And the #1 iPhone application(s) from April 2009 is…
1: The Travelto and Travel Guide Applications
For the first time ever, I have picked two apps to share the first place prize. Both of these apps do similar things, and both are extremely well made. Travelto focuses more on countries, and gives you details on where you want to go, what you want to do, and what to say. The Travel Guides are more along the lines of a city guide book, and they inform you about all of the non-famous but locally loved scenic spots in each city. Both applications are well designed, implement the iPhone controls well, and look perfect. You can get a Travelto guide for $.99 per country and a Travel Guide for $.99 per city.
Well, folks, there you have it, the top 10 iPhone and iPod Touch applications from April 2009. If you have any suggestions for next month's list, or want to tell me what I missed, please let me know in the comment field.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
CarMinder looks interesting if you have to be "on the cheap," but I'd also suggest users look at Car Care, which is what I used after doing a lot of research. I find it has a LOT more detailed information, doing everything Car Minder does plus displaying graphs of both gas price and gas mileage, plus a breakdown of stats such as total cost per mile, carbon footprint, best/worst/average fuel economy, etc. It's a great app - I haven't been disappointed yet.
On the "Iphone zoom" issue, this is almost a moot point. Given Apple's general attitude, I can see why they chose to leave it out. Digital zoom is a lossy process. Despite what people want to have us believe about the Iphone camera, it is actually surprising good for what it is. It takes very nice, colorful, sharp pictures for such a tiny little camera. I get consistently decent images from it, to the point that I use it all the time. Adding digital zoom would sully the quality of the camera - zooming simply means cropping the image, then enlarging it, which significantly lowers the quality of the image. When we're talking about 2 megapixel images to begin with, that's not a real good idea. The best results are going to be done on a computer in Photoshop or something equivalent. That said, I can see the use of something in camera for those moments when you just have to have it.
I just wish I could get all my camera apps in ONE app, as I now have several, the most used being Mobile Fotos (for Flickr upload,) Darkroom Pro (utilizes the Iphone's accelerometers to take a shot when the Iphone is perfectly still - great for dark places,) and iFlashReady (which applies one of three different sets of levels to add contrast to images - it really works great as long as the image isn't already too light.) If Adobe could come out with an iPhotoshop, I would happily pay a premium as a long, long time user of PS. I haven't found one that does it all, unfortunately. Hmm, maybe I need to learn to program for the Iphone . . .
2 - Tom Johnson
I have to rescind my support for iFlashReady based on the update that the developer put out, and that's based on one big problem: IFR now overwrites the original image rather than making a copy with the changes. A HUGE no-no. Incredibly stupid change. Until this functionality is reinstated, I suggest everyone look elsewhere, unfortunately.
3 - Adam
For self-learners, I've come across an extension list of 100 iPhone apps that can be used by self-learners.
4 - Robert M. Barga
@Adam
please don't link to something that really isnt that useful in my article
5 - Robert M. Barga
the thing is that the phone should have had a physical zoom. The digital works well, as it simply blows up using less megapixels, and it actually results in good image
i will check out car care, that one missed me.
6 - iFlashReady developer
Hello, Tom,
iFlashReady is not, and is not authorized to overwrite any source images. The only thing IFR can do is create new images in "Saved Photos" folder.
iPhone OS forbids any application to overwrite the source image. If you load a photo from another folder, say, "Photo Library", the result after IFR is written to "Saved Photo" folder.