A colleague has recently picked up an iPhone. He’s using it in conjunction with the top of the line BlackBerry Bold 9900. The Bold is doing the corporate email — he, like me, just can’t get away from the gorgeous messaging experience from RIM.
However, he got the iPhone to test. He obviously asked for a few recommendations.
I got my iPhone and proceeded to browse through the screens observing which ones I actually used. I thought this might be an interesting exercise for you to read. If time permits, it would be super if you could do the same in the comments as I’m sure I’ll discover some good apps that way.
Here’s my as-I-scrolled list — I’ve put iTunes links to every one:
– Evernote for keeping notes, files, WiFi passwords across multiple devices (not just computers)
– Kindle, from Amazon, to read my ebooks when I’m on-the-go
– Amazon Mobile, for buying stuff that comes to mind (e.g. shoelaces, batteries, etc)
– SocialCam, for shooting video and then sending that video out to Facebook/Twitter
– Posterous, for maintaining my own personal blog/blog for friends/family
– Google+ app is really, really good — you need to try ‘Huddle’
– Spotify, for audio on-demand (tenner a month)
– Find My iPhone, so I can locate the iPhone if it’s lost
– DropBox, obviously — have you got a dropbox account?
– LinkedIn is sometimes useful
– Osfoora, for twitter — my client of choice
– UK Train Times — national rail app, expensive but super useful. Really like ‘next train home’
– British Airways — so you don’t need to ever bother with paper boarding tickets ever again
– Instagram, for snapping cool looking photos.
– Hullomail, for visual voicemail because (so you can always access your voicemails via the app and in your gmail)
– ON Voicefeed is another visual voicemail app, it’s brilliant
– LogMeIn, for accessing your desktop remotely. I use this two or three times a day for getting files and controlling my home machines from wherever I am
– Skyfire — full desktop browsing experience
– Audioboo, for recording audio ‘thoughts’ and sticking them on twitter (also, iPadio)
– Qik Plus, for live broadcasting video straight from my phone
– MIR, the mobile industry review application (just a news feed) that I paid $400 to a chap called Pavel to make
– Shoeboxed, for taking photos of receipts and having somebody else type in the value, company, date etc. so the accountant can download it later on
– OpenTable for booking Gaucho Grill in 10 seconds
– Reeder is a really good Google Reader client
– SoundHound is a billion times better than Shazam — song identification (every time I’ve tried Shazam lately, I’ve got a ‘sorry, dunno’ reply! Hardly ever from SoundHound..
– Sky+, because sometimes — rarely — I want to record stuff from live TV
– Touchnote, for sending my digital photos as real postcards to granny every week. She loves it.
– WordPress, for maintaining the sites on-the-go
– PizzaExpress, because I can’t be bothered with the 60-second faff with the credit card machine. I always pay via PayPal with the app now.
There are plenty more applications I do use, but these ones are most definitely regulars.
What about you? I’d very much welcome a list from you of your *every day* apps. If you don’t have much time, stick down one or two apps in the comments?
hold on… you use the Pizza Express app every day? 😉
Well I probably would if my wife hadn’t insisted I broaden my diet!
Daily ->
Viber – free calls & texts linked to actual numbers unlike Skype user id’s – great since daughter is in another country at Uni.
Secret Server – Password vault app – syncs to your pc automatically and has double security.- definately a MUST have app.
WifiTrak – more sensetive & powerful for finding that elusive Wifi hotspot
France24 – News channel better than BBC imho.
Google+
Google – everything you need in one app – including Google Apps account sync
Dragon Dictation – great when on the move – texting / emailing etc.
Tweetdeck – Twitter accounts
Foursquare – “checking in”
RWC 2011 – Rugby World Cup updates – the time difference is too much to watch all the games :-/
Regular use ->
Accor Hotels – fast & easy to use.
Swiss – Swiss International airlines online booking & ticketing (à la British Airways app).
Glympse – for telling the missus where I am on the way home (great fun app)
Occasional use ->
LinkedIn
SNCF Direct – for TGV travel to / from & in France
Tweetbot – my twitter client of choice.
Hullomail
Boxcar for managing notifications (even with iOS5 this is handy as hell)
Camera+ and TitleShiftGen
Dropbox
Meebo – great IM Client for iOS
iDialog for MS Communicator access with work
Facebook App (best on offer sadly)
Springpad – very good notes app, like Evernote, but easier for me
LogMeIn (thanks for the tip off on half price the other week Ewan)
MobileRSS – Google Reader client
Wordpress
(Welcome re: LogMeIn!)
—
Ewan MacLeod
Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)
Tweetbot – my daily twitter client – even better now it has notifications.
Week Calendar – by Utilitap – has the views the default calendar is missing.
Nag by Electric Pocket – for when I need to set a quick timer to remind of something in 5, 10, 20 mins etc.
Awesome Note – for making lists and recording bits of info.
eWallet Go by Ilium, for passwords etc (has Mac & Windows clients too)
Weather Pro by Meteo – much more detailed than in-built weather app, and contains thousands more locations, particularly good for Europe.
Hipstamatic – pretty much all my iPhone photos are taken with this app.
IMDB – brilliant for those “Who’s that? What’s he/she been in?” moments when you’re watching a movie/tv.
PayPal – great for sending a friend money if they’ve bought tickets for an event or something
Honk – parking app – remembers where you left the car, how much longer you’ve got til you have to go back to the car.
CoPilot Live (have UK and US versions) – great navigation wherever you are.
And various games – playing Tiny Tower, Tap Zoo, Astraware Mahjong, and Gum Drop at the moment – this changes.
Awesome Note- it is able to be used as a front-end for Evernote and it works much better than the official app.
Pocket Money- very quick transaction entry (almost automatic after the history has been learnt) and some decent reporting features.
Week Calendar- a better iPhone calendar by some distance.
Dolphin Browser- unique gesture system and excellent tabbed interface. Also very fast.
Dreamboard- make the iPhone what you want it to be (jailbreak only).
TomTom UK & Ireland- HD Traffic is astonishingly accurate.
Instacast- perfect for playing Podcasts in the car via FM.
Check out two alternative browsers: Opera Mini and Dolphin. The former I use when I’m in an area without 3G, which in Finland are few and far between, but for you in the UK … yea, let’s not go there. The latter is nothing more than a skin on top of Safari. There are gestures, which might be useful, but what I love is how much easier it is to use tabs and there’s a fullscreen view so I can see more stuff at once. That and it’s got a nice homepage, similar to Chome, where I can set favorites to just be a single tap away.
Most Used!
Task killer! – doesn’t last very long.
messages.
internet.
people – for my phone numebrs but also those i follow on twitter
backgrounds & Zedge – free wallpapers
winamp – nice little alternative from the sometimes stupid htc music player
My Vodafone – checking allowances. [think this app is rather well done]
gallery – cos my wallpapers change daily!
whats app – great for sending pics/vids/audio for FREE over data connection
mail – my hotmail/live and gmail
twitter
calender.
techno buffalo – lots of tech toys
vevo & youtube – music vids
shazam and sound hound – i agree with Ewan, sound hound will know more than shazam
blogger-droid – for my blogspot.com page
IMDb – movie reviews, tv, celebs
angry birds
colour note – post its
Tune In Radio – i like internet radio
engadget – like technobuffalo
socialcam – to follow Ewan
bbc iplayer
speed test – to compare/test home, vodafone and 3 speeds
Hullo mail – love this visual voicemail
OK… I know that’s a lot and there are others i check in with. but i do the rounds daily!
Really cool James — and thanks for the nods!
Okay, @daverage, but how do you track people knocking at your door (mentions)? I’d suggest Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc., and a column for mentions, another for a list of your inner circle.
Well @osakasaul ….. On the iphone I have tweetbot on my iphone, that sends me alerts when I get mentions from my accounts. On the desktop I use hootsuite. So far this combo has served me well. I have got hootsuite on the ipad now as well, but didnt have an ipad when I wrote that response 😉