iPhone's i-centric programs: It's about you 24/7

Suzanne Choney • E-mail

There's a reason for the "i" in iPhone. It's all about me! Forget Microsoft Exchange Sync and Loopt and social networking and connecting with the world.

If you've got an iPhone, you can live within your own universe of egocentric applications, including some that make your phone ring to aid your escape from an incessantly chattering coworker, one that helps you plan a dinner party down to the seating arrangements and a yet another that offers a "chill pill" to calm you down from the stresses of the day.

Some of the programs have become available in the last few weeks. Others have been among more than 6,000 applications available in Apple's online "App Store" since July, when it launched as part of the iTunes Store. There are many, many useful iPhone programs. Those are not the focus of this story.

The iPhone handily lets you can create your own iCocoon because Apple's device is like no other in terms of its operating system, visual richness and ease of use, and because thousands of software developers know a good marketing opportunity when they see it.

With a press of a button right from the phone to download the programs onto it, and a dollar or two in many cases for these vanity apps, your iPhone really can be all about you, even more than it already is.

Here's a look at the top 10 most recent iRreverent, iNane or, depending on your take, iNnovative, iPhone programs:

iCycle: Sure to iRritate your wife
This one's for guys who really should consider relationship counseling first before buying this program, which launched Oct. 10. It lets you know when your significant other or others are having their periods. Seriously.

TJWare You definitely have too much time on your hands or too many women in your life if you opt for the iCycle program, which monitors menstrual cycles.

"Enjoy peace and quiet in your relationships," says developer TJWare in its App Store explanation of the program. "Prevent arguments and unnecessary misunderstandings, save money, plan your dates, vacations, weekend trips and major discussions within her 'best time period' of the month, the Green Zone."

It's up to you to set up the names and cycles of the women in your life. That should be a fun question to ask, and when you tell them why you're asking — but of course you won't, because you're not a total idiot, are you? (Or are you?) Then you get to program that into iCycle.

Your reward for entering all this info is a series of stoplights in yellow, green and red.

"The visual cues show when your women are about to get their period in their current cycle (the Caution Zone), when they are having their period and are highly irritable (the Warning Zone), when they are coming off their period (the Good Zone), and when they are in the green zone (The Best Zone or Ovulation Period)," say the developers.

Oh, and there's a lame attempt at the high ground with iCycle: "Great if you are planning to get pregnant and know when she is most fertile."

The iPhone may be a miracle, but is not a miracle worker, buddies. Use your heads, not your … $1.99 for this program.

iThrown: A virtual tossup
So, you've spent $199 or $299, or maybe even more for the first-generation iPhone, and admit it, sometimes the urge to fling it is unbearable.

This free program "enables you to check how far you can throw your iPhone…without really throwing of course," says Magnatron, the developer of iThrown.

The program uses the iPhone's accelerometer motion sensor to "measure your throw and how far the phone would have flown." Hmm. That's satisfying.

Oh, and in case you need to have that virtual throw validated, iThrown also "includes nice audience recordings to make sure everybody around you knows how good your arm really is."

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