Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Features, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
iPhone apps I paid for but don't use
When the App Store was launched, I went a bit nutty and downloaded lots of apps. Eventually I limited myself to apps I thought I'd love. Some were free, some weren't. Recently iTunes told me that I had 13 updates available, and I noticed that I've paid for many apps that I don't use.
It's easy to list your favorite apps. As a contrast, here's a list of the apps that I paid for but don't use (as well as why). Note that all app links will launch iTunes.
This great app by Avatron Software lets you use your iPhone as a virtual hard drive, and was the first of its kind that I tried.* Later, it was replaced by Evernote. I use multiple computers, and accessing files from any one of them is important. Throw the iPhone on top and I'm a happy guy.
Classics
The beautiful ebook reader by Andrew Katz and Phill Ryu brings literary classics to the iPhone via a sleek and intuitive UI. It's even been featured in Apple's television ads. It's averaged 4 stars across nearly 7,000 ratings. So why don't I use it?
It's no fault of the app. I just don't like reading that much text on the iPhone. Even the best iPhone reader (and this is probably it) couldn't win me over.
Fastlane Street Racing
The original iPhone game demo featured some cool accelerometer-based flying and racing games that grabbed my attention. Turn by moving the phone? Tilt to accelerate or brake? Awesome! I bought Fastlane immediately to experience the fun.
And it was fun, but fun that wore off quickly. The accelerometer implementation seemed to be the thrust of the game. Of course, my favorite racing game is Ridge Racer on the PSP, so what do I know?
Glyder
Another victim of the accelerometer curse. Glyder by Glu is quite pretty and the gameplay is fun. Wooshing around is quite pleasant, but I got bored collecting orbs, etc. The good news is my kids love it.
Groceries (Grocery Shopping List)
I first heard about this app on Twitter. People whose opinions I respect were raving about it. "Oh, Groceries is so elegant." At last I was convinced, and bought it.
They were right, it's beautiful and elegant. Assembling a list is simple as is "crossing off" items you've collected. Plus it looks great. I don't use it for one simple reason: Paper is faster. In the "tap tap tap" it takes me to navigate to "Milk," I could have written it three times. My love of paper is no secret, and many "productivity" apps attempt to mimic its simplicity and ease. Many come close. None hit the mark. Groceries, while a great little app (and perfect for some), didn't make it for me.
Koi Pond
Koi Pond was the first iPhone game that I really fell in love with. It's actually more of a toy than a game. It presents you with a nicely-rendered koi pond. You can feed the fish, tourment them or splash around. Choose from several settings, fish, etc. My kids loved it as well.
Eventually, I got kind of bored. It's still a great little app, but I've experienced what it does to satiation.
*And there's the rub. If I were able to try some of these apps before buying, I could have avoided some purchases. But that's an old argument.
PhotoFrame
PhotoFrame by Chilli X is one of those apps I thought I'd use more than I do. It's pretty cute, really. Insert your own photo to display along the time and date. When running on your phone while docked on your desk, it's quite useful. The trouble is, my iPhone is only docked overnight.
Touchgrind
Touchgrind is definitely fun. You push a tiny skateboard around a skate park, do tricks, etc. Eventually other games replaced it, I noticed I hadn't played it in a while and removed it from my phone to save space. No fault of the game, it just failed to keep my attention.
There's my list. Surely you've purchased an app or two that you longer use. Sound off in the comments.
It's easy to list your favorite apps. As a contrast, here's a list of the apps that I paid for but don't use (as well as why). Note that all app links will launch iTunes.
This great app by Avatron Software lets you use your iPhone as a virtual hard drive, and was the first of its kind that I tried.* Later, it was replaced by Evernote. I use multiple computers, and accessing files from any one of them is important. Throw the iPhone on top and I'm a happy guy.
Classics
The beautiful ebook reader by Andrew Katz and Phill Ryu brings literary classics to the iPhone via a sleek and intuitive UI. It's even been featured in Apple's television ads. It's averaged 4 stars across nearly 7,000 ratings. So why don't I use it?
It's no fault of the app. I just don't like reading that much text on the iPhone. Even the best iPhone reader (and this is probably it) couldn't win me over.
Fastlane Street Racing
The original iPhone game demo featured some cool accelerometer-based flying and racing games that grabbed my attention. Turn by moving the phone? Tilt to accelerate or brake? Awesome! I bought Fastlane immediately to experience the fun.
And it was fun, but fun that wore off quickly. The accelerometer implementation seemed to be the thrust of the game. Of course, my favorite racing game is Ridge Racer on the PSP, so what do I know?
Glyder
Another victim of the accelerometer curse. Glyder by Glu is quite pretty and the gameplay is fun. Wooshing around is quite pleasant, but I got bored collecting orbs, etc. The good news is my kids love it.
Groceries (Grocery Shopping List)
I first heard about this app on Twitter. People whose opinions I respect were raving about it. "Oh, Groceries is so elegant." At last I was convinced, and bought it.
They were right, it's beautiful and elegant. Assembling a list is simple as is "crossing off" items you've collected. Plus it looks great. I don't use it for one simple reason: Paper is faster. In the "tap tap tap" it takes me to navigate to "Milk," I could have written it three times. My love of paper is no secret, and many "productivity" apps attempt to mimic its simplicity and ease. Many come close. None hit the mark. Groceries, while a great little app (and perfect for some), didn't make it for me.
Koi Pond
Koi Pond was the first iPhone game that I really fell in love with. It's actually more of a toy than a game. It presents you with a nicely-rendered koi pond. You can feed the fish, tourment them or splash around. Choose from several settings, fish, etc. My kids loved it as well.
Eventually, I got kind of bored. It's still a great little app, but I've experienced what it does to satiation.
*And there's the rub. If I were able to try some of these apps before buying, I could have avoided some purchases. But that's an old argument.
PhotoFrame
PhotoFrame by Chilli X is one of those apps I thought I'd use more than I do. It's pretty cute, really. Insert your own photo to display along the time and date. When running on your phone while docked on your desk, it's quite useful. The trouble is, my iPhone is only docked overnight.
Touchgrind
Touchgrind is definitely fun. You push a tiny skateboard around a skate park, do tricks, etc. Eventually other games replaced it, I noticed I hadn't played it in a while and removed it from my phone to save space. No fault of the game, it just failed to keep my attention.
There's my list. Surely you've purchased an app or two that you longer use. Sound off in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
cam said 1:37PM on 7-25-2009
My list:
Koi Pond
Air Sharing
Toki Tori
Diorama
Maybe:
Cro-mag
Autostich
Reply
Alexander Stone said 1:51PM on 7-25-2009
My list is so long I don't want to share. A few highlights, though..
some nameless piano app
some nameless drum app
Birdhouse (not a bad app, just I don't know why I'd want to use Twitter as a notepad)
BeatMaker
Spore
Touchgrind
Tumble Pro
Asphalt 4 (replaced with Real Racing)
Crash Nitro Cart
There's a BUNCH of non-game ones, too that I can't even remember as I've removed them from my iTunes over time, too.
Basically, what happens is... you get an iPod or an iPhone and it's your first iPod touch or iPhone and you're immediately entranced by all the fun apps and wow'd at all the cool things you can do so you start buying cheap games. Then, Sunday is coming up and you want to load your phone up with stuff to help you do work so you start buying silly things like Air Share and a few PDF readers, later on realizing that... you don't really need that stuff.
Some things are learned the hard way.
Reply
Brandon said 3:37PM on 7-25-2009
JaaduVNC and Beatmaker are my most painful purchases. Over $40 of app juice barely used right there!
Jason Martin said 1:59PM on 7-25-2009
I actually used Koi Pond for about a day, but it remains on my iPhone because my 4-year-old loves it. Whenever she's bored, Koi Pond is good for a few minutes at a time. Same thing with my 6-year-old and Cro-Mag, Rolando, and Tap Tap Revenge. He loves those games. All of them are still on my iPhone solely for my kids.
Reply
maique said 2:09PM on 7-25-2009
i have dozens and dozens of them...
Reply
Murphy Mac said 2:21PM on 7-25-2009
I thought I would use air sharing more. I use Evernote - but don't really see it as an air sharing replacement. What am I missing?
To be honest, I use the built-in stuff the most. That doesn't mean the apps aren't extremely useful, but I don't use them as much.
I probably use Motion X GPS the most from my app store collection.
Reply
George said 2:28PM on 7-25-2009
I have Groceries, as well as Grocery IQ and use one or the other all the time. Sure, paper is faster but once the items are in your Faves lists, it's much faster.
The real key is that I always have my shopping list with me. A paper list dies you no good if you forget it at home.
Reply
sodapop said 4:25PM on 7-25-2009
Thats when you call someone at home and ask them to email it to you :)
mark said 9:08PM on 7-25-2009
I agree completely. I have both, but Grocery IQ's the one I use. Using favorites saves me a ton of time, and like you said -- it's always with me. I also have someone who shops for me, so I can easily send lists to him. And now it supports multiple stores. That's HUGE. For me, Grocery IQ far outweighs paper.
Maxwell said 10:56PM on 7-25-2009
Splash Shopper for me. Stores, check, but also categories. AND - most importantly, it syncs with Splash Shopper on my Mac, so I do not have to fiddle-type everything on the 'phone.
phlyingpenguin said 1:25PM on 7-26-2009
Agreed that paper lists suffer from a giant flaw, I never have it with me. However, I haven't bought any apps for that. I used Evernote for grocery lists for a while, but now I'm using Google Tasks and it's p-e-r-f-e-c-t for it. I can add things to my list anywhere and any time, and when I get to the store, just flip to the grocery list and start shopping.
jhagedon said 2:35PM on 7-25-2009
I have 212 apps. I use perhaps a dozen. I certainly wish there was a "trial" version as in the Palm Pre. I could have saved a lot of $$.
Reply
Pyrofallout said 2:37PM on 7-25-2009
NetShare
9.99 pissed to the wind then Apple deleted the app.
Reply
Yuusharo said 3:47PM on 7-25-2009
Netshare was removed from the App Store, but if you bought it, it should still be available to you. I'm using it just fine on 3.0 even a year later.
Pyrofallout said 3:54PM on 7-25-2009
Yes, but I lost the ipsw shortly after it was removed so I was SOL, unless I did it through MobileInstallation patch.
Moot point now. I use the ipcc for tethering.
It just pissed me off that Apple pulled an app and didn't even give me my $10 back.
Jordan said 10:42AM on 7-31-2009
Yet one more reason Apple needs to change their restrictions on the App store. As it's popularity increases, it's only going to get worse.
jhagedon said 2:38PM on 7-25-2009
Evernote and reQall along with Shazam and Pandora keep company with Tweetie and Facebook as my most used apps.
Reply
Rudy said 2:39PM on 7-25-2009
i have downloaded probably 60 apps and i use maybe only 10 of them on a consistent basis.
Reply
donnacha said 2:48PM on 7-25-2009
Things by Cultured Code looked elegant but turned out to be a complete waste of time and money because the developers are incredibly slow and have not yet delivered the online syncing that makes competing productivity apps so useful, despite promising it would arrive months ago.
Cultured Code are also terrible at communicating with their customers; when people starting complaining about the lack of online syncing and other major issues, they simply hide their forums so that potential new customers would not know what a mess they were buying into!
Reply
DT said 5:16PM on 7-25-2009
Bingo. Things for iPhone only syncs via WiFi, no MobileMe, no nothing else. And all the time it's available now they promised to make Things "Areas" available ... but until today ... zip. That's lame.
My guess is, they don't know where to go from where they are right now.