My favorite app right now is called Lose it for iPhone. It's taught me Burger King is delicious but I have to exercise about this much to offset 1 Angry burger, which is my weakness:

50 cal - 20 min weightlifting
100 cal - 20 min aerobics
200 cal - 20 min running
200 cal - 20 min swimming
400 cal - 40 min biking
-----
950 cal / 2 hours total to offset one burger at about 880 cal

Another app that looks great (but I haven't tried yet) is Layar. It's a reality browser. I'll leave that to you to figure out, but you need the GPS included in the 3GS iPhone to run it.

I have 3 observations about popularity and what people like:

There are tons of very clever apps out there, but Lose it is very popular and simple. It's a useful app.

Some apps like Layar are very unique and some are complex. People like these niche apps, too.

But, what a lot of entrepreneurs get is that you don't have to be clever or complex. You can just build a better app, like build a better mousetrap. People will beat a path to your door. And, if you build a lousy app, the incredibly simple and effective rating system used with iPhone Apps is just brutal!


So, it would be useful and interesting to hear what your favorite app(s) are. You might also add your observations about apps in general. We can filter this down as replies accumulate.

Views: 179

Replies to This Discussion

I have Lose It! as well, but I haven't really used it much. One of my most used apps right now is "ESPN Fantasy Football 2009."

Other Favorites:
Hurricane - This app is written by Kittycode. As the name implies it is an excellent hurricane tracking app. I happen to know one of the devs on this one and She is a hurricane fanatic.

Twitterrific - I love this app. I have tried others including a brief affair with Tweetdeck, but I just keep coming back to Twitterrific.

LiveATC - This is a great app if you like listening to aviation radio traffic. Using their network of members LiveATC.net provides airport traffic from all over the world.

Kindle - Simple but very nice reader with integration to amazon.com for book purchases.

Pocket Universe - I just started using it two nights ago but I like it so far. The app utilizes both the GPS and compass components of the iPhone to direct you to any stellar object you wish to see. Also has a "Tonight's Sky" feature to tell you what is currently happening in space. For example, through this app I learned that the Orionids meteor shower will be visible tonight off of Orion's arm. Very cool.

I am on the hunt for a good "To Do" program however. Any suggestions?
Without a doubt my favorite app is called The Mindless Time-Killer. It is brutally simple but still fun. It's actually a great drinking game! My high score is 751.
Here's a link to the iTunes store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mindless-time-killer/id345959504?mt=8
Kevin, I am going to check it out. Let's hear something about your iPhone development experiences...perhaps as the speaker for the upcoming GatorJUG on the second Wed of January?
I really don't have enough to say to make a presentation as such, but I can bitch and moan about the fact that apple doesn't support selling java-based apps yet, only apps written in Objective-C , and the only IDE (near as I can figure) is xCode. After working in Java with Eclipse and Netbeans, working in Objective-C in xCode is kinda rough.

I full list of the apps I've done is here:
http://user.gru.net/nemesis/iphoneAppPages/
Very well, then. We'll have an iPhone development meeting with open forum. I think that would be interesting to a broad range pf developers, especially the ones that do Java apps on the Blackberry.

Kevin Neelands said:
I really don't have enough to say to make a presentation as such, but I can bitch and moan about the fact that apple doesn't support selling java-based apps yet, only apps written in Objective-C , and the only IDE (near as I can figure) is xCode. After working in Java with Eclipse and Netbeans, working in Objective-C in xCode is kinda rough.

I full list of the apps I've done is here:
http://user.gru.net/nemesis/iphoneAppPages/
You can see my favourite apps here on myap.ps/ouriel
Ouriel, Could you please re-enter that URL? I can't get it to resolve. Best, Mike
myap.ps/ouriel


now ok?

Michael Levin said:
Ouriel, Could you please re-enter that URL? I can't get it to resolve. Best, Mike
Perfect - it looks cool. I'm checking it out. Thanks, Ouriel.
will be happy to set you your URL if you want

Michael Levin said:
Perfect - it looks cool. I'm checking it out. Thanks, Ouriel.
I'll take you up on that, Ouriel. I'm downloading it now...
look fwd to discovering your favorite apps :)

Michael Levin said:
I'll take you up on that, Ouriel. I'm downloading it now...

RSS

Happy 10th year, JCertif!

Notes

Welcome to Codetown!

Codetown is a social network. It's got blogs, forums, groups, personal pages and more! You might think of Codetown as a funky camper van with lots of compartments for your stuff and a great multimedia system, too! Best of all, Codetown has room for all of your friends.

When you create a profile for yourself you get a personal page automatically. That's where you can be creative and do your own thing. People who want to get to know you will click on your name or picture and…
Continue

Created by Michael Levin Dec 18, 2008 at 6:56pm. Last updated by Michael Levin May 4, 2018.

Looking for Jobs or Staff?

Check out the Codetown Jobs group.

 

Enjoy the site? Support Codetown with your donation.



InfoQ Reading List

Presentation: How to Unlock Insights and Enable Discovery Within Petabytes of Autonomous Driving Data

Kyra Mozley discusses the evolution of autonomous vehicle perception, moving beyond expensive manual labeling to an embedding-first architecture. She explains how to leverage foundation models like CLIP and SAM for auto-labeling, RAG-inspired search, and few-shot adapters. This talk provides engineering leaders a blueprint for building modular, scalable vision systems that thrive on edge cases.

By Kyra Mozley

Article Series - AI Assisted Development: Real World Patterns, Pitfalls, and Production Readiness

In this series, we examine what happens after the proof of concept and how AI becomes part of the software delivery pipeline. As AI transitions from proof of concept to production, teams are discovering that the challenge extends beyond model performance to include architecture, process, and accountability. This transition is redefining what constitutes good software engineering.

By Arthur Casals

How CyberArk Protects AI Agents with Instruction Detectors and History-Aware Validation

To prevent agents from obeying malicious instructions hidden in external data, all text entering an agent's context must be treated as untrusted, says Niv Rabin, principal software architect at AI-security firm CyberArk. His team developed an approach based on instruction detection and history-aware validation to protect against both malicious input data and context-history poisoning.

By Sergio De Simone

Anthropic announces Claude CoWork

Introducing Claude Cowork: Anthropic's groundbreaking AI agent revolutionizing file management on macOS. With advanced automation capabilities, it enhances document processing, organizes files, and executes multi-step workflows. Users must be cautious of backup needs due to recent issues. Explore its potential for efficient office solutions while ensuring data integrity.

By Andrew Hoblitzell

Tracking and Controlling Data Flows at Scale in GenAI: Meta’s Privacy-Aware Infrastructure

Meta has revealed how it scales its Privacy-Aware Infrastructure (PAI) to support generative AI development while enforcing privacy across complex data flows. Using large-scale lineage tracking, PrivacyLib instrumentation, and runtime policy controls, the system enables consistent privacy enforcement for AI workloads like Meta AI glasses without introducing manual bottlenecks.

By Leela Kumili

© 2026   Created by Michael Levin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service