I’ve had my iPhone for over a year now and I have been meaning to list my most used iPhone third-party applications for a while now. So last week I tracked how much time I spent on each application and here’s the most popular apps I used (not including the standard Apple core applications like Mail, Safari, Maps etc).  

These aren’t full reviews – I don’t have time to do those, go to Apple’s App Store if you want to find out more! 

My most used third-party apps are:

1. Tweetie

I use this twitter application a lot, sitting on trains, buses and tubes around London, it’s a great way to kill some time and catch up with the latest tweets from the people you follow. The interface is as you would expect an Apple app to be so there’s no real learning curve and it’s very handy if you have multiple accounts.

I would like to know the stats from all the different twitter apps out there but this one must be up there. On the Mac it’s TweetDeck, but on the iPhone it has to be Tweetie.

2. iFooty

If you tend to get a lot of your football news from the BBC then this application is a must. The application works from a team perspective rather than just a result aggregator. Find your team within their league’s table to view Live Match feeds, previous results and team news, unfortunately the fixtures can longer be viewed within the application due to copyright issues.

3. Facebook

Whoops, I didn’t think this would be my third most used application this week – I would of looked so much more professional if it was the LinkedIn application at number three.

I have noticed more and more that friends are communicating not by email but by Facebook, it can be easier to see if they are around by quickly logging in to Facebook and seeing the latest status. This application allows you to access a lot of the features of the website, the photo upload feature is very handy - see Camera Bag below.

3. Air Sharing

I’m sure there’s a few file sharing applications but this one I find very useful if you need to transfer files and documents to the iPhone to review on the move. The application let’s you see the iPhone’s IP address so you can connect to it over a WiFi network. Just press Apple-K on your Mac, type in the IP address and connect, you can then just drag and drop your files. You can lock access to the application with a passcode to stop unauthorised access if the phone falls into the wrong hands.

4. 1Password

I use this programme on the Mac and it’s been one of those pieces of software that I can never live without. Login details for websites that I register for are securely stored including credit card details and other notes.  All the sites we develop have Staging and Development areas that have to be logged into, so I just let 1Password store all this information for me.

The iPhone appl syncs with it’s bigger brother application 1Password on the Mac so if I’m out and about I can quite quickly access all my passwords when I need to. The application itself has a 4 digit passcode to open it – you will then need to type in your ‘1 Password’ if you need to see any of your stored details.

5. UK Trains

Another old timer, this application has got me home on numerous occasions when I’ve been a little worse for wear! Quite simply it’s a web app that is accessing National Rail data. It tries to look like a real app and works well. I was using this and another train application My Rail but they seem to of lost their license with National Rail.

6. Tube: London City

This is a very handy application if you’re like me and travel on the Underground frequently. As well as being a Tube Map I tend to use the Start/Finish feature that lets me know the line changes and journey time. I think this was one of the more costlier applications (around £5!) but I do recommend it. If only I can get my Oyster card built into the iPhone... roll on NFC!

7. Tioti TV+

I needed an application that gave me TV listings for Sky and Freeview and this app really does this well by having a very simple and user-friendly interface. You can show all the channels or choose to show just the ones you are interested in. You get a week’s worth of listings and can drill down into the programme detail to get more information... and this is where it’s best feature is. If you are a Sky+ customer register on Sky’s website then enter these details into the application... you can then remotely set your Sky+ box to record, yay! 

Yes, I know we have BBC’s iPlayer and VoD online services but sometimes you just want to chill out on your sofa and watch things on a traditional TV screen.

8. Camera Bag

I quite like the lo-fi camera on the iPhone. Yeah it would be great if it was 8 megapixels but you gotta make the most of what you have. Camera Bag lets you apply a retro ‘film-camera’ effect to your photos to replicate great cameras such as the Lomo and Holga.

Hint: Take the photo first using the normal camera application and then open up Camera Bag and apply the effect. Taking the picture via the application can cause problems with the memory and sometimes crashes my iPhone.

Here’s a little sample image using the Helga (Holga) effect:

I haven’t had much chance to use the Skype application yet but our first tests in the office seemed pretty good.

As you can see in the top image, there’s a load apps that I don't use as much and there's certainly a load of games that my 5-year old has figured out how to download (check out Sneezies, it very addictive). If you know any better ones than the applications I have listed please let me and the team know.

Peter

Creative Director @ ORM