I never thought I would review a flashlight app on this website. I don't mean to imply that an iPhone isn't useful as a flashlight. For as long as I've had an iPhone — and even before that when I had a Palm Treo — I've occasionally used the screen of my phone as a flashlight. For example, if I find myself walking upstairs in the dark at night, I may turn on my iPhone to make sure that there are no children's toys that I might trip over. Nevertheless, I've always thought that it was a little silly to pay for a flashlight
app considering that most any app will light up your iPhone screen
enough to provide some light in the dark. If the iPhone doesn't seem bright enough, just tap an app like Mail or the Calendar that has a lot of white space.
But with the iPhone 4, there is finally a real reason for a flashlight app. The LED light that provides a flash for the camera provides much more light than the iPhone screen, even if your brightness is turned all the way up. Thus, having an app that turns on the light quickly can be quite useful.
The iPhone 4 has not been out very long, but we already have a ton of flashlight apps, many of which cost $0.99. I haven't tested any of them because there is an app called LED Light for iPhone 4 Free that does the job just fine and, as its title suggests, is free.
The app could not be more simple. Start the app and you see a button. Touch the button and the LED light comes on. At that point, I recommend that you just leave the button in the on position. Every time you exit the app the LED light goes off, and every time you return to the app the LED light comes back on.
If for some reason you have the need for a flashing light — a strobe light — just tap the button at the bottom. A slider comes up so that you can control the speed of the strobe effect.
Using the flash for a long period of time surely wears down the battery, but I suspect that when you use an app like this as a flashlight, you are typically just using it for a minute or less. If you plan to use the app as a strobe light for your next disco party, consider plugging in your iPhone first.
By the way, this is one of the first apps that I've used that has Apple's new iAds in it. If you are curious to see how an iAd works, that is another reason to download this app. And I cannot think of a better app for an iAd. It makes little difference what is on the screen while you are using this app — all that really matters is that the LED light goes on — so why not stick an iAd in there. It certainly doesn't get in the way.
[UPDATE: MacRumors reports that Jason Ting, the developer of LED Light for iPhone 4 Free, made $1,372 from iAds revenue in just the first day that his app was available. Apparently, giving away a free app can be quite profitable! To be fair, though, this may just be a lot of people who, like me, saw this app as an opportunity to try out iAds for the first time. As more and more apps have iAds and thus the novelty to users wears off, revenue to developers may decrease.]
As I noted above, we already have several apps in the App Store that do the same thing. In fact, before I downloaded this one, I downloaded the free app LED Torch Flashlight 
and it works very similar to LED Light for iPhone 4 Free except that it lacks the strobe light function. Even though I doubt I will use that function very often, why not get one that has that feature just in case you want it. Having said that, I'm sure that we will soon see many more LED flashlight apps for the iPhone 4 adding lots of additional features. Perhaps we will see one that integrates with Facebook, posting a status update every time you use the app. "My light is now on." "My light is now off." Maybe there is some feature to be added to a flashlight app that will actually have some utility, but for now the LED Light for iPhone 4 Free app seems to do everything I would want. And the price is right.
If you own an iPhone 4, I think that you will find this app useful from time to time.
Click here to get LED Light for iPhone 4 Free (free):
