4: CIA World Factbook
Do you want to know what the flag of Scotland really looks like? What about the size of the military of Israel (remember, they 'don't have nukes')? No matter what you want to find out, if it is public record, then the CIA World Factbook will have it. The Factbook has been published since 1962, but it didn't go online until the early 2000s. Now, finally, the Factbook has made yet another leap — it has made it to the portable phone market. Using your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can explore the entire world, learn thousands of new things, and answer all of your quiz questions. At only $.99, there is no reason not to grab a copy of CIA World Factbook today.
3: Doc Scanner
For most months, Doc Scanner would probably be the best application of that month; for April, however, it was beaten by two better applications. Don't get me wrong, this application is still amazing and highly usable. Grab your iPhone, take a picture, and you can scan it into a PDF document. It is really that simple, and really that useful. You can use Doc Scanner to scan anything, send it into work, or use it to 'fax' a contract to your partner. Even more, the application will crop and isolate the image for you, so you have no work to do. At $9.99, Doc Scanner might be a bit expensive, but it is worth it.
2: Camera Zoom
The biggest thing missing on the iPhone is the ability to zoom in with your camera. Even the cheapest camera phones on the market can zoom, yet the iPhone can not. Finally, there is an application that fixes this issue. Camera Zoom will apply standard antilogarithms to digitally zoom up to 4 times. The application will adjust automatically, display the zoom in real time, and lets you tap anywhere on the screen to get a picture off. In all, this is the most complete and, probably the best camera application currently out there. And, for only $.99, there is absolutely no reason not to get Camera Zoom.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
CarMinder looks interesting if you have to be "on the cheap," but I'd also suggest users look at Car Care, which is what I used after doing a lot of research. I find it has a LOT more detailed information, doing everything Car Minder does plus displaying graphs of both gas price and gas mileage, plus a breakdown of stats such as total cost per mile, carbon footprint, best/worst/average fuel economy, etc. It's a great app - I haven't been disappointed yet.
On the "Iphone zoom" issue, this is almost a moot point. Given Apple's general attitude, I can see why they chose to leave it out. Digital zoom is a lossy process. Despite what people want to have us believe about the Iphone camera, it is actually surprising good for what it is. It takes very nice, colorful, sharp pictures for such a tiny little camera. I get consistently decent images from it, to the point that I use it all the time. Adding digital zoom would sully the quality of the camera - zooming simply means cropping the image, then enlarging it, which significantly lowers the quality of the image. When we're talking about 2 megapixel images to begin with, that's not a real good idea. The best results are going to be done on a computer in Photoshop or something equivalent. That said, I can see the use of something in camera for those moments when you just have to have it.
I just wish I could get all my camera apps in ONE app, as I now have several, the most used being Mobile Fotos (for Flickr upload,) Darkroom Pro (utilizes the Iphone's accelerometers to take a shot when the Iphone is perfectly still - great for dark places,) and iFlashReady (which applies one of three different sets of levels to add contrast to images - it really works great as long as the image isn't already too light.) If Adobe could come out with an iPhotoshop, I would happily pay a premium as a long, long time user of PS. I haven't found one that does it all, unfortunately. Hmm, maybe I need to learn to program for the Iphone . . .
2 - Tom Johnson
I have to rescind my support for iFlashReady based on the update that the developer put out, and that's based on one big problem: IFR now overwrites the original image rather than making a copy with the changes. A HUGE no-no. Incredibly stupid change. Until this functionality is reinstated, I suggest everyone look elsewhere, unfortunately.
3 - Adam
For self-learners, I've come across an extension list of 100 iPhone apps that can be used by self-learners.
4 - Robert M. Barga
@Adam
please don't link to something that really isnt that useful in my article
5 - Robert M. Barga
the thing is that the phone should have had a physical zoom. The digital works well, as it simply blows up using less megapixels, and it actually results in good image
i will check out car care, that one missed me.
6 - iFlashReady developer
Hello, Tom,
iFlashReady is not, and is not authorized to overwrite any source images. The only thing IFR can do is create new images in "Saved Photos" folder.
iPhone OS forbids any application to overwrite the source image. If you load a photo from another folder, say, "Photo Library", the result after IFR is written to "Saved Photo" folder.