Best of the worst: the App Store's hits and misses
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Jul 11th 2008 10:06AM
posted Jul 11th 2008 10:06AM
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.
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.
The whole thing is a miss.
you're a miss
Yeah, especially compared to your stellar development pool of applications. How much, and when can I buy them?
Miss Randy? Are you sure?
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.
@ Juice
What does a sweaty pizza taste like?
@ Randy
COCK!
Excellent roundup of apps - hopefully they will all improve with time to bring them up to scratch...
Better wait for iphone v4.0
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.
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.
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.
i just find it funny that a couple days ago apple kids were making fun of how WinMo apps "run slow as crap"
i dont agree at all
...don't agree with what?
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.'
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.
Yeah, that'd be interesting. Hey they could do Windows Mobile and Android versions too!
what?! winmo phones have an app store?!...yeah i know, it hurts.
yes, WinMo phones have an app store, it's called the internet...
Such a craptastic version of AIM is disappointing.
+1 for Ms. Pac Man though!
Are you kidding? I'm not the least bit surprised that AOL would offer up such crap.
The AIM programs will probably all be better in September when apple set up the PUSH service
anyone knows if there'll be Adium?
Personally, I feel anyone who actually uses AIM deserves it.
Too bad they didnt call it Ms. Mac Man, considering its a product from Apple. Just a joke folks
"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. ;)
Instant Messaging is what I was looking forward to the most. Here's to hoping for iPhone Adium or Pidgin.
I wouldn't know as CPW fucked my order, 53Apps downloaded and waiting to go, serious annoyance
agile mobile messenger is so much better than that official AIM crap
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.
Screw that, what we need is skype!
For skype - You might want to give 'fring' a try i.e. if you own a
'jailbroken' iPhone.
JiveTalk (once it hits the iPhone/Touch will rock.) My favorite app on the BlackBerry.
"gayness?"
what about tuner? have you tested this app? how good is it for streaming web-radio stations?
you didn't review World 9, the best app on the store!
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.
Midori sucks, and Shazam is great but free "for now." They will be charging a monthly fee at some point.
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.
Another nice app is called Cube Runner its simple, addicting and FUN :)
Cube Runner is addictive :D
Gah! I'm so sick of this iPhone epidemic!
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.
Not to mention that fact, that it doesn't contain a single app that can edit/modify office documents. =(
Agreed. That's the big miss for me. This is just the beginning though, so there should be a lot more to come.
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.
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)
@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.
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.
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.
Dude, go to Google and type "movie". Jeez, don't act like this is groundbreaking.
I never said it was groundbreaking. It doesn't cure cancer, it just works very well. It saves your location and theaters so I just tap the icon and it shows me exactly what I need. Plus it's a free app.
The Remote iTunes control sounds exactly like the Windows Moble Sideshow add on to operate media player remotely.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=79f19684-f862-4e02-a2b0-0003b4565f34&DisplayLang=en
In later weeks, I'd love to see a feature and usability comparison between the two apps.
As part of your BoxOffice comment, you need to mention that it sorts the movies by their RottenTomatoes score.
i want to see uSirius. I used it since it came out on installer and I loved it. It even worked good over edge in the car! :O But with the cracked 2.0 just days away (http://gizmodo.com/5023971/iphone-os-20-unlocked) I will have to see if I should jailbreak or not...
lol
Mixed emotions - glad to see a lot of apps and a lot of variety on day 1, sad to see most of them look rushed and unfinished. Maybe we'll see a better quality app start to arrive in the fall, and hopefully devs will patch these day 1 apps going forward. I can understand wanting to get in front of the very first set of eyeballs, but don't abandon those customers after you've shoveled crap down their throats.
i just called apple support, they said tha itunes issue is gonne be there until tomorrow morning. sucks dick!
Tough Crowd -
This comment comes from an OLD guy who is still reeling from my Atari some 25 years ago. Been in TECH ever since. I guess the kid in me is stonger than the bitter "gimme more, better, free NOW" person. Well, it's your loss, I guess and my gain as I oogle over all that hard work and pretty cool stuff I see. Oh - my FIRST phone had a NO dial, an OPERATOR that would connect you and folks always talking nearly every time you picked up the reciever. I said OLD guy.
Thanks for letting me rant. Keep up the hard push - we all benefit from constructive criticism. That Ray Guy
I think you're seeing a lot of the pain from a limited-access launch. I've personally got an app waiting in the wings that I'm pretty sure will blow away the others in its category. However, I haven't put a lot of energy into it since Apple didn't make any guarantees that apps would be ELIGIBLE to be in the store at launch.
It's about halfway done at the moment, and as soon as I get the 2.0 firmware for my iPod Touch so I can at least test it on a real device, it'll be ready. Then I just wait for permission to pay to distribute it. I wonder how many other developers are in this situation -- Either they have an app ready, and aren't able to offer it, or they put in a lot less effort because there was no guarantee they could sell it in a timely manner.
Expect things to get better as more developers are permitted to distribute, and some of the less-great get pulled in the face of stiff competition.
Dr. Laura already proposed a solution for gayness. I personally don't agree with her nonsense, but I doubt Apple would bother approaching the matter.
That's not a 'little robot picture', that's a NiGHTS Journey of Dreams figurine. :)
Nice. I just picked that game up. It can be quite addictive.
Super Monkey Ball, can pause. It even tells you to "tap the bell" to pause. The controls take some getting used to, but still a fun game.
I'd like to see you try that motorcycle game and give a review on that. It looks good. Anyone else upset about how expensive bibles are?
Agile mobile on my touch blows AIM out the water. And its free. geez i thought the Appstore would have some better apps availale. Having a jailbroken touch for a couple months now makes me really wonder why apple was so picky about who could develop for them. These Apps suck.
theres better to offer from INSTALLER FOR FREE. then some of these NOT free bloatware 1999 apps.
I'm confused. Your comment seems to intersect hatred for the AIM app and supposedly-horrid pay apps. Could you list some pay apps that you feel fall into that 1999 bloatware category?
The AIM app is a first release. Nothing is perfect on first release, no matter how rushed etc. it may be. It's not great. I wasn't a fan of Agile or any of the other Installer.app IM clients and this AIM is suitable for me. We still have a long time until push notifications are available and that will give AOL plenty of time to iron their app out.
How on earth can you be more satisfied with the official AIM client over AgileMobile?
All hyperbolic nonsense aside, its leaps and bounds ahead of the official AIM client. Better aesthetics, superior status notification, copy/paste.
The Bank of America app...
Its just a glorified web-page viewer... no real functionality beyond browsing to their mobile web page. Its slow, is take ups space on my phone needlessly, and it has to real functionality. It's like giving me an old teller window with a slow old lady that can barely count and uses an abacus to calculate when you could have designed a kick ass ATM that did everything and offered me a BJ.
BofA: Fail.
It takes all of the stuff you can do on the webpage and streamlines it.
Navigating Bank of America's website on my iPod touch, even just to check my balance, wasn't easy. The ATM finder is convenient.
Browsing the app store is like browsing version tracker with pictures. 95% crap, 4% decent for free,
Wow. Somebody took a generous bite out of my comment.
Browsing the app store is like browsing version tracker with pictures. 95% crap, 4% decent for,
........
Piece of junk commenting system.
Browsing the app store is like browsing version tracker with pictures. 95% crap, 4% decent for free, less than 1% worth buying. Single-player pong? Seriously?
I don't think this is going to work as well as Apple hopes. Not many people actually browse for software. The ones that do are usually those obsessive people that will install anything free and then wonder why their computer is so slow. Most people hear about good software, check out the website, try the demo, then buy it if they like it. I think this flattened space of applications is going to give more of a "PC" experience than a "Mac" experience.
Plus those summaries don't explain what a program is very well. Sometimes you need a website to know what a program does.
I've only tried four apps, so far, but they all kick ass.
Must disagree with you on Monkey Ball. For a phone game, it's amazing...and hazardously addictive. It'll keep me happy until they port something like American MacGee's Alice.
The free Remote app works perfectly. Makes me sad that I paid money for the one by Signal, which while nice, is far glitchier. Oh well.
Shazam works well, too. It correctly identified five out of seven songs on XM's "Fred". (one of which was by Revolting Cocks, no top fourty here, kids). Sadly, I understand, that while a free app now, there will be a charge for this in the future..(it's cool, but not that cool)
The app I've been most impressed with, though is AOL radio. The range of stations is incredibly diverse, and it allows you to tag songs you like for purchase on iTunes or AOL music. (if available).
I just have one question.
what sudoku game do i need to buy?
http://sudoku4iphone.com
And it's free.
this list pretty much cements the targeted audience - twitter users, ebayers, casual game players, chatters.
basically just everything you can do with a phone web browser, transformed into an "app".
i thought Apple was going to vet these apps before releasing them? I expected more.
What exactly were you expecting?
The (leaked, maybe not final?) 2.0 firm works really well for me, as do the apps installed: Weatherbug, Remote, NYT, AIM, Mobile News. The Remote worked from 40' away, AIM handled my chats with 2 different people without incident. Perhaps the hateful technology fairy fell asleep in his aisle-seat whilst flying over my part of the world (west Michigan, US of A)?
I would HOPE the remote app worked from 40' away... it's using WiFi you imbecile!
Greetings from central MI! It appears we have clear iPhone weather in our state, unlike other parts of the nation as write-up after write-up like this appears.
OmniFocus is an unbeatable task management app.
Especially if you have a Mac so you can get the desktop version to complement it.
It should be at the top of the best list.
and maybe you'll finish your sentence by then...
Good round up, totally agree with all of that, another annoyance is to get all the apps in itunes you have to change your country to the US, there's a lot of content not available in the UK store (Ebay, google app and many others) Seems like lots of app makes who were intending to release for free changed at the last minute to charge what they consider a nominal charge (£0.59, £1.59) personnally with no try before you buy i was quite annoyed and dissappointed with the quality and quantity of the apps and app store.
I think that this review of the AppStore was hastily prepared and a bit too heavy handed. Bejeweled 2, OneTouch Movies, ComicTouch, Sketches, Evernote, Enigmo, MLB at Bat and Trism are very impressive apps which weren't even "touched" upon.
and Hold button? seriously? Take a deep breath, test the apps properly then get back to us. It doesn't do any good to simply be the first one out there with reviews if they aren't even thorough or helpful.
No love for Bejeweled? The port is the exact same version as the Xbox 360 one, and it even has almost the same graphics! I would as far as the games go, this one has the most win. Although, Super Monkey Ball is still really fun when you get the hang of it. I'm hoping they ad a calibrator in an update.
I REALLY hope these apps make good use of the update feature.
With iTunes down it just makes you wonder why Apple didn't release the firmware upgrade a few days earlier than the new phone! Everyone with a first gen phone is trying to access the servers at the same time that all the new phones are being activated. Nonsense!
WHAT A DI.CK...HOW THE HELL IS THE "HOLD BUTTON" A HIT....EXPLAIN TO ME DUMBASS!
Becaue it is a simple piece of silly old fun. It is purely just for a laugh. Maybe you should try having some fun, you seem to get worked up quite easy.
P.s. here is something you might enjoy ;)
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=9644
I agree that Shazam should be on the best. It takes any song playing, even pretty bad quality, and it can identify the artist and song title.
haha jokes!
iPhone 3g has sense with...... SKYPE (or any VoIp client as MSN) and GPS turn by turn navigation (Tomtom.... Navigon etc)...... I would expect them to be the first ones to be in the store..... but there are NONE...... what the heck....... I'll stick with the 2g, installer..... and we'll see if things get better in a few days..... months...... or years!
This is interesting because one of the main defences of the iPhone has been that third-party apps would somehow be much better than the equivalent for WinMo or Symbian. Apparently developers were going to imbued with special powers that would help them overcome the limitations of programming for a small device and create the most unbelievably revolutionary and satisfying applications available on any platform.
And now that the AppStore is open for business we see the truth. Poorly ported applications suffering from the same limitations as exist on other small devices.
Sorry Apple fanboys but it you really need to learn to be a bit more realistic and bite your tounges from time to time.
I was thinking the same thing and actually believed that somehow I won't see shitty software...seems like you can't escape lazy programmers.
This is the first batch of applications...
I really can't believe some of the comments. When did being into tech require carrying a "jaded card"?
If it's not free, mind blowing, and released RIGHT NOW, everyone throw a tantrum. I had no high expectations for any of the apps with the exception of Super Monkey Ball. Just like MOST software, the good ones will come with time.
Geez.
On a side note, it'd be nice if you got to "demo" apps that have a fee first. That would probably calm a lot of people down who spent money on crap.
its just funny that a couple days ago apple fanboys were making fun of how WimMo apps run "slow as crap," which of course depends on the phone. but of course both are going to have good and bad apps. the thing is that since WinMo has a bigger library, it has more bad apps, but it also has more good apps (such as emulators for ps1, gba, nes, snes).
Just be glad you have games. In Ireland the store is selling only one game, all the others have been removed and no one knows why
waiting for iCall rather than Fring
You all forgot to test crash bandicoot. With easy controls and great graphics, this is the best game choice I have tried so far. I'll give it a 4 1/2 stars!!! Great game!
The fact that you guys are so willing to bash your corporate masters at AOL is what makes me love you, Engadget.
I don't think AOL cares what Engadget (or any of their other subsidiaries) say about them as long as it makes them money.
They could make a spinoff blog called "AOL Stockholders Kick Puppies" and probably not hear a peep as long as it generates enough pageviews.