The 30 Best iPhone Apps + 14 Games — Part 2

The 30 Best iPhone Apps + 14 Games — Part 1

Moving right along.

10. Wikipanion

You could call this one Wikiamo as well, because I don’t know that there is a relevant difference between the two. They have a slightly different feel, but I can’t see that it matters. It’s WikipediaWikipedia on your iPhone, and it comes in pretty handy. Yes, you could just go to Wikipedia through your browser, but it doesn’t function exactly the same. These slick things up a bit, and give you a mobile-enhanced result to your search.

9. AP News

Now, when it comes right down to it, this is just a glorified version of subscribing to Associated Press feeds, but it’s pretty cool.

It’s a handy one-stop for all sorts of news, and it gives you a lot of options for selecting what you want to get.

It’s also free, so what more do you want?

Don’t ask me about the picture.

8. WordPress

I have to admit this one is slightly theoretical for me. I have it on pretty strong authority that this works great.

I haven’t quite come up with an excuse to use it myself though, and unless you have a WordPressWordPress website this is doing nothing for you.

But…

Theoretically it is really cool. Publish to your blog from your iPhone. Like I said, I do actually know a couple of bloggers who use this, and think its cool. Your blog entry, of course, is going to be very simple. But, on the go reporting/rambling is one click away, pictures included.

7. Evernote

EvernoteEvernote is probably the handiest App I’m ever going to find. Does that mean you’ll think so? I have no idea. Lots of people like Lightsaber… now new and improved.

For me, this is just about it. Type a note, take a picture to use as a note, take a picture and put some text with it to remind of whatever specifics are interesting, and even record voice notes.

Never fumble around for a notepad again, and never lose anything again. It works great, and your notes are stored online.

Now, you’ll see at the AppStore that there is some rumbling that Evernote is going to charge to use the service at some point. Maybe, but they don’t so far, and I don’t see how they could since there are competing products. I don’t like them as much, but they aren’t so bad that I’d start paying to take notes.

6. Zenbe Lists

I know. How fun is that. Two straight list Apps. This one is just a fairly straightforward note system with an online counterpart, and the interesting feature it has is the ability to share lists. Just email it to anyone else using Zenbe lists, and when they get the email they only need one click to add the list directly to their Zenbe.

It’s worth considering whether there is any point to both of these. If the sharing seems like a good idea for you, and you only need your run-of-the-mill text notes, this one is good enough. The note system is more than adequate for any needs. I like the photo notes, and the voice notes, so there you are.

5. Stanza

As far as I’m concerned you can call this one eReader as well if you like. They are both book readers, but Stanza focuses on what you can get for free, while eReader is selling you books. They are both cool, they both work very well, and if you can stand reading a book on a little screen, you should absolutely get them both.

For me, I’m all about Stanza. I have too many books to count already, and you’d be amazed how many great things you can get free. eReader works great, and there are a lot of people who are going to love the idea, just like there are a lot of people using Kindle and loving it. But, if I pay for a book, I want the book. But, not to let my bias sway me, eReader is great little App as well, and reading is actually not a bad experience on either.

I could give you a screenshot, but come on, it’s a page of text.

4. Goodrec

There are too many versions of this to even guess at a number, and I’d give you a screenshot here as well, but one more picture of a map with pins in it won’t tell anyone anything.

I pick this one only because it is the only one I’ve gotten to work. It’s a relatively new one, and I don’t know what’s different, or where they are getting their information that is somehow better, but all the others know about four restaurants in a 500-mile radius of me. This one gives me a decent number of options, and I’ve seen it growing over the last several days.

So, you probably know the drill. This thing will find out where you are, and then pop up a bunch of pins all around for restaurants and bars, and then you can see what’s close to you, and get more info about them. The general idea is handy, if it works, and this is the one for me.

I will say this though, there are others that have far cooler features. Who can argue with UrbanSpoon and the slot machine of restaurant recommendations? Lots of Apps can do all sorts of neat tricks. This one’s neat trick is actually telling me something.

3. NYTimes

The only problem I can tell you about is the one you will see at the AppStore over and over. This one can be rather slow. I can’t say that it has been quite as slow as what I was led to expect by all the hollering I heard about it, but it is a bit slow.

On the other hand, it’s downloading a whole newspaper at you.

It’s The New York Times on your iPhone, and I don’t really know what else to say. A lot of options, every section, story after story.

Your subscription at this point is only because you want the ads.

2. Pandora

Your own personalized radio station on your iPhone. You probably know how this sort of thing works, but this is a radio station that is going to send you music which you rate. It then learns what you like, and over time your station becomes a better and better you-specific radio station.

That’s the theory. It actually works too, but there is a bit of a catch. When you first start this thing it is going to ask you for an artist. You select your favorite artist, and then it is going to try to build from there. If you hate a song you skip it, but you only get six skips in an hour… because apparently that’s the copyright deal they have… I don’t know.

Now, you can’t go this route. It’s insane. You’re going to be listening to just that one artist, maybe something else you like occasionally, and a bunch of garbage that you’re going to skip, and then boom you can’t skip for an hour. That’s nonsense.

You have to sign up, then go to the PandoraPandora website where you can pick as many artists as you want and add them to your station. I suggest choosing at least twenty of your favorites, but the more the better. Now you go back to your phone and start listening to your station, and you should be set. If you aren’t quite at a good enough mix, go back and add five or six more. It won’t take that long. Once you’re set there, the thing is genius. It plays great songs that you love, and it throws in things you never heard of, but will love.

I hear the last.fm screams. Everyone tells me about last.fm like it was a freakin religion. Well, guess what, the thing doesn’t work on my iPhone. If it works for you, more power to you, and you have another option that does the same general thing, which lots of people say is better. Go for it. Through about five different updates, the last.fm still has never worked for me. It sits and loads, it starts playing a song and then kicks me out to the iPhone menu, it starts a song and skips to another one for no reason… whatever, it’s done about everything possible apart from just work.

1. Google

This is actually a really weird one for me, because I just spent my whole day hating GoogleGoogle. You know if you have any kind of problem with any service Google offers (that you aren’t paying to use) you can’t contact them, and you can generally just go drop dead. Seriously, there is no way to email them, or otherwise get any help. Unless you can’t sign into your account, then there is a form. Other than that, there is absolutely no one to contact at Google, no matter what your problem is. I even called their offices, and was in fact told, and I quote, “No. There is no one you can contact to help you.” Swear to God.

But, well, it’s a cool App that has a lot of helpful functionality. Reader alone is pretty much worth… well free… because the other RSS readers available are buggy little Apps that work most of the time, but will kick you out or crash once in a while.

If you normally use Google features like iGoogle or Calendar, this is really cool. Plus you throw in Bloggerblogger down there, news, Goog411, and the rest, and you have a lot going on in one simple App which really works far better than a lot of things you’ll find.

And, hot off the presses, you can now get Google EarthGoogle Earth for the iPhone. And, well, it does the same thing it does on the internet, except it finds you through your phone.

That’s the shebang there. I hope somewhere in these 30 Apps you found something you didn’t expect, got a little information, or at least had a good time. Feel free to ask me any questions about the Apps, or others that aren’t this list. I have more pages of Apps than I’ll admit, and I tried an awful lot of them out before I put this list together.

In the next day or two I’ll have the first of two installments dedicated to the games that will complete this list.

The 30 Best iPhone Apps + 14 Games — Part 2

The 30 Best iPhone Apps + 14 Games — Part 1