Must Have iPhone Apps

These are my must have iPhone apps in no particular order. Most of them require your iPhone to be jailbroken, so make sure you have a jailbroken iPhone 3G 2.2. Since this assumes your iPhone is already jailbroken, Cydia and Installer won't feature in the list :P. Here's the list in no particular order:

1. OpenSSH (Cydia) - a must have if you wish to connect to the filesystem of your iPhone from your computer - the default root password is "alpine".
2. Facebook (App Store) - Yes, we're all Facebook whores - this app works way better than the mobile browser version.
3. mxTube (Cydia) - This allows you to save your YouTube videos for playing later, as well as choosing what quality (whether on WiFi or EDGE). Much better than the default player..
4. Shazam (App Store) - Place your iPhone near a speaker or TV or radio, and this will identify what song is playing! It will also provide YouTube links to a video (if available)!
5. Installous (Cydia) - This app is well an App Store replacement (of sorts). It accesses Appulo.us and allows you to install packages from Appulo.us. The repository needs to be added into Cydia first. (Visit Hackulous for more info)
6. SwirlyMMS (Cydia) - This app brings that which should've already been on the iPhone - MMS! Works as advertised and is actually not that bad!
7. BeejiveIm (App Store) - This app brings all your instant messaging to the iPhone - AIM/MobileMe, GTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Myspace and Yahoo as well! Easy to use and supports landscape!
8. iRealSMS (Cydia) - This app makes SMS on the iPhone what it should've been from the beginning. It supports landscape, forwarding sms, sending contact details, as well as searching through your messages. The latest version has Quick Reply, which lets you reply to an SMS without closing your current app!
9. siax (Cydia) - This app is great for VOIP, supporting SIP and IAX. (Works fine with Nonoh :D)

10. Now Playing (App Store) - This app shows you what is playing, which cinema it's playing at, and at what time! Complete with reviews and trailers and RT scores!

11. iPhysics (App Store) - This game engine for the iPhone gives you endless amount of fun with its 2D engine. Make your own game or play one of the included ones! (I think you can download addons as well.)

12. Winterboard (Cydia) - I almost forgot to mention this! This allows you to fully customise your iPhone's Springboard and download pre-designed themes as well!

Jailbreaking iPhone 2.2

Firstly, if you're still on an outdated firmware, go to iTunes right now and update to the latest firmware 2.2 (5G77).

Next, "jailbreak" your iPhone! If you're wondering what "jailbreaking" is, well essentially it is allowing your iPhone to install 3rd Party applications that you can't get through the App Store, due to various reasons.

Jailbreaking allows you to access the file system on your iPhone, send/receive MMS, improved SMS features, change themes, and also install Linux if you so wish.

To jailbreak, the easiest and most painless way is to go to QuickPWN and download the QuickPWN 2.2 for Windows or Mac.

You get the option of installing Installer and Cydia (both of which I recommend) which allow you to install applications. Installer and Cydia are in essence very similar to Synaptic for Ubuntu.

If you do have problems with jailbreaking you can always restore your iPhone from iTunes. Remember it's never a bad idea to backup your iPhone through iTunes before undertaking this procedure!

iPhone3G

Well, a few weeks ago I finally did that which I myself would have considered blasphemous a few years back..bought an Apple product....yep, I bought an iPhone 3G with a new contract on Singtel.

Well now that I finally got my hands on it, I've been examining and "tinkering" with the iPhone in almost every way imaginable (short of taking it apart).

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be putting down tricks and tips - some commonly documented, others not so much so!

First, I must say straight out of the box the iPhone is crippled - with several key elements missing such as only 2 out of 35 profiles of Bluetooth supported - most noticeably DUN (The ability to use your iPhone as a modem to connect to the internet), A2DP (listen to music over Bluetooth stereo) and FTP (the ability to transfer files over Blueooth).

This by far isn't the only shortcoming of the so-called revolutionary phone; but that's not what my articles are going to be about. Anyone can read that online and make a decision for themselves. These articles are going to be about how to overcome some/most/all of these shortcomings.

Stay tuned!

NUS Central Library in 3D

Now, this my fellow readers is freaking cool. I came across this while googling the number of different postcodes in NUS. (I don't know how, and this was SO interesting I never really found out).

Well seeing that it was featured on Feature Projects on Google, I figured it'd be interesting and it was.

Basically this uses a few tools to come up with NUS Central Library in 3D, complete with Search!

Yes, that's right, search for a book and it will give you the exact location! :D

Now, all we need is for this to be actually implemented on Google Earth - i.e. when you search for NUS Central Library and zoom in enough, it should give you this!

Desktop - a web browser

What if your dektop is actually a web browser?

Wouldnt it be great that you dont need to open a window to surf the net when you can do it just off your desktop.

Also what if all the desktop applications such as Word and stuff are written using web languages and all run on the browser.

Note: I really dont know what I was talking about there but it doesnt mean we can get rid of an OS cause OS is still needed to communicate with the hardware of a PC.