Been thinking about posting a thread like this every once in a while to check in on the latest in apps. So tell us, what are your favorite iOS apps these days? Here's how to post an app:
Check to see if the app you'd like to post is already posted. If so, just vote it up! No need to re-post it.
If it's not already up, post it alone (i.e. one app per post) for others to vote up. Feel free to explain why you like it so much, favorite features, etc.! Oh, and post a link if possible!
Feel free to post as many apps as you like. Just make sure to post each app individually!
When I first saw I thought it was a little industrial-feeling, but I've come to discover it's one of the purest, most essentially designed communication clients around. I can't go back to Twitter's first-party apps after this.
i seriously don't know how i'd ever keep up on the ever-growing rss feed without this app, and i combine it with pocket for any longer reads and for archiving purposes.
Instagram. I know photo-sharing apps existed before it, and I even used some of them. But I can't imagine using anything else now. It works because it basically does one thing, and does it really well (two things, I suppose, if you count the filters, though they could probably drop them and not lose a single user).
Sparrow If you can't live without push email, this isn't the client for you (at least not yet -- they're working on it!). But if you can do without push and you're a Gmail addic, this might well be probably the best mobile email experience on any platform.
i want to love this app, i didn't realize how important push email was to me until i tried using Sparrow as my daily driver. and I understand why it's not there (not Sparrow's fault) and it's one of those things that irks me about iOS. It's THE best email app for the way i want to attack my inboxes, the ONLY feature it needs is that push.
I find it difficult to wait for the client to sync when i have been away from the inbox for any length of time, Mail downloads the messages in the background so they're already there when I go to read a backlog, and the Gmail iOS app doesn't have to sync at all, of course since it's just loading a webview in an iOS frame. Do you not have an issue with the time it takes for the app to manually update? I also wish that it would show unread message count on labels, I filter lots of email based on rules, but I still want to know when something is sitting there unread. I have raised these concerns with the developer, just thought I'd share my thoughts here as well, see if anyone else is experiencing the same issues, or I'm just a jerk.
Another problem I have with Sparrow on iOS as well as on the Mac version is that it doesn't do a very good job of keeping a correct count on the unread messages per label. I get a LOT of email from automated systems for work, and it is filtered into various categories because I want that information but I don't want it to be in my Inbox and pinging my phone every few minutes. I don't see how Sparrow enables me to be more efficient with handling my email when it's not an accurate representation of the total state of my email account. Am I not using it correctly? I'd really love to hear some thoughts here.
Best email experience. 'Nuff said. It's funny that it helped me realize how good life is *without* push email. That allows me to focus on what I'm doing and save battery. I just hope it had Outlook Exchange support for my office mail so I can do away with the stock Mail app.
Marco Arment just posted a nifty update to Instapaper (blog.instapaper.com/post/24293729146) that adds Background Update Locations, a sort of backdoor into background content updates. Couldn't an implementation of this... well, trick work with Sparrow? Or would it cost them the same as setting up their proposed push solution?
There is one called nightowl for clearing a task in the middle of the night, not sure of the actual rules around it. There is also one once you clear over 100 tasks I think? I just made a bunch of single letter tasks and swiped them away to reach it. There is one if you have Path installed as well.
Camera+
This app is my favorite way to edit photos before i post them to Instagram, and then off to Facebook and Twitter. My favorite filter is the food filter, and I use it for almost all my food photos I post.
The problem with Flipboard is it looks extremely nice but does a poor job at curating/aggregating. Zite can learn from my preferences and deliver a much better news curation, in my experience. Those to should merge.
ComicZeal A CBR & CBZ reader for all the comic collectors out there. It provides the option of collecting all the comics on the iPad into a collection so you can easily build a collection around a particular story arc.
Snapseed My photo editor of choice for iPhone and iPad. Select a photo from your camera roll and enhance it with one touch; manually adjust brightness, contrast, white balance, saturation, and ambiance; add vignetting, blur, or tilt-shift; easily crop and straighten; or apply one of the great pre-made filters.
How does this compare to Stitcher? I've been loving Stitcher for the past 6 months or so realizing that I didn't have to sync and manually update my iPhone every time I wanted to listen to new podcasts.
Well, Stitcher is more focused on being a "radio aggregator", while Instacast is a clean-cut "podcatcher" app. My deduction from using Stitcher (albeit for a much shorter while than Instacast) was that 1) it's more of a mix-'n-match service for radio and 2) the apps are just not as well done as Instacast.
Instacast is a superb and, in my opinion, unmatched replacement for the iTunes/iOS podcast system. Stitcher has a different focus - still an interesting concept, but not the same (and definitely not for me).
It's worth trying Instacast - but only if you're comfortable spending those few bucks on something that might not work for you, personally.
This is the only app I've found that implements Google Talk truly well (although it supports several other chat protocols). The app is designed really well, and doesn't feel cheap like many other chat apps on the store. Push notifications are done well, and it was recently updated to on the iPad to support the retina display.
