Hijinks Inc.

As my fellow blogger Fred has recently pointed out, we have a new reviews section and rating system for mobile applications for the iPhone/iPod touch. In honor of that, I decided I’d post a quick top ten list of the best apps in my opinion for the iPhone (this list only includes apps that I currently have installed).

1. Installer.app - I know it’s a cop out, but without it installing apps is rather frustrating.
2. Fring - Support for VoIP, GoogleTalk, Twitter, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and ICQ.
3. Touchpad - Awesome app for controlling your computer from across the room.
4. iPhysics - Countless hours of fun
5. Tris - The most polished version of Tetris available for the iPhone.
6. MxTube - Easy to use application for downloading and saving YouTube videos.
7. NES - Super Mario Bros on the iPhone, ’nuff said.
8. Millionaire - Without Regis Philbin it’s a much better game.
9. Pool - Excellent use of the touch screen for controls.
10. AFPd - Makes copying files to and from your iPhone a breeze (assuming you’re on a Mac).

What’s your top ten list of apps look like?

Someone recently asked me if I knew of a free Usenet newsreader for Mac OS X, I do in fact. Pineapple News 0.9, it’s free and lightweight. Check it out if you’re in need of one.

From MacUpdate:

Pineapple News is a USENET newsreader for Mac OS X. It is primarily an offline reader, but it has features and user interface conventions that make it easy to use online also. As you can see, it uses the traditional three-pane paradigm. Pineapple News can decode binary attachments in several formats: yenc, uuencode, MIME base64, and MIME inline. If an attachment is spread across two or more message files, it will automatically search through all downloaded messages in the current newsgroup, find the necessary parts, and stitch them back together. Currently, the program can’t deal with RARs, PARs, or NZB files, but I’ll likely add support for them, if there is enough interest.

Mozilla announced that Beta 5 will be the last beta for Firefox 3, the next release will be Release Candidate 1 (RC1) which should be out in early May. Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering also noted that they are currently on-track for a June release of Firefox 3.0 Final.

Firefox holds a 17.83% market share according to Net Applications latest report, with Internet Explorer taking 74.80%, and Apple’s Safari trailing with just 5.82%. Both Firefox and Safari have seen significant gains in market share over the past 6 months, while Internet Explorer has seen a nearly 4% decrease in market share since October 2007.

When Firefox 3.0 hits final, I believe it will have a very postitive effect on Firefox’s market share.

The guys over at MacHeist have put together another great bundle this year. Check out the list of apps below.

Snapz Pro X and Pixelmator have yet to be unlocked, but if you purchase the bundle now you’ll still get it when it become unlocked. You can pick up a copy here for just $49.

Update: All the applications have been unlocked!

Being the evil and sneaky person I am, I thought I’d put up download links to the applications given away during MacHeist that do not require a serial number to use. So now you can enjoy some free Mac software without even registering an account @ MacHeist (though you really should).

• Monkey Lover
• Sofa Control
• Voice Candy
• Freeze Frame
• Wallet
• WireTap Pro
• Santa’s Gizmo
• BitClamp
  

Enjoy!

[ Browser ]
Firefox - Need I say anything else? My browser of choice no matter what OS you’re running.

[ RSS ]
Vienna - An excellent RSS reader

[ Email ]
Thunderbird - Mail.app is a fantastic email client, but Thunderbird still outshines it. Truth be told though, I hardly use my desktop email client.
Google Notifier - If you use Gmail this application is a must have. Automatically checks your Google Calendar and Gmail account and notifies you of upcoming events and email messages.

[ IM ]
Aduim - A feature rich Instant Messaging client, with a broad range of supported clients makes this a must have.

[ File Sharing ]
Transmission - A simple, easy to use BitTorrent client that’s a little more developed than Tomato.

[ FTP ]
Cyberduck - A departure from the normal two paned view you might be used to in FTP programs, but still a robust program with support for FTP (File Transfer Protocol), FTP/TLS (FTP secured over SSL/TLS) and SFTP

[ Video Playback ]
VLC Player - Fast, stable and wide ranging codec support makes VLC a fantastic all around media player
Flip4Mac - Adds support for playing WMV files in QuickTime

[ DVD Ripping ]
Handbrake - It may not offer the widest range of options when ripping a DVD, but it’s straight forward and produces high quality rips with no hassle.

[ CD Burning ]
LiquidCD - Excellent alternative to the native disc burning in OS X

[ Finance ]
Cashbox - Simple and easy to use software to keep track of your finances

[ Misc ]
smcFanControl 2.1 - A must have for managing the fan speeds on your Macbook / Macbook Pro
Growl - Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.
Alarm Clock 2 - I would be late for work/classes almost daily if it wasn’t for this program, with options for waking up to either an annoying klaxon or music from your iTunes library.