Getcher Cool Apps!

About a year ago, I bought myself an iPod Touch for my birthday. No one else would because they obviously don't love me. It's a pretty neat device, although I've found that the headphone jack is going on it and I have no idea how to fix it. But I still get to listen to dozens of Kevin Smith podcasts, so I'm happy.

Because I don't have access to WiFi at home or at work, I only recently started playing around with the apps that are available for the Touch recently. And this is because my lovely girlfriend has WiFi.

There's all kinds of neat shit that you can find in the iTunes store, or on the personal blogs of app developers. In the store, I found apps for a number of news services (Fox, NBC, CBC, The Globe & Mail, etc).

One thing that I didn't see in my (admittedly brief) quest was a lot of government stuff, which you may have surmised I'm sort of into. Their apps tend to be department by department, which is cumbersome and annoying if you don't want too much stuff on your machine. Also, I'm too lazy to go through that much crap on the off chance that I'll find something cool to entertain you all with.

That changed when a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this guy. He's developed apps that gather the RSS feeds of entire governments, such as Canada, the U.S and the European Union. It's all nice and central, perfect for lazy geeks like me. Let's say that you like going out for dinner in Toronto and you're paranoid. Well, Mike has created an app that lets you look up the inspection status of every restaurant in the city. There's even a bible app that uses Wikipedia.

Since I know dick about how any of this stuff works, I sent an e-mail to the developer letting him know that I'd be highlighting his work here. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I'm sure that Mike will check in and be pleased to answer them.

No, they're not free apps, but for a buck, they're pretty reasonably priced. If you're so inclined, check them out.