There are some great iPhone apps I have seen this year that have tapped into consumer need to date badly fulfilled. My iPhone 3GS now has 108 apps on it. Within a very short time, I've come to consider my iPhone as a gateway to my world and my can't-do-without piece of kit. Over and above basic communication, here are the "need states" I find myself using it for most, with some specific apps to complement it:
To capture my life: As with most PDAs, being able to quickly capture a moment, be it unexpected, sad, funny, etc. especially with my kids, is priceless. I find I use other cameras much less. As a result, I have four camera apps to improve the basic built-in camera, one for zooming, another to add a flash, etc. My favourite add on is Sepia Camera, which turns your pic to a professional, sepia colour, and Animoto, turning a montage of your pics into great music vids.
To keep the kids quiet in restaurants: both my 2 year old and 4 year old are now adapt touch screen iPhone users. Even the younger one can deftly swipe to find his favourite app, turn it on and keep himself amused. Success in ensuring lunchtimes on the odd trip to a Strada or Pizza Express now go without meltdowns has now meant me having to also buy my wife an iPhone! In all seriousness, there are some fantastic educational apps for kids. I have two pages of kids' apps, but the favourites seem to be:
For the 4 year old:
CuteMath: for our 4 year old, an interactive set of maths games for basic addition and subtraction.
Suzy Dress Up: more for girls, an interactive app to allow Suzy to be dressed up in hundreds of combinations of clothes. My daughter loves this one.
For the 2 year old:
Old MacDonald: widely-acclaimed app based on the song, with interactive scenes.
iTot Cards: flashcards showing pics of shapes, animals, food, etc. In English, Spanish and French.
To organise my world: As well as Calendar, etc. I use three others:
PassKeeper: there are just too many user names and passwords these days. This is a nice easy app to store them all in one place rather than search through your contacts
Things: a great task manager.
Shop Shop: quite a nice interface for shopping lists. My daughter loves to strike things off as we go around the supermarket (when we haven't used the Ocado app!)
To keep in touch with news:
My day tends to begin with me walking down to the station while listening to Radio 4, via Radio Box, a nice app covering thousands of radio stations. Once on the train, it's then a newspaper app, either:
The Telegraph, Sky News, BBC Reader, or to check other areas of interest, El Mundo, Catalan News, and to keep my now basic level of Japanese, Aratanisu, which pulls various Japanese newspapers together.
Also like a different perspective on the world, through Engadget, keeping up to date with technology news, and TED, showing conference clips of some of the world's most fascinating people.
To communicate:
The usual of Linkedin and Facebook apps, Skype and Twitterific. Also have Whatsapp, which allows free smartphone to smartphone texting.
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