App101: Discover

This is the first of the App101 Series, where you'll find all the everything you need to  know about the featured app. Who knows how often you'll find a new one of these, but be sure that they'll be here.

Anyway, this App101 features Discover, a file sharing app. You may have seen this on my Top 12 Free Apps, and if you haven't, check it out now. So as you may have already gathered, Discover is another one of those amazing free apps from the AppStore, and yes, it is sponsered by ads.

You can do all sorts of stuff with this app. You can send files from one iPhone to another (only files in the app's disk space and photos from the camera roll) or to/from a PC or Mac. The only restriction is that you have to use Wifi on the iPhones. 

To use it with other iPhones, just hit the "browse" button, and it will discover any other iPhones using Discover. To use it with a PC or Mac, just enter the iPhone IP and Port 8888 (i.e. http://192.168.1.100:8888/) into your web browswer and you get a simple and easy to use interface for uploading and downloading files. If you're using Windows and prefer Windows' drag and drop interface, you can use the alternative method. Go to My Computer and click on Map Network Drive (these instructions are for Windows Vista, I don't know exactly how to do this on XP, but its quite similar) and enter the same thing you would enter in the web browser and you should see the iPhone just as you see any other folder on your computer.

When you have that done, you can transfer any file to your iPhone, or download any file in the Discover folder of your iPhone or photo to your computer. This is great if you happen to be at your friends house and wanna get a file from them. Comes in quite handy, huh?

You can also use this app over the internet, but you have to make sure that you have port 8888 open on your router, otherwise it won't work. This way if you want a file from your friend, they can send it straight to your iPhone. The only difference is that instead of using your iPhone's LAN IP (the one used between computers on the same network), you have to use the WAN IP (the one from your router to the internet).

In case you happen to care about the files on your iPhone, there is the option of setting a password to protect some nosy people from seeing those private files  ;P

This is definately one of my favourite apps, the only thing I don't like, however, is that you can't change the port number used to access the iPhone. Ya, I know that most of you don't care about that, but for those that do, there is always Air Sharing for $4.99 (it was at one point free, so if you had downloaded it back then, it's still free for you) which does pretty much the exact same thing, but with a few more options (like changing the port number).

So, I give this an overall rating of 4/5, it's got just about everything you need from an app like this, except the port thing, and it has ads, and we all know how annoying those can be.

Top 10 Free iPhone Apps

Here's the AppStore applications that made their way to my iPhone, and my Top 10 Free iPhone Apps (as well as a description):

Please note that these apps are not listed in order of importance, but in the order they are listed in my iPhone.

Also note that I refer to them as iPhone apps purely because I use them on an iPhone. Most, if not all of these apps will work on an iPod Touch.

1. WeatherEye - A less than simple weather application. Yes, the iPhone's default Weather app is nice, but lacks some information that some users find important such as P.O.P., amount of rain or snow, humidity level, current weather as well as weather for the rest of the day, and even more.
2. To Do's - A simple to-do list that allows you to set the priority of tasks as High, Normal, or Low, and shows you the number of outstanding tasks (either all or High priority only, you can set this in its settings) with a badge on the icon.
3. Remote - An iTunes remote application created by Apple itself. It's quick and easy to use, and requires very little set-up work. This app gives you control of your iTunes library whether you use a Mac or a PC. It's interface is almost identical to your iPod app, and allows your computer to react almost instantly to anything you do on this app.
4. Shazam - A great app for the music lover. Use this app to identify a song playing on the radio, tv, stereo, or other forms of music players. This app will give you the song name, the artist, and the album it was featured on, making this quite a handy app to have.
5. CashFlow Free - A handy way to keep track of your finances. This app is good for everyone, no matter how much money you spend or receive. Displays your spending as a list to see how your cash amount changes, as well as how much you spend in each of the categories you spent in (or received in), which you can create yourself, per week or month. Pretty handy if you wanna cut down on your spending.
6. fring - A simple IM app that allows you to use Skype, MSN Messenger (Windows Live Messenger), ICQ, SIP, Google Talk, Twitter, Yahoo, AIM. You can IM and make internet calls. Pretty nice IM app for those who want to use one service, or more than one service. It also allows you to make SIP, Skype, or Cellular calls straight from the app.
7. ScoreMobile from Score Media Inc. (yup, same guys as on tv) - Good for those who like just about any sport. Gives you scores from NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA (football), NCAA (basketball), MLB, EPL, Champions Soccer, CFL. This thing gives you scores for all games on the current day, previous day, and a list of all the games the next day, and gives you the option of reading a summary of a past game. It even lists your favourite teams games at the top of the list. You can also get stats for any team, and news for the league you're looking at.
8. Discover - An easy to use file sharing app for iPhone-to-iPhone, -PC, -Mac, and you don't have to install any additional applications on your Mac or PC. Just enter in the address of your iPhone with the port (it will give you the exact address you should enter) into your web browser and you can start uploading and downloading files to and from your iPhone. You can use it on a private network or over the internet (must open the port on your router). Comes in quite handy if you want to send files to your friend, or get files from them, view documents, video files, and audio files.
9. Flixster - Quite the informative app for movie-lovers. This gives you information on movies to that have been released on DVD, out in theatres, and soon-to-be-released movies. You can see a summary of the movie, details (such as the ratings, genre), trailers, and reviews from popular movie review websites. On top of all that, this app will find you theatres within 5, 10 km of your current location (thank you GPS), or a postal/zip code you can enter (you can mark theatres as your favourite, too). This will tell you which movies are playing in the theatre, as well as showtimes for the current day, and days to come. You are also given the option of buying movie tickets from a website. Not bad for a single app, huh?
10. What's On? - A great tv guide. Set your favourite shows (or just search for one) and you can find out the next time it will show, as well as future showings. You can browse through channels like any other tv guide for a date and time of your choosing. Unlike other free iPhone tv guides which take unbearable amounts of time to download then install tv listing updates, this one does the same work in much less time.
11. myLite - A light app. This can work as quite a bright and handy flashlight, even though that isn't its actual purpose. Unlike most other flashlight apps, this one allows you to use different colours and animated colours (i.e. emergency light, police light, etc.)
12. VLCRemFree - A free remote for VLC media player. This is a free version of a better app, so its features are limited to pause, play, and stop (the full version lets you do more, such as select files to play). It's handy, but lacks features, and it takes a bit of work to set it up, which is why it was listed as app #12.

O.K., so maybe that wasn't exactly 10 apps, but I felt I needed to include the last two, and who searches for Top 12 Apps? I know I don't. So yea, Top 12. Deal with it.

So those were my Top 12 Free iPhone Apps, and I like them, they're my favourites. If my favourites happen to change, I'll make a new post. 'Til then enjoy this list, and while you're at it, take a look at other apps created by the same developers.

Welcome to iPhone 101

Welcome to iPhone 101.

Here you can: 

• read reviews of AppStore apps (especially the free ones ;) )
• get information (and instructions) to some of the iPhone's more special features 
• find out about some of the latest iPhone-related news 
• and much more...

Anyway, stay tuned to see what's soon to come here at iPhone 101

Thanks for visiting :D

P.S. For future references, all testing and use is done on an iPhone 3G