You've got an iPhone or iPod Touch and you know Apple's App Store has about 300,000 and counting apps for downloading. You know you can't fit that many on your machine, nor do you want to. What to do? How to choose? Well, you can browse the App Store and serendipitously find gems. You can review the "New Releases," "Featured," and Genius Recommendations, provided by the Store itself. You can ask friends for recommendations or use the apps "AppMiner" and "Appsaurus" where you can filter the App Store database by key word searches.
One of the better ways is to consult "Best iPhone Apps, Second Edition," by J. D. Biersdorfer. She is the author of several books, including "iPod, the Missing Manual," and "iPad, the Missing Manual," as well as being a tech columnist for the New York Times. She has tested and reviewed hundreds of apps and distilled them down to a top 200 or so and categorized them, basing her selections on value, ease of use, professional reviews, user ratings, sales, popularity, and simple personal opinion.
The book's app selections are first-rate and cover categories of Work, On the Town, Leisure, Play, Home, Road, and Health. The chosen apps are the stars of this book but the book itself is nicely produced with full-color illustrations and screenshots. The apps are detailed by cost (many free), general functions, sample pages, and ample straightforward description to give the reader enough to decide if he or she wants that app. Some sections include additional "Honorable Mention" candidates. There is a useful 14 page index including a breakout of free applications.
To me, it's amazing how creative app developers are, especially when provided hardware and software tools from Apple. These tools include GPS and location services, camera, touchscreen technology, microphone and speaker, and gyroscopic systems. With the enormous number and power of online databases available, this tool and database combination has resulted in an incredible number of useful, creative, and interesting programs to thrill the user over and over. (Note: many of these apps are developed also for Android which is not covered here; also, it is curious that this book is also limited to apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch machines, although there are, will be, iPad versions, too.)
The Work apps cover file sharing, sketching, tracking packages, utilizing both Google Tools and Microsoft Office documents, dictation, phone calling, blogging, and more. (My highlights - Google Mobile, Dragon Dictation, BlogBooster.)
On the Town features finding and previewing eateries; making/selecting food, drink, cheese choices; networking with friends; and ATM, coffee, and toilet locators. Biersdorfer selects Movie and Netflix apps as the best for film fans, but I'll put in a plug for the IMDB app.
The Leisure related apps include Facebook, MySpace and Twitter programs; readers like Kindle and iBooks; and news apps particularly, NPR, BBC, ESPN, and Thompson Reuters. Pandora, and Last.fm for Internet radio are featured, as well as apps for creating art, sculpture and improving and dealing with photos. (My fave in this section is Ustream Live Broadcaster which allows the mobile device to act as a realtime webcam.)
The Play section covers fun and challenging apps in every game genre.
For Home, Healthy Recipe and the Betty Crocker Cookbook highlight, but there are also apps for stock and financial management, and for do-it-yourselfers relating to carpentry, home design, and material purchasing.
In the Road section, check out Kayak for travel bookings; city, architecture, and roadside guides; as well as translators and portable Google Earth. The Health apps include WebMD Mobile, weight loss and physical training apps, and a nice-looking gardening reference app.
(FTC disclosure (16 CFR Part 255): The reviewer has accepted a reviewer's copy of this book which is his to keep. He intends to provide an honest, independent, and fair evaluation of the book in all circumstances.)
