Tech - Top 10 free iPhone Apps

Pandora Radio

The most popular free app on iPhone is Pandora Radio. Pandora Radio is users own free personalised radio available to stream music on their iPhone. Just start with the name of one of your favourite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora promises to create a "station" that plays their music and more music like it.

Pandora users on the Web can just log in. Pandora on the iPhone is fully integrated with Pandora on the Web. Users can listen to their existing stations -- and create new ones right from their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Facebook

The second most popular free app on iPhone in 2008 was Facebook, which reportedly completed 1 million downloads in August this year. Termed as the pairing of the two most-hyped tech products of the year, Facebook released iPhone-customised website in August 2007.

The site uses javascript to avoid page refreshes, although there is still some lag in moving around the site. The main navigation tabs -- Home, Profile, Friends and Inbox -- are at the top of the site. Click on any person and see their profile, wall or photos via a horizontally scrolling interface.

Facebook is a social network that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Tap Tap Revenge

Tap Tap Revenge is a music game in the tradition of Guitar Hero or Revolution that puts user's rhythmic skills to the test in all-new ways. Tap through the beats or shake left and right as the arrows fall.

Download exclusive tracks or take on your friends in Tap Tap Revenge's unique head-to-head two-player mode. Tap Tap Revenge comes with more than 40 free songs! The game was originally created by Nate True for hacked iPhones. Tapulous bought the game from True and added a number of features, like the two player mode.

Tapulous, which hired a team of "all-star" developers to create applications, raised $1.8 million in capital from a number of high profile angel investors. Tapulous launched in January of this year with the goal of crafting applications exclusively for iPhones and iPod Touch devices, which are essentially iPhones without the mobile telephone feature.

Shazam

The concept behind Shazam is: whenever a user hears a song playing and can't identify it -- on the car FM or at a friend's house, just activate the Shazam application on his mobile phone. It "listens" to the song for about 30 seconds, and then sends a text message to the phone identifying the artist and title. Shazam's database contains audio fingerprints for nearly 5 million songs.

Downloading Shazam from the Apple App Store is free. No charges are mentioned in the terms see, but the company reserves the right to begin charging for its service later (after notifying users).

Labyrinth Lite edition

Labyrinth was one of the first iPhone apps to offer a light version of the game for people to play before coughing out cash for the full version. The game utilises the accelerometer to allow users the ability to tilt and move their iPhone in an attempt to guide a metal ball bearing to its end goal.

Along the way, there are pieces of the maze that stick out and block your path, pegs to keep you from sliding through a short cut, and plenty of holes that will bring you to the beginning of the maze.

Labyrinth is said to respond well to every slight tilt and turn, but users can't quite get the same effect out of nudging it that they can with the actual puzzle.

Once a user beats a level, he moves on and tries another. There are 10 levels to try in the free version.

Remote

Sixth most popular iPhone app of the year 2008 is Remote. Remote is a software application for iPhone and iPod touch that allows users to control audio and video playback in their iTunes library and on Apple TV.

When users first launch the Remote application on their iPhone or iPod touch, they need to complete a one-time pairing procedure to choose which iPhone or iPod touch controls which Apple TV or which copy of iTunes. When controlling an Apple TV or iTunes using Remote, user's iPhone or iPod touch's screen looks much like the mobile version of iTunes.

At the bottom of the screen are Playlist, Artists, Albums, Search, and More buttons; the latter displays a screen with Audiobooks, Composers, Genres, Movies, Music Videos, Podcasts, Songs, and TV Shows.

A neat feature in Remote which is not available in iTunes on the iPhone or iPod touch is Search. Users just need to Tap a few letters and they instantly get a list of all content-- artist names, tracks, movies, etc -- containing the search phrase. Tap on a track or video to play it, or tap on an artist or album to browse its contents. Remote also remembers the user's last search, so the user doesn't lose his results when he switches to another screen.

Google Earth

Google Earth came to iPhone as recently as October 2008, yet the free app has made its place in the top 10 free iPhone apps of 2008.

With Google Earth for iPhone and iPod touch, users can fly to far corners of the planet with just the swipe of a finger. Explore the same global satellite and aerial imagery available in the desktop version of Google Earth, including high-resolution imagery for over half of the world's population and a third of the world's land mass.

With Google Earth for iPhone, users can tilt their iPhone to adjust the view to see mountainous terrain. View the Panoramio layer and browse the millions of geo-located photos from around the world.

View geo-located Wikipedia articles, use the 'Location' feature to fly to their current location and search for cities, places and business around the globe with Google Local Search.

Lightsaber Unleashed

Lightsaber Unleashed is the official release from Lucasfilm Ltd. When users open the application they are taken to what looks like an ad for another StarWars game.

After selecting Lightsaber user is taken to a screen that allows him to either select one of the five characters or create his own. The five characters include Darth Vader, Rahm Kota, Maris Brood, The Apprentice and Shaak Ti. Users can view a full screen picture of their character as well as read a bio about them. The colour of their Lightsaber is displayed as a shadow to their picture.

Users can select their Name, Character Picture, Custom Lightsaber and Even write a Bio for them. Lightsaber customisation too is simple, just choose one of five handles and then scroll the colors till you have get the desired shade.

The application is quite entertaining. It also allows users to play StarWars music in the background as they wield their Lightsaber

AIM

AIM too makes its place among the ten most popular free apps pf 2008. Launched in early 2008, the software allows users to chat over the AIM network, switch among conversations, and upload user profile photos. It is the first `official' native Web chat application for iPhone.

With AOL's AIM chat application, iPhone users can: Send and receive messages over WiFi, EDGE, or 3G networks; connect to anyone on the AIM network worldwide, whether they're on AOL, AIM, ICQ, .mac or MobileMe; manage their Buddy List feature, choose Favorites, or add a new buddy any time -- all changes are automatically synced with iChat; and Send IMs and SMS text messages and take pictures with the built-in camera to use as their Buddy icon.

Urbanspoon

Another big hit on iPhone, the application provides users with many local options when choosing a restaurant.

Designed to find restaurants around, based on the user's location, it finds nearby cities, and a diverse pool of restaurants to choose from.

After using the phone's GPS to detect restaurants in the area, Urbanspoon presents the user with a slot machine-like listing of cuisine types and price.

To activate the slot machine, user needs to give the phone a hard shake (the accelerometers inside the phone will measure the movement). The dials will spin around a few times, and he will be presented with a suggested restaurant (you can shake again if you’re not happy with the option thrown. Urbanspoon also lists recent reviews of the restaurants it finds.