The NoStylus top ten iPod apps

If you’re one of those people that don’t have the iPhone because you don’t make many phone calls, you probably still want to have the benefits of the latest IOS software, which at the moment is iOS five. I know some people that have successfully used an iPod in conjunction with a MiFi to be able to have the iOS mobile platform, while out and about. Sometimes it is much handier to carry a small device such as the iPod rather than to be carrying around the larger iPad. This is despite the fact that the iPad 2 is much lighter than the iPad 1. It is also despite the fact that if your eyesight is such that you need something bigger to look at, then the iPad is going to be better to carry around for your mobile iOS computing. Obviously there are going to be occasions when you need to travel light and to put the iPod into the bag along with a pair of spectacles, is what you have to do.

The top ten iPod apps that are iOS must have applications.

1Password Touch

It is inevitable that when you are using your iPod Touch, you’re going to be doing some website surfing. In these days there is an urgent need for having good passwords on all of your websites, and those passwords each have to be different. To cover your safety with passwords, you have to have the app 1Password. You can have it so that 1Password is available on your Mac computer and have the passwords that you create on the desktop to be synchronised with the passwords that you will use with 1Password touch.

The way that it works is that you have one good password, that you can remember easily as your gateway into the 1Password system that creates good, but hard to remember passwords for all of your different websites.1Password and 1Password Touch makes it so that you don’t have to remember any of those difficult passwords. Best of all it will create passwords for you that will have high security and no one will be gaining access to your bank account, unless you do something stupid. I suggest the best thing to do is to buy the 1Password Touch version that works both on the iPad and also the iPod and iPhone, the universal 1Password.

 

GoodReader

You can use the iPod touch, the iPad and also the iPhone even though the smaller devices are a little bit short on screen space, retinal display notwithstanding, for creating and working on documents. This means that you will need to have access to your files and GoodReader is a great way to get files onto your iOS devices. Using GoodReader you can get your PDF files onto your IOS device then use it for actually reading the document. You can also annotate your PDF files in GoodReader. Of course it is quite likely that you want to do some editing of some of your documents and with GoodReader you can send documents to other applications. You may for instance, decide to send a PDF through to the iBooks application where you may have better settings for it to be read easily. Although within GoodReader, it is not too bad and you can even have a text auto scroll and set the speed of the text as it moves across the touchscreen. Although I have to admit that I’m looking at a PDF at the moment and I haven’t worked out how to make the text scroll. Oh! Wait a minute, it has just started doing it, the reason it wasn’t scrawling before is because when it gets to the end of the page it stops. There is much more that can be said about GoodReader so look out for a full article detailing all the best things about GoodReader.

 

Angry Birds, We Rule, Flight Control HD and Plants Versus Zombies

I have gone for a three in one recommendation for games that you can use while you are waiting in a queue. These are games that are easy and you won’t mind putting down, when you finally do get to the head of the queue. Yes, they are entertaining enough that you’re not going to be completely bored. You could also include Bejewelled and a number of other games within this list. With some of these games it is quite likely that when you are standing in the queue, someone might tap you on the shoulder and ask you to move forward a few paces. It could even be that you have left big enough gaps that you lose your space in the queue and end up waiting for longer. Warning, some of these games are quite addictive.

Evernote – The best note taking application

Taking notes while you are computing on the run, is inevitable. With Evernote you can insert all sorts of notes into the application and it is particularly useful the fact that you can include photographic notes. You can take a photo from your camera or put a photo note in from the camera roll. Evernote is particularly clever in that it will perform OCR on the text within an image, but just so that the notes can be searched. Evernote also takes audio notes, this can be very useful when you’re using one of the small screen iOS devices as it saves typing on a dinky wee keyboard. Audio is not so good if you need a note that it is possible to search.

SimpleNote for the quick one-off note taking

SimpleNote on the other hand is a text only note taking application which synchronises with a web application, which then synchronises with a notes application on your desktop computer. The one that I use on the desktop is called NvAlt. It is a good combination of applications and I can recommend it as it works very well indeed. I tend to have this for the quick short notes that are perhaps more short term.

Skype the telephone app

If you are using a MiFi with the iPod Touch so that you have 3G connectivity, then Skype will think that it is on Wi-Fi and you will be able to make telephone calls using Skype. You will need to have a paid account with Skype if you want to call landlines and mobile phones, although the Skype to Skype calls will be free. On account of many of my contacts are also Skype users, I will quite often use Skype as an IM chat client, just for sending a quick message.

Dropbox – Copying and moving files to iOS Devices

Dropbox is an excellent synchronisation tool. When you are working on your desktop computer, save your files into your Dropbox folder and they are automatically uploaded to the cloud. Work on any files that you create on your IOS device and often there will be a facility within the application, that will allow you to save them to your Dropbox account. Once the files are in your Dropbox folder those files are then also available wherever else you want to use them. Dropbox is not just one of those top ten iPod apps, it is the number one of the must have apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

You will probably need a To-Do application

Again it is difficult to single out a get things done, GTD type of application because there are so many of them. My favourite lately is an application called Wunderlist, it is simple and it does the job for me. Another GTD application that is worth looking at, is called Orchestra, there is Remember the Milk, and Omni focus. There are not big differences between these applications, after all what it really comes down to is you are making lists. It is quite likely though, that you will find one that suits you better than another, so be prepared to try out a couple of them. I recommend that you start with the free ones first of all and work your way through to the expensive ones like Omni focus.

Stitcher Smart Radio

Even though one of the functionalities of the iOS devices is the iPod functionality, the MP3 player, there are times when you may want to listen to something different. Stitcher smart radio gives you another route to podcasts and music channels and is well worth having on your IOS device.

Getting social with iOS

Within iOS 5 Twitter is included so that you can share what you are looking at, to your Twitter account, very handy indeed. But there is not just Twitter to consider, you also have Google plus, Facebook and LinkedIn to think about. There are a number of Twitter clients that you can use on an iOS device, I like Twittelator much better than the official Twitter application. Twitter Bird Pro is not bad either.

There is now an official Facebook application which works very well, and is especially good on the smaller iOS devices, the iPhone and the iPod touch. Particularly good now, is the fact that it is a universal application which also works well on the iPad.

Top ten iPod apps

That is the first round of top ten iPad iPod apps and you can expect to see more posts like these. Keep looking out for the posts in which there will be more detailed information about using these various iOS apps.