Steven over at Lost Laowai has provided a list of cool China iPhone apps for those who have made the leap to smart phones. Unfortunately I’m still using an antique Nokia, so I haven’t been able to check out the Lost Laowai suggestions, but a couple of them sound particularly useful for Beijingers.

Here’s a run down of the apps most relevant for Beijingers in the Lost Laowai post (all prices in US dollars):

Explore Beijing
99c
One of a series of four interactive subway maps (pictured above) by the Explore Metro company (the others are for Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong). Apparently these maps work offline - useful when you can't get a signal underground.
Lost Laowai says, “They not only give you up-to-date maps, but also allow you to plan routes... Best of all, the app uses the device’s ‘location services’ to tell you which subway stop is nearest to where you’re standing.”

Aibang Trains (爱帮列车)
Free
Lost Laowai says: “This free app seems to be the best way I can find of searching national train times, and allows you to search by train number, or by departing and arrival stations. Very useful for checking that you can get where you need to go on the new ‘D trains’ (aka bullet trains) as quickly as possible. The only downside to this app is that it requires you to be online, with either wi-fi or 3G.”

DianHua dictionary
Free
Lost Laowai says:  “I rate this as the best free bilingual CN-Eng dictionary. In addition to doing what you’d expect, it’ll also save (or ‘bookmark’) some of your most-needed words or phrases, and allow you to compile flashcards for studying purposes.”

A Lost Laowai user posted this app in the comments thread:

Pleco Dictionary
Free (paid add-ons available)
The user says: “I used Dianhua dictionary until Pleco came along and I saw how awesome it was. The basic setup is just a better looking and more useful dictionary in general. Once you add on the standard package ($50 or $35 with educational discount) the program becomes much more useful. I know you’re scoffing at the price. I did too, at first. But the built-in document reader is a life saver. Ever get messages from your Chinese friends in hanzi? Copy it, and view it in the Pleco reader, voila, you can understand what they’re talking about. It’s that slick. Not to mention the better dictionaries (better than CC-EDICT), and much better handwriting recognition… If you’re serious about learning Chinese, this is what you need.”

Lost Laowai also recommended this very cool-sounding Beijing-specific app, which looks particularly useful for short-term visitors:

The Forbidden Palace
$4.99 (with audio), $2.99 (no audio)
Lost Laowai says: “This is a unique, multimedia tour-guide and interactive map for Beijing’s historic Forbidden Palace complex. I recently talked to the developer of the app, and he explained that his inspiration was the awfulness of the standard, clunky audio tours in museums such as the Louvre. Instead, he wanted to create something more hi-tech for a more convenient device…In addition to historical info – in either audio or text form – the app features a map that can plan a route for you, based on what you’d like to see most, or how much time you have available.

Here’s a couple of extra app tips from the Beijinger editorial staff:

Brizzly
Free
Lets you tweet from your iphone with relative ease and without a VPN.

Instapaper
Free/$5 (pro version)
Allows you to download articles from a bunch of great publication such as the Economist, Slate, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker, plus editor picks and sites you designate with RSS feeds.

Mobile RSS
Free
An RSS Feed app that you can synch with Google Reader.

Twittme
Free
Actually not an app, but a site designed for smartphones that lets you access Twitter without a VPN (one of the few remaining unblocked sites).

Incidentally, while we're on the subject of Twitter, the Wall Street Journal last week reported on the launch of China's first Twitter novel, by "influential blogger Lian Yue... believed to be the first time a Chinese-language novel is released on the popular service."