My iPhone Essentials (Apps only)

While the count of apps in the appstore increases  within every blink of an eye it is getting more and more difficult to find apps that a really essential. Beneath the pile of thousands of localized puzzle games and millions of standalone ebooks lies a world of great apps that needs to be discovered manually or via websites like yappler.

Below you’ll find a list of apps that have proven their helpfulness over the last weeks (alphabetically ordered):

• 1Password – Great password manager that can be synced with the corresponding apple desktop app (link)
• AroundMe – Location finder that lists information about your surrounding (banks, restaurants, gas stations,…) (link)
• ConvertBot – A unit conversion app with an innovative user interface (link)
• Evernote – Capture.Sync.Find: Store and tag notes, snapshots, ideas, websites, audio and sync it with the desktop/web app (link)
• Facebook – Social network app (link)
• Newsstand – A RSS reader that perfectly syncs with Google Reader (even though you can use it without Google Reader), nice user interface including  twitter, facebook and email support (link)
• PocketMoney – Manage your funds with this superb application (link)
• Regator - Regator is an app that gathers the world’s best blog posts and organizes them in a way that makes it easy to find the things you need (link)
• Runkeeper – Fitness tracking app (link)
• Shazam – Ever listened to a song you like but don’t have a clue what’s the name of the song or the artist? Use Shazam to find out (link)
• Things – Task managment app with a corresponding apple desktop tool (link)
• TweetDeck – An awesome twitter client with a great UI (link)
• WikiMe – Find interesting wikipedia articles dependent on your actual location (link)
• Wikipanion – Wikipedia on the go (link)
• Xing – Social network app for business contacts (link)
• Yammer – A twitter like microblogging tool for companies (link)

The list is not complete because there are some apps that I would mark as useful (like yelp) but that doesn’t work in Germany and there are some apps I use that are for the german market only. If you want to find out which apps that are feel free to visit my german blog (illocabilis.blogspot.com).

GPS-Problem with iPhone 3GS

Nearly one month ago I purchased the new iPhone 3GS. All in all I am very content with the phone and I honestly don’t know why I stayed with my WM6 phone for so long (even if I pimped it to behave like an iPhone).

Nevertheless there was one big head-scratcher that kept nibbling on my mind: If I try to locate my position via google maps there is quite a big variation between my actual position and the position Google marks as my actual position:

The green fixing pin ought to mark my actual position; stupidly my real position is where the red pin is located. The difference between the two markers is approximately 1000 ft.

After investigating a little bit I discovered where the problem is: The iPhone uses A-GPS (assisted GPS; a carrier network dependent system) to compute the actual position. This technique can be a little imprecise. The advantage of this method is the increased speed and that it works at places where a normal GPS-unit fails . To check if the variation is really caused by A-GPS I turned on the flight mode (alternatively you can switch off data roaming) and determined my positition via Wi-Fi (unfortunaltley google maps doesn’t work without an active connection). You can see the result in the picture below: