Gallery : 10 of the Most Beautiful iPhone & iPod Touch Apps

iQuarium — 99¢

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iQuarium is a bit of a dangerous thing to put in your pocket, and not because the virtual aquarium and its little pet Parrot Chiclid fish are so real looking you might fear getting your pants wet, either. It’s one of those game/commitments you make to keep a virtual being alive that has the potential to be addicting and create obsessive behavior in those so inclined. You can build and maintain and rearrange your tank just so and the fish develops a kind of personality based on how you treat it – with the everlooming possibility the thing might die from your neglect or mistreatment. 3D graphics on the tank renderings are quite stellar, though the fish itself has kind of oddly brilliant eyes that take the app down a visual notch. Still, it’s a very realistic water based environment right there on your device, which is amazing enough.

easyFind — $1.99

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Here’s a simple, useful app you know you’re just kicking yourself for not having thought of first. How often do you dread the process of actually searching the web on your iPhone or iPod Touch? You open Safari, wait for a website to load, find the search input field on the webpage, type in your query, wait some more for the results to load and hey, hey if you want to search for the same thing on another site
it’s lather, rinse, repeat. With easyFind a number of popular sites are preconfigured (Wikipedia, Flicker, Yahoo, Google among others), plus you can create shortcuts and bookmarklets and even extend its search capabilities to custom websites with just a little HTML knowledge. Type your search query in once and search multiple sites. Results are delivered in the app for fast access and the UI is clean, simple and easy to navigate. A $2 winning ticket.

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About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in iPhone, iPod Touch, News, Quickies, Software |

  • http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell

    Not Tapbots stuff in there? For shame, Mr Lazar.

  • http://yellowapp.wordpress.mobi ut matt

    hi
    take a look at opps! artist edition!

    http://www.yellowapp.wordpress.com

  • Talhah

    The first couple where good. The rest where pretty crap. should have reduced your list to 5.

  • http://www.gearsandwidgets.com/ phoenix

    Very nice roundup. I’ve also been impressed with the design behind Keymote, and also iQuarium, although there are a bunch in here (Ancient Frog?) that I think are pretty visually impressive as well.

    Also, I have to tip my hat to putting more than one on a page with some nice lovely screenshots before having to click the next button to move to the next two or so apps. Much better than 10 discrete pages.

  • http://www.me.com me

    Y O U

    H A V E

    S H I T

    T A S T E ! ! !

  • http://cultofmac.com Lonnie Lazar

    @Craig – I kinda thought the Tapbots have been overdone but when you’re picking 10 out of 75 gazillion, you’re bound to leave a few good ones out.

    @Tallhah – suggestions please.

    @ut matt – yes! that opps! artist edition is way cool; thanks for the tip.

    @phoenix – thanks; trying to get the hang of the gallery thing.

    @me – you’re not very helpful and your caps lock appears to be stuck on ‘engage’.

  • OlsonBW

    More desperate pleas for web page hits by breaking up an article into multiple pages. I’m not going past page one. Fix this!

  • iGenius

    I’ll take a well-functioning UI over a pretty-looking UI any day. This is the main problem I have with too many Apple products: Eye candy takes precedence over functionality.

    Why not suggest apps that WORK WELL, rather than those which merely look good? Are you really that easily distracted by bright, shiny stuff?

  • http://cultofmac.com Lonnie Lazar

    @iGenius – if you read the intro and the copy to each entry you’ll notice these apps all also do well what they purport to do. seems to me there’s not a one among the bunch that’s there just as ‘eye candy.’ when you can work well and look good doing it – then you’ve really got it going on.

  • iGenius

    I guess the title threw me off: “Ten Shiny and Colorful Toys”, or something like that.

    Had it been entitled “Ten Useful and Well Designed Apps (that happen to Look Good Too)” I may have been more interested.

    Sorry if the look of the apps was not your main criteria. I guess I missed your real intent in selecting these apps to showcase.

  • http://www.me.com me

    @lonnie – if you’re going to be so bold to call an article “10 of the Most Beautiful iPhone & iPod Touch Apps” and you picks exhibit your acute sense of shit taste, you’re going to get bold responses… especially ones that are capped to show everyone who reads this article your amazing lack of insight.

  • sooper8

    I am with OlsonBW on this…nuff said

  • Darcy McGee

    > It’s OK you never learned the metric system, it really is

    No it’s not. It’s a sign that you’re part of a history of american cultural imperialism and ignorance.

    The rest of the world is metric. You asses should convert.