10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The recent launch of Apple's App Store means millions of iPhone users will have hundreds of handy applications available at their fingertips. Many of these apps make it easier bloggers and reporters to work on the go. For those that don't have an iPhone, perhaps it's time to considering purchasing one.
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $4.99
From the developer: Record and playback notes, reminders, or just about anything from your iPhone's built-in microphone. SpeakEasy gives you a recording studio that fits into your pocket. Intuitive and fun, SpeakEasy is the premier voice recorder for your iPhone.
Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Store notes and send email using ShapeWriter on your iPhone. ShapeWriter is a revolutionary text input technology that enables you to enter text into the iPhone by tracing word shapes rather than typing letters. Each shape traced on the soft keyboard with your finger is recognized as a word. Error correction is fast and easy. For rare names and acronyms, type only once and you will be able to shape write the next time. Shape writing is many times more efficient than letter-based handwriting recognition.
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Robust but simple to use, the WordPress for iPhone Open Source application allows you to create and edit content on your WordPress blog(s) with support for offline use. The app includes the following features:
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: $4.99
From the developer: Update your blog and share pictures with the world from wherever you are with TypePad. Built to connect with the award-winning TypePad blogging service, TypePad for iPhone and iPod touch enables you to...
With TypePad on your iPhone or iPod touch, you can share your ideas and photos as they happen, from wherever you are. And since it integrates with TypePad on your desktop, you get all the great features of the world's premier blogging service.
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: A fun application that lets you read and publish posts (called "tweets") on the Twitter social network. Stay connected with friends, family, and co-workers through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Use your iPhone to instantly share photos and slideshows with your friends on Myspace, Facebook, or any website, blog or mobile phone.
Instantly broadcast pictures as you take them, or create slideshows from your iPhone's picture gallery. You can even chat with your audience in real-time!
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Evernote helps you remember everything from your real and digital life using whatever device or platform you find most convenient.
Evernote for iPhone is part of the Evernote service. With it, you can take notes, snap photos, create to-do lists. and record audio. Everything is seamlessly synchronized with the web, and made available across all the devices and platforms you use, including iPhone, Evernote for Mac, Evernote Web, and Evernote for Windows.
Snap photos of any thing from whiteboards to business cards to wine labels, and Evemote will make the text within those images searchable.
Need something from last week or last year? Evernote instantly connects to the Evernote web service so you can get what you need. Find what you're looking for by searching or filtering by tag, date, location. and more.
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: NetNewsWire is an RSS reader for iPhone — you can read news from the millions of weblogs and sites that publish RSS feeds.
Because NetNewsWire syncs with all of NewsGator's free RSS readers, if you read an item on your iPhone, you don't have to read it again on your Macintosh or other computer. It's automatically marked as read everywhere.
You can also save items for later via the Clippings feature, and any item you clip is available on your other computers. It's an easy way to save something to read when you have more time.
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Jott for iPhone is the ultimate mobile notepad that turns your voice into notes. Capture your to-dos as quickly as you can say" Get strawberries for dessert. "We transcribe your voice into text and place the resulting notes in your lists. When you complete items, just cross them off with a swipe of your finger.
All of your lists are backed up on Jott.com, where you can manage them when you are at your computer. For existing Jott customers, your lists and notes will load after you've downloaded the app (may take a minute if you have a lot).
Average Rating: 2½ Stars (Spanish) to 4½ Stars (Vietnamese) Price: $4.99
From the developer: Want to never be at a loss for words, no matter where you are in the world? With your iPhone, and a little help from Lonely Planet, you'll have the local lingo licked.
Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel company, now offers its 10 most popular phrasebooks in downloadable audio format, specially tailored to make the most of your iPhone. Don't just skim the surface on your next trip; with 530 spoken (and phonetically written) phrases in each guide, you can shop, socialise and shout like a native.
And a few worth copying by other news organizations...
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: FOX News wants you to report the news. The uReport Application for iPhone allows you to do just that. You can easily take or select pictures of news happening around you and send them directly to FOX News Channel from your iPhone. If we determine your submission is newsworthy, your photo could appear online or even on air!
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $4.99
From the developer: MLB.com At Bat from MLB.com, the official site of Major League Baseball, delivers real-time scores and in-game video highlights of every game directly to your iPhone.
You'll get each highlight moments after the play happens so you never miss the important action. The application will automatically detect your network and play video encoded for either EDGE/3G or Wi-Fi bitrates. MLB.com At Bat will provide this breakthrough service for the remainder of the 2008 season - including playoffs and World Series. It's a whole new ballgame!
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: NowLocal is the best way to find news that's happening around you. Using the iPhone's location services, NowLocal automatically delivers you news from the best local sources, wherever you are. So as you move from place to place, it's easy to quickly check what's going on around you.
For more news iPhone news apps, click over to Mindy McAdams.
1. SpeakEasy Voice Recorder
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $4.99
From the developer: Record and playback notes, reminders, or just about anything from your iPhone's built-in microphone. SpeakEasy gives you a recording studio that fits into your pocket. Intuitive and fun, SpeakEasy is the premier voice recorder for your iPhone.
- Record voice memos, reminders, lectures, meetings, or anything you wish.
- Add a title, comments, or even a photo from your photo library or camera while recording.
- Group and organize your recordings by category.
- Interruption protection lets you pick up and continue your recording after a phone call interruption.
- Pause and continue recording with a single touch.
- Playback and quickly scan your recordings with the touch slider.
2. Writing Pad
Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Store notes and send email using ShapeWriter on your iPhone. ShapeWriter is a revolutionary text input technology that enables you to enter text into the iPhone by tracing word shapes rather than typing letters. Each shape traced on the soft keyboard with your finger is recognized as a word. Error correction is fast and easy. For rare names and acronyms, type only once and you will be able to shape write the next time. Shape writing is many times more efficient than letter-based handwriting recognition.
3. WordPress
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Robust but simple to use, the WordPress for iPhone Open Source application allows you to create and edit content on your WordPress blog(s) with support for offline use. The app includes the following features:
- Support for WordPress.com blogs and self-installed WordPress blogs (version 2.5.1 and higher)
- Embedded Safari for true previews of posts
- Full support for tags and categories
- Photo support for both camera pics and library photos
- Support for multiple blogs
- Ability to password protect a post, save as draft, or mark for later review
- Auto-recovery feature recovers posts interrupted by phone calls
4. TypePad
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: $4.99
From the developer: Update your blog and share pictures with the world from wherever you are with TypePad. Built to connect with the award-winning TypePad blogging service, TypePad for iPhone and iPod touch enables you to...
- Write new posts for your blog in just a few seconds.
- Post photos to your blog from your iPhone's camera or photo albums.
- Alert your friends when you post to your blog by automatically updating Twitter.
With TypePad on your iPhone or iPod touch, you can share your ideas and photos as they happen, from wherever you are. And since it integrates with TypePad on your desktop, you get all the great features of the world's premier blogging service.
5. Twitterific
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: A fun application that lets you read and publish posts (called "tweets") on the Twitter social network. Stay connected with friends, family, and co-workers through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
6. Kyte Producer
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Use your iPhone to instantly share photos and slideshows with your friends on Myspace, Facebook, or any website, blog or mobile phone.
Instantly broadcast pictures as you take them, or create slideshows from your iPhone's picture gallery. You can even chat with your audience in real-time!
7. EverNote
Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Evernote helps you remember everything from your real and digital life using whatever device or platform you find most convenient.
Evernote for iPhone is part of the Evernote service. With it, you can take notes, snap photos, create to-do lists. and record audio. Everything is seamlessly synchronized with the web, and made available across all the devices and platforms you use, including iPhone, Evernote for Mac, Evernote Web, and Evernote for Windows.
Snap photos of any thing from whiteboards to business cards to wine labels, and Evemote will make the text within those images searchable.
Need something from last week or last year? Evernote instantly connects to the Evernote web service so you can get what you need. Find what you're looking for by searching or filtering by tag, date, location. and more.
8. NetNewsWire
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: NetNewsWire is an RSS reader for iPhone — you can read news from the millions of weblogs and sites that publish RSS feeds.
Because NetNewsWire syncs with all of NewsGator's free RSS readers, if you read an item on your iPhone, you don't have to read it again on your Macintosh or other computer. It's automatically marked as read everywhere.
You can also save items for later via the Clippings feature, and any item you clip is available on your other computers. It's an easy way to save something to read when you have more time.
9. Jott for iPhone
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: Jott for iPhone is the ultimate mobile notepad that turns your voice into notes. Capture your to-dos as quickly as you can say" Get strawberries for dessert. "We transcribe your voice into text and place the resulting notes in your lists. When you complete items, just cross them off with a swipe of your finger.
All of your lists are backed up on Jott.com, where you can manage them when you are at your computer. For existing Jott customers, your lists and notes will load after you've downloaded the app (may take a minute if you have a lot).
10. Lonely Planet
Average Rating: 2½ Stars (Spanish) to 4½ Stars (Vietnamese) Price: $4.99
From the developer: Want to never be at a loss for words, no matter where you are in the world? With your iPhone, and a little help from Lonely Planet, you'll have the local lingo licked.
Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel company, now offers its 10 most popular phrasebooks in downloadable audio format, specially tailored to make the most of your iPhone. Don't just skim the surface on your next trip; with 530 spoken (and phonetically written) phrases in each guide, you can shop, socialise and shout like a native.
And a few worth copying by other news organizations...
Fox News UReport
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: FOX News wants you to report the news. The uReport Application for iPhone allows you to do just that. You can easily take or select pictures of news happening around you and send them directly to FOX News Channel from your iPhone. If we determine your submission is newsworthy, your photo could appear online or even on air!
MLB.com At Bat
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $4.99
From the developer: MLB.com At Bat from MLB.com, the official site of Major League Baseball, delivers real-time scores and in-game video highlights of every game directly to your iPhone.
You'll get each highlight moments after the play happens so you never miss the important action. The application will automatically detect your network and play video encoded for either EDGE/3G or Wi-Fi bitrates. MLB.com At Bat will provide this breakthrough service for the remainder of the 2008 season - including playoffs and World Series. It's a whole new ballgame!
Now Local
Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free
From the developer: NowLocal is the best way to find news that's happening around you. Using the iPhone's location services, NowLocal automatically delivers you news from the best local sources, wherever you are. So as you move from place to place, it's easy to quickly check what's going on around you.
For more news iPhone news apps, click over to Mindy McAdams.
Labels: audio, blogging, mobile, photos, rss, social networking
5 Comments
Sean Says:
The Wordpress app is great. I use it on my blog www.IThinkThereforeIRant.com. I have only made 2 posts but it allows me to write quick posts when I get a minute. I then save the longer thoughts for a real keyboard.
Says:
I loved the Twitterific app, but i replaced it with another one called Storyz, it looked like it's fun for me
farang Says:
I use wordpress on Iphone, and it's ok for some limited editing. It only works in html mode. No tagging for the moment, but you can edit category
Voice recording is very appealing, though.
July 29, 2008 12:05 PM