By itself, the iPhone is an amazing device. But it is Apple’s App Store that’s made the iPhone truly revolutionary, by giving thousands of independent developers the ability extend and transform the device with their creativity for a fee of course.
Not even half a year old, the store has surpassed a milestone of 10,000 pieces of software available. Since the beginning however, the App Store has been charging for every little app it can. But now you can get unlimited iPhone apps here for just one low fee and no monthly fees at all.
But today, we’ve plucked out a list of 6 apps — from mapping software to games — that deserve applause for their quality, innovation and breakthrough achievements but most of all they are FREE.
6. Stanza
A book reader that grabs free titles from public domains, Stanza has soared in popularity — making the iPhone a worthy competitor to Amazon’s Kindle. And if those free books aren’t enough, Stanza recently expanded to incorporate a store to purchase commercial titles. The app did a good job pleasing Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel, who modified his Moleskine notebook so he could embed his iPod touch in it. He could be reading e-books in an cafe and instead of exuding an aura of geekiness he can instead display an aura of artsiness.)
5. SayWhere
You get used to typing on the iPhone after some time, but punching in addresses to look up directions is by far the biggest drag. DialDirections was the first to introduce speech-recognition capabilities to the iPhone with SayWhere, which translates users’ speech into queries for Google Maps, Yelp, Traffic or Yellow Pages. It’s a nifty app, especially for keeping drivers’ eyes on the road rather than the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.
4. Shazam
Everyone’s familiar with this scenario: You hear a really catchy, unfamiliar song on the radio and you have no idea what it’s called. You hum it to yourself repeatedly and attempt to memorize the lyrics, only to forget it after slamming a few shots at the bar. Shazam will never leave you struggling to recollect these thoughts again: Hold the iPhone up to a speaker playing the unknown tune and the app will identify it — album, artist and song title — just like that.
3. TapTapRevenge
You’d have to be living on a different planet (or a retirement home) if you haven’t heard of Guitar Hero, the game that gets players to twitch their fingers compulsively along with the beat of their favorite songs. Developer Tapulous took the same idea to make an extremely addictive rhythm game called Tap Tap Revenge. Tapping blinking lights on a screen to catch tunes isn’t exactly the same as rocking out on plastic guitars and drum pads, but it’s still highly addictive. And Tap Tap Revenge is so popular it’s even offering the option to download new tracks to tap to, similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band’s music stores.
2. Pandora
Whoa whoa whoa — free downloaded music on a portable device? Naw, really. This app is cool as hell on the iPhone as Pandora’s alternative music distribution made this happen. This apps will play that artist’s music as well as similar tunes you might like and you can add a station for any artist you like. What better way to find new music with the wealth of new bands out there?
1. Google Earth
When Steve Jobs called the iPhone “Your life in your pocket,” he probably didn’t expect Google to deliver the world in your pocket. Well, virtually. Google Earth is one of the most intense mindblowing apps that really shows off the power of the iPhone by displaying satellite imagery around the world in a 3D globe. If you want to impress your grandmother with a demonstration of just how far technology has come since she was a girl, this ought to do the trick.
There are so many more apps for your iPhone available if you want to pay for each one individually. Or, you could pay just one low fee and download unlimited iPhone apps. This is the secret Steve and the greedy ones at Apple don’t want you to know about. Say thank you now. Check out unlimited iPhone apps here, you will not be disappointed