I have to read a lot of fiction in the next few months. A lot of Science Fiction to be precice, and it’s so I can cast an informed ballot to help select the best of the genre at this year’s World Science Fiction convention (WorldCon).

As a member of WorldCon, a packet containing this year’s nominees arrived in my inbox earlier this week. Lots of PDF, RTF, DOC and TXT files, for many diverse categories including best Novel, Novella, etc. Not small files by any stretch.

So, to avoid culling a small forest by printing it all out, I decided to try and read them on my iPod Touch. In the past I’ve enjoyed reading on my previous portable device, the Palm T|X, so figured that I should give it a try on the Touch.

The dilemma, how to get just under 200mb of data on to this little sucker. Well, I solved it, two ways. Here’s how:

Over-the-air file sharing (Air Share) for PC with Files Lite:
Files Lite is, as the name suggests, the free ‘lite’ version of OliveToast’s Files program.

The way it works is pretty simple.

Files allows you to store and view files on your iPhone or iPod touch. You can connect to Files from any Mac or PC and drag and drop files straight from the Finder or Windows Explorer, as...

I said that a few weeks ago: iPhone is all about the apps and I’m more convinced of that than ever.

As I was scanning the Wall Street Journal on my iPhone, I got to thinking about some of the other apps I have on this mobile device.

54 in total so far (click the image to see the larger detail). That seems an awful lot yet it also illustrates just how compelling this platform is, for developers to develop and users to use.

I don’t use all those 54 apps. In fact, many of them are ones I’ve installed to try out and haven’t used since. So they’re just cluttering up the iPhone. (Heh, how desktop PC bad habits are so easy to transfer to other platforms!)

Of those 54, though, many really stand out for their utility, their functionality and, in many cases, the sheer fun of use. The vast majority are free.

Here are my top ten favourite apps, the ones I’m currently using more than any others, in alphabetical order (I’ve marked with an asterisk * the apps that you have to pay for):

• Audioboo: Record audio up to 5 minutes in length, publish on the web. Astounding audio quality. New service features include commenting on boos and following other audiobooers (must find a better descript...

Here’s the coolest iPhone application I’ve found so far this year – Audioboo.

What you do with Audioboo is simple: record audio on your iPhone and publish the recordings to your Audioboo account on the web, complete with your geo-location data if you choose to include that via an option on the iPhone when you first use the app.

Your account has an RSS feed so anyone can subscribe to that feed and get all your boos.

I’ve been playing with Audioboo for the past few days and, frankly, I’m addicted. I do have an affinity for recording audio, I admit, far more than with video, so if I find something appealing in this area, I’m probably predisposed towards wanting to like it.

Recording is very easy to do: hit the ‘Start’ virtual button on your iPhone screen and talk. Hit ‘Pause’ to stop and then ‘Publish’ to complete. Could hardly be simpler. The app takes care of all the production and uploads the resulting MP3 audio file to your Audioboo account.

Recording quality is astonishingly good, a testament to some excellent design and manufacture with the components of the iPhone as well as Audioboo’s software development.

Listen to an example boo here, one I did last night about Apple’s specs f... read more >>