This is a short review of some, mainly free, Web 2.0 apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
I’ve been using these apps on an iPod Touch so the functionality will be different/less than an iphone and require wifi Internet access.
WordPress – a very useful free app for updating your WordPress blog. There is great functionality with the facility to write and edit posts/pages and to moderate comments. You can also write posts offline (I’m writing this on a train) and upload later. In addition, you can add categories (online only) and tags(even offline).
The only real weakness is that without a working knowledge of HTML the only text editing is the facility to insert weblinks, although you can also insert photos.
‘Free RSS Reader’ – this app also has a ‘Pro’ version but the free version offers the facility to manually enter feeds or to sync feeds from a Google Reader or Newsgator account. Posts can be viewed within the app or through the Safari browser. I’ve found this app sufficient without the need to upgrade to the Pro version.
I should mention Safari itself which is the iPhone web browser and offers access to both mobile and standard web pages. This is a huge advantage over most mobile phone’s Internet access. Despite the limitations of the screen size the magnification features are excellent and other than some image files (presumably Flash) the reproduction of web pages is very good.
Particularly good is the access to Quicktime videos, including BBC iplayer and YouTube (which has it’s own iPhone app which comes as standard). Another very useful feature is that it enables access to web based PDF files.
Even bookmarking sites can be updated on the move. I did try Delicious Free but you can only view your links and tags. This app is very new (only released the end of May 2009) so presumably will be improved upon in future updates.
Consequently I switched to Yummy, the only app in this review which is not free, costing the princely sum of £1.19.
Yummy’s big advantage is that you can add as well as view Delicious links and most importantly you can import web addresses from Safari – a real advantage given the lack of copy and paste on the iPhone/iPod Touch.
Andrew Eynon's Library Blog 