Twitterific Premium

With Twitter now reaching the mainstream, we thought we'd look at several of the most popular iPhone Twitter clients.

If you're new to Twitter, it's a messaging tool that allows you to broadcast short notes (called "tweets") to your online followers and to follow messages sent by other people. Sign up for an account here (http://twitter.com) and then follow this writer's Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/TDreier).

Twitterific comes in free and premium versions. Both offer a simple interface that lets you view tweets as they come in. Twitterrific Premium ($9.99, available here) lets you view messages in black text with a white background, while the free version only shows white text on a black background, which is harder to see. The premium version is also ad-free, while the free version shows a small ad for each 50 messages.

The app is loaded with helpful hints to help you get the most out of the features, and it allow for sending direct messages, re-tweeting a message (forwarding a twitter message with your own comments), and sending a Twit Pic (you can choose a photo from your library or take a new one).

The downside here is, naturally, the price. While it has stronger features than other free Twitter apps we've seen, there are lower-cost apps that match Twitterrific Premium's features. We'll explore another of them next week.

College Radio Tuner

When we listen to streaming music, we're often trying to find the best new artists, the best sounds we haven't been turned onto yet. For new music discovery, you can't beat student-programmed college stations. That's why we're thrilled to see College Radio Tuner (available here) show up, an app that connects us to over 20 small but fascinating stations.

A simple dial interface lets us pick the station we want and then, after a moderate buffer time, we're listening to new sounds. We wish this had been around in our own pre-streaming college DJ days, when our college's sub-1 watt signal almost covered the whole campus, but not quite.

While there's a lot to like about College Radio Tuner, there's huge room for improvement. The station list doesn't identify where the colleges are, and many of them are new to us. Also, the app is supposed to display artist and song information, yet it doesn't for every station. A way to save favorites would also be a welcome addition.

ControlPad

With ControlPad ($2.99, available here) you an turn your iPhone into a wireless trackpad and keyboard. Even better, it works with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, with no installation required for Macs and some Linux systems. It's the perfect couch accessory if you're running a home theater off one computer.

Super Monkey Ball Lite

The iTunes Store doesn't let you demo apps, so we're always happy when a developer creates a free lite version of their app so that people can try before they buy. Now's your chance to get a lite version of the insanely popular Super Monkey Ball for free (available here), to try out the adorable/challenging 3D balance game. Super Monkey Ball Lite contains three stages from the game, plus a tutorial.

iJobs

It's not a Steve Jobs simulator, it's the iPhone's most successful job listings app, something useful to far too many people these days. Use iJobs ($.99, available here) to search thousands of sources and millions of listings from all over the Web. You can search for words in the title, description, or other fields; search by area; and filter by category, company, and more.

Truveo

Having an iPhone doesn't mean only streaming YouTube videos. With today's download (available here) you can find and play videos from several video hosts using Truveo's video search tool. The Truveo app makes it easy to find either professional or amateur videos, or to browse by category. With 133 million videos now searchable, you're sure to find plenty you're interested in.

Sparks Part 1

Is this the future of comics? Sparks Part 1 ($.99, available here) features a superhero noir thriller presented as a motion comic, with simple animation effects. The story is performed by season actors, including Michael Pare, so that the effect is somewhere between a comic and a movie. This first of seven parts introduces Ian Sparks, a would-be masked vigilante.

RSS Player

After a few tweaks, the application that Apple denied under the name Podcaster has been approved under the name RSS Player ($1.99 for a limited time, available here). The app lets you subscribe to RSS feeds and download or stream the attached audio files, and it remembers your position in a file so you can start listening again at a later time. What it doesn't do is let you search for podcasts through the app, a feature that apparently troubled the folks at Apple.

Sensi Dial

Sensi Dial is an innovative phone dialer that takes advantage of the iPhone's touch screen. The app (available here) allows you to dial your friends and family by performing a sequence of gestures. With a series of taps and swipes, you can make calls to your favorite people. If you'd like to try it out act quickly, as it's only free for a limited time.

Seeframe

If you've got a Wi-Fi digital frame that's powered by Seeframe, such as this one from eStarling (http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/reviews/article.php/3799126), you can use the Seeframe app (available here) to quickly send new pictures to it. Sure, you could also e-mail your pics, but the app makes the process quicker and easier.

See the next page for the previous week's selection of hot iPhone apps.