How do you go about choosing the best of the best apps for iPhone and iPad in Apple’s iTunes App Store? It’s impossible to try every app.
Using one app per minute is 60 apps an hour, 1,440 apps a day (not stopping for sleep), which is a mere 43,200 apps a month. The App Store has about one million apps, so any list of the best must be apps that are notably better than the best.
Apps R Us
The quality of an app is mostly a subjective endeavor. What one person likes and uses, might be a horrible app to someone else, worthy of a quick delete.
Our list is compiled by the Mac360 staff who scoured the iTunes App Store for apps with the most stars, highest ratings, and best user reviews.
Then, we combed through that list, tried out the best of the best, added our own preferences, tastes, and experience, and finally picked the most colorful app icon out of a hat while blindfolded.
iPhone and iPad apps fall into many distinct categories, some of which are covered by Apple’s categories, and some are not.
Utilities. Games. Social. New and Different. For better or worse, here’s the Editor’s Choice of our Top 6 Best iPhone Apps Of 2012.
#6 – iTranslate Voice: This amazing 99-cent app lets you speak another language, voice-to-voice. You talk in one language and iTranslate Voice spits out what you said in another language (36 in all).
#5 – Pocket: We don’t know the business model behind Pocket (formerly known as Read It Later), but there’s no app that’s better at grabbing something on the web and storing it to be read later.
#4 – Cinemagram: The App Store must have about 100,000 photo apps. Cinemagram is different. It’s something of a hybrid between a photo app and a video app. Apply any one of a bunch of filters and you get a unique animation that can be shared with others.
#3 – Bad Piggies: You thought Angry Birds was all the rage? That’s so last year. This year it’s Bad Piggies (from the same folks who do Angry Birds), chasing eggs through 84 levels of flying, driving, and crashing. Get stars for doing good and open 21 additional levels.
#2 – Hotel Tonight: Finding a place to stay online is easy, right? Travel sites are a dime a dozen and they all have the same hotel inventory, right? Hotel Tonight needs to be added to your iPhone folder for travel apps. This is the only app that focuses on last minute deals– hotel rooms for tonight.
#1 – Google Maps: You’ve suffered long enough. When Apple kicked Google Maps off the iPhone and iPad in iOS 6 we expected something insanely great from our favorite gadget maker.
Instead, Apple Maps quickly became Mapsgate, heads rolled, and Apple took it on the chin and came away with a black eye.
Never fear, Google is here. All those features Google wouldn’t put into their maps for Apple (when Apple was paying them), are now available for free in Google Maps. Turn by turn directions, street view, transit data, satellite view, traffic and more. Now, if only there was a way to hide Apple’s Maps app.
There you have it. We searched through nearly a million iPhone and iPad apps, narrowed the list down to a few dozen, and picked out the most colorful icons to compile the Top 6 Best iPhone Apps For 2012.
About Wil Gomez
This is a pretty solid ranking! At first I questioned Google Maps being number one, but then I stopped and realized how many times I’ve used this. Not only does it have a clean, easy to use interface, it has the most important thing you could ask for in a map app: ACCURACY! I’ve always used Hotel Tonight after a DISH coworker of mine recommended it, and I don’t think I could imagine booking hotel rooms from here on out without it.
Another favorite of mine that I picked up this year has been the DISH Remote Access app. It lets me watch recorded and live programming from my home receiver, using my iPad, no matter where I am, as long as there’s a 3G or wifi connection. It’s great for catching up on shows in bed (I don’t have a TV in the bedroom) and even better for killing time when travelling, during layovers and such.
Good list. No surprises. All worthy. It’s got to be next to impossible to create list of iPhone apps that everyone loves.
Google Maps now is better than the old Google Maps was, but still lacking in some areas. The turn-by-turn visuals pale to Apple’s Maps app. Siri integration is a big plus.
If you haven’t tried it, iTranslate Voice is the absolute bomb! My wife and I used it on a trip to Europe just a month ago and we would have been lost without it. A good pick.
What a setup for Google. I still love Apple Maps. Works great. Parker got the talking points right. What is this ? Politics?
What a win for iPhone users. Apple’s Maps, despite the negative press, is pretty good. I’ve had zero problems with it. Zero. Apple’s decision to dump Google’s maps data resulted in a better product for iPhone users, and forced Google to step up their game and produce a better iOS version of maps.
Win. Win. Win.