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My Top 10 iPhone Apps in 2011

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Sharing your favorites seems to be the hip thing to do, so I thought I’d share my absolute favorite apps on both my iPhone and iPad (not including any default iOS apps).  These are basically the apps I use all the time, and really enjoy using. There’s also quite a few apps I use daily, but might not like as much, as well as apps I think are amazing, but only use on a very infrequent basis.  And there are also apps I don’t much like and rarely use, but I didn’t really see the point in including those…

One other note – I picked apps from all categories, including games, social, etc. Also, I didn’t deliberately pick 10, it just worked out that way.  First up – iPhone fave’s (in no particular order, btw).

Chef’s Feed

Chef’s Feed is a fun app for foodies (wannabe foodies as well).  The app has a list of the “top” chefs of a city, and said chefs have picked their favorite dishes (not restaurants) to eat.  The app lets you make a bucket list of dishes that appeal to you, and also is a handy way to find a good bite when you aren’t sure what to eat. Free app.

Words With Friends

It’s like Scrabble, only more “balanced” so players at many levels can really enjoy the game.  Vocabulary and knowledge of “Scrabble words” is very helpful, and tile placement strategy is essential to win, but regardless, it’s possibly the best non real-time game time waster app out there. Free and paid versions.

Camera+

It’s a good photo taker, but more importantly it’s a fun photo editor/filter.  Simple effects, easy cropping, and simple sharing (though I wish they’d just let me send images instead of creating a whole new link/web system). Paid app.

Test Flight

Simply put: Test Flight lets app developers send you their apps prior to putting them in the iTunes App store. It’s great for previewing or testing out apps in development. If you are an app developer and are not using Test Flight, you should start now.  Free to consumers, paid by developers.

GrubHub

GrubHub is an app that replaces all the crappy little delivery menus restaurants leave on your door (though hey, free rubber band).  They have tons of local restaurants, plus in-app ordering, and, as pictured above, an order history which makes it super convenient to remember where you liked (or hated) to eat.  Free app.

Starbucks

Yeah, I know, cliche, whatever. You prefer Blue Bottle, great, so do I, but $12 for a latte that takes 45 minutes to make doesn’t always work out for me. The Starbucks app does one main thing: let me not have to carry my Starbucks card around.  Nice.  Free app.

Flashlight

Guess what this app does?  Free.

Temple Run

After Words, Temple Run is the next best time-killer game I know.  Basically, you run, and run, and run, and then run a bit more.  You jump, duck, pivot, and you turn yourself around, and that’s what it’s all about.  Free.

Pandora

Free personalized radio on your iPhone.  Any questions?  Nah, I didn’t think so. Great for road trips.  Free.

Zite

Gosh I love Zite.  Zite brings me articles I want, on topics I like, and does so with sickeningly good accuracy.  While Twitter (and vis-a-vis Flipboard, Pulse, etc) are great for bringing me feeds on a variety of topics, the one thing these apps fail to deliver for me is topical content based on my interests, not my followers or those I am following. I open Zite, I find content I like.  Life is good. Oh, and – free.

That’s my list of favorite iPhone apps, hope you enjoy.  Here’s the quick list of “runners up”:

  • Plants vs Zombies – it’s fairly new to me, I’m having fun playing but I’m not sure how long it’ll hold my interest.  Could be a winner, not sure yet.  Paid.
  • WhiteNoise – self explanatory. Free and paid versions.
  • Flixter – movie lookups (solid app, just don’t get to see many movies).  Free.
  • IMDB – satisfies inner movie nerd needs. Free.
  • Path – just started experimenting.  Beautiful app design. Does all that Facebook stuff, only without the massive invasion of privacy.  Also, just for your real-world friends (you remember those, right?). Free.
  • Twitter – read description of Path above.  Now think the opposite of it.  Free.
  • Yelp – great to look up restaurants I already am thinking of going to. Not useful as a restaurant recommendation/finder app.  Free.
  • CardMunch – take picture of business card, scans it, sends to the Internet, comes back as LinkedIn contact.  Previous version of app was notably better than current, but still works great. Free.
  • Expensify – if you do a lot of business expensing, you must have this app.  Free.
  • Sonos – controls my Sonos.  Would be on the must-have list, but I know not everyone has a Sonos.  Free.
  • AppShopper – great app, lets you create a “wishlist” of apps you want, then notifies you when they go on sale.  Free.
  • iHandy Level – it’s a level.  comes in handy.  Free.

Anything you think I should check out – leave a comment!  iPad version of this list coming soon!

ps – I’d include Dijit, but that’s cheating. 🙂

Why Apple Won't Buy Netflix (or Sony or RIM or …)

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We're like Media. Squared.

I enjoy pondering the question of “who should Apple buy next?”  I think it’s probably best answered in this Quora post, which conveniently includes a history of most of their recent acquisitions, then followed by all sorts of fun guesses.  Some of the companies mentioned include: Square, Pandora, Sony, Amazon, RIM, and many more.  PaidContent lists Apple as a good future home for Netflix.

I’m sure on paper many of these are sound acquisitions.  Some bring good IP. Others good cash flow.  Others good branding and distribution vehicles.  I’d surmise that many a financial analyst could put together very solid plans, and would even wager the discussions happen within Apple from time to time on the topic.  But I don’t think Apple’s buying any of them, and for a vastly different reason, one that won’t make any spreadsheet or pro forma statement anywhere.  It’s about the DNA transfusion.

If there’s one thing Steve Jobs created over the past decade-plus it’s a certain DNA.  It’s a company-wide culture that transcends from product to marketing to customer service to building design.  And inserting hundreds of product managers, engineers, QA staff, designers, etc who come from radically different types of DNA will result in exactly one thing: Brundlefly.

How about an iMinidisc player? Or adding UMD to next-gen Macbook Airs?

My money is on Apple continuing their pattern of only absorbing companies who are either:

  • Small – smaller teams who are tightly focused can have their developing culture be absolutely subsumed by Apple’s
  • Non-consumer facing – ingredient technologies (chips, algorithms, infrastructure) tend to need less of the consumer product dogma that guides the “Apple way” and have less impact on culture

The exciting thing about an Apple acquisition, in my opinion, is watching them take little pockets of technology and turn them into big consumer products far down the road.  Although I would say, of all the companies named above, it certainly does seem like Square could be a good fit from a product, market, *and* DNA perspective, but that’s just from outside appearances.

Roku vs AppleTV smackdown

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I don’t have cable. But I watch a lot of TV.

For my birthday I got a Roku and after tooling around with it for a couple of weeks, I cut the cable cord, much to the wife’s chagrin. Then, last Christmas, I found under the tree an AppleTV (although it is small enough it could have gone in the stocking.)

AppleTV and Roku essentially inhabit the same space. Both are around (or under) $100, both are solely media streaming devices and, unlike the mythical GoogleTV or the enigmatic Boxee, neither offer web access.

So with no methodology and no experience in product reviews, here is my official, unauthorized, David-vs-Goliath head-to-head streaming media device smackdown. In one corner, Apple, the single greatest human accomplishment in the history of the universe; the company that proves Intelligent Design is real. And in the other corner, Roku, which means “six” in Japanese.

Design

OK, this isn’t really fair because this is where Apple has always excelled. When I first got my Roku, I thought it was a pretty slick device. Black plastic, pleasing angles and the size of a turkey club sandwich (hold the mayo). Then I unwrapped the AppleTV and…. My God you’re beautiful! So small, so sleek…

I looked at my Roku, what is that hideous oversized slab of a streaming device currently attached to my TV?

Point: Apple

UX

I won’t even go there. Apple’s is amazing… Roku’s has always sucked.

Point: Apple

Content

So this is where it gets interesting. The gateway drug for both of these is Netflix and Pandora, which are both awesome services and the reasons why the sun still shines in my world. But what’s there beyond that?

With Roku, yes there is MLB if you like baseball (I don’t) and HuluPlus if you’re able to figure out why you would want it (I can’t). Where Roku really shines is access to all the weirdo webTV shows on Koldcast, Blip.TV, Revision3 and so on. You have to really like web-only TV and fortunately, I do. The wife doesn’t so I end up watching a lot of it by myself. You can also watch Al Jazeera streaming live on Roku in the event you need more proof as to how f-ed up the world is.

With Apple TV, your channel flipping will lead you to YouTube or to all the various audio and video podcasts on iTunes. That may sound lame, but it really isn’t. There is a ton of great stuff there and most of it is pretty bite-sized. So in 3-5 minute increments you can flip from news to comedy to movie trailers… unless you land on the “This American Life” podcast, in which case you’re stuck on the couch listening to your TV for an hour.

Winner of this round? I’m going to give it to Roku. I love all the cheese that webTV has to offer. My big complaint is again the UX… it is hard to find content and then to remember which channel it is on if you want to go back to it.

Reliability
So here’s the knock-out blow… this goes to Roku. Yes, it is close, but Roku wins it. I found a better picture and fewer artifacts when streaming from Roku. Also, surprisingly, AppleTV hung up and crashed more than the Roku did. Not by a long shot, mind you, but enough to notice.

Final Verdict

If you like design, UX and more mainstream content, you’ll love AppleTV.

But this is my smackdown and I’m giving the prize to Roku. They’ve got the edge in reliability and I love the goofy webTV access… but that is just me.

Sonos + Pandora = 42

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My insufficiently geeky readers probably won’t get the 42 reference, so I’ll assume you read this reference before continuing. Of all the convergence I’ve seen that bridge gadgets with Web services, I think the implementation of Pandora’s free Internet radio service onto the Sonos music system is probably the best.   The single “snag” in the entire system is that you actually need to (1) have a Pandora account, and (2) own a Sonos.  If you don’t, I recommend correcting the situation immediately.

In a nutshell, Pandora works by building “radio stations” based on artists and/or tracks you like.  If you pick Frank Sinatra, boom, you have a Frank Sinatra Radio Station.  Add other artists, and create your Smooth Crooners Radio Station.  If you don’t get it yet, well, go to Pandora and set up an account, it is free after all.  The super delicious part of the story is how well they integrated with Sonos.

On your Sonos, you simply need to add your Pandora username/password, then you have access to virtually all Pandora features.  Key to it is how easy it is to use on the Sonos, including bookmarking content and creating new stations.  One of the softkey (programmable) buttons is labeled “ratings”, the other “Pandora”.

Click “ratings” to rapidly Like, Dislike, or Not hear a song for a month.  Perfectly logical, works just like Pandora on the Web does.  This feature is one of the key parts to how Pandora works – while you can’t specifically pick songs to play, the collaborative filtering system (recommendations) works extremely well.

The “pandora” button allows you to add the given song or artist to your current radio station, or build a new station based on the song/artist.  Again, this implementation is exactly how it should work.  Within minutes I created five different stations, all in different genres, with practically no effort.  You can similarly bookmark content to retrieve later at pandora.com.

I’ve ripped my 800+ CD collection into MP3.  We have access to tons of other streaming Internet content.  I can say without hesitation that 90% of my Sonos listening will now be over Pandora (and my new house has 7 Sonos zones planned).  Amazing job to both companies.  BTW, Sonos also introduced an iPhone app, but since I’m not an iPhone guy I’ll let the pro’s talk about how great that is instead…