The Top 10 iPhone Applications You Shouldn't Live Without

The iPhone has come a long way the last year. While the interface is brilliantly designed, fast and has an overall functionality not found on other Mobile Operating Systems, what has really impressed me is the number of wonderful applications currently available on the relatively new OS.

In this article I’ll examine in brief some of the more popular iPhone applications, specifically some of the apps I have found to be the best performing on the iPhone OS.

Super Monkey Ball is by far the most well thought out game for the iPhone, the playability is smooth, the levels are concise, and its just an overall fun experience. The point is simple, navigate your “Monkey” in his “Ball” through various navigated levels without falling off the mazes open sides. Personally I like the smooth movements created through the use of the iPhone accelerometer. I have played the game for the Wii and the iPhone is surprisingly close in its accurate movements of the characters.

At $10 the price is also right for Super Monkey Ball, especially compared to the $40 price tag on a system like the Wii. If you’re a game enthusiast, or even if you simply want to test out a new feature on your iPhone, in this case the accelerometer, its well worth the money, more so than any other iPhone game to date.

Pandora.com offers some of the best music streaming channels I have ever used. Personally throughout my workday I listen to Pandora rather than CD’s or other internet radio stations. The program literally lets you select your favorite band and then it streams their music, along with other bands considered to be close “companions” to the band you have selected. For instance, Jason Mraz would also play Jack Johnson and John Mayer songs, while a Led Zeppelin channel may also play the Who and other Rock bands. Best of all the program works well on Edge Network speeds which means users of the original non-3G iPhone will still receive excellent playback. The best part of the program? If you hate a song you can ask it to never be played again, while your favorites can be bookmarked and remembered by the program for later playback.

In terms of Pandora however I must mention one slight drawback, it’s a stand along application, meaning while it can be played on your iPhone, you can’t be doing anything else in the background, in other words its great if all you are doing is listening to music.

Being a huge audiophile I had to include another music app, this time for its innovation that actually works. Shazam is a free application with a simple function. Hold your iPhone to any music source, whether its coming out of a stereo, a tv, whatver it doesn’t matter, and Shazam within seconds will tell you what songs your listening to, what artist sings it, and where to buy it.

The program works by users placing tags on their favorite music, which then helps identify the music. But wait, there’s more. Users can also view related YouTube videos by clicking on a defined icon, and they can even email their contacts the music info for download and listening purposes.

If you tend to forget songs, or you really want to know what your listening to, this is the perfect application for you.

It’s probably a good thing that Google doesn’t fight with Apple as much as it does with Microsoft. In this case the Google App for the iPhone is an all inclusive search program. Users can search their phone for items such as Contacts, Applications, etc. Almost like using Google Desktop for a Windows Based PC.

The application would be great if it stopped there, but as the sub section title states this program also searches the Internet. Using the application users can discover web pages, local business contact information, and much more.

The program also features smart search, essentially as you enter letters the available programs that match those letters will appear first in search results. As an example, if I type “TYPE” two options may come up, one may be “Type Pad Interface” while the next closest may be “Typewriter Teacher” when I type “TYPEW” the “Typewriter Teacher” program would then display first based on relevance to the letters I entered. If you’ve used Firefox 3, the Google iPhone Search App offers the same type of “Suggestive Search” as shown above.

Overall a great app that makes overall search capabilities easier to digest, especially if you tend to store everything on your device, and with the iPhone 3G data connection if you surf the net from your device almost as much as from your computers.