Eight iPhone Apps to Escape Your Winter Blues

Eight iPhone Apps to Escape Your Winter BluesBy Nathan Eddy

This simple application lets you know the time the sun rises and sets each day, allowing you to appreciate how much more sunlight (if not warmth) you’re getting with each day you move closer to spring. It also tells you the total duration of sunlight for the day, and Version 1.5 promises improved accuracy.

This app provides guided audio meditation intended to help users adopt a more positive mind-set. It promises to help you achieve a deep state of relaxation and learn to avoid negative thinking—even when the temperature is measured in negative degrees.

Take a break from the cold, hard world outside with this game, which lets you arrange a virtual fish tank and feed your underwater friends in a realistic underwater environment. Think of it as “The Sims” by way of “Finding Nemo”-without the celebrity voices, of course.

Say what you will about freezing cold weather, one thing it offers is an often crystal clear view of the night sky and everything in it. Bone up on your astronomy skills with this app, which displays the night sky depending on your location and time, rendered in 3D. It’s also the winner of Mac World’s 2009 App Awards for education.

Give yourself a confidence boost with this colorful and relaxing app that features 12 Mood Sense Podlingz (specialized oracles “trained” to interpret your feelings and emotions) that read into your inner being and help enlighten you.

This app functions as a soundscape generator to help you enhance the ambiance of any room while tropical landscapes change before your eyes. Choose from a sunset in Hawaii, a soft tropical rainstorm or a moonlit beach fire. Add rainbows, sailboats, clouds, music and marine life as desired, sit back, and try not to look at the (very real) blizzard blowing outside your window.

Find a cheap way to a warmer climate with this app, which puts Kayak’s user-friendly travel service in a mobile package. It lets you compare hundreds of travel sites at once, book online and talk to a human (yes, a REAL human being) with the touch of a button. What better excuse do you need to book that long overdue trip to Tahiti?

Whittle away the hours (this app is inexplicably found in the “Productivity” section of the App Store) by finger painting your own island paradise, adding quirky stamps on pictures or provided backgrounds. You can even connect with your other procrastinating friends and draw together or text chat over the Web.