Blast from the Past: Favorite Old School iPhone Apps from Before the App Store
Do you remember any or all of your favorite iPhone apps from back in the days before the App Store? I certainly didn ‘t.
Until this morning, when I was working on a post on the upcoming iRovr app. Searching for past posts on the popular social web app got me looking at an old post of mine that listed some favorite and most used apps from way back in the prehistoric days before the App Store launched (in July of 08).
Wow “ it really does feel like such a long time ago “ those days of only having access to the built-in iPhone apps, web apps, and jailbreak apps. These were pre-Cydia days as well “ when Installer was the dominant jailbreak app store.
Here are some of the apps I had listed as favorites and most used back then (in late May of 08) “ and what I had to say about them:
VNotes “ still love this app from Erica Sadun for capturing quick thoughts or notes and mailing them to myself etc. Recently I ‘ve been looking at whether moleskine may be able to replace it, now that it also allows emailing of voice notes
Xlaunch “ another ‘Erica app ‘. This has remained my favorite quick program launcher for some time now. I prefer it to trying to use Categories or similar to reduce the number of icons. I like having the choice of just flicking between home screens or using Xlaunch to quickly find and launch a particular program.
Twinkle “ the native Twitter app with Locate Me features. More than a little flaky lately, but still my favorite Twitter app on the iPhone.
Boss Prefs “ super handy utility for toggling on and off some of the iPhone ‘s core services (and several that are big potential battery drainers), like WiFi, Bluetooth, SSH etc.
DropCopy “ a light, simple, and super useful app for quick and easy file transfer from the iPhone to my Mac.
Contacts “ apparently this one is coming as a standard in the iPhone 2.0 software. It gives you an icon to launch your Contacts / Address Book directly, rather than having to go via the Phone app.
TimeCapsule “ the iPhone ‘s first (and still the only) backup application. An essential utility and a huge timesaver any time you need to restore or run a new jailbreak etc.
iPhone Video Recorder “ reliable video recorder program with a great file compression ratio, audio, and the ability to share vids easily to YouTube. The first iPhone app I have paid for.
Summerboard “ as Brandon has reminded me many times, this is probably THE first app most of us with jailbroken iPhones put back on after a jailbreak, and one we ‘re all so much hoping to see over in the App Store. This is the program that lets you apply themes and wallpapers to your iPhone and really give it the look you want.
Geopedia “ uses Locate Me to show you Wikipedia articles and Flickr sets specifically relevant to where you are.
Snapture “ *much* better than the built-in Camera app on the iPhone, which I virtually never use anymore since installing Snapture. Snapture provides zoom, burst mode, timer, the ability to tap anywhere on the screen to snap a pic, and more.
Anyone else care to share some of your ‘old school ‘ favorite iPhone apps?
I still have Snapture… and I agree it was darn good. When iOS4 came out, though, it's messed up the colors! Skin tones are now all blue, no reds, etc. It doesn't show up, however, until you save that "perfect shot" to the Camera Roll so the preview looks great. It took me a while to figure out what was happening.
I went to Snapture Labs' website and their Customer Support is a forum where is reported by others. However, there's been no response by Snapture Labs so there's nobody to directly email. I guess I'm going to have to go to the App store and review it… bummer.
Can't find time capsule. That's one I've never heard of and would love to grab! Where is it? Still available?
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