This guest post was written by Bryan Barletta, lead reviewer at AppVee, a site that offers iPhone app reviews and news. Barletta has picked out some of the App Store’s best applications, and we’ve embedded video reviews for some of them (click the corresponding review link to view a video if it isn’t already embedded). Also be sure to check out our picks of the hottest iPhone apps from back in July when the App Store first launched.
The iPhone and iPod Touch have taken the world by storm. In just a little over six months time we’ve witnessed the doors of the iTunes App Store opening to the 10,000 app marker being crossed. In between that time we’ve see the $999 I’m Rich make several people poor, fart joke apps earning over $25K in one day, and Apple still looking the other way when users mention copy and paste. And with the number of total apps reaching over 13,500 less than a month since the 10,000 mark was passed, that growth is showing no signs of stopping. But some of these stand out much more than others do, so we’ve tried to hone in on the cream of the crop.
Top 10 Apps
Tweetie
An easy to use and full featured Twitter app that is speedy. The app has quite a bit of competition (other popular apps include Twitterfon and Twitterific).
Link: AppVee’s Tweetie Review
Pandora
Browse through the music genome and find new artists that fit your taste. These are automatically recommended by the site’s algorithm, so it acts like a personalized radio that works surprisingly well.
Link: AppVee’s Pandora Review
Simplify Media
Connect to multiple computers and stream their music directly to your iPhone.
Link: AppVee’s Simplify Media Review
RJDJ Album
Let your iPhone and the world around you create unique and original music. The app uses external inputs (like sound) to create a dynamic soundtrack).
Link: AppVee’s RjDj Review
Beejive IM
A multi-client instant messaging app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Link: AppVee’s Beejive Review
Camerabag
Emulate 5 different camera and film setting directly from your iPhone. This helps spice up the photos you’re taking with the phone (the default application doesn’t offer much in the way of effects.
Link: AppVee’s Camerabag Review
Facebook
An updated version of the Facebook app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, this allows you to chat with friends, post on walls, and use nearly every feature available on the social network’s main website.
Link: AppVee’s Facebook Review
Friendbook
A full featured replacement for the iPhone and iPod Touch contacts app.
Link: AppVee’s Friendbook Review
Vlingo
Voice control nearly every aspect of your iPhone and more – it’s like a more powerful version of the highly hyped (and still-impressive) Google Mobile App.
Link: AppVee’s Vlingo Review
Evernote
Keep track of everything you could possibly want to remember (like notes or photos) whether you’re on the go or at home.
Link: Appvee’s Evernote Review
Top 10 Games
Rolando
An epic platform adventure game for the iPhone and iPod Touch, this is easily one of the most innovate games to hit the platform.
Link: AppVee’s Rolando Review
Fieldrunners
A Tower defense game with SNES-like graphics. The classic gameply is highly addictive.
Link: AppVee’s Fieldrunners Review
Jellycar
A unique puzzle game that asks you to guide your “jelly car” to an endzone. As with most of the other games on this list, this is highly addictive.
Link: AppVee’s Jellycar Review
Scramboni
A multiplayer online word game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Multiplayer games on the iPhone are still rarer than they should be, and being able to play online definitely adds an extra dimension to the gameplay.
Link: AppVee’s Scramboni Review
Dr. Awesome
Save your friends and family from deadly micro viruses in this iPhone and iPod Touch game.
Link: AppVee’s Dr. Awesome Review
Up There
Guide your balloon through various obstacles as you attempt to get the highest score
Link: AppVee’s Up There Review
Flick Fishing
Forget your fishing rod – this uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to allow you to mimic a realistic fishing motion to cast a line. Also check out many of SGN’s games, which feature similar motion detection.
Link: AppVee’s Flick Fishing Review
Hero of Sparta
Control King Argos as you battle the Gods and their minions in this action adventure game.
Link: AppVee’s Hero of Sparta Review
Brothers in Arms
Play through 14 levels on foot or vehicle in this WWII action game.
Link: AppVee’s Brothers in Arms Review
Aurora Feint II
The popular iPhone and iPod Touch puzzle RPG game goes multiplayer.
Link: AppVee’s Aurora Feint II Review
While it’s easy to simply break down the top apps and games that we’ve enjoyed in 2008, it becomes a lot more difficult to find just five apps that took a chance and brought more innovation to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Below are the five apps we feel helped define the future of apps on these devices.
Top 5 Innovations
Ocarina
Link: AppVee’s Ocarina Review
RJDJ Album
Link: AppVee’s RjDj Review
iFun
Link: AppVee’s iFun Review
LogMeIn
Link: AppVee’s LogMeIn Review
Slydial
Link: AppVee’s SlyDial Review
The future of the iPhone and iPod Touch is wide open, to some degree. Depending on what restrictions Apple decides to lift. Developers are already chomping at the bit to release a video recording option as well as the ability for apps to run in the background. While those factors sit solely on the shoulders of Apple as they have been proven possible by the jailbroken community, there are quite a few things that we as consumers should expect out of the apps we’ll see in 2009.
With titles like Rhythm Spirit, a rhythm fighting game based on Japanese folklore, and Myst, a remake of the classic adventure game, making their way over to the iPhone and iPod Touch sometime in 2009 we’ve got some idea of what to look forward to. The real question is: What will be our Ocarina? Our Rolando? What apps are going to challenge the capabilities of this phone and create such a large hype that we find ourselves begging for just one more screenshot or bit of information? We’ll have to wait and see what the App Store has in store for us in 2009 as we count down the remaining hours.
2008 was all about experimenting. A fantastic device emerged, developers went crazy, and we’ve been flooded. Its now time to settle down, dig in and create some revolutionary applications. 2009 is going to be all about quality and depth. We’re going to see richer games that rival the DS and PSP, applications that truly make this device a portable computer, and multi-user apps that really start connecting people. Mobile social gaming is going to be huge and we can’t wait to see what developers have in store for us in the New Year.
appvee has a good idea/concept but the narrator sucks his voice is too harsh and not very confident at times. they should hired a female with a smoother voice. i have watched several of their reviews but this guy voice over is killing my ears to the point i rather watched the review with mute on.
signed,
helpful advice
I quite like AppVee.
Readers might also be interested in the 30 or so apps that have been discounted for New Years – see the app blowout – http://www.newy...appblowout.com/
This is a test, to test the comment system. Sorry guys
Don’t frown on me, this is just another test
Blogging Bytes has the best iphone applications listed
http://blogging...ations-of-2008/
Whats up with the constant iphone coverage. The G1 is much better in capabilities, cheaper to produce (by 10%), open source, removable battery, open course apps…
You guys gotta stop writing about the iphone everytime there’s nothing else to write about…
or in Arrington’s case write about sex and porn….
If you haven’t been out much, everyone and their grandmother now owns an iphone or touch. Android has a bright future but the G1= FAIL.
Everyone and their dog once used AOL – that didn’t make it subpar. At the time, though, most of the MSM and lazy journalists concentrated on endless prattling about AOL and its applications and chatrooms. Meanwhile, a small rebel alliance was creating a new world on the internet.
Apple’s closed system is destined to fail.
i agree to u , they ve been it seems sponsored by iphone team
i dont mind starting few blogs about iphone as well with the sponsors 
Great list, though Stanza should have been on the list. It has introduced over 600,000 people to the joys of ebooks.
Nice reviews and apps! Good post.
For those of you that are developing G1 android apps that need to create an iPhone version,
I found this to be the cheapest way.
The cheapest iphone you can get is the v1, still locked
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200292274916
If you buy it unlocked it’s $150 more, and it takes like 5 minutes to unlock. I just bought this one.
Then install OSX86 on a dual boot on your machine, then use the SDK with that.
Obviously if you have been developing with the G1, you can’t use 3G anyway, so why pay more?
If your app is LBS based, you want to buy this as well
orangegadgets.com/shop/index.php?cPath=1_2
That way you can develop LBS apps without using AT&T
Otherwise you have to buy into Job’s scam and buy a $4000 mac pro, and pay the $100 contract on top of your $55 T-Mobile Contract for the G1.
My 2 cents. My G1 app will be developed for the iPhone as well now and for little to nothing which is contrary to the wishes of Mr. Steven Jobs.
What I meant to say is that the AT&T contract is twice as much as the G1 base contract. So when developing you swap your sim from phone to phone and just use T-Mobile. I planned this all out.
Its not like porting. its a totally different language (Objective C, yuck). what your doing works fine for the gray app market but I have heard that Apple is checking for something thats included in your submitted App bundle that denotes that it was complied on an authentic Mac (thats total hearsay BTW, I have no Idea if thats a fact. Can anyone could confirm or disprove?). Also if you want to get your App in the App store, you have to pay 100$ a year for an SSL cert signed by apple, dont loose the private key though ( Like I did
) or you will have to revoke the cert and re-deploy.
Either way Android is much nicer to develop for that the IPhone IMHO. The fact that we have so many apps for it despite the inherently Obfuscated nature of Objective C underscores the gravity that this platform wields.
Forgive my crazy sudo-english skills, I’m dealing with a 3 alarm hangover.
I’m building software that *must* have both a G1 Android *and* iPhone terminal app.
It reports long&lat to a server which then uses the data in a way I will not disclose here.
The application has to be accessible to everyone which means both iPhone and G1 clients must be made. The G1 client is well underway.
developer.apple.com/technology/xcode.html
You download xcode right there. I do not believe it embeds machine specific metadata in your application binaries as I have used it before when I had an iMac(what a HORRIBLE machine)
Due to your comment I will simply inspect the binaries with a hex editor to check before sending the app for approval by Apple.
You should also know that Google charges a $25 fee to deploy applications to their app store.
Richard, if you do end up getting a iPhone v1 off of ebay to clone your Android app for the iPhone,
1 x Orange Gadgets iGPS360 module with USB cable (MOD-iGPS360-R1) = $75.00
Memory 4GB
Model iPhone (first generation)
——————————————————————————–
Sub-Total: $75.00
CA TAX 7.75%: $5.81
Shipping and handling (no insurance) (Shipping to US : 0.25 lb(s)): $4.99
Total: $85.80
It comes up to $85.80 with CA tax and shipping for the GPS.
Most iPhone and G1 apps are LBS services, so if you are on T-Mobile with your G1 you will need this device. Your iphone V1 has no GPS, and even the 3g would not work with T-Mobile.
orangegadgets.com
These 2 things along with OSX86 should allow you to bypass the Apple tax and build your app for both platforms.
I hope that helps some of you.
Oh, and you need to know objective C.
It’s no worse than knowing Java and using the Android package. I happen to know both. If you don’t just get a friend or hire a developer to do it for you.
The point is you don’t need to buy into the whole kit to develop your app. There are too many iPhones out there to ignore the platform and just develop for the G1 if you have an LBS app.
Chris, I get the distinct impression that you do not work in the software industry. Not only do you advocate stealing OS X by using the OSX86 warez distro but you seem to be under the impression that open source software also somehow developed for free just because it is given away for free. The developers of OSS are usually employed at other companies developing software and that employment allows them to volunteer time and effort to OSS projects.
PCs cost money as well and there are alternatives to a Mac pro. A perfectly capable iMac can be bought for 1,199.00 (base model Mac pro is $2,799.00) and Visual studio costs $$ while X-Code is available for free from Apple.
I love Rolando.
as a designer, i’ve really enjoyed an called cliqcliq colors that i saw mentioned on TUAW awhile back. let’s me take a photo from the iPhone and it will automatically extract the predominant colors and let me remix color palettes that i can email myself in adobe formats. really cool little app.
Fk the iphone get on to Android and start developing in a market with more hope.
You missed Tap Defense, especially since it’s upgrade two days ago. It’s kept me entertained for hours!
+1 I’m a TD addict
!!
What about fring ?
I think it deserves a place on that list !
In my opinion, it’s the best most useful app for iPhone.
WELL,
Back at India we are waiting for 3G to Roll Out.
Sunita
Very nice presentation and I agree to your lists. Those are really the top performing and the most remarkable iPhone apps in 2008.
cool article!
rc
trading tennis blog
This site is becoming less and less valuable to people who do not own an iPhone.
Buy one on ebay for a couple hundred dollars and unlock it. I mean, that’s the only way.
Apple should know people aren’t going to break a T-Mobile contract to buy their phone.
I can’t decide if not having an iPhone makes me a rebel or a Luddite.
I took a hard long look at developing for only the G1 since that’s my phone and I’m on a contract with T-Mobile.
It took me weeks to decide to buy a v1 iPhone to unlock plus the Orange Gadgets iGPS360.
Until Android crushes the iPhone in a similar fashion to windows95 crushing mac and OS9, then I really don’t think we have a choice.
It’s such a pain developing apps twice, but that’s the pain that Jobs is bringing us.
I’m surprised the iFart isn’t here.
It did make it to 2008….(25) afterall!
Trace topped my list for the best game of the year.
http://tinycomb...hone-apps-2008/
I must agree, its an outright scandal iFart
did not make it into this list and just shows
the intolerance that fart jokes still suffer on
a day to day basis in our culture.
No mention of Tap Tap Revenge or Tap Tap Dance?
I can hardly wait to see what 2009 is going to bring!
Jess
http://www.privacy.de.tc
thanks for this post. I’ve already downloaded a few new apps!
IPhone = fail
if u owned one and now own a G1 you know…. everyone else is just ignorant…
jelous much
okay I’m not into all this computer talk but I do have a simple question that I’m hoping has a simple answer… How do u unlock an iPhone 3G?
Regarding contact managment on your iPhone, you should take a look at http://www.loo-lee.com. On the iPhone you can pull up this site which allows individuals to post their contact information — for example, their cell phone number. The iPhone owner then just has to search loo-lee for the person who they want to call. If that person has listed his or her number, the iPhone owner can automatically dial it with one click.
This site eliminates the need to collect and store contact information locally on the phone as individuals simply post their number in the “phonebook” for others to find. Its much more efficient than local storage of contact information.
Iphone applications are really handy. I unfortunately have ppc, and the applications and games for iphone just forces me to buy an iphone.
Very cool stuff! I phone has changed the amount of info I take in and pass on. It has made me much more connected via the web. Great post!
Are there any good blogging apps in the app store yet. there are a few but it looks to early to tell if they are worth using.
Best beer app of 2008 – Beer Hero!
My new favorite game this week is React from doapp. Cool.
Love Tweetie, Pandora, and the FaceBook app. Shazam has been a must have for me too!
I’ve also made a few other decent discoveries on
http://www.igoa...r_all/13/2/1/10
LogMeIn looks very good. I will download it to my iphone. Hope more apple apps free.
Showtimes!
The best movie app out there. I can’t believe that didn’t get mentioned.
http://www.macw.../showtimes.html
http://www.macw..._entertain.html
This is an awesome-post. Nowadays, there are more number of iPhone users around the globe and still more people are willing to purchase it. This information would be useful for the iPhone users. I too own an iPhone and have downloaded some of the applications mentioned in the post. Thanks for sharing.
I also recommend that you try the Storyz app (www.storyz.com) I works great for me, and I’ve become quite addicted to it
i just took a dump that honest to god smelled like cat shit – and i havent eaten cat food since 1991. i’m quite concerned about this, cause last time my boyfriend was kissing me, he pat me a few times on my lower back and i jacked my ass up in the air like i was in heat. am i turning into a kitten?
Interesting article, Scramboni is cool but Shake & Spell is a much more interesting online word game which happens to have Facebook integration…
camera bag was definitely a creative app i mean how could you make that crappy camera actually cool to use
very good, thanks
And how could you possibly forget the new PMS Buddy application that allows you to track your girlfriend or wive’s PMS (go to http://www.pmsbuddy.com for the link). Funniest app yet, by far…
Kudos to Tech crunch team! Good work.
Thanks
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is good
Interesting article, Scramboni is cool but Shake & Spell is a much more interesting online word game which happens to have Facebook integration…
People look like love Iphone but in fact Nokia, in my opinion, has much more beter phones.
Camerabag is just amazing, it simply enhance the photographic use of iphone. A very promising application for candid photographers.
My new favorite game this week is React from doapp. Cool..
Fk the iphone get on to Android and start developing in a market with more hope.