What are the best apps? There’s an answer for that. The best apps out there are the ones you use. There is the end-all answer to that question. I know, not very helpful, but it’s the truth. Nothing like finding out about an app out there that seems cool, and you plunk down your hard earned cash, use it a couple times and then it goes on your “reserved” list. You know, where you keep it installed, “just in case” you ever need it, but you never use it again. I have 254+ apps in iTunes, 165 installed on my iPhone 4. I probably use about 10 of them on a regular basis. The rest… Well, they are there, “just in case”./> id="more-21795">/> So what are my favorite apps I actually use? Well, the first one I look at right in the morning is href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simplytweet-3-twitter-client/id364574174?mt=8">SimplyTweet. I spend about 10 minutes catching up on tech news and such, plus the ramblings of all my fellow tweeters I follow. (some of this is very easy to scroll through because it’s just random junk- No offense to the people I am following). SimplyTweet is the Twitter app that I ended up with after using several that I found just didn’t hit the mark for me. Titterific, Osfora, the Apple Twitter app (think dick bar and you’ll know the one), all of these just seemed to fail at bringing me what I needed. SimplyTweet was the first with Push notifications, and a nice clean layout. Of those that I have recommended this app to, none of them had a single bad thing to say about the app. Some decided that they like another app’s color scheme better or something like that. This all might be a moot point when iOS 5 hits this fall, since Apple’s Twitter app is built into the OS, but I have a feeling I am going to stick with SimplyTweet.
href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/simply-tweet.png">class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23032" title="simply-tweet" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/simply-tweet.png" alt="Simply Tweet" width="400" height="600" />
After my little morning Twitter-fest, I launch the href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cnn-app-for-iphone-u.s./id331786748?mt=8">CNN app and get my news fix. Personally, I hate the news as it’s almost always BAD, but it’s important to keep up with current events, so I scan through it, and read what I find important. The CNN app was not what I call intuitive when you first use it. If you don’t know how to get around, the app is quite frustrating, especially with no instructions. But I soon learned how to scroll the top menu bar through the “Top Stories”, World, US, Politics, Justice, Entertainment,… you get the idea. The App will also notify you of breaking stories, which is where this app tends to falter a little. The notifications are pretty up-to-the-minute, but the actual stories take a little longer to show up. In other words, sometimes you can be behind the news by as much as 30 minutes. This can be frustrating if you got an alert, want to know what’s going on, and have to wait for the story to actually show up. It’s fine for just getting your regular current events though. I just want the most important world news and tech info, and then I’m done./> I am sure that most users out there have a similar routine. It’s kind of funny to see what happens when you break that routine with a dead battery or misplaced device. I have gone through this a couple times and find myself pacing around the house like a junkie and checking things on the laptop to get a quick fix while my iPhone is charging.
href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cnn-ios-app.png">class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23033" title="cnn-ios-app" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/cnn-ios-app.png" alt="CNN iOS app" width="400" height="600" />
So what other apps do I use after my morning routine? Well, I actually use href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobile-mouse-pro-remote-trackpad/id289616509?mt=8">MobileMouse a LOT. I have my laptop on my coffee table, and I can lean back on the couch and navigate and even type from my phone. Yes, this is a little bit of laziness on my part, but I love it. This is one of those rare apps that is as cool as it seems when you read about them or see a vid of them in action. The app connects to your PC through a downloadable secondary app you must install on the target device. Once installed, you can launch the app and you have a couple choices. When it first comes up, you have about a third of the top of the screen as your mouse with left and right clicks and a center scroll “wheel.” The bottom is your keyboard. Two things to remember when using this to type: Auto capitalization doesn’t work, and neither does autocorrect. You have to be a bit more vigilant when posting to everythingiCafe. There are a series of buttons across the top of the keyboard for different button layouts, including web navigation, media playing, etc.
If you just want to use the mouse feature by itself, shake your iDevice and the keyboard goes away (and returns if you shake again). Response between your PC/Mac and the iDevice is excellent, and I have yet to see a delay from one to the other. If you click the little symbol in the upper right hand corner (it resembles the shuffle icon from your iPod) the mouse switches to resemble a full mouse with just buttons and no touch navigation. To navigate, you move your device in the air. The app takes advantage of the accelerometer and gyroscope to move the mouse around. Personally, I find it a little frustrating, and I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Definitely not something you want to use with the iPad. I prefer to drag my finger around to navigate.
When I am driving, I flip mostly between just 2 apps, href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trapster-speed-trap-alerts/id290629277?mt=8">Trapster and href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/waze-gps-traffic-social-fun!/id323229106?mt=8">Waze. I find that Waze provides better up-to-the-minute traffic reports, and Trapster notifies me when there might be an “inconvenience” up ahead. Both of these apps are dependent on user participation. Waze uses anonymous GPS data from you to verify the maps you are using. It’s almost like a game where if you are driving down a street no one has verified yet, your car icon becomes a little tear-drop shaped Pac-Man, gobbling up dots on the road as you go. You actually get points for these too. There are also promotions and chances to win cool prizes as well.
href="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/trapster.png">class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23034" title="trapster" src="http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/trapster.png" alt="Trapster for iOS" width="640" height="447" />
Trapster is a little different. If you are driving along and see a speed trap up ahead, you can tap the report button, quickly choose what you’re reporting, and then click OK. The more people that do it, the better the notifications are about where a problem might be ahead. This also includes construction, accidents, and not just 5-0 sitting behind a billboard. Between these two apps, I generally enjoy a quick and safe journey.
For actual navigation, I have NDrive USA (no longer available in the Apps Store do to some sort of licensing violation- which they claim is getting sorted out, but it’s been well over a year now). It’s a local GPS app with turn-by-turn directions, and has been very accurate. I don’t use it that much, and if I hadn’t grabbed it when it was still available and on sale, then I would rely on Motion X. This is another one of those little Gems I was able to grab when it first came out, and I love all the features that it provides. It’s is a little slow with updating your position when traveling over 80MPH, but no one drives that fast, right? src='http://cdn.everythingicafe.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';)' class='wp-smiley' />
Yahoo messenger is another I use a fair amount. It keeps me logged in in the background and notifies of new messages. It’s still buggy as hell, but gets the job done. If Yahoo is having a bad day, I switch over to Fring or Meebo, but I prefer to stick with yahoo. And if you are wondering how Yahoo is on the iPhone, think of the regular messenger, but stripped down. A few emoticons, no audibles…. You get the idea. However, they do have Video Chat, and Audio chat, and they work well over wifi, and even work over 3G without being too bad. I mean, it’s a lot like using a webcam from about 10-15 years ago, but it’s getting better.
There are a handful of games I play, but I am not going to list them right now (maybe below), as gaming is a preference thing, and what I might like, someone else may not. Just choose wisely. Games are some of the most expensive apps in the App Store. If I was to recommend a game, it’s a toss-up between href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/infinity-blade/id387428400?mt=8">Infinity Blade and href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/n.o.v.a.-2-near-orbit-vanguard/id400901088?mt=8">N.O.V.A 2. Both excellent graphics and game play.
Beyond that, I have another handful of apps I semi-regularly use. href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-walk-5-stars-astronomy/id295430577?mt=8">Star Walk amazingly enough comes up a fair amount. href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ghost-radar/id314696635?mt=8">Ghost Radar is another. These are mostly just to show off with. I admit it, I like showing off my iPhone, and what better way than to show the night’s sky in someone’s living room?
For communications outside of my actual cell number, I use the Google released href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-voice/id318698524?mt=8">Google Voice app and href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/talkatone-free-calls-sms-texting/id397648381?mt=8">Talkatone. Between the two apps, I can call or message with anyone and only use my data. Since I am still grandfathered in on the unlimited data plan, it’s great. Talkatone isn’t perfect, but will do in a pinch, and for those with an iPad or iPod Touch, this is a great way to communicate without a cell plan. I have even setup my niece with it on her iPod touch so she can talk to her friends while on the wifi in their home. I have heard rumor that Google themselves are planning to launch VoIP for Google Voice soon. I hope they keep it free. 20 years from now, this is going to be the future. No cell plans, just data connections./> Now that I have shared the apps I use the most, does that mean these are the apps for you? NO. Quite simply, only you know what apps you need and would use on a regular basis. Notice I didn’t mention any camera apps or streaming apps (audio and video) so far. I have them and they are installed, but I so rarely use them, it’s not worth mentioning in my list of what I normally use. That doesn’t mean that someone else is the same way, and they might be “addicted” to Pandora, or they are a shutterbug and love Camera +. (and yes, I do have both of these as well.)/> So what’s the point of all this if I cannot tell you what the best apps are? Is that what you’re thinking? I know it is. The point is that there are hundreds of thousands of apps out there that are more than worthwhile, and only you can decide which ones. The thing I want to help you with is how to find them.
First, if you use Twitter, then you should be following tweeters like @AppAdvice, @Gizmodo, @justiphoneblog, @appleinsider, @TUAW, @modmyi, @rapdevpro,@engadget, and @BGR. Of course the very first one to add is @everythingicafe. These accounts alone have led me to more “gems” and freebies than almost all other sources combined. IT still can be hit or miss, but most of the time, they give a review of an app they find useful, and tell you WHY. If that fits my needs, then I grab it asap. Even if it only is a possible fit for my needs I’ll grab it, because if it’s free, the worst thing that can happen is I don’t like it and remove it from my iDevice. I will still keep it in iTunes, “just in case”.
There is one app that I will recommend that I find is about 75/25 on usefulness. href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/appzilla-2-100-in-1!/id400332086?mt=8">Appzilla 2. This app literally has about 100 mini apps inside, many of which I find fairly useful. Some of the apps are just plain stupid too. But it’s was 99 cents, and I feel it’s fairly worth it for all that it offers. One of my favorites is Trip Wire. It’s an alarm that is activated by noise volume. If there is a crash or loud thump in your home while you’re sleeping, depending on the threshold you set, it will go off. Hook it up to some loud speakers, and it might scare the sweet bajeezus out of any possible home invader and wake you into preparedness at the same time. There is also weather, area code finder, levels, toys, google apps, etc. Again, for 99 cents, I feel it’s worth it.
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I hope that I have helped in some small way with you and your app obsessions. Again, apps are a preference and needs thing for each individual out there. How you want to use your phone and what you want to get accomplished are the driving forces for what you are looking for. There is no solid “this is the best” answer for any of you. I cannot tell you that href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iteleport-jaadu-vnc-for-iphone/id286470485?mt=8">iTeleport is the best remote desktop app, or that iCam is the best webcam monitoring app. I haven’t tried any others to really compare to. I can tell you that they fulfill my needs to a “T”, and if you asked for my opinion, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them, but I would also tell you to do a bit more research and make sure that it’s exactly what you need. Once you drop the cash, it’s yours- whether you like the app or not.
Stay tuned for my next post where I highlight the best jailbreak apps for iPhone.
This post was brought to you as part of the href="http://www.everythingicafe.com/everythingicafe-guest-blogger-program/2011/05/23/">everythingiCafe Guest Blogger Program. Are you an iPhone expert who enjoys writing? Our guest blogger program is a great way to share your knowledge with other iPhone enthusiasts and earn valuable iTunes gift certificates.
