Apple's iPhone App Store - Five days later

As millions of geeks know already, Apple unveiled its new iPhone 2.0 software and App Store last Friday. By all accounts both efforts were big successes, with ten million copies of third-party software snapped up for iPhones and iPod Touches already.

Like any good geek, I joined the herd and have been spending the last few days trying (and buying) various stuff. And like any good geek, now I get to blog my impressions of said software:

• My one must-have app so far is SplashID ($10), which securely stores all of your passwords, identifying numbers, insurance information, and other such sensitive data. I was a big fan of SplashID on my old Palm, and am plaesed to see it reach the iPod Touch not only intact, but with even more flexibility in storing data. My only grouse is that the (optional) desktop client is only available for MacOS 10.5, while I'm still at 10.4, but that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for the product.

• I got both NYTimes and Mobile News for free newsreading on the go; both are basically portals for their respective news organizations (the New York Times and the Associated Press). NYTimes is a bit of a disappointment, as it really needs an Internet connection to work well. Updating articles for offline reading takes a long time, and even then you're not assured of getting the entire article anyway -- as I write this, I can only access one-sentence teasers for the Top Stories, which is all but useless for reading.

  In comparison, the AP's Mobile News is a lean, mean, newsreading machine. Updating it with the latest news only takes a few minutes, topics cover everything from world-region-specific articles to entertainment and business, and I can read everything it has offline, albeit often without photos (no big loss, IMO). It even lets you specify your zip codes and cities to gather local news. The only downside is that the control for refreshing news is buried in the settings page, but that's a small flaw I'll easily endure.

• Google's free app is of questionable use, as most of its search functionality is already covered by the iPhone's Address Book and Safari programs. I was hoping it would do a search of everything ok my iPod Touch -- heck, just searching the comments in my Address Book would be welcome -- but it's currently just a fancier portal to Google itself. Can't beat the price, though, and I'm holding out hope that it gets more search capabilities in the future.

• Speaking of portals, Mobile Banking (free) is just a shortcut to Bank of America's mobile banking website. Handy if you want a quick way to launch it, but not essential if you don't. In fact, if your online banking needs go beyond checking balances, transferring money, and making a single payment, you're better off using Safari to visit BofA's "regular" website instead.

• For reading web pages offline, Instapaper (free) is great. You install a tiny "Read later" JavaScript link in your desktop browser, then click it to save interesting web URLs. When you launch Instapaper on your iPhone, it gathers your saved URLs, then downloads the pages to the iPhone for offline reading. It's a great way to "take along" a dozen web pages on your desktop Mac before you go out the door for later reading.

• WeightTrack is a free app that does what it says: it lets you enter your daily weight for review, ostensibly to help you manage your weight and/or work towards losing a few pounds. It lets you set a goal weight and can sync with online sites for charts, but those are just extras -- if all you want is a way to jot down your daily weighings, this fits the bill.

• I was attracted to EasyTask Manager (free iPhone client, $20 for desktop synchronization) in hopes of finding a task manager that supported repeating tasks. Unfortunately, the program is a complete turkey -- the iPhone interface is spartan and minimal, the desktop client is buggy, and the package was nowhere near what was promised. Ostensibly I could create recurring tasks with the desktop program (why not ok the iPod Touch?), but that didn't work at all -- I even lost a few existing tasks when I tested the promised iCal integration (which was, needless to say, not ready for prime time). I'd be pissed if I had paid money for this, but even with a free 30-day trial, I felt cheated of the time I lost trying it.

• Honorable mention goes to FileMagnet ($5), a program that lets you transfer most of your productivity documents (PDFs, images, Microsoft Word documents, etc.) for viewing on the iPod Touch. I don't actually have it yet; the desktop server currently requires MacOS 10.5, which I lack. But the developer promises 10.4 support soon, and I'll be there when it comes.

• Of course, no true geek gets a gadget without getting games on it. Trism ($5) is a terrific match-three-colors puzzler, similar to Bejeweled, but with the ability to turn your iPhone in six directions to control which way pieces fall -- you can build up impressive combos just by properly rotating the board to continue the cascade of matches.

• Finally, as a junkie of shanghai (the tile-matching game based on mahjong), I happily picked up Shanghai Dynasty ($5) to scratch my itch. Even ignoring the game's windstorm variant (where the direction you can remove pieces change over time), this title boasts several dozen board layouts, touch- and gesture-based shortcut, and numerous beautiful tilesets and backgrounds, all available for free download.

I'm still searching for a good task manager program (Agendus, where are you?), but I'm not giving up hope so soon. The iPhone App Store has a bountiful start already, and I'm sure it'll get even better.