First Week With the Apple iPad

Updated April 21, 2010.

The world probably doesn't really need another iPad review, does it?

There's a glut out of them out there.

And I'm not a tech reviewer. I'm a gadget nut, so feel free to discount my enthusiasm by the appropriate percentage. After all, I did pre-order this thing sight unseen so it could be delivered on Day One.

So this post will be impressionistic, just some notes on my first week with the device.

First: It's fast. Snappy. It makes the iPhone and the iPod Touch seem slow. It makes a Macbook seem slow.

Second: The battery life is amazing. You don't even think about the battery. I plug it it in every night, and have used it heavily many days. It has never dropped below 50 percent.

Remarkable for an Apple product: It doesn't get hot -- unlike my Macbook Air, or my iPhone, which can get uncomfortable to the touch and sluggish with heavy use. I have often thought that Steve Jobs was trying to brand me with his products. No more. A negative: At a pound a half, it's kind of heavy. Not as heavy as a MacBook Air or a Thomas Pynchon hardback, but heavier than a Kindle. The answer to this problem is the Apple case. I like it. It's simple and functional. You can hold it like a book. You can prop it at an angle. You can stand it up like a little TV, a far better experience than watching movies on a laptop or a desktop computer.

Another negative: In bright daylight, reflections can be distracting if you're trying to read or watch something. And it shows every fingerprint. I don't imagine using it in sunlight all that much.

Something I didn't expect: The photo frame function is great. I put thousands of pictures on the iPad. Then I just prop it up on the mantle and let it shuffle through them. I've never enjoyed having everyone crowd around the computer to look at pictures, and showing them on the TV involves too much rigmarole. This is more akin to paging through hard-copy photo albums.

Not entirely Apple's fault: Some apps are crashy or lack obvious features. You can't turn off Twitterrific's bird noises. Tweetdeck's beta won't let you click on links in tweets. What! (Update: This may have been fixed in recent days.) The ABC app crashed, but seems better after an update. That one has a touch of evil. You can pause and fast-forward/rewind programs, but not the commercials. I flash back to pre-TiVo days, plan my bathroom trips around them. Still, it's not as crashy as the original iPhone was after third-party apps started showing up.

Public use: I remember when I first got an iPhone, and a Kindle. I felt self-conscious taking them out on the subway. For one thing, while crime is down, you have to be a little nervous riding underground with a $700 piece of hardware. It's a bit nerve-racking to think about taking it out, feeling eyes on me. That's not my thing. I like to be left alone in public. I can't wait until everyone has one of these things, or something like it. And they will.

Mostly I expect to use this at home and on long trips. For that reason, I didn't really need the 3G version, and the lack of connectivity outside WiFi-enabled locations has not been a problem. In New York, WiFi is rarely far away.

Something else I didn't expect: I didn't think I would listen to music on the iPad, but I've surprised myself. First of all, the speaker is great, so it makes a nice little radio. I can play things for my wife without using the computer or the stereo or the Apple TV, and I'm not isolated by my headphones. So it's a great way to share NPR or Pandora or whatever I have on the device. I also listen to music or podcasts on the headphones while web surfing. It's a lot easier than juggling a second device, an iPod or an iPhone, for the music. But the lack of multitasking is a negative here: I'd like to be able to see what's playing at a glance, or pause it, without exiting my app.

About some apps: My employer's app, Editor's Choice [iTunes link], is beautiful, but it should allow link sharing through Facebook or Twitter and have more content. But reading the paper on Safari for iPad is great, so it doesn't really matter, I guess. And I do give credit to Apple for having the Amazon Kindle app on the iPad from day one. All my Kindle books, many of them untouched since my Kindle died, are there. I keep it next to the iBooks app. Amazon has the better selection and prices, and you can make notes in the app. The iBooks app and store has some cooler flourishes and feels better designed (the page-turning illusion is cool). E-book reading was my main reason for getting the iPad now as opposed to waiting for a future model.

The good news is that many iPhone apps, like iChess, work and look just fine with the pixel-doubling function.

Money grab?: It's annoying that some developers have decided to charge a second time for the iPad versions of apps I own for the iPhone. If you make a good one, I'll buy your other apps. Or give me a free trial version at least. And Time magazine -- $4.99 for a single issue, in an app that only works once? Give me a break. Another magazine app, Zinio, has a free selection, but it's a bit awkward to navigate.

An annoyance: I don't know if it's a bug or not, but I get tired of entering my iTunes password every time I open the iBooks app or the iTunes store. Other people don't report this problem, so maybe it's just me. The whole iTunes tethering business has been criticized in many reviews. Why do you need to hook the iPad up to a computer to get it started? Seems like a ploy to get iTunes downloaded onto PCs or to sell Macs. And why can't I just move documents and other user files directly from my computer or network without ramping up iTunes? (Yes, I know, there are apps for that -- I like Readdledocs, which just released an iPad version.)

A third thing I didn't expect: YouTube is back in my life. I was never one to surf around the site. I usually only go there with a link. The iPhone app was cool, but it crashed a lot, and the video was too small. The iPad is the perfect device for YouTube. The videos are just the right size. It's not as crashy as the phone. I spent an evening lost in the site. In general, it's a great device for video.

I've spent a lot of time streaming Netflix and watching TV. I've watched three shows on the ABC app, and skimmed comics on several of the comic applications. It's a cool experience, but I don't think I'll buy many comics this way. It's not the same as owning the art.

Bottom line: Is this a laptop replacement? Definitely not. Even if I get the keyboard stand or the bluetooth keyboard, it is hard to imagine writing long memos, blog posts or articles on this, or editing them. Perhaps I might get used to it, but from what I hear I expect it will be odd to have to use the screen as a touch-mouse while editing with an external keyboard. I still prefer the visibility of a larger screen for actual work.

I also like the ability to switch between a photo app, files and the document I'm writing. Even when multitasking is added in the fall with the new operating system, it is hard to imagine that being satisfactory except when I'm on the run. Having to sync Keynote or text documents through iTunes also seems like a hassle. Yes, I know there are ways to do some wireless document sharing, printing and storage on the cloud. But it seems complicated for big projects and day to day use.

Is this a phone replacement? No, it's too big, and I didn't get the 3G. There are apps that will let you make calls over the Internet, and I could imagine this as a Skype device, but there's no camera, front-facing or otherwise.

Is this a Kindle replacement? Yes. Reading on it is superior, and you don't need a booklight.

What I'm finding is that I am migrating certain functions to the iPad. Some things are simply not all that comfortable on a laptop -- watching video, playing casual games. My daughter loves the Phineas and Ferb game for the iPad, above.

It's fun to curl up on a couch or in bed with this thing. I've done that with a laptop, which is a bit awkward, and with my phone, which is a squinting experience much of the time.

I wish my laptop did email the way the mail app on the iPad does it. It's a better interface, and I don't see why it wouldn't work on a computer.

The iPad is better for using Twitter than either a laptop or a phone -- the touch interface and the size of the screen makes it an immersed experience.

The third-party developers just need to fix their apps; once Tweetdeck has links, this will be my main device for using Twitter. The large, touch-based experience is superior to the computer and the iPhone.

Ultimately, though, it's a toy, not a work device, at least for me. Do you need one? That's a bit like asking, do you need a flat-screen TV? No, you don't need a flat-screen TV, or any TV. Do you need to buy books? No, not really. You don't have to read newspapers or surf the Internet, either. And there are plenty of ways to do all of those things without owning an iPad.

But sooner or later, I suspect, you will see an iPad (or a device like it) doing something you love in a better way than you are doing it now. And it will be cheaper than it is now.

Considering the iPad as a Kindle Replacement

You've seen the new toy. You've seen the experts debate: Will the Apple iPad "save" newspapers, journalism, book publishing? Will it kill the Amazon Kindle? Is this the death of the laptop, and the PC as we know it? Has Apple just signaled the death of the ultraportable MacBook Air? Will it replace smartphones like the iPhone or Nexus One? Has Apple just pwned another media marketplace -- sorry Amazon, Google, Microsoft? Goodbye, netbooks? Farewell, computers? Blah, blah, blah. Nobody knows the future, so such pronouncements are justifiably viewed as so much hype. I'm not a tech or media critic, though I work for a newspaper (and yes, full disclosure, that paper does seem to have a working relationship with the iPad developers, but I had no role in that or the news coverage of the tablet).

I'm approaching this as a gadget lover and a reader. And to this consumer, the iPad vs. Kindle question is the most important one. To my surprise, I find myself leaning toward the cheapest, $499 iPad without 3G or a lot of storage.

Back in August, my Amazon Kindle's e-ink display melted down. A tragedy.

I had some frustrations with the Kindle. The hardware of the first model in particular always felt a little cheap and poorly designed. I was constantly turning pages by mistake.

While e-ink did seem to reduce eyestrain, I went through a series of booklights that didn't quite fit the device and had to be positioned just-so to avoid creating glare on the screen.

I actually found the backlit Kindle app on the iPhone to be easier for reading in bed and on planes.

The Kindle did a poor job rendering newspapers and magazines. The user interface was awkward, requiring you to page through endless menus. The device didn't have enough storage. And the crippled experimental browser was so bad that some users are apparently willing to pay Amazon for blog posts. And I actually paid Amazon for the privilege to email PDFs to myself.

But I forgave all that. I loved my Kindle. Its always-on, free Internet connection made downloading free first chapters and shopping for books anywhere a dream. The eBook prices (and first chapter previews) were easy on my wallet. The selection was Amazonian. I no longer had to lug around so many heavy books on vacation trips. So I really missed it when it died. And I lusted for the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. The Nook and Sony Reader didn't measure up. But I held off, because everyone suspected the Apple tablet was coming soon.

Now that I've seen the iPad, I think it's my Kindle replacement. I'll have to hold one and read on it to be sure.

Do I need another way to watch movies and video? Not really, but it's cool the iPad does that. Do I need another way to get my email or surf the Web? Not really, but any device that can't do those things easily loses points. Do I need another way to write or do other computer work on the run? Not necessarily, but it's great that the iPad has some solutions for that. Do I need another music player? Not one this big. Do I need another mobile GPS device? Again, not one this big. Do I need another way to display digital photos? (Well, actually, that is kind of cool).

But as a book reader, it seems like a winner. This may not be the greatest news for Apple's bottom line or its dreams of a media revolution.

Consider the iPad's reading features: The ability to turn pages via touchscreen. Books with color charts and photography. Books with video embedded. Everything in Amazon's proprietary format via the Kindle app. Everything else that comes in the (relatively open) ePub format, including many Google Books and everything else available on the Stanza reader. (The Kindle limits you to the Amazon library.)

With customized apps, the iPad will render magazines, newspapers and other print items far better than anything out there, including standard Web browsers on computers.

And yes, that will allow some content providers to charge for the enhanced reading experience. That won't "save" journalism or book publishing. Journalism doesn't really need saving, but devices like this will be another force working to transform how it is distributed and financially supported. That will be good news for bloggers and small news shops looking for income, not just the big corporate media.

Sure, the Kindle hardware and software will catch up -- but it's still wedded to the proprietary Amazon format. Sure, there will other devices, running Google Chrome or Android, netbook-type devices from the Windows world, and proprietary gadgets from some content providers (which will probably fail). All that competition will be good for consumers and content providers everywhere.

But one other thing tips the balance toward the iPad for me that might not apply to everyone: I am among the minority that live in a Mac world, and there's a justifiable expectation that the iPad will work seamlessly within that world, from iPhone apps to the iTunes store. I'm not an unreasoning fanboy. If the iPad turns out to be as buggy as my Apple TV, or too locked down (what, no Flash?), I'll be annoyed.

Much of the commentary has focused on whether the iPad will replace the laptop or even the desktop computer. It might, for people who don't really need computers for their jobs, who are more consumers of content than creators. It might appeal to casual touch-gamers, but not hard-core PC gamers.

I don't think an iPad would completely replace my MacBook Air (which I got after flirting with a cheaper, smaller Acer Windows netbook; too awkward to use routinely, and I remembered why I hated Windows).

For work, I need to use Microsoft Word, and I need to run the newsroom's publishing software, which is a bit of a system hog. I want to be able to run the Firefox browser, with some special plugins for work, and I bet the iPad will be a Safari world. I rely heavily on Bento 3, and the iPhone version of that program is pretty much useful only as a read-only app for me. I need to be able to view my paper's video players and other Flash content, which the iPad doesn't do (although it appears that the customized Times app for the iPad does play video, based on the keynote demo). And with a keyboard stand, the iPad looks a bit awkward for day to day office or home use on a lap. I don't enjoy writing anything longer than a Tweet with a touchscreen keyboard. And the iPad's maximum 64 gigabytes of storage is not enough.

This would be a third device after the laptop and the iPhone, and I probably wouldn't carry it every day. I imagine it would mostly be for home use, or trips. It's for pleasure, a toy, not a necessity.

So that leaves the cost question. The gadget freak in me lusts for the high-end $829 iPad with 64 gigabytes and 3G connectivity. That's an awful lot for an e-book reader, and might not pass the spouse's-raised-eyebrow test. At that price, I might not feel comfortable flashing it around on the New York subway, either.

But do I really need 3G and an always-on connection? Looking back on my Kindle usage, I mainly downloaded things at home or the airport, both places where WiFi is not a problem. More and more free WiFi hot spots are popping up, and more friends have wireless in their apartments. It's becoming customary to give your WiFi password (if you lock it down) to friends and other guests. No device can give me Internet in most of the subway. And with AT&T's network still overloaded in Manhattan, browsing the Internet via 3G is not all that fun, though it's great to have a 3G phone in an emergency.

Those factors make the non-3G $499 to $699 models more attractive than the tech pundits realize, as I posted to Twitter earlier this week. Many hard-core geeks can't imagine not having maximum connectivity everywhere, whereas I can't imagine paying another $30 to AT&T for yet more slow Internet. I'd rather spend the money on books and other content. So the main trade-off when it comes to cost will be the gigs of storage versus price. I already spend a lot of time managing audio and video files on my maxed-out 32G iPhone. When I travel, I keep extra content on an old 60G video iPod. Books don't take up much space, but a few movies and TV series will fill this up quickly.

There's another factor, too -- the life of the device. Early adopters might be salivating to have the first generation, but we know that the next one in a year or two will probably be better. It might have a camera, more storage, software improvements, subsidized deals with content providers, and so on. An early adopter with a smaller budget is probably better off with the cheapest model this time around.

That's where I'm heading. What am I missing?

(One more thing: If this device melts down, Pee Wee Herman points out it could have other uses. Also, it turns out the iPad is better than this primitive tool.)

March 2010 Update: Yes, I did order the non-3G iPad today, but I opted for the one with the biggest storage, 64G at $699. I figure I'll load it up with media, so I wanted the extra capacity, but I still don't see a need for 3G. I've never needed it for my laptop.

April 2010 Update: I wrote about my experience with the Apple iPad here.)

Third-Party iPhone Apps I Actually Still Use

Update: New list for October 2014 is here.

More often than I care to recall, I have impulsively downloaded a fancy new iPhone application, only to have it languish on my phone. That was the inspiration for the first "list of iPhone apps I actually use" last year, after the iTunes store started selling third-party applications. Since then, the number of new applications has grown rapidly. Now there's a cottage industry of lists, blogs and podcasts devoted to reviewing applications. Here's a recent Techcrunch list of the "best" apps, which notes the store had 300 new apps rolling out every day. Here's a similar post at Gizmodo, which put the total number of apps at more than 74,000. Many of the lists that try to sort out the best applications seem to focus more on flash than substance.

In August, I finally renewed my AT&T contract and upgraded to the iPhone 3GS. It seemed like the right time to reconsider the programs I had loaded onto my phone. Did I actually use them?

Here's my revised list:

Bento This has quickly become one of my favorites. For the Mac, the $49 Bento 2 is a quick and easy database program that works with spreadsheets and other data sets, like staff lists, to-do lists, project tracking, and so on. The iPhone Bento software syncs beautifully with it, so you have all your important data on your phone. Too bad it's not free with the computer software, but I didn't mind paying $4.99. This could work as a standalone iPhone application (if you live in a Windows PC world, say) but a warning: There are a number of bad reviews on the iTunes store from people who tried building databases directly on the iPhone. I haven't tried; as a way to sync and render Bento 2 files on an iPhone, this app is great.

Google Mobile App I still use this application quite a bit to search the Web, bypassing Safari. It used to be the only way to search the contents of the phone (now the iPhone OS can do that, too). Voice search is cool, but it's still something of a party trick. The word recognition is getting better all the time, though it has trouble in loud places like the sidewalks of New York. I hope they keep tweaking it. I also enjoy Google Earth, another nifty iPhone toy.

MightyDocs If you use Google Documents, this gives you fast access to them over the phone. And if you are going to be away from easy Internet access, you can cache them all on your phone. It now has basic spreadsheet support, which was missing in the original. And it's still free.

ReaddleDocs But you may have documents you don't want to keep in the cloud. This $4.99 app offers a drag-and-drop solution from your computer over a WiFi network to the phone for a range of documents, including Word docs, spreadsheets, PDFs and more. A lot of people seem to use the similar Airsharing tool, but ReaddleDocs has been a smoother experience for me, with more features and flexibility. It comes with 512mb of online storage, syncs with MobileMe and iDisk, and a variety of other Web cloud solutions. It even has a built-in browser that lets you save Web content, making it a possible replacement for bookmark/clipping applications like Evernote, which I still have on my phone and computers but don't use much.

Echofon Pro (formerly called Twitterfon) is my main choice for a Twitter phone client. It handles retweeting seamlessly (without giving you attitude, like its competitor Tweetie). It can show tweets and replies in a conversation format, among other cool features. The free, advertising-supported version is just as good.

Facebook Newly updated, this application is nicely put together, attractive, with intuitive navigation of the Facebook site. Some reviewers say the iPhone version is better than the Web site, and perhaps that is a hint about the mobile future to come, when computers go the way of typewriters and most of us carry the Internet in our pockets.

PicPosterous One-click picture and video posting to a Posterous photo blog page (here's mine), for quick sharing with friends. It will also autopost to other social media sites like Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter. This app is a snap. Here's an auto-slideshow I posted of the aftermath of a taxi fire near my apartment.

Textplus AT&T used to include 200 free SMS text messages a month with the iPhone data plan. Now it wants you to pony up a monthly fee or pay by the message, making those bits some of the most expensive on the Internet. I don't use enough text messages to warrant paying for a plan, so I'm a la carte. One way to keep costs down is with this free ad-supported application. It gets around the cost by setting up a Web-based group chat with you and your correspondents. Once you text their phone numbers they can reply at no cost to you, even if they don't have TextPlus themselves. With push notification, it behaves like the native SMS client.

AIM Another free alternative to SMS is instant messaging via mobile. I have a lot of work contacts on AIM, gChat and similar networks. This application loads those contacts and lets me chat by phone (again, without per-message charges).

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary At $49.99, this is the most expensive application on my list, and possibly one of the most expensive in the iTunes store. It has more than 600,000 words and definitions, a distillation of the 20-volume O.E.D. into just two volumes. It includes all words in current English from 1700 to the present, and includes a word-of-the-day feature and a randomizing feature for browsing. The best resource for learning the derivations of obscure words.

Shakespeare The complete works of William Shakespeare in a well-designed reader. Follow along at Shakespeare in the Park. Free, from Readdle.

Kindle for iPhone Many people don't agree, but I think that the e-book reading experience on this application is better than the actual Kindle, especially if you like to curl up with your reading material at night without bothering with a booklight. And now I don't have much choice, since my Kindle 1 exploded, and I'm not ready to commit to a new one. At least I still have access to the books I bought with this free app. Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions don't work, nor can you read documents you have sent to yourself or ebooks from sources other than Amazon. The coolest feature is the Whisper Sync: It takes you to the most recent page you read, whether on the phone or the Kindle.

Stanza This is an even better e-book reader, a competitor that Amazon bought out. Alas, it doesn't connect to the Amazon store or read the Kindle format (yet). The library connects to Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks and other services that offer free public-domain texts of many classics. You can also buy books from certain indie operations. The page-turning, fonts and other features are superior to the Kindle for iPhone application. You can even put your own documents and ebooks into Stanza, a feature supported by the Kindle but not its iPhone cousin.

iWant For when you just want to quickly find a nearby restaurant, bar or gas station, without gee-whiz graphics to impress your friends. It's free.

Yelp The user-rating restaurant/bar/etc site powers many other location-based restaurant apps, so you might as well use Yelp's app, which works well and is attractive. Just be sure apply a grain of salt to the reviews by the site's notoriously cranky and vengeful users.

UpNext 3D NYC If you want to show off gee-whiz graphics while out on the town, this $2.99 mapping application is a great option, so long as the town is Manhattan (sorry, rest of New York City and the U.S.). The map is rendered in 3-D with each building's contents inventoried, and listings features will zip you around the map to newly opened restaurants, bars and so forth.

Urbanspoon Some people swear by this random restaurant finder, an early application in the store. I think it's gimmicky and annoying, but I do resort to its roulette wheel charms when I'm in a large group and we can't agree on a cuisine or a price range. It's also a good app for showing off the phone to newbies.

NYTimes The first version of my employer's fre reader was too slow for some, but the latest update is pretty snappy. The articles download faster, you can bookmark them and share them via e-mail. Since my Kindle had its meltdown, this is my main portable way to read the paper. If I know I have a long subway ride, I download the news before heading underground to the land of no Internet. There is a menu that shows all the photos from the paper, and it's pretty easy to customize the sections you want to see when you first open the application.

WSJ Why pay for online news from The Wall Street Journal when you can get it free with this nicely done mobile reader? But note the warning: "Access to subscriber-only content available without charge for a limited time only."

NPR News My wife can't bear to be separated from National Public Radio, and I am a sometimes addict myself. But when we travel, we sometimes find ourselves out of range of a good public radio station. This audio player is great for listening to any NPR shows at any time, either recorded versions or live streaming from NPR stations. The unrelated Public Radio Player is pretty good, too, and lets you listen to streaming content from a long list of local public radio stations (not just NPR).

AOL Radio, Last.FM and Pandora. Another way to turn the iPhone into a radio is with one or all of these free players. Lilsten to Internet radio, create streaming customized channels, and even buy music.

Remote This was one of the earliest and coolest free iPhone tools. Turn the phone into a full-featured iTunes remote for your computer or Apple TV. Browse your media library in the palm of your hand.

i.TV Television listings on your phone, with push notifications to remind you of upcoming programs and user reviews. The new version will eventually allow the phone to be used as a remote for Tivo HD (but not my 10-year-old TiVo Series 2, alas). It also has movie reviews and Netflix integration.

Amazon So you see a product of interest somewhere -- on a train, at a friend's house, in a brick-and-mortar store. No more scribbled notes or typing. Launch this application, and take a picture for the "You asked us to remember" function. In a few minutes, Amazon will find a similar item in its store. It worked the first time for me with a fairly poor quality picture of an obscure book's cover; no bar code required. It worked with a picture I took of a review on the cover of The New York Times Book Review. And it's not just for books. It worked for a demitasse. And with a picture of a cordless phone handset wanted to replace (alas, that model is no longer manufactured, but Amazon had a product page). It recognized a plush dinosaur toy someone bought for my daughter. You may be obsessed with finding objects it can't identify. Or you may find yourself taking pictures of every object of desire. If you're doing this in a real store, you may have to confront ethical questions. That's your business. Just watch out for the Amazon one-click -- the path from looking something up to an immediate impulse buy is nearly frictionless.

1Password The day you lose your phone, you'll be happy the person who found it doesn't have access to all your sites, accounts and passwords. This secures and encrypts them, and it syncs with the passwords on your computer. (This app was free, but you do have to pay for 1Password software for your Mac itself).

Wikipanion Look it up on Wikipedia with a few touches. But please don't cite it in your term papers if you are one of my wife's students. I tried a few Wikipedia apps and settled on this one for its easy lookup functions. I'm testing the official Wikipedia application, as well as Wapedia, and will revise this post if I come to like one of them more.

WikiHow A free version of the popular how-to Wiki. It includes a bonus survival guide stored on your phone, for emergencies how-to situations (My favorite: "How to Escape From the Trunk of a Car.")

Mixologist I'm mostly a wine-and-beer guy, but every now and then I find myself at a beach house with an odd assortment of liquor and mixers. This 99-cent application lets you search for the drink you can make with the ingredients at hand, using a nice interface. There are many other cocktail recipes for the amateur bartender. There's also a liquor store finder built into it. If this application sounds more appealing than it should, you might consider this one.

Brushes This simple finger-painting program is a favorite of artists and was famously used to create a New Yorker cover. Now it has layers and photo-importing, and even the most artistically challenged painter can create beautiful images.

I Dig It, Waterslide, Parapanic, Jelly Car, Tapword, Bejeweled, Toy Bot Diaries, de Blob, Stone of Destiny, Scrabble, Enigmo, Tetris, Super Monkey Ball, DizzyBeeFree, BattleAtSea, Bubblewrap, Morocco The iPhone is a great gaming platform. Games tend to a few dollars or more on iTunes, so you have to choose carefully. These are among the best, based on extensive kid-testing with my 9-year-old daughter and her friends (I helped). Several take great advantage of the touchscreen, accelerometer and other functions in clever ways.

Shazam and Midomi Fun with music. Amuse your friends. Hold Shazam up to a playing music source, and it identifies the song. Midomi is similar, but you can also say lyrics or hum to get a list of possible song titles. One day at work we were all standing around singing songs into it. Karaoke without background music, a terrifying spectacle. The link shows a Shazam-Midomi face-off on YouTube; Shazam won for reliability and usefulness. Both are free and worth having, although the novelty of these party tricks wears off eventually. Another fun music application is the Ocarina, which turns the phone into a musical instrument broadcasting on the Internet, but I don't use it that much.

Live Cams Another useless stunt app. Browse public Webcams, and view your own private cams if you know the address. Pretty much a waste of time, but interesting. The marketing suggests you can use it to watch semiclad people on beaches, but, uh, there might be easier ways to find that on the Internet. I like to look at Times Square to make sure it's still there. New parents might want to use it to set up a babycam in the nursery.

iHandy Level Sometimes you just want to know if that table is level. This is a sometimes-useful tool that will impress old timers who think the iPhone is a useless tool. Free (for now). Is there a great or useful application I've missed and should try? Tell me in the comments.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Jan. 26

This week's installment is the Podcast Zeitgeist of second chances, and probably the last such post for a good long while. I'll continue to listen to a few favorites, but a hiatus is in order. This started as an effort to make some notes about what worked for me as a listener. But it became an exhausting and time-consuming exercise, particularly since I sampled many more hours than I ever wrote about. It was cutting into my Twittering time. At some point I may summarize what I have learned, or not.[See all lists.]

Cranky Geeks 150: Big Wig Bailouts As tech podcasts go, this is one of the best, hosted by John C. Dvorak, with Sebastian Rupley of PC Magazine, Chris DiBonaof Google and Jason Cross of Extreme.com. Topics: Steve Jobs, Bernie Madoff, the fake Belkin reviews scam, disruptive technology like location apps and more. Dvorak keeps it moving. Good stuff. Running time: 31:40 minutes including several ads. Released: Jan. 21.

This Week in Media 123: Guns, Drugs and DVDs</a>. Daisy Whitney, Alex Lindsay and Dr. Kiki Sanford in a meaty discussion of new media technologies like Microsoft's Silverlight and CNN's Photosynth experiment for the Obama inauguration. YouTube music takedown notices. Do you stream or download Web video? Dr. Kiki: Streaming is getting easier, but buffering is still annoying, on the road. Whitney can't be bothered to download and sync video to a device. Beware: Even without DRM, iTunes songs contain your e-mail address. Depressing news from the old media business. Running time: 1 hour 7 minutes. Released: Jan. 20.

MacBreak Weekly 124: The Warmth and Saturation of Analog. Scott Bourne plugs his hard-to-remember photo critique site URL. Andy Ihnatko makes the funny. Frederick Van Johnson talks about getting laid off from Adobe. They are also joined by Alex Lindsay and Lisa Bettany. Twit site show notes are getting better. The health of Steve Jobs, again. Record iPhone app downloads (or are those just updates?) See the week's hardware and software picks here, including the very cool-sounding $200 2-gig Livescribe Pen. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. Released: Jan. 20.

This Week in Tech 179: Retail Therapy Laporte again, with Dr. Kiki, John C. Dvorak, Wil Harris of Channelflip, and Andrew Horowitz. Links discussed are bookmarked on Delicious. Good show, including a discussion of how Monty Python DVD sales shot up after the creation of an official, and free, YouTube channel. (Rathole: Military recruiting ads in movies and direct mail. Laporte says his teenage son gets junk mail: "Have you thought about what you're going to do when you drop out of high school?" Dvorak: "Let's get to some of these news stories.") Twitter raising cash. Foul-mouthed Carol Bartz, new Yahoo CEO, says she will drop-kick anyone who leaks, and then the leaking starts, inculding her breezy memo about "retail therapy." She is mocked. Health of Steve Jobs, again. The story behind Microsoft Songsmith, oy. CNN Photosynth, again. Various Obama tech stories, from Barackberry to Whitehouse.gov and the federal government's tech dark age. Huge traffic at Facebook. Dvorak on how to TiVo the Super Bowl properly and Horowitz on shorting the U.S. economy. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes. Released: Jan. 26.

Geek Loves Nerd 34: In-Laws The main segment is up front, an improvement over the last time I listened. This married Missouri couple gives advice to listeners about children, relationships and more. As the cute opening song explains, James is the geek and Jenn is the nerd. This week, they give advice about in-laws that I completely endorse as a married person with a child. Best example: Don't discuss your marital problems with your parents. They will naturally side with their own child and carry the grudge long after you have forgiven your spouse and forgotten about it. This is a clean podcast, but a warning: The views of sex roles are a bit stereotypical (men = breadwinners etc.) though perhaps that is intended humorously. Running time: 53:26 minutes. Released: Jan. 23.

The 40-Year-Old Boy: Episode 44. O.K., so much for the clean stuff. Here's a second listen from the world of blue podcast humor. Last week, the comedian Mike Schmidt depressed his listeners with an hourlong rant about his weight problems and stomach surgery. Listeners complained. That gives him a launching pad for a funny routine that range from "anonymous artless snark" on the Internet, Kevin Bacon losing his life savings to Bernie Madoff, people who sell meat door to door and more. The three-card monte story is worth hearing. So this is funny. And it's free. But the language is explicit. Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes. Released: Jan. 14.

The Futile Podcast: "And the first word was Jesus" "Deconstructing 80’s & 90’s action movies. Relating them to comics, TV, and cartoons from then and now." Well, not quite. They review the first "Dirty Harry" movie, from 1971. Clint Eastwood as Callahan. He's no cartoon Rambo. He's a 70's antihero. It's seven minutes before any dialogue is spoken. The hosts attempt to decipher the politics of the 60s and 70s, with unintentionally humorous results for old people like me. Running time: 52:16 minutes. Released: Jan. 17. "Turns out he was 15 when they shot it." A review of the recent release "The Reader," based on the book. "This movie is about German guilt." What German movie isn't? Not an action film, unless you count sex scenes. I had to tune out at the spoiler alert. Running time: 29:42 minutes. Released: Jan. 21. "That ain't no cop gun Frank." Dirty Harry II: Magnum Force (1973). The franchise goes downhill (I think) but they like it. Nice dialogue on the nature of sequels. The nice thing about the "Dirty Harry" franchise is that it made Clint Eastwood rich enough to make good movies later in his career. Running time: 27:06 minutes. Released: Jan. 21.

Vomitus Prime 89: C'Mere and 90: Lovin' Nancyful Another reconsideration. I listened to this podcast back in November, and I was turned off by something or other, which drew some reaction in e-mails and on blogs from fans. Hey, it was my opinion. No accounting for taste. Perhaps I have been influenced by the hours of mediocre podcasts I've scanned -- I haven't even written about most of them -- but I'm ready to revise my opinion. It is foul-mouthed, gross, sick and frequently disgusting, but also funny. The regular hosts, Bill and Will, are entertaining storytellers who remind me of people from my own misspent youth. I say this knowing that they will respect me even less for changing my mind. Oh, well. Explicit language, obviously. They aim to shock. Running times: 1 hour, 26 minutes to 1 hour, 30 minutes. Release Dates: Jan. 17 and 25.

Sick and Wrong Podcasts 157 and 158 So after that, I figured I might as well turn to a podcast that bills itself as the No. 1 Source for Anti-Social Commentary. The first one marks the three-year anniversary of this podcast from Dee Simon and Lance Wackerle, which may be pseudonyms. A lengthy discussion of the police shooting caught on video in the BART and subsequent protests in Wackerle's neighborhood. Phone calls from drunk Australians. They also try to answer the question, why make an amateur podcast that makes no money? Apparently, they hoped to impress women, which has failed. They also interview the host of the fromtheville podcast, which stopped for no apparent reason one day. He doesn't seem to have been doing much. In the more recent episode, Wackerle explains why he bought a gun on inauguration day. And there's something about a kangaroo in Los Angeles. Running times: 1 hour 59 minutes and 1 hour 31 minutes. Released: Jan. 14 and 21.

Idiotboxradio 227: My Dad, The Baby! Speaking of Australians, here's one, a really weird and funny one, with a story told in stitched-together recordings of his children saying words and phrases. It's strange. But funny. And strange. The host says: "I think that my kids don't view me as an adult. Looking at it, that belief would have merit. (And before anyone thinks I got my kids to cuss, listen to the editing please...). I have to thank my beautiful girls Ella and Chloe for helping out on this one." Not for children. Running Time: 7:14 minutes. Released: Jan. 19.

Uhh Yeah Dude, Episodes 150 and 151 Like their counterparts at "Sick and Wrong," Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli are also celebrating nearly three years and 150+ hours of podcasting (I have been listening to the old shows and have about 30 hours left to go). The highlights of this one: chicken pox parties for children ("worst party ever"), the usual freakish true crime and medical tales, and Seth's story about getting an (unjust) ticket for -- shocking -- not wearing a seatbelt. The big news: They have finally revamped the long-inoperative UhhYeahDude.com, with show notes and listener forums. There's even a Wiki. Good on them. And as good a reason as any to quit reviewing podcasts. If most podcasters would put up some show notes or blog posts, and allow for reader discussion, they might be surprised by what happens. I have nothing to say about episode 151, which just dropped, but I am hitting publish and listening now. Looking forward to the part about the dog. Update: the story about rescuing the dog on a fixed-gear bike was great. Running time: 1 hour, 9 minutes. Released: Jan. 19.

A Consumption Report From Virgin Airworld

I'm in Los Angeles with the family this week, visiting the in-laws. I booked the flight kind of late and decided to try Virgin America, which had been getting a lot of hype for its geeky amenities and Jetblue-style business model. The only way I could get three seats together on Virgin was to pay extra for the roomier bulkhead seats, the so-called Main Cabin Select, which came with "unlimited" food and media, a sort of discount business class. The flight was pleasant and as enjoyable as JetBlue, but the geek reality has not yet caught up with the hype. For example, the much-discussed on-board Internet was not available on our flight. (I've yet to see Jetblue's version of these services, either). So while the airline's Red touch-screen media console showed options for e-mail and Web surfing, those features were disabled. It was possible to chat with other seats, but my traveling companions showed no interest and as far as I could tell nobody else was using the system. And while there was a cool remote with each seat, in the bulkhead you had to lean forward quite a bit to use the touchscreen, which was set in the wall.

The satellite TV channel selection was about the same as JetBlue's, with some premium choices (HBO's "Entourage," a Bill Maher comedy special, etc.) and films for adults (I watched "Hancock") and kids (my daughter watched "Wall-E" again). I did not bother figuring out the parental controls, preferring to issue commands in person.

I made a brief effort to play one of the video games with the seat-remote, but gave up after finding lame graphics and needless complexity. I'm sure a kid could have figured it out, but my kid stuck to the games on her Nano. (Update: She has informed me that she did in fact try one of the games. Her review: "You were supposed to get to the top of this tower, with this little green guy who could shoot fire, but it was really hard because there were little things flying at you. You couldn't really go anywhere, because you kept getting knocked over by this little thingie. You had to jump a giant gap. I tried it for 12 lives and I couldn't figure it out at all.")

The seats were big and comfortable, and nobody had a problem with my frequent standing, stretching and walking around (I have a genetic predisposition to blood clots, which can be brought on by air travel and prolonged sitting in cramped spaces). The aisle seemed narrower than on other planes, but perhaps that was my imagination. In any event, passersby kept bumping me, and I am sorry to report that I did the same to others.

Instead of offering the usual snacks or meal service, Virgin lets you order drinks, snacks and small meals using the Red touchscreen.

A few minutes later, a flight attendant shows up with the order (the selections were slightly better than the JetBlue snack packs).

Also unlike JetBlue, Virgin America has first-class seats [video]. Other than the bulkhead partition, there is no aisle curtain separating those passengers from the rabble, however. In the bulkhead, we had a good view of first class (see picture at right), which had its own bathroom, bigger seats, better food and Red screens that were adjustable in some way. I was amused by the similarity to "Wall-E" -- the robotic console-equipped floating easy chairs that kept the humans supplied with a steady diet of Big Gulp-type drinks and media. Virgin America first class did not look as comfortable as the Wall-E spaceship.

This train of thought made me focus on my own consumption, so I powered up Zenbe Lists, one of my favorite iPhone apps, and kept track of my intake for the flight:

• Watched entertaining cartoon safety video. Finally understood how to inflate the vest that is unlikely to save anyone in the unlikely event of a water landing.
• Chewed two pieces of gum for takeoff, so my ears would pop. 
• Drank cup of nondescript coffee, ordered directly from attendant. Saw first-class passenger select from a tremendous basket of muffins, more than enough to serve half the coach passengers. Plus a small bottle of water.
• Used Red toucshcreen to order Virgin's cheese and fruit plate (actually, a box), then ate it, plus some of the cheese from my daughter's box. Surprisingly good, especially the soft cheese and walnuts, although some of the crackers were stale and tasteless.
• Watched the end of "Witness" with Harrison Ford, on satellite TV, the scene where he kills a Philly gangster by dumping Amish grain on him.
• Watched a premium movie, "Hancock" with Will Smith. It was O.K., although I thought it was implausible that the villain was allowed into prison with a hook for a hand. Yes, more implausible than star-crossed immortals with superpowers. Oh, sorry, that was a double spoiler.
• Watched two "premium" short films, both available online, "Beard Science" and "Poke," both part of Campus Moviefest. The first, a sort of "Trading Places" with beards, was hard to follow. The second, about a slapstick-Rube Goldbergian effort to take back a Facebook poke, was funnier.
• Read through early-morning Twitter traffic on Twitterific for the iPhone. These Tweets had been downloaded to my phone before I put it in non-broadcasting airplane mode. Everyone was Twittering about being at the airport. This blog post represents what I might have been Twittering, if I had access.
• Played a futile game of Bejeweled on the iPhone.
• Read Friday's NYT Kindle edition on my Kindle, after solving last-minute battery problem.
• Drank contents of a can of seltzer. (By the way, whenever I order seltzer in L.A. restaurants, I get blank stares. Does this happen to anyone else? They show no recognition until my wife says "club soda." Virgin's Red calls it seltzer.)
• Ate a rather large can of Pringles chips,and refelcted on the burial choice of Fredric J. Bauer.
• Drank another small bottle of water ordered through Red, to stave off deyhydration, a contributor to blood clots.
• Had another cup of coffee. They serve real Half-and-Half, which is impressive, though I prefer plain milk or, better yet, soy milk.
• Shared a bag of chocolate chip cookies with my daughter. Her mother continued to doze between us, her preferred mode on planes.
• Listened to parts of "MacBreak Weekly" and "Uhh, Yeah Dude" podcasts for about an hour, for a future zeitgeist blog post.
• Walked around a lot to stretch legs, used bathroom.
• Read the dustcover and several pages of John Hodgman's "More Information Than You Require." I was stopped short by his prediction that one of the presidential candidates would reveal that he had a hook for a hand, which called to mind the villain in "Hancock." This kind of coincidence happens all the time. Good thing I'm not superstitious.
• Took comical photos of flight attendant using a tiny flashlight to search for a first-class passenger's lost eyeglasses. Too blurry to use.
• Listened to music on my iPhone, including Fleet Foxes, some Jonathan Coulton and Stephen Colbert's Christmas song. I briefly tried the Red music system, but I wasn't happy with the sound quality.
• Chewed two more pieces of gum for the landing.

I can only hope this was all helpful to the economy, if not the environment. I'm just doing my part. The flight was pleasant and relatively quiet, which made it bearable to endure the mysterious, hourlong wait at the Avis rental car center that followed at LAX, pictured at right.

Things I didn't do:

• Open my laptop. But I had to carry it on so it wouldn't get stolen by the Transportation Security Administration.
• Order a second cheese and fruit plate. No reason to be a pig.
• Attempt to read more of "Anathem," which I had hopefully lugged aboard, adding two pounds to my carry-on. But I will finish it on this vacation and blog about it, I swear.
• Stick gum under the leather seat. That would be wrong.

What My Smart Playlists Showed Me (3)

Name of iTunes Playlist: The Older Faves Rules: Rating is greater than *** (3 stars). Last played is in the last 12 months. Last played is not in the last 6 months. Date added is in the last 24 months. Play count is greater than 5 times. Skip count is zero. [See all lists.]

Top 10 From the List

1. "Sirena" by Calexico on "Convict Pool" Playcount: 8.

2. "Summersong" by The Decemberists on "The Crane Wife." Playcount: 8.

3. "Story of an Artist" performed by M. Ward on "The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered." Playcount: 8. 4. "Yawny At the Apocalypse" by Andrew Bird on "Armchair Apocrypha." Playcount: 7.

5. "Modern Age" by Eric Hutchinson on "...Before I Sold Out." Playcount: 7. 6. "Carballo" by The Essex Green on "Everything Is Green." Playcount: 7.

7. "Leisure Suite" by Feist on "Let It Die." Playcount: 7.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2N72kXHppE&hl=en&fs=1]

8. "The Angels Hung Around" by Rilo Kiley on "Under the Blacklight." Playcount: 7.

9. "My Body Is a Cage" by Arcade Fire on "Neon Bible." Playcount: 6.

10. "Click Click Click Click" by Bishop Allen on "The Broken String." Playcount: 6.

Annotation

The purpose of this list is to identify newish songs that were in heavy rotation on my musical devices about six to eight months ago, but which I no longer play -- songs that I might want to reconsider. I was still in the heart of a Calexico phase, apparently, but it's a different album than has popped up on other lists. This track has a lilting country Grateful Dead-like feel, with a haunting chorus of women singing in Spanish near the end, followed by the inevitable end in the Greek myth of the sirens:

To save this sad, tragic soul Sorrow's worse than the tide's pull Sinking deeper, gasping for love Till desire navigates you Into the arms of sirena... Caught in the rip tide, smashed on the reef Joining the mass of bones underneath

Follow that up with The Decemberists, and phrases like "..slip into a watery grave," and I have to wonder what's up with the morbid nautical theme. "...swallowed by a wave." I was thinking about heading to the beach last spring. Whatever the words, both of these songs sound beautiful. A lot of Decemberist tunes are too otherworldly for repeated listening, but this is one of the exceptions, with some interesting instruments in the background. No idea what they are, but I like them.

I went through a serious M. Ward phase in 2006, bleeding into 2007. I bought everything I could find. No. 3 was a cover tune off a Daniel Johnston tribute album. Back in 1997 or 1998, I saw the schizophrenic Johnston perform live twice in Manhattan in separate clubs. For the second show, about 10 of us were in a circle around him about two feet away. He was obviously a painfully disturbed man. It was hard to watch, and while he writes beautiful songs, I have a hard time listening to him. Ward teases the beauty out of Johnston's song and his pain in this cover, the best on the album of covers. I recommend the 2005 documentary on Johnston, who, despite the title of this tribute, is still alive. And I also recommend you buy anything M. Ward does.

The Andrew Bird track is an instrumental off his followup to 2005's "The Mysterious Production of Eggs," and I am surprised to see it here. It's a great song, though, haunting and mysterious.

I don't know much about Eric Hutchinson. I think I downloaded his album on impulse one night on iTunes. There were songs I liked more than this one, but there's no arguing with the list. The track is live and ends with some chatter at the audience that grows old with repeated listens. His lyrics are a little political and funny:

How did we every get by before data was sent? I can’t believe I got around without electrical cars

The Essex Green, a Brooklyn-based neo-psychedelic pop band, has a sweet sound, and I like a lot of their songs, including this one. I would recommend the album "Cannibal Sea" over this one, but they're all great.

Feist, of course, had a breakout moment when her song "1 2 3 4" was featured in iPod ads in 2007. I had a few of her songs from somewhere before that, and I downloaded more after that. I like this earlier album from 2005 more than her breakout, and while I thought liked other songs on it, like "Mushaboom," I guess there's no arguing with the playlist.

I bought a bunch of Rilo Kiley albums in 2006 and 2007, and bought "Under the Blacklight" hoping it would be as good, but I'm not sure it was. Still, this was a pretty good song. Watch the video. Jenny Lewis is definitely the talented half of the duo, though her first solo effort struck me as a wee too precious.

Arcade Fire is another band that I started listening to a few years ago in my Canadian music phase, having no idea what they were about or who followed them. They had a breakout moment with "Neon Bible," which is indeed an awesome album. If you asked me to name a favorite track, I would say "No Cars Go," but the list thinks I like the far more emo "My Body Is a Cage." So be it. My body is a cage that keeps me dancing with the one I love? Untrue, but moving. I still remember what that used to feel like, to be so out of place:

I'm living in an age That calls darkness light Though my language is dead Still the shapes fill my head

I'm living in an age Whose name I don't know Though the fear keeps me moving Still my heart beats so slow

Oh, young Arcade Fire fans, your pain will never again be this sweet. But the old people might prefer "Funeral" (2004).

Bishop Allen first came to my attention in the so-called mumblecore films of Andrew Bujalski, "Funny Ha Ha" and "Mutual Appreciation."

Rent them now. Watch them. I'll wait. Then read the latest N+1. Harvard was cool for 20 minutes around the turn of the decade, so what? It's already over.

I saw "Mutual Appreciation" with my friends Teresa and Brett in a small theater in the Village. Bujalski was there and answered questions from the audience about the kind of film stock he used and how he got non-actors (including his Harvard pals like Justin Rice, the lead singer of Bishop Allen).

Fast forward to August 2007. Teresa, Brett and I were on our way to a show featuring a number of bands including Bishop Allen, which was touring to promote "The Broken String." We had spent the afternoon at a barbecue. My boss called me about a fire at the the former Deutsche Bank Building downtown. Brett and Teresa went on to the show, as I stepped out of the cab in Times Square and walked to work and worked on live-blog coverage of the fire, which killed two firefighters.

By 11 p.m., we had put the first print edition to bed and there was nothing more to say on the blog. I hopped into a cab and reached the club just as Bishop Allen was taking the stage at midnight. It was a good show. I flipped a switch in my head and felt nothing about the sad story I had just been covered, because that is what I have learned to do.

The rest of the list after #10 is dominated by Bishop Allen tracks from the monthly EPs they were putting out in 2007, songs from Radiohead's "In Rainbows," (I paid $5 to download it) and more from the Decemberists and Feist albums, a snapshot of a year that now seems distant, another era.

The only anomaly lower on the list is R.E.M.'s 1987 hit "The End of the World as We Know It," which I listened to several times as I turned it into a ringtone on my then-new iPhone. It is the song that plays as my wake-up alarm. It is the song that plays when the newsroom calls. The choice is sardonic. This was only one day in my career that felt like the world ending, and nobody called. I just went.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Dec. 12

I'm mixing it up a little this week, adding some new podcasts from the iTunes Best of 2008 lists [iTunes Store Link], including a few with video under 10 minutes.

"Grammar Girl Video: Irony" Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips are usually audio, but this six minutes of video is worth watching for its excellent explanation of the frequently misused words "irony" and "ironic," using to good effect the infamous Sarah Palin turkey-pardon video. Here's the gist: Irony is all about incongruity and always in the eye of the beholder. Palin and her critics both might have thought the event was ironic, but for different and legitimate reasons. Writing that something is "ironic" says more about you, the observer, than the events themselves, and it is open to misinterpretation. Watch, understand, then use these words properly, or not at all, especially if you are a journalist trying to be fair. Length: 6:29 minutes. Released: Dec. 5.

"60-Second Earth: I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas (Tree)" From Scientific American, another short gem (though longer than 60 seconds). When it comes to Christmas trees, which is more green, wood or plastic? The answer is complicated, but seems to be a live tree in a pot. The strategy in our mixed unfaith household: Thirty years ago, my aunt made a porcelain Christmas tree that stands about a foot tall. We put it on an end table at a respectable distance from the menorah. This represents our own ambiguous connection to a holiday that my wife only observed as an outsider and a religion I no longer observe. The kid is probably confused. So be it. Length: 1 minute, 29 seconds. Released: Dec. 4, 2008.

"Keith and the Girl 860: Turn It Down" This podcast by a Queens couple is consistently rated among the top 10 comedy podcasts at Podcast Alley. Keith Malley was raised Catholic. The "girl" (Chemda Kallili) is Jewish. The schedule is erratic but frequent. This is one of the shorter episodes, and not as funny as the previous, "Get Over Yerself." They do nearly 10 minutes on religion, the holidays and their families. The new Guns N Roses record. The strange gay humor on "Three's Company." The end of Polaroid film. They dream of making millions and moving to Manhattan, which they call, quaintly, "The City." And more. Length: 59:23 minutes. Released: Dec. 8.

"This Week in Tech: Zunegate"http://twit.tv/172 Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. This is the podcast that first got me thinking too much about Twitter this week. It is also the podcast that got me to join Twitter way back in April 2007, mostly as a lurker. Leo Laporte is joined by John C. Dvorak, Bwana McCall, and Julio Ojeda-Zapata, author of a book on using Twitter for business. Dvorak likes Twitter but says it has problems. His comments lead me to think these tech celebrities with thousands of followers have a different experience than people with mutual followers in the dozens or hundreds. They are more like performers or broadcasters than members of the community. They toss out a question and hundreds of fans answer. Sometimes, Dvorak says, they keep answering long after he wishes they would stop. Claims are made that Twitter skews to an older crowd, that it's lazy blogging, that younger people prefer Facebook and IM on Skype. The rest of the tech talk feels recycled: Mac viruses, Obama's Zune, Leo's story (told on last week's MacBreak Weekly) about getting irritated at a brick-and-mortar bookstore. Then they plug their stuff. Length: 1 hour, 33 minutes. Released: Dec. 7.

"Uhh Yeah Dude, Episode 144" Intro is Stereolab. Outro is Lorn. The episode gets off to a meandering start but picks up. The show's T-shirts are late. Libraries and video stores ripping off Netflix. More brocabulary. More obscure fast food. A riff on the 9-year-old pickup artist. "Comb your hair, and don't wear sweats... Just say hi." Top Yahoo search terms. When Seth met search term No. 1. Crazy science: A killer fungus reproduces sexually in your nose and the babies record podcasts. Riffing on the money-saving tips of Andy Rooney of "60 Minutes," who steals dinner rolls from restaurants, mixes gasoline of different octanes, complains about paying $1.50 for a cup of coffee etc. (Rooney has a podcast, too.) A Rastafarian, Bobby Brown, is suing Jiffy Lube for discrimination. Seth recounts how he nearly killed himself and Jonathan with a gas leak in his furnace. Seth claims to be dating the oldest person in the world, a woman they visited at the nursing home in an earlier episode. Removing bear gall bladders. Dreading the holidays. (Seth and Jonathan have done a new interview. ) Length: 1 hour, 3 minutes. Released: Dec. 8.

Attack of the Show's Daily Video Podcast: "The Wired Holiday Store" An iTunes 2008 pick. I actually watched a couple of episodes, which were short and well-produced, seemingly excerpts from the TV show on the obscure G4 cable network. The first one featured a tour of the temporary brick-and-mortar store version of the print magazine that ought to be just a Web site. Lots of gadgets flash by. The store's at 15 West 18th Street through Dec. 28. I'll have to check it out in person. The episode after this, "Batman's New Voice-Over Career," riffs on the terrible raspy Batman voice from the "Dark Knight" movie, which is, not coincidentally, out on DVD. Entertaining, but it has the main drawback of video: You can't enjoy it while walking to work, or you'll run into people. Length: 2:25 minutes to 3:26 minutes. Released: Dec. 10 and 11.

"Buzz Out Loud: Baba-Boo! Scareware!" C-Net's "podcast of indeterminate length." This show starts out with fast talking and sound effects by Molly Wood, Tom Merritt and Jason Howell. Some chatter about Playstation Home and Amazon's Unboxed service. Praise for TiVo, the service/hardware with a terrible business model that everyone loves. Merritt disagrees with Corey Doctorow's views on copyright right of first sale. "There's no such thing as 'used' in the digital world." Gratuitous reference to the Brooklyn musician Jonathan Coulton. Learned something: The term for the propensity of people to find faces in things like toast and the moon is paradolia. A couple of the hosts have apparently never heard of Tumblr (or was that a joke?). It is one of the few companies doing well in these troubled times. Howell does not understand the phrase, "throwing the baby out with the bathwater," pleads youth. A Web-based no-hack copy-and-paste method for the iPhone between Safari and Mail. A good idea that calls attention to a continuing, pathetic Apple lapse. Vast expansion of Google Street View. The blank areas seem to be mountains. Now go listen to "All My Internet Friends" by Amanda French, a musical tip that earns this podcast major points. Length: 37:38 minutes. Released: Dec. 11.

"You Look Nice Today: Nickelpuss It's back to the original three hosts. Secular bands. Nerd jokes about Unix command lines. Merlin Mann's childhood room. A lengthy discussion of automobile horns. Youthful ninja fascinations and experiences by Adam Lisagor. How has this movie not been made? Good question. Discussing his teenage musical career in a church band and his secular band, Scott Simpson reveals he grew up near York, Pa., where I worked for eight years, and mentions the nearly forgotten York band Live. Still popular in Europe and parts of New Zealand! True story of the early Web of the mid-90s: I once hand-coded a Live fan page for the local newspaper's pioneering Web site. Ooh, frames -- lovely. It got dozens of hits, which we deemed a success. The site itself was born in a 1996 blizzard that stopped the newspaper delivery trucks. It's hard to remember how primitive the Web was just 12 years ago. This was in a time when people predicted that average readers would never have computers at home and certainly not read news on them at home. Which is kind of true: Now they mostly click around the Web at the office when they should be working. Podcasts were barely imagined. Video was unthinkable on dialup. Twitter? Forget about it. Email was hard enough. Anyway, it's great to see these fellows back on track with their jazzy, meandering nostalgic conversations, much of it about that weird, lost dawn-of-the-Web past. I'll leave it there. Length: 38:48 minutes. Released: Dec. 10.

"Macbreak Weekly 118: Macs in the Mist" Leo Laporte with his regulars, Alex Lindsay, Scott Bourne, Andy Ihnatko. Perhaps Leo watched Grammar Girl's podcast this week (see above) because he asked Bourne if it was ironic that he ate a freshly slain turkey at a Thanksgiving dinner with his fellow bird-watching photographers at a bird refuge. "You don't see any irony in that.. " Bourne: "I do not." Later, Leo: "It's ironic that all four of us are camera bugs..." Ok, maybe he didn't watch Grammar Girl. After about 10 minutes, down to business. Any truth to the rumor that Apple will remove DRM from iTunes for the holidays with unlimited downloads in Europe? Consensus is no. What about $99 iPhones at Wal-Mart? Consensus is no. Discussion of DRM: Only hurts honest people, doesn't deter thieves. True. A five-minute ad for Drobo, ends at 24:20. Big vendors dropping out of MacWorld Expo. Are convention expenses worth it, especially in a layoff environment? More discussion of pulled Apple advisory on antivirus software. Do Mac users need the software? Consensus is no. Santa Claus iPhone app gets run over by a reindeer. Brief discussion of Information Week's Top 10 Apple Stories of 2008. Consensus: Bad list. "We lost interest at the same time the author lost interest." Around item 3 or 4. Ouch. Six-minute conversation/ad about Audible.com ends at 1:01 mark. Then it's time for the picks. Length: 1 hour, 27:56 minutes. Released: Dec. 9. Update added 12/13.

It was a busy week, so I missed a few favorites (in the case of This Week in Media, the Skype interference was so bad in some cases, I couldn't stand to listen. Reportedly, the problem has been fixed and the episode was reposted). [See earlier roundups.]

Podcast Zeitgeist, Nov. 28

Here's my weekly roundup of podcasts from selected geeks, nerds, kooks, freaks, comedians, self-styled tech gurus and other denizens of the audio Web, in the order I listened this week:

• "Extra Life Radio, #202, #203, and #204" "Geek tested, nerd approved!" A likable group of geeks and nerds, Scott Johnson and his friends are Web comics artists who talk about films, TV, gaming and comics, among other topics of a certain type. The first episode ("Vacillating Two Oh Two") encapsulated what I value in a podcast -- a deep and serious discussion that makes me care about a niche interest, in this case, Web comics. The next episode (#203 "Spinimal!") was a wide-ranging discussion of movies. The Thanksgiving episode (#204, "Choot the Turkey") was the least compelling, more movie talk and a long, easily skipped conversation about soccer parents (they often take a good 15 to 20 minutes to warm up). This podcast was the winner in the general category of the mostly meaningless 2008 Podcast Awards, sponsored by the marketing company Podcast Connect Inc. The contest bases the awards on how many fans repeatedly click on an unscientific online survey, as Mr. Johnson, to his credit, notes. He and his co-hosts also won for a "World of Warcraft" gaming podcast, The Instance. Length: Ranging from 1 hour, 7 minutes to 1 hour, 32 minutes. Released: Nov. 12, Nov. 17 and Nov. 25.
• "The Bugle: Episode 54, The Las Vegas Special" John Oliver, best known for his appearances on "The Daily Show," and Andy Zaltzman are responsible for this weekly comedy podcast from TimesOnline.co.UK. It is relatively clean and amusing, although sometimes difficult to follow, because the comics have similar voices and insist on speaking British. It may be the only place you'll ever hear a joke that compares Joe the Plumber to Gore Vidal. I usually don't subject my wife to podcasts, but Jane, a wannabe Anglophile, listened to this one and thought this line was hilarious: "The ultimate Scottish dream, Germany beating England in a World Cup football final." I'll take her word for it. The audio quality is a little muddy. Length: 35:11. Released: Nov. 23.
• "Diggnation, Episode 177: Multiview Diggnation Remix" Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht skipped the beer this time, because Kevin had a bad cold. That does not excuse the much-noted exchange that came next, starting around 3:29, a riff on domestic violence that eventually prompted a public apology from Rose, the millionaire founder of Digg: "There is only one time you can strike [a woman] -- if she kicks you in the balls, you have the ability and the right, to punch her in the teat ---it's just like that -- it's kinda like tit for tat. ... It hurts them, it does too - or take a scissors to the teat." On the video, he made a cutting action with his hand. Har har, boys. Perhaps they should go back to taping this videocast drunk. Or stick to the script. My morbid curiosity satisfied, I skipped the rest. (Diggnation was nominated but did not win in the video category of the mostly meaningless Podcast Awards). Length: 48:07 minutes. Released: Nov. 21.
• "You Look Nice Today: Faux Tog" Once again, the show has guests. Once again, they are John Hodgman and the Brooklyn singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton. Chess jokes. Discussion of a universal template of dreams from Merlin Mann: "You're naked, there's a test, there's ladies..." In New York, dreams are often about discovering extra secret rooms in your tiny apartment. A discussion of horrible jobs, including work at a Lego store at the Mall of America on Black Friday, a true story. This show was voted best comedy podcast by the largely meaningless Podcast Awards. Released: Nov 24. Length: Back to the usual 32:12 or so minutes.
• "Vomitus Prime 83: Make Chips!" I'm a longtime fan of sick humor. But it's possible to go over the edge, and this podcast crossed into misogyny with vulgar words for women this week and last. Their fans may argue that it's all an act, and that this kind of humor is guaranteed to misfire once in a while. Maybe I'm an old fogey for cringing at this stuff, but I just can't listen to it. I say that with some regret. These guys are likable and produce some promising satire -- chewable children's Vicodin? funny idea -- but they lost me with the trash-talking of women purely for shock value. Delete. Unsubscribe. Goodbye. Length: 1 hour, 13 minutes (didn't finish). Released: Nov. 23.
• "Uhh, Yeah Dude, Episode 142." This podcast shows how to be funny without being a jerk. Co-hosts Jonathan Larroquette and Seth Romatelli sometimes crack sexual and scatological jokes, but you never sense that they disrespect women, or anybody. Even when their humor is in poor taste, they are self-deprecating and never mean-spirited. Their stance is one of apology for male stupidity and mock-horror at tabloid America. (Here's an early profile of their show, now nearing the end of its third year). This week, they riff about Black Friday and again mock the horrifying "Brocabulary" (see related viral marketing). They goof on the immaturity of the NSFW Land O Lakes Indian Maiden trick; a terrible cameo by Jason Alexander (Seinfeld's George) as a serial killer on "Criminal Minds"; Florida write-in votes; pathetic cocaine addicts; the healthiest and least healthy cities, Burlington, Vt., and Huntington, West Va.; the newFinal Jeopardy music; a landlord who secretly taped 34 female tenants for 19 years; and toddler fights on YouTube, among other disturbing topics. Released: Nov. 25. Length: 1 hour, 27 seconds..
• "MacBreak Weekly 116: Compressed Bits of Cheese Leo Laporte starts: "We had a show lined up..." Uh-oh. A guest shortage. Leo is alone with Andy Ihnatko, the entertaining tech writer for The Chicago Sun-Times. It's an entertaining show, nonetheless. They discuss the absurd Typepad journalist bailout program publicity stunt and the troubles of print journalism. Snow Leopard operating system update: not a major release? The allure of iPhone games; Leo killed his virtual villagers. They are joined at 21:57 by Rich Siegel of Bare Bones Software, which makes Yojimbo and BBSEdit. Problems with iPhone pricing and app structure. Is Google Mobile app getting special treatment from Apple? The iPhone app approval and rejection process. Andy still has the long iPhone backup problem. Leo says uncheck "send diagnostics to Apple" (that worked for me, too -- here's the how-to.) Danger: Obscure bug. Don't run your MacBook without its battery. Twitter hires the developer behind I Want Sandy and Stikkit, free services that will now die. A mercifully brief Audible ad. The week's picks: Besides the new version of Andy's iPhone book (not out yet), Uli's Talking Moose (free, a weird bit of Apple history dating to 1986), and Screenium, Cyberclean (See the handy and awesome MBWPicks for details). Length: 1 hour, 32 minutes. Release date: Nov. 26.
• "This Week in Media 116: Dear Journalist" The host, Daisy Whitney, is joined by my colleague Brian Stelter of TV Decoder, Alex Lindsay of Pixelcorp, David Cohn, founder of spot.us, Patrick Thorton, of beatblogging.com. They go right to the heavy stuff: Will 2009 be the year of the great newspaper massacre? Are we no longer in a general interest media world? Will niche journalism dominate media in the future? Will citizen journalism supplant professional corporate journalism? What about hoaxes like the Steve Jobs heart attack rumor on CNN? The two types of online journalists, "thinkers and linkers." Some J-school-style debate about the "myth" of objectivity. Length: 55:33 minutes. Release date: Nov. 25.
• "TWIT 170: Mile High Wi-Fi" This Week in Tech won the technology/science category in the mostly meaningless 2008 Podcast Awards. The host, Leo Laporte, is joined in this episode by Tom Merritt, Ryan Block, and Alex Lindsay. The topics: smartphones, wireless access on Virgin America, SearchWiki from Google, and, of course, the death of print media, starting with the move of PC Magazine to an entirely digital product. Block: "People interested in technology are not buying print magazines." A discussion of what this means for other print products. They take a break for a 5-minute Audible.com ad and some more gadget talk, then return to the death of print, with references to many articles first printed by newspapers (whatever will they talk about if all the newspapers do die?) Obviously, this is Topic A in the tech expert echo chamber. Their endless fascination with this topic, combined with a boundless enthusiasm for the online future, has an undercurrent that's a tad ... bubbly. They seem to think that Web media businesses will be spared in a major crash. Not likely. Length: 1 hour, 16 minutes. Release date: Nov. 24.

What My Smart Playlists Showed Me (1)

Name of iTunes Playlist: Emerging FavoritesRules: Rating is ***** (5 stars). Last played is in the last 2 months. Play count is in the range 3 to 5. Date added is in the last 12 months. Skip count is less than 4. [See all lists.]

Top 10 From the List

1. "Boy With a Coin" by Iron & Wine ("The Shepherd's Dog," 2007.) Play count: 6. Sample lyric: "A boy with a coin he found in the weeds, with bullets and pages of trade magazines."

2. "Fake Empire," by The National ("Boxer," 2007.) Play count: 6. Lyric: "It's hard to keep track of you falling through the sky, we're half-awake in a fake empire."

3. "Candy Jail," by The Silver Jews ("Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea," 2008). Play count: 5. Lyric: "Pain works on a sliding scale." [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjtTGdhgjZY&hl=en&fs=1]4. "Oxygen" by Willy Mason ("Where the Humans Eat," 2006). Play Count: 5. Lyric: "I want to speak louder than Ritalin, for all the children who think that they've got a disease. I want to be cooler than TV, for all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be."

5. "The News About William," by Calexico ("Carried to Dust," 2008). Play Count: 5. Lyric: "As her words fail and the sky grew dim, recalled how close to that exit l've been."

6. "Bend to the Road," by Calexico ("Carried to Dust," 2008). Play Count: 4. Lyric: "Holding back your tears, letting go of your heart... Until it all spills out on the side of the road."

7. "Wait Till You See Him (De-Phazz Remix)," by Ella Fitzgerald ("Verve Remixed," 2002). Play Count: 4. Lyric: "Painters of paintings, writers of books, never could tell the half."

8. "Sly," by The Cat Empire, ("Two Shoes," 2007). Play count: 4. Lyric: "It's a pleasure to meetcha, you look like one incredible creature."

9. "Pieces of You," by Islands ("Arm's Way," 2008). Play count: 4. Lyric: "It's madness."

10. "Papillon," by the Airborne Toxic Event ("Does This Mean You're Moving On?" EP, 2007) Play count: 4. Lyric: "And I wish I had the guts to scream. You know, things aren't always what they seem..."

Annotation: There are the songs you think are your favorites, and there are the songs that iTunes says you play the most. The iTunes smart playlists are valuable tools that can pull out a lot of trends about your listening habits.

This Emerging Favorites list is aimed at figuring out the fresh songs that could be come future favorites -- songs I have bought recently, listened to more than a few times and given a high rating.

I seem to be deep into a melancholy singer phase. Paradoxically, that means I'm in a pretty good mood. It's a more heavily male selection than usual, although the list could have just as easily included Rilo Kiley, Feist, Aimee Mann, Nina Simone or others among my recent purchases.

This list is also heavily "alternative" or "indie," what a friend of mine calls NPR music, songs by artists who were probably interviewed on public radio or are played in heavy rotation on KCRW in Los Angeles. And that's fine.

All of these songs are relatively recent releases. I don't listen to much music at all from the 60s, 70s and 80s, the oldies favored by many people in their 40s. I've always tried to stay current with music, and I think this decade has produced some of the best independent/alternative music I've heard in my life.

See other smart playlist posts..

Podcast Zeitgeist, Oct. 29

Here are some impressions of the latest episodes from my current list of active podcasts. Topics covered included the election, the financial crisis, new Macs, Frank TV, your "Desert Island Sedaris," Santa vs. Odin and a squid with a dog's head that eats penguins at the South Pole. In the order I listened this week:

"Uhh, Yeah Dude, Episode 138" The show is more political than usual. Seth and Jonathan have some advice for McCain about profanity and do not like Obama's sports-team pandering. The badness of Frank TV: All of Frank Calienda's impressions sound the same. Who is your Desert Island Sedaris, David or Amy? In the funniest and longest set-piece, Seth describes a visit with "2,000" school children to the traveling DEA exhibit "Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause" at the California Science Center, which explains how to manufacture cocaine, heroin and crystal meth. Unlikely street names for drugs. Aaron Neville sings "Silent Night." Planning an Applebee's fan video. And more riffs on headlines. Released: Oct. 24. Length: 1 hour, 6 minutes.

"TWIT 166: Toxic Tea Party" Leo Laporte, Will Harris, Sarah Lane of Revision 3, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo and others discuss the ongoing financial crisis, including rumors about The New York Times. Calacanis explains Mahalo layoffs: "I think the downmarket is going to last 18 to 36 months and I would like to have a year or two of runway after it..." How retail bankruptcies lead to deflation and more bankruptcies. Riding on private jets is just like on "Entourage." Dentistry in England. The G1 Google phone. Kevin Rose of Digg calls in near the end, extending the podcast by 20 minutes, joshing with his staffer Sarah Lane, with no hint that she would be laid off the next day. Released: Oct. 26. Length: An overly long 1 hour, 40 minutes

"Smodcast 66: Sleipner the Conquerer" One of their best: Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier discuss whether a "War of the Worlds" style hoax is possible in the modern world. Perhaps if the aliens landed in Antartica and started eating the cast of "March of the Penguins." With digressions about the history of arctic exploration, the origins of Santa Claus and the presidential election. How they get from Barack Obama's 30-minute infomercial to a battle between Santa and Odin is well worth the ride for students of the absurd. This was one of the better recent Smodcasts, which had taken on a boring, mailed-in quality while the pair were working on their most recent film, "Zack & Miri Make a Porno," which opens Friday. Released: Oct. 24. Length: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

"You Look Nice Today: Who Voted?" More highly edited, easygoing nonsense conversation: Cold start about how there are no more grownups. How to decide how to vote for local candidates for minor offices you know nothing about, and other election quandaries. Every time Merlin says vis-a-vis, take a drink. A complicated sexual fantasy about a voting booth. If you had 14 Farrah Fawcetts. The science of seduction. "Obviously, he is a sex scientist." The narcissism of fantasy nudity. Pickup lines, Twitter and Dungeons & Dragons. Heat-sensitive Hypercolor clothes. The smug "I Voted" sticker. Not as loose as past episodes; I could actually follow the train of the conversation, which may or may not be good. Released: Oct. 28. Length: 30 minutes.

"MacBreak Weekly 112: 分かりません"After listening to Alex Lindsay's travel and home-buying plans and some bad celebrity impressions, plus a Frank TV reference, actual Mac talk starts at 10-minute mark. Apple finances opposition to California's Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage in California. G1 Google vs. iPhone. Rumors about features in the new iPhone 2.2. firmware. Extended discussion of Twitter. Experiences with the new MacBook. Trackpad weirdness.The missing Firewire port. Apple quarterly results. Snow Leopard with Cocoa Finder is coming. Future of Apple TV and Mini. Picks were inexpensive, esoteric or uninteresting. Released: Oct. 28. Length: An overly long 1 hour, 51 minutes.

Release dates are when episodes were available on iTunes. Alternative download sites are in the links. I didn't have time for the video podcasts Diggnation and The Totally Rad Show this week.

Podcast Zeitgeist, Oct. 19

Lately my music library has languished as I have loaded up my iPhone with podcasts of a certain type: Men (mostly) talking about gadgets, technology, movies, stuff on the Web, games, women, and news of the weird, among other topics. The list:

• "Diggnation" Perhaps the most well-known podcast on the list. In various video and audio formats. Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht drink beer and sit on a couch, going down the list of the top stories at Digg.com. Frequency: Weekly. Duration: 45 minutes or so, video.
• "Smodcast" The director Kevin Smith and producer Scott Mosier shoot the breeze about making and watching movies, comics, growing up in New Jersey, porn and other topics. Weekly. An hour or more, audio only.
• "The Totally Rad Show" Alex Albrecht is joined by Dan Trachtenberg and Jeff Cannata, for reviews of movies, TV shows, comics and video games. Weekly. About an hour, video.
• "This Week in Tech" and "MacBreak Weekly" Two podcasts from Leo Laporte's Twit.tv empire that bill themselves as reviews of the week's technology and Apple news, with John C. Dvorak, Merlin Mann, Alex Lindsay, Scott Bourne and other regulars. But it's really a bunch of geeks and nerds shooting the breeze. Weekly. Each is about an hour and a half, or 50 minutes if you fast-forward through the improvised ads, which can get tedious. Another way to watch: Live on video, with a rolling peanut gallery chat room under the screen, and the talking goes into overtime.
• "Uhh, Yeah Dude" Description: "A weekly roundup of America by two American Americans," Seth Romatelli and Jonathan Larroquette. Energy drinks. The week in Florida. Readings from Craigslist. Prescription drug side effects. Hip hop vs. country. Men behaving badly. Why Robin Williams is not funny. Encounters with borderline celebrities in Los Angeles. Sobriety. Veganism. The Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and more. Frequency: Weekly. Run time: About an hour.
• "You Look Nice Today," which is billed as "A Journal of Emotional Hygiene." A dadaist conversation between lonelysandwich (Adam Lisager), hotdogsladies (a k a Merlin Mann of 43 Folders), and scottsimpson (Scott Simpson). With voice chapter headings by the guy who plays the PC in Mac ads. Frequency: Fortnightly or so. Length: 30 minutes.

What they have in common: Guys who genuinely like each other talking about topics they love, with echoes of long ago bull sessions and late nights in bars. The best of them -- "U.Y.D.," "Smodcast" and "You Look Nice Today" -- have been known to provoke chuckles and guffaws. Maybe even some chortling. Update: On Oct. 29, I started posting some impressions of the latest episodes of these and other podcasts that have interested me for a while.

Third-Party iPhone Apps I Actually Use

Update! New List! New Post! See the new list of iOS 8 apps I use in 2014 on my iPhone and iPad. 

Last updated April 11, 2009 I am surprised by how well this list held up. The updated NYTimes application is a great improvement over the first version, which I had stopped using, because it was slow and crashed so frequently. I have also added the Amazon Kindle for iPhone application. I still use these apps with some frequency: Google Mobile App, Twitterific, Facebook, Zenbe lists, Remote, Evernote, Amazon and Wikipanion. For restaurant, bar and services information, I still prefer the simpler IWant and Yelp to the flashy Urbanspoon roulette. The upcoming iPhone 3.0 software will eliminate my need for Writeroom, which allows e-mail messaging in landscape mode. As for games, my daughter swears by one new addition, JellyCar, and her favorites, Toybot and de Blob. My fascination with the time-wasting Bejeweled has ebbed, and nothing has really replaced it, unless you count Twitter.

The List Most of the third-party applications on my iPhone were free; none cost more than $9.99. I went a little crazy downloading apps when the store opened on iTunes. Some of them, like the Urbanspoon restaurant roulette app, proved more gimmicky than useful. And they started to drag down the performance. So I have been winnowing the list. Here are the third-party apps I actually open on a regular basis (some of them daily, all of them at least once every couple of weeks), roughly in the order they appear on the phone.

• Google Mobile App Search your phone, search the Web. This app moves to the top of the list with voice-activated search and other improvements. It not only searches the Web, but also your contacts and other data on your phone (the new iPhone operating system now does this as well). The word recognition is about 60 percent accurate, which can be frustrating, but I have hopes they'll keep tweaking it, because, hey, it's Google. That's what Google does. I also have the mind-blowing toy Google Earth app. Updated 8/17/09.
• MightyDocs A simple concept: Free offline access to your text Google docs. I downloaded this app a while ago but have been using it a lot more, because people at the office have started sharing a lot live memos through Google. The latest version has basic spreadsheet support, which was missing in the original. And it's still free.
• Twitterfon pro is my new choice for a Twitter client. The free version is fine, too. The interface is superior to the versions of Twitterific and Twinkle, which I had included in earlier versions of this list. Updated 8/17/09.
• Kindle for iPhone In many ways, the e-book reading experience is better than the actual Kindle. The application is free, but of course you need to own an Amazon Kindle and download some books. Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions don't work, nor can you read documents you have sent to yourself or ebooks from other sources than Amazon. The page turning is easier than the Kindle 1, and of course the phone has a backlight. The coolest feature is the Whisper Sync: It takes you to the most recent page you read, whether on the phone or the Kindle.New.
• iWant For when you just want to quickly find a nearby restaurant, bar or gas station, without gee-whiz graphics to impress your friends.
• NYTimes The 2.0 version of this application is much improved. The articles download faster, you can bookmark them and share them via e-mail. In general, it seems a lot less buggy and no longer hangs or crashes. I love to open this app and download the day's paper before heading into the subway. There is a menu that shows all the photos from the paper -- click one to pick a story. It can store up to five days' worth of news. And unlike the Amazon Kindle, which I also use to read the paper, it includes NYT blog posts. Updated review.
• Facebook Nicely put together, attractive, with intuitive navigation of the Facebook site. On a phone, in a line, it's a way to catch up with people. One bonus: It still resembles the old Facebook interface, which is a relief compared to the updated and overloaded Facebook Web site.Updated review.
• Writeroom A document creator that can be used to easily write emails with the keyboard in a horizontal position, not something that mail currently allows. (It will have that feature when the iPhone 3.0 firmware is released later this year).Updated review.
• Amazon So you go into the bookstore and you see a book you want and you type the name into this app's search box and probably find it cheaper, with free delivery if you have Amazon Prime. Maybe you just snap a picture for the "You asked us to remember" experimental function. Amazon will try to find a similar item in its store. It worked the first time for me with a fairly poor quality picture of an obscure book's cover; no bar code required. Do you feel guilty? Do you hide what you are doing from Barnes & Noble employees? That's your business. Great app. Just watch out for the one-click -- the journey from looking something up to an immediate impulse buy is nearly frictionless. New.
• Airsharing Drag and drop Word, Excel, PDF and many other files via WiFi to the phone, where you can read them pretty well and transfer them to other computers. (Need to download software for the computer.) I don't use it that much, but it is handy. MightyDocs has supplanted it; most of the documents I need I keep in Google Docs.Updated review.
• Zenbe Lists Of the hundreds of to-do lists, this one is pretty good. You don't have to bother to sign up for Zenbe's Web services and tools to use the free iPhone app.
• Last.fm, Pandora, AOL Radio In that order. All great versions music solutions using Internet radio. Customize music to your tastes. I have removed Simplify, an iTunes library syncing application, because I couldn't get it to work reliably. Maybe I need a 3G phone. Updated review.
• Remote Turn the phone into a full-featured iTunes remote for your computer/stereo or Apple TV. Browse your media library in the palm of your hand. Still one of the greatest applications if you have an Apple TV.
• Ocarina Turn your iPhone into a musical instrument and connect with phone-musicians around the globe. A fun app to show friends, though the novelty wears off. Updated review.
• Yelp The user-rating restaurant/bar/etc site powers many other location-based restaurant apps, so you might as well use Yelp's app, which works well and is attractive.
• AIM Why pay for SMS when you can send an instant message at no charge? Granted, texting is an Apple standard app, and thus better integrated than IM. You can't use AIM with other apps running, so you have to disconnect this if you want to take a phone call, open up Safari or e-mail. But sometimes you need to locate an IM contact online and chat, and this app is handy for that. It may work better with the iPhone 3.0 firmware, which may allow apps to run in the background.Updated review.
• 1Password The day you lose your phone, you'll be happy the person who found it doesn't have access to all your sites, accounts and passwords. This secures and encrypts them, and it syncs with the passwords on your computer. (This app was free, but you do have to pay for 1Password software for your Mac itself).
• Evernote Save sites, Web clips and docs on the Web, look at them on your phone and computer; sync them. I may start using this more often, now that it has been integrated with Twitter. Updated.
• Wikipanion Look it up on Wikipedia with one touch. But please don't cite it in your term papers if you are one of my wife's students. I tried a few Wikipedia apps and settled on this one for its easy lookup functions.
• SayWho A simple voice dialer. Press the screen while saying the name of the person you want to call, and a list comes up in contacts. Works pretty well, even for a mumbler like me. Free. I seem to have stopped using it lately; I don't make enough phone calls to make it worth my while.
• Bejeweled, Hero of Sparta, Toy Bot Diaries, de Blob, Stone, Scrabble, Metasquares, Enigmo, Tetris, Super Monkey Ball, DizzyBeeFree, BattleAtSea, Bubblewrap, Morocco, Cannon Game, FootballLite, The Stone of Destiny, Jelly Car, Labyrinth These are among the better iPhone games, all of them taking advantage of the touchscreen and/or accelerometer in clever ways. Good for distracting 8-year-olds and yourself on long car, train or plane rides.
• Shazam and Midomi Amuse your friends. Hold Shazam up to a playing music source, and it identifies the song. Midomi is similar, but you can also say lyrics or hum to get a list of possible song titles. The link shows a Shazam-Midomi face-off; Shazam won for reliability and usefulness. Both are free and worth having, although the novelty of these party tricks wears off eventually.
• doyoufeed.com A Web site, not a downloaded app. It will iPhonify any blog or site (or several feeds) and give you a tinyurl address for it. (Here is Palafo.) Then you can bookmark a Webclip on your iPhone iphone home screen. Maybe one day the owners will fix the spelling of "Thursday" in the timestamp code. New URL, fixed.
• Note: I no longer have a jailbroken iPhone, which allows you to run software not available through iTunes. I do miss some of those pirate apps, but I just can't be bothered with it anymore. I'd rather not risk downloading some wonky or malicious app that hasn't been blessed by Apple.