This is another of Darren's finds.  It's a single app containing multiple mini-apps or widgets. Each widget is for a separate service. There are IM and email widgets, news feeds, games and calculators. iDea comes with Gmail, Google Talk, Sudoku, a Currency Converter, TechCrunch, Yahoo News, Google Search and ICQ Widgets. There are over 70 more available for download including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace widgets.

Darren says iDea works well on his i856 but I found it much too slow to use on my i776. So it's probably only for i856 and i9 users.

Free registration is required.  You can use the app for one day without registering. Registration can be done on the phone.You need to enter your phone number and then click a link in a text message that iDea sends to validate your registration.  When I tested it I got the text in less than a minute and was charged the normal 10 cents.

Type: Freeware
Vendor: Mobile Innovations - Product Page
Data Connection Required: Yes
Supported iDEN phones: i9 and  i856 only
File Size: 349 KB

GWeather displays the current conditions and four day forecast for multiple locations.  The number of locations seems to be limited only by device memory. I set up 15 locations on my i776 and GWeather still seemed willing to take more. Data is from the Google weather API.

Text is cut off sightly on phones with 128 or 130 px wide screens like the i465 but still readable.

Type: Open Source
Author: Oleg Derevenetz Product Page
Data Connection Required: Yes
Supported iDEN phones: All Falcon Series with Java (i776, i465, i9, i290, etc.)
File Size: 44 KB

FreeRange is a stand alone RSS reader application.  It used to be a paid app with a $40/year subscription.  There was also a free version that was limited to 10 feeds. Last year FreeRange was acquired by Handmark who eliminated the paid option and made the free one unlimited.

FreeRange works pretty well on my i776. It takes a while to download  new items if you have a lot of unread ones but you can start reading while it's still downloading.  Unlike the other free RSS readers I've tried it displays the images in feeds.

FreeRange comes pre-configured with ten popular feeds including ESPN, CNN, Engadget, BoingBoing and Wired.  You can add more feeds by picking them from a list within the app.  There doesn't seem to be anyway to add feeds that aren't in the list by URL from within the app. A full range of feed management options including; adding feeds by URL, importing a feed list from another reader and linking FreeRange with a Google Reader account are available on the web at FreeRangeinc.com

FreeRange does have a few quirks:

• Like many apps on iDEN phones, the OK key doesn't work, you need to use the green "Call" button instead.
• When you start up FreeRange, the option to login to an existing FreeRange account is hidden off screen. You can reach it by scrolling down past the "Create a new account" option and pressing the Call key.
• A couple of times while running the app I got a Java connection error that caused FreeRange to go into "Flight Mode" and stop updating. If this happens you can get it working again by backing out to the list of feed, pressing the menu key and choosing "Settings "and then clicking "Turn Flight Mode off".

If spite of the quirks FreeRange is by far the best standalone RSS reader I'v found that works on iDEN phones.

Type: Freeware
Vendor: Freerange Communications- Product Page, Help Pages, Forum.
Data Connection Required: Yes
Supported iDEN phones: All Falcon Series (i776, i465, i9, i290, etc.)

Gergely Gati's Weather app again, this time in a version optimized for 240px wide screens.  In the wide world of phones 240px is a very common width but among Boost and Nextel phones, the only one with a 240px screen is the i9.

The screen shot shows how the Weather app looks on the i9's big 240x320px screen, It shows one of Weather's three views, this one offers summary current information for five cities.  The other two views are a four day forecast for one selected cities (shown in in this post) and the detail screen for a single city, shown here. The app uses data from AccuWeather.com and auto refreshes.

Type: Freeware
Author: Gergely Gati - Product Page
Data Connection Required: Yes
Supported iDEN phones: Falcon Series with 240 px screens (currently only the i9) For other screen sizes click here.

This is a version of the nice weather app that I posted about optimized for 176px wide screens. Boost and Nextel phones with that size screens include the current i856 and discontinue i580, i605, i760, i850, i855, i860, i870, i875, i880 amd i885 models.

I continue to be impressed with this app.  It looks great and there are  lots of little hidden goodies on the detail screen for each location including the current time , sunset and sunrise,  Its memory footprint is small enough that I can leave it running all the time in the background and still use other apps like Opera Mini or Mail for Google at the same time.

Type: Freeware
Author: Gergely Gati - Product Page
Data Connection Required: Yes
Supported iDEN phones: All Falcon Series with 176 px screens (i856, i855, i875, i885, i860 etc.) For other screen sizes click here.

A very nice weather app that shows the current conditions and a four day forecast for a five locations using data from AccuWeather.com.  Use the left and right arrow keys to switch locations. The up or down arrows to cycle through three different views (four day forecast, detailed current conditions or a summary of condions for all five locations on a single screeen).  Use the right soft key (labeled "search") to add new locations. Optimized for phones with a 128px screen such as the i465.

Type: Freeware
Author: Gergely Gati - Product Page
Data Connection Required: Yes
Supported iDEN phones: All Falcon Series with 128 px screens (i776, i465, i355, i290, i425 etc.) For other screen sizes click here.