Best iPhone Apps
By Nick Mokey
August 26th, 2009
It's now been over a year since we first gazed upon the well-stocked shelves of the iTunes App Store. While our Top iPhone Apps were tough to choose the first time around, the task was even tougher a year later, with over 65,000 apps now cluttering up the marketplace. Even for a specific task like calculating your blood alcohol content after a night of drinking, you can find over a dozen apps that fit the bill. That's a lot of apps. Which ones belong on your phone? We scoured the App Store yet again to deliver our favorites in five different categories.
Productivity
EverNote, Free
Evernote's "Remember Everything" mantra sums up this clever little app quite nicely. It turns your phone into the ultimate digital archive by collecting snapshots, written notes and voice recording, then making them all available with a simple search - from your phone or your PC. Character recognition performed by Evernote actually makes the text in photos you shoot, like a concert poster or business card, into searchable text, no typing needed. For those of us cursed with a decidedly non-elephant-like memory, Evernote makes a killer digital substitute.
Pocket Informant, $9.99
A calendar and to-do list merge in one of the most powerful scheduling and task management apps out there. True, not everyone needs the sort of heavy lifting and micromanagement this app allows, but if you do, there's none quite like it. Syncing with Google Calendar seals the deal by allows appointments to be easily added and modified from a PC then displayed on the phone.
iTranslate, Free
For French 101 dropouts and those who just need a little extra help abroad, iTranslate can serve as that digital crutch that lets you hobble through a foreign country. It uses Google's translation software to translate between over a dozen different languages, from the frequently used ones like Spanish and German to more obscure tongues like Catalan and Latvian. As Google Translate vets can attest, it's not perfect, but something is better than nothing, ja?
WhatTasks Lite, Free
Looking to write a to-do list with a little more detail than the kind you can jam out in Notes, but not quite ready for a full-blown Getting Things Done task manager? WhatTasks lets you divvy tasks up into simple groups ("work," "personal," "school") and simply add and remove tasks with basic priority levels from there. The simple interface makes it easy to jot down tasks without worrying about 15 different form fields for every entry, meaning you'll be more motivated to actually use it.
AppMiner, Free
Bitten by the app bug, but starting to cringe when those iTunes purchases hit your credit card? AppMiner lets you dig through the iTunes store with some cash-savvy filters Apple doesn't offer, like seeing which apps developers have temporarily put on sale or offered for free. You can even watch the premium apps you've been holding off on to find out as soon as they go on sale.
Games
Oregon Trail, $4.99
Revisit your elementary school computer lab with this remake of Oregon Trail, dysentery and all. Like the original game, you'll have to balance speed, resources and your party's health against a dwindling summer and pool of funds to make it in time. The graphics have been imaginatively reworked for the iPhone, but many of the game mechanics remain intact, including the all-important squirrel-hunting sessions. Perfect for escaping the tedium of a long car trip from Missouri to Oregon. Or not.
Chopper, $2.99
Simple, but addictive. Chopper challenges you to pick up as many civilians as possible in a classic sidescrolling helicopter game controlled by the iPhone's internal accelerometers. Of course, along the way you'll also have to wipe out an array of baddies with a blend of bullets and bombs. The controls require quite a delicate touch, but the physics and gameplay make it easy to pick up and hard to put down.
Unblock Me Free, Free
The name says it all. Free one orange-colored block from a traffic jam of other blocks by sliding them around to create a path to the exit. The iPhone's sensitive touchscreen makes a perfect fit for intuitively pushing the blocks around, and after you get the hang of it on the earliest levels, you'll keep coming back to crack the most complex and difficult upper levels. Though the free version only offers 200 levels (rather than the 2,000 you get on the 99-cent paid version), most casual gamers will find that number plenty challenging.
DOOM Resurrection, $6.99
Leave it to id Software to totally demolish previous preconceptions about what sort of graphics were possible on the iPhone. Like the PC games, Resurrection drops you onto Mars as a sole space marine battling the forces of Hell. Unlike the PC games, it's a "rails" shooter, meaning you don't control the character, you just blast everything that wanders onto the screen. Despite the departure, hardcore gamers will likely enjoy the dose of gore and dark visuals ported to a platform mainly known for cutesy time killers.
Crazy Machines, $2.99
Those who remember The Incredible Machine for PC will delight in tackling the insane challenges laid out in this uncanny copy for the iPhone - and those who have no idea will get to fall for the concept the first time around. As with the original, you'll need to use household objects like rockets, candles, bellows and eight balls to build machines that accomplish simple tasks, like getting a basketball in a hoop. Tinker your way through 50 different levels using 70 different game elements, or use the construction kit to just tool around on your own in a sandbox environment!
Video & Music
Pandora, Free
If you know anyone with a 16GB iPhone that has absolutely zero music loaded on, you can probably blame Pandora. The ultra-popular music app mimics the functionality of Pandora.com by spinning one artist or song into a never-ending playlist of similar tunes, which you can vote up or down along the way to further tune it to your tastes. To our amazement, it even works when you tread outside metropolitan 3G coverage into EDGE zones, meaning you really have to head off the beaten path to lose your tunes.
Slacker, Free
We've always loved Slacker's online service, but the G2 dedicated Slacker player never really struck our fancy. Enter the iPhone app, which pulls down the same quality Slacker stations (including customizable ones you make for yourself) but without the niche hardware. Unfortunately, unlike the same app on other platforms, Apple won't allow Slacker to cache music on the phone for playback when you're out of a reception area, so connectivity is a must, unlike on the G2.
Last.fm, Free
Much like Pandora, Last.fm makes it simple to stream an impressive collection of music to your iPhone without ever paying a penny. Like those offerings, Last.fm lets you start a station based on an artist, then tweak from there, based on what plays. You can also view artists bios easily, tag them as favorites, find out tour dates, and Last.fm's social approach to music lets your friends know what music you're currently enjoying and vice versa.
TV.com, Free
We're not the biggest fans of CBS programming, but when you're stuck on a bus, we'll watch streaming full episodes of just about anything, rather than chewing through dozens of 30-second YouTube clips. TV.com serves up entire episodes of many CBS shows, like CSI, Big Brother, and even MacGyver. That said, it's slow and notoriously buggy, so be patient if you want to take advantage of the gems available within.
Shazam, Free
Ever want to identify a hot new track from the radio, but don't have time to listen through six more tracks before a DJ announces the title? Just open Shazam, record a brief sample, and it will identify it from a library of millions. Amazingly enough, it even works in noisy bars and in cars with the window down. Just be prepared for some suspense while it does the dirty work, since it's not exactly a quick process.
Utilities
The Weather Channel, Free
We've combed through every free weather app out there, and this one takes the cake for usability. A simple interface makes it so painless to view the current, hourly, 36-hour or 10-day forecast in a hurry, that we usually dig out the iPhone to do it, even when we're in front of a computer. You can even view accurate weather maps superimposed over the Google Maps interface, zoom in as far as you care to, and animate the radar data. Ads do provide a bit of clutter, but that's the cost of free.
Yelp, Free
Your go-to source for all things brick-and-mortar, tailored for the iPhone. Whether you're looking for a mechanic or a drugstore, the Yelp app makes it a breeze to find the best one based on the sites' comprehensive library of reviews, without driving all over town. Either browse by category, or rely on the iPhone GPS to peg your location and find locations nearby. You can also write reviews from the phone, allowing you to ward off potential customers when you end up at a dive before you even head home.
UrbanSpoon, Free
Eliminate the weekly where-should-we-go-out-to-eat discussion and cut right to the food with this decisive restaurant finder. Just pick a neighborhood, a style of food, and a price range, and it will generate a suggestion. For the less spontaneous, you can also browse by food type, and read reviews on every individual restaurant. Regular updates have kept it sharp even as other apps have crowded into the same space.
AllRecipes Dinner Spinner, Free
Looking for a little kitchen inspiration as you aimlessly skid a cart around the supermarket? AllRecipes' Dinner Spinner taps the site's wealth of both recipes and reviews to drum up near-endless recipes to your specification. Pick a course, a main ingredient, and a prep time, and you're looking at dozens of potential recipes.
Mixologist, $.99
You have a liquor cabinet full of gin, rum, and Canadian whiskey, along with a couple energy drinks and club soda in the fridge. What can you make? How about a B-Town Highball. Lethal Injection Shooter. Super Surge. Mixologist's library of 7,900 drink recipes lets you not only browse for the ones that sound good, you can specify what you have on hand and go from there, and even view tips on proper glassware and techniques. The 99 cents will pay for itself over and over again on weekends. Just leave the iPhone in your pocket after you've had a few.
Fun
Fandango, Free
Cut to the front of the theater ticket line (without being rude) by whipping out this app and buying tickets online before the next person in line even gets up to the window. You can also find out more about new movies, view trailers, showtimes, and find theaters close to you.
Fring, Free
Forget downloading different apps for each IM service like, AIM or Yahoo Messenger, especially when the limitations of the iPhone mean you won't be able to switch between them without closing one. Fring combines all the most popular instant messaging clients in one app, plus Twitter, Facebook and even SIP calling. We also dig the no nonsense layout, and extras, like built-in history.
Sonar Ruler, $.99
Apps don't come much geekier than this tool, which uses the measured gap between audible blips emitted by the phone and their echoes off walls to calculate the distance between you and a target. It isn't exactly intuitive, or even all that useful, but we couldn't help but fall for the novelty of the concept. And subsequently measure our distance from every wall in the office.
Brushes, $4.99
This app needs no better endorsement than that of Portuguese illustrator Jorge Colombo, who famously used it to illustrate the image used on the cover of June's New Yorker magazine. While other "doodling" apps let you execute MS Paint caliber illustrations, Brushes acts like a full-on painting simulator. Think along the lines of an ultra-simple Photoshop. Of course, if you can't put together a chilling still life on canvas with real paint, don't expect to do it on an iPhone screen with your fingers.
Geocaching, $9.99
Old-time geocachers may bemoan the lack of prep work that this all-inclusive geocaching app eliminates, but casual geocachers won't be able to deny the convenience. Just fire it up and when you're in a new area to find nearby caches, read the details, drop a pin on the map, and get searching. You can even post field notes to help others, right from the phone. We've used it for impromptu caching in the middle of a hike or just strolling around the city.
