Dave Caolo

Shawn Blanc imagines that the experience of using a social app like Gowalla improves as more people you know become users:

Perhaps part of Gowalla’s usefulness being lost on me has to do with the fact that I only have a handful of friends with iPhones, and of them, only a couple were nerdy enough to sign up for it.

I can confirm that he’s right from first-hand experience. I live in a town of 4,000 people. Some of them use iPhones, and even fewer use apps like Gowalla. In fact, I’ve never met most of the Gowalla users I follow and they all live hundreds of miles away.

However, when I was in San Francisco for Macworld Expo, the experience was entirely different. Gowalla became a useful way to find the people I intended to meet up with. If I hadn’t had that experience, I wouldn’t see it as anything other than a fun but ultimately useless toy.

There’s an interesting article at The New York Times today which states that most iPhone owners only use 5-10 apps with any regularity.

I’ve noticed the same behavior in myself. My iPhone has pages of apps (iTunes even more), but I don’t use most of them. So, this week I’m going to identify my most popular apps and vote the rest off the island.

Introducing iPhone Survivor. For one week, I’ll note each app I use and how often I use them. At the end of the week, they’ll be sorted on my iPhone by frequency (the most popular app in the upper left-hand corner and working down from there), while the apps that remain unused get deleted.

Update: Here are the results.

With the App Store, Apple has mastered the art of the impulse purchase. Much like the candy that’s displayed at a toddler’s eye level at the supermarket checkout counter, those shiny iPhone apps are right at your fingertips whenever you have a spare moment to flick around. “Only a dollar … why not?”

Last summer I listed the apps I’ve paid for but don’t use, and today I’m doing the opposite. Here are the 12 apps that I use every day without fail. Each has won a coveted spot on my iPhone’s home screen.

Messages (free, Apple, Inc.) From push notifications to quick chats with my sisters, text messaging has become a part of my life. At first I thought the notion was ridiculous. Sending text messages with a phone? It’s a phone. That’s like dipping a typewriter into an inkwell and using it as a quill. But now I get it. Some things are just faster and not worth the time or cost of a phone call. Call me a convert. 4real.

Calendar (free, Apple Inc.) My wife keeps this updated with our family schedules and MobileMe syncs it to all of our devices flawlessly. It’s a must in our family.

Photos (free, Apple, Inc). I mentioned the kids, right? That means ridiculous amounts of photos and video. But that’s not all. I’ve used it and Camera, my next selection, to remember where I’ve parked in a large garage, send photos of business cards to myself, send photos of receipts and ask, “Is this the [product photo here] I’m supposed to buy?” via SMS.

Outside ($2.99 with optional in-app purchases, Robocat) As a New Englander, I’m obsessed with driving directions and weather. Outside runs laps around Apple’s Weather app with a beautiful UI, push notifications, great-looking animations and an overall sense of fun. A blizzard? Yippee! Look at how cute that animation is!

Maps (free, Apple, Inc.) This is the iPhone’s wonder app. Let’s say you’re in the middle of Nowhere, Maine and you want to find some coffee. Open maps, locate yourself with GPS, enter “Coffee” into the search field you’re on the phone and driving to a great little shop that you didn’t know existed 20 seconds prior. I recently drove from Boston to Valley Forge, Pa using only the Maps app and it was flawless. I think it’s powered by magic. Or GPS. Either one.

Birdhouse ($1.99, Adam Lisagor & Cameron Hunt) In all honesty, when this app was released I thought it was a practical joke. “A Twitter app for writers? They’re kidding, right?” Now I get it. I tend to be a bit verbose on Twitter, and posting every random thought that my brain fires up into Birdhouse before inflicting it upon my followers is a handy little buffer. Plus, it does offer a chance to re-write something that frankly could use it. My Birdhouse is always packed with several chambered tweets, ready to fire.

Twitterrific Premium ($4.99, The Iconfactory) Still my iPhone Twitter app of choice. It’s beautiful, well-executed, supports multiple accounts and frankly does everything I need in a manner that I enjoy. Use it, love it.

Billings Touch (Free or $15 for invoicing and syncw/the desktop app, Marketcircle) I recently reviewed Billings Touch so for now I’ll just say it was able to lure me away from Freshbooks.

Daylite Touch ($49.99 per year, Marketcircle) The mobile companion to the powerful Daylite for the Mac is the one app out of all of these that I couldn’t go a day without. Between TUAW and my other gigs I have a lot going on and Daylite Touch lets me manage all of them elegantly. It’s very powerful and the back end server app runs beautifully on a G4 iMac in my basement. Before you balk at the price know that I was paying that in two months time with Basecamp. Just like its sibling Billings Touch, Daylite touch is fantastic. I can’t say enough good about it.

iTunes and App Store (Free, Apple, Inc.) are self-explanatory and got me into this mess to begin with.

CNN Mobile (Free, CNN) Regardless of your opinion of the Cable News Network, you must admit that this app is very well done. The news is timely, navigation is clear, the app is snappy and the streaming video is the clincher. I actually watched the balloon boy saga unfold on my iPhone. Plus you can sign up for keyword alerts, push notifications and even submit  your own photos, videos and stories. I love it.

Facebook (Free, Facebook) Yeah, it’s Facebook. But this app is well done.

Pastebot ($2.99, Tapbots) It’s a clipboard manager for the iPhone but so much more. Enable wireless sync with a Mac and you’ve got super-easy photo transfer, a clipboard history from  your Mac and more. I use it to hold boilerplate text that’s now a tap away. Want to insert it into an email message? Click “Send to Mac” and you’re done. Like all of the Tapbot apps, Pastebot is gorgeous and downright useful. You need to own it.

Trip Cubby ($6.99, App Cubby) My job (and Uncle Sam) requires me to keep close tabs on mileage. Trip Cubby makes recording my trips simple and fun, and version 2 improves upon a winner.

To get started, add a new trip and fill in your destination, purpose, any tags you’d like and so on. Designate a vehicle and its starting odometer reading. You can also categorize a trip (business, charity, etc.) and add relevant notes (tip: Add frequent trips to favorites for future reference).

From there, click done and you’re off! Once you arrive, select your trip again, enter the final odometer reading and click Done. Trip Cubby assumes a mileage rate of $0.550, but you’re free to change that if need be.

Here’s where it gets good. You can sync all of your data online at App Cubby, should you lose anything. Also, you can mail all of your data to yourself from within the app as a CSV (a HUGE time saver at tax time). Typically I’m a pen-and-paper guy, but Trip Cubby has replaced the notebook in my glovebox. I absolutely rely on it.

Gizmodo accuses Trent Reznor of “…going all TUAW’ in his recent anti-App Store post.

I assume “Going all TUAW” means following an emotional, knee-jerk rant with rational thought and careful attention. Of course, I’m not mature enough to kill someone’s display during a presentation at CES, so what do I know?

I love Gas Cubby from App Cubby (it’s among the top apps on my iPhone), and was lucky enough to spend last week with a preview of version 2.0, which I reviewed for TUAW. Check it out.

For more on Gas Cubby, check out my supplemental post.

There are more than 15,ooo apps in the App Store. I’ve tried many, reviewed even more at TUAW and kept a few. Here are those few.

We’re going to explore these by page. That is to say, I’ll first write about the (non-Apple) apps that live on my iPhone’s home page. Next, the apps on page 2, and so on.

Once that’s complete, I’ll list the apps that are on the verge of getting cut and finally the ones I paid for but no longer use.

But first things first. Here are my “Page 1 Apps.” Check back for page 2 soon.

Crackulous allows jailbroken iPhones to crack any application from the App Store and use it without paying for it. It other words, it steals money from developers and Apple.

If you’re so hard up for money that you must steal a $0.99 application, you shouldn’t own an iPhone.

Last week I listed the WordPress plug-ins that are a part of my standard installation. Today, I’ve picked out some more favorites (plus a couple goodies). These are plug-ins I’ve used with various projects and my own site. If your favorite isn’t listed, let me know! I enjoy finding new ones.

1. Google XML Sitemaps creates a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap. You needn’t lift a finger, and your custom pages are included. Plus, it pings all major search engines with each update.
2. Sideblog WordPress is what powers the “Interesting Finds” section of my sidebar. The way it works is simple: Identify the category you want to appear in your sidebar and paste the code in the right location (or add the widget). I love it because it allows me to post all the interesting things I find, while not cluttering up the longer articles.
3. Google Analytics for WordPress makes it super easy to install Google Analytics code. The best part is that if you change your template, you needn’t paste the Analytics code in again. The plug-in takes care of that for you.
4. flickrRSS pulls your latest Flickr images. I dare say this should have been included in my base installation, as so many templates make use of it.
5. PodPress powers my podcast, The Sci-Fi Cast. I do love this plug-in. PodPress takes care of all the data that iTunes wants, including categories, image and more. Plus, it puts a flash player with each post. It’s great.

Other goodies

WordPress for iPhone/iPod touch [App Store link] is pretty nice. Writing short posts is pleasant enough, and adding photos is easy. The truth is I prefer SixApart’s Typepad iPhone app as a mobile blogging tool [App Store link], but the demo of WordPress version 1.2 looks promising.

Woopra isn’t unique to WordPress, but there is a WordPress plug-in. It provides real-time stats, lets you chat with visitors, tag them, and much more. It’s in beta right now that they’re qutie pokey about approving new sites, but it’s worth it.

Last time, Nina suggested I check out WP-SpamFree, an anti-spam plug-in. I’ve only used it briefly, but it’s doing a nice job of catcing spam so far. Thanks, Nina!

Brett Kelly notes a trend in the App Store

“The number of tip calculator apps for iPhone is quickly becoming absurd.”

He’s right. In a few seconds, I found

1. Tiptap
2. Check Please
3. iTip
4. Tips (here’s the lucky bastard who got the name everyone wanted)
   
5. mTip
6. Tipulator
7. BigTipper

These range in price from free to $1.99. The worst part is how darn easy it is to figure a tip in the first place. If the bill is $20.00, you move the decimal one place to the left to figure 10% ($2.00), cut that in half for 5% ($1.00) and then add the two together to get the 15% tip — three bucks.

Really, people. This is 3rd grade math.