iPhone Apps I'd Love to See
Apple is scheduled to release the official iPhone/iPod Touch SDK at the end of the month soon, which means we should see the first "official" iPhone/iPod Touch applications shortly thereafter. Here are some apps, I'm can't wait to see:
- TI-8X Graphing calculator
- iPhone as Modem
- Gesture Commands (also here)
- Voice Commands ("Call Steve", "Next Track", "Volume Down", etc..)
- A2DP Support
- Pandora player
- Some games (sudoku, tetris, etc.)
- Hulu Player
Keep reading for more on the Graphic Calculator idea.
I'd love to see Texas Instruments, or just some huge graphic calculator fan, make totally faithful software recreations of the all the TI-80 series graphic calculators for the iPhone and iPod Touch. That means all the same functionality, and hopefully a comparable button scheme so that any directions written for the calculator could be easily followed for the iPhone version. Such an app would be a huge hit with high-school and college students. Also, they might also have an easier time convincing their parents to buy an iPod Touch or iPhone if it could be used as a graphic calculator. Especially if the graphing calculator application were significantly cheaper than the actual calculator.
Comments
Although I think having something more than the four-function calculator currently on almost every phone would be great, I fail to see how it could be used in education, especially at a high school level. As it stands, phones aren't allowed to be out at all at my school, never mind them being on. I'm sure you are allowed to use common sense in college, but still, you would not be able to use it during tests. Of course you could use your iPhone for a calculator at home for homework, but you would still need one for class/tests, defeating the money-saving aspect.
Posted by: Alex | February 27, 2008 08:34 PM
@Alex
Those are really good points. Great to have the perspective of someone actually in high school. You're totally right, in reality many classrooms probably wouldn't allow students to use their iPhone/iPod Touch as a graphing calculator because they'd be to distracting and could enable students to cheat. Nuts...
Posted by: getgreg | February 27, 2008 09:00 PM
I'd love to see a dictionary on the iPhone. It clearly knows words so a dictionary seems like a logical (and very plausible) next step. It shouldn't have to be a 3rd party app.
Posted by: Tina | February 29, 2008 03:50 PM
I use flytunes.fm for radio on my ipod touch. It was a free app & I didn't have to jailbreak my phone. You don't have to wait for pandora to come up something.
Posted by: JulieD | March 3, 2008 09:40 AM