It’s a tricky business this App Store. On the one hand Apple says there’s over 65000 apps, but you can hardly even consider shooting a first glance at more than half of them. One category of apps that’s making up for a large percentage of apps on the store, is content based apps.
These are apps that don’t do anything but display information that’s already contained within its code. I’m not talking about Site-Specific Apps which pull content from the web, as discussed earlier by Preshit. I know it’s over generalization of apps, but content based apps do present something that’s not available on other platforms like the Mac or PC. Writing for Smoking Apples I did get the opportunity to test out a bunch of such applications over time, and while many of them are worthless compilations of a Google search, some of them are actually really well done.
Harvest
The basic premise behind this app is you’re standing at the fruits and vegetables aisle at the super market (or open market, as is in India), and you can’t remember how you’re supposed to choose the good ones. So you whip out your iPhone, and get tips on how to choose the best watermelon, or to know which cabbage is going to be the most tender and flavourful of the lot. And at the bottom lies a strip informing you the estimated pesticide residues that there might be for that particular type of fruit. I’ll be staying away from Peaches is all I’m saying.
Sean Murphy has done a brilliant job with designing the app, so that there’s nothing overwhelming about finding details what you’re looking at. The decision of ‘how much info’ has also been played out nicely. At what point does this app stop becoming a quick glance at the supermarket and turns into a reference library for household perishables? The tips for each fruit will not take up more than 7-10 seconds to read. And tap the ‘Storing’ button to see how best to store the fruits.
While I don’t think this app would be useful for seasoned marketeers like myself, I’m sure it will come in handy for those who are just learning the tricks of the trade. At $2.99, Harvest is a decent app to look at.
MacTracker
If you’re an Apple fan, you are expected to know intricate details of Steve Jobs’ life, the history of the Apple logo, and most importantly, the specifications of every Apple product ever to have shipped out of Cupertino.
MacTracker is a catalog of every Apple product ever made, including the AppleTV, iPhone, Xserves, Performa, right back to the 128k Mac Classic. You can drill down into model numbers, get information on processor speed, hard drive capacity, and even tap any field to copy it to clipboard. The icing on the cake is you can tap to play the startup chime for all the Mac models right since the Classic Mac!
MacTracker is a free download, and is a great resource to have on your iPhone. It’s sad that Apple doesn’t allow them to use icons or pictures to show what each of those models looked like, so you’re left with a generic ‘mac’ image for any and all items.
iCheatSheets
When it comes to learning a new software language, or even day to day coding, a cheat sheet comes in handy for quick reference. Traditionally cheat sheets have been cleverly designed to be printed on a single sheet of paper, folded, and placed on a desk. With the iPhone of course, there’s an app for that.
iCheatSheets is a free app, well designed (minus the orange theme), and provides a full set of sheets for CSS, PHP, Subversion, and oddly even World of Warcraft. I would say it’s a great concept, but poor execution. Most of the time it just spits out the commands, which is good for a professional who just needs to be reminded, but the lack of example usage means the learner has to continue his search elsewhere.
I’ve looked at other apps like CheatSheet and Cheats (both paid), but they are not even worth the mention. Hopefully John Ohl, developer of iCheatSheets, brings in the last bit of polish that’s required for this app. He could even charge a couple of bucks for it instead it giving it away for free.
Ruminations of an iPhone app tester
A little whole ago when Corey reviewed Presenter Pro, the a commenter said he prefers apps that do something rather than just display info. While many of the content based apps are full of junk, there are some that really helpful. Many of these apps also provide on-device functions, like using the GPS on the iPhone in a trekking info app, or keeping your favourites in a separate place. Some of them even hook up to the web for up-to-date info.
Whatever be the case, to have rich information at the tip of your hands, optimized in a way that’s only good for that particular type of content, is not such a bad thing after all. Everything from learning a new language, studying for a physics test, to keeping a database of information ready and waiting, just a tap away.
