Here we go with part three of “25 iPhone apps every pocket writer and editor should consider.”
Today, I’m covering five-plus apps in the utility category that I can’t live without. Read yesterday’s “iPhone and iPod touch productivity apps for writers and editors” for the second installment of five.
1.Air Mouse Pro, from R.P.A. Tech, transforms your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless air mouse, track pad and remote control for iTunes and other apps.
You can use your iPhone or iPod touch just as you would any mouse, with left and right button clicks and anything else you might do. Thanks to your device’s accelerometer, you can move the cursor with a wave of the hand. $1.99.
2.Air Sharing Pro, from Avatron Software, is the App Store equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife: Use this app to mount your iPhone or iPod touch as a wireless drive on a Mac, Windows or Linux PC (as long as they’re on the same Wi-Fi network). You can view PDFs, HTML, Word and other docs; perform file operations such as zip/unzip files, create and delete folders; access remote volumes such as MobileMe iDisk and WebDAV servers; print docs via a Mac with OS X and with printer-sharing enabled; and automatically detect and share docs with other users on the same Wi-net; and email files and folders up to 100 MB. $9.99.
3.Print & Share, from EuroSmartz, moves email (and attachments), contact info, Web pages and photos from your iPhone or iPod touch to your Mac or PC desktop where you can print them.
Install Print & Share on your iPhone, download the free WePrint Server software for your desktop or laptop computer and you can print directly from your iPhone or remotely over 3G/EDGE to your home or office printer. The WePrint helper software automatically finds your networked printers and allow the iPhone to select which printer to use. When you travel, you can put the WePrint Server software on a USB stick. Simply plug it into a PC with an attached printer and print. $6.99.
4.Textfree Unlimited, from Pinger, enables you to send an unlimited number of text messages to any U.S. mobile phone instead of via Simple Message Service, or SMS, for short. Sending texts over cellular networks is free, unlike sending texts via SMS, which typically run $0.05 apiece.
Textfree Unlimited might not have made this list a few months ago. The difference now is that with the most recent OS 3.0 update, apps like Textfree are capable of notifying you when a message has arrived even when the app is closed. It’s called “push notification,” and you’re going to see lots of new apps with this feature in coming months.
Textfree Unlimited comes with a unique username (you@textfree.us) so friends can contact you. Because a mobile phone number is not required, iPod touch owners can also use the service as long as they’re on a Wi-Fi network.
As an alternative, check out BeejiveIM, from Beejive, which is similar in concept, including push notification. Here, you’ll be sending IMs to your friends on Facebook, GoogleTalk, AIM and other popular services. $9.99.
Text Unlimited is $5.99 for a year’s worth of use. There’s a free Lite version that is ad-supported and has a daily cap on the number of texts you can send.
5.If you need to access your home or office desktop while you’re out and about, take a look at either Jugaari’s Jaadu Remote Desktop, Carter Harrison’s WinAdmin or LogMeIn’s LogMeIn Ignition.
All three are RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) clients for your iPhone and in most ways they’re similar. The big idea is that you can use your iPhone to control your Windows PC desktop when you’re on an internal network or on the Internet.
Whatever you can do on your desktop, you can control using your iPhone or iPod touch, using the same actions you would if you were sitting in front of the machine: click to trigger actions, drag and drop, open files and folders, edit files and so on. You have the option of viewing your mini-desktop in portrait or landscape modes. Tapping or pinching zooms the screen.
Jaadu ($24.99) and LogMeIn ($29.99) require you to install their clients on your desktop; WinAdmin ($7.99) does not. LogMeIn also requires you to set up a free account at its Web site. Space doesn’t permit me to go into each in greater detail, so read the app descriptions carefully. Some differences you should be aware of include: Jaadu and LogMeIn are capable of streaming audio to your iPhone. $12.00 to $25.00.
