The absolute essential must have iPhone apps

With all the driving you do, you may wonder how much you really spend on gas or what the MPG of your car is. Well, Gas Cubby accomplishes all that and more. With this easy-to-use app, all you do is enter a vehicle, how much gas you put into it, your odometer reading, and Gas Cubby will show you everything you could want to know about your car's fuel usage performance. You can also input service visits like oil changes which will give you a more accurate cost of ownership for your car. Rotate into landscape mode to see tabulated and graphical views of all your data. With the pricing of gas these days, this app is an essential.

Gas isn't your only concern when it comes to the road and your iPhone. GPS navigation is a must for smart phones today and while the iPhone does come equipped with the native Maps app, there are still other navigation apps that offer more. Waze Social GPS, Maps, & Traffic is a great alternative with so many more features. Get live routing information based on real-time traffic and road info from other drivers currently using this app. You can also help other drivers out by reporting accidents, road closures, police traps, and more. This app offers voice navigation, live maps that are constantly being updated, and so much more.

So you have no idea where you want to go, but you know you want to go somewhere? Have no fear. Yelp will help you find that perfect place whether it be a restaurant, store, or park. Read reviews from the locals and examine their photos so that you don't end up in a place that isn't to your tastes. You can also search for nearby businesses by filters, find deals, make reservations, and more. This is a great app for finding the latest local hotspot and discovering new places.

Perhaps you are running some errands while you're out and about. RedLaser, as the New York Times puts it, "is a perfect shopping companion." This app turns your iPhone into a bar code scanner that can read UPC, EAN, UPC-E and EAN-8 barcodes. Not only that, the app will search for prices with Google, TheFind, eBay, and Half.com on the item you have just scanned. If you scanned a book, it will even search local libraries to locate the book. On top of all that, it is enabled with QR code scanning with support for URLs, contact info, calendar events, emails, and more.

How about an app to make your workday more efficient? Clear is an awesome to-do manager. It is so simple, yet so powerful, that you are able to focus on your tasks without having to maneuver through a confusing UI. You can create separate lists for every aspect of your life, set reminders for your to-dos, and even sync with the Clear app for Mac.

One of the best apps out there for the iPhone is Launch Center Pro. This app takes your phone to the next level by allowing you to launch actions within apps instead of just launching an app and navigating to do what you want. Many apps and actions are supported and that list keeps growing. If you're wanting to make the most of your phone, give this app a try.

Dropbox is an integral part of anyone's workflow. People have seen the power of the cloud and a number of apps have backup solutions that require a Dropbox account. This app allows you to easily view photos, videos, documents, and presentations in your Dropbox account. Write a document on your computer and it will sync to the app as well as to the internet where you can access it from any computer. Best of all, the app and the service are free.

Though there is nothing wrong with the native Camera app that is built into the iPhone, it doesn't offer much for the person that wants more out of their photos. Included features in this app are touch exposure and focus, shooting modes, digital zoom, a front flash, scene modes, effects, and more.

So what's for dinner? The ultimate cookbook is here and in app form. Epicurious lets you search over 30,000 recipes, cookbooks, and cocktails, but it doesn't stop there. This app allows you to favorite recipes, sync your favorites, create shopping lists, share recipes, browse the most popular featured recipe collection, plan weeknight dinners, and much more. An awesome in-app purchase called Recipe Box Sync enables you to save all your favorite recipes in one spot and access it online or on your device. If you buy Recipe Box Sync on the iPhone or iPad, you don't have to pay for the feature again on any other device.

After dinner, you may want to unwind with a movie. From the Netflix app you can easily browse the enormous catalog of movies, TV shows, and documentaries that Netflix has amassed and watch any of them instantly. One of the favorite features within Netflix is the dynamic bookmarking it has, meaning if you start watching something on your TV or computer and stop before it is done, Netflix will automagically queue whatever you were watching to that exact spot on your iDevice so no more guessing where you left off or scrubbing through. If you're not sure you want to plop down the money for a Netflix membership, no problem, Netflix offers a free month long trial.

Perhaps it's not a Netflix night. The Remote app allows you to control iTunes on your computer and Apple TV. It has volume control and everything you would want out of a remote such as gesture control for your Apple TV, the ability to create and update playlists, control AirPlay Speakers, and access shared libraries.

When you watch a movie, do you find yourself wondering what other movies the actors have been in? The world's largest collection of movie, TV, and celebrity information is now in your pocket. IMDb allows you to search over 1.5 million movie and TV titles, and over 3.2 million celebrities, actors, actresses, directors, and other crew members. IMDb allows you to rate movies and TV shows, watch movie trailers, see US Box office results, find celebrity birthdays, browse quotes and trivia, and much more. IMDb is like the app that would have resulted if Hollywood and Wikipedia had a baby.

Hopefully you'll never need this, but it's essential to have anyway. Find My iPhone was originally part of the paid MobileMe subscription service. Apple now offers it free to anyone with an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. The app allows you to log on to me.com or use the Find My iPhone app and locate your registered iDevices. It then gives you the options of sending a sound or message, locking your iDevice, or wiping your iDevice. Two examples where this might come in handy: the couch monster ate your iPhone or someone stole it. In the first case, you can send a sound and use it to locate your iPhone. For the second case, you can remotely lock your iDevice or remotely wipe it if there is sensitive data on it from any computer or another iDevice that has Find my iPhone installed. It's a nice safeguard and a must-have for your sacred iDevice.