Today we ‘re continuing our new series here on Just Another iPhone Blog “ called ‘Desert Island Apps ‘. It ‘s based on a very long-running and brilliant BBC Radio show called ‘Desert Island Discs ‘. The premise of Desert Island Discs is simple and wonderful “ a guest is invited to choose the eight musical pieces (originally records) they would take with them if they were stranded on a desert island.
In our case of course we ‘re not interested in our guests ‘ choice of music. What we want to know is which six iPhone apps they would take with them if stranded on an island. We ‘re leaving the playing field pretty wide open for them “ letting them assume they ‘ve got WiFi and full connectivity on their island.
I ‘m very happy to have Marcus Hobbs -creator of one of my all-time favorite iPhone apps, SmackTalk “ as our guest for Desert Island Apps Number 2. Read on to see Marcus ‘s picks
1. ooTunes
I’m a music freak–I have the tunes going all day and all night so this app gets a lot of playtime. I have ooTunes loaded up with my favorite electronica stations such as "NetMusique Electrique", "PsyPhyMachine", "Darkspy Forest Goa Trance", "Philosomatika", and "Tribal House". Works really good on the road too.
Monopoly 
I have to admit I have spent a lot of hours playing Monopoly. EA did such a fantastic job translating the board game to the iPhone–it’s so much more fun letting the phone do the tedious work of counting all the money while I plot my capitalist conquest. The graphics are good, the animation is sweet, and the sounds are awesome. My kids learned Monopoly on the iPhone instead of the board game, which I think is awesome.
Twitterrific 
I don’t claim to be the authority on which Twitter app is the best, but I just like Twitterrific. I’m using Twitter more and more for search. I love reading what people are thinking about at the moment. I imagine if I was on an island I’d use Twitterrific even more than I do now.
Pocket God 
This one is for my daughter who LOVES Pocket God–she’s only 5 but she has figured out every possible benevolent and malevolent behavior you could possibly bestow on the islanders. I have a tremendous respect for the guys at Bolt Creative. This is such an original and creative entertainment app–it’s one of the best of all time.
MLB At Bat 2009 
This one is for my son who is a sports fanatic. If we were all stuck on a desert island together he’d be bored out of his mind without this app. This app is first class in every way and it obviously took a lot of work to create and maintain. I’m impressed with the streaming radio, video, and stats.
GoSkyWatch 
One of the best Astronomy apps ever. Great pictures of the heavens, great animation, great look-and-feel. My favorite thing to do is to swipe the sky and let the Earth rotate quickly so you can see all the patterns of the ecliptic, planets, and moon, which will deepen your understanding of them. I think this app has great potential for education. For example "retrograde motion", "sidereal day" are very difficult concepts to explain with words, but very simple to show visually with GoSkyWatch. Also, the relationship of the seasons and the ecliptic are very obvious with this app.
———————————————————————————-
Huge thanks to Marcus for doing Desert Island Apps with us! I hope to make this a regular series “ and I hope it will help all of us to discover some great new apps.
If you feel like sharing what your Desert Island Apps picks would be, fire away in the comments
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS: iphone apps, Pocket God, Twitterrific
