I have to admit… I was starting to get a bit bummed.

Every day two dozen apps were appearing in the App Store and the only review group that was easily filled was the crApp Apps.

I mean, how many tip calculators, magic8balls and virtual lighters do you need? (The question is rhetorical since it is obviously: maybe 1, none, and just 1.)

That suddenly seems to have changed in the past few days.

I came down kind of hard on MiGhtyDocs a few days ago. The reason? The main reason for my downloading it, the ability to view my Google Docs offline, didn’t work. Sure it made viewing my documents easy when  a data connection was available but the real power, the real purpose, the real funtionality was the ability to cache documents for offline access. Whenever I tried to view them with the connectivity turned off I got an error msg.

I wrote the post and sent the link to the developer who was kind enough to respond quickly. The issue, he/ she said was that… it didn’t work. (No kidding) There was a bug, I was told, and while the fix had been submitted to the App Store it had not been released nor was the description updated to reflect the the fact that it was not ready for prime time.

Well, a quick check of the App Store just now revealed that the fix was indeed released. I download the update, input my GDocs account info and… there my docs were. I openned a few from within MiGhtyDocs and then shut off the data connection. And, like magic, when I opened MiGhtyDocs again those documents that I HAD opened were still available. Nice!

In my What’s On (My) iPhone rundown of entertainment apps there was one I use often that I did not include. I left off Box Office, not because it don’t like it (I do), but because it had departed the App Store (read: PULLED by Apple) Well… it’s back! 

Yup, after being pulled without prior notification to the developer, Box Office has made its return. Now, though, it is called Now Playing. Why? Who knows.

I do know this- Box Office Now Playing is a great little app. It’s like MovieFone on steroids. MovieFone was a great innovation in its time but I always hated it. It got the job done but navigating the menus was anything but convenient. Now that Now Playing is here… I’ll never have to use MovieFone again.

Five years ago, I was looking for something that would let me play continuous music in my office without interruptions and with a fast beat. 

After spending some money on CD’s (I know, I know, CD’s?  Why not iPod, I have my reasons), I quickly found that it was a pain to keep rotation of new material in the player.  So I decided that I would swallow hard and spend the $150 for a Sirius Radio.  At $12 / month, it was cheaper than my music buying habits, and i didn’t have to worry about managing a large CD collection (or even itunes collection) of music to fit my need. 

I have NEVER looked back, and hardly ever (if at all) listen to regular radio anymore.

According to Electronic Arts, Spore, one of the games used to initially demo the iPhone SDK, has gone gold master. That means a release is imminent.

Unfortunately, the upcoming version is the one developed for Mac OS X and Windows. While that will apparently be hitting the shelves on September 7, 2008 there is no word on the release schedule for Spore for the iPhone. The initial announcement of Spore said that the iPhone version would ship along with the other versions. Apparently we’ll have to wait a bit longer.

The desktop/notebook version of Spore will come in two versions—a $49.99 standard release and a $79.99 "Galactic Edition" that includes a "Making of Spore" DVD, "The Art of Spore" hardback book, an exclusive Spore poster and a 100-page Galactic Handbook.

I’ve used the demo version of the Spore Creator and it is huge fun but it leaves me wondering… what’s with the iPhone version? Since it promises to be an awesome iPhone/iPod Touch game, hopefully it will be soon to follow.

via MacWorld

I was talking to my friend Judie Lipsett, founder and editor of Gear Diary, earlier today about some of my favorite iPhone apps. She suggested I put together a post on the ones I currently consider the real standouts (so far). I happen to have the good fortunate to be a GD Team Member so I did just that.

I figured a dozen or so would be a good number to pick. I’ve been listing the apps on my iPhone in my What’s On (My) iPhone series of posts but trying to narrow those down to a list of just a dozen wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. In the end I had a Baker’s Dozen although there were a couple more I would have liked to include. Next time…     You can check out the list HERE.

WebIS has just released Speedster a new app that makes use of the GPS-enabled power of the iPhone.

As I wrote previously, I’ve had the opportunity to see a Beta version of it.

I’ve been using it for the past week and love it. (It actually confirmed something I have long suspected- my car’s speedometer needs to be calibrated.)

According to the developer’s description-

Speedster GPS shows you your speed and altitude in real-time using the GPS on your iPhone 3G. It also tracks your speed, distance travelled, and altitude as you drive, jog, or boat. Features – Shows your speed from 0 to 260 MPH or KPH – Supports both US and Metric systems – Tracks changes in speed

There are a few caveats, however-

– Because Speedster relies upon the location-finder it is an iPhone only app (sorry Touch owners) and will work best with an iPhone 3G’s gps.

-Because Speedster relies on the GPS for accurate coordinates to calculate speed depending on your location and GPS acquisition it may take Speedster.

-Speedster may not work well in cities with high-rises that block the iPhone receiving a strong GPS signal.

One of the things I did not know is what the pricing for it would be. Now I do and at just $.99 it is a great app to buy.

One of the great things that is happening here on What’sOniPhone is that many of you, our awesome readers, are beginning to share your feedback on the various apps you are using. Some you love… others not so much. It’s GREAT since that is the best way for us to help eachother make the best choices in apps possible.

Here are a couple of the most recent comments–

Apps that make you say "YEAH!!!!"

Mortgage Payment Calculator Professional

ToDo

Twitterific

One Tap Movies

Apps that make you say "NAY!!!!"

iSpend

GTS World Racing

Spend

If there is an app you love (or one you don’t) and you want to share a more in-depth review of it, let us know- We would love to share your review with everyone!

Okay, so we are in the process of putting together the next list of crApp Apps (it’s not hard to do but with SO many crApp Apps now available it takes some time to find the ones that are "just right".) and this little app comes along. It shouts to us- "Look at me!!! I’m total crApp!! Waste your money on me!!" And all of that is said with "little hearts floating around" the words…

Category: Lifestyle
Released: Aug 13, 2008
Price: $1.99
Description:
I love you. You love me. Express your love with this customizable application… Little hearts floating around your love one’s name… Hearts change direction depending on how you move the ipod or iphone..

I love my wife. Enough, in fact, to not throw away $2.00 of our money on this.

Did you ever go across an old bridge or step on an old staircase that just seems to wobble endlessly as you nervously rise to the next floor?  Well, that’s how I feel about my iPhone now.  It’s like someone built a very sturdy foundation out of cement, the kind that holds up skyscrapers, and then decided to give access to anyone who wants to play architect so that they could create their own floors and charge money for access.

I have rebooted and re-installed my iPhone more times in the last month than I care to keep track of.  It isn’t one particular application’s fault that my iPhone is no longer that stable foundation it used to be, it’s the combination of applications that makes it unstable.

Let me explain…

Software development is accomplished by using a set of tools to write your own custom code with other pre-written code that may be provided to you by the platform creator (in this case Apple). So, as a software developer, I use Apple’s development environment to write my custom application, invoke the use of other libraries of pre-written code (provided for everyone so we don’t all go writing the same things over and over again), and after much testing and hard work, hopefully, I end up with a stable, working, new application that I can distribute to the masses.

I’m sure that Apple is doing a fine job of reviewing how stable an application is before releasing it to the masses (no comments here please).  But the problem may not lie with that single application, but rather the combined set of applications that you might choose to put on your iPhone.