Posted by Maria Dimitrova

Read this if: You want to get the most out of your iPhone without cluttering the device and your time with too many apps

Gain: Ideas about apps that might be invaluable

Cost: Some of the apps are offered for free and the prices of the paid ones vary from about $1 to $50

You’ve got an iPhone and you want to make your life easier, to increase your productivity and save time and frustration when dealing with various tasks – making travel arrangements, bank accounts and personal debt management, finding the nearest gas station or restaurant, getting access to the latest news, the weather forecast, music, etc. Let’s look at the most popular and useful apps according to technology websites and users:

Business

* Scanner Pro: scan multipage documents, upload to Dropbox and Evernote (#1 in Business for iPhone on Aug 16, 2011, http://www.topappcharts.com.). With this app you can scan multi-page documents, process images, set custom page size, make Industry standard PDF files, send scans by email, transfer documents to Mac and PC and do many other things.
* Splashtop Remote Desktop for iPhone & iPod (#1 in Business for iPhone on Jul 16, 2011). This is the only remote desktop app that streams smooth, high-res video and audio from your PC or Mac, allowing you to interact with your PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, Quicken, and other applications. Access your PC programs, games, multimedia content, and files over Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networks. Go everywhere with just your iPhone without having to carry your computer!
* iSchedule.The HotSchedules mobile application is a powerful, fast and intuitive tool that gives current HotSchedules users the ability to manage their work schedules right from an iPhone.
* Documents To Go® Premium – Office Suite (#1 in Business for iPhone on Apr 17, 2011). With this app you can edit, create & view Word, Excel & PowerPoint files (Office 2007/2008/2010); View PDF, iWork & other files; iPad/iPhone 4/iOS 4: Send & receive attachments using the built-in Mail app and access, view, edit & sync supported files stored in Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, iDisk & SugarSync.
* Pageonce. Helps with budgeting and tracking your Paypal, Chase, Wells Fargo, AT&T, Bank of America and other things.

* Live2Support iPhone chat Application. It is recommended by business users for  delivering live chat service from anywhere in the world using an iPhone device,  chat session monitoring by chat supervisors, displaying of referring URLs with their geo location, chat notification messaging, supporting many visitors with single operator at the same time, operator to operator messaging, real-time visitor monitoring andproactive invitation to visitors.

* FTP On The Go PRO. This app allows you to view and edit HTML/CSS/JS/PHP/ASP, or other files on your server with its built in editor to change your website from anywhere. View images and documents (JPG, PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, etc) too.

Productivity

* EasyTask Manager. A personal task manager with a very simple and easy to use User Interface. EasyTask Manager supports the GTD (Getting Things Done) method. You can also run it on Mac or Windows. And the best part is that you can sync multiple computers with EasyTask on your iPhone.
* DropBox (Wirless File Sharing from your PC/Mac)
* iThoughtsHD (mindmapping). Mindmapping enables you to visually organise your thoughts, ideas and information. Typical uses include: Task lists, Brainstorming,Project planning, Goal setting, Concept mapping, Course Notes/Revision, Meeting Notes.
* Mobile Active Defense. It eradicates spam/phishing emails and any sort of malicious emails from entering your iPhone.
* iTranslate Plus ~ the universal translator. By combining voice recognition, machine translation and voice output iTranslate is the first app to make the legendary SciFi dream of a Universal Translator reality. It translates words, phrases and even whole sentences into over 50 languages. iTranslate now includes free voices for 18 languages! Additionally you can also buy high quality offline voices. Simply speak and instantly see your translation! Available for English, Spanish, French, German, Italian & Japanese (not included in the price).
* Speak it! Text to Speech (#10 in Productivity (iPhone) on Jun 7, 2010). Copy emails, documents, web pages, PDF files, and more; paste them into Speak it!, and have the text spoken back to you with the highest quality text to speech engine available anywhere. You can even create the same quality audio files of the text to speech which can then be emailed to anyone you like! If you need an elegant way to make announcements over your PA system, Speak it! can do that too. You can easily set up a list of pre-made announcements, and play them with a press of a button. 
Analytics Pro. For those of you who work in SEO, this app can be very useful. It gives you a snapshot of recent visitor activity on your site, split into five groups: Visitors, Traffic Sources, Referral Sources, Top Content, Top 10 Countries, Operating System and Search Keywords. You can also see hourly visitor statistics for Today and Yesterday and Daily visitor statistics for a preset or custom date range.
* Amazon Price Check iPhone app. It instantly finds the best deals.
* Red Laser. It lets you scan barcodes of any product and it will find where it’s cheapest in your location.

Finances

* Debt Free – Pay Off your Debt With Debt Snowball Method(#1 in Finance for iPhone on Aug 16, 2011). It helps you eliminate your Debt using Debt Snowball method. This App helps you to organize,monitor and payoff your Debts using Debt Snowball plan.Debt Snowball method is the most popular effective and efficient method taught and recommended by many financial professionals and wealth experts for debt management.
* Accounts – Checkbook (#1 in Finance  for iPhone on Nov 19, 2010). Accounts is an easy to use application to replace your paper checkbook. With the Accounts application, you will have a quicker and more convenient way to track your daily finances. You can schedule transactions, create recurring payees list, transfer funds, reconcile, export data, view reports, graphs, and much more. All features of the Accounts application are designed to be quick, clean, intuitive, and easy to use.
* HomeBudget with Sync (#5 in Finance for iPhone on Jan 30, 2011). HomeBudget is an integrated expense tracker designed to help you track your expenses, income, bills-due and account balances. It offers support for budgeting and allows analysis of your expenses and income, including charts and graphs
* Stock Trading Ideas. This app gives you quick access to daily updated Stock Trading Ideas. The app provides detailed technical analysis charts that include support/resistance levels, Fibonacci lines, etc.
* Mint.com Personal Finance. Personal finance tools from Mint.com. Track, budget and manage your money on-the-go. Simply sign up for an account on Mint.com, add your online banking accounts, and access your personal finances anywhere.

Travel

* TripIt – Travel Organizer no ads (#2 in Travel (iPhone) on May 6, 2011). TripIt Pro acts like a personal travel assistant who takes care of you while traveling, by keeping you in the know with status alerts and alternate flight options, storing all your frequent traveler points in one place, and helping you save money on flights. Greater peace of mind while traveling is available for $49/year.
* FlightTrack – Live Flight Status Tracker by Mobiata (#1 in Travel (iPhone) on Aug 16, 2011). It is considered to be the best flight tracking app. You can track flights with zoomable maps or get real-time departure info, delays and gate numbers at a glance. Full international coverage means you can track all your flights worldwide. We’ll even update you on cancellations and help you find an alternate flight.
* London Tube, New York Subway,National Rail app, etc depending on where you live, you can have all the information you need for the timetable, the different lines and any changes in the transport services.
* eCurrency – Currency Converter (#5 in Travel (iPhone) on Aug 12, 2010). eCurrency is far more than an easy to use currency converter and handy calculator. In fact it supports over 190 popular currencies, works without active internet connection and even supports custom rates. This makes it the perfect tool for business, overseas travel or anyone interested in currency trading.

News

* AppAdvice. AppAdvice tells you everything there is to know about apps and your iPhone or iPad. What’s the latest app news? Which apps came out and need to be downloaded right now? Want to see a detailed review of any app in the top 25? Need to know what the best Twitter client is? AppAdvice shows you which apps you can’t live without and uncovers tips and tricks to get your iDevice rocking to its full potential.
* TechCrunch and Mashable for tech news
* The Weather Channel. The Weather Channel 2.81 takes your weather experience to the next level full screen maps, pollen forecasts and more.
* FOX News. With the FOX News iPhone app – receive FOX News Alerts, read fair and balanced headline news stories, stream live video, listen to FOX News Radio, browse through photo galleries, and watch the latest FNC clips on demand, all for free!

Lifestyle

* Yelp. This can be your go-to source for all things brick-and-mortar, tailored for the iPhone. Whether you’re looking for a mechanic or a drugstore, the Yelp app makes it a breeze to find the best one based on the sites’ comprehensive library of reviews, without driving all over town. Either browse by category, or rely on the iPhone GPS to peg your location and find locations nearby. You can also write reviews from the phone, allowing you to ward off potential customers when you end up at a dive before you even head home.
* Pandora Radio. Pandora Radio is your own free personalized radio now available to stream music on your iPhone or iPad. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a “station” that plays their music and more music like it.
* Shazam . Shazam helps you to learn what song is playing. Just point your phone towards the music source to identify and buy the track, or share your discovery with friends and family.

* Wunder Radio. It’s the best web radio hub according to Rolling Stone. You can listen to over fifty thousand radio stations and on-demand shows with WunderRadio. It provides sophisticated search capabilities to help you sort through the vast number of stations. The directory of stations is constantly updated and allows you to browse by over 400 different genre (sports, music, talk etc) – as well as by location.
* Vevo HD for Music Videos
* Netflix for watching movies
* Runkeeper. You can use it to track your mountain bike rides and when you are jogging. It’s a good way to maintain your workout motivation.

Social

* Friends Around Me. Friends Around Me is a free mobile app for interacting with friends 24/7 across social networks: check-in directly to Foursquare and share status on Twitter, Facebook. Meet new people nearby or across the world through an interactive location-based search.
* Fring. Fring is a multi-award winning mobile application that lets you make free voice calls, free video calls (one way) and live IM chats directly from your iPhone and iPod touch.
* WhatsApp Messenger (#1 in Social Networking (iPhone) on Aug 16, 2011). With this app you can enjoy group conversations with your contacts, send Video, Images, and Voice notes to your friends and contacts, send WhatsApp messages internationally without international charges.
* AIM (Free Edition). Chat with your Facebook friends on AIM for iPhone, even if they’re not AIM users. To get started, just click Facebook Connect button at the top of the AIM Buddy List. Your Facebook friends and groups will be added to your Buddy List (with the Facebook icon next to their name). Now chatting with your Facebook friends is as easy as using AIM.

Utilities

* Flashlight. Flashlight fills your screen with bright white light to illuminate your world when you find yourself in a dark spot or concert. Includes fully customizable special effects including: Strobe Light, Trippy, S.O.S., Yin-Yang, ((NEW)) Holiday Lights and more.
* Bug Spray. It sends a signal that keeps mosquitos and spiders away. Users say it really works.
* iWatermark is a great photography app for iPhone according to users.

There are thousands of apps and it’s important to select those that will work best for you. These are some of the most recommended apps in various spheres but if you have some other suggestions about apps that deserve to be included in the list of the most useful ones, feel free to share your ideas.

Further reading:

Which Way to Go – Apple or Android? Niggles of Each

The Top Browsers for Android Services

Smart Alternatives to Expensive Productivity Software

Google+ vs Facebook. Time to Switch?

Amazon’s Instant Video Streaming vs Netflix Services

Free Internet on Roaming? The Smarter Way to Read on the Go