Just got an iPhone, what apps should I buy?

Beck

So my mom went all out, and got me an iPhone for my birthday. She's amazing. Anyway, what apps would you guys reccommend? Free or paid are fine, games are cool, too. I already bought Canabalt, Plants Vs. Zombies, Facebook, and some random clock app that wakes me up with an iTunes playlist of my choosing. Besides that, though, I have no idea what I should get. I'm pretty much open to anything, especially practical applications. But something fun would be fantastic.

Also, Tim Rogers mentioned a really fun game in one of his articles on Kotaku, and he said it was perhaps better than Canabalt. I know it featured a timer, and somewhat monochromatic graphics, and it may have been developed by a Digipen student. But besides that, I'm not sure what it was. But I'd really like to play it, if anyone might be familiar with it. I can't find the article because Kotaku's search function has been just as thoroughly fucked as their layout.

Also, I heard of an application that allowed you to scan barcodes, and price check things on amazon, ebay, etc. while you're in a store. It sounds awesome, and google isn't helping me figure out the name of it. But I want that one, too. Anybody know what it's called?

But, yeah. Besides those, please give me a heads up on stuff I absolutely must have. Or just cool apps you liked. I'm really open to anything.

November Fifth

RedLaser is a barcode scanner. Not sure what all it scans.

Suggested apps:


Google
Shazam
Pandora
Netflix
Amazon
Yelp

For games:
Game Dev Story
Helsing's Fire
Super Mega Worm

Gumface

Below are all free, and defiantly worth trying out!

Remote - lets you control itunes on your computer (basicly like a remote!)
Stanza - An ereader app
Cooliris - An image browser, its fast than safari
iReddit - lets you go to reddit >.> (think they might have given this a price tag now)

elevature

- Instapaper is essential. Saves articles you find online, strips out all the ads and other junk and gives you pure, super-readable text that can be accessed offline. Perfect for waiting in lines or on transit. Couple it with longform.org, longreads.com and givemesomethingtoread.com for an endless supply of high-quality long-form journalism.
- the official Twitter app is the best Twitter client I've used on any platform.
- Reeder is a fantastic RSS app
- Simplenote for super fast notetaking, syncs with the web and with tons of desktop clients

Dr. Frenchenstein

Consumer Reports has an app that scans the barcodes, and gives you a review of the product, i'm not sure if it price checks too, but i'd imagine it would. I think it was like 20 bucks though.

ConfuseousPrime

Also, I heard of an application that allowed you to scan barcodes, and price check things on amazon, ebay, etc. while you're in a store. It sounds awesome, and google isn't helping me figure out the name of it. But I want that one, too. Anybody know what it's called?

The app you mention above is Redlaser. It's sometimes hit or miss, but still worth having on your Iphone.

El Mucho

I use an app called battery doctor pro for charges. It's pretty good, gives you tips on how to maximize battery life and keeps a log of your charging activity. So you know when to do a complete drain and re-charge.

Deathwing

Not sure what kind of genres you're looking for, i'll just list some of my current favorites (most of which have reviews on www.toucharcade.com) -

Games:

Angry Birds
Space Invaders - Infinity Gene
Game Dev Story
Secret of Mana
Final Fantasy 1 or 2
NBA Jam
Super Quickhook
Flight Control
Tilt to Live
Fruit Ninja
Cut the Rope
Piyo Blocks 2
Monster Dash
Tiny Wings
Robot Unicorn Attack
MovieCat
Canabalt
Carcassonne
Frotz (free text adventure games)

Regular apps:

Netflix
Amazon
Bank/Credit Union app(s) if they have one
UPS/FedEx

dresdenphile

Evernote
TextFree (assigns you a number for free texting; they are currently in a VOIP beta as well)
AppShopper (lets you know when Apps you are interested in drop in price)
Shazam
SoundHound

Judge Joe Brown

Dragon Dictation - speak into the app, then hit a single button to send the text to clipboard or SMS or email. Incredibly, surprisingly accurate. Polls names from your address book for accuracy.

Genius Scan - scan something at any angle, and this app will "skew" the imagine into a flat plane, and correct for the angle. Very very handy for taking picture of your schedule at work, receipts, post it notes, curled paper, etc.

Mobile Mouse Pro - GET THIS NOW WHILE ITS FREEEE its the best remote control app for a computer I've ever seen. I am a picky mofo and I doubt I could design a better app myself for this purpose. It's gorgeous and works perfectly. Free version is great but doesn't include some of the nice features. But all basic functionality is there even in the free one.

Sirius radio - if you have a sirius account

Opinionaided - hilarious app where you post a pic + a question and get random votes (thumbs up/down style). Vote on random shit. Good time waster.

Freeappaday - see which apps are free today on the app store. I download something from this like twice a week. It's also how I found out mobile mouse pro was free, when I was using the free version. Mostly garbage, sometimes useful.

Beck

Hey, thanks for the recommendations. Appaday is amazing. Really like that one. I'm a bit disappointed by Angry Birds but I'm going to stick with it and see if the later levels get a bit more interesting. I tried to 3 star all the early levels and was kind of bummed that it relies more on trial and error rather than a masterful understanding of game mechanics.

I think I'm going to pick up Space Invaders next, when it comes to the games. Looking at some of the videos, man, it just looks so good.

Loving Reeder, Genius Scan (oh god, love this app), Instapaper sounds great and I'll have to get that Reddit app soon. I wish there was an app for Boingboing but, at least their mobile website is really easy to use. Freeappaday, I think, is going to be my favorite, though. I'll download that one later today. I'd use Mobile Mouse Pro but I avoid keeping my computer open due to work (even if it requires a password).

Dragon Dictation is great for work and grocery lists alike. It makes me want to become extremely rich, so that I can hire someone to take dictation for me.

El Mucho, can you explain battery doctor pro to me a bit more? I've never heard of exploiting or...Playing around with the battery like that, at least. I'm definitely interested but I don't entirely understand it.

Thanks so much for the recommendations so far. If anyone has any other good ones, I'm all ears, but these have been fantastic.

seasleepy

Reeder looks pretty nice, but if you read a lot of RSS feeds that don't put the full article in the feed (and don't want to use data while running around), I'm really finding Byline useful as it will cache the actual webpage that the RSS item is linked to. I don't use it for my full GReader list because that's not going to be useful for a lot of the sites I read ("Hey, go look at this link/video/etc!" won't be very helpful even if you've downloaded the full page) but it's really handy for the news sites I read, which only give a bare summary in their RSS but aren't generally very link-filled. It's got its issues sometimes and it doesn't look as nice as Reeder, but the saving webpages pretty much outweighs all of that (for me, anyway).

I also personally like Read It Later as an alternative to Instapaper but that's not because of their iPhone apps so much as RIL has a handy Firefox extension and lets you save any site, which is nice for slinging links between work and home computers while also allowing me to read the text-based pages on my phone in a cleaned-up state.

Instagram is fun (take pictures with your phone and run them through neat filters that make them look like you were using old cameras).

Most of the games I have on my phone have already been mentioned, except Dungeon Raid, which is a really addictive match-3 game with a roguelike/RPG overlay.

Beck

Instagram is much too fun.

elevature

seasleepy wrote: »

Reeder looks pretty nice, but if you read a lot of RSS feeds that don't put the full article in the feed (and don't want to use data while running around), I'm really finding Byline useful as it will cache the actual webpage that the RSS item is linked to. I don't use it for my full GReader list because that's not going to be useful for a lot of the sites I read ("Hey, go look at this link/video/etc!" won't be very helpful even if you've downloaded the full page) but it's really handy for the news sites I read, which only give a bare summary in their RSS but aren't generally very link-filled. It's got its issues sometimes and it doesn't look as nice as Reeder, but the saving webpages pretty much outweighs all of that (for me, anyway).

Reeder now has built-in readability support. On feeds that don't show the full article, hit the Readability button (or do an open pinch) and it'll show full text. Works perfectly (well, nearly, I've had a couple things that don't work, but that's rare).

PigeonFace

Run tracker - for the runner in you.
Instagram - just fun photo sharing.
flipscape - augmented reality, next big thing