I shudder to think how many apps I have downloaded and bought this year. Of all the [I dare to count] apps I have used this year, there are a number that are standout apps.

These apps I use every day and will be the ones I look for if I ever move from the iPhone. As you may know I am constantly running three or four different phones (currently the Nexus One, the iPhone and the WP7) but the lead ‘phone is still the iPhone. In part that is because some of the apps aren’t available on other phones. When they are, you can expect to see me move from the iPhone.

Onto the top ten. In order of importance.

Spotify

I love love Spotify. I am also really excited about the WP7 but it doesn’t have Spotify so I am not moving. It is that important.

As a premium subscriber to Spotify I can use the iPhone app to listen to music on the go. Before Spotify I used to carry a 120 GB iPod as well to ensure I always had that one song I wanted to play right now. With mobile access to Spotify I can always find the song I want to listen to. But moreover, it has boosted my ability to share music with others by sharing links on social networks and to listen to other recommendations given to me.

The best way to explain the value of Spotify to me is to share my usage.

Most mornings I wake up with a song in my head. As I take my daughter to school most mornings, I often want to share that song with my daughter. So I find that song on Spotify, add it to a playlist and sync it for offline listening in the car. When we watch Glee or the X Factor I sit there with my Spotify app and add the original of the songs we might hear on these programmes (Don’t Stop Believing by Journey and Loser by Beck are just two examples) – I sync them for offline listening whilst watching TV so in the morning we’re ready to roll. And because this is Spotify it is easy to add more songs, so when I got Loser I also synced Where It’s A (she liked) and Devil’s Haircut (she didn’t). For the record she now does the same making me listen to Kei$ha and more…

For my own music discovery, I watched the making of Madman Across the Water which talked about the early days of Elton John’s career. After watching that I immediately went onto Spotify and synced up Elton’s first four albums. Apart from Madman, I hadn’t heard the others. So the next day I listened to Elton’s ealry catalogue, all on Spotify.

I know some people can’t get over the issue of not ‘owning’ the albums but from someone who has a vast collection of Vinyl, CD’s and Digital Music I rarely listen to them because it is easier and quicker to listen to Spotify. However, I am not about to offload my collections!

For me Spotify is the most used and most essential of all the apps.

Shazam

Sticking with the music theme, I use Shazam all the time. In a taxi, in a bar in a shop – if I hear a song I try and tag it with Shazam. I like the ability to instantly find out the song, the album and the artist. I like the way I can share that with others (I found another cover of Dark Side of the Moon last night, sitting in a Sushi bar. I was immediately able to tell others on Twitter about it.) The tagging library also means I can have a record of what I heard so when I get to a shop or go online/spotify I can delve further into the music.

Shazam only rarely struggles to make the connection mainly with classical music. Where I would like this to go next is to have the ability to give me a ‘i’m listening to’ function. I heard ‘Down Under’ somewhere the other day and wanted to share my enjoyment with Twitter. I used Shazam  as the quickest way to share it but had to use the standard ‘I used Shazam to discover’ which prompted a number of followers to comment , “I can’t believe you didn’t know that’ – what would be great to do is change the message so I can personalise it. I was also in a cab in Bulgaria when a song came on that my daughter and I love so I used Shazaamed it, and sent her a virtual to make the connection.

Instapaper & Bookmarks

I am by nature a skim reader. I skim a lot of information which I bank for when I need it. I also see a lot of articles I would like to read but I am in the middle of doing something else. So I use Intapaper and Delicious for this purpose.

Instapaer is just awesome. Using the Shareaholic plugin on Chrome and Firefox, with one button I can save the page to my Instapaper account for reading at a later time. For me this is usually on the train, so I make sure I sync my Instapaper account (I stupidly bought the wifi only iPad) – I can then read the articles when I am offline and paying attention.

What I especially like about the app is the ability to ‘read later’ links I find within articles. So if I read something that refers and links to other articles, I can click on each link and be offered the chance to ‘read it later’ with Instataper. So when I am connected again, Instapaper will go and bank those articles for you.

I rely heavily on Delicous as my personal library of articles and interesting snippets I find on the web. On the iPhone there is still not an official app that I can integrate with Safari so I have to use the bookmarks app. This app works in two ways, the first thing it does is give you the instructions on how to get an ‘add to delicious’ function to your safari. It is a workaround function that looks fiddly but when working it is great. The app itself is just another ‘window’ into my Delicous bookmarks which I don’t use so much on the go.

Balloonimals

@mattobrien introduced me to this one. It is an app for balloon animals. You are presented with a coloured balloon which you then inflate by blowing into the microphone. It then inflates the balloon which you then ‘shape’ by shaking the ‘phone. As you shake you see the animal come to life. Once it is made you can make it do things. So if you touch the fish’s nose it blows bubbles, the dog sneezes (and the ‘phone vibrates), the T Rex roars and more.

I find this app utterly charming and a great distraction for little people. In fact I haven’t met anyone young or old who isn’t charmed by this app. If you don’t want child slobber all over your phone you can just shake the ‘phone to inflate it, but where’s the fun in that?

Flick Football

This game was the first from a new company called Neon Play. I know the guys there which is why I got the app. I am not a sports fan so wouldn;t normally go for this type of game.

Flick football gives you the chance to score goals from the penalty spot. You aim is to use your finger to ‘flick’ the football passed the goalie. But its not so simple as that. The way you swipe your finger will dictate how you curve the ball, important when you need to hit a token for bonus points or skirt it past the wall of defenders.

This game is simple to play but horribly addictive. With a score multiplier you can rack up great scores if you keep hitting the back of the net, but it gets harder when you aren’t on target. With great commentary, “He couldn’t even hit a barn door’ this is a great game that I still can’t stop playing.

Notable other: DoodleJump. Easy to pick up, easy to play but my daughter still beats me by miles..

Sky+

How many times have you sat on the train, read the paper and thought, ‘i’d love to record that’ but your miles from home. Using the Sky+ app makes it so easy to find the program and hit record. So long as you are at least 30 minutes before the start of the programme, it will record it for you (and your box is connected to a ‘phone line.)

The additional feature of showing other airings of the same programme (a feature not currently on the set top box) only adds to its value.

Foursquare

I check in a lot. I like foursquare. I started playing it out of interest and research and then for the gaming aspect, trying to get higher points than my friends.

I now use it to help me share where I am with others (when I wish to) and to help me in new cities. using foursquare I can quickly find a cafe near by and get an idea of what it is like from foursquare reviews. I am sure more sociable people would also use it to connect with someone in the cafe and start a conversation but not me

One of the challenges foursquare will face next year (apart from Facebook Places and maybe Google Hotpot) will be cleaning up the data. At the moment, there may be five entries for the same place, all with different spelling versions. At some point these need to be cleared and centralised to deliver a more uncluttered experience that you can achieve with Gowalla.

Notable other: Gowalla feels to me to be of higher quality but far lower take up of audience. The ability to drop and collect virtual goods in geographical locations is a neat idea which, on top of badges could catch on. The biggest reason I don’t always use Gowalla is the pain of adding a venue. So it is easy to add the venue but when you need to add extras like categories you have to pull the list every time you need to add. A much better option would be to cache the location categories locally to speed up venue entry.

I know there is an app available that lets you check into all networks with one click but I haven’t tried it yet.

Notepad

The standard note taking function on the ipad and iPhone is something I use heavily to take notes. The ‘email’ function allows me to easily send throughts or work in progress to my mailbox for backup and further work at a later time. The landscape layout of the iPad app is annoying when typing at fury speed as a stray finger will select another note and kill your train of thought.

I know there are other note apps that let you store notes in the cloud but they require another log in which I never remember.

Dragon Dictate

I cannot believe this is free. Dragon Dictate allows you to dictate notes, translating this to text if you are connected to wifi or 3G. The dictation allows you to dictate larger chunks of content (a few paragraphs at a time) to build up the bones of an article before sending it off on email for later working. The ability to speak an email or a quick tweet is great but a feature I rarely use.

When I am inspired, I can use Dragon Dictate to generate a substantial amount of content with around 96% success in understanding the words. This really a great app.

Portfolio Live

To keep an eye on my Stock portfolio I use Portfolio Live. This app allows me to set up many different portfolios, add stock positions and prices then keeps a live update of the positions.

The app will handle international markets although each portfolio can only handle one currency. The updating frequency is more frequent than the standard 15 minute delays from the default iPhone app. This app would be even better if I could save my positions centrally so it updated multiple phones.

So, that was my 11. Have you tried these? What did you like? If you have time to leave your views and suggestions in the comments, I would be most grateful.

Commercial Message

I will be running a number of training seminars in 2011 covering apps. In these seminars we look at the different types of apps (not just mobile), offer examples of apps to help business and look at how a business can create their own app.

The first seminar  is live at Digital Tomorrow Today.