Top 10 apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch

Here are the top 10 that we have found to be critical to enjoying your new Apple handheld device right away - and they're FREE!

We've found the best and fastest way to GET these apps is to push the "App Store" button in the bottom right corner of your iPhone/iPod, and SEARCH for these apps by name, rather than finding them in iTunes on your computer, and "synching" them up.

1. AP Mobile (Associated Press)
It's not real fancy, but it brings you the basic big news and local news very easily. A top pick.

2. Urbanspoon
This app is kind of like "Yelp" the local restaurant review website, but you don't need a membership, and the "shake" to find a random nearby restaurant is very fun. Save yourself some headaches deciding where to eat, and discover some new places you didn't know about.

3. Google Earth
Most handhelds already come with Google Maps installed, or you can use a web browser, so the real showoff way to find and see locations is Google Earth. The touchscreen controls are actually better than on a regular computer/mouse set up, so get this one right away.

4. Wifi Get
To get the information for all of your iPhone/iPod apps, you need to get a wireless connection to the internet. Wifi Get seems to find more connections, and faster, than the built in Apple app. We like it.

5. Mixology
Mixing cocktails is a big part of entertaining friends, family, and clients, and we find the reference guide from Mixology to have a large number of recipes and an easy to use interface.

6. TWC (The Weather Channel)
You've got to have weather on your handheld computer, and The Weather Channel still does it best, giving you details far beyond the basic Apple weather application.

7. AllRecipes
An iPod or iPhone is ideal for using in the kitchen with recipes, particularly for using up old ingredients or finding something that you can make fast. We like AllRecipes' app for it's simple interface and range of recipes. Epicurious also has something similar, if a little more complex.

8. i.TV
Many onscreen TV guides from the cable/satellite companies aren't that good or easy to use, so having a guide on your handheld device is very nice. TV Guide's version is not as handy to use as i.TV's guide, the one we prefer.

9. Free Wifi
This is different and better than Wifi Get for finding FREE Wifi hotspots around you or any other location you specify. It seems to be kept up to date very well, and can find you all kinds of free internet access nearby.

10. Skype
Free internet phone calls to other Skype users (get ALL of your friends and family signed up, it's FREE) and cheap phone calls (even international) to regular non-internet phones. To use this on an iPod touch, rather than an iPhone, get the Apple iPhone headset unit.

iPod Touch as a phone - Voip on iPhone WITH SMS

Gizmodo takes a look at turning your iPod touch into a wifi version of the iPhone.

Hands-On With JaJah's iPod touch VoIP App

How to get youtube videos onto your Apple Video iPod

You just found a cool music video, or a wacky home video on YouTube, and you want to watch it a few times more - but on your iPod, not at home on your desktop or laptop computer.

YouTube doesn't have a way built into it to allow you to save videos (durn them and their market share anyway!), but there are ways to get what you want.

Mac Users: Your free option is iSquint, which you can get at: http://www.isquint.org/

Windows users: Your free option is Ares Tube (which used to be called iTube), which is available at: http://www.benjaminstrahs.com/

With either one, you copy/paste the YouTube URL of the video you want, and then they automatically save a copy of it in mp4 (ipod happy) format into your iTunes library. Then you can move it over to your iPod. If you want to keep things somewhat organized, add it to a "YouTube" video playlist first, then update that.