Five great free apps for the iPhone and iPod touch

(Credit: The New York Times Company)

Over the weekend I updated my iPod touch to the 2.0 software, and I consider that $10 well-spent. Now I can access all the same great apps as iPhone 3G owners. Thankfully, many of them are free; I've rounded up five I really like. (Note that all links require iTunes.)

• AOL Radio Stream radio from over 200 stations spanning 25 music genres. It can even round up local stations. Who needs an FM tuner now?
• eReader As a longtime fan of reading e-books on my PDA, I'm overjoyed I can now do the same on my touch. This app lets you download books purchased at the eponymous site, and flip pages just by swiping your finger. Two public-domain books are included free so you can try it out.
• NYTimes Read the latest news, business stories, editorials, and more. It's a little slow right now, probably due to huge amounts of traffic, but talk about an incredible app: the entire New York Times in the palm of your hand!
• PhoneSaber Quite arguably the best use of the iPhone/touch tilt sensor ever, this clever bit of fluff is guaranteed to elicit a smile.
• Tap Tap Revenge Think 'Guitar Hero' for iPhone. You can download new tracks (a few are included) and even play head-to-head in the ridiculously sweet two-player mode.

What fab freebies have you discovered in the new App Store? Hit the Comments and share!

[FS1982!]

For all those looking for a Voice Dailing App it is in there for free. SpeechCloud. I downloaded it and it is working perfectly. It currently has a bad rating but it works perfect for me.

[blankreb]

Jirbo Break is good if you want a free game. Play is amusing enough.

[navsaria]

I know it's not exactly most people's idea of "fun", but Epocrates is the "killer app" that the medical community has been waiting for. It's been out there for a while for other platforms, but now that it's on the iPhone (and not via a slow network connection), I can seriously consider getting rid of my PDA. (And it's free too!)

This version includes pill pictures, which the Palm/Windows Mobile versions don't, and the interface feels "cleaner", as one would expect on the iPhone UI. Still needs a bit of work as well as features from the premium version, but I expect this will come along fairly soon.

I realize most people aren't looking for a prescribing reference, but I have many colleagues who I have been promising that this would occur this July...and hence they've been waiting on considering the jump to the iPhone. (And it's a heck of a lot faster than the NYT application!)

[PromisedPlanet]

AOL Radio Stream is good, but I consider the Pandora app to be far better. You can set up your own radio stations based on artists and songs you like. Pandora will play songs that are similar to the songs you suggested (or in the style of the artists you suggested), and as it plays them, you rate them thumbs up/down ... it then "learns" your tastes in music and continues to play songs in the same style.

[RevRod]

Check out Stanza from LexCycle, another ebook reader. It's free for now but, unlike e-reader, you can download existing e-books from your computer to your iPhone. It supports a wide variety of formats including Kindle, Mobi, Microsoft Reader, PalmDoc as well as RTF, DOC, TXT, HTML. I was able to port my .lit books over without difficulty. Now, I can finally donate that PocketPC.

[gycafesor]

And the free video to audio converter which can convert video to mp3 audio for iphone, ipod and other players http://www.convert-video-dvd.com/tutorial/free-video-to-audio-converter-software-review.html#115