100 Best iPhone Apps Of 2011 Part 2– Entertainment Apps

100 Best iPhone Apps Of 2011 Part 2– Entertainment Apps

3692
1
SHARE

What a year 2011 has been for iPhone apps! We’ve seen the launch of thousands and thousands of fantastic apps that keep us entertained, amused and some that genuinely make our day-to-day lives that much easier. So, in keeping with our ongoing strive to bring the best iPhone and iPad apps to your attention, we’ve compiled a brand new list of the best 100 iPhone apps of 2011; to make things easier to digest, we’ve split it into three categories: Useful apps, Entertainment apps and Games apps. We hope you enjoy and remember to send us any feedback in the comments below; have we missed out your favourite app? Maybe it will be in our next list!

34. BooksVirtual: Calling all Writers and Book Worms!

Are you a freelance writer waiting for an opportunity to have your work published? Or are you an avid reader who appreciates the talent and creativity that goes into writing some of the most compelling stories and books?

Books virtual gives unpublished writers of all genres the opportunity to publish their books and stories through their iPad and iPhone application and also their website www.booksvirtual.com. Writers can publish for free with no subscriptions fees or hidden costs, which is extremely beneficial for any aspiring writer. Readers can then comment and rate these books, giving writers an idea of their popularity and appeal.

Read the full review of BooksVirtual.

35. Instapaper: Great App For Browsing Online

This app has fast become one of favorite and most used apps. I often find articles and links of interests when searching for something else. This is the best app for saving it to read later. I have searched for several and there is nothing of its kind.

This app allows you to save online articles for reading at a later time using a browser book market. You have to love an app that includes a feature that is compatible with over 140 other iPhone and iPad apps. I have yet to find a location that doesn’t allow me to save my URL for use later. The dark interface allows for easier reading in low light areas. It also provides many ways to navigate articles: traditional scrolling, accelerometer-based tilt scrolling, and a pagination mode.

Read the full review of Instapaper.

36. My Week In Pictures: Tell Your Life In Pictures

Go about your week. Take photos. Take a lot of photos. At the end of the week the app will remind you to create your montage. One photo will showcase your photos of the week. Then share. Its easy. Its handy. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s also different compared to some of the other apps that have been tested. Many apps come and go. Most of the time people grow bored or they move on to the next best thing. This is one of those apps I can see people using for years to come. You should give it a try!

Read the full review of My Week In Pictures.

37. Photo Tangler HD for iPad: Blend your photographs into amazing collages!

Are you constantly flicking through all your photographs because you have so many favourites to choose from? Well, Photo Tangler HD is the perfect solution! This creative app allows users to easily select a range of photographs and turn them into artistic collages, which can then be saved in your photo library. Users can then label each collage and collate their favourite photographs together into beautifully presented collages. Problem Solved!

Photo Tangler HD is a fun, creative app that allows users to select a range of photographs from their camera or photo library and blend them together to create artistic collages. There are a vast amount of background colours and tones available for users to easily personalise their collages, which adds amazing effects. The app also allows text to be added to collages, which is a useful feature. Photo Tangler HD is easy and quick to use and looks amazing on the large iPad screen. Users can experiment with a range of photographs by resizing them, blending them, removing them, freezing them and changing the direction and orientation of them. Release your creative side and turn your photographs into unique collages!

Read the full review of Photo Tangler HD.

38. Colorific: The Cleanest, Creative Fun Your Child Will Have

Do you remember how amazing it was to crack open a brand new box of crayons and take in the waxy smell just before making a creative masterpiece? While Colorific doesn’t have the waxy smell, it still succeeds in transporting you back to a time when coloring was the bane of your existence.

Colorific, by Alexey Rashevskiy, is a simple yet fun app for children. Colorific features pre-loaded coloring pages as well as the ability to draw and create on a blank sheet of virtual paper. The coloring pages are outlines of dinosaurs, children playing sports, animals and other youth-appropriate images.

The app has simplistic controls, which include a menu screen, e-mail option, a reset button, and the ability to turn on/off the music as well as undo and redo buttons. The main coloring area allows you to choose the size of your coloring pencil, choose paint pots that let you fill in a larger area all at once and an eraser to fix any of your mistakes.

The app is fun and does provide ample opportunity to get creative and be taken away into a land filled with color and sound. If the developer were to decrease the price of the app they might see more parents investing in it for their children. All in all though, it is definitely one of the better iPad apps for children.

Read the full review of Colorific.

39. Power Chords: A Quick Chord Directory

What does every guitarist -whether they are professional or just starting out- need? How about an in-depth chord directory with the ability to scroll through root notes and chords with all the alternative variations of each selected chord? Sounds good to me!

A great feature on this app is the ability to flick between Classical, Acoustic and Electric guitar, so you not only get the see how to play your selected chords but you also get to hear them across the various instruments. The electric guitar also comes with clean, reverb, chorus and flanger for you to play around with.

The info section is very hand on this app; as well as explaining what the various buttons do it also explains the chord detail and what the symbols mean. This will really help beginners who maybe haven’t learnt much theory yet.

Read the full review of Power Chords.

40. Sullivan’s List: Explore world Events from an App!

Sullivan’s List is an app that allows users to explore major events around the globe. The app lists these events and provides the user with essential event information and photographs. Globe trotters everywhere share their personal experiences, tips, photographs and stories based on these events. The app also links to their website, www.sullivanslist.com and there is also a Sullivan’s List book.

Sullivan’s List is a very informative app that provides its users with all essential events information from around the world. The photographs provided are eye-catching and compliment the content perfectly, giving users a real sense of what to expect from these magnificent global events. All essential event information is provided, as well as useful tips, advice and traveller stories. Users also have the option to create their own wish list of events, share any event on Facebook and view the events online by linking to the Sullivan’s List website. The app contains a unique and stylish layout and is extremely informative and easy to use. The app also explains that future updates will include lists of beautiful places and impressive buildings. This is a great app for users who are interested in travel and global events.

Read the full review of Sullivan’s List.

41. Kinetik: Bulk up Your App Collection the Social Way

Kinetik is a genius idea and frankly, I’m not sure why it’s taken us so long to come up with it. What it does is simple, you search for an app, and then share it with your friends. Done. Now, instead of asking your friend what his favorite apps are, just go to his Kinetic profile and see for yourself.

When you first open the app, you create an account via signing in with twitter. All of your following/followers that are already using the app are added as your friends. Once that’s done, you’re ready to find some apps! Hit the “Activity” button, and you’ll see a feed of all the apps your friends have shared. If that’s not enough, click on the “Apps” button and you’ll get three more feeds to choose from: “From Friends” will show you all the apps that have been shared by your friends and how many times they’ve been shared, “Trending” will show you the apps that have been shared the most all around the world, and lastly, “Category” will give you twenty different categories to choose from, each one showing you the top apps in that category.

Read the full review of Kinetic.

42. SigNote: Release your Creative Side!

SigNote is a great creative app that allows users the chance to adapt their current photographs with creative finishing touches! Graffiti effects, writing, photography overlapping, doodles, colours and stamps can all be added to any existing photo to completely change its look and feel. Release your creative side and adapt those photos to become exciting and unique!

SigNote is a fun and exciting app that will appeal to a wide audience of users. It is very user friendly, allowing its users to explore their creative and artistic side. The app supports multiple layers of images, which provides some fantastic visual effects. It’s quick and easy to change colours, resize and rotate images, creating a new and unique image each and every time. SigNote is extremely fun, addictive and a great time filling app. Photographs can have a personal touch by adding word balloons, doodles, stickers and multiple overlapping images with minimal effort.

Read the full review of SigNote.

43. Corkbin: A Genu-wine Corker

There are a few other handy features on this app that really caught my eye, such as being able to share your finds on social media sites or the ability to look up vino terms in a in depth glossary, but ultimately there just nice little extras the developers have thought to tack on.

It also has to be said that the app itself looks gorgeous. What’s more the elegant design makes not only navigating the app easy but also totally stress free when you’re first getting to grips with it. There’s a real luxury feel about the user interface that makes a welcome change to the logic some developers take, in that a cheap app should also be allowed to be a crappy looking one. Equally, at just £0.59p you’ll never feel like you’re being taken for a ride, especially since the elegant design makes the app feel like it should be sold in a higher price bracket.

Read the full review of Corkbin.

44. Rhythm Studio: Get Your Hands On A TB-3 Synthesiser

These days it seems everyone can make music from their bedroom, but what about making music pretty much anywhere? Rhythm Studio provides a quality studio equipped with some excellent kit for all you budding producers out there. Anyone who knows what I’m talking about in the title; you’ll definitely want to read on!

With some detailed recreations of classic drum machines and synthesizers this is a music geeks dream. The layout is pretty simple and the graphics are really nice, but most importantly it sounds great. Being able to listen to loads of example tracks, go into the mixes and play around with them really helps to get your own ideas flowing and is a good introduction into the workings of the app.

Read the full review of Rhythm Studio.

45. Smarter Shopping with Phil Lempert, Supermarket Guru

Start with planning your trip and planning your meals. Phil will give you a tip for the week, there is food news updated daily, recall notices and hit or misses. Once you are ready to go shopping Phil will tell you about substitutions, the produce in season for your area, all about organics, product 101 and tell you what exactly that ingredient on the label is! So, now you have your grocery items and you need something to cook. No worries. This app has a section of recipes too.

Read the full review of Smarter Shopping.

46. Stricken: Awesome Comic Book For iPhone And iPad

Note: Despite the company website stating “iPad” I was easily able to load and view on my iPhone with no problems. It was however, a bit small in print and there is no way to pinch and zoom. iTunes does state is for both.
Check out the YouTube official Stricken video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1bAjDVbSY&feature=player_embedded
Introduction: A novel set-up like no other. It’s so much more than text and graphics. There is a soundtrack that goes along with the novel, transporting you right into the book as if you were living in your own movie.

Generally not one to read books on my iPhone, quite frankly it’s just too small. There was no way I was going to pass this one up. Being a freelance writer (more like a Jane of All Trades) and avid reader I just had to check this one out.

Read the full review of Stricken.

47. Photoshop: Snappers’ Delight!

Its relatively basic, but most image manipulation tasks are catered for; resizing images, altering colours, cropping, adding text and more… Great for when you need to quickly edit an image for an Article, presentation or document.

Read 5 Really Cool iPad Apps For Free.

48. Easy Color: Easy Entertainment for the Youngest Users

Coloring books have a timeless attraction for children, and often for adults as well. With the Easy Color app, kids can enjoy coloring books on your iPad, this is also available on iPhone and iPod Touch. A few simple finger swipes, and the colorless puppy turns brown. Touch the arrow, and get a new picture. You can choose from a bird, a zebra, and many more. Designed for kids younger than three, the app has no menus, no internet connection requirement, and no choices. But of course remember that toddlers are usually rough with their toys. When you hand over your beloved iPad to Junior, make sure it has a screen protector and durable case.

Read more about Easy Color

49. My Vacation: A Better Way to Record Your Journeys

Looking for a high definition vacation app? Not only does this application provides you with packing lists or photo organization, it is also well-rounded, sweeping in its scope, and surprisingly all-inclusive. It gives you a variety of functions in one little app. You start by giving your trip a title. Then you add the “Where” and “When” and whoosh! You’re ready to write a travelogue that includes your own text, maps, photos, videos, and audio recordings. What’s best about this app is that it also provides you with a list of things to remember like things to pack, things to do, and a category simply called “Notes”. What’s more exciting is that is has a “Publish” button where you can not only share memories via email or to popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but you can also send your trip to a Dropbox folder or another device, make photosets on Flickr, or even create a post on your travel blog, using Blogger or WordPress.

Read more about My Vacation.

50. Friends Events: We’re attending, are you?

Friends Events is just like Jim from The Apprentice; it does exactly what it says on the tin, showing you what events your friends are attending, where they are taking place and giving you the chance to RVSP right there and then. A simple yet effective concept, which funnily enough is not yet available when you log on to Facebook via the standard Iphone app. Using it couldn’t be simpler; just log on and the events are listed before your very eyes.
Read more about Friends Events

51. Metronome Plus: A Must-Have Companion For Any Musician


What does every aspiring musician need to overcome when learn an instrument? It’s The Click! It’s a truly terrifying moment when you book some time in a studio with the intention to record your first ever song, then you realise you have to play to that bastard click. As a drummer, it’s like an arch-enemy that you have to ‘learn to love’ when all you really wanna do is tell it to bugger off.
So how do you become the master of The Click? You get yourself a bloody good Metronome app!

Oh, and look here, we just happen to have one! Metronome Plus is exactly what you want, simple and clear graphics, easy to use and it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Any musician out there learning an instrument or any accomplished musicians in need of an updated, electronic metronome…this one’s for you.

Read the full review of Metronome Plus.

52.Animal Track HD: Cute, Basic Way for Preschoolers to Learn Common Animals

AnimalTrackHD uses cute graphics to teach toddlers the names, tracks, and calls of 12 common animals.

Animal TrackHD is an adorable preschool iPad app designed to engage small children with animals, enabling them to make associations between the animal, its sound, and its track (footprint). Kids follow one of two navigation modes: by animal or by track image. Either way, they end up on each animal’s info screen, which includes the cute rendering of the animal, its track in all white, and sound images that reveal each animal’s call and name. This is one app that is designed to have audio turned on.

AnimalTrackHD is certainly cute and engaging – and delivers exactly what it promises. For $0.99, you can have an easy way to teach your toddler the names and sounds of the most common animals. Although you could do just as well with an actual book, the book will be more expensive.

Read the full review of Animal Track HD.

53. Pixel Face: Wonderful 8 bit silliness

Ok so it might be just another photo filter app, and yes there might be numerous apps out there that already do pixilation effects, but there’s something lovably retro and charming about the Pixel Face app.

You just can’t not love the design of the thing, which looks like its been dipped in a barrel of gooey 8 bit sugar and spice. Everything about the bright 80’s colored buttons and the arcade style sounds just put a smile on your face.

Supporting both the cameras is a nice touch, but the ability to send your picture straight to Facebook and twitter is the real feather in the apps cap.

Read the full review of Pixel Face.

54. iStudiez Pro: An Essential iPhone App For Students

For just £1.79 iStudiez Pro allows you to enter everything about your university course; from the names and dates of terms and modules, to your class and exam timetable. While it takes a little while to enter everything, once it’s there the app will keep track of your life effortlessly, providing reminders for deadlines and a daily timetable that updates on the fly.

Notifications of upcoming deadline or classes are pushed to your iDevice – however this, and the ability to back everything up, is not available in the free iStudiez Lite.

This app isn’t just a calendar or a timetable; you can enter contact details and office hours for all of your tutors, organise deadlines by date, priority or course, and even keep a track of your grades.

With its clean and easy-to-read UI and the ability to assign a different colour to every course or module, as well as including a huge set of icons, iStudiez Pro is as attractive as it is powerful. The app also syncs with your Calendar if you so wish, meaning the one app can be used for everything.

Read the full review of iStudiez Pro.

55. Tracks: Photo stories with friends

Tracks is a simple, fully-featured app that allows you to share photos between you and friends. However, this app is completely different to any other social photo-sharing app you have ever seen.

By creating a ‘Track’ from within the app, you are able to invite friends into it. You are each able to upload your own photos into the track, being shared simultaneously amongst the friends invited.

This app is perfect for when you’re spending a day with your mates. Start a track, and you can each upload your fun-filled photos to it. You’re also able to comment on the photos added to Track, even if they aren’t your own. Tracks also allows you to plot the photos taken on a map. This nifty tool will help you visualise your days travels, and also find out where your friends took their photos.

During the short time we’ve had with the app, we’re very impressed. A fully-featured app with a clean interface makes it a pleasure to use. Everything about the app just works, and it’s bound to be a hit with anyone who likes to document their days out with a surplus of photos.

Read the full review of Tracks.

56. Celtx Script: The Handy Handheld Interrogational Scriptwriter

Celtx is a free alternative of First Draft that brings the best bits of First Draft with some features of its own to create a complete media pre-production software collection. It is not a surprise that it would make its way to the App Store. Celtx is a universal application, this means it fully supports the iPhone, iTouch and iPad; this also means buying it once and you can use it on any of these devices with full sync integration. Gone are the days of wanting to write only to find your laptop is low on battery – this App has found the Solution; send it to your iPhone or iPad. Once home, sync to your computer and then you can continue where you left off without too many problems. iPad is the closest to its computer brother, making the seamless transition from the laptop to the iPad.

Read more about Celtx Script.

57. Other Edition Newsstand: The Best Magazine iPad App

If you are a magazine lover than go for this app … because Other Edition offers you more than 55 magazines on your iPad on the same newsstand. You can easily maintain your library, bookmark your favourite articles and share videos on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Normally there are separate apps for every magazine, which makes your iPad screen messy and filled with apps. But with Other edition Newsstand for iPad you can access all your favourite magazines at one place. Currently they are offering around 55 magazines including V Magazine, Interview Magazine, The Room Magazine, S Magazine etc. They are continuously working on adding more titles to their newsstand. A must have app!

Read more about 3 Must Have Apps for Reading Books, News and Magazines on iPad

58. AP News: Get All The Latest News Straight To Your iPad

If you like news, sports, politics, entertainment and you want to keep yourself updated 24/7 than you need to get your hands on AP News. It offers you the most updated news content from all over the web and you can find out about all the happenings going around in your town, in your school, in your country and every corner of the world. AP news also lets you customize your news the way you like them. You can select from different categories like entertainment, finance, sports, movies, music, politics etc and leave the remaining task to AP News. It will keep you updated about your favourite news. Another must have app!

59. iBooks: The Ultimate iPad Reading App

The third must have app is the well-known iBooks. It doesn’t need any intro but still let me tell you some of its features. I myself don’t like reading books on iPhone and MAC’s but on iPad … I just love reading books. iPad gives you a rich and vivid experience while reading books. The dictionary and bookmarking make it more useful and reliable. Well the app is FREE but the books are not … some of the books are free or you can read the sample of the book before you buy it from the store.

The best thing to explore and enjoy the features of these must have apps is to download and discover them by yourself.

60. Relaxation Portal: Our Favourite Relaxation App

I have to say, when the iPhoneAppCafe editor sent me this little gem I was giggling like a little schoolgirl who spotted her first crush. I am a huge fan of relaxation and white noise apps, but many of them left me wanting more.

The first thing I noticed was the graphics. Most relaxation apps tend to look like a radio control allowing you to change frequencies and sounds. Others have a screen that looks more like a Windows 98 screensaver for those who like to visually relax. With Relaxation Therapy you are instantly greeted by the world.

Having the world in the palm of your hands is no cliché with this app. You really have the world in your hand. You can spin the globe where cute graphics show you your locations. Hover over and the graphic becomes enlarged letting you know where you are.

For my first pick, I picked Ha Long Bay. Rain, ocean, and birds. You can completely customize the sounds. Add something, remove something. You can also be amazed by the beautiful photography because this app really allows you to explore. The app can be placed in night mode for a dark screen with no graphics.

Read the full review of Relaxation Portal.

61. My InstaAlbum: Spend Some Quality Time with Your Photos

It seems like the further into the 21st century we go, the more we start to take an interest in all things retro. This is certainly the case for me with photos – I really love the vintage look. Instagram, as you may know, is a popular app that allows users to easily apply filters to change the look and feel of their photos. You can then share them with friends on facebook, twitter or flickr, or via your ‘followers’. I’m a big fan of Instagram – I love that with just one click I can alter my photos – it beats spending hours trying to find my way around Photoshop.

The thing with Instagram, though, is that it is essentially a photo-sharing app, so your feed can quickly fill up with friend’s photos. This is fine if you’re nosy (like me) or looking for inspiration, but not so great when you just want to organise your own pics. That’s where My InstaAlbum comes in. You import your photos from Instagram so you are working with your own images only. You can still share your photos from My InstaAlbum via twitter, facebook or dropbox, but you can’t use this to view other people’s pics. There are different ways in which you can view your photos – choose from Album, Group or Location views. The Group view is one I especially like as it allows you to view the images grouped by the filter you applied. The Locations view is also interesting – you can see on a map where you uploaded your photos from. Quite cool if you like to take snaps when you travel.

Read the full review of My InstaAlbum.

62. Wolfram Astronomy Course Assistant: Reach For The Stars

Wolfram Astronomy Course Assistant is packed with tons of useful tools that will help you in your Astronomy 101 course. This app has formulas, fact checking, homework help and exam help. While this is a handy and useful app to have at your fingertips, unless you are really into astronomy you may not want to fork over the $5. But, if you love the stars and would like to keep it handy, $5 is a small price to pay to have access to all things of the sky right at your fingertips.

Read more about Wolfram Astronomy Course Assistant.

63. Astral Traveler: Set Up Meditation Reminder

Astral traveler is a mediation and relaxation app that provides the user with two videos to watch and relax. The app also allows the user to close their eyes and just listen for meditation. That is pretty much it with this app. It allows you to connect with Twitter and Facebook within the app. Also you may set up reminders to alert you when it’s time to meditate and best of all, it offers both audio and visual meditation that is soothing and relaxing. Need something simple and easy with no frills, then this might be good for you.
Read more about Astral Traveler: Set Up Meditation Reminder.

64. SpeedUpTV: Play Videos, Manage Folders, View Files and More

You can use this app to speed up playback of video files—up to 2X their usual speed. You can also slow them down, and you can find your favorite clips easily with the scene browser. On top of that, there’s a loop feature, and a ton of extra add-ins to make your iOS multimedia experience better. What’s best is that its reasonably priced at $.99. SpeedUpTV is compatible with iOS 4.0 and up, and it’s a great way to make your iOS device more multimedia-friendly.

Read more about SpeedUpTV.

65. Stream Full Episodes Of Anime Titles Free and Legally With Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll.com is one of the premier sources for legal ad supported anime streaming on the Internet. Thanks to their new iPhone app you can now stream full episodes of hundreds of different anime and Jdrama series over 3G or Wi-Fi. Best of all, the app is free to download and many of the episodes require nothing more than a free account to watch. The application is available free of charge and a free account gets you access to a huge library of content. The UI is very simple quick and intuitive, once logged in it’s easy to find what you want and to start watching.

Read more about Crunchyroll.

66. My Vacation: A Better Way to Record Your Journeys

You start by giving your trip a title – “New Zealand Tour” is the example provided. Then you add the “Where” and “When” and whoosh! You’re ready to write a travelogue that includes your own text, maps, photos, videos, and audio recordings.

Of course, My Vacation has lists like things to pack, things to do, and a category simply called “Notes” – but what I found especially exciting was a “Publish” button where you can not only share memories via email or to popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but you can also send your trip to a Dropbox folder or another device, make photosets on Flickr, or even create a post on your travel blog, using Blogger or WordPress. Had I known of this app earlier, I wouldn’t have bothered to schlep my laptop to every Starbucks on this green earth.

After your trip is over, press the “Play” button to enjoy an interactive slideshow of your journey. My Vacation deserves five stars for its clear, elegant graphics, a very user-friendly interface, and for making it so easy to do the inevitable bragging to friends once you’ve returned home – and all for only $2.99! Finally, someone has thought of everything. Read the full review of My Vacation.

Next: 100 Best iPhone Apps Of 2011 Part 3 – Games

Previous: 100 Best iPhone Apps Of 2011 Part 1 – Useful

1 COMMENT

LEAVE A REPLY

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.