iPhone App of the Week – Helper Apps

AAA Discounts

If you have a AAA Membership then you’ll know how much money you can save by presenting your AAA card at hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, etc. The AAA Discounts app is location based and will show you all the local businesses in your immediate area that offer AAA discounts. You can view the locations on a map, get directions or view them in a List view. Once you drill down on a business you can tap the phone number to call it as well. Although you can use the app without actually having a membership (not sure what good that would do you though), if you do input your membership number you’ll unlock additional features like sending your location for roadside assistance. The app is a Free Download from the App Store and is a must have for any AAA member.

AT&T myWireless Mobile

It’s probably a safe bet that if you’re an iPhone user in the US, you’re on AT&T. Therefore, it’s probably useful to be able to easily access your account information. Using the myWireless Mobile app you can check your minutes used, check your bill and even pay your bill. It does a great job showing you a nicely formatted PDF of your bill right within the app. Although it appears that you can even add/remove features to/from your account from within the app I haven’t tried that yet.

AT&T myWireless Mobile is a Free download from the App Store. If you have a personal or family account, there’s no reason not to have this app.

Bank of America Mobile

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you have an account with Bank of America this is a must have app. The Bank of America App allows you to access all of your (linked) accounts. You can see balances, pay bills and do transfers. You can also find the nearest BOA ATM or branch location. Since many ATMs charge fees for non-customers, having an integrated search is handy. Once it locates the ones in your area you can get map/directions that will lead you right to it.

The Bank of America Mobile app is a FREE download from the App Store.

Chase Mobile

Speaking of great banking apps, if you’re a Chase customer, you get some love too. The Chase Mobile works very similar to the BOA app above. You can check your balances, pay bills, move money around and find the nearest locations.

Chase Mobile is a FREE download from the App Store

Delicious Library

Delicious Library is an App for the Mac that allows you to manage your media collection (movies, books, music, games, etc.). It is quite simply the best app on the planet for what it does. Recently I converted all my movie DVDs into MP4 format for streaming via Apple TV and to take with me if I want to watch a movie on the road. During this process I made a startling discovery. There were at least 3 DVDs that I had duplicates for. That’s right, I bought the same movie TWICE! I know that it probably happened when I was out shopping and I said, “wow that was a great movie, I should own that one.” Of course not realizing that I already owned it. The Delicious Library app for the iPhone/iPod touch allows you to take your catalog with you! This way if you’re wondering what you have back at home you can simply look to see. Just like the desktop app, the iPhone version is beautifully implemented. I did have a problem syncing at first. My library has over 380 movies and countless songs, etc. (which it does incorporate what you have in iTunes too). The problem was that Wi-Fi on my iPhone would go to sleep during the sync figuring that there was no connection present. So I tricked it by going into Airplane Mode and then turning back on Wi-Fi. This allowed Wi-Fi to stay on since there was no 3G network to drop down to. Otherwise, the app works great!

Delicious Library for iPhone is a FREE download from the App Store. Of course you have to have Delicious Library on the Mac to use the app.

DVR Remote

You’ve heard me rave about TiVo right? Well if you have a TiVo on your home network (like the TiVo HD), then you can actually use your iPhone/iPod touch as a remote control (I know, I know – it’s totally a geek thing). Now while you could argue that any time you’re near your TV, you’re probably already near the remote, this app does have a couple of bells and whistles of its own. For one, since its controlling your TiVo over your network, it doesn’t require line of sight. You can also use it even when you’re no where near your TiVo to program a show to record via the built-in support for for the TiVo Mobile site.

There are two versions of DVR Remote: DVR Remote Lite is a FREE download from the App Store. DVR Remote adds more features and is $2.99 from the App Store.

E*Trade Mobile Pro

Stock trading may not be very popular right now. OK, it can be downright depressing! This means that it’s more important than ever to keep an eye on your investments. If you’re an ETrade account holder (love the TV ads by the way), then you’ll have to get this app. Not only does it allow you to check the balances in your portfolio, see trends, get news, move money around and do trades, but it also takes advantage of the Push Notification features of iPhone OS 3.0 and can now alert you when a stock reaches a certain price even if the app is not running! This app definitely has the slickest interface of all the financial apps I’ve seen to date.

E*Trade Mobile Pro is a FREE download from the App Store.

Quicken Online Mobile

I must say that I resisted this app and Quicken Online for quite a while now. I’m happy with the desktop version of Quicken and really have no intentions of putting all my finances on the web no matter how secure they claim it to be. However, I did find one handy use for this service/app. I do have an account at a bank that doesn’t yet have an iPhone app. However, that bank DOES have online banking. So I setup a new Quicken online account and only tied this one account to it. Quicken Online pulls in the balances, transactions, etc. and of course the Quicken Online Mobile app lets me access that account from my iPhone. So it’s like having an app for all your bank accounts that don’t current have dedicated apps yet. I haven’t yet decided whether or not to add more of my accounts to this service, but it would be nice to have all my balances consolidated down to one account/one app!

Quicken Online Mobile is a FREE download from the App Store.

Reunion

I’m a bit of a genealogy buff and therefore I use a genealogy app on the Mac called Reunion. Reunion is the best of the best when it comes to genealogy apps. I have been inputting data into Reunion for well over 10 years and of course it’s a never ending process as long as children are being born. My family is lucky in that we have an annual family reunion and have had it every year for the past 43 years! So when we get together I show reports, family tree banners, etc. When I visit family members, especially older family members there is always some new piece of information that comes out during the conversations. Now I can take my Reunion file with me on my iPhone and do updates to the information on the go. The iPhone client syncs to the desktop client so that any changes you make in either place are sync’d to the other place. The app works great, however the only thing that I found to be odd was that you can’t insert new pictures that you take into the records. Seems like a natural that if I took a picture with my iPhone that I’d be able to insert that picture into a record and sync it all back to the Mac. An iPhone OS 3.0 compatible version has been submitted to the App Store and should be available soon.

The Reunion App for iPhone/iPod touch is $14.99 from the App Store and requires Reunion 9.0.8 or higher on the Mac.

Sirius XM Premium Online

Last but certainly not least. This app has been on my wish list ever since iPhone OS 2.0 came out last year! I always figured that since I could listen to Sirius/XM on the internet via my browser, that it would be a no brainer to have an iPhone app. Well that day has come and Sirius/XM has released their Sirius XM Premium Online app. This app allows you to listen to most of the content that the provider offers. The app is very well laid out and I’m happy with the streaming and sound quality. Thankfully A&T didn’t see this app as a bandwidth hog and therefore it DOES work over the 3G network. So this means that basically anywhere you have cell service you should be able to enjoy Sirius/XM content. I’m also pleased to see the ability to be able to tap a button to buy a song that’s playing via iTunes. It just makes sense to be able to do that.

There is room for improvement. While it’s great to be able to listen to content while I have cell/Wi-Fi service, it would be GREAT if there was a buffer (DVR like) ability to capture a few hours worth to listen to on a flight. Also while it’s easy to jump between stations, I haven’t found a way yet to make a list of favorite stations. I’m thinking it’s gotta be there and I’m just not seeing it. However, if it’s not, I’ll be shocked!

The Sirius XM Premium App is a FREE download from the App Store. It requires a “Premium” web account with Sirius/XM.