Best of the worst: the App Store's hits and misses

We want to love you, iPhone apps -- we really, really do. Unfortunately for us, a lot of you are sucking pretty hard right now. Between the sluggish behavior, poorly implemented UIs / features, and lack of necessary services... well, let's just say it isn't pretty. Still, we can't say how much trouble is caused by the new firmware, and there are a few really bright beacons of light out there (we're hoping their numbers grow). We didn't try all 500+ applications (fitness? puhlease), but we did handle quite a few, and we've rounded up the best and worst that we've seen so far for your viewing pleasure. We'd love to hear from you too -- what apps are you loving or hating right now?

The best:

Remote

Apple mixes it up with the indie developers and turns in a responsive, intuitive and extensive interface for controlling iTunes remotely. Setup is a breeze -- though we weren't really expecting anything less from Apple -- and we're nerdy enough to sit two feet from our computer and choose songs via the iPhone. This app clearly benefited from the money, time and testing advantage Apple has over the "competition."

Ms. Pac Man

Good old school vibe, nice choice of control methods, and solid, professional feel. Game makers take note, you could learn something from one of the classics.

File Magnet

This one is kind of cool. It lets you upload PDFs, Office documents, pictures, movies, and audio files wirelessly to your phone to view or listen to. It requires Leopard and a separate uploader app, but it works seamlessly and does exactly what it claims to. We're hoping they add some basic editing functions here, or allow you to export to other apps that can.

Guitar Toolkit

If you're a guitar player, this has a handful of tools (tuner, metronome, etc.) that are actually useable and handsomely presented. Still, the plucked strings could be a bit louder if you're trying to use them to tune.

CityTransit

If you live in NYC, this service not only gives you a full MTA subway map and separate line guides, but also provides a location based stop-finder, and OTA updates of train trouble or service outages direct from the source. At $2.99, you probably can't afford not to have this in New York.

Twittelator

The free (and superior) alternative to Twitterrific. It may not be as handsome, but it's not hard on the eyes, and definitely gets the job done a lot smoother.

Bomberman Touch

It's got a badly translated plot, old-school graphics, and control that we can live with (though it's no Ms. Pac Man). Oh, and it's Bomberman.

Hold Button

This might be the single greatest "productivity" app ever coded.

The worst:

AIM

You're kidding us, right? This is the best chat we can get for one of the world's most advanced phones? Almost every instant messenger program that was available for jailbroken phones make this look like My First Coding Project. Buggy UI, annoying lack of mute, no icon message updates (or updates at all), and rapid fire message downloading when you reopen make this pure, unadulterated fail.

NetNewsWire

No ability to add or remove feeds, improper display of feed names and hierarchy, and no way to zoom out on large stories or pictures are just a few of the problems we have with this app. Back to the drawing board -- the competition isn't sleeping guys. Like a lot of free apps, it just feels like a sleazy way to tether you to an online service.

Twitterrific

Well it looks nice -- but jumpy, sluggish performance make this a pain to use. Also, ads? It doesn't inspire us to pay for this, it inspires us to download Twittelator.

Facebook

What's the point of an application that offers slightly less functionality than the iPhone site? The world may never know.

NYTimes

Okay, you're the world's greatest news source, right? So why can't your iPhone app load pictures or update properly, and why are you using our miniscule bandwidth to display ads? We don't know... do you?

Ebay Mobile

Look, we all need to shop on the go, right? But we don't all need to use an application that looks like its buttons were lazily stolen from Flash templates circa 1999. It's ugly, it's sloppy. It doesn't alert you to bidding wars or potential upsets. Get it away from us.

Almost, but not quite:

Super Monkey Ball

Touted as being the high-water-mark for the iPhone's graphics performance, Super Monkey Ball doesn't disappoint in that department. Controls are difficult (to say the least), and that can dip the fun-levels kind of low -- since you have to tilt the screen away from you to move the monkey, you sometimes miss the action altogether. Still it's a good time once you get the hang of it, though some of those kinks can be pretty maddening (no real pause?). Needs some tightening up, but still quite playable.

Mobile Flickr

Worth the cash if you're a Flickr addict, and mobile uploads are a joy, but a serious D- on presentation, and suffers from the buggy feel of so many of these apps.

Whrrl

We're loving the concept, and plan on tricking our friends into joining up into our own little Whrrl-based restaurant-reviewing mafia, but this is another app that needs (a lot) more time in the oven.

[Randy @ Jul 11th 2008 10:16AM]

The whole thing is a miss.

[ojx @ Jul 11th 2008 10:22AM]

you're a miss

[Kaiser-Machead @ Jul 11th 2008 10:41AM]

Yeah, especially compared to your stellar development pool of applications. How much, and when can I buy them?

[Jon @ Jul 11th 2008 10:42AM]

Miss Randy? Are you sure?

[Juice @ Jul 11th 2008 2:55PM]

Whoa where are the great apps?! C'mon people stop it already. It's taken years of dev for Windows Mobile to be where it is today. You think M$ or Mac developers are that different. They're the same sweaty pizza eating nerds all around. Same ones. So it will also take the iPhone years before it has a robust selection of good usable apps. The problem is not every Joe can start developing for the iPhone. You gotta jump through a bunch of hoops. Stupid if you ask me. Almost communistic.

[mymaclife @ Jul 15th 2008 4:48PM]

@ Juice

What does a sweaty pizza taste like?

@ Randy

COCK!

[PiperSon @ Jul 11th 2008 10:21AM]

Excellent roundup of apps - hopefully they will all improve with time to bring them up to scratch...

[OneLove @ Jul 11th 2008 10:41AM]

Better wait for iphone v4.0

[LiQuiD_FuSioN @ Jul 11th 2008 10:41AM]

How is Bejeweled 2? I don't see how you can go wrong with that type of app.

As for Super Monkey Ball, I was expecting to see lots of positivity for it. Hopefully in time they'll improve.

[jasontrauer @ Jul 11th 2008 10:55AM]

Bejeweled 2 is awesome! It's just as entertaining as the xbox live version. obviously the frame rate suffers a bit after completing a level, but it's still a good effect. Definitely worth the price of admission if you like bejeweled.

[Darren @ Jul 11th 2008 11:10AM]

Bejeweled 2 is nearly flawless - I only have 2 (minor) issues:

First, it doesn't properly save the Sound FX setting, so even though you turn the FX volume to zero, if you close and come back, it still makes sounds. The funny thing is that when you go to the menu and check it, the volume slider does show as being set to zero, but you have to move it up and back down to turn sounds off.

Second, and this one is really just a quibble, is that when you return to the app after closing it, you have to select the type of game you want before it asks if you want to continue from where you left off, instead of having the ability to jump back in automatically. It's not a big deal.

The UI is perfect, and the graphics are exactly what you would expect.

[maveric101 @ Jul 11th 2008 1:39PM]

i just find it funny that a couple days ago apple kids were making fun of how WinMo apps "run slow as crap"

[andrew @ Jul 11th 2008 1:02PM]

i dont agree at all

[Big John @ Jul 12th 2008 12:35AM]

...don't agree with what?

[natels @ Jul 11th 2008 10:22AM]

I think you guys hit the nail on the head.. Not a long review, but thorough enough to give someone insight on skipping over 480 other useless apps. I would like to see more of this. Possibly a weekly update of 'Best/Worst New iPhone Apps.'

[anmol @ Jul 11th 2008 11:11AM]

or you can use forums and tons of other websites. i realize there a ton of apple fanboys here but you dont see engadget doing app reviews on the tons of other mobile phone products.

[MatthewJ @ Jul 11th 2008 11:18AM]

Yeah, that'd be interesting. Hey they could do Windows Mobile and Android versions too!

[Byttle @ Jul 11th 2008 1:32PM]

what?! winmo phones have an app store?!...yeah i know, it hurts.

[maveric101 @ Jul 11th 2008 1:52PM]

yes, WinMo phones have an app store, it's called the internet...

[tyler @ Jul 11th 2008 10:25AM]

Such a craptastic version of AIM is disappointing.

+1 for Ms. Pac Man though!

[Chris Coleman @ Jul 11th 2008 11:43AM]

Are you kidding? I'm not the least bit surprised that AOL would offer up such crap.

[Matthew Dunlop @ Jul 11th 2008 11:53AM]

The AIM programs will probably all be better in September when apple set up the PUSH service

[luzzio @ Jul 11th 2008 12:06PM]

anyone knows if there'll be Adium?

[r3loaded @ Jul 11th 2008 1:52PM]

Personally, I feel anyone who actually uses AIM deserves it.

[J-Rad @ Jul 11th 2008 2:47PM]

Too bad they didnt call it Ms. Mac Man, considering its a product from Apple. Just a joke folks

[Matt @ Jul 11th 2008 6:41PM]

"The AIM programs will probably all be better in September when apple set up the PUSH service"

I'm not sure what that's reffering to, but as an aside, AIM works flawlessly on my Blackberry Curve. ;)

[DWells55 @ Jul 13th 2008 7:55PM]

Instant Messaging is what I was looking forward to the most. Here's to hoping for iPhone Adium or Pidgin.

[DiGiC @ Jul 11th 2008 10:27AM]

I wouldn't know as CPW fucked my order, 53Apps downloaded and waiting to go, serious annoyance

[rodsky @ Jul 11th 2008 10:36AM]

agile mobile messenger is so much better than that official AIM crap

[Dan @ Jul 11th 2008 10:51AM]

I fully agree, if Agile made a native one for the store I would definitely pay to use it then this AOL kaka they up.

[David Vogt @ Jul 11th 2008 11:16AM]

Screw that, what we need is skype!

[Saad @ Jul 11th 2008 11:25AM]

For skype - You might want to give 'fring' a try i.e. if you own a
'jailbroken' iPhone.

[Dan @ Jul 11th 2008 2:07PM]

JiveTalk (once it hits the iPhone/Touch will rock.) My favorite app on the BlackBerry.

[Chris Aubeck @ Jul 11th 2008 10:28AM]

"gayness?"

[oluv @ Jul 11th 2008 10:30AM]

what about tuner? have you tested this app? how good is it for streaming web-radio stations?

[Dtplaytek @ Jul 11th 2008 10:30AM]

you didn't review World 9, the best app on the store!

[Vyer @ Jul 11th 2008 10:31AM]

You should check out the audio apps, like Midomi and Shazam. The ability to 'listen' to a song and ID it (Midomi even lets you hum the song into the phone) is interesting.

[CaptSaltyJack @ Jul 11th 2008 11:13AM]

Midori sucks, and Shazam is great but free "for now." They will be charging a monthly fee at some point.

[Andrew Q @ Jul 11th 2008 10:32AM]

I like Trism andEnigmo for games, Aquaforest for physics/games, bloomberg for stocks, Pandora for music and Scetches for you know..sketching. These are the best apps that I found.

[bradenf @ Jul 11th 2008 10:33AM]

Another nice app is called Cube Runner its simple, addicting and FUN :)

[Scott @ Jul 11th 2008 10:36AM]

Cube Runner is addictive :D

[hellaphunt @ Jul 11th 2008 2:35PM]

Gah! I'm so sick of this iPhone epidemic!

[Big John @ Jul 12th 2008 12:28AM]

I suggest you take a few weeks off or use an RSS reader to subscribe to the no Apple, no iPhone feeds. This is a huge gadget release and Engadget has a job to do.

[Saad @ Jul 11th 2008 10:34AM]

Not to mention that fact, that it doesn't contain a single app that can edit/modify office documents. =(

[Itchy Pajamas @ Jul 11th 2008 11:36AM]

Agreed. That's the big miss for me. This is just the beginning though, so there should be a lot more to come.

[Al @ Jul 11th 2008 1:30PM]

Do people really edit office documents on their phone? I've never really seen the need or the practicality especially when NONE of the software on the market proves 100% round trip support (even Microsoft).

Having said that it would be a surprise if at least of the third party companies weren't already porting their software to the iPhone. Apple have made the iPhone a very easy device to develop for and distribute their apps.

[maveric101 @ Jul 11th 2008 1:56PM]

office mobile can create, open, edit, and export any kind of office document. i'm pretty sure you can even create powerpoints (may be wrong on that). But as to why - the X1 is practically a shrunk-down Eee, so if you can do it on Eee, why not on X1? (or Touch Pro, i suppose)

[Dan @ Jul 11th 2008 3:09PM]

@Maveric
On 6.1 you can open and edit files in Excel, OneNote, and Word.
With PowerPoint however, you can only view presentations, not create them.

I was bored one day and used Word Mobile to type up some ideas I had, so it has its uses. But I can't see wanting to create a PowerPoint presentation on such a small device.

[J-RAD @ Jul 12th 2008 9:54AM]

Yelp! looks promising in that it has bookmarks for bars and such but needs to allow you to write reviews and upload pictures on the spot.

[sorensilk @ Jul 11th 2008 10:35AM]

I agree with every point. I have a MediaCenter PC with iTunes and the Remote app is awesome. It works exactly like the iPod function on the iPhone and is extremely responsive.

One app that I would add to the Best App section is BoxOffice. It gives movie showtimes super quick with an uncluttered interface. It doesn't have tons of features but when you want movie times quick it's perfect.