Free Apps to Help You Find Great Apps

The App Store's massive success does not make it any easier to find good apps. Where do you turn for help? Fortunately, "there's an app for that!" In fact, there are quite a few apps that will help you find the app you're looking for, and most of them are free. Here's a quick rundown of a few of the best apps and services that I've used to help me find worthwhile apps and also share my app recommendations with others:

Appsfire

Free, app2.me/2846

AppsfireThis app makes it easy to interact with appsfire.com, an app discovery and sharing service with a social slant to it. The app lets you view recommendations and share your picks via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. You can compare your selection of apps with friends and view recommendations (including picks specific to the country you're in). The Discover section lets you browse a variety of app lists, including the Global Top 15 Clicked Apps, Top 15 Grossing Apps, and lists of the favorite apps of"Tech celebrities and VIPs" (including yours truly). Sharing your picks is easy. You can create one big list of all your apps, or smaller lists containing your favorites, games, productivity or media apps, and so on.

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Bargain Bin with Push

Free, app2.me/2459

Bargain Bin with PushAs the app name suggests, this one helps you find bargains—apps that have had a price reductions, including those that have become free. A big plus for this app is that it offers push notifications. For example, you can set a target price for an app you fancy (say $6.99 for an app currently at $9.99). When the app price is lowered to your target, an alert is pushed to your device. You can also receive alerts when apps become free. In addition, you can set filters that let you see just the free apps, just the on-sale apps, or both. The interface layout is very busy, but it's a solid app and a great way to find bargains.

AppMiner

Free, app2.me/2847

This is another app that highlights app price drops. It provides constant monitoring of the App Store for price changes and lets you access this information. The app lets you search by title and keyword, set target prices, watch specific apps for price changes, and more. It also boasts a very clean and easy-to-use interface.

Chomp

Free, app2.me/2848

ChompChomp is another very social iPhone app that shows app reviews, a live stream of reviews from friends and others, and recommendations based on your reviews. Reviews are very concise, with a 50-character limit. I found this a little awkward at first but have come to quite enjoy it. You can follow expert "App Celebrities" and friends via Facebook Connect. You can also find apps quickly through a fast search engine and bookmark apps that catch your eye. Chomp has a simple and effective UI and I find it a lot of fun.

Apptizr

Free, app2.me/2849

ApptizrThis very versatile app offers six ways to discover great apps: its own recommendations based on a proprietary algorithm that matches apps with your tastes, a live feed showing what members of the Apptizr community like, the ability to browse apps by category, a list of the "hottest" apps based on the App Store rankings, a top apps list based on the App Store ratings, and a list of on-sale apps. It also delivers app recommendations via a weekly e-mail, provides on-sale alerts, lets you see what your friends own and like, and lets you share app recommendations with friends via e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.

Genius Free, built-in App Store feature

Genius was initially incorporated into iTunes to provide music recommendations, but it now provides app recommendations as well. To turn it on, go to the App Store app on your device, select the Featured tab, and tap on the Genius button at the top of the screen. When activated, Genius learns about your tastes by tracking the apps you install on your device and makes its recommendations based on these. The longer you have it enabled, the more finely tuned its recommendations should be. I find this to be the case and find many of its suggestions to be very useful ones.

Issue: 
NovDec2010_BuyersGuide
Department/Section: 
Apps
TOC Weight: 
63