Twitter And Facebook Apps, Even More Twitter and Facebook Apps

I apologize for dropping off the face of the Earth on Hidden Gems the last couple weeks, but now I'm back, and have some great apps to share! Face The Music ($0.99)

This app premiered for free and then quickly jumped up to 99 cents. It was a steal at free and in my opinion worth a dollar. It's the perfect example of an app not possible pre-OS 3.0. Face The Music lets you play any of the music from your music library and then share what you're listening to on Twitter or Facebook. It works very well and plays the music from the iPod on your iPhone or iPod Touch, so even if you close the app, it keeps playing. Likewise, if you play a song using the iPod and want to share it, just pop over to Face The Music and you're ready to share. There are other services that are similar to Face The Music but none that are as seamless - making it a perfect iPhone solution. It took a few minutes to log into Twitter right, but Facebook logged in pretty easily - most importantly it worked. It'd be nice to see all the functionality in this app get inserted into another app like TuneWiki, but for the time being I'm not complaining. With Face The Music you can share via email too.

Facehack ($0.99)

Facehack debuted for free just like Face The Music, so I can't complain too much about it. Basically, you take a picture of yourself and then use Facehack to erase the background to make a cool cutout for your Facebook profile image. It has all the tools you need. You can erase and unerase at any point and you can use the Pan and Zoom button to magnify a specific spot on the photo for more accuracy. The problem is that it isn't immediately obvious how the Pan and Zoom button works. Folks familiar with Photoshop know that you make a brush size smaller and then zoom in on a photo to more carefully adjust an area of a photo. Facehack knows that your finger is the brush and that isn't going to be changing size, so the Pan and Zoom button collapses what would be two steps on a computer into one - as you zoom in the brush size effectively gets smaller. In other words, you're making the canvas size bigger. When you're done the app gives you the option to set a drop shadow effect on the image. This isn't a hugely useful app, but for those who have 99 cents to spare, and like to switch up their Facebook profile picture, then it's worth the dollar. It might even tempt you to change your profile image more often.

Dial Zero (Free)

If you have an iPhone then you are considered to be in the upper class of cell phone users - at least according to me. Unfortunately your funds are also dwindling because you pay a massive cellular service bill every month. So when it's time to call the credit card companies, banks, insurance, car companies and everyone else you owe money to, don't wait on hold through annoying messages like those lower class cell phone users. Use Dial Zero instead and get straight to someone who can help. There are also comments at the bottom of every number submitted by users. Make sure to check those out because they can be helpful if there's a problem with the instructions. Sure, you're still paying way too much for your phone service, and probably still owe a gigantic sum of money to lots of people out there, but you don't have to wait on hold anymore, and that should make you feel a little bit better about life. You're welcome.

Dictionary.com (Free)

The only dictionary app you'll probably ever need. The entire dictionary is on your phone, but don't get into any 'how is that word pronounced' debates while on a plane since you will need Internet connection to listen to the audio pronunciation of words. I even found Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in there and it had audio too. No Mary Poppins, though. It also has a Thesaurus and Word of the Day to help you keep your vocabulary growing.

vSNAX (Free)

I'm tired of checking the most popular videos on Youtube, I don't know if Hulu would ever really make it into the App Store, and I don't see myself investing in SlingPlayer Mobile, so I'm stuck looking for more ways to watch video on my iPhone. While there is Joost, vSNAX has a wide variety of interesting clips to look at too. It works pretty well but there is advertising. It has a very well done interface though, so definitely give it a look. Thanks to Laz for telling me about this app.

Peephole ($1.99)

Browsing images from Twitter has not been an easy process. Viewing images is typically a one at a time deal. With Peephole you get a full-screen browser for images uploaded to Twitter that feels right at home on an iPhone or iPod Touch. The user-interface feels like a perfect cross between Twitterrific and and the iPhone's built-in photo browser. Make sure to check out Tyler's great write up on it here. Like Face The Music above, I'd love to see another app buy out Peephole and insert the functionality into their app. The Iconfactory, this means you - I want this in Twitterrific. Still, it's worth the price tag for what it does. In addition, I love the name because it kinda does feel like a peephole. Especially the function that lets you restrict your photos to nearby. Do people realize many of their photos are geo-tagged?

The Moron Test ($0.99)

I know this isn't a Hidden Gem, but I did learn an important lesson from this app. I should be more careful about pre-judging apps. I refused to even check this app out because it was at the top of the top 25 lists and it was called "The Moron Test." I assumed it would be a button you press and it pops up and says "Yep, you're a moron." I've skipped the Facebook Quiz apps that have entered the top 25 lists, mostly because I hate Facebook quizzes with a passion, and the last thing I wanted to do was help them move up on the most downloaded lists. Anyway, The Moron Test is great fun and a really annoying brain teaser. I'm actually a bit surprised the game got by Apple's guideline standards because it's a game specifically meant to mess with your head and give you a bad user experience. I'll be passing this one around to all my friends. So now that you have checked out my hidden gems for the week I have a PSA about our Applists: Make sure to check them out if you haven't already. You can click the link at the top of the page, or, if you're lazy like me, just click here. We've got some great stuff going on over there and the lists are improving by the day, but we need your help to keep them relevant, accurate and helpful. You can email me personally at ian@appleiphoneapps.com with ideas for new lists, information we should add or apps that should be on an existing list.