Waste even more time with your iPhone

While waiting at Kennington station this morning (imagine my usual rant here about how crap the Northern Line is these days) I had time to look at the free newspaper. In fact I had time to read War and Peace. Or write it.

There was a full page ad for the iPhone - describing a few popular apps available to download. Well - I thought I'd share the ones I find useful - or useless. Chip in if you have faves.

Facebook and eBay are fab - and free. The latter works really well. In fact I still wish Smile.co.uk would embrace the iPhone and do a version of their banking site for it. After all, they are an internet bank. Bill payments and balance checking would be probably all most people would need. How hard is it?

As a resident of sarf London, TubeStatus is very useful. Ditto for - Google maps - whenever I'm really lost I can call up my location - or roughly where I think I am - and then if necessary use TFL's journey planner to find the way home.

MyRail lite is really handy too - it finds the nearest rail station and then gives you real time listings of when the next trains are, where they are going and how late they are.

For wasting time, Virtual Pool, FieldRunners and Missile Command are all great fun. I haven't dared look at Sim City yet.

For impressing people at parties, Koi Pond, Face Melter and Ocarina. And Midomi impresses me every time - just sing into the iPhone or hold it up to a speaker blaring out music in a bar and it'll tell you the song.

And for music - Bloom and my new fave - Bebot - the thereminesque robot synth in a bow tie. Bebot is instant gratification - noodle around on the screen with your fingers and it "sings". With adjustable echo effect, timbre and overdrive you can quickly make very annoying bleepy sounds. Just the thing for my next album....