Help me enjoy new ipod touch!

Cafe Society
#1

Just got a new ipod touch! For those of you with a Touch or iPhone, tell me about your favorite apps. Also tell me about your secret tips for maximizing usage, or other useful related things, or even just describe your deep intense love for your gadget. This feels like CS to me but feel free to move it to IMHO if needs be.

Any tips on usage would be great - I don’t know how to copy and paste, for example. Also, syncing seems to be slower than my old regular ipod - any tips for speeding that up? Would love to hear about all of your favorite apps, sources for free books or whatever. Particularly interested in notetaking apps that can do tables/spreadsheet/database sort of things.

#2

Angry Birds and Alchemy are the only games I’ve played around with much, but they’re both really fun. Warning: Angry Birds is super-addictive.

I also really like the app that lets you point your ipod towards the sky and move it around and it’ll tell you all the planets and constellations. I can’t remember the name of it, but I’m sure someone else will know. Not having my own ipod touch, I haven’t gotten to explore very many apps.

#3

Civilization Revolution is great, if you’re a fan of the original game.

#4

Kill pigs!!

#5

I use Bookmark for reading audiobooks, Slingbox for watching stuff off my tivo, and Netflix for choosing and watching movies.

You need a slingbox of course to use that app, and a netflix sub to use the netflix app.

Besides mail, these are the three apps that I use everyday.

#6

My most used apps are:

Kindle
Urban Spoon - great for finding restaurants
AllRecipes - great recipe guide
WTF Podcast with Mark Maron - funny and intelligent
SpiderFree - free solitaire game

To Copy/Paste, just put your finger on the word and hold. A magnifying window will open, then select the stuff you want and a menu appears asking what you want to do.

Does the Touch have voice control? If so, try it out. It works really great on my iPhone.

#7

The only games I play are Bejeweled and Soduko. Bejeweled is a battery suck.

I use Tapatalk to browse the SDMB. That’s pretty awesome. I also use the Facebook app, and Safari.

I have a shopping list app which has become pretty handy. It’s nothing fancy, just a shopping list. I don’t have a Touch with a camera so I can’t use anything with bar codes.

When I was on vacation I was having trouble using the default email app. A lot of my emails were coming up blank. I switched to using the GMail mobile site and didn’t have any problems after that.

The default weather app is ok, and especially nice for quick access to the temperature in several different places (handy when I was on vacation and traveling around) but there are better weather apps to be had, such as the one from weather.com. That one actually has forecasts and radar and stuff.

Two things I recently learned here about using the Touch: double-click the “home” button and it will bring up a list of currently-running apps. Hold down one of the app “buttons” for a moment and all of the open app icons will get a red - sign and wiggle. Click all the ones you want to close and when you’re done, click the home button again to finish.

Also, a screen capture is holding down the home button until you hear a “camera click” noise. A picture of your screen goes into your photos app.

There’s also a way to re-arrange your icons from within the Touch but I forget how it’s done. I accidentally do it sometimes :slight_smile:

#8

To rearrange apps, just hold your finger on one and all will wiggle, letting you move them, or delete by hitting the red ‘x’.

#9

Tiny Wings.

#10

The aforementioned Tiny Wings and Angry Birds (+ Angry Birds Seasons & Angry Birds Rio) are pretty much must-have games.

Other commonly used apps and games on my Touch:

Stanza - ebooks

Goodreader - PDF and TXT viewing

HippoRemote Pro - Touchpad and remote controls for shedloads of different programs on your 'puter. Find it very handy for XBMC

Alien Blue - Reddit client

Remote - Official Apple App for controlling iTunes

Cracked Reader - Cracked.com

Cyanide & Happiness - Webcomic

AirVideo - Stream video from your 'puter, with on the fly transcoding. StreamToMe does similar

IMDB - What else did I see that person in?

Revision3 - Revision3 shows

Warblade - Deluxe Galaga on iOS

ComicZeal - Read digital comics

NetPortal - Access files on remote 'puters

iNet WOL - Wake on LAN

Real Racing/Real Racing 2 - Amazingly enough, these are racing games

StarPagga/Galaxy On Fire/Galaxy On Fire 2 - Because every 40-odd year old kid enjoys flying through space, pretending to be in Star Wars or BSG

VLC Remote - Controlling VLC

Articles - Very pretty Wikipedia app

Trenches - WWI game

Stenches - As above, but fighting wave after wave of zombies

#11

Cut The Ropes (fun game).

Trainyard (logic puzzle).

Flixter (for movie times etc.)

#12

The Chive
Cracked
FML
Texts from last night (I can’t remember the acronym)

#13

I think the most well know one is called Star Walk, but there are some others like it. I think Sky and Telescope makes a similar one.

That is a great app, but it will only work on your iPod if it has a camera and it works a little differently than it does on the iPhone. Apparently the iPhone has a compass in it but the iPod doesn’t. To use the star map program you have to calibrate it each time by pointing it at a recognizable object (like say, the moon or Orion’s belt) and align it with your screen. Then you can aim it anywhere in the sky.

There are a few apps like this so make sure they will work on an iPod before you buy.

I like Doodle Jewels, which is an untimed version of Bejeweled so it is more a game of strategy. You can get a free version to try but it cuts out after a few minutes of play.

If you like Angry Birds style games check out Cat Physics. I also like Touch Hockey, an air hockey game you can play against the iPod or against a friend.

I have a free app called Sunrise & Set that shows sunrise and sunset times. And a free astronomy app called Planets that won’t do as much as Star Walk but it’s still fun if you like astronomy.

If you use Carbonite to back up your computer they have a free app that lets you access your files over wi-fi.

#14

To copy and paste just touch and hold down on the word you want to copy and a copy button will appear. Do the same to paste.

If you double tap the text it will automatically increase the size to fit the screen. Took me a while to figure that one out. Maybe it was obvious to everyone else.

Bubble Explode is 2nd to Angry Birds as my time waster game and Convert Units has come in handy a bunch of times.

#15

Save Toshi - a goofy physics-y game where you shoot pellets at various types of things with ultimate goal of dropping Toshi to the dance floor.

Tesla Toy - for cool visuals

Eucalyptus - an e-reader with a simple interface with project Gutenberg

I’m looking for a good blow-up game. My Android had a great one and still looking for one for my iphone. There’s a structure and you set various charges with various timings to bring it down.

You can create folders by dragging one icon on top of another in the edit mode (press and hold icon).

#16

The best game I have played to date on the Touch is FlickKick Football (in which you take soccer free kicks). Maddeningly addictive, and nicely done with great use of the touch interface.

#17

Turn your ipod touch into an iphone!!!

#18

Apps I use often:

Fark
Pocket Frogs
Wikipedia
YouTube comes pre-loaded, yes?
Uno
Spider Solitaire
Mafia Wars
Netflix

I’ve found that the Cracked application isn’t worth the space it takes up. Much better to use the full site. And I ain’t paying another fee to read the Dope with a messageboard reader. Full site works just fine.

#19

Most of my apps are news links.

I have a calorie counter app I use that I love called “My Fitness Pal”.

I also listen to a lot of podcasts like “This American Life”, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “The Moth”.

I really enjoyed the video podcast of “Justice” with Michael Sandel. I found it in iTunes University.

It is true that tapping twice will expand the page for easier reading. You can also turn the pod sideways and often the page you are reading will be a little bigger.