The Very Best iPhone Apps Of 2010
December 30, 2010
The App Store has literally doubled in size over the course of 2010. From just under 150,000 apps available at the end of 2009, Apple's virtual app shelves are now populated by over 300,000 products for us to chose from. All this, while still keeping us free from soft pornography or volume button abusers.
Nevertheless, and get ready to hear this more often now that the Android Market is closing in on iOS in terms of app numbers; the number of apps doesn't matter. Indeed, if you were to erase all your iOS apps, and only reinstall the ones that you really need and use, you'll notice there are very few. Well, we did exactly that over the last couple of weeks and picked out the very best apps that 2010 brought us. The ones we actually care about. We then segmented them into three categories, that is: entertainment, utilities, and social networking apps in no particular order. Here they are.
Note: App selections are usually pretty general, but there may often be a few apps that are important to you. So, if you think we missed an app that deserves to be selected as one of the best of 2010, please go ahead and share it with us in the comments.
iBooks is Apple's official e-book reading app for the iBookstore they launched along with the iPad. It has plenty of features, an amazing page turning animation and is without a doubt one of the most interesting apps of 2010. Of course, Amazon's Kindle app has more choice and is generally cheaper. Nevertheless, iBooks is a superior app. Also, it supports PDFs, side-loaded ePUB e-books through iTunes and can wirelessly sync your progress with your other iDevices.
It's free.
iMovie is the iPhone 4, stripped down version, of Apple's movie editing software from iLife. Launched along with the iPhone 4, it allows you to edit your footage and turn it into short movie clips with music, effects and much more. It does an incredible job when you consider it runs on your phone, and is well worth the $4.99 it goes for.
Netflix is the iPhone client for Netflix's instant movie streaming service. It works over 3G, and while the quality and the experience are not always optimal on an iPhone, it's still an amazing app. It gives you access to an incredible amount of content, for cheap, and anywhere you are. It even supports video out, so you can plug your iPhone into a TV and stream NetFlix to your bigger screen.
It's free.
Hulu Plus is the iPhone client for the online TV and movie streaming service. It came as a big relief, as the single biggest issue everyone had with the iPhone's lack of Flash was its inability to access Hulu. Thanks to the Hulu Plus app, that is now a thing of the past.
It works over 3G, but doesn't support video out. Also, it's not the traditional Hulu, as you'll have to drop $7.99/month to really enjoy it, and the selection is not identical to the web. Nevertheless, it's a great app, with a great offering, and its shortcomings are really just due to licensing deals that we hope will soon be resolved.
The app itself is free.
Nike+ GPS is Nike's official running app that allows you to enjoy Nike+ functionality on your iPhone, but without the need for their special line of shoes with the little transmitter in it. It's very popular, and works very well thanks to GPS support.
It goes for $2.99.
Skyfire is a huge App Store success of 2010, and for a good reason. It's really the same browser as mobile Safari, but with the ability to play many Flash-based videos. The principle is simple; Skyfire's servers re-encode the video remotely from Flash to iOS-friendly and stream it to your device.
All this for $2.99.
Pulse News Mini is one of these new generation RSS/newsreader apps. The idea is to aggregate online news in various ways, and present them in the most friendly possible format, a bit like a dynamic magazine.
It's free.
AppAdvice is our own official app. I'm contractually obliged to tell you about it, so here it is. It allows you to access all of our award-winning daily content on the go, as well as our special sections such as applists, appguides and more.
It goes for $1.99.
World Lens is a fairly recent and revolutionary app. It allows you to point your iPhone's camera at a sign, or any large written text in Spanish, and it will translate it into English for you in real time. You'll see the same sign on your screen in English, while it's actually in Spanish in real life. It works the other way around as well.
It's free to try, but language packs need to be purchased in-app.
Google Voice is Google's official client for the Google Voice service. It should have been a 2009 app, but it took over a year for Apple to approve it. Nobody really knows why. Nevertheless, it allows you to place calls, exchange texts using push notifications and so on, it's worth checking out.
It's free.
Siri is a great personal assistant app bought by Apple after its release. In a nutshell, just tell the app what you want and it will figure it out for you. That is, things like; "get me a cab," "where is the closest pizza place" and so on.
It's impressive and free so check it out.
Find my iPhone is Apple's official app for the iDevice location service. It allows you to locate your iDevices registered to the "Find my iPhone" service from another iDevice, which is very convenient.
It's free.
Price Check By Amazon is a revolutionary app that allows you to scan barcodes of various products, and find out how much they cost online at Amazon, which is usually much less.
It's free.
Twitter is the official app of the Twitter micro-blogging and communication platform. It's not brand new for 2010 as it already existed in 2009 as Tweetie 2. It was purchased by Twitter and officially re-released as Twitter in 2010. Anyway, it's an amazing app so check it out.
It's free.
Instagram is a recently released social network app for photos. It allows you to snap pictures of anything you want, apply some nice filters to the photo and share it with your friends. It's really interesting as you can follow your friends and what they post, comment on pictures, as well as share via Facebook and Twitter. It's the leading photography/social app of the year so make sure to get it.
Also, it's free.
Foodspotting is an app that allows you to post and look up visual (photo) reviews of food in restaurants. What better way to check if a restaurant is good than to view some pictures of the food. It's very popular and a great app.
It's free.
Alright, that's our selection. Once again, if you think you've got something outstanding that we missed, please tell us about it.
Entertainment
iBooks is Apple's official e-book reading app for the iBookstore they launched along with the iPad. It has plenty of features, an amazing page turning animation and is without a doubt one of the most interesting apps of 2010. Of course, Amazon's Kindle app has more choice and is generally cheaper. Nevertheless, iBooks is a superior app. Also, it supports PDFs, side-loaded ePUB e-books through iTunes and can wirelessly sync your progress with your other iDevices.
It's free.
iMovie is the iPhone 4, stripped down version, of Apple's movie editing software from iLife. Launched along with the iPhone 4, it allows you to edit your footage and turn it into short movie clips with music, effects and much more. It does an incredible job when you consider it runs on your phone, and is well worth the $4.99 it goes for.
Netflix is the iPhone client for Netflix's instant movie streaming service. It works over 3G, and while the quality and the experience are not always optimal on an iPhone, it's still an amazing app. It gives you access to an incredible amount of content, for cheap, and anywhere you are. It even supports video out, so you can plug your iPhone into a TV and stream NetFlix to your bigger screen.
It's free.
Hulu Plus is the iPhone client for the online TV and movie streaming service. It came as a big relief, as the single biggest issue everyone had with the iPhone's lack of Flash was its inability to access Hulu. Thanks to the Hulu Plus app, that is now a thing of the past.
It works over 3G, but doesn't support video out. Also, it's not the traditional Hulu, as you'll have to drop $7.99/month to really enjoy it, and the selection is not identical to the web. Nevertheless, it's a great app, with a great offering, and its shortcomings are really just due to licensing deals that we hope will soon be resolved.
The app itself is free.
Nike+ GPS is Nike's official running app that allows you to enjoy Nike+ functionality on your iPhone, but without the need for their special line of shoes with the little transmitter in it. It's very popular, and works very well thanks to GPS support.
It goes for $2.99.
Utility
Skyfire is a huge App Store success of 2010, and for a good reason. It's really the same browser as mobile Safari, but with the ability to play many Flash-based videos. The principle is simple; Skyfire's servers re-encode the video remotely from Flash to iOS-friendly and stream it to your device.
All this for $2.99.
Pulse News Mini is one of these new generation RSS/newsreader apps. The idea is to aggregate online news in various ways, and present them in the most friendly possible format, a bit like a dynamic magazine.
It's free.
AppAdvice is our own official app. I'm contractually obliged to tell you about it, so here it is. It allows you to access all of our award-winning daily content on the go, as well as our special sections such as applists, appguides and more.
It goes for $1.99.
World Lens is a fairly recent and revolutionary app. It allows you to point your iPhone's camera at a sign, or any large written text in Spanish, and it will translate it into English for you in real time. You'll see the same sign on your screen in English, while it's actually in Spanish in real life. It works the other way around as well.
It's free to try, but language packs need to be purchased in-app.
Google Voice is Google's official client for the Google Voice service. It should have been a 2009 app, but it took over a year for Apple to approve it. Nobody really knows why. Nevertheless, it allows you to place calls, exchange texts using push notifications and so on, it's worth checking out.
It's free.
Siri is a great personal assistant app bought by Apple after its release. In a nutshell, just tell the app what you want and it will figure it out for you. That is, things like; "get me a cab," "where is the closest pizza place" and so on.
It's impressive and free so check it out.
Find my iPhone is Apple's official app for the iDevice location service. It allows you to locate your iDevices registered to the "Find my iPhone" service from another iDevice, which is very convenient.
It's free.
Price Check By Amazon is a revolutionary app that allows you to scan barcodes of various products, and find out how much they cost online at Amazon, which is usually much less.
It's free.
Social
Twitter is the official app of the Twitter micro-blogging and communication platform. It's not brand new for 2010 as it already existed in 2009 as Tweetie 2. It was purchased by Twitter and officially re-released as Twitter in 2010. Anyway, it's an amazing app so check it out.
It's free.
Instagram is a recently released social network app for photos. It allows you to snap pictures of anything you want, apply some nice filters to the photo and share it with your friends. It's really interesting as you can follow your friends and what they post, comment on pictures, as well as share via Facebook and Twitter. It's the leading photography/social app of the year so make sure to get it.
Also, it's free.
Foodspotting is an app that allows you to post and look up visual (photo) reviews of food in restaurants. What better way to check if a restaurant is good than to view some pictures of the food. It's very popular and a great app.
It's free.
Alright, that's our selection. Once again, if you think you've got something outstanding that we missed, please tell us about it.
