Again in the “better late than never” category, here’s a list of apps I enjoyed in 2011.
Apps I Used The Most
- Google Docs – I link to this on my home screen from a safari bookmark.
- Feedler – a great google reader client for both iPhone and iPad.
- Rhapsody – a music subcription service, the killer feature here is the ability to download tracks for offline play.
- Wikipanion – the best iPhone/iPad wikipedia app.
- iLoader – this makes bulk uploading photos to facebook albums easy.
- Facebook – of course.
- Camera+ – a great well-rounded photo application for cleaning up or dirtying up your photos on the device.
- IM+ – a great IM client for multiple services such as Google Talk and AIM.
- Amazon – of course.
- Music Roulette – not just a personal advertisement, I truly developed this to do something I wanted: to rediscover my favorite old music that I always forget about.
Apps My Wife Used Quite A Bit
- Groupon – pay $10 to get $20 worth of food at restaurants, a great way to discover new places to eat.
- Runner’s Interval Timer – not only was the app developed for my wife, she uses it too.
- Quarrel DX – the classic Risk game meets a “spell something fast!” word game.
- TumbleOn – Some of my favorite moments of 2011 involve hearing my wife consistently giggle while she was browsing photo lolz with this app that my friends and I made.
Other Apps Worth Mentioning
- 8mm Vintage Camera – a really cool old-style video shooting app.
- PictureShow – another great photo app, this one leans more toward the “dirtying up”/trashing pictures style.
- iDarkroom – this photo app seems to clean up images rather nicely.
- Beat wave – a great little procedural music maker.
- GarageBand – I can’t believe I can record music with my iPod with this.
- Yelp – we use this all the time to figure out if places are good to eat at, or if a handyman is any good.
- Cloudcam – a great “web camera” app that made it easy for us to monitor a sick kitten this past year while at work.
- Flixster – the best app to see what’s in theaters now, in the future, and whats coming to dvd.
- Netflix – of course.
- Photosynth – a really cool 21st century “you are living in the future” type app that lets you take a 3d photo of your surroundings and lets you look through it in 3d too.
iPad Games
We bought the iPad this past year and ever since, I’ve been less inclined to play games on the iPod touch at all. I’m tired of playing games where my thumbs cover half of the game I’m trying to see. Many of these apps are “Universal”, which means the app works on both the iPhone and the iPad, but the game experience is better on the iPad.
- super crate box – this game is an amazing mix of the original mario brothers arcade game with guns. The whole thing works because your score is not based on killing enemies, but instead it’s based on how many boxes you can collect in the level without dying. You can play the PC version for free to try it out.
- Age Of Zombies – a twin-stick-shooter/robotron clone from the makers of Fruit Ninja, truly one of the best in the genre.
- Mega worm – a Deathworm clone done in 8-bit retro style.
- Globetrotters – a great multiplayer game where up to four people control these little spacemen trying to mine treasures out of planets and racing to grab the treasures when they fly into space.
- Siege hero – angry birds clone with a first person perspective.
- Eternity warriors – another twin-stick-shooter/robotron clone, this time with a diablo theme.
iPhone Games
- Pathpix – totally an OCD puzzle game, reminds me of picross.
- Meteor blitz – Super Stardust HD clone on the iPhone.
- Jetpack Joyride – a great little timewaster from the people who made Fruit Ninja.
Port Games
Last, some games that have been ported from other platforms to the iPhone/iPad in the last year. Great games, now portable, and inexpensive. All of these are not-as-awesome as their big brothers from real consoles, but for on-the-go portable play, they’ll do.
That’s it for the 2011 lists. Next time we’ll talk about something a bit more interesting.
