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iPhone apps that beat Apple's default apps

Dropbox, better than Apple?

There's a nice little article over at Apple Matters about how, wonderful though Apple might be, there are still some things that others do better - in particular, certain apps for your iOS devices.

Their list starts with the US$1.99 Instacast, which indeed does a better job of managing and finding new podcasts than you can do yourself by searching through the iTunes Music Store on your iPhone.

Next comes PhotoSync, also $1.99, which adds wireless syncing for your photos between your iPhone and desktop. If it only synced everything else wirelessly, I'd be first in the queue to buy it.

Finally, they list Stash Pro, the image management app for iOS devices, which seems a little expensive to me at $3.99, but it does allow you to download images directly on your iOS device from websites, and you can add keywords, titles and ratings to images.

My personal list of apps that I use because they're better than any Apple offering starts with Dropbox. It simplifies my mobile life to the point where it's a pleasure to access files on the go.

What apps do you use because they're better than anything Apple can offer? Let us know in comments.



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There's a nice little article over at Apple Matters about how, wonderful though Apple might be, there are still some things that others...
 

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Steve

I've tried calvetica and week calendar, but the calendar app that is truly the best is miCal. Fine german engineering - like the bmw of calendar apps.

April 21 2011 at 11:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
misterlevitan

I forgot mSpot and thought I'd see it here by day's end but no! The playback is easy, and who can balk at 40 GB of music that you can stream from the cloud to any device for $4 USD per month? No brainer. The only limits: music is compressed so fidelity is a little diminished, and you can't make playlists from the browser interface. But it does auto sync your iTunes library, so keep that up to date and you're solid.

April 21 2011 at 10:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nicolai

Add Month Cal to the list of calendar programs. Much better overview than the built-in calendar.

April 21 2011 at 8:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
xRunner

OZ-weather is much better than the Apple weather app. It has local radar which loads fast as well as national radar and satellite cloud maps. Weather observations can be viewed as a list with 30min readings. When the iPhone is rotated, the list becomes a graph.

Gmail is much better than the Apple mail app, mainly because it has the search option.

April 21 2011 at 6:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Todd Howell

I would add Calvetica as a calendar app to the list of better that Apple apps.

April 21 2011 at 2:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
T-Will

Here are my default replacement apps:

Pocket Informant (replaces Calendar/Tasks/Contacts coming soon)
Camera+ (replaces Camera)
AwesomeNote (replaces Notes)
Pocket Casts (replaces iTunes for podcasts)
Outside/Weather Channel (replaces Weather)

April 21 2011 at 1:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to T-Will's comment
T-Will

Almost forgot one...

Mercury Browser (replaces Safari)

April 21 2011 at 1:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
almostpositive2000

For jailbreakers, BiteSMS is pretty amazing and is much better than the built in Messages app.

April 21 2011 at 1:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mike G

Lots of suggestions to try out now...

I use Calvetica and love it.
If you're looking for very simple quick notes, I use Captio, which simply sends the note to an email address... which makes it a reminder/note. I find this to be perfect for a lot of uses of the built-in Notes app. It's not as good at long term storage, but I rarely need that on my phone.

Siri is awesome but I'm not sure it directly replaces any of the built-in apps...

I've been using Alarm Clock Pro as my replacement for Clock, but yesterday it was causing my location services icon to stay on, which creeped me out. Location Services on my phone are currently off while I figure out if I can get it to stop or I need to remove it and find another alarm clock.

As for iPod related things, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and any number of radio apps are great as suppliments, and since you can access the iPod from the multitasking menu, the icon can be hidden. New to that scene: Crackle, which I believe we heard about just the other day.

April 21 2011 at 1:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Wreck

I tried iCab mobile, and switched to Atomic Web Browser shortly after. It has more features and quite a bit more customization that iCab, IHMO.

April 21 2011 at 1:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
chrisrose.chrisrose

Beluga instead of messages!

April 21 2011 at 12:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to chrisrose.chrisrose's comment
misterlevitan

I'm just starting to get acquainted with it. Most of my friends are still skeptical though.

April 21 2011 at 11:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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