Let me preface this post with the fact that I am not an iPhone App reviewer, and I didn’t take the time to check out every possible option for every function I needed. These are the iPhone Apps I bought for the purposes listed below. If you have another App that does the same something better, let me know in the comments section.
For IRC: Rooms
One way I stay constantly connected to my developers is through IRC. If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry about it. All you need to know is that if you need IRC on your iPhone, you need Rooms.
For FTP: FTP On The Go
As far as an FTP client for the iPhone, FTP On The Go is pretty much your only choice. At $9.99 it’s on the upper end of the price spectrum, but well worth it in my opinion. Manage multiple FTP accounts: download, edit and upload. My only complaint with this app is the built-in text editor: There is (currently) no option to turn off word-wrapping which means any structure you have to your markup is useless and it makes editing files more dubious than it already is.
For VNC: Mocha VNC
Just the look on peoples faces when you log into your PC from your iPhone is worth it alone. I can’t count the number of times Mocha VNC has saved me from having to travel home to grab a file, get a piece of info or start a download so it’s ready when I get home. I use RealVNC on my PC’s and no-ip to make sure I can access my desktop and notebook at all times.
For SSH: TouchTerm
It’s SSH for the iPhone. Nuff said.
For File Sharing: Discover or AirSharing
The idea behind both these apps is to allow you to use your iPhone as a wireless thumb drive, and they both work fairly well. Discover is free and a good option. AirSharing offers a few more features for $4.99 and is worth the money. There are quite a few apps in this arena though, and I’d be interested to hear what apps others have used.
For PC Control: AirMouse
This one’s just plain cool and convenient if you like to hook your PC up to your TV or Projector and site back on the couch without a keyboard and mouse. Once set up, you can use your iPhone as a touchpad and keyboard to control your PC(s). It makes web browsing from the couch much more accessible. There is a 3d Mouse option, but it’s gimmicky and hardly useful. Regardless, this is one cool App.
Bonus: FoxMarks
I use the FoxMarks FireFox plugin to keep my bookmarks and passwords synchronized between my desktop and notebook, so it would make sense that I’d like the bookmarks on my iPhone kept up-to-date too. Unfortunately the one app that tries to do this, doesn’t do it very well. FoxMarks however, has an iphone specific site that works quite well for viewing your bookmarks. From your iPhone, go to http://my.foxmarks.com/ and add the bookmark to your home screen. Easy peasy.
Got an iPhone App to add to the list? Let me know about it below.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 5:06 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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