turns links from RSS feeds, Facebook timelines and Twitter streams into a magazine format. 

Kindle - I have too much invested in Amazon books to use any other app now. I wish it had not been crippled by restrictive Apple iTunes store policies. Another option that lets you buy books directly is the Kindle Cloud Reader, a  Web app that can be installed on the iPhone screen via Safari.

NYTimes and Election 2012 apps. The home team, and in my view the best way to consume New York Times content and aggregated politics from multiple sources on the go. 

Workflow and Notes

Omnifocus - The best getting-things-done project app. Get rid of that gnawing fear that you have something to do all the time. Capture it now and  check it off later. Syncs across all your devices (but expensive to buy all versions).

Simplenote - Simple text notes, shared across all devices and computers using Notational Velocity. I put bits of text here when I can't figure out where else to put them.

Bento - A useful database program for projects and staff lists. Syncs over WiFi with your computer.

Dropbox - Easiest way to share files with your computers and other devices.

Evernote - A full-featured, rich sharing app for photos, Web content and more, for sharing across all computers and devices.

Reference

Webster's New World - Cheaper than the print version of The Times's official dictionary, and easier to search by typing the first few letters of a word.

Shorter English Oxford Dictionary - In print, this stretches to 20 volumes. Expensive, but cool to have on your phone. Useful for etymological information.

Terminology - A thesaurus-like dictionary of specialized jargon for many fields.

Wikipanion - Fast, easy direct Wikipedia search.

Podcasts and Music

Downcast - I've tried them all, and this podcast app annoys me the least. Streaming, auto downloading, search, an easy interface. Just be careful: Auto downloaded files will eat up your storage and data limits, depending how you configure this. I had a bad surprise when I left 4G downloading on during an international trip.

Spotify - I've tried RDIO, Pandora and many others, not to mention syncing the iTunes library I own. But Spotify gives me the right amount of control, selection and serendipity for music on the go. Stream just about any music out there for $10 a month, on all devices and computers; store some on the app if you're going to be disconnected. Share playlist with your Facebook friends. Good suggestions for new music. With most music I enjoy available here, I spend a lot less buying tracks.

Shazam - Hold it up to the TV, the radio, or the sound system in a public place, and it will tell you the name of that song that you just fell in love with. Still amazing after all these years.

TuneIn Radio - I am a fan of the eclectic music played on KCRW, the public radio station in Los Angeles, and my wife likes to listen to the BBC and a variety of local public radio shows. This app lets you stream these and many other programs from radio stations around the world. It syncs across your devices.

Health and Fitness

Sleep MotionX - An amazing app I use every night. You place it in the bed and calibrate it, then it detects motion to measure your deep sleep, light sleep and wakefulness. It helped me to diagnose my apnea problem, which woke me up repeatedly through the night. Now, with breathing treatment, I sleep through the night. The app alarm also finds the optimal time to wake you up in your sleep cycle. During the day, he app measures daily steps and tells you when you're sitting around too long. And it gives you lots of data in cool charts.

My 30-day chart from Sleep MotionX. I used to get about an hour less on average, so this is pretty good. ​

iFitness - Many suggested workout routines, option to save workouts, video demonstrations.

Lose It! - A meal planner and calorie lookup/counter that includes many common restaurant meals and store foods in its database.

Miscellaneous

Open Table - This is a useful reservation service for restaurants, with menus. I've gotten into a lot of places the day of the reservation. 

Cor.kz - A great way to track wine club purchases, Syncs with Cellartracker.com, a comprehensive wine database with user and expert reviews and ratings.

Dark Sky - Tells you the only thing you need to know about the weather, most of the time: Is it going to rain in the next hour? With radar maps.

Catan - Get your 'Settlers of Catan" fix and hone your skills by practicing against robot players with many types of playing styles.

Everyday - Shoot your picture every day and watch how you change over months and years. If you dare.

Hueless - Mimics an old-style black and white camera, with color filters. Make everything look like the 1930s. Every place looks like a noir film, and everybody looks better in B&W.

Meditate - A simple meditation timer with chimes, with variable settings for preparation, intervals and cool down. It displays a total for the amount of time you have spent sitting, which is not enough, most likely. Take heed. Do not squander your life.

Third-Party iPhone Apps I Actually Use

Update! New List! New Post! See the new list of iOS 8 apps I use in 2014 on my iPhone and iPad. 

Last updated April 11, 2009 I am surprised by how well this list held up. The updated NYTimes application is a great improvement over the first version, which I had stopped using, because it was slow and crashed so frequently. I have also added the Amazon Kindle for iPhone application. I still use these apps with some frequency: Google Mobile App, Twitterific, Facebook, Zenbe lists, Remote, Evernote, Amazon and Wikipanion. For restaurant, bar and services information, I still prefer the simpler IWant and Yelp to the flashy Urbanspoon roulette. The upcoming iPhone 3.0 software will eliminate my need for Writeroom, which allows e-mail messaging in landscape mode. As for games, my daughter swears by one new addition, JellyCar, and her favorites, Toybot and de Blob. My fascination with the time-wasting Bejeweled has ebbed, and nothing has really replaced it, unless you count Twitter.

The List Most of the third-party applications on my iPhone were free; none cost more than $9.99. I went a little crazy downloading apps when the store opened on iTunes. Some of them, like the Urbanspoon restaurant roulette app, proved more gimmicky than useful. And they started to drag down the performance. So I have been winnowing the list. Here are the third-party apps I actually open on a regular basis (some of them daily, all of them at least once every couple of weeks), roughly in the order they appear on the phone.

• Google Mobile App Search your phone, search the Web. This app moves to the top of the list with voice-activated search and other improvements. It not only searches the Web, but also your contacts and other data on your phone (the new iPhone operating system now does this as well). The word recognition is about 60 percent accurate, which can be frustrating, but I have hopes they'll keep tweaking it, because, hey, it's Google. That's what Google does. I also have the mind-blowing toy Google Earth app. Updated 8/17/09.
• MightyDocs A simple concept: Free offline access to your text Google docs. I downloaded this app a while ago but have been using it a lot more, because people at the office have started sharing a lot live memos through Google. The latest version has basic spreadsheet support, which was missing in the original. And it's still free.
• Twitterfon pro is my new choice for a Twitter client. The free version is fine, too. The interface is superior to the versions of Twitterific and Twinkle, which I had included in earlier versions of this list. Updated 8/17/09.
• Kindle for iPhone In many ways, the e-book reading experience is better than the actual Kindle. The application is free, but of course you need to own an Amazon Kindle and download some books. Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions don't work, nor can you read documents you have sent to yourself or ebooks from other sources than Amazon. The page turning is easier than the Kindle 1, and of course the phone has a backlight. The coolest feature is the Whisper Sync: It takes you to the most recent page you read, whether on the phone or the Kindle.New.
• iWant For when you just want to quickly find a nearby restaurant, bar or gas station, without gee-whiz graphics to impress your friends.
• NYTimes The 2.0 version of this application is much improved. The articles download faster, you can bookmark them and share them via e-mail. In general, it seems a lot less buggy and no longer hangs or crashes. I love to open this app and download the day's paper before heading into the subway. There is a menu that shows all the photos from the paper -- click one to pick a story. It can store up to five days' worth of news. And unlike the Amazon Kindle, which I also use to read the paper, it includes NYT blog posts. Updated review.
• Facebook Nicely put together, attractive, with intuitive navigation of the Facebook site. On a phone, in a line, it's a way to catch up with people. One bonus: It still resembles the old Facebook interface, which is a relief compared to the updated and overloaded Facebook Web site.Updated review.
• Writeroom A document creator that can be used to easily write emails with the keyboard in a horizontal position, not something that mail currently allows. (It will have that feature when the iPhone 3.0 firmware is released later this year).Updated review.
• Amazon So you go into the bookstore and you see a book you want and you type the name into this app's search box and probably find it cheaper, with free delivery if you have Amazon Prime. Maybe you just snap a picture for the "You asked us to remember" experimental function. Amazon will try to find a similar item in its store. It worked the first time for me with a fairly poor quality picture of an obscure book's cover; no bar code required. Do you feel guilty? Do you hide what you are doing from Barnes & Noble employees? That's your business. Great app. Just watch out for the one-click -- the journey from looking something up to an immediate impulse buy is nearly frictionless. New.
• Airsharing Drag and drop Word, Excel, PDF and many other files via WiFi to the phone, where you can read them pretty well and transfer them to other computers. (Need to download software for the computer.) I don't use it that much, but it is handy. MightyDocs has supplanted it; most of the documents I need I keep in Google Docs.Updated review.
• Zenbe Lists Of the hundreds of to-do lists, this one is pretty good. You don't have to bother to sign up for Zenbe's Web services and tools to use the free iPhone app.
• Last.fm, Pandora, AOL Radio In that order. All great versions music solutions using Internet radio. Customize music to your tastes. I have removed Simplify, an iTunes library syncing application, because I couldn't get it to work reliably. Maybe I need a 3G phone. Updated review.
• Remote Turn the phone into a full-featured iTunes remote for your computer/stereo or Apple TV. Browse your media library in the palm of your hand. Still one of the greatest applications if you have an Apple TV.
• Ocarina Turn your iPhone into a musical instrument and connect with phone-musicians around the globe. A fun app to show friends, though the novelty wears off. Updated review.
• Yelp The user-rating restaurant/bar/etc site powers many other location-based restaurant apps, so you might as well use Yelp's app, which works well and is attractive.
• AIM Why pay for SMS when you can send an instant message at no charge? Granted, texting is an Apple standard app, and thus better integrated than IM. You can't use AIM with other apps running, so you have to disconnect this if you want to take a phone call, open up Safari or e-mail. But sometimes you need to locate an IM contact online and chat, and this app is handy for that. It may work better with the iPhone 3.0 firmware, which may allow apps to run in the background.Updated review.
• 1Password The day you lose your phone, you'll be happy the person who found it doesn't have access to all your sites, accounts and passwords. This secures and encrypts them, and it syncs with the passwords on your computer. (This app was free, but you do have to pay for 1Password software for your Mac itself).
• Evernote Save sites, Web clips and docs on the Web, look at them on your phone and computer; sync them. I may start using this more often, now that it has been integrated with Twitter. Updated.
• Wikipanion Look it up on Wikipedia with one touch. But please don't cite it in your term papers if you are one of my wife's students. I tried a few Wikipedia apps and settled on this one for its easy lookup functions.
• SayWho A simple voice dialer. Press the screen while saying the name of the person you want to call, and a list comes up in contacts. Works pretty well, even for a mumbler like me. Free. I seem to have stopped using it lately; I don't make enough phone calls to make it worth my while.
• Bejeweled, Hero of Sparta, Toy Bot Diaries, de Blob, Stone, Scrabble, Metasquares, Enigmo, Tetris, Super Monkey Ball, DizzyBeeFree, BattleAtSea, Bubblewrap, Morocco, Cannon Game, FootballLite, The Stone of Destiny, Jelly Car, Labyrinth These are among the better iPhone games, all of them taking advantage of the touchscreen and/or accelerometer in clever ways. Good for distracting 8-year-olds and yourself on long car, train or plane rides.
• Shazam and Midomi Amuse your friends. Hold Shazam up to a playing music source, and it identifies the song. Midomi is similar, but you can also say lyrics or hum to get a list of possible song titles. The link shows a Shazam-Midomi face-off; Shazam won for reliability and usefulness. Both are free and worth having, although the novelty of these party tricks wears off eventually.
• doyoufeed.com A Web site, not a downloaded app. It will iPhonify any blog or site (or several feeds) and give you a tinyurl address for it. (Here is Palafo.) Then you can bookmark a Webclip on your iPhone iphone home screen. Maybe one day the owners will fix the spelling of "Thursday" in the timestamp code. New URL, fixed.
• Note: I no longer have a jailbroken iPhone, which allows you to run software not available through iTunes. I do miss some of those pirate apps, but I just can't be bothered with it anymore. I'd rather not risk downloading some wonky or malicious app that hasn't been blessed by Apple.