iPhone Hill

Today’s top 5 is directed towards iPhone 4 users who want to take full advantage of their new hardware and software. From shooting zombies, to finding your way around town, to keeping yourself entertained on the go, iPhone 4 really does have plenty of apps for all of that. Just like our other top 5 must-have iPhone app posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full run down, follow us after the break!

Twitter for iPhone

What would this top 5 list be without a great social networking application, so of course our top honor would have to go to Twitter for iPhone [Free - iTunes Link]. Discover what’s happening right now in the Twitter universe from all over the world with this application. With a killer UI you get all of the top notch features such as realtime search, top tweets, trending topics and maps. Tweet, send DMs, share photos, videos and links to your friends and the rest of us. And it’s now multitasking friendly.

Alternatives: Facebook for your friends, [iTunes Link - Free], LinkedIn for your colleagues [iTunes link - Free].

Angry Birds

Angry Birds [iTunes Line - $.99 - Free version] is currently the number one paid application in the whole App Store and deservingly so. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and a lot of replay value. Each of the 120 levels requires logic, skill, and some enemy destruction. If you like physics-based games and puzzles do yourself a favor and spend the $.99.

Alternatives: If sending birds through the air to destroy things is not your cup of tea then by all means try Farmville [iTunes Link - Free], Flight Control [iTunes link - $0.99], or Plants vs Zombies [iTunes link - $2.99].

Pandora Radio

If you are a avid Pandora user than look no further than the official Pandora Radio application for iPhone [iTunes Link - Free]. The latest update takes full advantage of iOS 4 with the ability to stream music in the background while using your iPhone 4. Simply create a free account if you do not have one already and log in. In no time you’ll be streaming your existing stations or ones you create on your own.

Alternatives: Slacker Radio offers service in the US and Canada [iTunes link - free]. Anyone know what happened to the Spotify update for our EU friends?

Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies

Call of Duty and shooting zombies, does it get much better than that? Not really so it was a no brainer to include a little first person shooter title – Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [iTunes Link - $9.99] Sure this title is a bit on the expensive side for a iOS game title but it’s brings a lot to the table. With this game you will be able to witness some of the best graphics, sounds, and controls available today for your iPhone 4. Fans of the FPS genre will not be disappointed.

Alternative: Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies 2 [iTunes Link - $9.99] If you own part one you can purchase part two at a discounted price with a in-app purchase. If cars are more your scene, try Real Racing [iTunes link - $4.99]

TomTom Navigation

Last but not least your iPhone 4 is in need of a top of the line GPS navigation application such as TomTom [iTunes Link - US version - $49.99]. With a slew of options and full and up-to-date map is stored on your iPhone 4. This means no cellular signal or data plan is needed to navigate to your destination or even look at maps. Now throw in TomTom’s advanced lane guidance and IQ Routes technology and you have yourself one sweet GPS application. Advanced lane guidance shows you which lane to take at confusing junctions so you don’t miss your turn and IQ Routes technology is what TomTom uses to collect actual speed data from the millions of users to calculate the fastest routes at that particular point in time. So factors such as rush hour, traffic lights, school crossing, train tracks, etc all come into play to calculate the fastest route to get to your destination.

Alternative: Navigon North America [iTunes Link - $79.99] is still waiting on its update, but you can also purchase US maps in 3 different sections – each costing $29.99. If online maps and lower-cost monthly subscriptions are more your thing, try TeleNav powered AT&T Navigator [iTunes link].

Conclusion

Well there you have them, our top 5 iPhone 4 apps to get you started. Be sure to check out our iPhone App and Games Forum for more of our members’ recommendations, and leave yours in the thread — or in the comments below!

Top 5 apps for your iPhone 4 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Today’s top 5 is directed towards iPhone users who travel for work, for fun, or for a little bit of both. From booking to preparing, finding your way to finding your food, and keeping yourself entertained while go, the iPhone really does have plenty of apps for all of that. Just like our other top 5 must-have iPhone app posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full run down, follow us after the break!

TripIt

Tripit [free - iTunes link] is an iPhone front-end to the free TripIt.com online service. With TripIt, once you book your online hotel and flight information, you just forward them the email and they automagically create a itinerary for you include flight times, airport maps, hotel maps, etc. Basically, all you travel has belong to them — but they’ll package and present it to you in a hyper convenient and consolidated manner.

If you’re a hardcore traveler, TripIt.com also provides a pro version with added functionality.

Alternative: WorldMate [free - iTunes link] or [$14.99 - iTunes link], recommended by Alli.

Appigo Todo

Making a list and checking it twice isn’t just for Santa’s once-a-year trip, it’s for everyone who needs to keep track of what to pack, where they want to go, and what they want to see. Appigo’s Todo Lite [free - iTunes link] is a great starting point for task and list manager, and if you need more, there’s a full version of Todo [$9.99 - iTunes] with a feature set that syncs with just about everything.

Alternatives: If you prefer to keep your lists in note-taking apps, check out our top 5 iPhone note apps roundup!

AT&T Navigator or NAVIGON MobileNavigator

If you’re driving rather than flying, turn-by-turn navigation and your sense of direction is anything other than perfect, turn-by-turn navigation is a must and there are two major types for you to choose from — online vs. on-device and subscription vs. paid outright.

AT&T Navigator [subscription - iTunes link] provides online maps and if you only need them for a summer road-trip through areas with good AT&T coverage, you can pay $9.99 grab it and go. (Powered by TeleNav, you can find other carrier-branded versions, like Rogers Navigator in Canada, in international App Store).

If you’re going off-grid, however, you’ll have to go offline and NAVIGON provides everything from the 1.5GB North America [$79.00 - iTunes link] to (for example) just the US East Coast ($29.00 – iTunes link]. They have a variety of international versions as well.

Alternative: whmurray recommends the built-in Maps app, which isn’t turn-by-turn but is GPS-enabled and powered by Google.

ZAGAT To Go

Yes, it’s complete overkill and yes, there are a numerous free/cheap ways to find restaurants with your iPhone but once in a while when you’re traveling you just want to do it in style and that’s ZAGAT To Go [$9.99 a year - iTunes link]. You get ratings and reviews from ZAGAT’s famous guide, and an offline mode so you can download it all to your iPhone, iPod touch (or iPad — it’s a universal binary!).

Alternative: Yelp [free - iTunes link] was suggested by Jamesus.

iPod

It’s built right into your iPhone and iPod touch (separated as Music and Video) and can keep you entertained with music, audio books, TV shows, movies, and podcasts everywhere from the airport to the airplane, hotel to restaurant. You can either transfer your own media from home before you leave or use the iTunes Store app to buy and rent the latest from Hollywood or download the best free content on the go. When Apple said the iPhone was the best iPod they’d ever made, they weren’t exaggerating. (Sure, the iPad gets 10 hours of video out of its battery, but it’s still not easy to pocket as the iPhone!)

Alternative: If you’ve got a SlingBox at home and want to keep up with your local sports teams or favorite shows while you’re out of town, SlingPlayer Mobile [$29.99 - iTunes link] will transport your TV to your iPhone anywhere you have a Wi-Fi or 3G signal.

Conclusion

Well there you have them, our top 5 iPhone travel apps. Did we many any of your favorites? Be sure to check out our iPhone App and Games Forum for more of our members’ recommendations, and leave yours in the thread — or in the comments below!

Top 5 iPhone travel apps is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Today’s TiPb Top 5 is directed towards our iPhone and iPod touch wielding readers who love to take notes/memos on the go. Just like our other TiPb’s top 5 must-have posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full run down, follow us after the break!

Notes

Okay, all the applications are available in the App Store but this one — Apple’s Notes is built-in and comes pre-installed on every iPhone and iPod touch. And it’s not bad. Harkening back to the old PalmOS Memo app, you can add a note, start typing, hit Home, and the Note is automagically (and persistently) saved. That’s right, no explicit user action is needed — not even to name it as Notes just pulls the first line and uses that as the name. You can add new notes, edit old notes, and delete what you no longer need. You can also sync Notes via iTunes now (though not via MobileMe… get on that, Apple!)

Set up to look like a yellow, legal-esque note pad, the only drawback is the almost universally panned use of the Marker Felt font. If you can stand that, it’s simple but it’s free and you don’t even have to download it. For some users, that’s all they’ll ever need. For me, it’s perfect to jot down a hotel room, phone number, parking space, or anything else I want to remember and keep with me.

Simplenote (and Notational Velocity + DropBox)

Simplenote [Free - iTunes link] came to our attention via Daring Fireball’s John Gruber and has stayed there thanks to the Notational Velocity awesomeness highlighted by 43Folders‘ Merlin Mann.

Simplenote by itself is just as the name implies, quick, clean, and highly usable. Instead of tethered iTunes sync over USB, Simplenote offers secure wireless sync to the cloud (their WebApp). You can keep using it free with fairly unobtrusive adds, or for $8.99 a year (less than $1 a month) you can go “premium” which removes the ads and gives you auto backup (versioning), create by email, an RSS feed, unlimited API use, and some cherries on top like early access to future features.

If you’re a note ninja, however, combining Simplenotes with Notational Velocity could dang-near blow your mind. Notational Velocity is a desktop client that offers modeless operation (search is your gateway), incremental search (start typing, it starts filtering), and keyboard-optimized operation. DropBox can store the data/files so you can enjoy not only iPhone to desktop, but cross-desktop sync as well. Getting things done indeed!

This is pretty much the nuclear option when it comes to note-oriented productivity, and the scaling from just Simplenote to the cross-platform sync solution is impressive. If you’re the high-order geek and notes are where your life lives, this combo can be hard to beat.

PhatNotes

PhatNotes [$9.99 - iTunes link] is a big, bold drought of note taking. On the surface, it’s covered in icons and colors. Under the hood you can organize “thousands” of notes in folders and groups. It also supports handwriting recognition so you can scribble your note on the screen and Phatnotes will OCR it and turn it into editable text. (A process which works pretty well (and yes, internet, it does OCR and print curse words without any censorship).

You can sync PhatNotes for iPhone with the PhatNotes for Windows desktop client (no Mac client… yet?). Given the price tag, PhatNotes will most likely appeal to hardcore on-device users who want to do as much as possible on their mobile, especially if they already use PhatNotes on the PC and see the sync as a bonus.

For those who like the handwriting recognition but don’t want the higher price and fuller organizational features, the same developer offers WritePad [$1.99 - iTunes link]

Appigo Notebook

Appigo’s Notebook [$4.99 - iTunes link] earns a spot immediately simply by virtue of its integration with the excellent Appigo Todo, but proves its own worth with clever offline/online note sync handling, password protection for secure notes, Toodledo.com sync, and TextExpander [$4.99 - iTunes link] support.

The user interface is simply gorgeous and the workflow is quick and easy. Notebook isn’t free but it’s not premium priced, it’s not bound to the desktop or the cloud, and if you’re invested in Toodledo, TextExpander, and/or Appigo Todo… well, you likely have it already! If you don’t, and you want a flexible yet elegant note-taking solution, give it a look.

Evernote

We’re not just including Evernote [Free - iTunes link] so that Chad (and Leo Laporte) don’t smack us around for not including, though that’s certainly a plus. Evernote is literally — and iconically — the big elephant in the note-space. Unlike the apps above, Evernote isn’t primarily focused on traditional, text-based note taking. It puts pictures and voice right up front alongside text. What’s more, it will make text included in your photos searchable (though it won’t OCR that text and make it editable — please ad?)

You can sync Evernote for iPhone with Evernote for Windows or Mac, or for other mobile devices running Android or BlackBerry OS. If the free functionality isn’t enough for you, you can “go premium” for $5 a month or $45 a year. Premium gets you 500MB of monthly upload bandwidth, support for Office docs, PDF, and videos, share and collaborate with other premium users, and SSL encryption.

Evernote is a great choice for people who want to include a wider range of material and basically scrapbook their notes as they go. It’s also especially handy for cross-platform users with different desktop and mobile platforms. If you’re not already using a different cloud-based or desktop solution, Evernote is something to check out.

Conclusion

iPhone and iPod touch users are fortunate to enjoy a wide range of high quality note apps, everything from the built-in to tons of App Store downloads (we barely scratched the surface here!), from free to premium, from cloud-based to desktop-bound. Which one is best for you will depend on what, if anything, you’re already using and what functionality matters most to you.

If we didn’t mention your favorite, or if you have any ninja or pro tips to share to take our iPhone note-taking to the next level, let us know in the comments!

TiPb Top 5 iPhone Notes Apps is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb – The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog