Useful iPod Touch Apps

Before I came to China, I bought an iPod Touch, which is basically an
iPhone without the phone part. I saw that it could be a useful travel
tool, and it has really been since I got it. I even did most of my
vacation blogging from it. Besides the music and movies, you can get
on the internet anywhere that has wireless (most youth hostels seem to
have free wireless these days). It has an international clock and an
easy to use calculator. The best part are the apps, some of which are
free and some that you can buy. As I have switched Chinese teachers
I'm trying to get myself more into studying Chinese for the next few
months. Here are my most useful apps:

For Teaching:
-I got Dictionary.com's free dictionary and thesaurus app (free). I
mostly have been using this in my high level Reading and Writing
class. I try to do everything in English with as little
English-Chinese translation as possible. This helps me describe more
difficult words, and the the thesaurus is surprisingly useful for
this. Or when the students are trying to describe a word to me.
-KTdict C-E: This is a free Chinese-English and English-Chinese
dictionary I got. You can type in English, pinyin, or write out the
character. I use this as a last resort, usually in my reading and
writing class that has younger students. I can let them type a word to
look it up, which is faster than a real dictionary or asking a staff
member. Some Chinese words really have no exact English translation
though and vice-versa, so this can be tricky.

For Studying Chinese:
-iLearn Chinese Characters: Sadly there's only a free Lite version,
though I'd gladly pay for an app with more characters. This is
awesome! It has the character, audio pronunciation, pinyin, and a
short history of why or how the character came about (from a pictogram
or whatever). It's fascinating and it helps me remember the characters
better. Then it has an animation of the stroke order, which is really
important for learning Chinese. And you can practice writing with your
finger.
-Dragon Scribe: This is cool- it's a game for practicing writing. The
characters fall and you have to write them correctly before they reach
the bottom. There's a free version, full version, and pro version.
-Chinese FlashCards (Declan software ((not my brother)): This has sets
of flashcards with audio (and both simplified and traditional
characters if you're into that). It has several different ways to
review the words and it was my favorite of the flashcard programs I
tried.
-Bigram: I have the Lite version, which I think will be more useful
when get more advanced into sets of 2 characters (bigrams). Anyways,
kind of a cool way to study, has audio, and the free version has 50
bigrams.
-eStroke Animated Chinese Characters: Both a dictionary and study tool
for writing (no audio). Shows the stroke order and has all the
characters.

I guess you can tell I am trying to get into writing characters. I
have enjoyed the bit of calligraphy I've done, and writing the
characters can be fun. I bought some composition books to practice my
writing in, with big squares, which all have Disney characters-
clearly intended for very young children.