I joined the revolution - iPhone App Review

I now own an iPhone.  I am one of the crazy people who stayed up until 3am on February 3rd to order my Verizon iPhone.  I was on pins and needles waiting for her to arrive, and I have been hooked since she did.  Since I stopped working, I have just had an old school cell phone which often got made fun of.  I am glad we stuck it out and waited for Verizon to come around.  I am now just trying to not get TOO addicted...this can do EVERYTHING...oh, I am probably telling you all something you already know :)

So, I thought I would list out some of my favorite apps that I have acquired thus far...

Shopping:
1.  CraigsPro+  ($1.99) - OH MY!!!!!!!!  This is the BEST.  I wish craigslist used this user interface.  It is so much better to look at and easy to use.  I adore this one.

2.  eBay (Free) - I used to feel like I shouldn't even bid on things on eBay anymore b/c I was usually not paying attention or was away from my computer at the end of an auction, and I would lose time and time again.  I hope, now that I am more connected, I might win more often.  Sean may disagree with me here :)

3.  Save Benjis ($1.99) - So, when buying my iPhone, I was hoping it could help me figure out the best price on an item when I am out and about.  When I see something in a store, I always am wondering if I can get it cheaper elsewhere.  This app is my new best friend!  Just hold up the barcode on the item you are interested in,  and the app will scan it and report back several places that have it cheaper!  You can also search for items by typing in if you don't have a barcode. 

3.  Amazon Price Check (Free) - I found this one before I learned about Save Benjis...same concept but will let you know if Amazon has it for cheaper!

4.  Amazon (Free) - I was hoping to figure out how to use the Universal Wish List function from the iPhone, but I haven't been successful in figuring that out yet.

Design:
1.  Benjamin Moore Color Capture (Free)- take a picture of anything, zoom in on the part of the picture where you like the color, and the app will show you the closest BM color.  I have already used this a couple of times, and I really like it.  There is also a Pantone app; however, it was $10, so I went for the free one :)

2.  Houzz (Free) - Great for looking at photos of all different rooms in the house for design inspiration...

3.  Dimensions ($1.99) - I really wanted my phone to work as a tape measure, but wasn't sure if it was possible.  I started looking into apps that can do this, and I found a few different ones.  I finally decided to give Dimensions a whirl, despite some of the bad reviews it got.  When I opened the app and it asked me to measure my foot, I thought, well, there goes my $1.99 down the drain.  But, as cumbersome as the tutorials/set up are, I think that it is going to be a super useful tool for me.  Bonus - it has a GPS like function, so if I am walking Paddy, I could just use that to figure out how far we went, what our pace was, etc. 

4.  What the Font (Free) - Oh my - you can take a picture of a font to identify it!  How fun!  I tested this three times, and it only got one out of three correct; however, it returned lots of results of fonts that look very similar to the one I had taken a picture of.

5.  SnapShop - I thought this sounded fun, but using it wasn't nearly as great as I thought it would be.  You can select furniture from a limited selection that the app has (they have some featured brands like Pier 1, CB2, etc.), and then you can take a picture of the room that you were looking to put this new piece in.  The piece is then placed in the room and you can move it around to see what it would look like.  I can see how this could be helpful in some situations; however, it wasn't quite as slick as I thought it might be.


Lists:
1.  Evernote (Free) - So, this is one that I am super excited about but haven't spent the time to figure out how powerful it is yet.  I have started putting my to do lists on here.  I have also used it to snap a picture of our parking spot designation - and then, you can tell it to find all notes within a mile, and it would have retrieved that picture!  Crazy.  I didn't get to try that part of the functionality because we remembered where our car was.  I did spend some time trying to figure out how to use their Web Clipper from the iPhone...which allows you to take screenshots on the iPhone and save them to Evernote.  So far, I have figured that I can press the round button on the face of the phone at the same time as the power button and it captures the shot.  

2.  Ziplist (Free) - awesome grocery list making app.  I love that it has check boxes that I can click when I have put the item in my cart....ahhhh, sweet lists.  It apparently can take pictures of barcodes as well - I haven't quite figured all that out - I may try it tomorrow at the commissary!

Other:
1.  Flashlight (Free) - turns your phone into a flashlight...or a crazy strobe light for that matter!

2.  Hipstamatic ($1.99) - takes awesome 'vintage' looking pictures - you can change out the types of film and the lens, and it looks like an old school camera, with the film window, the button that lights up when the flash is ready, etc.  Great stuff.

3.  Pandora (Free) - WHY am I just starting to use Pandora now?  I have heard about it for years - but have no clue why I didn't start using it earlier.  If you haven't used it, you just type in the name of an artist you like, and then it will play you songs that are 'similar' that it thinks you might like.  Fantastic. We have been just using my iPhone in our Logitech iPod speaker system now and it is so fun having this whole new world of songs!

 That's all I've got to share right now...I have a few others, but these are my favorites.  I haven't downloaded a good reader for all the blogs I love keeping up with but I hear that 'Reeder' is the best. 

Do you have any great apps you can share??