Webomatica’s Best iPhone Apps Of 2009
Yet another year-end list, for a year when I went rather nuts reviewing iPhone apps. These are based on ratings from personal reviews but also the test of time — all are still on my iPhone and I return to them regularly. Enjoy.
- Bloomberg: Still the best financial news app. Fires up fast, pulls the information down, easy to use.
- Sally’s Spa: Don’t laugh. Addicting.
- USA Today: Favorite newspaper app.
- iPhlix: Netflix queue manager. Very useful whenever someone mentions a new movie.
- Movie Genie (Rebranded to IMDB): Great for solving movie-related questions like who was in what movie, or what was the name of that flick.
- Crosswords: Pulls down crosswords from major newspapers on a daily basis so you always have a new puzzle to do.
- GeoDefense Swarm: Yet-another-tower-defense-game, but a really great one.
- Meteor Blitz: Asteroids-style Dual D-pad shooting game.
- Defender Chronicles: Combination of tower defense and WarCraft.
- Rolando, Rolando 2: iPhone franchise in the making.
- iDracula: Another Dual D-pad shooting game.
- Arcade Bowling: Simple, but the ball feels good, and iPhone tilt adds some crazy English.
- Cat Paint: Stupid photo editing app, but always good for a laugh.
- Air Mouse: Useful for getting the television Mac Mini out of silly places.
- Dungeon Hunter: Diablo on the iPhone.
- Drop7: Puzzle game with slightly confusing rules, but soon becomes as addicting as Tetris.
- Squareball: Should have been on the Atari 2600.
And if you have any favorite iPhone apps, I’d love to hear about them for a review in 2010.
BeejiveIM. Saves me from spending money on unlimited text messages.
Instapaper. Great for reading web articles in Muni tunnels.
Tweetie 2. Probably the best iPhone app, period.
Dropbox. Companion to the desktop software, which is going to help me ditch my laptop for a desktop sometime next year.
N.O.V.A. Certainly the best FPS on the iPhone yet.
GoodReader. Great for long PDFs, like software manuals, etc.
GuitarToolkit. So great to have a tuner/metronome/chord guide with me at all times.
Deliveries from JuneCloud. Great companion to the Dashboard widget. Something I’d always wished I’d had on my Treo years ago.
MoonPhase. I’m not THAT into astrology, but the moon is fascinating.
FlightTrack Pro, by Mobiata. Really great if you use TripIt in conjunction with it. One of those apps I only use a few times a year, but those few times make it so worth it.
CoasterCounter. Wins my prize for the app that fills a niche no one else seems to have thought of. Being the only iPhone app of its kind is a rare thing. (Disclosure: two friends of mine made this app, and I helped out with some of the icons/graphics.)
Plus literally dozens of apps I’ve tried and loved based on your reviews. It’s no wonder I can’t even consider any other phone platform at this point. Way too much invested in the App Store economy.
Damn, I forgot Tweetie 2. I use that app, like, every day
Been meaning to check out the NOVA game; now I definitely will.
And several of the others; never heard of ‘em. Will check them all out in
the weeks to come, thanks!