cloud

AroundMe

Metro Public Transport (Melbourne, Sydney and Perth) a free and paid version for Melbourne

Pocket Weather AU (like the great widget, but you have to pay)

Another 5 another lawyer likes.

The three I mention can be (are) Australian specific information services.  These work well because they relate to location specific things which the iPhone can retrieve.  Most of the other apps I find useful really need to sync with my computer; first, because it’s easier to enter the data on the computer and, secondly, because you don’t want to be entering things twice or three times or ….

Unfortunately, the way the iPhone is designed to work means that most of these apps – sugarsync, Evernote etc. – work “in the cloud” (Our ABC here). They must be stored on the internet or pass through an internet host. That has potential security and privacy concerns (assuming the technology works).

That feeds into a different concern raised by Jonathan Zittrain in The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it. We are being present with a range of proprietary offerings that are acting a bit like gated communities in which you only get what the provider is willing to offer. Prof. Zittrain contrasts that to his view of the way the Web has worked till now: someone provided the underlying technology and hosts of people came along with hosts of customised solutions that you could choose to use.

Android? Well, it seems potentially to be much more open than the iPhone. Hopefully, it will force a lot more open-ness through competition but, of course, Google has its own “cloud”.