A few months ago I wrote an article on my favourite iPad applications. I found that I probably should write one on my favourite iPhone apps as well. Some of the applications are present both for iPad and iPhone, but I have not included any games for iPhone. The main reason was that I wanted to focus on utility applications.

Productivity

• Week Cal, is a small app for showing a week view of your iPhone calendar. It works great.
• 1Password, is an app for storing passwords securely on your iPhone. This app can synchronise your passwords with your iPad and Mac, but can be a bit pricy.
• Occasions, is an app for reminding yourself about all those birthdays and other important occasions. It can even synchronize dates from Facebook with your contacts.
• Den Norske Almanakk, the only reason for getting this is if you want to have an updated list of when different Norwegian holidays are celebrated during the year. Hopefully they will include the iPhone calendar entries soon and make this app very useful.
• Meetup, I attend several meet-ups, and this little app is quite nice to have if you are an user on meetup.com.
• Gule Sider, this app may be the best phone directory for Norway on your mobile.
• Instapaper, even better on the iPad, but if you ever need to store something and read it later, this is one of the better apps. This app lets you read the article or document on your mobile phone. There are several ways for you to be bookmarking/storing things both from mac, pc, iPhone and iPad, and from within your different browsers.
• Dropbox, if you use Dropbox.com for sharing some files, then this little app is a very cheap (free) companion.
• Wunderlist, is quite nifty if you want to share a shopping list or todo list with your girlfriend/wife/friend.
• iFiles, might be a bit more powerful than Dropbox, and let you, among else, store attachments from mail inside this app for later reading or retrieval.

Tools

• XSysInfo, want to find some information on your phone. This app might be of assistance, but equally important, it can help you clean up your memory usage.
  UPDATE: XSysInfo has removed the memory clean function, so it is no longer as useful as it once was.

Travel

• Trafikanten, find the next bus from your nearest stop in Oslo, Norway.
• NSB, actually very quick and simple to use if you are going by train in Norway.
• TaxiNå!, another Norwegian speciality. If you have this app you always can get the closest taxi central.
• Visitnorway.com, if you want to find something to do in Norway, this app might help you. An overview over the most interesting sights and happenings in Norway.

Social

• Facebook, the natural shoe in.
• Twitter, also a natural.
• LinkedIn, they have upgraded this one and made it even better.
• Google+, it is the new rising star. I like it.

GPS

• Foursquare, there are several check-in applications for sharing where you are with the world. Foursquare was one of the first, maybe the original?
• Gowalla, this app let’s you check in on several services simultaneously. (E.g. Facebook, Foursquare and Gowalla)
• Google Latitude, I like this mainly because I can choose who can see me, and I can set it up to updating automatically in the background.
• TomTom, is the best alternative when you need an offline map for Western Europe, US, or almost any other region? A bit costly though.
• Waze, this is best if you drive regularly from A to B and want to see what traffic issues there are. The social way to handle traffic reporting.
• UltimateDrive, BMW have created an app for sharing the best roads.
• BensinPris, need to find the cheapest gas prices? A social way for discovering cheap gas.
• iTrafikken, the latest news on traffic in Norway.

Weather

• Yr.no, my preferred weather forecast.
• VG Pent.no, but if I want to compare the forecast from the two largest weather forecasting companies in Norway this is the way to do it.

Food & Wine

• Cellar Rat, a quick way to discover good wines on the wine menu in an restaurant.
• Fresh Fish, if you want to learn how to identify fresh fish in the supermarket.

Entertainment

• IMDB, is this film any good?
• Filmweb, easy way to discover where the movie you want to see is being shown. You can even buy the tickets within this app.

EBook readers

• Stanza, I read quite a lot, mostly on my iPad, but when that device isn’t available the iPhone works too. Stanza is a bit more open than Kindle, and handles several file formats, and it is easy to create, convert and share eBooks from your computer using Calibre.
• Kindle, but when I want to read the latest English eBooks, Amazon comes to the rescue.

Photography

• Photosynth, Microsoft have been showing off their Photosynth technology for years, but it was when it became available on my iPhone that I got really interested. This app makes it really easy to create panoramas and other 3D views of the world.
• Camera+, is probably the best photography application for your iPhone. Check out the reviews.
• Hipstamatic, is one of several apps that creates old fashioned and arty photographs. I like it.
• Streetmate, black and white photography. Quickly and easily.
• Instagram, a modern day polaroid? A great hit on the web.
• Photobuddy, if you want to take photography to the next step you need to learn a few things regarding depth of field and other technical aspects of photography. This app might be of assistance.
• The Photographer’s Ephemeris. This app can, among else, tell you where the sun is rising and when. Another photographers companion app, but very well done. A bit pricy though.

Music, Video and Audio

• Audible, if you are listening to English audio books this app makes buying, downloading and listening to them a breeze.
• Bander, is one of many free streaming and music discovery apps. I just liked it.
• Spotify and WiMPmight be the two leading streaming services in Norway.
• TuneIn Radio, is probably the best radio app on your iPhone and iPad. It is available as both a free and pro version.

Other interesting applications

• Momento, is an app for gathering all your updates on all your social networks into one calendar view.

Posted from Oslo, Oslo, Norway.