If you’ve got an iPhone or an iPad, there are a fair number of apps you can download for free: Pages, Numbers, iMovie, GarageBand and so on.
But did you know there’s a secret cache of Apple apps that no one but Geniuses can download? There is, and they range from a basic flight sim game to a tank battler to an internal newspaper only Apple employees can read!
Over at BusinessInsider, they’ve put together a rundown of all the apps that only Apple employees get to use. They include:
• AppleConnect, an employee-only service that lets Apple employees sign into other apps and services.
• The Daily Download, a newspaper for Apple employees that’s filled with the latest company news.
• GKTank, an app built to demonstrate the abilities of the GameKit dev tool.
• Inferno, an app that runs an iPhone’s hardware through a series of checks, shutting down if the internals reach a critical temperature.
• MobileGenius, which allows Apple employees to check customer info and log tests on broken devices.
• MobileRadar, Apple’s internal bug tracker.
• Operator, the dashboard for testing the component and sensors in iPhones, iPods and iPads.
• Receipts, Apple’s in-house expensing app.
• Redzone Mobile, used by Apple Store managers to compare their performance with other retail locations and previous years.
• Switchboard, the employee-only App Store.
• TouchFighter, an experimental game developed by Apple employees to test the iPhone accelerometer.
• Unibox, an app that sends notifications from Apple to employees’ phones, and also serves as a corporate voicemail client.
Do any of these apps seem like ones you’d like to use? Let us know in the comments.
Source: BusinessInsider
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
34 responses to “The secret apps that Apple doesn’t want you to know about”
You forgot to list espresso…
:-)
Please stop posting this old stuff,
At-least understand the content that you are covering
Lol. I have all of those. Actually there is over 60 internal apps. I have them all
@teemumkel:disqus Send us a list, and we’ll do a post about it. Email leander AT cultofmac
Thanks!
Miksi?
Aren’t you cool!
do you feel special? Idiot.
Troll.
OK so how do we trigger these
The beauty of iOS is that ANY company can make their own apps for internal use, install a VPN profile, and then run their own internal apps on these devices… Allow companies to design and utilize their own apps, without having to submit them to the app stor, that is all, nothing more.
That is quite the opposite of the beauty of IOS, the beauty of IOS is that everything is vetted, Im an android user and I know that, YOU can only install from the appstore(without jailbreak) and that is a strength and weekness, but in this aspect its a huge weakness…….Now the truth is that any company could make an app for android and create a vpn tunnel and distribute it like any other peice of employee software!!!
Actually, you CAN do as @Chris described. Using a tool called configurator, or an Enterprise certificate/configuration profile, you can install apps to an iOS device that were made in XCode, internally – without the need for any AppStore at all. This can include specific weblinks, iOS native apps/IPA, lock out controls, etc. I use it all the time for trade shows, when we need to configure our kiosk iPads to only showcase our iOS app, and lock out Safari and other built in apps. (Single app mode, basically).
Asshat minge…I install little from the App Store. Eat my jailbroke asshole.
And thats what makes Android have more than 98% of mobile malware.
Like this article shows:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475964/mobile-security/98–of-mobile-malware-targets-android-platform.html
There is a whole shit load of them…this is old news.
http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Apple_Internal_Apps
It was new to me.
it may be old to you richard but the column is not your personal rag.
Fair enough that Apple has apps for employee use. Given sufficient consumer demand similar apps will be released to us.
I would LOVE to have access to a Redzone Mobile-like program/app in my company. I have to find and input information into spreadsheets that I’ve created along with the functions that I’ve entered just to measure my performance against myself in past years or past managers. That would be a major help.
AppleConnect is also on company issued MacBook’s as is RedZone.
I would like to know how to get some of these. I searched for them and they never came up. What would I need to do.
Apple employee only :)
Total click bait. How are these apps Apple doesn’t want you to know about? These apps aren’t even meant for general public use. Apple could care less if the public knew about it because the public can’t get these apps even if they did know about it.
Is there anyway someone can tell me how to get some of these apss, I repair iPhones and if this is true would love to get a few of the apps. Thanks
Don’t tell me this shit unless I can install it on Cydia.
I would use the app that murders Kim Kardashian
Every enterprise has their own apps.
These are NOT “secret” apps. They are nothing more than company-specific applications for use by Apple employees. My company, as well as thousands of others, have internal applications that our employees are required to use on their mobile devices. These apps are no more secret than a company’s intranet. This is a stupid and worthless article.
I have Burnin, EarthBound, Operator, and a Non user-interface version of Inferno on my iPhone 6 prototype plus a total of 14 apps, FIRST IN THE WORLD!!
See pictures at @EveryApplesPro
Please share and do article of iPhone 6 prototype running 14 switchboard apps and earthbound
http://youtu.be/_13OSfEHbqo?a
Sorry, but I must be looking in the very wrong place because Pages in the App Store is $19.99. How is that free?
@Teemu Mäkelä Don’t send them anything until they sever their business relationship with MacKeeper.
Lol, I have the new apps (such as Switchboard version 7.0 which sucks on ice)…
All i’m gonna say…