It's not always easy to rank, compare and be the judge and jury when it comes to picking the best iPhone apps and iPhone games for a whole year. It's not something I planned to do at the end of this year as the closing post for 2009: to go over our database of app and game reviews and pick my favorites, then compare them with the feedback we got from you guys. Lining them up against any ranking is pointless in my opinion and stating that these are the absolute best apps is the number one mistake I could make. And as I said, it's not something I wanted to do. But when you get an inbox full of requests that all ask for a list, what can you do? Well, I grinned my teeth and got to it. But before I start let me make on thing clear. This is just a tentative list - take it with grain of salt. It does cover both apps and games (Read the Top Games Post), but only insofar as Appbite has covered them as well. If I tested them myself, then I can make recommendations based on that. So I could just as easily name this post as Our Review Picks for 2009. The other thing is...I didn't have the guts to rank them in any way, so take this as an unordered list.
Without further a due...I bring to you...
Tweetie 2. It's by far a very polished app, not to mention it would definitely make the top when it comes to twitter apps. S(l)ick design, yet really fast, filled with features, yet not over-bloated with buttons and options, sounds like an update, yet brand new, totally different app from the original. The already popular Tweetie has been recoded from the ground up. Tweetie 2 incorporates rich features such as offline mode, drafts, threaded conversations, full landscape support, to name a few. Read our full review here.
Contacts Plus. Not necessarily aiming at being a replacement for the iPhone's native contacts manager, but merely a logical extension, ContactsPlus is the iPhone app that lets you quickly and effectively organize and sort your existing contacts. With ContactsPlus, you can create, organize and delete groups of contacts based on company names, work groups, job titles, or any other field-related characteristic you set for each contact. Like the native contacts manager, ContactsPlus allows you to set your own "favorites" list. Read our full review here.
Evernote. Remember Everything. This is what the app promises and it does deliver. The team put at your disposal a desktop application, a browser plugin on top of the iPhone app, letting you capture anything from the web, daily travels, from written notes to recorded memos, from snapshots to clippings from the web. The app takes care of everything related to organizing the data and, on top of that, syncs everything between your iPhone, MAC or PC and the Web, so you're always organized whatever you're using and wherever you're using it. It's all automatically done for you, and, yes, it's free of charge. Read our full review here.
Print n Share. It's the simply elegant iPhone app that brings you the Print button closer to your finger tips. With Print n Share, you can send print jobs to any network-connected printer which you configured via WePrint. Documents, emails, attachments, images from your Camera Roll, contact files and Web Pages, they'll all fit in Print n Share's queue. Read our full review here.
Facebook. The new 3.0 version of the iPhone native app offers all your friends' contact information at your finger tips. You can take pictures and upload them straight on Facebook. We're also looking at a whole bunch of features like notifications, news feeds, a people search function, the almighty wall, access to your Facebook Inbox and respond to friend requests. Read our full review here.
HomeBudget. You're dealing with a rather complex app. It has a lot of links from within that need to be set, expenses to be associated to payees, bank accounts, and receipts, and a complex budget categorization. It is by far the most complex app I've seen so far, and a real must-have for any independent and even small families that want to keep a handle on their budgets and need a helping hand with expense planning. Read our full review here.
OffMaps. The app lets you access maps and location bookmarks wherever you are, and best of all, they're available right on your device without the need to go online for the info. The maps are stored directly on your iPhone so you can easily avoid over-crowding your bill with data roaming charges from your network provider. OffMaps includes GPS, multiple zoom leves, location bookmarking and a neat search function. Read our full review here.
Gowalla. This social gaming app supplies an interesting mobile experience by tying the magic behind GPS, the gaming aspect of collecting items and the power of Facebook Connect to supply the social aspect in this location-based travel game that rewards you for every place you visit with your iPhone. Read our full review here.
Bump. When the Appstore hit the 1 billionth milestone, one of the big winners was the three-man-development shop behind Bump Technologies with their easy contact inter-exachanger Bump. The free app makes it easy for iPhone and iPod Touch users running it on their device to exchange contact information by bumping the devices between them. Read our full review here.
