What’s great about Voice Changer is that you can save a recording as a separate file with an effect permanently applied, which few other apps do. You can then take that affected file and apply another effect on top. Pretty soon you come up with some bizarre and cool sounds. Voice Changer also lets you transfer recordings to a computer through a Web browser over a Wi-Fi network. So musicians and sound designers have a useful tool for recording sounds wherever they go, adding effects, and saving them to a computer for further use.

IR-909 is a drum machine for the iPhone inspired by the Roland TR-909. IR-909 features a 16-step sequencer, 4 patterns and 8 different drum sounds.

Stephan Shankland reports: “Businesses, for various reasons, have not flocked to the iPhone, but CNET News’ Stephan Shankland reckons he has proof “from an expert” that its interface really is superior: his 3-year-old son.

Over the years, I’ve seen countless newbies struggle to use the latest gadget, computer, or software. I like new technology, but it’s been work hauling myself up learning curves.

But I’m convinced that after years stuck with only modest tweaks to the WIMP interface — windows, icons, menus, pointing device — real change is upon us. That’s chiefly because the pointing devices now can be your own fingers.”

FourTrack is a songwriting and practice tool for singers, guitar players, piano players, and other musicians who want to capture musical ideas and record songs on their iPhone.

With decent audio quality, nice features, and smooth operation, FourTrack stands out among App Store music programs. It could benefit, however, from adding a metronome, audio effects, and an overdub option for layering tracks. Overdubbing would mix a new recording into a recorded track, rather than overwriting portions of a recorded track, which is what FourTrack does.

The drive communicates directly with the Air Sharing app, and as such, cannot function unless an iPhone is a) on, b) within range of a Wi-Fi signal, and c) tuned to the Air Sharing app. Once connected, the Avatron technicians have set the app’s sleep default to 10 minutes, more than enough time for the 176MB video I tested; for larger transfers, sleep can be prolonged or turned off completely — neither of which affects your iPhone’s global settings. And for an extra level of security, password protection can be turned on, too. Avatron has made it all as simple as possible, with a “familiar, Finder-like browser” and an unparalleled set of instructions.

Of course, Air Sharing doesn’t allow editing of any kind, but if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to dump files onto your iPhone without synching with iTunes, this app is a must-download.

Once you’ve got all your accounts logged in, there are tons of options available in the iPhone’s settings menu. You can easily tweak everything from the color of incoming or outgoing IM bubbles, hidden offline buddies, and sound or vibrations alerts–although you can’t set custom sounds for different people. Turn off off auto-spelling and auto-capitalization to type in txtspeek. There are even some nifty iPhone-centric tricks such as shaking the handset to switch between conversations and rotating into landscape mode for a wide angle.

iCursor brings the mouse to the iPhone

Read and browse Wikipedia easily on your iPhone or iPod Touch. With perfectly formatted articles, outstanding features and excellent usability, Wikipedia Mobile makes it easy to search and read Wikipedia anywhere, in any language. Now available in the App Store.

Toy Camera simply converts iPhone’s cheap camera to lovely toy camera like lomo. This app has no setting panel, no complex feature, just take a photo and you get nicely effected pictures.

MindMaker is a $4.99USD application which provides a basic interface for iPhone mind mapping. The first screen is a list of maps which can be added and deleted in the typical iPhone fashion, and clicking a document title opens a map for editing. Within a map, double tapping on a “node” will select it, double tapping again will edit its text, and child nodes are added by tapping the plus sign ( ) in the bottom toolbar. Pinching zooms the map in and out, and swiping in the white space allows rapid navigation.

Ocarina, for iPhone - make music

Whenever you admire the starry night sky, Star Walk helps you to recognize anonymous heavenly bodies. Just find them on your interactive star map and tap “i” to retrieve useful information, such as celestial coordinates of these heavenly bodies. Don’t be afraid to get overloaded by tons of specific terms. Star Walk is not for scientific use but for learning something new playfully. The cutting-edge graphics and smooth moving/scaling make your work with Star Walk pleasant and easy. You do not need a manual for using Star Walk because of its intuitive interface.

Spend 5 minutes a day to significantly improve your memory and ability to count numbers!

There are 5 rows with numbers on the screen. Only one number per row can be selected at a time. Tap on a number to select. You need to choose proper numbers to make a correct equation in the line below. After you select 5 numbers (one per row) an arithmetic equation is checked for correctness. You win if counted all the numbers are right.

With just a swipe of your finger you can fly from Peoria to Paris to Papua New Guinea, or anywhere in between. It may be small, but it brings all the power of Google Earth to the palm of your hand, including all of the same global imagery and 3D terrain. You can even browse any of our 8 million Panoramio photos or read Wikipedia articles.

With Google Earth for iPhone, you can:
• Tilt your iPhone to adjust your view to see mountainous terrain
• View the Panoramio layer and browse the millions of geo-located photos from around the world
• View geo-located Wikipedia articles
• Use the ‘Location’ feature to fly to your current location
• Search for cities, places and business around the globe with Google Local Search

It’s available today in 18 languages and 22 countries in the iTunes App Store. To learn more, check out this video tour and read the blog post on the Lat Long Blog.

If you’re looking to spend $.99 on something that suits most needs, get Recorder. It syncs most gracefully, and provides quick recording. If you need smart organization, and want something that looks nice, get Record. iDicto is probably useful for categorization, but it felt clunky and was missing features like visual feedback on levels while recording. Still, the possibility of CD-quality recording is a plus. VoiceNotes is free, but sync was slightly clunky to set up and wasn’t as nicely designed as the others. Check out the gallery to see the differences between the apps in action.

Each student will also have a personal wiki where they can post their assignments, and other stuff that interests them. There will also be a class wiki, much like what I have now, only hopefully better, where they can get assignments, complete assignments, and take polls/surveys, and tests. Hopefully, we will also be able to integrate Moodle and hopefully we can access that easily on the iPod Touch.

Students can study flashcards, create their own, or review with interactive quizzes. Some of the science apps and foreign language apps are just amazing by allowing users to have a pocket palanetarium, view three-dimensional models of hydrogen atoms, or record and play back foreign language practice.

The iPod touch takes it beyond the basic viewing and listening of media to add applications. From using Internet resources, to communication applications it puts a vast amount of resources in the hands of teachers and students.

I was considering buying 10 for a classroom where the teacher already has laptops for each student and does an already excellent job using a variety of technologies… to teach Spanish. I ultimately decided against it until the iPhone software 2.0 debuts later this summer. For us, it provided playback of podcasts/audio/video, and the obvious web experience. But since we already have iPods, and we can’t reasonably monitor what they pull up on the touches, we decided to wait it out. I hope you share what becomes of yours.

The headphone jack will accept a four rung headset with microphone. Video Podcasts will now be even better on a larger screen. Second, the Educational Apps for the iPod Touch are growing at an incredible rate. There are currently over 160 Educational Apps at the iTunes Store, and the list is growing every day. One great app titled Flashcard allows any teacher to create a study tool for the iPod Touch. Third, the iPod Touch’s overall concept of durability, battery reliability, ease of use, and cost ($229) make it a great fit for the classroom. Anyone can pick it up and start using it. It is affordable enough for any classroom. It has built in security features for both theft and volume, and it is a hard one to damage. The “touch” concept makes students addicted to learning. (Teachers control the content on the device.) Last, and by no means least, it has the internet. Students can access the sites you announce instantly via WiFi.

On the success side, South Iredell High School in Statesville has used iPod touch for classroom purposes for two years and has further plans to expands it’s iPod pilot plan. Tim Ivey, learning community director of the school shares this view:

It gives kids a chance to use things they already use in real life and make that connection in school.

Whatever is the outcome, it is interesting to observe that the iPod touch and the iPhone as revolutionary devices have done wonders for enterprise users, business community and now students. With all these happening we are heading for out of stock situation for iPod touches and iPhones very soon.

# Google Apps have an “iPhone optimized” version, allowing users to open, edit, share, and save Word and Excel documents. This would be great for schools- no Microsoft licensing fees, no Sharepoint server, nada.
# Battery life is good, lasting 4-6 hours depending on usage. Again, great for schools where power outlets are not always available.
# Keyboard. I’m not a “thumb typer” like today’s middle school students, but I’m getting a lot faster than when I started. It’s a whole lot faster than texting on a phone, and the adaptive keyboard reduces errors by anticipating what your next keystroke will be.
# The high-resolution screen is amazing. It makes reading text on the screen possible. Not pleasant, but possible. This somewhat offsets the negative of having a small screen.

The bottom line is, to allow syncing of an iPod to multiple computers, the account at school has to be set to “manually manage content” and items can simply be dragged over to the attached iPod. I know there are hardware options available, too, for multi-syncing and charging, but these iPods will be going home and can be charged there.

The iPod touch takes it beyond the basic viewing and listening of media to add applications. From using Internet resources, to communication applications it puts a vast amount of resources in the hands of teachers and students.

With a few clicks you could be reading an article (PDF is supported on the iPhone), listening to a lecture, or better yet you could use the beautiful, widescreen display to watch a lecture. Then you could use the touch screen keyboard to communicate with the Apollos community. Individuals will be able to learn in mobile environments like never before. You may be saying, “Wait, couldn’t we already do this?” The short answer is “No”. Although primitive browsing and communication was possible before, this represents a large step forward in usability (and ability).