Par t of the reason why the iPhone is successful is the way it revolutionized mobile apps from being crusty and rigid businessmen tools to user-friendly and convenient  everyday applications on your mobile phone. There is an ocean of apps out there. Whether you just got your iPhone and are feeling adrift or you are a salty old dog seeing what you might have missed, here are the 30 best must-have iPhone apps.

Social

Twitter: Twitter thankfully didn’t make too many changes when they gobbled up the already-great Tweetie 2 from Atebits—same clean interface, same Tweet swiping, and the same it-feels-so-good pull to refresh mechanism. Free.

Facebook: The new, panel-based interface takes a little getting used to, but once you’re acclimated it’s the most effective way to throw yourself, fingers first, into the black hole timesuck that is Facebook. Free.

Google+: It’s Google’s big soiree into social “sharing”. The app has it all: a stream that shows what your friends are talking about (like Facebook), Huddle which is an easy to set up group chats (like GroupMe) and will even automatically upload the pictures you take on your phone to the cloud (like iCloud). Once you get a Google+ invite, one of those features will pull you in.

Fring: Not only a decent multinetwork chat client, Fring also allows for free (or in some certain cases dirt cheap) VoIP calls and, for those with a front facing camera, video calls over WiFi and 3G. Free.

Meebo: Meebo is the king of iPhone messenger apps right now, with support for AIM, Google Talk, Facebook and the like (as well as an impressive list of smaller networks) all packed into a pretty, polished package. Free.

Instagram: Take a photo and dress it up with one of the supplied Hipstamatic-esque filters, Then you share it over the usual suspects—Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, etc —or, and here’s the interesting part, over Instagram’s built-in social networking service. It’s new and ambitious and that’s why we like it. Free.

 

Entertainment

Spotify: Spotify is as close to a great streaming service we can get. The iPhone app lets you listen to all of Spotify’s 13 million track library and with an offline mode, can even do it without a data connection because you can wirelessly sync your local files to your phone, create and sync playlists and more.

Netflix: All the joys of Netflix in your pocket, all the time—including the power to battle that always growing Watch Instantly queue. Streaming’s silky smooth over Wi-Fi, less so over 3G, but the app itself is indispensable. Free.

Remote: Apple’s official app for controlling iTunes from wherever your butt might find itself planted is pretty much perfect. Browse your entire library by artist, song, playlist, whatever, pick a tune, and there it is, playing in your iTunes. Free.

Shazam: You know that song you keep hearing everywhere but can’t quite place? Shazam can place it. Like, almost every time. Shazam Encore, $6, gets you unlimited tags and a host of other features like charts, recommendations, lyrics, etc.

SoundHound: Like Shazam, SoundHound dabbles in tune recognition (smaller library of songs, snappier tagging), but it also serves as a full replacement for your iPhone’s comparatively barren iPod app. Think lyrics, artist info, YouTube links, etc. $5.

 

Games

Angry Birds: Probably the world’s most popular iPhone game, and for good reason. There’s something about launching these different sorts of aviary ammunition into the precarious pig pens that just never gets old. There are always new birds and new stages coming out the pipeline to keep things fresh, too. $1.

The Incident: With excellent pixel art and an admirably morbid sense of humor, twisting your iPhone around to avoid falling objects is way more fun than it sounds. And you have to appreciate anything that makes the apocalypse this enjoyable. $2.

Cut the Rope: Some have called it the heir apparent to Angry Birds for quick, clever, doesn’t-really-ever-get-boring iPhone gameplay—lofty praise, but in many ways deserved! Cutting a rope to swing a candy into a little monsters mouth, avoiding electrical currents and spiders along the way, is quite fun. $1.

Real Racing: It’s just the best racing game out, walking the tightrope between looking highly realistic and being incredibly fun to play. There is a good selection of cars and tracks and the graphics look wonderful. $5.

Archetype: An exceptionally shiny first person shooter optimized for the iPhone 4 with slick, functional controls. Best of all is the 5v5 team deathmatch mode, just like the consoles—including multiple guns, grenades, maps, and medals—except this one you play while you’re sitting on the toilet. $1 (map updates cost extra).

Doodle Jump: You know those people you see standing on the subway or waiting in line at the grocery store clutching their iPhone to their face and tilting their entire body to the side like they’re the leaning tower of Pisa? This is the game they’re playing. $1.

 

Productivity

Instapaper: Perhaps the most universally loved of all iPhone apps, Instapaper, in conjunction with a bookmarklet on your PC, strips websites of all the unnecessary stuff and leaves just the text, synced to your iPhone and pristinely awaiting your eyeballs. Free with ads, or $5.

Reeder: The best all-around RSS reader, Reeder syncs flawlessly with Google Reader (not as common as you would think!), includes intuitive, swipe-friendly controls, and has a spartan interface that gets out of the way of the stuff you care about: your feeds. $3.

Simplenote: It takes notes, simply. That’s a good thing! Without any whiz-bang features for tagging or appending images, SimpleNote just lets you jot things down and, crucially, keeps them flawlessly in sync with the app’s website, a client (like Notational Velocity, for Mac), and its iPad app. Total note nirvana. Free.

Evernote: Everybody’s favorite do-it-all note taker got a big update for iOS: a new home screen with an information-dense snippet view; a new split-view note screen which allows for multiple attachments to a single note; and easy browsing by notebook or tag. Free.

Dropbox: Dropbox is like the SimpleNote of files—seamless, effortless syncing across as many machines as you want. And with the slick native Dropbox app, you can count your iPhone among those machines. Check out documents and photos, attach them to emails, export them to other apps, all with the cloud as your safety net. Free.

BoxCar: Most apps, if they send you push notifications at all, do so on their own terms. Boxcar lets you pipe in notifications for all aspects of Facebook, Twitter, and email for the unbeatable price of free.

 

Lifestyle

Google Earth: It’s, like, the entire world… on your iPhone. Google Earth is cooler than ever when you’re using your fingers to manipulate it, seamlessly zooming around the globe and diving into various places to take a closer look. Free.

MotionX GPS Drive: A solid turn-by-turn navigation app for $3 a month with no long term commitment. There are others that are richer (and far more expensive), but if you just need turn-by-turn directions once in a while, MotoinX GPS is the ticket. $1, $3 a month.

Google Mobile: Yeah, there’s no two ways about it: you have to have Google’s Swiss Army Knife app on your iPhone. Search the internet by voice, location, or now, with the recent addition of Google goggles, by picture. Free.

Yelp: Everyone’s a critic when it comes to bars and restaurants; Yelp puts that impulse to work for you. Search for food, drink, or whatever else by location, price, style and then read up on what people have to say about it. Free.

Wikipanion: If you aren’t using your iPhone to settle petty disputes, what’s the point? Wikipanion gives you iPhone-optimized access to all of Wikipedia, that great argument-ending resource, with added features like bookmarking, quick wikitionary lookup, intelligent search and more. Free, $5 for Wikipanion Plus.

Nike+ GPS: Nike, it turns out, knows a lot about fitness. And with its latest iteration, their Nike+ GPS app can track you on your runs, no sensor required, and keep you going with features like Cheer Me On (a Facebook-integrated social encouragement tool) and One More PowerSong (adding one last song to your pump-up playlist). $2.

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