The 101 best iPhone apps in the world today

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In celebration of the App Store turning one this weekend, and in an attempt to try to prove to Dan that it’s not a load of novelty nonsense, I now present to you the 101 best iPhone apps in the world today.

Quite some claim, huh? I know that one of your favourites won’t be listed here, and you’ll be shocked, appalled or just mildly ticked off that I’ve dared to include X or Y by Company Z, but there you go — that’s lists for you…

The true cost of the App Store

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As you are well aware faithful readers – because we know you all pay diligent attention to every post we publish – the Apple iTunes App Store is celebrating its first birthday this week.

Whether you love the App Store or, in fact, think that it’s a pile of novelty nonsense as Dan hinted at on Monday, you might be interested to know its true value. How much would it cost to buy every single app available?

Well, American blog Busted Loop has done a bit of research and has revealed that in order to buy all 55,732 apps that were available as of 7th July 2009 you would need to fork out $144,326.06. That’s £89,366.57 in proper money. An average of about £1.60 per app.

The publisher with the most valuable portfolio of apps is Iceberg Reader, who offers best-selling books for its e-reader app. You would need £10,172.62 to buy all of their titles.

What is the value of your app collection? How much have you spent on apps? Let us know the usual way. Me – I’ve spent diddly squat. If someone can recommend me a paid app that I simply can’t be without then please do so. In the meantime, I’ll be browsing the app store like a celebrity backstage at an awards show – grabbing all the freebies that I can.

(via Busted Loop)

APP OFF! App Store vs Ovi vs App World vs Android Market

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As part of this week’s App Store birthday extravaganza, I thought it might be an idea to compare what Apple has put together with all the different mobile program delivery platforms out there.

I may have described the iPhone service as a pile of novelty nonsense – you can throw your rotten fruit and broken 2007 iPhones at me later – but how does it measure up against its peers – BlackBerry’s App World, Nokia’s Ovi and the Android Market?

Click on the image below to start the tour

The App Store turns one

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This week marks the first anniversary of the Apple iTunes App Store. Funnily enough, Apple has not missed the opportunity to publicise the fact and nor have we, although not necessarily for the same reasons.

There’s no doubting that the App Store has been a huge success and one of the most important factors in the spread of the iPhone but what of the future? Where is the App Store headed next or is it just a one trick pony?

Each day this week we’re looking at a different facet of what it’s achieved, what it stands for and what it means for the rest of the market place. Stay tuned each day and don’t miss our massive Top Apps list coming later in the week. Enjoy and happy downloading.

The App Store is a pile of novelty nonsense. Discuss.

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The iTunes app store – in fact, the only app store officially called the “App Store” – will be one year old this weekend. Most people have seen it in one shape or other – usually that of a pint of beer – if they haven’t used it and one of the first things I did as soon as I tried the iPhone for the very first time was to download as many free apps as I could.

That was about two weeks ago now and out of the 42 I chose, I still use four, namely Skype, Twitterfon, Facebook and Last.fm and these are by no means unique to the iPhone. In fact there are plenty of phones without app stores that have native access to these programs. So, I’m beginning to wonder, is there really a point in 95% of the apps out there or is the App Store just a large, cheap, tacky bag of nonsense novelty?

There were 50,000 different apps available for the iPhone and Touch at last count on 8th June. That compares as 10 times more than their nearest rival, the Android Marketplace, and I’d bet you could probably find the same actually useful software on both, as well as a world of dross.

The vast majority of all the software is games and most of those are the kinds of things with the shortest of interest spans ranging from the addictive and well put together Paper Toss to the utterly inane Finger Sprint which only requires one go before you’ve had enough.

The fact remains, though, that neither is going to be on your handset for very long. So, yes, I’d really say that, as far as the user’s concerned, there’s very little in the App Store that really makes it worth having at all. What I would suggest, though, is that although it’s pure novelty for us, it’s absolutely key to the iPhone’s and Apple’s success.

First, and most obviously, Apple makes a nice little profit on the App Store at what I can only imagine are some pretty low overheads. In fact, admin and enforcement of the rigorous App Store rules and the sending out of rejection letters are probably as expensive as it gets for them.

In return for their pains, they pick up a fee of $99/year for every developer who purchases the SDK ($299/year if they happen to go for the deluxe package) and a further 30% of every download. Now, actually, that’s not a vast amount of money for a multi-national like Apple. It’s certainly a tidy little earner but I doubt it’s a major part of their fiscal plans; not compared to sales of the handsets in the first place, thought to bring them $600 or so each. A million sales of the iPint may have earned Apple $300,000 but that’s nothing compared to the amount they made on the handsets that downloaded them.

Where the App Store really does work for Apple is as an excellent advertisement for their hardware. The novelty apps may only be on your phone for a week or two but how many people see your little fun game during that time and begin to think about getting an iPhone for themselves? How many people look over your shoulder on the Tube and see not only how entertaining it looks but also how well the hardware works, how smooth that touchscreen is? More apps mean more interactivity, more time with your phone spent out of your pocket and more time on display for all to see and covet.

Each app is a little advert for Apple and, when they work, they not only make Jobs Inc a lot of money but also spread that mobile advert even further a field to hundreds more potential customers. It’s wonderfully viral, offering more dividends than any web based campaign ever did and much better conversion rates no doubt.

And, of course, once you’ve got the iPhone, you’re in the family. It’s a very short step from a handset to a laptop. Well, you might as well enjoy that walled garden once you’ve gone inside and when you’ve got your most often used point of digital access in the Mac way of doing things, you probably ought to complete the picture with Apple TV and wherever else your new found trust and appreciation takes you.

In fairness to the App Store, there are still plenty of applications that are good and useful but they are few and far between. Below that, there’s a tier of one’s that are good for a while – such as Wimbledon update programs etc – and then there’s the sea of inanity. So, I’d say that for the consumer, it is a pile of novelty nonsense but at the tip of that pile is the cherry on the crap cake.

That cherry is probably the same as the one that sits atop much smaller pastries like the Android Marketplace, BlackBerry App World and even Ovi once it sorts its issues out. Where the App Store can go to lift itself from the novelty is as a home of serious games, the likes of which could tempt you away from the DSi and the PSP.

For Apple, though, there’s nothing remotely nonsensical about the App Store. In fact, it’s probably the very key to expanding their market beyond their own fan base and the first time since the iPod that made serious in roads into Microsoft’s market. It’ll be interesting to see how it and their Apple’s reach develops if they do decide to go after Playstation and Nintendo.

Nokia's Ovi swings open – let the downloading commence

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Calling all S60 heads out there – Ovi is open for business. Nokia’s app store has flung its doors open this morning for downloads via the website or over the air. The will be billing taken care of by credit card or by being added on to the monthly letter from your mobile service provider. How kind.

Fifty million folk will see the Ovi app downloadable in the Downloads! section of their S60 handsets, so check now to make sure that your phone of choice supports it. You can receive the app in English, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish, and the platform billing is supported in its entirety by operators in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and the good old Blighty. America will have to wait but AT&T is already laying down the corporate red carpet quotes with that age old launch date of “later this year”.

As promised, all the apps are available in one place with mapping and N-gage all brought under the same umbrella. There’s a bunch of freeware as well as the paid for content. Expect it to be flooded with more programs and the web awash with top tens as the minutes go by.

Ovi Store (via Nokia Press Room)

Apple rejects e-reader because sexual material in classic literature

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Apple have rejected ‘Eucalyptus — classic books, to go’ an e-reader which allows users to download free public domain books from Project Gutenberg, from their App Store because classic literature contains sexual references.

Bewildered programmers received the following notification from Apple: “Thank you for submitting Eucalyptus — classic books, to go. to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Eucalyptus — classic books, to go. and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains inappropriate sexual content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

‘Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users’.”

Call me a stuffy old traditionalist, but I remember (by remember I mean – have read about) a time when if something was thought to be obscene we had something called a trial. Like, I don’t know, the trial of Penguin Books for publishing Lady Chatterly’s Lover – in 1959. If they weren’t guilty then, how, HOW can things have regressed to such a degree that a mobile phone manufacturer is preventing people from reading whatever they flipping please on their phones.

Apple go find a mirror and take a long hard look at yourself in it. Have a think about your ‘reasonable judgement’. What are you becoming Apple?