Apps on the iPhone are a big deal, but there are so many of them that it can be hard to find the good ones. It's fun to compare your own selections with favorites from friends and we thought it could be fun as well to see what some well known geeks around the web say are their favorite apps.
Below you'll find app recommendations from the following people: Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, Chris Messina, open source community organizer, Marnie Webb, co-CEO of TechSoup Global, Baratunde Thurston, Web Editor at The Onion and Andy Baio, founder of Upcoming.org and now CTO at the soon to launch startup Kickstarter.com. We hope you enjoy these recommendations and we encourage you to share your own in comments.
]]> Repeat offendersOnly three apps were named by more than one person on this list! They were smart travel social network Tripit, memory augmentation and note taking service Evernote and Twitter client Tweetie. All three are worth checking out.
Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg co-created WordPress, the world's most popular blogging software, when he was 19. He's now 25 and a man of travel, tunes and publishing.
In addition to Tripit, Matt said his favorite apps were:
Taxi Magic lets you get taxis in major cities without making a phone call.
Shazam identifies the music your phone picks up in a room.
WordPress has an iPhone app! It lets you write and edit posts, upload images and more.
Chris Messina
Chris Messina designed the Firefox ad in the New York Times that kicked off mainstream adoption of the browser, he co-founded the international Barcamp conference series, he's on the Board of the OpenID Foundation and he's one of the leading thinkers behind the movement to create a standard format for user activity streams across social networks.
In addition to Tripit and Tweetie, Chris said his favorite apps right now are:
Instapaper Pro is a bookmarking app that saves a copy of articles you want to read off-line on your iPhone.
Foursquare is a popular new location-based, game-like social network.
Summizer is a multi-search tracking tool for Twitter.
Things is a to-do app that gets great reviews.
NYTimes is a beautiful off-line reader for the Times, which we've reviewed and like a lot.
BrightKite is a cutting edge location-based social network that we reviewed here as well.
Comixology is an iPhone comic book reader and library.
FlightTrack Pro checks airline flight status.
OpenTable lets you make restaurant reservations.
Marnie Webb
Marnie Webb is co-CEO of TechSoup Global, a nonprofit that distributes software to other nonprofit organizations and hosts NetSquared, a group that helps nonprofits share what they've learned about using Web 2.0 technologies. She's also a mom and her iPhone app list shows it.
In addition to Evernote, Marnie says her favorite apps are:
Have2Pee is key, Marnie says. "I have a 4 year old and knowing the closet public restroom is game changing."
iDialUDrive - "I spend a not insignificant amount of time commuting. Programming calls like a playlist helps me to just hit start and get in touch with the people I need to."
Ominfocus - "I'm a GTD geek and, after playing with far too many productivity tools, I've settled on this one."
The Extraordinaries does on-demand volunteerism by mobile phone. Marnie says: "not a lot in it yet, but huge potential to volunteer quickly and effectively."
Baratunde Thurston
Baratunde Thurston is a contributor to the Huffington Post, a comedian, Web Editor at humor site The Onion and the host of Discovery Channel's forthcoming show Popular Science's Future of.
In addition to Tweetie, Baratunde says his favorite apps are:
Asphalt - a car racing game.
Boxee Remote lets you use your iPhone as a remote control for the web TV service Boxee. "It helps me bypass the cable company," Baratunde says.
Movies (By Flixter) - find and discuss movies.
Apple's Stock Quote app. "I launch it a lot by accident and scream out loud at not being able to delete it."
Andy Baio
Andy Baio is a social software developer and writer. He co-founded the events site Upcoming.org and has just become the CTO for soon-to-launch social project funding site Kickstarter.
In addition to Tweetie, Any says his favorite apps are:
RJDJ remixes the sounds around your phone into music. Whoa.
Touch Term SSH is an SSH access tool for your iPhone.
ZenBound a puzzle game with wooden structures and rope.
Field Runners is a Tower Defense game.
Eliss is a retro game.
Edge is a Tron-like game where tilting your phone navigates a cube through an obstacle course.
That's what these folks like to use on their iPhones. How about you? Here are some of the favorites of ReadWriteWeb's staff.