A survey for iPhone users

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If you use an iPhone, help me with some research.

How many third-party apps have you installed? Which of them do you consider essential—the kind you use regularly and would miss tremendously if they were to disappear tomorrow and couldn’t be replaced?

Leave your answers in the comments here. Thanks!

Update: apologies in advance if your comment gets caught in my spam filters and held for moderation. That’s the default for anyone who hasn’t previously posted a comment here. I usually approve them as soon as I see them, so the wait might be a few minutes or hours depending on whether I am AFK.

Published by Ed Bott

Published

28 thoughts on “A survey for iPhone users”

  1. Apps installed: 35

    Use regularly & would miss tremendously? Five or so. Bejeweled Blitz is probably at the top of the list! Then there’s SpashID, Facebook, Dictionary and Skype.

    (Note, I am not counting the standard apps that come with the phone.)

    Very handy but not essential? Maybe another dozen. Most of these are “web shortcuts” like Fandango, Yelp, Bing, Amazon, PayPal, etc.

    You didn’t ask this, but I’ve owned the phone for three months, if that matters. I did not have a smartphone before.

  2. I have 32 installed… (I was suprised by how many!)
    I regularly use:
    Facebook, Whatsapp messenger, Google Reader Web App, Falldown (game), itunes remote, and google earth.
    Suprisingly few actually – considering how many I seem to have installed!

  3. 83 Apps installed.

    I regularly use Evernote, Facebook, Bylines (RSS), Surf Report, Pandora, AOL Radio, Best Camera, Camera Genius, Hipstamatic, Runkeeper

    Very handy are: Southwest Airlines, Accuweather, AroundMe, Lose It,

  4. Use a lot. Might as well go back to a regular phone without them:
    1. Comcast mail app (it includes tv schdules, etc.)
    2. Facebook
    3. Weather forecasts — mainly weatherbug
    4. Calendar reminders
    5. Wifi track
    6. Olive Tree (Bible)

  5. I have 42 apps installed. The most important 3rd party apps are:
    1. Instapaper Pro
    2. Omnifocus
    3. Tweetie
    4. Simplenote
    5. Reeder
    6. Air Sharing
    7. BeejiveIM

  6. I have more than 100 apps (had an iPhone for 2 years now). Here are the ones I wouldn’t do without:
    – Twitterrific
    – iStat (you can see the status [RAM, CPU etc] of your servers)
    – Flixster (use it all the time when going out to the movies)
    – Wikipanion (looking up stuff all the time)
    – Air mouse (I control my Windows MCE that way very often)
    – Amazon (much nicer than going to amazon.com on the small screen)
    – Instapaper (for reading articles I saved for later on the commute)
    – Currency Pad (for when I go abroad mostly, and by curiosity sometimes to look up barrel of oil and gold prices)
    – Audiobooks
    – Evernote
    – Tipper (nice to split the restaurant check…)

    And I use the following every now and then too:
    – FlighTrack (whenever I have to pick someone up at the airport)
    – Chipotle (to preorder my favorite burrito and avoid waiting in line…:)
    – RedLaser
    – Facebook and Linkedin (but I’m not much of a social network buff… but I do lookup my accont every now and then)
    – Skype occasionally…
    – Shazam
    – ebay (seldom)
    – craigslist (seldom)
    – Fun Facts
    – Speedtest

    And all the kids apps I would rather have with me:
    – Talking Carl
    – Doodle Jump
    – Chalkboard Stunts
    – a few Dr Seuss books
    – “How to train your dragon” book
    – several other mini games I forget the name of… (some “dress the monkey” game, spelling games etc)

  7. I have 133 3rd-party apps (and a total of 161 icons counting default apps and shortcuts).

    My essential apps:
    – Trip Cubby
    – Dictation
    – Accuweather
    – Facebook
    – Foursquare
    – GasBuddy
    – Gas Cubby
    – Trillian
    – HoursTracker
    – LogMeIn
    – and a 3 games I regularly play

  8. 51 apps currently, I shuffle apps regularly, finding those that useful for me and getting rid of those that I don’t end up finding a need for.

    Tweetie
    Facebook
    BeejiveIM
    Kindle
    Armory
    NYTimes
    APMoible
    TimeMobile
    ScoreCenter
    Evernote
    myWireless
    Mark the Spot
    iPhlix
    Yelp
    Bing
    Acrobits Softphone
    iSip
    fring
    Nimbuzz
    Realm Sttaus
    am1500
    Google
    AppGmail
    WordPress
    Shazam
    Pandora
    Slacker
    Flashlight
    Geodelic
    Stanza
    PDF Expert
    Groceries
    Tipulator
    Amazon.com
    RedLaster
    WeeMee
    Angry Bird
    Bejeweled 2
    TWC
    iStat
    Dinosaurs
    Loopt
    Speed Test
    Engadget
    Digg
    Boxcar
    MapQuest
    Wolfram Alpha
    Boodle Jump
    BGRMoible
    Fandango

    As the list goes towards the bottom is the ‘new’ stuff or less important stuff.

    I wouldn’t say any of it is essential. First smartphone, have had it send last June, iPhone 3GS.

  9. OMG Bott! Get with the times. Create a Google Spreadsheet – then create a Form from the spreadsheet and publish the link to your site for your respondents to fill out. Done.

    1. Thanks for the suggestion, Chris. I have a lot of experience with spreadsheets, and a free-form question like this isn’t an appropriate use of the format.

  10. Hmmm, 35 apps here. The ones I use the most are (in no particular order):

    I.C.E.
    WeatherBug Elite
    CameraOne
    Lose it!
    Geocaching
    Facebook
    Done
    Now Playing
    iGasUp
    USPS Mobile
    GoodReader
    Google Reader
    G-Park
    Amazon and Kindle (2 separate apps)
    Kayak
    IMDB
    Passport America
    AroundMe
    ZipLocR
    TipMaster
    Shazam

    Looking forward to your final compilation, Ed.

    Recently uploaded Skype but haven’t used it yet.

  11. I have about 4 dozen on the device, another 3 dozen on ice in iTunes. Once the folders hit, I’ll probably bring more down to the handset.

    My top app isn’t an app, it’s a web page bookmark in the launcher for Gmail.

    Tweetie and Slacker are my top ‘real’ apps.

  12. 60 Total 3rd party Apps (interesting, never counted before and didn’t realize it was that many).

    5 Essential Apps which include:

    Bible App
    BeejiveIM (instant messenger)
    Facebook
    Echofon (for Twitter)
    Air Mouse (because I have Netflix that I stream to my TV from my laptop and I’m too lazy to get up out of my seat 😉 … )

    Those are just essential 3rd party apps though. I consider Mail (with 2 personal and 1 work account), Weather, Calendar (personal and work), iPod, Text, Phone (duh), Maps and Notes very essential to my everyday work-flow.

    I also didn’t add any games (which are half my apps) as I don’t consider games “essential” however there are a few I’d miss: Myst, Low Grav Racer, Cube Runner, iBomber, Bejeweld, Scramle, Flood-It, reMovem, Vegas Pool Sharks, and Scrabble. I don’t know if you want to consider “miss” as “essential”, but if you do that’s 10 more Apps.

    The rest of my apps are just “nice to haves” or games I don’t really want to part with. Things like Shazam, Netflix Queue, IMDB etc.
    I hope you post whatever findings you get!

  13. I have 65 apps installed (not including the default Apple apps) of which I use the following frequently;

    Facebook
    Tweetie
    RunKeeper
    Aftenposten (norwegian newspaper app)
    Yr.no (norwegian weather app)
    TankBuch
    Birdbrain
    Clz Movies
    Gowalla
    Mashable
    Digg
    Carbonite
    Skiprepper
    TWiT
    IMDb
    MatPrat (recipies)
    Shazam
    1881 (phone and adress look up)
    VG TVGuide
    FlightTrack
    NYTimes

  14. Number of apps: 50

    Indispensable ones:
    – Facebook
    – Skype
    – Twitterific
    – Converter
    – AccuWeather
    – Lockbox
    – Occasions

    btw, love this survey; I am getting some really great ideas for other apps to download.

  15. Number of apps: 74

    Most used:
    Twittelator Pro
    Facebook
    Google Tasks (web app)
    Read It Later Pro
    Reeder (and Byline before it)
    AccuFuel
    Yelp
    Meetup (web app)
    Shazam
    FlightControl
    GD Swarm
    OpenTable
    Scrabble

  16. Total of 36 apps installed.

    Use Most:

    Trapster
    Skype
    Fox Business
    Wall Street Jounal
    Orb Live
    Pandora
    Wikipedia
    Converter
    WiFiTrak

  17. I have installed probably around 80. Currently I have 44 installed, but in a typical week I only use 10. Essential? Well, that is up to interpretation since most of the 44 are there to overcome browser inadequacies. I really use 8 frequently.

    I did some research with a Droid this weekend and found that all of these work on Android, and I could not find a function that I use on the iPhone that the Droid couldn’t do. So, when my 2-year deal runs out in August, expect to see this iPhone on eBay.

  18. The 8 I use frequently are:
    Facebook
    Twitterific
    Evernote
    Remember The Milk
    Foursquare
    Air Sharing
    WhiteNoise
    WRAL.com (local TV station)

    However, I am EAGERLY anticipating the acceptance of the new Rhapsody app. It would allow me to download DRM’d music from their huge catalog and play it offline on my iPhone (much like Zune handles ZunePass music)

  19. 65 apps installed. Regularly using:
    – Facebook
    – AccuWeather
    – Skype
    – StarWalk
    – Trapster
    – TweetDeck
    – Tweetie 2
    Plus many games used by my 4 y.o. son

  21. 55 installed
    15 used regularly

    Couldn’t live without:
    Kindle, GoodReader, NYTimes, facebook, Echofon, HoldEm

  22. Sorry, Ed. One final thing. I haven’t been terribly happy with the iPhone. I live outside of 3G (AT&T) coverage, which makes the phone useless when I am not at work or not at home (wifi). That’s a large portion of useless. I plan to give it to my daughter, and buy a Droid/Droid Eris thru Verizon. I think the Android app market is becoming rich enough to cover most if not all of my needs.

    One more app that I will miss:

    iQuran Pro – original arabic, 5 english translations and 6 recorded recitations (downloadable).

  24. 55 third-party apps installed
    10 of those used regularly

    Couldn’t live without: DropBox, OurGroceries, The Weather Channel, Around Me, WHERE, Twitterific.

    Looking forward to the results of your research!

  26. 159 total iPhone Apps installed. A lot of them are used regularly but it varies with circumstances. For example, if I’m driving I use iPod, Traffic (real time traffic map), and GPS Drive (if I need directions), along with Google Maps to mark the spot where I parked.

    When traveling in France I would rely on the Michelin Guide app for restaurant selection and Google maps for directions.

    I use Voice Memos, SimpleNote, iDisk, and InstaPaper constantly Calendar, Address Book, Clock, and Calculater are also used constantly.

    LogMeIn let’s me share the screen with PC’s and Macs while out and about. It’s a killer App. I can restart a server or access a database from anywhere in the world. Love it.

    Yahoo Finance is another one I use a lot for checking stock prices. I can also use Schwab’s app to buy and sell.

    I read a lot of blogs such as Techblog plus news like USA Today and NYTimes. CNN and The Weather Channel are good too.

    When grocery shopping I like to use Epicurious and Big Oven to find recipes. For example, our local supermarket had marked down some very nice looking Veal Chops
    because the expiration date was imminent. I looked for veal chop recipes and found one with green peppercorn sauce that looked great (and turns out it really was great). So I was able to pick up the green peppercorns and other ingredients needed while I was at the market. Very cool.

    RedLaser is one I use for price comparison shopping. With it you can take a picture of a bar code and it immediately produces a list of comparative prices. For example, if you’re a Best Buy and you see a TV you like, just scan the bar code with your iPhone and you’ll quickly get a list of online dealers and prices for that same television. That’s also very cool.

    Bottom line is that the iPhone really rocks. That’s the good news. Are you ready for the bad news?

    The bad news is that an iPhone is expensive. It costs about $80 per month to AT&T with taxes and that’s for a plan with 450 minutes of talk time and unlimited data.

    I use about 3 or 4 minutes per month on average for phone calls and I extensively use the data plan. AT&T has their pricing all wrong. One thing the iPhone does for you is let you get away from time wasting phone calls. You can use eMail instead (and I do).

    That’s one reason I’m excited about the iPad 3G that I have on order. I won’t mind carrying around the bigger device to get the benefits of dirt cheap 3G access and a gorgeous large screen. I may ditch my iPhone and go with the iPad as an alternative. We’ll test it out first. Now that I know you can make and receive Skype calls on the iPad it’s even more compelling.

  27. 101 apps installed.
    Critical ones I use all the time:
    – Cisco WebEx
    – Inrix Traffic
    – Google Maps
    – Echofon
    – LogMeIn
    – Secret!
    – AT&T Mark the Spot (guess why)
    – Flixster
    – RunPee
    – IMDB
    – What’s On? / i.TV
    – SlingPlayer
    – This American Life
    – Navigon
    – TripIt
    – FlightCaster
    – Amazon.com
    – Facebook
    – Dropbox
    – Engadget
    – Scrabble
    – Plants vs. Zombies

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