mendax.iphone 2.0.

As we hadn’t updated our recommended iPhone apps compilation in some time, we thought that a quick refresh was in order, especially with iPhone OS 3.0 out, and a new iPhone just days away. With the iPhone 3G now a mere $99 (albeit with a two-year contract), many holdouts will undoubtedly be giving up their souls to AT&T, and will, in short order, seek out must-have apps to fill their new smartphone. If you want to get right to our complete list, take a look at mendax.iphone, but if you first want to see what changes we made to it, keep reading.

Replacements.

First up, let’s take a look at the apps we removed. iTalk was a nice audio recording app, but since Apple bundled one along with iPhone OS 3.0, iTalk is redundant.

We also gave ByLine another look, as it received a couple updates since we replaced it with Feeds, and surprisingly, Byline’s performance put it back in the lead. Both apps are priced competitively, but since Feeds’ integration with Google Reader appeared worse than quirky for us, we went back to Byline, which has thus far worked solidly both online and offline. As far as RSS readers go, ByLine definitely stands ahead of the rest (admittedly, there are few that support Google Reader integration, but we consider this a must-have feature).

We pulled another retro-glance with i.TV, which we initially supported as a great television programming guide before it started to suffer unbearable crashes. We gave it another look recently, and since it integrates television programming, theater movies, NetFlix, and remote TiVo programming, we decided to dump both Now Playing and What’s On in lieu of i.TV. It’s a real twofer, and so far, stability hasn’t been much of an issue.

On a recent trip across the country, we found ourselves scanning for wireless hotspots, and as anyone who’s used the built-in wi-fi tool under Settings can tell you, the out-of-box method is annoyingly poor, even if one resorts to the auto-alert pop-up when walking around. WiFinder was our previous winner for this function, but it didn’t let us join open networks despite advertising the feature – the join network button simply didn’t do anything. The icon for WiFinder was horrible besides, so we finally found a replacement, even if it’s not for free. WiFiFoFum handles wi-fi scanning admirably, and appears to be a great wardriving tool if that’s one’s purpose for this type of app. Even if it’s not, being able to triangulate the source of local wi-fi signals makes troubleshooting a local wi-fi network a much easier task.

Newfish.

Since our last update, we also added some apps that are simply fantastic, especially since we weren’t happy with previous apps that may have claimed to have similar functionality. For example, Bento is a great database app, which is cheaply priced and syncs with the desktop version. With a little time to set up database templates, Bento itself is a replacement for numerous apps in the AppStore that claim to handle inventory management, tasks, and other projects built around a database that users can’t edit. It took awhile, but there’s finally an awesome database app available.

We finally added Air Sharing to the list even though we’ve had it for awhile. Way back, we picked it up for free, but lost it and didn’t re-download it until recently. In short, Air Sharing sets the iPhone up to be discoverable, such that it can be used as a portable hard drive. The main benefit to this is that one can copy various document files to the iPhone via Air Sharing, and use the app as a document viewer when on the go. We’ve found that it can’t handle PDFs that are fairly large (at least 100MB), but does well with smaller documents. (Anyone know of Air Sharing Pro addresses this limitation?)

DVR Remote is an app we added to compliment Apple’s own Remote app. Rather than control apps on our computer, however, DVR Remote is used to control our TiVo, effectively acting as a replacement for the TiVo remote, and also letting us browse what’s on our TiVo as long as we’re in range of our home network. Flashlight is another utility app that we’ve used for some time now, and though all flashlight apps in the AppStore are similar, we’re happy with it’s zero cost and decent features.

Since the first iPump apps were available, we got ahold of a couple just to see what all the fuss was about, and we quickly decided that they were quality apps for the home workout (we bought the Kettlebell app, and picked up the Yoga and Stretch versions later on for free). Since, we decided to give in and pick up FitBuilder, which consolidates all of the iPump applications and allows one to set up great workouts. We think the app could be streamlined a bit more for usability, but the feature-set and number of exercises makes FitBuilder the best workout app out there.

Finally, the last AppStore app we picked up was Geocaching, which is the “official” app for the hobby with the same name. This purchase was more to prepare us for the iPhone 3G S, such that we can get our Geocaching groove on with full force, but with only one other real competitor in the mix, this app has an excellent feature-set for an excellent outdoor hobby.

Black sheeps.

As far as Cydia apps go, we decided to remove CyCorder as a recommended app, not because it isn’t a great tool, but because it’s unnecessary for iPhone 3G S users. If you’re still using an iPhone 3G or 2G iPhone, however, CyCorder is a reasonable stand-in. Obviously, the video quality isn’t the same as with the iPhone 3G S (it pulls approximately half the frames per second), but since video recording is otherwise impossible, CyCorder is a nice tool to have along.

We also pulled MobileFinder and OpenSSH from the list, because we simply never used them after our initial iPhone setup. Both apps, along with Mobile Terminal, are nice tools to have, but just as we rarely need a command prompt, messing with iPhone files at all is rarely a task we need to undertake. In circumstances where they are necessary, such as with moving Winterboard theme files around, they’re easy to install, but otherwise the icons just take up screen real-estate that we’re happy to use for other apps.

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