Yeah, I am addicted to looking at my phone. I know I do it way too much. Don’t judge me. Below is a list of my most frequently used iPhone apps of 2012. Apple has yet to allow an app that somehow keeps track of what apps you use most frequently, so the list below is purely off feeling, not hard data. No particular order…
Tweetbot
Weather Bug Elite
Hipstamatic
Instagram
Noir
Snapseed
Lenslight
Fickr
Foursquare
Any.Do
miCal
Countdown
Simplenote
Instapaper
Day One
Instacast
Tweetbot – My Twitter client of choice: lots of options and I love the UI.
Weather Bug Elite – I love the weather even though I live in Southern California where it is essentially 75 degrees year round with minimal rainfall and even fewer weather “events”. I currently have five, yes five, weather apps in use on my phone. Nope, they do not all provide the same information and/or maps. Weather Bug seems to be the most accurate in my area.
Hipstamatic – My go to photo application. It took about a week or two to get used to the different sets of lenses and films and the results of different combinations. After a while, I began to know which combination would work best for certain situations. For example, the Loftus Lens and BlacKeys Supergrain Film combination works extremely well in harsh sunlight conditions with lots of shadows. I typically use it between 11 AM and 3 PM. The Loftus Lense and Kodot XGrizzled lense works well for anything shot that includes a blue sky (also in low-light situations). My “all-purpose”, daily combination is Jane Lense and Sugar Film: I find it evens out tones and helps to reduce noise. You might find THIS and THIS helpful.
Instagram – Yep. You know all about this app.
Noir – I LOVE this black and white photo app. Great controls and options. The UI is intuitive yet simple.
Snapseed – Now that this app is free, there is absolutely NO reason to not have this app on your phone if you post ANY pictures anywhere people can see them. I was overwhelmed at first, but after tinkering around, I finally got “it”. 90% of my images run through my standard workflow with this app: Crop to 1:1; Brightness lowered; Ambiance raised; Contrast increased a bit.
Lens Light – I have been surprised at how much I use this app. It’s a fun little app, well worth it.
Flickr – Wow. What a great app. So much power under the hood. I love how much control I have over organizing my pics into sets, groups, and tags – much, much better than hashtag management/highjacking on Instagram. You can find my Flickr photostream HERE.
Foursquare – I had known about this app ever since it came out and was not interested. However, December ‘11 I saw an IFTTT recipe that posted all your Foursquare check-ins onto your Google calendar. Nice! It has been easy to keep track of haircuts, getting gas, doctor’s appointments, and many other things this way. Plus, seeing all the place Ken Shelton checks-in at is awesome!
Any.Do – Like weather apps, I tend to have many of the “productivity – to do list” apps (I still get little done…). I used Omni-Focus for most of the year, but it was too, well, confusing. Orchestra was/is awesome because of the shared list ability. However, Any.Do’s ability to be integrated with gmail is what put it on this list.
MiCal – Great calendar app. I also use Agenda, but have stuck with MiCal for most of the year probably because of their AMAZING iPad version.
Countdown – Simple app that allows me to keep track of what day of the year it is for my 365 photo project.
Simplenote – This is my primary writing app. I have long used this app because of their web app that is not blocked at school. I keep all my snippets of random thought here. The phone app and the web app sync together so everything I write is with me whenever I want/need it.
Instapaper – I read articles while waiting in line at Costco.
Day One – I want to write more and I really like how each day you write, the day of the month on the calendar turns blue. I once read that Jerry Sinefeld would put a big X each day of the month he wrote a joke, trying to string together as many X’s as possible. Another great thing about this app, is the syncing through Dropbox with the iPad app. So, while my student teacher is teaching class, I can do some journaling on my iPad. Then at night before I go to bed, I can close the day out with a few thoughts. Yesterday, I was listening to MacPower Users Episode 117 and they mentioned how you can use Day One as a journal for your professional work: I am going to explore this option!
Instacast – I love listening to podcasts! I used Downcast most of the year, but it felt too bloated for some reason. I went back to Instacast a few weeks ago and have been very happy. My favorite part of both of these apps is that you can adjust how far you want to skip forward or go backward. I know it’s bad to skip the commercials in podcasts as they are trying to support themselves, but I still skip them!