1. Dictionary.com – a complete English dictionary and thesaurus downloaded to your phone (free).
2. Wikipanion – searches Wikipedia in a faster time than the official app (free).
3. iCensus – Search the National Archive of Ireland’s 1911 Census from your phone (€2.99).
Movie Genie – For those times when you need to know where you recognise an actor from, you need this IMDB client (€1.59).
4. eBuddy – Instant message facility which can connect to MSN, Yahoo, Gmail and Facebook. Available for free and in a pro version with extra features (€2.39).
5. Ireland Rail/ Dublin Buster – Essential travelling apps with realtime route and arrival information (€1.59/ free).
6. Entertain Me! – Comprehensive nationwide listings guide from Entertainment.ie (free).
7. Georgina Campbell’s Ireland Guide – Find a good place to eat anywhere in Ireland. This app gets your current location and shows you info and reviews of the best restaurants and café in the area (free).
8. Skype – Essential mobile version of Skype gives your iPhone a cheaper way of making international calls and sending texts while abroad (free).
9. Remote – Use your iPhone to control iTunes on your computer (free).
10. Eirtext – Use your allocated O2, Vodafone, Meteor or Three online texts through your phone (free). The pro version allows international texting and scheduling (€2.99).
11. iGmail - If you don’t use iPhone’s native Mail app, this super-fast Gmail one is for you (free).
12. Bloom – Brian Eno’s musical instrument/composing program/piece of art enables anyone to create musical patterns and melodies by just touching the screen (€2.99)
13. Tweetie 2 – The most fully-featured Twitter app available. Features multiple accounts, image and video sharing, instant loading and lots more (€2.39).
14. Boxcar – The only thing that most Twitter apps don’t do can be fulfilled by Boxcar which sends you push alerts when you get a reply or a message. Also works with Facebook and email (free).
15. Facebook – Update and check your social profile anywhere (free).
16. WifiTrak – Helps you find free and open Wi-Fi hotspots no matter where you are in the world (€0.79).
17. The Secret of Monkey Island – Play the classic Lucasarts PC game on your phone in both updated and classic versions. Get the nostalgia flowing (€2.99)
18. Scrabble – Addictive iPhone version of the classic board game. Play against friends over Wi-Fi too (€2.99)
19. Shazam – One of those apps that makes people want an iPhone. Shazam listens to a song playing from a stereo or radio and within seconds, can tell you what the song is as well as discography and purchase information (Free).

Let Them Sing it For You
A Swedish interactive site which allows you to convert any text into a sound file where the clips are pieced together from words sung in popular songs.
http://www.sr.se/p1/Src/sing/

The F**king Weather
We Irish frequently like to talk about the weather in coloured language. Now, here’s a website that give you the f**king forecast in the same vein.
http://thefuckingweather.com

I can’t help it. The thing is just so interesting and the applications are just so fascinating (and sometimes simultanelously downright stupid) that I have to show it off to friends and family. Forget the app that allows you to pretend to drink beer, to draw a lightsaber, or the countless amazing games available, for the last few weeks, it’s been all about music apps for me.

An iPhone app called Wunder Radio (€5.49) has reinvigorated my radio listening. Thousands of stations from around the world are available to browse on demand on your phone with a nice interface. The ability to stream over 3G means you can walk around the city listening to great radio stations like WFMU New York, Radio Helsinki, WOXY Cincinati or your local stations like Power FM, Phantom or Today FM (which has its own app in the iTunes store but suffers from a poor quality 32K stream).

If you need a bit of escapism then try Dub Siren (€1.59) a reggae app which pulls in streams from reggae stations around the world and allows you to be a selecter by applying delay and reggae effects to the live streams. A bit of Jamaica anywhere you go.

The best station-specific app I’ve tried is the KCRW Radio app (€0.79) which is lightning fast in terms of response and offers two live streams and on-demand podcasts. The Santa Monica station’s flagship programme Morning Becomes Eclectic which heavily features live sessions, most recently from the likes of Neil Finn, Sebastian Tellier, Jack Penate and Amadou & Mariam. The live playlists for each program mean you’ll never miss what the tune is ever again.

Which is the same function of the show-stopping Shazam application (Free) which can leave you wondering what kind of rainbow magic it runs on. Hold your phone up to a speaker while a tune is playing from a car stereo or hifi and Shazam will listen and tell you exactly what the song is within five seconds, giving full discography information and buy links. It’s genuinely amazing, useful and knowledgeable. No wonder I keep showing it off to people.

The impressive app has a simple but clever “offline mode” which allows you to listen back to recent playlists. As its only available to premium subscribers, Spotify are pinning their hopes on enough people shelling out €9.99 a month to use it.

Another iPhone app which has impressed me this week is RJDJ, a reactive, real-time music experience which is best demonstrated by a video showing how dance act Kids on DSP utilised the format on their reactive music album.

Using RJDJ and the in-built microphone, the listener can change the album’s mood and textures. Sample your own voice over the track or the tannoy announcement in the train station and the RJDJ technology will take it, manipulate it and sequence it appropriately into the existing track. The album also gets louder or quieter depending on your environment.

RJDJ’s innovative technology falls under the umbrella of augmented reality which we’re going to be hearing much more about in the next six months.

One wonders what the likes of Miles Davis would think of such creative musical experiences, or a project in his honour called Kind of Bloop, an 8-bit or chiptune covers version of his legendary jazz Kind of Blue album made with 8-bit synths normally heard in vintage computer games.

The project was brought to fruition by Andy Baio and five chiptune artists with the help of 411 investors sourced through the innovative site Kickstarter.com. Those 411 backers pledged between $5 up to $100 through Kickstarter so they could seem the album become a reality and gain first access to download the album before it was initially released. Kind of Bloop raised over 400% of its target which was used to pay royalties, the artists and print CDs – quite an impressive feat for essentially, a novelty electronic jazz album.