iPhone Apps I Use Every Day

So I’ve had my iPhone for a while now and the more I use it, the more I feel like I need it. And the more I use it even more. I’ve got pages and pages of applications on my iPhone, but like most things, most of them are just okay. Yes, there are very cool apps I use, but most of them? Pretty much just sit there, used on occasion.

Since I have a group of friends who recently acquired iPhones, I thought I’d share with you the iPhone apps that I use pretty much every day. I’m not talking about the obvious ones that come preloaded on the iPhone, such as Mail and Text. These are apps you find in the App Store.

Some are games, some aren’t. I’ll put together another list of my favorite games another day. I’m also going to put together a list of my favorite FREE apps. For now, though, this is a mixed bag of apps – both free and paid.

In no special order:

1. Galcon. Got a few minutes to kill? This is the game for you. Galcon is an extraordinary game, amazingly simple but fun. Strategic, easy to learn, more difficult to master. And by far it’s the shortest game I know of. Most games take less than 45 seconds.

You can play against the computer – or even find games online against human opponents (if you buy the paid version for $4.99, link above is to the free version, though). Each of you starts with one planet. You’re the green one with 100 ships to start. The object is simple: capture all of your opponent’s planets.

Easier said than done. All those greyed planets with numbers on them? Those are up for grabs and the number represents the number of ships on each planet that you have to destroy in order to take that planet for yourself. The bigger the planet, the faster your ships multiply. That’s right, if you just sit there and do nothing, all of your ships on your planets start increasing. But you can’t just sit there.

Game play is very simple. You first tap the planet you want to move ships from, then tap the planet you want to move to and – zoom! – your ships take off for that planet. By default, every time you move from your planet to another, 50% of your ships fly across the system to the other planet. If you have enough ships, then bam! You get the planet.

If you have multiple planets, and double-tap one of them, it automatically selects all your planets. Then you can tap another planet and send off ships from all your planets to the one you want. This is a great way to blitz a planet with everything you’ve got.

It pays to go for the biggest planets because that way you get far more ships, all the better to attack your enemy’s planets. But the BEST planets to take are the big planets with the lowest number of ships on them. Unfortunately, you’ll find that your opponent wants those, too.

This all happens very fast and most games last less than a minute. There are multiple levels and game modes, the lower levels start you off with far more ships than your opponent.

By far my favorite game at the moment.

2. WootWatch. Yes, it’s my least favorite “word” on the planet, but I love Woot.com. If you don’t know about it, you should add it to your daily site visits. To put it plain and simple Woot.com sells one thing every day. That’s it. One thing. But they’re usually really good deals. And they’re only available for 24 hours. You snooze, you lose.

Over time, woot.com has expanded to have Sellout Woot (items that are going extinct), Shirt Woot (unique t-shirts for $10 and free shipping), and Wine Woot (well, it’s wine, duh). Each deal is, again, only offered for 24 hours.

Recently, I bought a digital photo frame for $23, along with some of their t-shirts. WootWatch makes checking the daily deals simple.

Touch the icons at the bottom to load the various deals across the Woot sites. The new deals hit every night at midnight (Central time). It’s one of the last things I do before shutting off the nightstand light each night.

Enjoy. Oh, and it’s free.

3. TwitterFon. Believe it or not, I have maybe five different Twitter apps on my iPhone, some of them I even paid for. Why? Because most of them have some great features, but not all of them have all the features I desire in a Twitter app. When it comes to my PC, TweetDeck is by far my favorite Twitter client.

I’ll review the different Twitter apps another time, maybe, but suffice it to say you don’t have to pay for a great Twitter app. TwitterFon does most everything I want it to do, and it’s free.

One of my favorite features is that you can easily just tap the @Replies button on the bottom of the screen to see only those tweets that are in reply to you. Otherwise, it can be easy to let some replies fall through the cracks. The Messages button shows you DM’s, too. Simple, clean, and again…free.

4. Facebook. Another completely free app that is a must-have if you use Facebook at all. It’s simple, easy to use, even intuitive…everything the actual Facebook site isn’t.

Easily better than Facebook’s actual site. I prefer it. You can add friends, post updates, look at photos, most all of the “important” Facebook stuff. Pus, you’re not bogged down with all the stupid Facebook applications on their cluttered site.

5. MyWeather. There are a ton of weather apps in the App Store, some free, some paid. Most of them better than the bare-bones app that comes preloaded on your iPhone. I’ve tried a number of them, but my preference is still MyWeather, a $9.99 app. Again, as with the best apps, it’s intuitive, well-designed, and does everything I want in a weather app, and more.

When you first start the app, it asks if it can use your current location. This works great because it shows you the local weather, even if you don’t have your current town listed already.

You press the “i” icon just underneath the cities to add another city or delete some.

Tap the city you want to look at – note I’ve added Santa Fe to prep for TequilaCon 09 – and the 7-day forecast pops up at the bottom of your screen. You can swipe to the right or left with your finger to look at future days. Even better, if you’re looking for the weather radar? Tap “Radar” and you get an animated glance at the radar in your location.

As with some iPhone apps, all the gestures apply. Drag-and-drop your location on the map. Double-tap to zoom in. Pinch, stretch, expand the map area. Awesome.

6. Live Poker. Available for free or various paid “upgrades,” I enjoy this game more than the amazing Texas Hold’em. Why? Because you’re playing with actual humans instead of some computer AI. I started playing Poker on Facebook (one of the very few apps I have on Facebook) and Zynga does some great games for the site. This one for the iPhone lets you link up your Facebook account, carries over your chips from the site, and lets you play Texas Hold’em with a multitude of different tables (for different blinds and buy-ins).

Don’t let the paid versions fool you. They’re the absolute same game, you’re just buying more “starting” chips to work with. I’ve earned my money the old-fashioned way, by stealing the blinds and winning.

It may not have all the bells and whistles that the site has, but I play on my iPhone every day and it works great. There’s even chat built-in if you’re so inclined.

7. Pandora Radio. I’ve been using Pandora for years and it’s still my preferred Net radio site of choice. You start by creating your own station, typing in the name of one of your favorite music artists. Pandora takes over from there, playing one of their songs. But that’s just the beginning. Using a complicated “music genome” process, Pandora then starts playing other songs and artists that are musically “related” to the artist you started with.

I’ve found more great artists with Pandora than with all the other sites combined. If a song plays that you like, then give it the thumbs up. If a song plays that you don’t like, give it the thumbs down and you’ll never hear it on your station again. Over time, Pandora learns what you like and what you don’t and you’ll increasingly hear great music.

The Pandora iPhone app is free and even simpler to use than the actual site, which is saying something. Get bored with your station? You can create as many stations as you like and change them on the fly.

It’s not my only music or radio app…Last.FM is good, too (and also free). But I like playing Pandora Radio while I’m in the kitchen doing dishes, or sometimes while I’m reading in bed at night. Great station, no stutters and stops like you might expect.

8. Simplify Media. I got this in the early days when they offered it for free. Now it’s $3.99 and worth every penny. In short, Simplify lets you access all the songs in your iTunes remotely and listen to them on your iPhone. Big deal? Well, I have an 8GB iPhone and I couldn’t fit nearly all the songs in iTunes into my iPhone. I use a variety of Smartlists to keep music on my actual phone.

With Simplify, you can stream ALL your iTunes music into your iPhone. It’s easy, slick, and a breeze to use. So even if Chris DeBurgh’s “Don’t Pay the Ferryman” isn’t synced with my iPhone, I can still play it easily. The only caveat is that, naturally, your computer has to be on and connected to the Net. But mine always is.

And there you have just a handful of my most-used apps. I’ll do more in the future, but I know not all of you are fortunated/blessed/chosen enough to have an iPhone. Heh.

How about you? What are you favorite iPhone apps? Or if you don’t have an iPhone, favorite apps for your own cell?

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