iPhone for Beginners – Which Apps?
To people who are new to the iPhone or Android, the offer of thousands and thousands of programmes (Apps) is daunting. The first time you look at the App Store in iTunes, or on the App Store on the iPhone, you just do not know where to begin. The top 10 then? Well, those are the most popular programmes downloaded today, that does not reflect use.
To help you along, I decided to list the Apps I like and use. These may not be the same as the ones you will end up using as, naturally, your interests will differ from mine, but it is a beginning. And that is where you are. But not for long: let mobile internet unleash itself!
NB These are all Apps for the iPhone, but often the companies behind these Apps will have released Android versions as well.
Press
LeMonde – sometimes their writing is confused, but a good paper none the less
LeFigaro – clear presentation & full screen.
20minutes - Better than you might think App of the free newspaper, but you may want to avoid reading the readers’ comments…
There is also rue89, leParisien (which is not bad), nouvelObs, and plenty of others…
The Guardian – perhaps the best newspaper App
World News (BBC news feed) – simple but useful App for a great source of news
(Blogs)
Engadget – gadget and tech news
The Onion – satirical videos and articles. Can be very funny at times
Wired – tech product reviews
Alien Blue – to read the Reddit forum
Fancy – a recommendations exchange of fashionable products
Slate – magazine with some great articles
TED Mobile - Video lectures on varying fields of study – some of them are fantastic. The iPhone is too small for some presentations, but good enough for others.
Communication
WhatsApp – Free texting with others on iPhone/ blackberry who have the same App. Naturally, this will be worth more if the people you text with most have it. You can also send pictures or your location!
NB There are Skype, Facebook and WordPress Apps too, but I don’t use them.
Books
iBooks – not only can you buy books, but you can also keep PDF’s you want to read there.
Alternatively, there are others worth having for when you are in public transport and such: Classics, Bible, Stanza.
There are also LOADS of childrens’ books, although they come out a little better with an iPad, because several books allows the child to play with the accompanying images as you read.
Language
Larousse (Fr-En) is excellent
Dictionary.com – pretty good English dictionary, but you have to be online.
Littré – a very simple layout (and unfortunately no guessing) but still a good French dictionary
Travel
RATP – the Parisian metro App is fantastic to find the shortest route between two points
SNCF Direct & Voyages-sncf - first one lets you see when TGV’s arrive or leave from all stations, the second lets you buy tickets.
My Airport - gives live departure & landing times on all Parisian airports , great if you are picking someone up
Voyageurs - ministry of foreign affairs travel recommendation. A little paranoid but worth reading if you are going to a country you do not know.
AccuWeather – it looks nicer on the iPad
XE – a currency converter which comes in handy every once in a while
GoVelib - where is the nearest available free bike in Paris, doesn’t work that well but they are bound to update it
Mappy or ViaMichelin Traffic if you are fed up with Google Maps (which I’m not).
Wine
Winetage – which are the best years, and how long can you keep the bottle in your cellar
Hachette Vins – year/ region rating, general wine info per region. (Similar to Winetage.)
Real Estate
Barnes – beautiful houses in fashionable areas
Explorimmo – very elabourate for agencies and private real estate sales
A lot of real estate agents (like Lofts) have their own Apps these days, but if you are looking just for fun the grouped one are more interesting. Besides Explorimmo, you could also try Logic-immo.
Useful
Shazam – tells you which song is playing around you!
Nespresso – to order coffee capsules to be delivered
Wikipedia – the App is more convenient and faster than using Safari
White Cross - First aid, never used it, but you never know…
PagesJaunes – the yellow pages, it is pretty good but I would prefer a Google Map integration
AlloCiné – whats playing at cinema close to you, see the trailers, etc.
IMDb – International Movie DataBase, a treasure trove of information about film
Dailymotion – useful in the same way as YouTube is, to see the speech/gaffe Sarko made…
GuitarChords – I have not yet found better…
Photography
Hipstermatic – Pre-defined filters for the camera. It is a lot of fun and you can get some great (square) pictures out of it, although, the image quality could be higher. There are a few important drawbacks – you can not save unfiltered pictures & you can not filter pictures you already have. You have to take the pictures live with the filters.
Photospread – send images to other devices (iPad or computer) via wifi
PS Express – perhaps the best pic editor at the moment
100Cameras in 1 - a lot of different filters to play with. I love it, but it is better on the iPad.
Retro Camera – a series of different cameras-with-filters to give an edgy feel to your shots
OldphotoPRO – creates the effect of age (incl sepia) on a picture. Looks good.
Color Effects – to single out a colour in a picture. can be useful
OldBooth – Lets you put your face into a selection of old pictures for humours sake. It’s fun
Film Director – lets you convert a film into a silent film with matching music. Fun to do.
Games
The game of the moment for me: Cut the Rope – a very original puzzle game!
Other games: Paper Toss, Galcon, PenguinLite, Gold Rush, Angry Birds (most popular game of the moment), BridgeBasher, Epic Citadel, Runway, Bix Lite, reMovem free, SkiesofGlory, Go Karting, Traffic Rush, VTT, Driver (racing game), High Noon (try at least once!), Knots (finger twister), Tesla Toy (and a whole bunch of them like it are fun to try)
Music
Savage Apps – like iAmHipHop, iAmFunk are GREAT FUN. Try them!
FingerPiano Lite – just a fun piano simulator
Garageband – is a lot of fun to try with instruments which can partly play themselves, but it is on the iPad
Special mention
Find iPhone – find your phone or to wipe it if it is stolen (or rather, to wipe your girl/ boyfriends phone when it’s lost or stolen)
Pages (a very good word processor), iA Writer (a great typing utility) and Numbers (spreadsheet) are great, but I only use them on the iPad.
Other stuff
There are Augmented Reality Apps which tell you which direction the tube station is, or the Wikipedia page of the building in front of you and so on, which is fun to see, but I haven’t found it useful yet. I am keeping my eye on them though.
