I've spent a couple hundred dollars on iPhone apps over the last month hoping to write an amazing blog detailing the "10 Best iPhone Apps" but alas! I am still waiting to undercover an indispensable app that I can't live without. Sure there are plenty of fun apps, slightly useful apps, apps you think you might need to use sometime but where is the "killer" app? So in lieu of a proper Top 10 iPhone Apps blog I have some random reviews of ones that I am finding of interest.

Pandora, a music streaming service, is pretty close to "killer" but I find their selection of material for artists to be very limited with a good deal of repeats after more than an hour of tuning in to a "station". They need to offer a premium service with a wider selection and no restriction on how many "skips" you can have in an hour.

Yelp is cool if you are in a new city and want to find a good restaurant but it doesn't let you submit reviews via the iPhone so it doesn't really mimic the community feel of the site. Watch out Angie's List, these guys are going to eat your lunch.

New York Times app is worthwhile, I use it pretty often but it doesn't really have much on a normal web app like Google's news reader.

My father in law loves the Bloomberg app since it gives him his stocks and loads quickly. He's on a 3G as well so that doesn't hurt.

The Hold'Em app is super impressive with lifelike graphics but I can't say I ever have the urge to sit there and play cards on my phone. Maybe if I'm stuck in an airport sometime. Also, I suck at poker.

Weather Bug is nice since it lets you see a live radar feed of your local weather but it loads slowly and I find I just go to a computer instead of using it.

Band is a good novelty app and let's you do real time recording but I can't say it's instruments are interesting enough to do any real song writing on the iPhone.

Labyrinth is pretty awesome I have to say. It exploits the motion sensor functionality of the phone and really feels like you are playing an old school Labyrinth with a stell ball, etc.

Tuner would be a killer app if it worked outside of a Wi-fi network, as it stands I can't use it in the car which is a bummer. It lets you tune into 1000s of worldwide radio stations. I've long been a believer in Internet radio and this is a big step closer.

Shazam is definitely cool, I almost forgot about that one. You can put the phone up to a speaker and it will tell you what song and artist are playing. Could be useful if I actually listened to the radio outside of NPR. One problem is that by the time you load the app the song is often done. Needs a quick start solution.


Ok, so maybe I shouldn't be so down on iPhone apps, there are some cool ones out there. But where is the voice dial app? (at least one that works). Why can't my iPhone be a universal remote? And when is it going to do my dishes?

I have faith eventually all my iPhone app dreams will come true. Until then I will keep reminding myself that until the iPhone came along I didn't know I needed these things so desparately. Damn you Steve Jobs!