The Best "Evil" Apps for iPhone

Line2

Although there have long been VOIP options like Skype and Fring, Line2 offers up a full phone service and text messaging replacement for a small monthly fee ($10/month for unlimited everything). As we discovered when we turned our iPod touch into an iPhone, Line2 is a highly functional alternative and can save you a lot of money on your monthly bill just through text messages alone. Call quality is pretty much on par with AT&T, and the text messaging portion of the Line2 app is just a little bit nicer than Apple's included app. With Apple's many App Store refusals due to "duplicated functionality" it's a wonder that Line2 actually made the cut. Fortunately it did, because it's often a better way of using your iPhone as an actual phone.

Line2 | iTunes App Store

VLC Media Player

It's still hard to believe the day came where VLC was approved in the app store. Originally just for the iPad, VLC was released as a universal iOS app just a few days ago. While using it with high definition MKVs gives you a clear indication of why Apple doesn't bother supporting other formats, VLC's performance with standard definition files—particularly DiVX AVIs—was basically flawless. (More performance notes here.) Regardless of performance, however, VLC opens up your iPhone to nearly any video format you'd want and that's enough to praise all by itself. Plus, it's free.

VLC Media Player | iTunes App Store

Air Video/StreamToMe

Where VLC Media Player fails, AirVideo and StreamToMe pick up the slack. Although VLC adds support for many new video formats, your iPhone can't necessarily play them (or at least play them well) plus video takes up a ton of disk space. Air Video and StreamToMe are both great solutions that allowing you to stream content from your computer's hard drive to your phone over Wi-Fi or 3G. They convert content on the fly so it'll play nicely with your iPhone, allow you to essentially watch whatever you want regardless of the format. Each app has a few features the other doesn't, so they're not identical, but overall they're both very capable of handling your streaming video needs. If you want to make sure you're fully covered to watch anything, regardless of Apple's support for the format, either app (both $3) will serve you well.

Air Video / StreamToMe | iTunes App Store

MyWi and My3G

Although Apple's opened the gate a bit wider to let some surprising apps into the app store, there are still a number of things you can't do without jailbreaking (or paying hefty monthly fees). One of the most useful of those things: turning your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot. MyWi is designed to let you do just that, and helps with USB tethering as well. Although it comes at a steep price of $20, that's what you'd end up paying for a month of tethering by going through the proper channels (AT&T). In that light, the price isn't really all that bad. So long as you're already paying AT&T for the data bandwidth, we think you should be able to use it however you want. MyWi gives you that freedom when Apple and AT&T won't.

Also from the Intelliborn folks is My3G, which lets you decide which apps can and can't use your 3G connection. The iPhone generally prohibits you from using a lot of things over 3G—like Facetime, downloading anything over 20MB, etc.—so this $4 jailbreak app can give you that control.

MyWi / My3G

Wi-Fi Sync

Wi-Fi Sync is my favorite jailbreak application and entirely worth the $10 it'll cost you. I don't really care for iTunes in general, but when syncing is necessary it just seems so archaic to sync a Wi-Fi enabled devices with a cable. Wi-Fi sync cuts the cord and lets you sync your iPhone over your local Wi-Fi network. It's surprisingly quick when compared to cable syncing and setup is very easy. You just install the Wi-Fi Sync application on your iPhone and your Mac or Windows PC, pair your iPhone with your computer, and start syncing. You're not limited to a single device, either, so if you happen to have an iPad, for example, you can use Wi-Fi sync to sync that too.

Wi-Fi Sync

Honorable Mentions

While the five apps above cover the major missing features of the iPhone, there are still a few niche, awesome apps that serve a more specific purpose. We didn't want to leave them out, and so they've found a place in the honorable mentions.

• SNES HD (Free) - SNES HD isn't so much an iPhone app as it is an iPhone-iPad app combination. It turns your iPhone into an SNES controller which you can pair with your iPad. It's a neat idea for people with both devices, but if you're just looking for a straight-up SNES emulator for your iPhone, snes4iphone is the way to go.
• Winterboard (Free) - Apple likes to control the look and feel of your iPhone, but you can circumvent those limitations with Winterboard. You can use it to apply your own, custom theme to the iPhone's home screen interface, or you can download and install one of the many existing themes available on the Cydia jailbreak app store.
• TextFree (Free) - If you're just looking for unlimited text messages and you're okay with using a separate phone number, TextFree is a free app in the iTunes App Store that'll let you text without cost.

Got any great "evil" apps, available in iTunes or Cydia, that you love? Let us know in the comments.