I’ve reviewed some 525 apps for the iPhone and iPod touch since November, and although I do what I can to be objective, I take a special interest in apps that help make me a more productive writer and editor. I’m also partial to apps that make it easier for me to network with others and stay jacked into the Internet.
Apple’s new OS 3.0 will stock the App Store shelves with even more useful apps, not just for writers/editors either. Read “What Apple’s new OS 3.0 means to you,” which I posted earlier this month.
With new OS and iPhone in hand, I thought this would be a good time to update my list of favorite iPhone apps. I’ve got 25 apps in all on my list, sorted into categories:
- Writing/Editing
- Productivity
- Utilities
- Reference
- Other Must Haves
For the sake of time—yours and mine—I’ll give you my picks in the Writing/Editing category now and the rest in groups of five over the next few days, not counting the weekend. At least that’s the plan…
The envelope please (the order is irrelevant):
1.Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite, from Quickoffice, is an overhaul of its versatile Quickoffice Mobile Pro, an app that combined Excel editing and file transfer functions. Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite now features the ability to view, create and edit Word documents. MobileFiles Pro is no more and in its stead are: Quickword, for Word doc reading/editing and Quicksheet, for Excel spreadsheet editor. Quickoffice Mobile is $12.99, Quicksheet is $4.99 and Quickword is $4.99 (currently on sale at 60 percent off the usual $12.99).
2.Automattic’s WordPress is pretty simple to use to create and edit content for your WordPress blogs. You can write posts, upload photos, edit pages and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. It supports WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.5.1 or higher) sites. I use it to create notes for my blogs and store them as drafts and to fix small writing mistakes when I re-read something I’ve posted. I doubt that I’d actually write a blog entry using it, but you never know.
3.I got in on plain ol’ ZeptoPad 1.0 last year, back when it was priced at $9.99. Now it’s ZeptoPad 3.0 Vector Based Drawing Software, and with the fancy new name and several new features comes a $19.99 price tag, which will be a deal breaker for some of us struggling writer types. ZeptoPad is a note and whiteboard app that you can use to draw vector images (no surprise there).
You have drawing tools for rectangles, circles, arrows, and connectors. The app uses OpenGL, which helps boost processing speed. [As an aside, the new 3GS iPhone really smokes running OpenGL]. You can also share files with other ZeptoPad users via Bluetooth and display images on your iPhone and iPod touch on a Mac or PC monitor. This app has really grown on me with each update; I use it mainly for note taking and personal brainstorming.
4.If you often need to jot down a few quick notes or do a rough sketch, go for Steve Sprang’s Brushes, for a mere $4.99. Brushes has been a long-time favorite drawing app but I also use it as a note taker and doodle pad. Sprang saw a huge spike in sales when artist Jorge Colombo used Brushes to draw the June 1 cover of The New Yorker. You ought to check this one out. There are lots of creative ways to use it.
5.I use Jott for iPhone, a free app that I use to transcribe email and short messages from voice to text. The catch is the conversion requires a paid account at Jott, which could be $4 per month or in buckets of conversion starting at $6.95. There’s a free 1-week trial if you want to give it a go. Jott for iPhone lets you send email and texts to your contacts, take notes, post to Twitter, Facebook, Google Calendar and other Web services.
6.I’m sort of cheating with this last recommendation: With OS 3.0, you no longer need extra apps to take notes or write emails. Now, with OS 3.0’s native notes and email apps you can enter text in landscape mode, which most people find far easier than landscape mode, and you can use cut/copy/paste.
