Sunday, September 13, 2009

Vegans on a bus, now with spiders

I've had my iPhone 3GS for about a month and a half, and I absolutely love it. I don't know that I could do without it now that I have sampled the intoxication. Since I am a guy who always looks things up on the spot whenever I have a question, I love having the internet in my hand. And the Google app with voice control is amazing; all I have to do is say what I am looking for and the app starts a Google search. So if I wanted to know the tallest building in Cleveland or the hazards of fake boobs, I could just say "tallest building in Cleveland" or "hazards of fake boobs" into my phone and the Google search would appear. Of course I love the GPS/Google maps feature as well, and I use this app every time I want to find anything.

I also like checking Facebook, baseball scores and highlights, e-mail, movie times, news from many different sources, etc.

But I thought I'd mention a couple of my favorite non-standard apps. Knowing someone's apps can teach you a lot, and perhaps should be a standard question in job interviews.

First, I have two apps that are useful to vegetarians and vegans like me. The first one, Veg Out, is simply a restaurant finder. It checks your location and then maps the veg-friendly restaurants nearby. You can also filter it so it only searches for vegan-friendly restaurants.
The other is called Vegan Express, and it contains a databases of a whole bunch of national food chains and lists the items on the menu that are vegan. Very helpful.


The next app is called AmbiScience, which is more or less a sleep aid. You can pick different soothing sounds, but it also features a sort of rhythmic thumping that supposedly controls your brainwaves. I don't know about that, but I do know that it works very well. You can set it to deep sleep or power nap, and the sound adjusts.


An essential app for anyone in Chicago is Buster, which is a bus tracking tool. Chicago Transit Authority has something called Bustracker, which is a GPS locator to tell you when a bus is coming. It is great on the computer, but the website is not very phone-friendly. So Buster has solved the problem. You can either search for a particular bus route or bus stop, or you can use the GPS to set your current location and Buster will tell you all the bus stops nearby and when the next bus will arrive. Fantastic and indispensable.


I'm not a huge game guy, but a couple of games use up some of my time. The first one is Paper Toss, which is simply a game in which you toss paper balls into the trash can, adjusting for the wind speed caused by a fan. And now they have Paper Toss World Tour, in which the trash can is placed in various locations around the world. This all sounds silly, and it is, but this game is addictive and fun.


My newest obsession, however, is Spider, a very cool game in which you are a spider, and your task is to build webs to catch insects for dinner. The graphics are amazing, and your little spider leaps and crawls and spins webs. Oh, and you can tackle hornets. Super fun.



Pet Shop Boys concert tomorrow!

1 Comments:

At 8:24 PM, Anonymous Your Mom posited...

I don't have a cell phone and you have apps?

 

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