The 73 best iPhone apps

With more than 150,000 apps to choose from, it’s far from easy to decide which iPhone apps are worth downloading onto your handset, let alone which are worth paying for.

That’s why the PC Pro team has been busy downloading to bring you our definitive countdown of the top 73 iPhone apps.

(Note: application prices and availability are subject to change)

1. AUDIOBOO (free)

Describing itself as “the iPhone audioblogging app”, AudioBoo is literally priceless for those wanting to add a quick interview or audio clip to their website. Hit the record button to capture the audio on your handset, save the clip, add a photo and description, and AudioBoo automatically tags your location. Short clips are uploaded in seconds, and can then be listened to via the Audioboo website or embedded into your blog or site with a small piece of pre-prepared HTML.

2. THE GUARDIAN (£2.39)

The ever-innovative Guardian sets the blueprint for newspaper mobile apps. Every story is comprehensively tagged, allowing readers to quickly access articles from their favourite columnists (Charlie Brooker, Jack Schofield) or subjects (Tottenham Hotspur, Motoring). Articles are beautifully presented, and the app also provides access to The Guardian’s eclectic range of podcasts and the option to download articles for offline reading. It’s so good, we’ve stopped buying the paper.

3. AROUNDME (Free)

AroundMe puts the GPS radio inside your phone to spectacularly good use, helping you to find everything from cash points to cardiac wards in the local vicinity. The app has 18 pre-selected categories, and don’t be put off by the Americanisms: searching for “gas stations” will still point you towards the nearest BP station. It also accepts free text searches: ask for “sports shops”, for instance, and it will hunt down the local Nike stores, Foot Locker and even non-specialist retailers such as Argos. Results are presented as a list (nearest result first) or as pins on a Google Map, allowing you to gauge exactly how far you’ll have to travel to find what you’re looking for.

4. ORBITAL (£1.19)

This game is so horrifically addictive, we’re surprised there hasn’t been a campaign in the Daily Express to have it banned. The intelligent brother of Bust-a-Move, the idea of Orbital is to make spheres disappear by repeatedly bashing them with other spheres fired from a gun at the foot of the screen. So much easier to play than explain, head over to the Orbital website for a free browser-based demo, and make sure you check out the Supernova mode when you download it on your iPhone.

5. ECHOFON FOR TWITTER (Free)

Despite strong competition from Twitterrific and TweetDeck, Echofon is our iPhone Twitter client of choice. It’s both lightweight and responsive, with support for advanced features such as the recently implemented Twitter lists, geotagging and the option to quickly tweet photos stored on your handset. The only big omission is the option to juggle multiple Twitter accounts (TweetDeck’s your man for this).

6. MOBYKO (Free)

Transferring contacts from one phone to another is a pig, especially if you’re moving from one OS to another. Mobyko makes it deliciously simple: upload the contacts from your old phone to the firm’s servers, and then download them to your new handset. The iPhone app adds a veneer of elegance to an already straightforward process, but most other phones are supported via the Mobyko website.

7. FLICKR (Free)

The Flickr iPhone app is a masterclass in design, with slideshows of your contacts’ photos panning across the screen the moment you fire up the app. There are options to catch up with recent activity on your account, view your contacts’ photostreams, and upload images snapped on the smartphone’s camera – although it lacks the serendipitous “Explore” feature of the full website. The BlackBerry software is limited, focusing solely on uploads.

8. LOGITECH TOUCH MOUSE (Free)

This isn’t the only remote mouse available, but it has Logitech’s name and support to give it credence. Download and install the corresponding PC software, enter the computer’s IP address into the app, and in an instant you’ll be whizzing the cursor around your media centre’s screen using your iPhone as a touchpad, complete with three mouse buttons. It also doubles as a keyboard, saving money on extra hardware.

9. SPOTIFY MOBILE (Free – Spotify subscription required)

If avoiding the irritating ads isn’t enough to tempt you to pay £10 per month for a Spotify subscription on your PC, accessing its vast library of music on your mobile could well be. Spotify Mobile streams music over 3G or Wi-Fi, and there’s also the option to store playlists locally for when reception falters – although these have to be re-synched every once in a while. But that’s a small inconvenience for having access to practically any song you can think of wherever you are.

10. TUBEMAP (Free)

Given that London’s Tube trains remain as dependable as Tiger Woods, a little iPhone assistance can go a long way. Live line updates help you avoid arriving at a station only to find it’s shut, but if you do, the scrolling map and journey planner will let you find an alternative route. Coupled with Google Maps, it’s certainly a gift for harassed commuters.

11. BLURB (Free)

Used to hilarious effect by Ollie in the latest series of political comedy The Thick Of It, Blurb turns your iPhone into a scrolling text banner. Tap in a message and it’s broadcast in large, scrolling text across your iPhone’s screen, allowing you to order drinks without leaving your bar stool. Novelty with a capital N.

12. SKI CLUB SNOW REPORTS (Free)

The Ski Club of Great Britain’s app is a good way to ensure you’re not piste off by the time you reach the slopes. It provides information on ski resorts across the globe, delivering data on snow depth, piste conditions, the weather and, crucially, how many ski lifts are open in a given resort.

13. MACUSER (59p – £1.19 per issue)

Our sister title MacUser has become one of the first tech magazines in the UK to publish on the iPhone. Each magazine is delivered exactly as it appears on the shelves, with the ability to flick through pages with the waft of a finger. You’ll get a free copy of the latest magazine for simply downloading the app, with subsequent copies charged at a fraction of the cover price.

14. CYCLEMETER GPS CYCLING COMPUTER (£2.99)

Cyclists obsessed with measuring their performance can take advantage of the iPhone’s GPS to track their journeys with a barrage of statistics. Routes are logged and plotted on Google Maps, with graphs showing the speed and altitude of your journey. The software compares your performance to previous circuits, and will read out mile markers and average speed through the iPhone’s headphones, if you wish.
It will even read out incoming messages on your Twitter account. Best of all, routes can be exported in KML format to Google Earth, so you can boast of your pedal prowess and share your favourite routes with friends. Or just find out where you’ve been.

15. ALOQA (Free)

Using your phone’s GPS, Aloqa scans the surrounding area for a huge range of attractions, landmarks and places of interest. The software adds intelligent extras: search for cinemas and it will bring up what time films are showing, for example, while clicking on a restaurant will also unveil a phone number. It’s possible to customise your feeds with dozens of filters – from cash machines and comedy clubs, to local Wikipedia pages and trendy bars.

16. FACEBOOK (Free)

Facebook’s range of mobile applications offer most of the features available on the main site, with your newsfeed, friends list and notifications present, alongside smartphone-specific tools, such as the ability to take a photo and upload it directly to the site. Chat and messaging are both included in the iPhone app, and it benefits from a slick interface that’s faster and easier to use than the clunky mobile website.

17. CLASSICS (59p)

There are plenty of eBook reader apps available, but Classics gives you a bookcase layout that suspiciously pre-empted the iPad’s iBooks interface, as well as a collection of more than 20 (and growing) classic titles, ranging from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Jungle Book, to The Iliad and Paradise Lost. They’re animated to turn like pages, the illustrations are intact, and it costs less than a newspaper.

18. GOOGLE (Free)

The vast compendium of Google mobile apps are overshadowed by one astonishing feature: voice search. Say anything from “petrol stations in Luton” to “Brothers in Arms lyrics” into your phone and Google’s magnificent speech algorithms translate flawlessly almost every time, without any prior training. Better still, results are delivered in a mobile-optimised form, with quick access to maps and directions in the petrol station search, for example.

19. TIOTI TV+ (£1.79)

There’s no shortage of TV guide apps for the iPhone, including an official free one for Sky+, so why bother paying for Tioti TV+? How about the push alerts when your favourite shows are about to start, the remote-record function for all Sky+ channels, the inclusion of iPlayer content in the listings and personalised viewing recommendations? It’s the ultimate TV guide.

20. GOOGLE EARTH (Free)

This stunning Google Earth app offers the same high-resolution satellite imagery we’re used to on the PC, but in the palm of your hand. Tilt the iPhone to adjust perspective, click to get geo-located Wikipedia information, and add the Panoramio layer for access to millions of geo-located photos for good measure. Connect to Wi-Fi, rather than the unreliable 3G, to avoid any graphical stuttering as you zoom down from the sky.

21. TUNEWIKI (Free)

As well as acting as an intuitive media player, TuneWiki comes with a host of other functions: lyric and video searching, Last.fm and Shoutcast radio directories, the ability to build YouTube libraries, and the TuneWiki community, which creates playlists based on popularity, location and genre. A vital download if your smartphone is your primary music device.

22. PETROLPRICES PRO (£2.99 per year)

While some satnavs can direct you to petrol stations on your route, this iPhone app can reveal the cheapest source of fuel within a radius of your choosing, based on your current location. It will display this information on a map and even show you directions courtesy of Google. It isn’t free, but you’ll save the yearly fee in cheaper fuel costs, so who’s complaining?

23. GUINNESS PREMIERSHIP RUGBY (Free)

This official iPhone app for the Rugby Premiership requires a Wi-Fi or 3G internet connection to work, and will download tons of data the first time you open it, after which a 2G connection will suffice. Once done, the app provides live matchday scores, full fixture lists, team details, results archives and plenty of Guinness Premiership news.

24. MY FIRST WORDS LITE (Free)

Parents have long-realised their phone can be particularly useful for emergency entertaining – if you get stuck on a train, for instance. But if you’re loath to let little ones play games, opt for something educational, such as My First Words. The premise is simple: drag the letter blocks onto the corresponding ones to make words. The repetition helps to drum in the letter names, and it’s rewarding for tots who can’t write letters for themselves. For children aged two to seven.

25. LAST.FM (Free)

As with the desktop version of this music streaming service, you can create playlists based on your favourite artists and genres – or browse through tags to find hidden gems – before sharing your favourites with fellow users.

26. SHAZAM (Free)

We’ve all been there, listening to the radio or watching the telly and wondering just what the heck that music being played is. At last, there’s an app that saves the embarrassment of attempting to hum it to your wife. Just hold the phone to the music source and hit the Shazam button, and within 30 seconds it reveals the artist and track being played. Well, 90% of the time anyway, which is impressive enough.

27. NATIONAL RAIL ENQUIRIES (£4.99)

If you want live departure boards there are free apps available, but for £4.99 the official National Rail Enquiries app adds a few nice features. The full journey planner from the website, quick links to Google Maps of any station you require and – simplest and best – the next train home button, which does exactly what it implies to make your post-pub journey home as smooth as possible.

28. WORDWEB (Free)

WordWeb is a British English dictionary and thesaurus, providing access to 285,000 words and phrases, 225,000 definitions, 70,000 usage examples and 85,000 pronunciations. Unlike Dictionary.com it doesn’t require an internet connection, and can auto-suggest similar-sounding words, or those often confused with the word you entered. If you’re looking for a pocket dictionary, this is the best.

29. FLIXTER MOVIES (Free)

Want to know what’s on at the cinema this week? What about if you’re away from home and don’t know where the cinema is? Flixter will find the nearest cinemas to your location, and tell you which movies they’re playing and when. It also offers trailers to watch, reviews to read and even DVD releases to browse. The only downside is that while Flixter provides ticket prices, you can’t buy them through the app.

30. PHOTOSHOP.COM MOBILE (Free)

It’s worth thinking of Adobe’s Photoshop app as a companion to the Photoshop.com online sharing site. It offers 2GB of online storage as standard, and a raft of basic editing features including exposure, cropping, contrast, focus, sharpening and saturation. You also get a handful of artistic effects to mask the smeary photos afforded by smartphone cameras.

31. DUAL LEVEL (59p)

It’s so simple it’s brilliant – an app that uses the iPhone’s accelerometers as a two-way spirit level. Perhaps you won’t use it every day, but on the odd occasion when you’re called upon to hang a picture it’s handy – and stupidly fun.

32. EBAY (Free)

There’s no need to be chained to your desktop just because an auction is drawing to a close. The official eBay app lets you keep track of items you’re buying or selling, manage your messages, and search for bargains while you’re on the move. You can even place bids from your phone.

33. REBTEL (Free)

First and foremost this is a service rather than an app. The idea is that, when you’re abroad or want to call international numbers from your mobile, Rebtel will assign a local number that acts as an alias for the real one. You’re then charged local rates plus a small charge per minute depending on the country. We found connections weren’t always 100% reliable, but for the cost savings it’s worthwhile.

34. TRAPSTER (Free)

Trapster takes advantage of the GPS radio in modern smartphones to provide free speed camera alerts, and display them on a special version of Google Maps. The database is user-generated, so as well as alerts, the app provides the facility to report unmarked speed cameras – just tap a button onscreen to mark the spot. The phalanx of user-spotted cameras means Trapster is updated more often than satnav systems, and it marks mobile speed camera sites as well as static ones.

35. WHITE NOISE (£1.19)

White Noise is designed for anybody being kept awake by snoring partners, or those who struggle to sleep without the comforting sound of whale song and lapping beaches in the background. The application offers 40 ambient sounds to lull you into the land of nod, and it provided genuine relief for the tinnitus sufferer in the PC Pro office.

36. EVERNOTE (Free)

If you’re a serial note-taker, Evernote is the smartphone app to put at the top of your list. Snap a picture of any text – including handwritten notes – and Evernote will read the text, index it, and synchronise your captured notes with the companion app on your desktop PC. It can be put to all sorts of uses, from scanning jottings to storing business cards and recipes from cookbooks. And, once you’re back home, you can organise your notes to your heart’s content.

37. RIGHTMOVE (Free)

Online estate agent Rightmove aggregates property sales and rental listings from all over the UK to produce a huge searchable database on your smartphone. The stroke of genius is GPS support: wherever you happen to be, you can check local prices and nearby properties at the push of a button. You can even call up interior photographs of each house as you pass by.

38. COPILOT 8 UK & IRELAND (£27)

CoPilot 8 is the best mobile phone satnav app on any platform, bar none. It’s easy to use, with most options one or two finger taps away, it calculates sensible routes, boasts accurate mapping, and both the onscreen and spoken directions are clear and easy to understand. Innovative touches include providing instructions for the next two upcoming junctions rather than the usual one, showing you the cheapest nearby fuel prices, and there’s also a facility that plots the location of friends on the map. The fact that it does all this for only £27, and without ongoing usage fees, means it not only beats rival TomTom on features and usability, but it also costs less than half its price.

39. SKYPE (Free)

There are a number of third-party apps out there for accessing VoIP services such as Skype, Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk, but for ease of use, Skype’s own client wins. While we had trouble persuading rival Fring to connect using our fussy office Wi-Fi network, Skype did so without issues, and allowed us to use our existing Skype account along with the pre-paid credit. Sound quality wasn’t great, but it’s a cheap way to phone key contacts when you’re abroad.

40. WORLDCARD MOBILE (£3.49)

WorldCard takes advantage of the camera on your smartphone to snap a business card and automatically extract the text directly into your contacts list. The app recognises and parses the text to create the contact record, and the phone’s normal sync software then copies the data to your PC.

41. SEADRAGON (Free)

Falling firmly into the “wow, but what do you do with it?” category, Microsoft’s Seadragon app is, at the very least, a sensational piece of artwork. Based on Microsoft’s Deep Zoom technology, it allows you to zoom right in on the finest detail of high-resolution photography using the familiar finger-pinching technique. Showcases include stunning aerial photography of the planet and an impressionist painting formed from thousands of drinks cans.

42. AMAZON MOBILE UK (Free)

This app combines basic shopping with the Amazon Remembers service. Take a snap of an item, and as well as uploading it to your Amazon account as a reminder, it will attempt to identify the product. A few minutes later, with unnerving accuracy, your photo will be updated with a link to the relevant Amazon product page.

43. BATTERY DOCTOR PRO (59p)

The iPhone’s battery isn’t great, so you’ll want to ensure it doesn’t degrade further. Battery Doctor Pro records your charging history, reminding you to carry out a full charge cycle – from 20% or below to 100%, with ten minutes’ maintenance time on top – once a month. Worth the 59p just for the statistics it provides about your usage.

44. BRUSHES (£2.99)

An art app so popular that Steve Jobs brought its creator on stage at the iPad launch, Brushes is a finger-painting app that makes the most of the iPhone’s touch interface. It supports layers and comes with a viewer for Mac OS X.

45. FLIGHT CONTROL (59p)

Some apps just get the potential of a touch interface. Flight Control, in which you trace the paths of incoming aircraft to a variety of runways without them colliding, is one of the simplest iPhone apps. It’s been downloaded several million times, and now has five varied airfields to challenge your piloting skills.

46. MET OFFICE WEATHER (Free)

The official Met Office app kicks the default iPhone Weather widget into a cocked hat. Using GPS to pinpoint your location, it delivers highly detailed five-day forecasts, including sunrise/set, wind speeds and severe weather warnings. Meanwhile, time-lapse satellite maps show just how much cloud is covering the country.

47. CURRENCY (Free)

A free app that provides up-to-the-minute exchange rate info for more than 90 currencies. Pick your starting currency, enter your balance and see the corresponding figure in Honduran Lempiras, Paraguayan Guarani or any other currencies you choose to add to your homepage.

48. POCKET FIRST AID & CPR (£2.39)

This app made headlines for helping to save an American man trapped under rubble after the Haiti earthquake, and it’s easy to see why. It includes pages of advice on all sorts of ailments and emergencies, but the biggest draw is the huge library of videos and photos, all of which are stored on your phone so you don’t need a signal. It won’t replace proper first aid training, but it will do an impressive job of giving you the essentials until help arrives.

49. FILMTRAILER (Free)

It isn’t the quickest at loading and the picture quality is variable, but Filmtrailer does exactly what you’d expect: deliver multiple trailers, interviews and information for all the latest film releases. It also doubles up as a cinema locator and listings application using your mobile phone’s GPS to localise results. The only thing it can’t do is book tickets.

50. CAMERABAG (£1.19)

Photos taken on the iPhone’s iffy camera can do with all the cosmetic enhancement they can get. CameraBag provides a decent selection of filters, including a colour-cross filter, imitation Polaroids, and a 1970s kitsch effect that makes photos look like a Slade album cover.

51. SKY MOBILE TV (£6 per month)

With all four Sky Sports channels and ESPN, as well as Sky Sports News, Sky News and At The Races, this app brings live satellite TV to your iPhone. Picture quality is sharp, and we had no problem watching football on the iPhone’s modest screen. It works over 3G or Wi-Fi and costs £6 a month; if you don’t have Sky Sports at home, it’s an affordable way to keep up with the action.

52. IFILES (£1.19)

iFiles may sound like a particularly gruesome form of torture, but it is in fact an ingenious way of storing documents, photos, movies and more on the gigabytes of spare iPhone storage. Files can be transferred from your PC to phone by entering a dedicated IP address in your PC’s web browser, then uploaded via a smartly designed web interface. Even lengthy Office docs and PDFs are easy to skim on the smartphone, with scrollable thumbnails of the PDFs making browsing less painful. Files can also be created on the phone, including basic text documents and voice recordings. However, with support for multiple AV formats, perhaps iFile’s best feature is that it lets you play media that would otherwise be outlawed by iTunes.

53. TIME MAGAZINE (Free)

Time’s awesomely slick iPhone app proves the publishing stalwart is no less relevant in the modern age. A magazine-style flick of the finger allows you to browse through the swish carousel of stories, which have been elegantly reformatted for the iPhone screen. First-rate journalism complements features such as quirky Top 10 lists, striking photo galleries and short video reports. What’s more, it’s easy to share stories via email or Twitter with shortcuts at the foot of every page. Seamless offline access to the most popular articles makes the Time iPhone app an unmissable download for commuters seeking stimulus.

54. METRO UK (Free)

The free Metro newspaper is a familiar sight to commuters in major cities, as are the trampled copies left on the bus and Tube at the end of the day. Cut down your carbon footprint with the Metro app, which allows you to view the latest issue over a 3G connection, or download any issue from the archive for offline browsing.

55. LET’S GOLF (£1.19)

One of the few apps that looks like it belongs on far superior hardware, Let’s Golf has the gloss and production values of a console game. Four courses, upgradeable golfers and an unlock structure that encourages you to progress to increasingly difficult levels, make this one of the finest games in the app store.

56. BIGOVEN (Free)

Ideal for looking up those last-minute recipes, BigOven can be relied on to offer a variety of approaches to the dish you’re looking for. There are buying tips for ingredients, a random recipe feature for those looking to experiment, and a cookbook to store your favourite recipes.

57. TV GUIDE.CO.UK (Free)

If you don’t want to shell out for Tioti TV+ (see entry 19), this lightweight app offers programme listings for more than 400 channels, including Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, Freesat or Tiscali, covering a 24-hour period. A user-friendly interface allows you to customise listings to suit your needs, making this a simple but effective way of organising your viewing schedule.

58. DSLR CAMERA REMOTE (£1.19 for light version; £11.99 for full version)

The premium version of this app allows you to remotely connect to your Canon EOS or Nikon DSLR and peer through the viewfinder, alter settings including shutter-speed, aperture and white-balance, then fire the shutter. The light version limits you to remote firing and viewing images stored in memory, but it’s still a handy way to avoid camera-shake.

59. WHATSAPP MESSENGER (59p)

Text-messaging fiends may find that WhatsApp is the best 59p they’ve ever spent, as PC Pro reader @ICTtower (who suggested this app) will testify. The service essentially bypasses the SMS system, allowing you to send messages over the all-inclusive data network. The downside is that both you and your recipient will need to have the app installed, but WhatsApp roots through contacts to discover which of your friends are already signed up.

60. TIP & SPLIT (Free)

This clever one-trick pony prevents nights out ending in a mental arithmetic exercise. Enter the total restaurant bill, select the number of diners, and Tip & Split works out how much each person owes – as well as an indication of how much to leave the waiting staff.

61. TESCO FINDER (Free)

On the face of it just a simple store finder, Tesco’s application is actually deceptively powerful. Search for “Heinz baked beans” for example, and the app will tell you exactly where to find them in your local supermarket or Express store. “Aisle 36 on the left side counting two units along then the 4th shelf up from the floor,” in case you’re looking for beans in Burgess Hill. Items can then be added to a shopping list, which is stored in aisle order, allowing you to whisk round the store in record time. Anything that saves a conversation with a pubescent Saturday boy is a winner as far as we’re concerned.

62. SKY FOOTBALL CENTRE (Free)

If you find the pundits on Sky’s Soccer Saturday annoying, take solace in the broadcaster’s brilliantly designed iPhone app. Immaculately presented, if a little slow on 3G, the app provides latest scores, graphical team line-ups, live text commentary, and photos for games from every division. Meanwhile, the news section will let you know who owns Portsmouth this week.

63. THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND (£4.99)

When PC Pro first burst on to the scene, games like The Secret of Monkey Island would have stretched your home PC: now they’re perfectly playable on your smartphone. This remastered game is controlled via a cursor that you drag around the screen to select places for the hapless Guybrush Threepwood to visit and objects he can interact with. It will keep you entertained for as long as a similarly priced paperback would.

64. OCADO (Free)

Powered by the online supermarket best-known for its Waitrose partnership, the Ocado app brings an end to Saturday morning queues in the supermarket. Once registered, the app downloads the site’s catalogue to your phone, allowing you to choose your groceries even if you can’t get a signal. The app keeps a running total of your shopping basket and, when you’re finished, will find a convenient delivery slot. Best of all: no more wobbly trolley wheels.

65. FANTASY FOOTBALL MANAGER (59p)

The official Barclays Fantasy Premier League is by far the most immersive of all the fantasy football competitions in the UK, and the best fantasy app out there has a wonderful graphical interface to it. As well as scores, transfers and results, this app aggregates countless news feeds, allows you to keep watch lists of players and trends, and even analyses fixture lists to help you decide which teams’ players look good for forthcoming gameweeks. We’d still recommend using the website for big team changes, but for bragging in the pub on a Saturday afternoon the app is ideal.

66. 8,500+ DRINKS & COCKTAIL RECIPES (Free; 59p for ad-free version)

An app guaranteed to make you popular as the night draws on at a party, this encyclopaedia of drinks can turn practically any combination of half-empty bottles into a tasty cocktail. The vast list of ingredients are selected from a revolving fruit machine-like menu, and matching recipes appear within seconds. Favourite recipes can be added to a shortlist, should the alcohol cloud your memory. PC Pro accepts no responsibility for any resulting hangovers.

67. IFLIGHT (59p)

Most sane people would rather pass the time in a padded cell than an airport terminal; iFlight UK should help prevent bored strolls around Dixons Duty Free. It tracks departures and arrivals from nine UK airports, and allows you to hunt down your plane by airport or flight number. It’s even styled in that gaudy yellow interface airports use on their own departure screens.

68. DOCUMENTS TO GO (£5.99)

Documents To Go has been a smartphone staple for a decade. The software allows you to view and edit Office documents on the move, as well as read Adobe PDFs. While only a sadist would perform serious document edits, it’s an effective way to take key documents with you.

69. UK POSTAGE CALCULATOR (£1.19)

This handy app will save you from elbowing past pension-hungry OAPs in the Post Office queues. Enter the weight, value and destination of your package and this app will calculate the correct postage, allowing you to slap on the appropriate stamps. A blessed timesaver.

70. METER READ (59p)

Enter readings from your electricity, gas and water meters at regular intervals and this app will calculate how much you’re using and break it all down into pretty graphs. Better still, enter details of up to three competing tariffs and the app will work out if you could cut your bills by switching providers.

71. PAYPAL (Free)

The perfect companion for the eBay app (see entry 32), PayPal lets you access your accounts and check balances and transactions after you’ve completed an auction. Plus, if you have PayPal-linked email addresses associated with any of the contacts in your phone book, making individual payments is as simple as tapping their name and selecting an amount.

72. LINKEDIN (Free)

LinkedIn has an iPhone app that’s arguably friendlier than its website. Its best feature is rather hidden away: your business contacts can be imported directly into the iPhone’s address book, including phone numbers, email addresses and a photo. Status updates, discussions and private messages are also a finger-poke away.

73. GORILLACAM (Free)

All sorts of applications claim to improve the iPhone’s camera, but Gorillacam – from the makers of the brilliant bendy camera tripods – rolls more than most into one free app. Extras include digital zoom, a timer, a time-lapse option and a three-shot burst mode. It also offers three choices of resolution, as well as a grid overlay, spirit-level indicator and the ability to tap anywhere onscreen to take a shot. It will vastly increase your chances of taking a shot to remember.