Mar 12

This Week’s Best iPhone Apps [IPhone Apps]

Posted in: Apple, iPhone, the week in iPhone apps, Today's Chili, top

In this week’s bipolar app roundup: Foursquare, squared! Slow ISPs, tattled on! Videos, easily streamed! Street Fighter fans’ high standards, met! Twitter apps, set free! Your entire life, documented! Your every plan, shared! And more…

This Week’s Apps

To view the gallery as a single page, click here.

This Week’s iPhone News on Giz

(Video of the upcoming Sword and Sworcery EP)
• GuitarBud Plugs a Guitar Directly Into an iPhone

• When iPhone Games Approach Art, and When They Don’t

• Google Mobile Search Reveals What’s In Stock Nearby

• iPhone 4.0 Firmware to Bring Multitasking This Summer?

• Irresistible iPhone Apps Fridge Magnets

• It’s Time to Declare War Against Apple’s Censorship

• You Will Have the Power of a PS3 In Your Pocket In 3 Years

• Apple Must Feature PixieTea In Their Next iPhone Ad

• Case-mate Hug Review: A Wireless iPhone Charging Pad That Actually Works Well

• Taliban Leader, iPhone User

• Apple ‘iKey’ Places a Combination Lock on Your Wallet

• BTW, Wi-Fi Scanner Apps Were Begging to Get Banned by Apple

• Apple’s Sexy App Purge Was Just the Beginning

• Tekken Will Come to iPhone

• Steve Jobs Says “No,” iPad Won’t Tether To iPhone

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

No Comments | Tags: ,
Mar 02

The Month’s Best iPhone Apps [IPhone Apps]

Posted in: Apple, apps, iPhone, Today's Chili, top

Each month, the best new iPhone apps-and some older ones-are considered for Gizmodo’s Essential iPhone Apps Directory. Who will join? Who will live? Who will die? Here’s the best of the best from February.

For the full directory of Gizmodo’s Essential iPhone Apps for 2009, click here. Here are the best of the month, and what we’ve added to the directory:

February’s Best Apps

For a single-page view, click here.

Essential App Directory Inductees

Camera Pro Plus: It isn’t enough for a camera app to add options to still shooting. No, nowadays you need video.

Meebo: An ultra-slick messaging app that makes every other free entrant look either quaint or crappy.

Angry Birds: I could have gone outside last Saturday, but I didn’t. I played Angry Birds instead. I have no regrets.

Siri: Rolls speech recognition, search, and intelligent text parsing into one semi-magical package.

Logitech Touch Mouse: Does 75% percent of what more expensive iPhone-as-a-touchpad apps do, for 0% of the price.

The Fallen

Fring: Because Meebo is that good.

Snapture: Replaced by Camera Pro Plus.

And that’s it! What counts as an essential iPhone app changes all the time, and so should our guide: If we’ve missed anything huge, or you’ve got a much better suggestion for a particular type of app, let us know, or say so in the comments. We’ll be updating this thing pretty frequently, and a million Gizmodo readers can do a better job at sorting through the app mess than a single Gizmodo editor. Enjoy!

No Comments | Tags: , ,
Mar 01

The Myth of iPhone App Piracy [IPhone Apps]

Posted in: Apple, apps, feature, iPhone, jailbreak, Today's Chili, top

People rarely talk about iPhone app piracy, but when they do, it sounds devastating: 90% piracy rates, $450 million in lost sales, etc. Here’s the truth: App Store piracy isn’t a big deal—and it never will be.

With these shockingly high reports comes the general air that developers are being marauded and pillaged by Viking hordes and that Apple isn’t doing enough to stop it. This resonates! Developers don’t control much about the App Store, so if the entire app protection system has been cracked—which it has—you’d expect the looting to be wholesale; the impact on developers to be immediate and devastating; and the problem to be grave indeed.

And yet the piracy issue seems to be dying. The story behind the lack of a story, it turns out, is that iPhone piracy is nowhere near as serious as many people say it is, and that before long, it may not be a problem at all.

How It Works

It’s tough to talk about iPhone app piracy without tacitly endorsing it. The mere mention of DRM cracking methods and application sources is—or rather, was—enough to send people looking, and presumably, stealing. But look at the piracy subscene today reveals that, like the jailbreak scene it’s a part of, it’s just not the same as it used to be.

Kicking off your career in app theft isn’t too hard, and it’ll only take a few minutes of Googling to get the full instructions. Still, I’ll keep this as abstract as possible. Here’s how you do it:

• Jailbreak your iPhone or iPod
• Open Cydia, the jailbreak equivalent of the App Store, and add a particular download source that isn’t part of the default lineup
• Download two apps: One that lets you crack apps you’ve purchased for the benefit of others; and another that lets you install cracked applications yourself
• Download cracked apps to your heart’s content, from various sources around the internet

The Myth of iPhone App PiracyAt the peak, there were sites that aggregated huge numbers of download links together into an easily browsable website, which meant that once your phone was cracked, you could tap through these websites like you’d browse the App Store—links to the latest apps were plentiful, and you could snag that game you just read about on Gizmodo within a day or so, tops.

The most popular of these sites, called Appulo.us, disappeared just last month, leaving pirates without a centralized resource for apps. Soon, torrent sites and carbon copied link-dumps picked up the slack, at least for people dedicated and savvy enough to find them. So, yeah, piracy is alive, to be sure. But how serious is it?

The Problem

I wanted to find out how bad piracy was, so I went straight to the developers. I started with the types of apps I thought would be least vulnerable, just to set a baseline: Productivity apps. The verdict? Yes! Piracy happens!

“Roughly 10% of our paid app users are coming from piracy.” That’s Guy Goldstein, CEO of PageOnce, the company behind Personal Assistant, a top-selling organizational app. This is pretty stunning, if you think about it. Personal Assistant is available in a fairly full-featured free version, and as useful as it is, it’s not the most glamourous of apps—it’s a utility, not a flashy game. The paid version tracks a little high for a productivity app, at $7, but not matter how you slice it, Personal Assistant isn’t the most obvious target for piracy. Nor, apparently, is it a serious victim: “Although i think piracy is generally bad and negatively effects companies, for us it’s not big issue—our business model is based on purchasing, but also advertising. The more users we have, the better.” Right, so piracy is happening here, but it doesn’t really matter. Let’s move onto the people who you’d really expect to be getting ripped off.

I contacted TomTom, whose navigation apps start above $50. They were cagey. Cagey and brief:

TomTom takes piracy very seriously. Per corporate policy, we do not disclose information about our ongoing efforts to disrupt software theft.

So I moved on to their direct competitor, Navigon, whose MobileNavigator North America app runs $90:

Navigon is well aware of hacked iPhone Apps. As with any other software, it is only a question of time when applications are being hacked and distributed illegally. There’s no security mechanism available to prevent this 100%. Since hacking of additional application functions, which are available through Apple’s In App Purchase mechanism, is more difficult, this helps to better secure Apps from software piracy. Our legal department is watching this very thoroughly and Navigon will fight piracy with all legal means.

Less cagey, and more ragey. But this is an official position—a conversation with a Navigon rep left me with the impression that while they don’t condone piracy, obviously, it wasn’t exactly the Issue of the Day. Ripe targets that they are, nav companies don’t seem to be losing sleep over this. Which leaves the game developers.

What apps are more pirateable than games? They’re shiny, they’re extremely popular, and they’re often expensive. Surely the EAs and Gamelofts of the world are the hardest hit, right?

On record, they basically clammed up. Off the record, though, they were a bit more free. A rep from one of the largest studios—you’ve probably played one of their games if you have an iPhone—told me “It happens, but I don’t think it’s that big of an issue.” I couldn’t coax out any specific stats, but in relation to total sales, piracy figures are “small.”

In fact, it was hard to come by hard piracy figures from any major developers, but one thing is certain: The occasionally reported 50%+ piracy rates are rare among major developers. And overwhelmingly, major devs are underwhelmed by the problem. So, where are all the pirates?

The Jailbreak Factor


Peter Farago, a VP at iPhone analytics firm Flurry—the guys who spotted the iPad in their logs days before it was announced—track roughly one out of every five apps purchased from the App Store, and their software runs deep: Though it doesn’t collect individualized personal data, it can tell if a device running a tracked app is jailbroken or not. In other words, Flurry knows exactly how many of the millions of devices its tracked apps are installed on are jailbroken. Take a guess.

It’s… as low as you might expect. Lower, even.

“Under 10% of the iPhone installed base is jailbroken.”

Just to make this clear, a company that at any given time is tracking five out of the top ten most downloaded apps in the App Store is detecting a jailbreak rate of under 10%. Less than one out of ten, and often significantly less. The figure tends to bottom out at just above 5% after every time Apple issues a software upgrade, slowly creeping back up to previous levels as the Dev Team and the like issue updates to the jailbreak software. Bear in mind, jailbreaking is a prerequisite for app piracy, but not every jailbreaker is running even one pirated app. Start peeling off the people who jailbreak just to enable multitasking or Wi-Fi tethering, or to skin their iPhone, or just to see what all the fuss is about, and “under 10%” starts to looks even slimmer.

Given the state of jailbreaking, I find these numbers easy to believe. Back in 2007, before there was an App Store, jailbreaking was as easy as opening a website in Mobile Safari. Today, it’s a bit more difficult, and depending on which iPhone you have, sometimes impossible. (Late model 3GSers are stuck with a tethered jailbreak, for example.) And Farago says it’s always under siege: “There’s a cycle that exists, but basically, it’s this kind of thing that happens—every time there’s an OS swap, it goes away for a while,” dipping by “a few percent” before creeping back up to previous levels.

Now, I don’t want to play down these numbers, because even a tiny percentage of a user base as large as the iPhone’s is enough to throw a developers’ pirated/paid stats out of whack—this can happen, and cases in which pirated downloads exceed paid downloads have been documented—but such stats are misleading. Without even having to speculate about what percentage of pirates would have otherwise purchased the app, they represent a small portion of the app-buying population. In such small numbers, jailbreakers simply can’t screw a developer over, except in those rare cases in which the developer has to pay significant continuing costs to deliver data and services once an app is installed. Even then, Flurry finds that pirated apps are often launched just a handful of times after they’re downloaded.

With the App Store offering most—though not all—of what the jailbreak scene used to provide, cracking your phone, going through the trouble of ducking regular upgrades and enduring the constant fear of rendering your phones permanently useless just isn’t that attractive anymore. To be a pirate right now, you really have to want to be a pirate. This isn’t Napster. This is Usenet. And pirates aren’t potential customers. They’re pirates.

Why Developers Don’t Care

At first I found many developers’ silence on the issue curious. But after talking to a few, and finding out the scale of the problem, it makes sense: An app developer has nothing to gain by taking their fight public—Apple is clearly aware of the issue, and it’s not like you can somehow convince hardcore pirates to start paying for all the dozens of apps they steal, because they were never going to buy them in the first place. To these people they’re literally just free samples, and are most frequently treated as such. Developers do have something to lose, be it investor confidence (a lot of studios are heavily funded by VCs, who probably don’t want to hear about any theft problems), a relationship with Apple (who would most likely prefer that developers discussed app DRM cracking and piracy privately), or the goodwill of the public, who aren’t usually going to feel sympathy for a company anyway.

Most importantly, if developers do have a problem with piracy—say that, like PageOnce, they found themselves prominently featured on one of the more popular pirated app repositories—they can do something about it.

When an app is cracked, that is to say that its DRM has been stripped, and the app has been reduced to an unprotect .IPA file, ready for sideloading through a jailbreak utility. But in the middle of 2009, Apple introduced a system by which app developers could sell services or add-ons from within their apps. This was good way for paid apps to extend their profitability, and the in-app purchases were effectively unpirateable.

Then, in October, Apple changed the rules: In-app purchases were allowed in free applications as well, meaning that developers could provide free trial apps that could be upgraded to full versions by way of in-app purchases. Popular apps could consolidate their free and paid versions into one app, and in the process, make piracy nearly impossible. (Update: But not quite) After all, what’s the point in cracking and bootlegging an app anyone can get for free?

Apple even says as much (albeit with no lack of redundancy): “Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.”

Ngmoco took their fight against piracy public last year, quoting impressively high unauthorized download figures during new apps’ first days in the app store. Today, nearly their entire product lineup is based on on the in-app upgrade model. And even after the transition, Ngmoco insists that piracy wasn’t the motivating factor in their switch. In an interview with TouchArcade, it was the massively high download rates for free apps, vs paid apps, that lured Ngmoco toward in-app purchases. The elimination of piracy was a pleasant side effect, at best.

The moral of the story for developers? If you think you have a problem with piracy, you probably don’t. If you still think you have a problem with piracy, you can stamp it out. Simple as that.

In-app purchases change the way developers market and sell their apps, and just as much, the way we consume them. Downloading a single app and then purchasing expansions for it is a superficially different procedure than downloading a free trial followed by a full app, or just taking a risk on a full app in the first place. But the way in which your transaction happens is different, too.

When you buy an iPhone app, it can be synced to multiple devices, as long as said devices are authorized on your iPhone account—the cap here if five, but that’s enough to share amongst your family or friends, or to enable an easy transition from an old iPhone to a new one. In-app purchases, however, don’t work the same way, at all. Here’s what Apple says about syncing in-app purchases across devices:

• Consumable products must be purchased each time the user needs that item. For example, one-time services are commonly implemented as consumable products.

• Nonconsumable products are purchased only once by a particular user. Once a nonconsumable product is purchased, it is provided to all devices associated with that user’s iTunes account. Store Kit provides built-in support to restore nonconsumable products on multiple devices.

• Subscriptions share attributes of consumable and nonconsumable products. Like a consumable product, a subscription may be purchased multiple times; this allows you to implement your own renewal mechanism in your application. However, subscriptions must be provided on all devices associated with a user. In App Purchase expects subscriptions to be delivered through an external server that you provide. You must provide the infrastructure to deliver subscriptions to multiple devices.

Problem is, this isn’t how it works right now. In-app goods are sold on a strict per-device basis, because the only user information available to developers is the device identifier, not the account identifier. As it stands, when you buy something by way of an in-app purchase, it applies to your phone only, and not all the registered devices—iPhones and iPod Touches—on your iTunes account. Maybe that’s no big deal now, but when the iPad arrives, this might become a problem.

Pirates… From the FUTURE

App piracy today may not be a massive factor in the App Store economy, but it would be wrong to characterize it as nothing. It does exist, and to a developer who makes money selling apps, even one illegally downloaded app is one too many. Still, looking forward, this issue is clearing up almost completely:

• iPhone app piracy is already low, and isn’t on the rise in any meaningful way
• The latest iPhone 3GS has proven very difficult to jailbreak, and Apple seems to be actively thwarting efforts with each baseband/software release
• In-app purchasing is coming of age, and effectively eliminates piracy

If you want to call the iPhone pirate a species, he would be an endangered one; if you want to call the jailbreak scene a subculture, it would be passé; if you want to call app piracy a problem, it would be more nuisance than crisis.

Apple’s pending extermination of piracy is great news for developers, but for users, it’ll come at a cost. And for want of an example as to why, this post couldn’t come at a better time, with Apple purging “offensive” apps from its official store—increasingly be the only place for iPhone owners to download apps. If Apple wants to be the only provider of apps (and they do!) then they need to be held to a high standard of transparency and consistency, which—trust us—they’re nowhere near meeting.

No Comments | Tags: , , ,
Feb 23

Why Apple Banned Sex Apps: We Were Getting Complaints From Women [Apple]

Posted in: app, Apple, apps, Today's Chili, top

Over the past few days we’ve watched app after app after app become a casualty in Apple’s gradual clean up of the App Store—a ban on nearly all titillating apps. Apple executive Phil Schiller finally explains what happened:

It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.

As those women ignore the existence of parental controls, Schiller continues to explain that Apple “obviously care[s] about developers, but in the end ha[s] to put the needs of the kids and parents first.” Somehow that’s supposed to help us understand why Sports Illustrated’s and FHM’s apps remain in the App Store:

When asked about the Sports Illustrated app, Mr. Schiller said Apple took the source and intent of an app into consideration. “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said.

So the lesson is that as long as your parents and grandparents recognize the brand, it’s acceptable wanking material? Or is it that if enough mums complain about fart apps then those too will be purged from the App Store?

As we’ve said before:

What’s sad about this is that in Apple’s early years, it was somewhat of a counterpoint to corporate computing for suits, by suits. They were supposed to make computers for people, by real humans. Founded by a man who asked potential employees when they lost their virginity as part of an interview. Today we have a company that has baby music in its commercials, like we’re all 10 year old idiots who have never heard the word fuck—let alone have fucked—and need to be protected from little programs that may have breasts in them.

Then again, Steve Jobs knows his legacy and it isn’t sex apps. It’s great hardware and software.

But why the hell can’t gadget porn and real porn coexist? [NYT via Tech Crunch]

No Comments | Tags: , , , , ,
Feb 19

The Week’s Best iPhone Apps [IPhone Apps]

Posted in: Apple, apps, iPhone, the week in iPhone apps, Today's Chili, top

In this week’s porn-free app roundup: Expensive instant messaging apps, humbled! Cars, leered at! Zombies, organically defeated! Enigmatic Japanese game developers, being enigmatic! The sun, closely monitored! Malls, fearlessly navigated! And more…

This Week’s Apps

If you’d like to view the following gallery as a single page, click here

This Week’s App News on Giz


• This Is Why I Want Photoshop 1.0 on My iPhone Right Now

• A Better Way to Passcode Lock Your iPhone (At Your Own Risk)

• You Can Now Download iPhone Apps Up to 20MB Over 3G

• Google Buys iPhone Email Search App reMail and Pulls It From the App Store

• SlingPlayer Mobile 1.2 With 3G Streaming Now Available

• Street Fighter IV on iPhone Brings New Definition to Sore Thumbs

• Apple Removes An Innocent Boob-Jiggling App From the App Store

• Opera Mini On iPhone Is “Fast,” Though There’s No Pinch To Zoom

• Here’s What Final Fantasy For iPhone Will Look Like

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

No Comments | Tags: , ,
Feb 12

Caption contest: iPhone as a CPR device

Posted in: app, Apple, apps, iPhone, IphoneApp, IphoneApps, medical, Medicine, Today's Chili

Alright, we’ll leave all the zingers for you and our mercurial staff to deliver, and just use this space to dish some info on the hardware. Ivor Kovic, an emergency physician from Croatia, has recently demoed a new iPhone cradle that turns the already multifunctional handset into a CPR assistance device. By using an app titled Pocket CPR and the built-in accelerometer, he can get audio and visual feedback to tell him if he’s doing it correctly, while his basic (but awesome) cradle allows for longer CPR sessions if necessary. Check out the video after the break, then hit the comments with your finest witticisms.

Paul: “Come on Luke Wilson’s Career, stay with me now, you’re not going to die on me!”
Darren: “Man, I could really get a better look at what’s going on if this thing had a 9.7-inch IPS panel…”
Chris: “Everyone is either dying or staying alive these days, and we began to ask ourselves: is there room for something in the middle?”
Nilay: “He then died.”
Vlad: “Our other cradle also measures rhythm and depth, though its purpose isn’t entirely medicinal.”
Andy: “A rare case where a lack of multitasking is actually helpful to the task on hand.”
Thomas: “Can you stop dying for a second, I have to take this call.”
Joe: “This actually adds an intriguing level of complexity to Super Monkey Ball 2.”
Richard Lai: “Come on… COME ON!! Wait a tick… AT&T? No wonder it isn’t working. Dammit.”
Tim: “Looks like this guy’s heart (puts on sunglasses)… has dropped its last call.” Yeeeaaaaaahhhh…

Continue reading Caption contest: iPhone as a CPR device

Caption contest: iPhone as a CPR device originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceYouTube  | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , , , ,
Feb 12

A Love Story (As Told By iPhone Apps)

Posted in: feature, iPhone, Today's Chili, top

Have you ever woken up one morning, rolled over to an empty bed and wondered what went wrong? Well, maybe you should ask your phone.

Click here if you want all the screens on one page.





















Happy almost Valentine’s Day, Gizmodo!

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.

No Comments | Tags:
Feb 05

Siri Launches Voice-Powered iPhone ‘Assistant’

Posted in: Phones, Today's Chili

A new app invites you to command your iPhone in the same way that Captain Kirk addressed the Enterprise’s computer.

Siri's visual interface displays a transcription of what you say, then hands the data off to an appropriate web service or search engine.

Siri's visual interface displays a transcription of what you say, then hands the data off to an appropriate web service or search engine.

Siri, an artificial intelligence-based voice-recognition startup, launched an iPhone app incorporating its technology on Friday. With the app running, you can address requests to your phone verbally, asking it things like, “Will it rain today?” or “Where is a good place for pizza nearby?” and “I’d like a table for two at Il Fornaio tomorrow night at 7.” The Siri app parses the sound, interprets the request, and hands it off to an appropriate web service, such as OpenTable, Yelp, CitySearch, and so on. It displays the results onscreen as it goes, giving you a chance to correct or adjust your request via onscreen taps.

It’s the most sophisticated voice recognition to appear on a smartphone yet. While Google’s Nexus One offers voice transcription capabilities — so you can speak to enter text into a web form, for instance — the Nexus One doesn’t actually interpret what you’re saying.

The voice recognition and interpretation abilities built into Siri have their origins in artificial intelligence research at SRI, a legendary Silicon Valley R&D lab that was also the birthplace of the mouse and of the graphical user interface. Spun out of SRI in 2007, Siri garnered a lot of attention for its ambitious plans to develop a virtual personal assistant. Actually bringing the product to market has taken quite a bit longer than expected.

In a demo shown to Wired.com, Siri responded quickly to spoken requests, answering questions about restaurants, directions and the weather with relative ease. It’s well-integrated with about 20 different web information services, and Siri representatives say that their application programming interface will allow many others to connect in the future.

From our initial testing on an iPhone 3GS, the app was zippy and smooth. Siri understood broad requests like “Find Chinese food nearby” and more specific ones like “Find Nearest Chase bank.” Impressive, and much more efficient than searching for businesses in the Yelp iPhone app.

The Siri app is free, and the company says it has no plans to charge end-users; the goal is to make money from referring customers to services via affiliate fees.

Siri is available for download in the iTunes App Store. It requires an iPhone 3GS, because it relies on that phone’s faster processing power, but Siri representatives say a version compatible with the older iPhone 3G is in the works.

See a video of Siri in action, below.

Download Link [iTunes]


No Comments | Tags:
Jan 14

Unauthorized iPhone news readers raise eyebrows

Posted in: Apple, AppStore, iPhone, IphoneApps, reader, Today's Chili

Here’s an interesting little new media legal dilemma for you: apparently there are several paid apps in the iPhone App Store that bill themselves as “readers” for publications like the New York Times, CNET, and the BBC, but aren’t actually licensed or official in anyway — they’re just pulling RSS feeds. That means people paying for an app like The New York Times Mobile Reader aren’t actually getting an app from the Times — and, perhaps more importantly, the Times isn’t getting anything from anyone. Seems like Apple should probably just shut these apps down, but that’s the interesting part: all these apps are pretty much just custom-built feed readers, and you can generally access all of the same content using Safari. Now, there’s obviously a trademark issue involved here, especially if these apps are confusing people into thinking they’re official, but we’re curious to see how these pubs and Apple handle the situation in the next few weeks, since it’s relatively uncharted territory.

P.S.- Let’s not even get into the fact that Apple’s rated the NYT Mobile Reader app “12+” for “Infrequent / Mild Mature / Suggestive Themes.” Oh, the App Store.

Unauthorized iPhone news readers raise eyebrows originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAdAge  | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , , ,
Jan 13

The 53 Best iPhone Games

Posted in: Games, iPhone, Today's Chili, top

Scouring the App Store for the best games is a full time job. Luckily, it’s a job held by the guys over at Touch Arcade. Here are their picks for the best games—and only games—available on the iPhone.

While the App Store had clearly been a huge success in 2008, the continued growth and explosion of iPhone game releases in 2009 was beyond everyone’s expectations. The number of apps in the App Store soared past 100,000 with hundreds of new games being released every day.

We sat down trying to figure out the best iPhone games of 2009 and found the task of narrowing down the list to a select few to be near impossible. Instead, we’ve organized our year in review into categories with what we feel is an excellent cross section of games from 2009. If you just got an iPhone or iPod Touch for Christmas, this list is an excellent starting place to catch you up.

2009 iPhone Game of the Year

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor – We choose Tiger Style Games’ Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor for our 2009 Game of the Year first and foremost because it’s a great game, but also because it perfectly represents the promise of iPhone gaming. Spider is an original concept built specifically for the iPhone by a small self funded team. It’s this low barrier to entry which provides customers with a huge selection of games including unique and polished gems like Spider. You really should experience this one. (Review, App Store)

Classics

Doodle Jump – While we have to give props to PapiJump as the clear inspiration for Doodle Jump, Lima Sky has managed to take the game to a whole new level and succeeded in creating a true iPhone classic. Doodle Jump has sold over a million copies to date and even been casually referenced on primetime TV sitcoms. Every day we hear from up and coming developers who claim they have come up with “the next Doodle Jump” but so far Lima Sky’s title hasn’t truly been dethroned. (Review, App Store)

Flight Control – Another iPhone game that will go down in history as one of the classics for the platform. Firemint’s CEO Rob Murray took some of his free time during last year’s Christmas break to whip up a prototype of a game that eventually became Flight Control. The game has single handedly defined a genre on the iPhone of “line drawing” games and has been endlessly imitated throughout the year. (Review, App Store)

iDracula – iDracula was one of the original dual-stick survival shooters. It wasn’t the first, but it’s the one that popularized the concept and opened the doors to a ton of play-alikes. (Article, App Store)

Only on iPhone

Zen Bound – Ok, technically this started life as a PC Game, but Zen Bound didn’t really come into its own until it became an iPhone game in 2009. The game just came to life on the iPhone with multi-touch and tilt controls along with mood and music to perfectly and completely engross you as a player. An experience as much as a game. (Review, App Store)

Eliss – A multi-touch masterpiece. Eliss delivers a unique, challenging and undeniably iPhone experience. Pinching and combining on-screen planets without letting them touch make for some frantic and riveting gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Sway – The unique multi-touch “swinging” controls of Sway may have ultimately been its downfall. If you can master the steep learning curve of the game’s controls, an amazing iPhone platforming experience awaits. (Review, App Store)

Space Ninja – A great use of the iPhone’s accelerometer that allows you to dodge enemy fire and invoke slow motion “bullet time”. Unfortunately, a recent 3GS update adds some strange and distracting visual effects, though the developer is said to be working on making those optional in a future release. (Review, App Store)

Arcade

Meteor Blitz – This is the best space shooter we’ve seen for the iPhone. It delivers 6 unlockable worlds with a good variety of enemies, perfect dual stick controls, and a lot of fun. The art and animation are top notch with all the flourishes you’d expect. (Review, App Store)

Space Invaders Infinity Gene – A really fresh and amazing modernization of the classic Space Invaders formula. Great controls, plenty of unlockables, as well as a unique music-based level generator. (Review, App Store)

Pac Man CE – Developed by the original Pac-Man designer, Tōru Iwatani, Pac-Man Championship Edition succeeds in breathing new life in to this arcade classic. With great controls, colorful graphics, and fast-paced game modes, Pac-Man Championship Edition is by far the best Pac-Man game on the platform. (Review, App Store)

I Dig It / I Dig It Expeditions – Take your tractor turned subterranean digger underground to search for valuable diggins to save the family farm. In the sequel, you take your digger on the road and search for lost treasure in several different environments including the antarctic and even underwater. Both games in the series are worth owning, although Expeditions does offer improvements over the original. (Review, I Dig It / I Dig It Expeditions)

Platformer

Rolando 2 – Sequel to one of the iPhone’s early original games, Rolando 2 did great justice to the series with 3D level effects, more great music and larger levels. (Review, App Store)

Soosiz – This game adopts the usual trappings of a traditional 2d platformer but perfectly mixes in a gravity defying mechanism that turns out to be a lot more than just a cute gimmick. Combine that with great controls and a ton of content, and you have one of our favorite iPhone games. (Review, App Store)

Hook Champ – Take the same swinging gameplay mechanics popularized by other games, add an RPG style equipment upgrade system, seamless online leaderboards, and fantastic pixelated retro graphics and you’ve got Hook Champ. (Review, App Store)

Retro Games

Saucelifter – A wonderful Choplifter-inspired action shooter with great controls that should appeal to both retro and modern gamers. (Review, App Store)

Rogue Touch – The definitive version of Rogue on the App Store. Consistently updated throughout the year based on community feedback, and enhanced for the iPhone. All the brutal difficulty of the original remains, and there’s even online leaderboards tracking the wealthiest saviors of the Amulet of Yendor. (Review, App Store)

Sword of Fargoal – By far the most approachable roguelike, Sword of Fargoal is a classic dungeon crawler with randomly generated levels which provide nearly infinite replay value. Aside from being a fantastic game, Sword of Fargoal also serves as an excellent example of how retro ports should be done. The iPhone version preserves the look and feel of the original while adding new OpenGL effects and other modern graphical flare. If you’ve never played a roguelike before, Sword of Fargoal is a great introduction to the genre. (Review, App Store)

Beneath a Steel Sky – An iPhone adaptation of the classic point and click adventure. While we loved the compete overhaul of Secret of Monkey Island which is absent from this release, Beneath a Steel Sky delivered something even better: great iPhone controls. A classic adventure game that is worthy for both fans and newcomers to the series. (Review, App Store)

Racing

Real Racing – Perhaps we should have categorized this as a “classic”, but Real Racing was the first iPhone racing game that really blew us away. The great graphics, perfect controls and AI all combined to make this one of the best iPhone racing games that still holds up today. (Review, App Store)

Need for Speed Shift – EA’s latest entry in to the genre can easily stand next to the best racing games on the platform in terms of the amount of included licensed materials, different game modes, and overall fun-factor. With control settings and driving assist options that range from the game practically playing itself to a competent racing simulation complete with a manual transmission mode, Need For Speed: Shift is a must-have for any fan of racing games. (Review, App Store)

2XL ATV Offroad – We described this as a “console quality” iPhone racer. The game is technically impressive with beautiful graphics and manages to combine it with varied tracks, a proper career mode and Wi-Fi multiplayer to deliver one of the best racers in the App Store. (Review, App Store)

Jet Car Stunts – A remarkably fun jet car racer/platformer that had us coming back again and again due to its great controls, fresh visual style and mind boggling levels. The only real complaint we’ve seen voiced has been the relative difficulty of the game, but, honestly, that’s what made it so addicting. (Review, App Store)

Puzzle

Toki Tori – A cute and challenging puzzle platformer that has been excellently adapted to the iPhone. Beautifully animated and ramps up nicely to provide plenty of gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Bobby Carrot Forever – Another excellent level-based puzzle game that requires you to navigate obstacles in order to collect all the carrots and reach the exit. 60 levels provide a refreshingly challenging puzzle game that offers well over 15 hours of gameplay. (Review, App Store)

Casual

Canabalt – This isn’t a particularly deep game. In fact, the average gaming session is probably measured in seconds rather than minutes. But with its simplicity and style, it managed to keep us coming back again and again. You can try out the identical Flash version for free at Canabalt.com. (Review, App Store)

Boost 3D – We might not have been too over the top about the game when we first reviewed it, but over time we realized that Boost 3D is a game that we love to play. There’s something hypnotic about this tunnel runner that had us coming back to play it again and again. (Review, App Store)

Harbor Master – Among the first of the avalanche of Flight Control inspired games, Harbor Master mixes things up by having the player dock cargo ships and send them back out to sea on a variety of different levels– Each with a different layout and some with additional gameplay elements such as pirate ships to shoot or sea monsters to fight off. (Review, App Store)

Labyrinth 2 – The sequel to the game that pioneered the marble rolling genre on the iPhone before the App Store even existed, Labyrinth 2 takes the standard wooden labyrinth game and adds even more obstacles, fantastic 3D graphics, and a full featured online level editor. The user created content community has already exploded and you can load up Labyrinth 2 every day and have a new batch of levels to play through, all of which download almost instantly inside of the game. (Review, App Store)

First Person Shooters

Eliminate Pro – We know some readers were unable to get past this game’s pay model, but we’ve logged more hours in this game than almost every other… and we never paid a single penny for it. Online FPS deathmatch with our friends and quick sessions throughout the day kept us playing this regularly. (Review, App Store)

N.O.V.A. – Drawing inspiration from Sci-Fi console classics, NOVA is a surprisingly complete and full featured iPhone first person shooter. With an epic single player campaign that will take you several hours to complete, graphics which are among the best currently available on the platform, and four player online deathmatch modes, NOVA has successfully lived up to the insane amount of pre-release hype. (Review, App Store)

Word

Bookworm – A game that should need no introduction, Popcap’s word searching classic fits great on the iPhone. The touch controls work effortlessly, and the gameplay is perfect for the casual play style of many iPhone gamers. (Review, App Store)

Words with Friends – Asynchronous online multiplayer not-quite-Scrabble that can either be played for free with in-game ads or without for a couple bucks. A recent update added push notifications to tell you when it’s your turn and according to Newtoy, the average player spends 1.5 hours each day playing. (Review, App Store)

Weird/Funny Games

Enviro-Bear 2010 – The best bear driving a car simulator available on any platform. Aside from just being a really crazy game, Enviro-Bear 2010 features some really clever interactions between items and if you survive long enough you’ll even earn yourself a slick coon skin cap. (Review, App Store)

Must Eat Birds – This simple slingshot-powered pastry defense game is delightfully Japanese, its ridiculous premise is rivaled only by “maximum bake” mode which must be experienced to truly appreciate. (Review, App Store)

Hi, How Are You – A wonderful tribute to the life, music, and art of Daniel Johnston– And a fun puzzle platformer game with great cell shaded graphics to boot. If you’ve never heard of Daniel Johnston, Hi, How Are You is a good place to start. (Review, App Store)

Battle Bears – The ridiculous premise of this survival shooter involving a bear commando mowing down swarms of pink bears that spew rainbows when they die is worth the price of admission alone. As if the game couldn’t get more silly, a recent update added a Colbear boss, zombie bears, and even a rap theme song. (Review, App Store)

Cult Classics

Minigore – This dual stick shooter isn’t necessarily any better than other dual stick shooters on the platform, but the extent that it has managed to captivate our community is rivaled by very few games. Stricken by problems with Apple’s approval process, MiniGore is only now beginning to see the features Mountain Sheep intended on implementing long ago. (Review, App Store)

Pocket God – It’s hard to even categorize or summarize Pocket God. Existing somewhere in between a entertainment app and a collection of mini games, Bolt Creative has managed to amass an army of millions of fans worldwide by consistently releasing free content updates and making players feel like they’re a part of the project by constantly interacting with and implementing ideas generated by the community. You KNOW you like Pocket God. (Review, App Store)

Strategy

geoDefense / geoDefense Swarm – Whether you prefer open field or fixed path tower defense games, the geoDefense series are among the best available on the platform. Featuring difficulty levels that range from difficult to really really difficult, geoDefense is balanced in a way which will always keep you on your toes. (Review, geoDefense / Swarm)

Defender Chronicles – This odd hybrid between a tower defense game and an RPG has seen an absolute ridiculous amount of content added to it since its initial release. 20 different types of units, hundreds of items, multiple difficulty levels and game modes along with online leaderboards and voiceovers make Defender Chronicles among the best in its genre. (Review, App Store)

Chess with Friends – The iPhone equivalent to snail mail correspondence chess– You can play the ad-based version for free, or upgrade to the premium version to play without ads. Recently added push notifications that alert you when its your turn and an endless supply of human opponents makes this the best chess game available on the platform. (Article, App Store)

Role Playing

Zenonia – While the amount of grinding to level up may have lessened the experience for some, Zenonia still seems to be the benchmark that most RPG’s are compared to amongst our community. The game will take you around 40 hours to complete, and the five included character classes will tempt you to play through it multiple times. (Review, App Store)

Underworlds – A great dungeon crawler with tons of monsters to slay and loot to pick up. Underworlds was the first of its kind on the platform, and a recent content update made it even better.
(Review, App Store)

Inotia: A Wanderer of Luone – The sequel of The Chronicles of Inotia sports considerable improvements to nearly all aspects of the game. Multiple character classes, a well designed battle system, mercenaries that can be added to your party, and a surprisingly full featured online component combine in to a game that will be hard for fans of roleplaying games to pass up. (Review, App Store)

Ravensword – While this RPG may lack some gameplay elements which have become standard in modern games, it marks an amazing accomplishment in iPhone development. Created by a team of two, RavenSword features an expansive and beautiful open world filled with quests to complete, hidden areas to find, and countless monsters to slay. (Review, App Store)

Physics

Peggle – If you don’t know what Peggle is by now, you must have spent the past few years on Mars with your eyes closed and fingers in your ears. Inspired by pachinko and loaded with style, gratuitous graphical effects, and the Ode To Joy, this may be the perfect casual game. (Review, App Store)

Ragdoll Blaster – Fire ragdolls out of a cannon to complete over 100 different levels. Frustrating at times, Ragdoll Blaster is fun enough to keep you coming back for more– Even after you’ve spent the last 15 minutes retrying the same level so many times that you lost count. (Review, App Store)

iBlast Moki – The goal is to get the Mokis from point A to point B through the use of bombs, ropes, balloons, wheels and more as you traverse through the 6 worlds and 70 levels. The overall quality of iBlast Moki as well as the inclusion of a level editor with sharable levels make this game really stand out. (Review, App Store)

Sports

Baseball Superstars 2010 – Not only a great baseball game, it is also packed with RPG elements that add an amazing amount of depth. Aside from playing standard games of baseball, both super batters and super pitchers can be leveled up in season modes. These characters can be customized in a number of ways, allowing for hours upon hours of gameplay with each character. (Review, App Store)

Homerun Battle 3D – This one will always be known as Baseball Slugger to us, but since changed its name to Homerun Battle 3D. If you’re not a sports game fan, don’t let the sports theme throw you off, Homerun Battle 3D is one of the best. It also represented the first massively successful online matchup system we’ve seen in the App Store allowing you to easily compete head-to-head against others around the world. (Review, App Store)

Backbreaker Football – While nowhere near as deep as the “full” football games on the platform, Backbreaker is probably more fun. The game is laid out in series of challenges where you guide your player to the end zone, hopefully scoring bonus points by “showboating”. (Review, App Store)

Let’s Golf – The closest thing available on the App Store to Hot Shots Golf. This arcade golf game features 63 holes, local multiplayer, and different control modes that appeal to both casual players and those looking for a slightly more technical game of golf. (Review, App Store)

Conclusion

We spent weeks sorting through the hundreds of games we’ve reviewed this year, and found excuse after excuse to keep adding to the list. Even so, there were still plenty of games we quite enjoyed that didn’t make it to this list. Feel free to add your suggestions to the comments if we missed one of your favorites.

This post originally appeared on Touch Arcade

TouchArcade obsessively covers the latest, greatest, and most noteworthy iPhone games on a daily basis. If you’re looking for a new timewaster for your iPhone, look no further.

No Comments | Tags: ,