The following list excludes standard applications that come pre-installed on the iPhone, including Safari, your SMS/MMS, calendar, etc. The list can also include jailbroken applications that are not available through Apple, but unofficial sources such as Cydia.
#10 BeejiveIM: Users can take their Windows Live Messenger experience anywhere on the go, with BeejiveIM with Push, so you can get messages instantly delivered to your phone from your contacts. This helpful application brings you the greatest mobile messenger experience for the iPhone, iPod and iPad. BeejiveIM allows you to connect a number of social networking services including AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, MySpace, Yahoo!, Facebook and more.
Price: $9.99
This app can be found on: iTunes
#9 Colloquy: Whether you are one of the regulars on Neowin IRC, or occasionally drop by, Colloquy is a great way to stay connected with online communities around the Internet. Colloquy has all the basic features of a desktop IRC client, which supports commands and multiple channels. This app supports the iPhone, iPod and fully supports the iPad.
Price: $1.99
This app can be found on: iTunes
#8 Deliveries: This handy little application lets you track your packages through all the major shipping companies. This application also includes a map locator, to see where your package was last checked in, based on the tracking number information. Deliveries tells you detailed information about the package, even alerting you when your package has been delivered at your door or mailbox. This app supports the iPhone, iPod and fully supports the iPad.
Price: $4.99
This app can be found on: iTunes
#7 Shazam: This application finished #3 two years ago on our list, but it hasn’t lost it’s usefulness. If you ever hear a song on the radio and can’t figure out what that tune is, open up Shazam, put it to a speaker and after a few seconds, Shazam will tell you exactly what song is currently playing. This amazing little application can be found on just about any iPhone and definitely is a must have on your phone, because you never know when it might come in handy. Shazam is available for the iPhone and iPod touch, but requires a microphone.
Price: Free! – Shazam Encore and Shazam Red are also available on for $4.99 and support charities.
This app can be found on: iTunes
#6 Winterboard: If you’re looking to tweak or cutomize the layout of your iPhone or iPod, then you might just be looking for Winterboard. Although this application is only available through Cydia, which requires you to jailbreak your device, you have thousands of ready-made themes to apply to your device, changing the look and even the functionality of your iPhone. The majority of themes found on Cydia are available for free, even giving you a preview of what the theme will look like once applied.
Price: Free!
This app can be found on: Cydia
#5 Reeder: This useful little application brings your Google Reader subscriptions on the go, so you can get instant RSS updates on your iPhone. Reeder syncs with Google Reader so you can manage your unread feeds and browse through the feeds you’re following to get real-time updates.
Price: $2.99
This app can be found on: iTunes
#4 Dropbox: If you’re a regular dropbox user, you will likely already have this application on your mobile iPhone, iPod or iPad. Dropbox lets you access your shared files from the cloud-based storage system from anywhere with Internet access. Users can access their shared photos, documents and much more with this application.
Price: Free!
This app can be found on: iTunes
#3 Cydia: This unofficial App Store comes in at our number three. Although this application requires you to jaibreak your device to install it, this useful application allows you to download and install unauthorized iPhone, iPod and iPad applications to your device. This is your one stop shop for themes, tweaks, ringtones and applications Apple won’t allow on their App Store. This is a must have application.
Price: Free!
This app requires you to jailbreak for it to be installed.
#2 Facebook: If you don’t already have this application installed, it’s probably because you don’t have a Facebook account. This very useful application, as voted by our community, came in as number one last year and brings all the features of the desktop Facebook experience to your iDevice. Keep in touch with friends and family, share photos and videos and even instantly chat with them all from your mobile device. This is a must have application.
Price: Free!
This app can be found on: iTunes
#1 Twitter: This application didn’t even make the list last year, but according to the Neowin community, tweeting your thoughts in 140 characters is the must have application of the year. Follow friends, celebrities and people you’ve never heard of before all from your mobile phone. Twitter has its very own official application on the App Store now, but you can find dozens of third-party applications to share your thoughts with the world. Twitter for the iPhone, iPod and iPad has all the same features as the browser-based version, including follow, unfollow, block, tweet and upload photos. This is a must have application.
Price: Free!
This app can be found on: iTunes
Well, congratulations. You’re now the proud owner of a bouncing new baby iPad, iPod touch or iPhone. You’ve probably already done the basics – plugged it in, synced all your music, photos and videos, and done a quick skim of the famous App Store – but where do you go from there? The App Store is a scary place, after all, with hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from. Which ones are worth it, and which ones aren’t?
Neowin, of course, has your back. We’ve compiled a list of what we consider to be the best apps for just about anything.
RSS reader: Reeder and Reeder for iPad
RSS applications are a dime a dozen on the App Store, but we’ve found a winner in Reeder and Reeder for iPad, available for $2.99 and $4.99 on the Store, respectively. The interface is simple, yet brilliant, and you’ll quickly find yourself reading more news than you ever have. It even works with Google Reader, to keep all your RSS feeds in sync across all your devices (be they phones, tablets or computers).
Get the iPhone/iPod touch version here ($2.99), or the iPad version here ($4.99)
For the aspiring DJ: djay (iPad only)
Unfortunately, iPhone and iPod touch owners are left out of the fun on this one – they’re limited to the djay remote that allows you to control the djay app on Mac OS X – but this app is too intuitive and fun to even consider leaving it out of the list. djay simulates real life turntables on the iPad’s display, and the experience is incredibly realistic. All that it’s missing is real tactile feedback, but at $19.99, it’s a bargain compared to thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
Reading: Kindle app
In the last few months, Apple’s been playing up its iBookstore and corresponding iBooks app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. While Apple did a brilliant job with those apps, the store is still lacking in content. That’s where Amazon has stepped in, making available a Kindle app that works, as you would assume, with their Kindle bookstore. It also includes whispersync, which keeps your books in sync across devices, meaning you can keep your full Kindle, your iPad, and your phone (most brands have an app available) on the same page.
For Flash video: Skyfire web browser
This application made quite a splash when it launched, finally giving iPhone and iPod touch users – and just a few days ago, iPad users as well – a way to view flash video. It’s not the best solution possible, but it gets the job done better than anything else available for iOS. Besides its Flash-playing capabilities, it’s actually a nice web browser, offering tight integration with Facebook and Twitter, and even offering private browsing. For, you know, banking and stuff.
Get Skyfire Web Browser for iPhone here ($2.99), or get Skyfire Web Browser for iPad here ($4.99)
For your information: 1Password
It’s a common problem: you have too many passwords, and too much delicate information to take care of. Fear not, because 1Password is here. 1Password offers you a way to securely store any kind of delicate information you have, whether it’s simple website passwords for a site you visit once in a blue moon, or a note containing codes to a top secret facility somewhere in Nunavut. It can sync with its Windows, Mac OS X, and Android app over Dropbox, and always requires a password to unlock it. Everything is tightly encrypted, so you know it’s safe.
You have 3 options: 1Password Pro, which works on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch; 1Password for iPhone, which works on iPhone and iPod touch only; or 1Password for iPad, which only works on the iPad.
Get 1Password Pro here ($14.99), get 1Password for iPhone here ($9.99), or get 1Password for iPad here ($9.99)
Games
Games have become a real selling feature for iOS, and for many, their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad has become their main gaming console. So we’ve come up with a few different games that we’ve enjoyed here at Neowin.
Puzzle game: Trainyard
For a few days, productivity at Neowin HQ stood at a standstill – at least among our iOS-device owning staff members – after we discovered Trainyard. The goal is to guide several trains to their color-coded destination across a 7×7 grid, with multiple twists introduced as you play. Trainyard Express, which includes 60 (Canadian themed) puzzles, is available for free, while Trainyard comes with 150 more maps, and is currently on sale over Christmas for $0.99. While there isn’t a version specifically for iPad yet, it does scale well enough to be playable.
Get Trainyard Express here (free), or get Trainyard here (on sale, $0.99)
Shooter: RAGE HD
iOS users were blown away when id Software released RAGE HD. The graphics were something that simply hadn’t been seen on a phone before. The gameplay is good enough on its own, but it’s worth it just to see it, especially at just $1.99 on the App Store.
Just for fun: Angry Birds
This game really explains itself. It’s about a bunch of birds that are angry with a bunch of pigs. Everybody’s seen it. If you haven’t played it, you’re missing out. You’ve probably also been living under a rock for the past year or so.
Get Angry Birds for iPhone here ($0.99), or get Angry Birds HD for iPad here ($4.99)
Just for fun, runner up: Solipskier
Since everybody knows about Angry Birds, it only seems fair that the runner up get a chance here. In Solipskier, you guide your skier with your finger, avoiding obstacles and racking up points any way you can, such as by hitting targets, or creating a jump out of the snow. You’ll quickly be addicted to this simple time waster.
Get Solipskier here (for iPhone and iPad) ($0.99)
What now?
Just go and enjoy your gift! These apps should keep you occupied for a while, but if you’re looking for more, just check out the comments – I’m sure some of our members will have their own suggestions. If you’d like some further reading, you could always check out Edmotnon Tek’s Top 10 iPhone apps you can’t live without, or read the comments below for the latest discussion on anything iOS. Otherwise, go forth and enjoy your new device!
If you feel like we’re missing anything on this list, go ahead and mention it in the comments.
The holiday season is always an exciting time of the year, new toys, family, friends, and always good food. Now that the presents are opened and you got your brand new Android phone, what should you do now?
Well first set it up! The first part is fairly straight forward, enter your information, setup your email accounts, and get to your basic homescreen. Depending on if you’re coming from another Android device, iPhone, Blackberry, you will need to import your contacts, if you have a Google account, it will happen automatically.
When setting up your Facebook account, depending on your device, it may import all of your Facebook friends into your “contacts” if you select “sync contacts”, this can be a bit annoying as your contact list gets populated with hundreds, if not thousands of entries; some may wish to avoid this.
So now you have a couple of choices, are you a minimalist, or do you want all your info on your screens. Depending on your device, you will have several screens and one home screen.
On the main screen, press and hold for a few seconds, and a popup menu will appear with the ability to add shortcuts, widgets etc. The choice here is yours but if you’re a social media fanatic, you can find your widget of choice for Twitter and/or Facebook that keeps all your needs just a swipe away. You can begin adding widgets to your screen by following the onscreen instructions, its pretty straight forward, pick a widget and then drag it to your location of choice. Some widgets have multiple interfaces, you can usually tell if there are arrows on the widget selection screen (left and right) to show the different sizes.
Don’t forget about your notification area too! Take a look at the top of the device, where the battery is, if you “pull down” or swipe down from that area you will open a drawer that contains all your notifications. This is a one stop shop for all the updates on your device and when you get an email, sms, etc, this is a shortcut to all those apps.
Speaking of shortcuts, how do you access the apps you have running? Simple, hold down the Home button and a popup menu will appear, this shows all you’re currently running tasks.
But with any new smartphone OS, its all about the Apps… and where can you find a great list of them? You can find them right here. One application not on the list that we can recommend is “Better Cut”. While not free, it does allow you to chang icons as well as the names of the icons on the device. It can be handy if you want to change Handcent SMS to just SMS, note that different launchers may allow you to do this for free but HTC’s Sense currently does not.
So what all is left? Enjoy your device! Android will take care of all your needs and make sure to checkout the marketplace as it contains a world of add-ons that can make the experience more complete.
What can only be described as a large mistake by someone, Mozilla somehow accidentally left a partial database of user accounts on a public server. This breach in security went on for some time, until on December 17 after Mozilla was notified by a security researcher of the issue.
The leaked database contained 44,000 inactive accounts for addons.mozilla.org that had passwords hashed using md5 technology. This leak only affected accounts created before April 9, 2009, as since then up through now Mozilla uses a SHA-512 password hash with per-user salts to protect account data.
Chris Lyon, Mozilla’s Director of Infrastructure, posted on the Mozilla Security Blog about the breach late Monday night. Lyon says that all impacted users have been sent an email, or will be sent one soon about their potentially compromised account. He also wants to make the fact very clear that this security issue does not affect current addons.mozilla.org users or accounts, only those that were inactive and created before April 9, 2009.
Additionally, there was no impact by the incident on any of Mozilla’s infrastructure. Mozilla has been very upfront about the issue reported to them via their web bounty program, and took appropriate measures to ensure the security of everyone’s data. The company also said that they “were able to account for every download of the database. This issue posed minimal risk to users, however as a precaution we felt we should disclose this issue to people affected and err on the side of disclosure.”
The root cause of the leak was not identified, however with the way that Mozilla has reacted, it is clear that they want to protect customer data and will take steps in the future to prevent such a potentially horrible slip-up like this from happening again.
A new Android trojan is currently running amuck in China and could threaten the rest of the Android ecosystem if it is not contained. The ‘Geinimi’ virus is currently kicking around in China, and is stealing personal user information from the host device. The trojan disguises itself as a legitimate application such as Monkey Jump 2, Sex Positions, President vs. Aliens, City Defense and Baseball Superstars 2010 but also contains the malicious code.
Lookout Mobile Security, via TGDaily.com, is reporting that “Geinimi’s author(s) have raised the sophistication bar significantly over and above previously observed Android malware by employing techniques to obfuscate its activities. In addition to using an off-the-shelf bytecode obfuscator, significant chunks of command-and-control data are encrypted”.
Currently the trojan is not infecting any application on the marketplace, and is only infecting repackaged applications. When an infected file is run on the host device, the trojan will run in the background, gather personal information from the device and send it back to a host server on five minute intervals.
While this is far from a dooms day trojan, it is the second “virus” to inflict android users. If these events keep happening, it could put a negative PR spin on the Android platform itself and may hurt its overall reputation, something Apple recently exploited Microsoft for in advertising campaigns.
Microsoft has released two more themepacks for Windows 7, visual Arctic and Fireworks themes, and they can be downloaded from the gallery.
The Arctic theme is a 21 MB download and consists of 15 high-resolution wallpapers.
Light up your new year with this cool Fireworks theme. This 12 MB download contains 13 awesome wallpapers.
Windows 7 themes can only be used in Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate editions only.