Top Apps- Our Readers Tell Us Theirs

My pals over on Gear Diary and I shared our favorite apps. Tops are Evernote, ToDo, Facebook, Twittelator Pro and eWallet.

Our reader jnamcharg shared his favorite apps (Evernote, Facebook, Google Mobile App, Shazam, Snaptell, Orb Live, Pandora/Last FM, eReader, Labrinth LE, and NYTimes app) and will soon be enjoying his new Etymotic hf2s.

Here are the top apps some of our readers recommend to their mythical friend John. John just got a new iPhone and on it should be……

RevRob: Here are my nine big apps:

noteskinery – I’m one of the dorks that used to carry around a Moleskine notebook to do all of my daily to-do-listing and story-writing/thought-keeping/etc; when I got my iPod Touch, I wanted to do away with one other thing that I was carrying around. Noteskinnery is the application that I use more than anything else. I write notes on it, keep track of thoughts, write short stories that come to me, reminders for ideas I want to expand on later.  I keep it on my nightstand so that I can keep track of my dreams (it’s silent and self lit!) – It is my major application.  It’s easy to set up and use also, since you just create a folder for a certain category of note-taking, and then when you go into the folder you can either create a new note, or simply open up an old one and keep on typing in it.  You can also set up a note to Edit and put the phone to the sleep, so when you go back it’s right there and ready to be typed into.  I love the noteskinery app; it has shrunk my Moleskine habit into an iPhone-sized awesomeness.

DoBot todo – Gotta have a to-do list somewhere with you at all times; instead of those tiny spiral notebook things that your dad used, this app has you covered.  The great thing about DoBot is that it’s the simplest todo list there is in the store.  You can just jump in, add a task, check off a task – what else do you need? You can even type further details and notes inside of the task, if need be.  The most complicated it gets is that you can seperate it out into multiple lists.

Google Earth – Let alone the complete awesomeness that Google Earth is, how much sweeter is it to always have at your fingertips?  Google Earth isn’t my most-used application, but it’s my least-involved one, where I can just cruise around the globe when bored, zone out, etc.  The reason Google Earth is a must-have app though, is that it gives your iPhone Geek-Show-Off points.  It’s going to be hard to show your friends why you’re so excited about your new iPhone, especially as the days go by and it gets more and more personal, so you need to have something just real quick to show off "Look, it’s even got Google Earth!"  and bathe in the glow of Oooooos and Ahhhs.

WiFiTrack – Essential for the iPod Touch user.  Depending on where you’re at, it can be a game to find an open network if you absolutely need to get online.  WiFiTrack not only shows you the entire spectrum of networks that may be available, it also shows you which ones you shouldn’t waste your time trying to get on to.  WiFiTrack also helped me develop my Spidey-Sense tingles of "This seems like an area that will have an open network…" – near apartment complexes, business districts, hotels, etc.

Trace – a very basic, quick, fun, adventure-puzzle game experience that you couldn’t do before an iPhone.  It’s simple graphics are also mesmerizing as you maneuver your self through different levels, using the touchscreen to build ramps and platforms for your little stickman to make his way through the world.  A decent bus-stop game, where each level is short and self-contained so that you can jump up in a second’s notice if you need to.

Tetsuki – If you’re my friend, I’ve probably talked you in to playing Go (igo, wei’chi, baduk) once or twice.  Tetsuki is an app that puts you right into the KGO network, online!  You can get live games with other players, and the gameplay on the touch is very nicely done since you can zoom into different areas of the board, or view the board as a whole.  The board also works by itself, so that you can always bust out a game of Go wherever you are, even if you forgot your board and stones.  The best part, is that Tetsuki also lets you spectate games that are already in progress!  It’s what I do when I’m at a lame party or just sitting in a coffee shop; great for fans of Go.

Ambiance – I’m a student who’s wife is addicted to television, so my home is not very study-friendly.  Ambiance is a very polished white-noise generator, with a huge variety of sounds to choose from.  When reading, I usually generate "Brown Noise" (NOT like SouthPark, i swear!) which has a nice mellowness to it, but if I’m working on math I’m all about "Thunderstorm 2".  When the sounds of Law and Order are keeping me from getting to sleep before a test, I’ll put on some "Whale Sounds" and drift to sleep with the lullaby of whales in the background of a lightly gurgling ocean.

Nanosaur2 – This game shows what the iPhone is capable of as a gaming device.  Fully 3-d graphics, accelerometer controls, with buttong in the button right and left corners, this is a main gaming staple when I have some time to sit back and relax.  It’s a difficult game, but it feels so natural with the tilt-controls that it’s also an excellent "iPhone Showoff" app for people who are interested in gaming.  The best part is that you can play it with one hand since you only need to tilt-and-shoot, so it’s a great bathroom shooter 😉

Facts – The most basic apps are sometimes the ones that stay around the longest.  Facts is something I have on my home screen, and whenever there’s a lull in conversation at a party, or in a lab group, or in a car, or in-laws house, I just pull up a random quick fact. "Seers in Mesopotamia were studying people’s dreams at least 5,000 years ago" – huh, I didn’t know that!  Suddenly you’re in a conversation about dreams, and people are bringing up stories of their own.  I find it essential, but I’m kinda like that.

So there it is; my nine essential iPhone apps – or at least the ones that I use most often.

RubyRedRick-  I bought my iPhone 3G the first day it was available, and have enough applications to worry about the nine-screen limit. But here are my picks of nine must-have apps.

Google Mobile App: One of the first iPhone apps, and still one of the best.  It provides a much nicer interface to Google for the iPhone than Safari.  One of the killer features is the ability to do a google search by simply holding the phone up to your ear and speaking the search phrase.  Lower the phone again, and your recorded voice is sent up to the server where it’s recognized and entered into the search box.  It’s been surprisingly accurate. But that’s not all, it provides nice iPhone interfaces for all the Google apps including GMail.

Pandora: I love it!  Set up ‘radio stations’ based on your favorite artists, and the original ‘genius’ keeps sending you a steady stream of music you are quite likely to like I’ve got what I call my "Gypsy Jazz" channel based on Django Reinhardt, an Eric Clapton channel, and lots more. And you even get a mix channel which combines all your faves.  It works great even on edge.  I usually turn to Pandora when my podcast supply runs out during my drive. – Free

Air Sharing from Avatron Software:  Lets you put files on your iPhone from your Mac.  Whenever your phone and Mac are on the same local area network, you can connect them and copy files.  I like to put pdf files on the iPhone, and  Air Sharing lets me read them wherever I am.  I got this for free when it first came out, right now it’s available for $4.99 as a holiday promotion.

Enjoy Sudoku (Daily) from Jason Linhart: I tried most of the early sudoku apps for the iPhone available in the early days, and this was the best.  Lots of options, including automatic pencil marking, hints, etc. Nice UI.  You can ‘compete’ with other users in the sense that it compares the time you take to solve each puzzle with average and best times by others.  $2.99 gets you the full version with 8 different dificulty levels, and the ability to generate games, but the Daily version, which is free, gives you set of games at 7 increasing difficulty levels each day.  I use it most mornings as part of my regime to turn on my brain.

Evernote: My choice for note taking. Evernote lets you save text, voice and picture notes to a server in the internet "cloud".  Picture notes can come from pictures you’ve already taken, or you can snap a new picture right in the application. Evernote also have a web browser interface and desktop apps for both Macs and PCs which talks to the same server so you can upload, and view your notes from your laptop or desktop machine.  The app is free, and if you stay within a few restrictions primarily uploading 40MB or less per month,  the service is free as well.  For $5/month or $45/year you can upgrade to the premium service which gives you up to 500 MB per month, enhanced security, and the ability to upload any kind of file.

Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T: After several rounds of rumors and false starts, AT&T finally turned on free access for iPhones in the many AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots like all those Starbucks.  Using it is fairly simple, but it requires entering your phone number on the greeting web page you get the  first time you connect in a particular location on a particular day, and wait for a (free) SMS message with a link to follow to enable access. This app does it all for you, you just need to enter your phone number once, and "Bob’s yer Uncle".  The app is a mere $0.99, and for another buck you get a version which does the same thing for many popular hotspot services like Boingo and WiFly.

Movies: One of my favorite location based applications. Find out what movies are playing and where based on your current location. Another similar app is "Now Playing" https://code.google.com/p/metasyntactic/ which seems to have either lost the ability to use the iPhone’s location services or buried it in the UI in recent versions, you can still tell it where you are by entering your zip code though.

Trapster:  The 21st century version of the headlight flasher!  Trapster monitors your location while you are driving, and alerts you of police radar traps, and red-light/speed cameras.  This is based on reports by other trapster users. I you see a trap, you can click on the map to report it, you’re then prompted for the type, active trap, place where police tend to hide or a camera.  You can set the radius within which you want to be warned. The warning comes in the form of a female voice telling you about the type of report.  The app is free.

NPR Mobile: This one showed up a few days before Christmas.  I downloaded it right away, and played with it for the first time yesterday.  Very nice.  You can search for material broadcast by National Public Radio by topic, show, and many other criteria, get a description and then listen to the show.  It’s amazing the things you can learn by listening to NPR. This morning I listened to a segment from NPR’s "game show" Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, in which I learned that sometime in the 1960s, Bob Dylan proposed to Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers. Mavis then proceeded to blow a listener’s chance of getting NPRs Carl Kassel to record a message for his answering machine, by getting three questions about office supplies wrong.  Only NPR would ask a famous Gospel singer about ofice supplies just because she has the same last name as an office supply store chain.

That’s the kind of thing which amplifies the iPhone’s amazing ability to entertain you and get you useful information when and where you need it, whether you really need it or not!

timbaker1979:  The first 9 apps that John must install, and why, are as follows…

1. SlyDial. SlyDial is amazing because you can bypass anyone’s cell phone and get directly to their voicemail. For those times when you want to leave a more personal voice message but don’t want to get stuck on the phone, it is perfect. I use it when I’m "calling in sick" to my boss, or when I want to leave a message for my friend Steve who is IMPOSSIBLE to get off the phone.

2. Facebook. You and I and everyone we know are obsessed with Facebook, it only makes sense to have it on your phone. The Facebook app for the iPhone is wonderful as you can do just about everything you need to do on-the-go, including update your status, send a message to friends, chat and browse photos.

3. Shazam. When you’re a bar, club, store or other public place, or even if you hear a song in a commercial or movie and want to know who sings it, Shazam will come to the rescue. Not only will it identify the song for you, but it will allow you to link right to the iTunes music store on your phone to buy it if you so desire.

4. Evernote. When I first started using Evernote, I was a little on the fence. I was wondering why everyone raved it about it so much when I could hardly find anything to use it for. Now, I can’t imagine my iPhone without this app! You can write notes by hand, leave voice notes, or even take a picture of something (including text) and Evernote will use it’s OCR software to make it searchable! I save everything from photoshop tutorials, directions, lists of items I want to buy and so on. It all stays in sync with Evernote.com and their free desktop client as well. Once you use it, you will be hooked.

5. Google. When the Google app first came out, I didn’t really have a reason to use it. That all changed with their latest update. The new version of Google App has the most mind-blowing voice search known to man. Rather than load up Safari, click on the google search bar and type in my search, I just put the phone up to my head and speak my search. It instantly brings up the results I want and I can go directly to them. It also utilizes the phone’s GPS with local search so I can say something like "Movies Times" and it will bring up theaters near my current location. It’s the future of search on the most advanced phone on the market. Perfect match!

6. reQall. reQall is a to-do list and note pad program that allows you to speak yourself reminders and have them sync on the phone and on the web. It does a fantastic job of translating your speech and will email you reminders until you complete your task. Of all the To Do programs out there, reQall is my favorite, and the fact that it’s free is even better!

7. Pandora. Pandora is the gold standard in iPhone radio. Simply enter an artist you like and you are presented with streaming music of other similar artists. The behind the scenes magic that finds those similar artists is so spot on that it will constantly leave you amazed, all the while expanding your musical landscape.

8. Wide Email. One of the most annoying things about the iPhone is the fact that not every program has a landscape mode yet, including email. If you’ve tried typing out a long message, you’ve without a doubt have been frustrated with typos and other characters you did not intend to type. This is where Wide Email comes to the rescue. It allows you to type an email in landscape mode which many people, including myself, find to be light years easier than the standard mode. There are some free alternatives in the App store, but Wide Email allows you to create shortcuts for frequently typed phrases that you can insert with only a few characters. For example, I just type "sig" and it puts in my entire email signature inn automatically. Wide Email has definitely increased my email productivity ten-fold.

9. Fieldrunners. One thing that separates the iPhone from other smart phones is it’s top notch gaming capabilities. Fieldrunners is a great example of this and perhaps one of the most addicting games on the iPhone platform to date. It’s a castle defense style program with wonderful graphics and sound and features some of the best replay value on any game in the app store. Everyone I’ve recommended this game to has been fiercely addicted and I’m sure the same will happen to you. Besides, sometimes you want to take a break from being so productive on your new iPhone and just sit back and have some fun. Fieldrunners will have you covered for hours!

wiruzik–  9 must-have apps…

1. Things – this app can save your time, it`s pretty cool GTD app!

2. Fieldrunners – you saved a lot of time, right? So this is the best time waster. Amazing game, you won`t be able to stop playing it!

3. Pandora – But you can`t play without music, right? Pandora is great radio app

4. Shazam – what is that song? It rocks! I wanna buy it on iTunes. Tell me the name!

5. Simplify – bored from radio music? I`m sharing some cool new music, try it!

6. Rolando – cool music needs cool game. There`s not better game than this. Looks like Loco Roco!

7. Facebook – hey my friend, you`re playing a lot but you forgot on your friends. Send me some photos of you on Facebook!

8. BeejiveIM – hey, I`m writing you on your IM! Leave me a message..

9. Tweetie – your friends from WOIP is going to recommend you much more apps via Twitter!