Dan Rubin

http://superfluousbanter.org/

Dan Rubin is a published author, teacher and practitioner of user interface design and web standards. When he isn’t busy Twittering, his work, writings, and various side projects can be explored in and around the vicinity of Sidebar Creative and SuperfluousBanter.org.

I’ve been using and loving the iPhone since day one, and with the exception of moving YouTube and Stocks off the first page (and more recently Voice Memos), I prefer to keep the other default apps in their original, pre-3.0 positions — partly due to my belief that Apple got it right the first time, and also because if I move one of those apps at this point, I will invariably launch something I didn’t mean to.

Things and Tweetie get the best access positions of any non-default app (closest to my right thumb) because I spend more time in them than any other app aside from Safari and Mail — they are also brilliantly designed, and their icons feel right at home with the Apple-designed defaults. Flickr mobile is one of my favorite iPhone-optimized sites, and I spend a lot of time on Flickr when I’m not Twittering, so the webclip gets some homescreen love. CameraBag remains one of my favorite apps, and of course not only do the Flickr webclip and CameraBag take the places of YouTube and Stocks respectively, but also give me four photography-related icons in close grouping. This makes me smile.

As you can see from the 9 pages worth of apps, I have a bit of a problem with app consumption. It isn’t so much that I use all the apps and webclips I have installed, but more that I love having examples of great interface and icon design on my phone. The only true way to evaluate and experience the design of an app is to use it, and I can’t seem to get enough. That said, I can stop anytime I want — and if I can’t, I’m sure there’s an app for that…

Speaking of having a million apps (alright, it’s more like 140 at this writing), it’s downright irresponsible of Apple not to have provided us with a way to reorganize our pages of apps via iTunes — including some sort of categorization. As it is, I’ve given up on dragging apps around and now use the new search feature in OS 3.0, which is now my favorite way of launching apps that don’t reside on pages one and two.

While I’m bitching, I should also mention how ridiculous and unnecessary those diagonal stripes are on the Messages, Phone and iPod icons in OS 3.0. Perhaps whoever approved those changes also signed off on the Snow Leopard packaging…

But I digress — there are a few other apps I use on a regular basis that deserve mention:

• Fever° is my favorite iPhone newsreader, even though it’s a web app.
• Mile Marker helps me track my car’s fuel efficiency, and of course the mobile site has a lovely icon for use as a webclip.
• eBay‘s app gets used way more than it should, and enables my film camera addiction.
• Instapaper doesn’t get used as much as some other apps, but provides something I can’t live without, so I love it.
• Ego is beautiful, and Garrett does a great job of fixing it when Google breaks the Analytics connection, which they seem to do just often enough to give him an ulcer.
• Wikipanion has to be my favorite way to get lost on Wikipedia, and has one of the nicest icons of any app.
• Expositor is essential if you shoot with loads of cameras that don’t have built-in light meters, like I do.
• Ambiance — I couldn’t go to sleep most nights without the thunder storm sound.

I feel like I still need to list a few more apps, games (and one web app) that I love to use, and which I would recommend to anyone: Frenzic, Flight Control, Ramp Champ, Tap Tap Revenge 2, GoWalla, ConvertBot, Typography, and Neven Mrgan’s excellent Glyphboard deserve consideration by all — you should probably just add them to your iPhone now and get it over with.

So there you have it, my 20 favorite iPhone apps at the moment — not a day goes by when I’m not amazed at what this little piece of the future can do, and as such it has secured the title of That Which Must Be Pried From My Cold, Dead Fingers.