This post was inspired by my dad. That said, I hope it proves useful for other people reading it too If you’ve not had the pleasure of meeting him yet, my dad is the infamous Dr Egg. You can read more about him and his hair shaving adventures here and here. Given that he’d like to lose the pony tail this side of Easter, he acquired an iPhone on Saturday for the sole purpose of talking about his adventure. When I saw him the following day he’d already downloaded a host of useful apps (useful if you use London transport. For the rest of us, just plain dull )

So after thinking about the apps I use most often, here are my top 5 recommendations:

1. First place has got to go to Tweet Deck. I use it throughout the day and love that if you hit ‘cancel’ half way through constructing a tweet, it offers to save your half-written offerings. Great to know if spelling is not your forte

Just today I also played with adding my Facebook account to Tweet Deck. This seems preferable to using the Twitter application direct on Facebook as now I can be selective about which tweets I send to Facebook. One of the mums at school moaned that I’d filled her page with tweets about our January challengeso she’ll be happier now me thinks Tweet Deck also allows you to comment and like your friends Facebook happenings, just like you might if visiting Facebook proper.

2. Given what I said above about the need to check spelling, it will come as little surprise that a decent spell checker app comes near the top of my list. There’s lots to choose from but ever the bargin seeker, I’ve been using the only freebie available (unless you’re communicating in Spanish ) It’s aptly named Speller and comes courtesy of TransCreative Software. Don’t be put off by it’s measly two and a half star rating. Much of that is probably due to the fact that if you select one of the words in the word list you get taken to Google! I agree that that is not ideal but if you want to quickly check the spelling of a tricky word, this one will do it for you. If you spell a word wrong it will offer suggestions and thankfully, it allows you to select which type of English you speak. That in itself was an eye opener. I didn’t know Canda and the US had different versions of English.

3. At number three is a very handy little app if you have a WordPress blog. (If you don’t have one and don’t want one, skip straight to number four. I’d hate to waste your time.) I was only introduced to this little wonder last week by the lovely Tweeter Ben Lumley (thanks Ben) but already it’s proving it’s megabytes. Until then, I’d been writing the body of these posts in the ‘Notes’ application before copying and pasting across to WordPress in Safari. A handy hint I read from Ben was to make sure you allow XML-RPC under the writing settings. This gives the app the permission it needs to access and write your blog. Personally, I still end up using the PC for final edits and to tinker with pictures. However, this app allows me to approve comments on the move and write posts while waiting at the school gates

4. You won’t see any game recommendations in my top five because games are very subjective (I love Sally’s Spa ) and dependent upon personal preference. However, one chilling out fun app that I would recommend is the Autodesk SketchBook. I’m not arty enough to use it properly but it has massive potential because you can draw in layers. My six year old loves it because she’s learned how to add photos and mess around with them so as to put her face on a giraffe but that’s got to be better than her putting my head on something four legged I have the free version which allows you to save your completed art work to your photo library. However, with the paid version (which is still only £1.19) you get a lot more options including emailing finished images. Great fun, worth a download

5. And finally, I struggled to pick my number five because the aforementioned are already firm favourites giving not much else a look in. However, after much deliberation, I finally went for Skype. I’m not going to rave about the wonders of voip. Yes it’s free but if you have an iPhone, chances are you also have loads and loads of free minutes to use to make calls. Skype made my top 5 purely because of it’s flexibility. Whilst my dad and sister both have an iphone, my sister-in-law likes her fruit, she has a blackberry. She sent me a link to download Berry Messenger but of course it didn’t work because I have an iPhone. Equally, the iPhone equivalent would be useless to her. With the wonders of Skype (and yes, there is a Skype app for the blackberry and yes, it is free ) users of different handsets can send instant messages for free without worrying about phone the other person has.

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photo credit: waltercolor

Over to you. So what do you think? What makes your top 5?

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Tagged as: applications, essentials, iPhone