Digital Rubbish

The company I work for, Engine Yard, just closed a second round of financing which includes investment from New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA), Benchmark and Amazon.

This is obviously great news for the Ruby, Rails and Merb communities, and Engine Yard. :)

See http://www.brainspl.at/ for more info on what this investment means.

You can read the entire press release on the Engine Yard blog.

Ok, so I admit it: I’m totally addicted to the new apps for my iPhone. From the useful, to the ridiculous, to the sublime, there are a lot of great apps available and more great ones yet to come.

Some of my current favorites:

• Twitterrific by IconFactory - everything these guys do is elegantly designed and super useful. I loved the interface so much, I bought the premium version. (Free/$9.99).
• Facebook - another really well designed app. It strips out all the stuff I just don’t have time to fool around with anymore (like all the 3rd party applications) and let’s me focus on the core of FB: friends, messages and my profile. I think I like it better than the FB website. (Free).
• Pandora - I played around a little bit with the web version a long time ago, but due to the nature of my job, I don’t really sit around listening to music on my laptop at work. I do, however, listen to music on my iPhone, all the time. :) (Free).
• Things by CulturedCode - I really like the desktop version, but use other GTD/list/notes tools like Basecamp and Journler. The iPhone version means I no longer have to use Notes to make long lists of things I have to do. Plus, they will be implementing syncing with the desktop version shortly. Sweet! ($9.99).
• iPint - a simple and silly game that rewards you with a virtual pint of beer. (Free).
• AIM - finally, IM’ing on the iPhone! It let’s me choose an AIM, .Mac or MobileMe account to get started, so why can’t I have more than one account set up?

Other apps that I’m playing around with and haven’t reached a verdict on yet:

• Shazam
• AirMe
• Scratch
• VoiceNotes
• Google
• Salesforce (looks promising, by I need my account admin to hook me up for it)
• PhoneSaber
• Light
• Evernote
• MindWarp
• iFob
• Graffitio
• Zintin
• Advent
• Eventful

Some apps that I’m considering buying or installing:

• OmniFocus - Omni makes great apps for the Mac, one of which I use all the time: OmniGraffle. But I think Things will cover everything OmniFocus does. ($19.99).
• Scrabble by EA - looks like fun. ($9.99).
• ShoZu - would let me manage multiple online accounts, including Flickr. But the App Store comments about it are discouraging.
• Crosswords - this would save me throwing away book after book of completed crosswords. But would it be as satisfying as writing the words in ink? ;) ($9.99).
• TruPhone - Skype-like service that uses VOIP for calling and charges low rates for overseas calls. But I’d rather wait and see if Skype releases an iPhone app.
• SpeechCloud Voice Dialer - I’ve been waiting since day one for the iPhone to get speech dialing, and frankly, I thought it would be rolled out as part of a software update by now. SpeechCloud seems to solve this problem, but it looks like it has to access your Wi-Fi or 3G/EDGE network to work and it isn’t integrated into your Phone app.

Of course, the one app I’m waiting not-so-patiently for: WordPress for iPhone!

I really like the concept behind a lot of the new social networking/information apps that use proximity/location as the primary feature. Being able to find people and place near you, and then comment on them, recommend them or communicate with them, is a great idea and I’m waiting to see how these apps evolve.