100 Best iPhone Apps Ever

Our ongoing strive to find the best apps continues. With over 350,000 iPhone apps in the App Store, picking the right one to download can often be a tricky business. Here at iPhoneAppCafe our team of contributors has been reviewing and recommending 100’s of great apps and we do all we can to find the really good stuff. A while ago I decided to compile a top 100 list based on ratings and recommendations at iPhoneAppCafe.com and also based on most mentioned and talked about apps on other top review sites. It became a more mammoth task then I anticipated but finally the list is ready and the result has to be the 100 best iPhone apps, ever! I have classified the apps in three categories starting with Useful apps and then continuing to Entertainment and Games.

Useful Apps

1. 2Do – $6.99, Developer: Guided Ways Technologies Ltd

A user-friendly task management and ‘to do’ list app that does exactly what it says on the tin. The user-interface is clean an intuitive and the latest version now supports synchronisation with Outlook, Mac, and Toodledo. The Biggest feature of this app is push notifications. Many to-do managers in the app store are missing this feature that is top of the shopping list for many shoppers of the App store. When making a new to-do, or editing an old one, there is the option of assigning alarms for when the item is due and/or before it’s due. These alarms come in the form of push notifications and/or email, giving you no excuse to forget your partner’s birthday!

Read the 10 Best iPhone Apps For Business.

2. Air Sharing –  $2.99, Developer: Avatron Software, Inc.

This app allows you to view and email your documents on the go, drag-drop files between your iPhone or iPod touch and your computers and send email attachments; an essential app for any business person wanting to be plugged into the world of work 24/7.

3. Around Me – Free, Developer: Marco Pifferi

Tweakersoft’s AroundMe application uses the iPhone’s GPS functionality and Google maps to help you locate services and businesses in and around a particular neighbourhood. You can use your current location as a starting point, or enter an alternative city or town – great when you’re planning a trip away from home.

Read the full review of Around Me.

4. Birds of Britain and Ireland – $20.99, Developer: BirdGuides Ltd.

A high-quality digital field guide covering 271 species of birds regularly seen in Britain and Ireland. This list covers all except the rarest vagrants and includes every bird likely to be seen by the vast majority of birdwatchers in the UK throughout the year. Comprehensive information is provided including: multiple annotated illustrations by leading artists showing the full range of plumages including rarer races and variations, beautiful photographs for many species; songs and calls, maps showing distribution in the UK and in Europe and the full detailed text accounts from the Concise edition of Birds of the Western Palearctic (THE standard reference work originally published by Oxford University Press). Perfect for more experienced birders who will appreciate the comprehensive and professional ornithological content in this App.

5. Capital Eats – £7.99, London Discount Dining Ltd

I know what you’re thinking: £7.99 for an iPhone App?! Don’t you know that the country is in a deep state of economic crisis and that is more than most people spend on their daily food intake?! Well, before you start grumbling about yuppie media types with more money than sense, take a second to read about an App that will actually save you huge amounts of money in the future.

That’s right, the heavy price tag on ‘Capital Eats’ actually serves as an investment, one that you can make back when you first use the App. If you live in or around London, chances are that you are going to want to sample the many culinary delights that its bars and restaurants have to offer. However, the menu prices are often on the high side and this can put many people off the pleasure of dining out, (yes, yes, especially in a recession!)

Read the full review of Capital Eats.
6. Dictionary.com – Free, Developer: Dictionary.com, LLC

The free Dictionary.com app delivers trusted reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. NO INTERNET CONNECTION IS NEEDED TO SEARCH WORDS. The app includes nearly 2,000,000 words, definitions, synonyms and antonyms. It also features audio pronunciation, voice-to-text search and Dictionary.com’s popular Word of the Day and Hot Word blog.

7. Documents Free (mobile office suite) – Free, Developer: Savy Soda Pty Ltd

As a writer I am always looking for different ways to write. There are times when an idea strikes and I have no pen or paper in site (what can I say, I am old fashioned) so when I saw Documents Free I had to give it a whirl. I tested the app making a basic spreadsheet. I was a little hard at first to figure out what I was doing. I made a spreadsheet of title ideas and where I would like to publish them. Simple task…

Read the full review of Documents Free.

8. Dragon Dictation – Free, Nuance Communications

Ever fancied having your own secretary to type your text messages for you on the move? Well now you can have just that – and she won’t talk back, ask for coffee breaks or make personal calls on your phone! This is Dragon Dictation 2.0 for the iPhone.

Software dictation is no longer the clunky, slow, error-ridden thing of the past. While you can’t expect Dragon to spell phrases like “globigerina ooze” correctly, it does a fantastic job with simple, straightforward speech. This is just perfect for texting, sending emails or updating your Facebook profile.

Read the full review of Dragon Dictation.

9. Dropbox: Great For Document Sharing

I have been hearing about Dropbox for a while and finally yesterday decided to test it to see if I can easily view my word and excel documents on my iPhone and iPad. Sure enough the sign up and setup took only a few minutes.
Essentially you download the application from http://www.dropbox.com/downloading, install it on your computer and you are ready to go. Dropbox is free for the first 2GB of data and if you need more storage you pay for it.

Read the full review of Dropbox.

10. Evernote  – Free, Developer: Evernote

If you’re a business professional or just a busybody, Evernote just made things a lot easier. In the past, any kind note taking we did on our iPhone’s, work and home computers, and any other device was really a pain in the neck because nothing was in sync!

You had to either copy data between the devices, keep mental notes or whatever and sometimes things became really disorganized. With Evernote this all changes. This popular note taking application is a must-have for note organization and is regarded as one of the most essential applications for users in all walks of life.

Read the full review of Evernote.

11. fring – Developer: fringland ltd, Price: Free

fring’s taking it to the big boys here with its latest release of it’s social networking and internet calling app. The app itself lets you connect with all of your friends who also have fring on their mobile. What does this mean? It means you’re able to voice or video call them absolutely free of charge! If your friends aren’t answering, why not send them a free chat message? fring has also gone one step further. The app is able to communicate with Facebook, MSN® Messenger, ICQ®, Google Talk™, Twitter, AIM® & Yahoo!™. This means that your friends can’t escape you, and you can’t escape them.

Read the full review of fring.

12. Google Mobile App – Developer: Google Mobile, Price: Free

The boffins at Google have put together a lovely little treasure here for the iPhone user. Pulling out all of the stops, you aren’t left with just a simple search app… You’re left with an incredible search app. My favourite feature of this app is the fact that the camera app holds countless possibilities. I’m going to throw a scenario your way. Picture this: you’re sitting in a café in France, and you can’t read or speak a single word of the language, but you really fancy something from the menu. Don’t know what the menu says? Worry not, my linguistically challenged friend! Simply take a quick snapshot of the text, and Google will work it’s magic to translate the text. Google calls this ‘Google Goggles’, and it is able do more than translate the 6 languages it currently can.

Read the full review of Google Mobile App.

13. How To Videos From Howcast.com – Developer: Howcast Media, Inc., Price: Free

How many times has this happened to you: you’re walking down the street, and an ever-shady college street musician accosts you and asks how to buy pet insurance, how to make an origami frog, or how to identify a Northern Oriole on a nature hike. Of course! These are everyday occurrences for all of us. Well, now you can be prepared for just about all of life’s most perplexing challenges. How to fix your leaky faucet. How to know if you’re boring (hint: it may or may not involve making videos on how to know if you’re boring). How to make balloon animals. How to clean up after a party so your parents won’t know.

Read the full review of How To Videos From Howcast.com.

14. iFirstAid – Free, Developer: Survival Emergency Products

iFirstAid Lite is designed in Australia to meet some of the most harsh and unforgiving conditions on the planet. So you can count on it wherever you are around the globe. With it’s single-page, ‘memory jog’ format, iFirstAid Lite is designed to make it as easy as possible to recall First Aid procedures when you need them most. All iFirstAid Lite content is authored by international First Aid expert Ella Tyler, winner of the International Florence Nightingale Medal.

15. iHandy Carpenter – Developer: iHandySoft, Inc., Price: $1.99

A simple idea, yet so, well, handy. This app puts a surface level, bubble level, plumb bob, protractor, and ruler all on your iPhone. If you’re an urbanite, you may not own all of these tools; if you’re a suburbanite, you may not know where your partner keeps them. The latter is the case for me. Although I am handy with tools, I gladly gave them over to my husband who keeps them in the garage. When in the middle of a project, I do not like stopping to go to the garage and search for a tool. For example, while rearranging my daughter’s room, we realized items were rolling off the top of her bookshelf. On the spot, I turned on iHandy’s level to assess the situation.

Read the full review of iHandy Carpenter.

16. Google Translate – Developer: Google Inc., Price: Free

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world” said philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. And so it was, until Google introduced the Google Translate App for iPhone. The app, linked to Google’s infinitely powerful mainframe computers, translates to and from over 50 languages. But that’s not all: it can translate 15 languages just by listening to them being spoken.

Read the full review of Google Translate.

17. Keynote Remote – Developer: Apple Inc., Price: $0.99

With Keynote Remote, you can control your Keynote ’09 slide presentation on your Mac from your iPod touch or iPhone. It’s great because you are actually using your iPhone to view and control the slides; you no longer need to worry about line of sight to the laptop. It only works with WiFi and not Bluetooth and is very easy to setup. The only issue that we can find with this App is that since slides have to be downloaded to the iPhone, sometimes there is a bit of a wait involved, which is normally not an issue for a small presentation but can begin to drag if you are giving a longer presentations with a huge number of slides.

Read the 10 Best iPhone Apps For Business.

18. LogMeIn Ignition – Developed by LogMeIn Inc., £17.99

For me, this is a life-changing app. I’ve used the free LogMeIn service for a long time; any PC I might want to access has the free client running on it, which means that as long as I can get onto a PC with an internet connection and a browser, I can manage any of my PCs – work, home, friends. I don’t know how I’d manage without it.

Read the full review of LogMeIn Ignition.

19. MOBILE MOUSE – $1.99, Developer: RPA Tech, INC

Although a little geeky this app is great for those of you who use your computer or laptop for more than scouring eBay for great deals or simply typing articles. They’re our stereos, DVD players and photo albums and with Air Mouse, you can control all these things using your iPhone or iPod touch as a wireless remote.

Read the full review of Mobile Mouse.

20. My Measures & Dimensions – Developed by SIS Software, £2.99

Cast your mind back to your last DIY project. Did you write a bunch of measurements on a scrap of paper? What were the chances of losing it or forgetting exactly what one of the measurements meant – just when you needed it the most? Most of us have been there and done that!

My Measures and Dimensions is a fab app that will solve this problem for you forever. Simply import a photo of the room, object, or person you want to measure, then quickly and easily draw lines, add measurements and put labels on. The app combines ease of use with many powerful functions so you can easily note down all the details even for a complex project. You can even email the annotated photos to your architect!

Read the full review of My Measure & Dimensions.

21. UK Train Times – Developer: Agent Ltd, Price: £4.99

If you are travelling by train or use the rail regularly, then this is your ideal travel app. It provides live departures and arrivals from all over the UK. It updates any delays, cancellations and schedule times so you’ll never miss that train again!

Read the 10 Best iPhone Travel Apps.

22. Viber – Free, Developed by Viber Media Inc

This app could save you hundreds of pounds in phone bills over the next few years. Essentially, Viber is Skype for phones, seeing as you can speak to anyone in the world, (provided they are a Viber subscriber and you both have an internet or Wi-Fi connection), for as long as you like for free. You simply search for them in your contacts and press the Viber call button that will connect you through the Viber network. For those of you worried about going over your data allowance, simply connect to Wi-Fi and the call is totally free, no strings attached! Unlike Skype, you can search for people with their phone numbers as opposed to their email addresses, which is another added bonus.

Read 5 Incredibly Useful iPhone Apps for Free.

23. Money Diary – Developer: Kim Haro, $0.99

With the world in recession, money is tight for everyone. Keeping track of every penny that you spend could be an arduous and ultimately disappointing task, but fortunately Money Diary has been introduced to make things easier to manage. The point of the app is to set yourself a daily, weekly or annual budget to spend. Alternatively, but inputting your salary and other relevant financial information, the app will automatically calculate you some realistic budgets to work towards.

Read 10 Essential Apps For Controlling Your Finance.

24. RedLaser – Free, Developer: Occipital, LLC

RedLaser searches for low online and local prices from hundreds of thousands of retailers. Features product results from Google (US & UK), TheFind, eBay, Milo.com and Half.com. It uses state-of-the-art barcode recognition that can read virtually any product barcode. Works great on the first-gen, 3G, and 3GS!

25. Runkeeper Pro – Free, Developer: RunKeeper, LLC

RunKeeper uses the GPS technology found in the iPhone to track your fitness activity, giving you comparable results to an expensive GPS watch. Now, you can also enter your activities manually, including your treadmill runs too! The intuitive and easy-to-use interface of the app makes it easy to track how far you went, how long it took, what your pace/speed was, how many calories you burned, and the path you travelled on a map.

26. Skype: Free In-Community Calls

There are plenty of VoIP apps that let you call other users for free. The biggest, however, is undoubtedly Skype. With 600 million users, there’s no doubt that someone you know is on Skype – which means free Skype-to-Skype calls are only an app download away.

It works over Wi-Fi and 3G, and is cross-compatible with other Skype software – PC, Mac, other smartphones and even some TVs.

Read How to Make Cheap Calls from iPhone.

27. Trip Advisor Hotels Flights Restaurants – Developer: TripAdvisor, Price: Free

Know what to expect…. No surprises! Once you have decided you need a holiday, your next step is this Trip Advisor app. This fantastic app allows you to search for flights and hotels in your chosen destination. You can also search for sightseeing and restaurants to further prepare for a great trip away. You will see detailed photos, reviews and maps so you will feel well prepared!

Read the 10 Best iPhone Travel Apps.

28. WebMD – Developed by WebMD Health Corporation, Free

This handy, interactive app is a truly useful one – and you get all the functionality for free. When your child suddenly comes down with something and you want answers fast, grab your iPhone and check his or her symptoms with the WebMD mobile app. The WebMD symptom checker is easy and fun to use; simply tell the app where it hurts and then answer a series of questions. It would make for a fun and educational game as well, as long as you’re not worried about turning your child into a hypochondriac!

Read the full review of WebMD.

29. Wikipedia Mobile – Free, Developer: Wikimedia Foundation

Wikipedia is now officially on the iPhone! This is their official application it is the best Wikipedia app out there. This app is focused on being very simple and very fast and brings the joys of Wikipedia to your iPhone.

30. WorkSnug Pro – Free, Developer: WorkSnug Limited

WorkSnug Pro is an Augmented Reality tool that connects mobile workers to the nearest and best places to get some work done in the city. Simply point and move the phone and all becomes clear. Note that WorkSnug uses a map view for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch. They have discovered and personally reviewed thousands of places to work, such as cafes, coffee shops, co-working centers and libraries, and have rated their atmosphere, WiFi, noise levels, power provision, even the quality of the coffee and even take workspace noise level readings to share with the wider community.

Continue to: 100 Best iPhone Apps Ever Part 2 – Entertainment Apps