A friend that has an iPhone on the way recently asked me what my “must have” applications were. I thought about it for a minute and he mentioned blogging it. Thinking that was a good idea, I made a list of my must haves, and then a few that I’m watching with anticipation. Note: The following are in no particular order.
YouVersion Bible — Right now, this is the best iPhone Bible application. It’s fairly straight forward and easy to use and allows for bookmarks (and emailing and tweeting verses). And the killer feature: downloadable translations so that I don’t have to have a network connection to access the Bible. It comes in handy in church, on the bus, or really anywhere I might be and puts about every translation at your fingertips.
Flixster Movies — You got to have a movies app if you love going to the theater. My wife and I do, and if we are out and about, this app will quickly tell us the near by theaters, what’s playing at them (and when), and even give links to buy online on the phone. It’s quite convenient — you won’t have to worry about missing a movie again (or ending up at a theater only to find that your movie isn’t playing or is sold out).
Amazon Kindle/Stanza — An ebook reader is another good thing to have for those times when you are stuck on an elevator or in a meeting that doesn’t relate to what you do. There are a plethora of free ebooks out their and software like Calibre will let you convert any document (or ebook) into a format readable by either of these apps. Both allow for bookmarking and notes (a must for a reader like myself). Stanza is more feature rich but the Kindle app is easier to use. Also, if you have a real life kindle, you can sync your libraries wirelessly, which is a bonus (this includes notes and highlights).
Shazam — This is one of those “fun” apps that you don’t use all the time (but more than you might have thought). It’s a music discovery service that listens to ~30 seconds of whatever might be playing on the radio or stereo of where ever you are, cross references it on the ‘net and comes back with the artist, album and title. It gets it right more often than not (and I’ve even seen it successfully work in loud bar environments). As an added bonus you can “tweet it” if you so desire.
Facebook — This one only makes sense if you use facebook. It’s a customized mobile interface with much of the features of the webapp. It’s “killer” feature though that makes it a must is the ability to call friends from your friends list if they list their phone number. This has come in handy numerous times as MobileMe had a tendency of randomly deleting phone numbers from my actual address book.
NPR News — News tends to depress me as the dark, dreary and depressing stuff is generally all that’s reported as its more sensationalistic. But there are events and happenings that are nice to know about, occasionally. I’ve found the NPR app to be the slickest and easiest to use. As a bonus it gives access to some of the cooler shows, like All Songs Considered.
PicPosterous — This one is really only useful if you use Posterous. This blog runs on it and this app gives me a way to post mobile pics on the move. If you are a Wordpress user, they have an app (as does Tumblr).
Cartoon Wars — As the name would imply, this is a game. It’s got a pinch of tower defense and a lot of strategy and stick figures. They have a lite version available for free (but the full is totally worth it). It’s one of those games that you start and can spend days on (it autosaves so you can play a level here and a level there) which is a must have feature for someone busy with life and always on the move.
Tweetie — This is probably my most used app. It’s a standalone twitter client, has lots of features (pic, video, location tweeting, to name a few) and looks nice and works great. It’s fast, is persistent and is the best twitter experience on the iPhone (that I’ve found). It does cost money though.
TowerMadness Zero — Another game. This one is tower defense and, because its free, is one of the better ones. It’s 3d, has numerous tower and map options (including downloadable maps).
Dropbox — I use Dropbox to backup my documents and share other such things between computers. This app gives me access to those items directly from my phone, thereby making it quite useful.
Tripit — TripIt is another webapp I use to keep track of and cleanly organize travel plans. It really works well and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It does a better job than most of the other apps I’ve seen and used — I keep going back to it after seeing and trying others. Anyways, this gives me direct access to my trip information directly on the phone, making it very convenient and incredibly useful while traveling (having access to trip information on my phone saved my and 10 friends butts the first time I went to Cape Town).
There are a few other apps that I’m actively watching development on. They aren’t yet useful enough to me to be “must haves” but they do have future potential. They are:
Logos — This is a newcomer to the iPhone Bible apps. Currently the only modern translation available is the ESV (which is a great translation but not my preferred). It doesn’t do highlighting/bookmarking yet (that I can tell) and is pretty clunky to use. If you own Logos 4 though it does allow you access to your full library which makes it infinitely more useful; that’s a several hundred dollar investment though and not a viable option to the majority of users.
Evernote — This app ties you into your Evernote library and allows you to add new notes, as well as view and modify existing. I occasionally use it but find it clunky; I find myself using email or the built in notes app more often than not.
So there you have it — A list to get you started on an iPhone perhaps. All of the above apps are free or cheap so there isn’t any reason not to try them out!