Free iPhone apps for a rainy weekend

I live in Oregon. It rains a bit here. Must be why it's so green. It's about to get greener with a big storm forecast to deluge the weekend. So, gardening and a long road ride on my Torelli are not on my agenda. But playing with my iPhone can be a fun, safe and dry. It can also be free, which we cheap-o Oregonians (no sales tax here!) love.

Voice Recognition
So many of us have waited so long for practical voice recognition tools and have been disappointed so often, it's a wonder we keep trying it out. The iPhone gives us another chance to be disappointed.

The vlingo app from a Cambridge, Mass. company of the same name already has a version for the Blackberry. On the iPhone the free program is advertising supported. It has unobtrusive advertisements on the top of the screen and a special icon for another featured ad.

The software is pretty good for Web searches, certainly much faster than my thumb skills with the iPhone soft keypad. It may become my default input method for searching with Google on my Apple device. It's also not bad at locating places and mapping them on the iPhone.

However, for calling people it's rather stupid. First, you need to open vlingo, tap on the "Press + Speak" button, say the name of the person you wish to call, press the "Listen" button when done. If the app is pretty certain it has the name you want it starts to dial within three seconds.

That long process versus is no better than opening the iPhone's contacts list, tapping on a name, and then the number. There's no productivity gain. In fact, when the app misconstrues a name (which it will) you lose time.

People Avoidance
Never trust me again. Sure, I'm a journalist, worse, a blogger, so my credibility is already tattered at best, but now it's totally shot.

I've added the FakeCaller from Hot Potato app to my iPhone.

For those who don't know, FakeCaller lets you set a time for your iPhone to ring you. So, if you're out on a blind date and you don't know whether it's going to be a lively or deadly dull evening, you can pre-program FakeCaller to ring you at a specified time. Or, if a promising meeting is suddenly starting to become a problem for you, you can get FakeCaller to call you in as little as five seconds.

You get fake wallpaper and a phoney name to go with the deceptive ringing. Just remember, if you're ever in a meeting with someone who gets a call from "Timothy White" and says they have to excuse themselves immediately be very suspicious. "Timothy White" is the default name used by FakeCaller.

Television
What better way to waste a wet weekend than with the boob tube? No, not the big ol' Sony in the den, but my on my iPhone. You see, with TV.com I can watch a lot of the shows owned by CBS, which includes Showtime, a premium channel we don't get on our cable. That means I get to watch one of my favorite comedians, Tracey Ullman regularly and for free.

And nothing pleases a cheap Oregonian like a free show on a rainy weekend.

Have a good weekend and stay dry.