Thursday, December 15, 2011

OPINION: Best iPhone Apps

Recently on Twitter, I've had a few people ask what my favourite iOS apps are. I decided to compile a list of the apps I love. See below for the list. If there's any that you really think I'd love, leave a comment!
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APP: Hoggy

PRICE: Free

WHAT IT DOES: Hoggy is a puzzle/action game. You play as a Kirby lookalike with the ability to switch gravity. The goal in each level is to collect all the fruit, in order to get keys to progress.

WHY I LIKE IT: Hoggy is one of the more fleshed out free games that I’ve found on the app market. There are some extra levels you can purchase, but I haven’t found a need to buy any more content. The game took me about 3 hours to complete. The games difficulty spikes pretty high, and is a legitimate challenge. Did I mention it’s free?
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My cat Zelda likes Instagram.
APP: Instagram

PRICE: Free

WHAT IT DOES: Instagram is an icon on your phone that let’s people know that you’re a hipster.

WHY I LIKE IT: Joking aside, Instagram is a fantastic app. It’s Apple’s app of the year for a reason. It is a camera app that lets you put on-board filters onto your photos. It’s a quick way to gussy up your photos on the fly. While no substitute for photoshop, or anything of the sort, for a phone app it’s very impressive. Instagram also doubles as a social networking/sharing site, as you can upload your photos, follow your friends and keep in touch without actually having to speak to anybody. Sepia tone anyone?






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Flipboard interface is unlike anything.
APP: Flipboard

PRICE: Free

WHAT IT DOES: Flipboard is an RSS feed aggregator. It lets you run several different feeds all through one location and includes pictures and links all on one screen.

WHY I LIKE IT: I’m in love with Flipboard. I run my Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader feeds all through it. It pretties them up and makes it so much better to look at then in their regular format.
This is a super strong app, which works in concept and in practice.




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So much content.
APP: Stitcher

PRICE: Free

WHAT IT DOES: Stitcher is podcast/radio show streaming service. Its hosts a massive amount of audio on several topics.

WHY I LIKE IT: Stitcher should be so much more popular than it is. As a commuter, I’m often looking for things to listen to in my car, on the fly. Downloading a podcast from iTunes works well enough, but involves pre-planning. On Stitcher, you can search for audio shows by name, or even browse genres. It’s a great discovery tool, the bulk of my “can’t-miss” podcasts, I discovered through Stitcher.








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Peggle is a lot of fun in short doses.
APP: Peggle

PRICE: $1.99

WHAT IT DOES: Peggle is a casual game, sort of a cross between pinball and pachinko. In each level, the player tries to hit all of the orange pegs with a limited number of balls.

WHY I LIKE IT: Peggle is perfect for pick up and play. When I have 2 or 3 minutes waiting for something, Peggle is my go-to. It’s a simple enough concept, with just enough intricacies to keep it interesting.
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It's all about the strobe.


APP: Flashlight

PRICE: Free

WHAT IT DOES: Flashlight does everything you would expect it to. Plus one other thing.

WHY I LIKE IT: I’m constantly surprised by how often I’m using flashlight. It serves it’s primary function, activating the iPhones LED flash constantly to work as a flashlight very well. It also doubles as a pretty effective strobe light. No, I’m not kidding. You can vary the speed at which the strobe blinks, and you now have a mobile party.
It might also be worth mentioning that the paid version will give you different colours of light.





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APP: Scoremobile

PRICE: Free

WHAT IT DOES: Scoremobile is an app that shows you up-to-the-minute scores on games from 20 different sports leagues.

WHY I LIKE IT: It’s so simple and effective. Scoremobile isn’t a flashy app, it just serves it purpose of letting me scores of sporting events. It also shows the betting odds for current and upcoming games in-app. Cool stuff.








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It actually works!
APP: Sleep Cycle

PRICE: $2.99

WHAT IT DOES: Sleep Cycle monitors your sleeping patterns, using the iPhones accelerometer. You set your alarm for a time, and it wakes you up within a half hour window of that time, at the exact minute that you are having your lightest sleep. For example, I set my alarm for 6:30 in the morning, sleep cycle will wake me up between 6:15-6:45 depending on when I am the highest in my REM cycle.

WHY I LIKE IT: First of all, I like Sleep Cycle cause it blows my mind. Initially, I thought it sounded like bullshit, and that there was no way my phone was capable of doing what Sleep Cycle claimed to do. Then my friend got it, and had glowing things to say, so I started reading user reviews that said similar things. I’m now a convert, and so pleased with how well it works. It also tracks all of your sleep since you’ve been using the app, and makes easy to read graphs out of your sleep patterns. Great use of this technology.

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APP: GarageBand

PRICE: $5.99

WHAT IT DOES: GarageBand is a music recording/creating app for iOS. Many mac users will be familiar with it, as it comes stock on MacBooks.


WHY I LIKE IT: For me, GarageBand is the primary reason to have an iPhone. Even at its high-for-an-app price, there is just an unbelievable amount of content on this app. I’ll find myself making loops using the synths and arpeggiators. Just for fun I’ll toy around on one of the many drum kits. If you like making music, or have an interest in learning, you really can’t go wrong with this. It’s the killer app for the iPhone, and so superior to anything else a mobile device has to offer for music production.


You could write an entire song on this app.


You can follow Josh Custodio on twitter @_allmyfriends

3 comments:

  1. I encourage you to check out Downcast over Stitcher. It does cost money ($2 last time I checked), but it actually downloads the podcast to your phone, the sound quality is substantially better, the interface is much nicer looking and easier to use, it's compatible with Airplay, it has the same great discovery abilities, you can set specific preferences for each podcast and it can download over wifi OR cell data. No syncing.

    Everything the iphone music player should be and well worth the coin.

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  2. I will most certainly check it out! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete