The TuneIn Radio app
It’s time to go to sleep. I reach for my iPhone, locate this app and touch the button labeled presets. Then I choose the radio show I want to automatically record the next morning. The built-in record timer begins to record my show at 9 a.m. and stops recording when the show is over, three hours later. As I’m cleaning the house tomorrow, I can stick the iPhone in my shirt pocket (with the speakers facing up) and listen to whatever sections of the show I missed. I can slide the “time bar” and skip all those commercials. In addition, I can browse the world’s radio stations (over 50,000) by genre and location. For example, from Asunción, Paraguay, I can listen to 28 stations. I can browse stations by category, pause and rewind live radio, view station schedules, listen to podcasts and lots more.
The GeoQuiz app
WOW! It’s fun learning about 4 of my favorite hobbies — all on this one app. I push the “Maps” button and one-at-a-time, every country in the world is highlighted in yellow on a section of world map without labels. I now guess that the name of the country is Macedonia. I touch the map and the answer “Macedonia” appears. Since I got it right, I press the “Woo-hoo!” button. If I had incorrectly guessed the country as Hungary, I would press the “D’oh” button. The idea is that the game saves my incorrect answers and presents them again in the next round. After playing for awhile, I have learned to recognize most of the world’s nations by their location, size and shape. At any time I can switch to the “Flags,” “Arms” (Coats of Arms) or “Caps” (Capitals) guessing game. The images are sharp and colorful. I can always take a “screen shot,” a photo of the image on the iPhone, and view it later, for further study. Oh, and there’s also a listing of countries (next to their flags) in alphabetical order, as well as arranged by Continent, Area, Population, and GDP. When an icon in any of these listings is touched, you see the name, flag and coat of arms of the country on one image. I am in heaven!
The AroundMe app
Simply put, no matter where you are (the built-in GPS knows), you can find almost anything near you. My wife loves Coffee Bean establishments. Once searched for, it shows me a list of Coffee Beans with their distances from me. Once I choose one of the Coffee Beans, it shows its address, phone number (which you can call with the tap of an icon), and its location on a Google Map. It also shows my location and can show the route there.
Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at Robertebsen@hotmail.com