I’m one of those can’t be separated from my phone types. To be more precise, my iPhone and my Camelbak water bottle are usually both within arms reach. I’ve been contemplating jailbreaking my iPhone for a few weeks for a few reasons I consider to be worth it: I can stay logged in to run apps in the background (Pandora or the infamous Google Voice app, for example) while I use other features (like check email or answer a text.) I could use quick SMS texting to not even bother with switching between apps to answer a text. Also, I’d like to be able to customize my email and text sounds beyond what is currently offered since my husband and most of my friends have iPhones and nobody knows who’s getting the text or email when we hear it (since we all use “tri-tone” for texts and don’t have an option for email sounds.) And last on my short list but certainly not last on my list, is using the Google Voice app itself. Jailbreaking is easy and the newest version won’t brick your phone, and you can still sync to iTunes and buy things from the app store. Maybe I’ll really do it this coming weekend, I keep chickening out.

Maybe that’s because I really am otherwise very happy with my phone. Besides recording voicework, I hardly ever have to get out my laptop at home. I’m quite content to plug my iPhone into the nearest outlet and drain the battery with email, looking up recipes, youtube videos and playing games. I wanted to share some of my favorite apps, mostly time killers but they’re wonderful time killers.

1) Remote (free) – This is the most awesome yet simple thing I can do with my phone, and I love it. We have the audio inputs from our receiver hooked up to our Airport router, and our desktop mac is usually on. You can use this app to play music off your iTunes library from wherever you are in the house, and then by just changing the input on the receiver to Aux 2 or whatever it is, voila! Our entire library is accessible in our living room via our cell phones. Other friends with iPhones, once given access via a numerical password from the computer, can put in “requests” for music, since they can then also view the library. We can thumbs up or down their choices. I love it!!!

2) Shazam (free) – Hold it near the speaker and it’ll tell you what song is playing. Apple did a commercial featuring this app and I think most everyone must have it by now.

3) HeyWAY Pro (paid) – There’s no use in texting my husband when he’s somewhere along his commute, but trying to coordinate dinner and evening schedules calls upon this app. You send a request to someone to share their location, and with one button they can agree to do that. You then get a pretty accurate mini-google map and a ping on your phone once they’ve responded. Also, you can send out your location without being asked, and only send it to certain people (friends you’re meeting up with, etc). It doesn’t require a separate login/password, but allows you to add friends to your list only once they’ve confirmed via email on their phones. Pretty slick.

4) Defender Chronicles (paid) – This is not a productivity app, if you hadn’t already guessed. It’s a tower defense game and it’s awesome. I seriously love this game. When you have actual work to do, or an incoming call, it auto-saves wherever you left off when you close out of the app.

5) CatPaint (paid) – Don’t just blow this off as some stupid pointless app. It’s a wonderful, pointless app. Select any photo in your library, click to add resizable cats (and shake your phone to delete cats you’ve added.)

I present, Exhibit A, created to pass the time:

…and Exhibit B, to make a point:

Panthers 0wn Cardinals

Go back and add some cats to yesterday’s Thanksgiving festivities!