DIAA: Best Book Apps

This category, unlike the one the preceeded it, isn’t a very big one to choose from. It was actually pretty easy to pick my two favorite book applications for the iPhone of 2008. They are as follows:

Stanza

I cannot begin to explain how simple this app is. You download the app for free… then you download books for free. It isn’t the prettiest UI in the world. Heck, it may be on of the uglier ones, but it’s practical. It works. And most importantly, it is stupid easy to find and download books on the fly to your iPhone and get reading. Yes kids, people in the world still do read books.

Classics

Arguably one of the most underrated apps in the iTunes store. The UI alone for this app is worth the price of purchase. With a sticker price ranging from $2.99 to as low as $0.99, you can ALL afford to check out this book reader. You pay a price, and then you get this application that comes preloaded with 12 books (13 now, since they added A Christmas Carol). After about a month on the shelves, they added another book, with promises of more to come. Definitely check out Classics. It may be on of the most good-looking interfaces you interact with on your iPhone.

An app-auling situation…

There is something about the iTunes App store that I have thought about (and has concerned me)in the back of my mind since I started purchasing apps. It’s the whole “Top Paid” and “Top Free” lists. I seriously believe there is a serious flaw in the way the App store (and maybe even the entire iTunes store) is set up. Let me start off my semi-rant by a situation…

Classics ($2.99) is a great reading app. Recieved a lot of publicity and rightfully so: it’s amazing. It releases on the app store, climbs the charts and the developers quite a bit of money. A week or so passes and as usual… a boat load of $0.99 apps come out and knock Classics down, down, down in the charts. Fast forward to now, and the people at Classics have dropped their price to $0.99 (for a limited time).

The point of this post is not to say, “don’t buy an app when it comes out… it will be cheaper later.” It just pisses me off to a degree that I have to search a bit to find those premium QUALITY app. For the average iPhone user (of which many I meet when I activate their phone and teach them how to use it), all they know is price and see nothing more.

What do you people think? Post a comment or address it yourselves in a YouTube video. I’m surprised not many more people are talking about this. Sure, some will argue that it’s about the little guy and not the big name developers. Well, to be honest… I don’t care who the !@#$ develops it. I want to know (easily) which apps are the best at what they do. Written reviews are good to a degree… but you only get to see three of them and 90% of the time, not much info is revealed. I feel like like I’m ranting and touching several issues in this post so let me finalize by saying…

The App store sucks. It has to be refined. The way apps are ranked is a ridicule and a slap in the face to the hard working developers that DON’T rip off apps. That’s not to say there aren’t good $1 apps. I’m just saying a lot of $5-10 apps are taking a hit and being overlookd. Think about it people.

Future plans

I have been brainstorming over the past weekend about an idea. Come this holiday season I will be putting together DRJ0K3R’s iPhone App Awards for 2008. Of course, I ain’t some technology pundit that’s up there with the creme de la creme of critics, but I got a goo opinion on what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s worth your dollars. Over the next few days (in between my study sessions), I will be thinking about how I will categorize the awards and how I will go about delivering the content (primarily through the blog). Now, I realize by putting my plans on this public domain there may be several others that wish to politely borrow the concept. That’s fine with me. It’s not like everyones’ ideas will overlap entirely.

If you guys have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. I’m thinking of just going through each category on iTunes and deliver the best and second best app for each, finishing off with what I think is the best app out of ALL of them. The framework is there, I just have to get some proper images together and I should be good to go. Once again, let me know what you guys think below.

Cheap AND high quality? Sign me up!

There so many ridiculous games for the iPhone, it’s hard to know which ones to buy, which ones to try. Sure, you can go the cheap route, or be more daring and buy premium. However, as of late, I find myself paying attention to specific developers for apps (not only for games). One of which I think you all should check out is Freeverse (it’s an iTunes link to their stuff, don’t worry you won’t be bombarded with porn and spyware). These guys develope really good quality apps that are ALL (except one) 99 cents or less! I recently picked up Burning Monkey Casino (iTunes link) and have yet to test it, however, I assure you that you, as I, will receive more than 99 cents worth of satisfaction. Check it out people and make sure to let me know what you think.