What’s On Your Phone?

I’ve seen many people posting app recommendations for their phones, and I thought I should participate. (Specifically Brian Jackett and Brian Graham.) I tend to prune the apps on my phone quite often, so while this is an alphabetical list of the apps and games on my phone, consider them a recommendation as well. They wouldn’t be on this list if I didn’t use them regularly.

Apps

Accuweather.com

Of all of the weather applications available, this one is the best. It makes it easy to manage multiple cities, pin each of them to the start screen, and gives you real-time alerts when the weather turns bad.

Across The Room

Written by my friend and colleague Dave Bost, this simple application allows you to use your phone like a message ticker, scrolling a large-text message across your screen to a person you might be able to see, but can’t talk to. This has been very handy as a proctor for speakers at a conference, and for getting a message into a conference room through a window.

Amazon Mobile

All the features of Amazon.com in your pocket. Wishlists, a very Metro interface, and a pinnable barcode reader are only the beginning. I have used this many times to order a product from Amazon while standing in a competing brick & mortar store.

AppTracker

For those of you building applications for Windows Phone, this is a must-have app. It lets you track your apps, monitor your feedback from all of the geographies your app is available for, and even offers Bing Translate when it’s in a different language.

DoodlePad

A great little application to keep my kids entertained. A simple drawing tool with a huge number of options.

ESPN ScoreCenter

More than just a portal to ESPN.com, this tool actually uses your ESPN credentials to remember who your favorites teams are, and shows you a customized dashboard with your teams, and their past and future games.

Facebook

Windows Phone does a great job of integrating with Facebook, but for those niche needs (like managing photo albums), the Facebook app is perfect.

Find ESPN Radio

I do a good bit of driving, and sometimes there’s a game on the radio that I’d like to listen to. Instead of fighting with the Scan function on the radio, I just use this app, with its geolocation, to determine what the ESPN Radio station is currently. Great app.

FML

If you’re ever feeling down about yourself whatsoever, crack open this application, and you’ll feel better in a hurry. This app exposes the data from fmylife.com, where people post short messages about the terrible things that happened in their lives. Sad to say, it’s hilarious most of the time.

Geocaching

An amazing tool in the global scavenger hunt that is Geocaching. If you’re not familiar with the concept, check out geocaching.com. It’s great fair-weather fun for the whole family, and this app makes it much easier to do.

Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

A great way to figure out what other movie that guy with the mustache has been in. A go-to resource for movie and television trivia.

Key Ring

Tired of all of those rewards cards in your wallet? This app stores all of them electonically, but still makes it possible for you to scan them at the checkout. Syncs online, so when you change your phone, you don’t have to enter all of the info again.

Phonealytics

A great Google Analytics app. Allows you to favorite those websites you view the most often, and has a great number of reports and data available. (The free version is very sufficient, so check it out before you buy the full one.)

Pizza Hut

The only major pizza chain on Windows Phone, you can take care of your entire order right from your phone. Place your order, pay for it with a credit card, and track its progress. If I could convince the driver to bring it directly to my couch, I’d never have to get up.

RitmoMix Ritku

I have no idea what the name of this app means, but it allows me to wirelessly control my Roku boxes in my house. It communicates over my wireless network, and is actually an improvement over the actual Roku remote control.

TripIt

As a person that travels extensively, TripIt has been an invaluable tool for managing all of my reservations for hotels, rental cars, and flights. Having an app on my phone makes accessing all of this information on the go much, much faster.

Wikipedia

It’s an app that exposes all of the data in Wikipedia. What more do you need?

WordPress

This handy little application allows you to manage your WordPress blog. Moderate comments, add new posts, and even edit existing posts (if they’re not too long.)

Games

There are many, many more games on my phone than are in this list, but I’ve only included those that I’ve played more than once. Most of the games on my phone were downloaded for (or by) my kids.

AlphaBuzzle

The alphabet has been divided into a set of sliding tiles, and you need to move them appropriately to reconstruct the alphabet in order. It’s funner than I just described it, I promise.

Angry Birds

Use a catapault to launch birds at the pigs that stole their eggs. High replayability factor, great time waster.

Clowning Around

Themed with life’s scariest creature, the clown, you use ropes, chains, ramps, levers, and some physics to get the clowns in the right buckets. My 3 year old son found this in the marketplace, and it’s definitely worth the 99 cents.

Doodle God

You start with 4 elements: wind, water, fire, and earth. By combining them, you’ll eventually create over 195 things. It’s not nearly as easy as you think, and plenty of fun.

FastBall 2

Guide a red ball through progressively more difficult levels. Tap the screen to jump over the hazards. WARNING: the music in this game is an earworm.

Harbor Master

You steer an ever-increasing number of boats into their ports, unload their cargo, and send them back out to sea. Meanwhile, you’ve got to avoid having any of the boats crash into each other.

The Moron Test

Looking for a reason to feel stupid? This little puzzle game will test you. Outstanding and addictive.

Physi Bricks

A cool physics based game. Knock the green bricks off the screen, leave the red ones. Harder, and makes you want to keep coming back.

Plants vs. Zombies (PvZ)

The most fun tower defense game out there. I’ve paid for this game on five different platforms now, and it’s still addictive.

Sally’s Salon LE

A resource and time management strategy game, you own a hair salon, and have set some lofty career goals. Despite the fact that this game is set in a salon, it is surprisingly fun, even for a guy like me.

Spell It

A Scrabble game that isn’t Words With Friends. The interface is great, and playing against a computer or human is available, even remotely, like WWF. However, the moment WWF is available for Windows Phone, I’ll likely drop this app.

Spelling Millionaire

Simple. Confirm that each word in a set of 15 is spelled appropriately. Sounds easy, right? I’m a great speller, and I win maybe 60% of the time.

Super Jumping Mike

Very similar to FastBall 2, you are Mike, and you’re on a forced move through levels that require you to jump at appropriate times to avoid the obstacles and grab the three coins. Very addictive.

Unite

A great fresh take on the old (and tired) labyrinth category, you need to get the metallic marbled together, where they become slightly larger. Combine all of the marbles on the level to finish it.

Wordament

A kind of crowd-sourced Boggle game. You play against the world in fast-paced games. Very fun if you like word games.

Xbox Companion

An app that lets me control my Xbox 360? Yes please!

3 responses to “What’s On Your Phone?”

There’s an App for That! « Coding Geekette

January 2, 2012

[…] to be making their circle this year is posting what apps they recommend on their phones. My friends Jeff Blankenburg and Brian Jackett made posts, and I figured I’d join in on […]

Brian T. Jackett

January 2, 2012

Thanks for the mention in the intro. You reminded me of some apps I downloaded on my last phone that didn’t install yet on my new one. Also I think you may have the wrong description for Physi Bricks.

Clarence Klopfstein

January 2, 2012

Here is my list.
http://www.ocdprogrammer.com/post/2012/01/02/My-App-List-WP7.aspx

JEFF BLANKENBURG

What’s On Your Phone?

Apps

Games

Like this:

3 responses to “What’s On Your Phone?”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

What’s On Your Phone?

Apps

Games

Share this:

Like this:

3 responses to “What’s On Your Phone?”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply