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Best Iphone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders |  | Author: Josh Clark
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $9.96
as of 3/10/2010 03:39 CST details
You Save: $10.03 (50%)
New (41) Used (12) from $8.00
Seller: Focus_Books
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 25927
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.9 x 0.5
ISBN: 059680427X
Dewey Decimal Number: 621.38456
EAN: 9780596804275
ASIN: 059680427X
Publication Date: July 17, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780596804275 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
This catalog of iPhone gems is an authoritative guide to the best, most useful, and most entertaining iPhone apps. Full of colorful and helpful illustrations, Best iPhone Apps gives you the lowdown on each app, with brief tips on how to use it. Best App for Sharing Your Adventures
by Josh Clark
Whrrl v2.0
Free; Version: 2.0.0; Pelago
Turn your outing—or anything you do—into a slideshow to share with others. Whrrl bundles photos and text messages into “stories.” Friends can add to the tale from their phones, too. Anything’s fair game: Your kid’s birthday, a paintball match, a night out, a conference, whatever. Take photos, post messages, and when you’re done, sign into whrrl.com to edit your story into a slideshow to share on the Web, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
 Storytellers: Whrrl’s main screen shows a rundown of “featured stories”: a mix of slideshows posted by you and your friends, along with publicly shared slideshows selected for greatness by the Whrrl staff. Tap a story to see the slideshow, or start your own by tapping “Say where you are.” Announcing your location creates a new story where you post photos and messages. |  Location, location, location: Stories are pegged to places. If other Whrrl-toting friends are in the same place, they can join the story and add their own photos and messages. You control who can see the story as it’s happening, changing the privacy settings anytime. You might share the story with more people, for example, after you get home and edit it into shape. The story ends when everyone leaves the location. |
 Feed me: Stories have two layouts, “feed view” and “story view.” Feed view shows the blow-by-blow events that construct the story, listing the messages, photos, arrivals, departures, and comments that float through the location as the story happens. In either view, visitors can add a comment by tapping the speech-bubble icon next to messages and photos. Tap a profile photo to see more about a person, including their stories. |  Story view: This is the slideshow of the event. Photos and messages are each individual slides; the effect is like a silent movie where images and dialogue weave together. The front “card” shows who was there as well as visitor comments. When you’re done making the story, the slideshow remains on the Web, and you can edit it, share it, keep it private, or toss it out. (You have to sign into whrrl.com to edit or delete your stories). |
Share with anyone: Friends, family, and coworkers don’t have to use Whrrl in order to see your adventures. Post stories on Facebook or Twitter while they’re in progress. (After a story is finished, you can still share it, but you have to do it from the website.) You can also have Whrrl create a photo album on Facebook for every story you create, copying your story photos automatically to your Facebook account.
Product Description
If you want to load your iPhone or iPod Touch with some interesting apps, odds are you'll be overwhelmed by the number of choices at Apple's App Store--all 35,000 of them (and counting). What you need is a reliable guide to the best, most useful, and most entertaining iPhone apps, concisely cataloged and described. Well, look no further, because Best iPhone Apps is on its way!
Full of colorful and helpful illustrations, this one-of-a-kind catalog gives you the quick lowdown on each app, with brief tips on how to use it. No other guide can help you sort through the wealth of iPhone apps to find the true nuggets. Written by Missing Manual author and iWork specialist Josh Clark, Best iPhone Apps is the guide for discriminating downloaders.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
Humorously Helping You Navigate Through an Ever-Growing Maze of iPhone Apps March 1, 2010
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
There is irony that a printed book is one of the better ways to explore the possibility of the iPhone, but Josh Clark's eminently readable tome is a terrific resource on what he considers the best programs to download across a variety of categories. Apps are popping up at such a prolific rate that the selections can become overwhelming when rifling through the Apps Store. That's what makes this book so valuable since the author breaks down his choices over seven broad if not mutually exclusive lifestyle topics - At Work, On the Town, At Leisure, At Play, At Home, On the Road, and For Your Health. Graphically, it's pleasing as well with each topic color-coded and vibrant screen captures provided to give the reader an idea of the capabilities associated with each program. Clearly, Clark cannot keep up with the number of apps popping up, but he has done as thorough job as possible given the over 50,000 programs available currently through the Apps Store.
He is concise in his summaries and still shows off a sharp sense of humor, for example, "Park n' Find" ($1.99) helps you find your car in a vast lot, and "SitOrSquat" (Free) pinpoints the closest public restroom, which includes a blog of toilet humor for extensive bathroom reading if necessary. The breadth is pretty startling from tracking airline flights ("FlightTrack Pro", $4.99) to reporting Elvis sightings ("Elvis Mobile", Free). There's a great music section, Rockin' Out, that includes the best apps for naming that tune ("Shazam", Free), sharing music ("Simplify Music", $5.99), or robot crooners ("Bebot", $1.99) where an animated robot sings whatever ditty you compose on the spot. The offbeat selections are combined with more predictable ones such as "Facebook" (Free) for (unsurprisingly) Facebook, "Yelp" (Free) for local recommendations, and "Stanza" (Free) for reading books (with "Kindle for iPhone" receiving honorable mention). Some of Clark's choices are arguable, of course, but it's hard to beat the easy readability and genuine usefulness of his small, 228-page book.
Here ya go, iPhone Admirers.... February 23, 2010
Frank Beckendorf (Abilene, TX USA)
With the number of iPhone apps approaching 100,000, this title may show you some things about what's out there for you iPhone nuts. And, give you ways to find new ones when they surface. This selection gives you ways on over 200 ah-ha apps that can benefit you and yours......
Another winner from Safari/O'Reilly
An excellent place to start for new iPhone owners. February 9, 2010
M. L McGuire (Grafton, Ohio USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When a box of O'Reilly books descended upon my desk, the book that caught my eye because of it's full color contents and beautiful cover was "Best iPhone Apps" by Josh Clark. From the front cover alone, I recognized about half of the apps that were going to be reviewed. I have to admit, I am iPhone app junky. I have pages upon pages of apps installed on my first generation iPhone, and am always reading the internet for reviews and suggestions for more and more apps to try.
Truthfully, I didn't think that a book on iPhone apps was such a great idea. Apps come and go at a rather quick rate on the iTunes store. What's in today could be out tomorrow. But with all things, those of substance have a way of sticking around. I am online enough that I get my recommendations for apps so I didn't think that a book would help me much.
Then I loaned the book for the weekend to a new iPhone user. A coworker had just gotten his government issued iPhone a week before, and he was looking for suggestions on apps to try out. After going through the book, he came back to work on Monday having filled out five pages on his iPhone with new apps as suggested in this book. He couldn't say enough nice things about being able to sit on the couch, flip through the book, then go to the app store on his iPhone and download app after app.
The book is organized by into seven major categories of apps. Each of those categories is further subdivided the best 8 or 9 apps in that category. Each app gets a full-page description including screen captures, summary, pricing and app developer contact information. For most of the best of apps, the picks are apps that I currently already use, so it would seem that I agree with Mr. Clark's best of selection process.
I would recommend this book to someone new to the iPhone and someone who would rather flip through a book than scour the various iPhone app review sites on the internet to get started on their iPhone app collection.
 Suzie Housley, Midwest Book Review February 3, 2010
Suzie Housley (Oak Ridge, Tn United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
With the invention of the iPhone a new era in the technology world emerged. An iPhone is not a simple device that allows a person to make a call. Instead, this invention enables a user to discover new and exciting applications that can help simplify their life.
With over a thousand applications to choose from, a new user can quickly become overwhelmed at what to select to download for their phone. With Josh Clark's Best iPhone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders he has conducted in-depth research that was needed to reveal the best applications that Apple has to offer.
The book is broken down into seven different categories that include:
-At Work
-On the Town
-At Leisure
-At Play
-At Home
-On the Road
-For Your Health
Each section highlights the best iPhone applications that relate to the topic. What I found impressive was each application listed the price and a short summary of its strengths. This book explored both free and paid applications. It allowed the reader to compare what they would receive from a paid to a free application.
Being a new owner of an iPhone, I was so impressed with this book. It offered me the knowledge I needed to get the most out of my phone. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is new to the iPhone or iPod Touch. The wealth of information contained in this one book is invaluable.
Great as an idea book... January 31, 2010
calvinnme (Fredericksburg, Va)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
for aspiring IPhone app writers. This was what I bought this book for and this is the way in which I use it. Thus, you may or may not be frustrated with it if you are looking for good apps to use, but I thought it was truly excellent as a means of prodding my imagination as a programmer, to see what is already out there, and to see how apps might be combined or improved upon. One reviewer said this book does not have an index, and I'm not sure what he/she is talking about, because it does have an index of sorts. The index consists of an alphabetical listing of IPhone apps, and from their names it is pretty easy to tell what most of them do. I can then turn to the page for that app, get an idea of what the interface looks like, and see if maybe a new app can be written that builds upon its capabilities or maybe it gives me inspiration for something completely new and different.
As far as books that give you "the best IPhone apps", I'm not sure why a user would buy such a book and expect the latest information. You're only going to find that with an online search. It rather reminds me of those "Internet Phone Books" that used to be published regularly back in the early web era of the mid 1990's. They were usually outdated as soon as they were published.
Thus, if you are a developer looking for ideas and user interface examples, I think it's great. If you're looking for a timely book for good apps in such a fast-paced environment as the IPhone, I don't think it is possible to write and publish such a book in a conventional fashion.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
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