The Best iPhone Apps Of 2009

The iPhone and iPod touch have become immediately recognizable names around the world. Apple recently announced that the iPhone is the most popular mobile phone in the US. In addition, the iPod touch is generally regarded as the media player of choice, offering much more than just music. Perhaps the key to their success is the ever-growing app store which currently boasts over 100,000 apps. For those of you not crazy about math, that’s a huge number—you would have to purchase and download over 11 apps an hour, every single day for a year to test them all. While it is safe to say the majority of apps available are less than appealing, there are a few gems that stand out from the rest. We took a look and compiled a list of the best apps 2009 had to offer.

2009 brought some of the best apps to the iPhone and iPod touch to date. Gaming has now advanced to a point that rivals the Sony PSP or Nintendo DS. As the mobile market grows and hardware continues to improve, we are going to see some amazing things come our way. If 2008 was about experimentation, 2009 was about innovation. In 2010, developers will push this innovation to enhance our mobile experience—whether through augmented reality, cloud-based computing, or something completely new.

Below you will find our top 10 overall apps, our top 15 games, and top 5 innovations. Tell us which apps are on your top 10 list in comments.

TOP 10 APPS

Facebook 3.0
Access your friends, notes, pictures, and events using almost every feature the actual site offers. This app, based on the enormous social networking site, has seen many changes and just keeps getting better with time.
LINK: AppVee’s Facebook 3.0 Review

Fandango
View trailers, see showtimes, purchase tickets and read reviews using this free movie app. This is a must have for any moviegoer, giving you all you need to know about movies in your area at your fingertips.
LINK: AppVee’s Fandango Review

Beejive 3.0
One of the first applications to take advantage of push notifications, this multi-client instant messaging app is in a class of it’s own. Using its push features, iPhone and iPod touch users can easily hold IM conversations with their friends anywhere.
LINK: AppVee’s Beejive 3.0 Review

LogMeIn
Brings your desktop to your iPhone or iPod touch. Link up with your computer and access your computer screen from afar. The interface is easy and feature-filled, delivering the best VNC experience to your device.
LINK: AppVee’s LogMeIn Review

Mobile Navigator
Filling the void left by the default maps application, this app offers turn-by-turn directions from your device just like any dedicated GPS would. It provides a landscape GPS with plenty of features and a user interface that makes sense.
LINK: AppVee’s Mobile Navigator Review

Dropbox
Sync up with your Dropbox account and have access to all of your files right from your device. You can download files, upload photos, and maintain control of your folders.
LINK: AppVee’s Dropbox Review

Textfree Unlimited
No one likes paying to text. This app offers free texting via push notifications. The interface is similar to the default SMS app and is a great alternative to paying your phone company.
LINK: AppVee’s Textfree Unlimited Review

Google Mobile App
This app has revolutionized search on the iPhone with its voice search and in-app browsing. Speak a search query and the app will accurately recognize it and do a Google search. Not a Google fan? Check out the Bing app.
LINK: AppVee’s Google Mobile App Review

TweetDeck
All the wonderful features that can be found in the TweetDeck desktop app are packed into this iPhone version. With a sleek interface and great features, this app is one of the best of the many Twitter apps out there.
LINK: AppVee’s TweetDeck Review

Craigsphone
Offers the entire Craigslist experience in one easy package. Buy, sell, and save more by searching through posts and bookmarking ones for later use.
LINK: AppVee’s Craigsphone Review

Ustream
One of the first apps to bring live television to the iPhone, Ustream gives you the ability to see many live streams of all types of content on your mobile device.
LINK: AppVee’s Ustream Review

TOP 15 GAMES

Flight Control
The line drawing game that started it all, this app is very simple but insanely addicting. Each level gets harder as you play and keeps you coming back for more.
LINK: AppVee’s Flight Control Review

Peggle
Combining awesome graphics, addictive gameplay and a little bit of randomness, Peggle is an exciting mix. This game brings a casual experience to the iPhone that has yet to be rivaled.
LINK: AppVee’s Peggle Review

Rolando 2
The sequel to the hit game, this app takes the Rolando tilt formula and cranks it up. This game is an improvement in almost every way to the original and really shows what iPhone-specific gaming can provide.
LINK: AppVee’s Rolando 2 Review

Pocket God
The king of all time-wasting games, this app puts you in charge of some prehistoric pygmies who are completely at your mercy. Regular updates and features make it a pleasure to continue feeding them to the fishes.
LINK: AppVee’s Pocket God Review

Enigmo 2
Taking the puzzle genre to new heights, this app gives players everything they loved in the first game and puts it all in three dimensions. And you thought the first one was hard…
LINK: AppVee’s Enigmo 2 Review

N.O.V.A.
One of the best first person shooters that can be found in the app store, N.O.V.A. puts the Halo formula into your pocket with a complete single-player and four-player multiplayer experience.
LINK: AppVee’s N.O.V.A. Review

Labyrinth 2
Building on the app that started it all, this version gives you more than just holes to worry about as you will have to solve puzzles and dodge all sorts of objects. The game also offers the option to create your own boards and share them with the world.
LINK: AppVee’s Labyrinth 2 Review

Skeeball
Everyone loves skeeball. Now it has been brought to the iPhone in a fun way. One of the most recognizable arcade games, this app is simple and addictive.
LINK: AppVee’s Skeeball Review

Zenonia
As a full-fledged action RPG, this app brings the complete role-playing experience to the iPhone. Zenonia features attractive graphics and rewarding gameplay.
LINK: AppVee’s Zenonia Review

Real Racing
Arguably one of the best racing games for the iPhone, this app has great graphics, tight controls and immersive sound, making it one of the coolest racing experiences ever on a handheld.
LINK: AppVee’s Real Racing Review

Sims 3
Start a family and watch them interact in this full-featured Sims experience tailored specifically for the iPhone.
LINK: AppVee’s Sims 3 Review

Rock Band
EA’s answer to the popular Guitar Hero franchise, this app employs some big names in the music industry and lets you tap your way to fame.
LINK: AppVee’s Rock Band Review

Super Monkey Ball 2
This exciting balance game gets a small overhaul and some great new maps making it the king of its kind.
LINK: AppVee’s Super Monkey Ball 2 Review

Doodle Jump
Another highly addictive game that sells for cheap but never grows old. The game is casual and simple, a perfect addition to any iPhone.
LINK: AppVee’s Doodle Jump Review

Words With Friends
A Scrabble clone with a great interface, this app allows you to play multiple games against players all over the world by alerting you via push.
LINK: AppVee’s Words With Friends Review

TOP 5 INNOVATIONS

Red Laser 2.2
A step forward in innovation, this app scans barcodes using the iPhone camera and then returns pricing from various online sites. While still in its infancy, this app could revolutionize the way we shop.
LINK: AppVee’s Red Laser 2.2 Review

Hitchcock
Storyboarding in your pocket. Hitchcock allows aspiring cinematographers to create movie layouts while on the go.
LINK: AppVee’s Hitchcock Review

I Am T-Pain
Impress your friends by altering your voice with autotune. This app was an instant hit and gives you the ability to be a star the next time you are ‘on a boat.’
LINK: AppVee’s I Am T-Pain Review

Mailtones
Ringtones for email. Mailtones allows you to identify who just emailed you by their individual sound tone. Offers a new level of customization for your inbox.
LINK: AppVee’s Mailtones Review

Leaf Trombone
Leaf Trombone is a fun app that lets you play a slide instrument on your iPhone. Create your own songs and share them with the world.
LINK: AppVee’s Leaf Trombone Review

Now You Can Dislike Stuff on Facebook (With a Firefox Plugin)

We all have friends that post insane or annoying comments, photos, or videos on Facebook. Sure, we can hide their content, but more and more Facebookers are looking for a dislike option to visually show their disapproval.

Say hello to: the Facebook Dislike Firefox plugin.

After you install the experimental plugin, you’ll notice that every item in your Facebook News Feed has an easily accessible “Dislike” option sandwiched in between the “Like” and “Similar Posts” options. Once you indicate your less than favorable reaction, a thumbs down icon will appear under the post that ostentatiously calls out your dislike, with your name attached, for your Facebook friends to see (with the major caveat that they also need to have the plugin installed).

The plugin works as promised, and from within the Facebook site. We think it’s a tad harsh, but when there’s demand, there’s typically a developer happy to build a solution. We just hope you use the dislike button with caution, otherwise you might find yourself with fewer Facebook friends.

Facebook Claims 65 Million Mobile Users

Facebook said more than 65 million people are actively using the social network on their mobile devices.The social network said it had just 20 million active mobile users at the beginning of the year. The site has seen explosive growth in the mobile department thanks to Facebook placing a stronger emphasis on applications, and expanding its Facebook Connect feature to the mobile Web.

The Facebook app is routinely among the most-downloaded programs from over-the-air content stores like Apple’s App Store for the iPhone, andResearch In Motion (NSDQ: RIMM)’s App World for its BlackBerry smartphones. The social network also updates these programs often to ensure it is optimized for each individual mobile platform.The social network has also struck deals to get its app preloaded on multiple handsets such as INQ Mobile’s phones. It recently collaborated withNokia (NYSE: NOK) to provide a “lifecasting” app for the N97 mini. This program enables users to include their location with their status updates.

The company has also been pushing its Facebook Connect feature to the mobile Web, and this enables users to take their Facebook identity all over the Internet. For instance, mobile surfers could use this to comment on other Web sites without having to sign up for a separate account.

Mobile access is becoming increasingly important for Facebook because most of its users are outside of the United States, and may be in markets where the cell phone is the primary computer. The company also recently began testing a mobile payment platform that could eventually be a critical component of Facebook’s future revenue plans.

Other social networks are also attentive to the mobile space, and rival MySpace expects nearly half of its members will access the site through a phone within five years. Companies such as Loopt and Brightkite are also trying to gain traction by emphasizing location-based features.

Facebook and other social networks can be time wasters, but they also have the potential to be useful tools for enterprise collaboration.

Facebook on the Palm Pre is Unofficially Getting Better

thout a doubt, I think the iPhone is now the “Facebook phone,” courtesy of the stellar new Facebook application. It’s so good that some Facebookers I’ve contacted are actually considering an iPhone purchase. I’m wondering if this signals the start of a new trend — “killer” apps might actually affect consumer handset purchases in the future. But the awesomeness of Facebook 3.0 for iPhone doesn’t mean my Palm Pre is completely left in the cold. I’ve been watching the development of FriendsFlow over the past weeks. It’s a homebrew application that’s starting to rival the semi-lame http://x.facebook.com web page that the Pre works with.

I wouldn’t say that FriendsFlow is a fully functional Facebook client, nor a serious competitor to the iPhone’s new version — not by a long shot. But it shows promise. There’s a configurable interval for refreshes, so you don’t need to reload for updates all the time. And it leverages the Palm Pre’s native notification system. I don’t see a way to view photos, see events or post more than comments or likes to a news feed, so there’s plenty of work yet to be done.

While it matures, I’ve got it installed, and I keep upgrading as often as updates become available. For the news feed alone, I’ve actually been running it all the time while the Pre sits on the Touchstone charger — makes for a nice little way to keep up with my friends.

Facebook promises privacy settings to suit ‘everyone’

Social network Facebook is road testing new privacy settings to replace the various privacy limits currently required for different applications and content.

Users will be offered a transition tool to help them move their settings across to a new page.

Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said the company had previously added privacy settings onto new features as they were introduced which led to a confusing and complicated process if a user wished to change settings.

Kelly said the tool was designed to preserve previous privacy settings and that Facebook would not be changing the information it shares with advertisers.

There are six different versions of the transition tool which are currently being tested. Over the next few weeks Facebook will see what feedback it gets from its guinea pigs before rolling it more widely.

The company is obviously keen to avoid a repeat of the disastrous Beacon project.

Kelly said the regional networks would be killed off because they had outgrown their usefulness as the network grew in size. He said the groups were too large and did not allow people to specify accurately enough who they wish to share information with.

In future you will be able to limit access to specified lists of friends or family. Or: “To share with more people and contribute to the general conversation going on in the world, you can select ‘Everyone’.”

Facebook is pushed in two directions – its users’ desire for privacy, at whatever level, versus its need to make money from the content and connections its users provide. The more data available for everyone the more page impressions Facebook gets, and the more money it can extract from advertisers and marketeers. And the more people clicking the “Everyone” button the more it can mimic the likes of Twitter.

The move to improve privacy also comes as regulators in Europe are considering wide-ranging changes to data protection law to ensure that users of social networking sites are adequately protected. ®

YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

YouTube CEO Chad Hurley and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talk about where they see their companies in the next five years. You gotta wonder what the 2 digital giants are planning to enhance, quicken and hook up our lives

Glimpse the Future

Facebook Fixes Search (But Only In Beta)

Facebook rolled out a limited test tonight of a new search interface which for the first time lets people search their News Feeds and brings up results chronologically from their streams. The new search interface is still experimental and has only been turned on for “a fraction of a percent of the people” on the social network. I am one of the lucky few. My initial impression is that this is the first time I’ve actually been able to find anything on Facebook without having to jump through 25 hoops to get the results I want.

The ability to search my personal stream with results coming back in chronological order is key. This is how Facebook will do real-time search. For instance, if I want to see what my friends think about the new TweetDeck apps which just launched tonight, I can see all their comments on the subject, followed by comments from everyone with a public feed whether they are my friend or not. In the right-hand column are page and people results.

Facebook explains in a blog post :

With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone.

This is a much better search experience than what most people must suffer through currently. When most people type in a keyword in the search box, Facebook will still default to searching their friends or all of Facebook. Search results favor people’s names or pages which contain the keyword (see screenshot below). If you want to search for an application, for instance, you have to click on application search specifically.

The new experimental search results are more unified. The central results are from your feed, and results from the rest of Facebook (people, pages, groups, applications) are presented on the side when relevant, or you can filter the results by type. Facebook cannot afford to cede real-time search to Twitter. Search becomes a form of navigation when information is thrown at you in a fleeting stream. The only way to recover the past or discover something you missed is through search.

SMS: Revolution Now

Supporters of Iran’s defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousevi have again staged a mass rally in Tehran, witnesses told the BBC. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defeated Mirhossein Mousavi in Friday’s election. The Ahmadinejad government, which controls the state media, is trying to restrict coverage. But the Internet is proving to be a resilient force for the opposition.

Clashes broke out between police and groups protesting the election results from early Saturday morning. By June 14 the protests had grown considerably and had become more violent. Burning buses and trash cans and parked cars blocked streets and highways in Tehran and routes leading into the city. Protesters attacked shops, government offices, police stations, police vehicles, gas stations and banks. Large protests escalated into riots, and students started burning and destroying various buildings and items around the campuses.

Authorities have now imposed sweeping restrictions for journalists. Foreign jouralists must now obtain explicit permission before leaving the office to cover any story.

The Internet has been instrumental to organizing many of the protests in Iran. Online sites have been uploading amateur pictures and video, and Twitter, Facebook, and blogs have been places for protesters to gather and exchange information. Twitter has also been used to organize DDOS attacks against pro-Ahmadinejad websites.

Websites such as Twitter (Twitter/mousavi1388) and Facebook (Facebook/mousavi1388) have become a focal point for young, urban Iranians. Still images are on Flickr photostreams of Mousavi1388, Parsaoffline and Sharif. The Wall Street Journal reports that activists are trying to stay one-step ahead of government censors who are actively blocking new proxies.

Twitter delayed a planned upgrade to avoid cutting daytime service to Iranians who have been using it to coordinate protests of the presidential election, reports the Washington Post.

Iran’s citizens continue to record and upload images of the protest. A collection of YouTube videos on The Daily Dish is run by blogger and new media critic Andrew Keen. One blurry YouTube clip, likely shot with a cell phone, showed what appeared to have been a member of the Basij paramilitary force firing down from a second-story window into a courtyard with an AK-47 as protests continued behind a high wall.