Best iPhone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders

If you want to load your iPhone or iPod Touch with some interesting apps, odds are you’ll be overwhelmed by the number of choices at Apple’s App Store–all 35,000 of them (and counting). What you need is a reliable guide to the best, most useful, and most entertaining iPhone apps, concisely cataloged and described. Well, look no further, because Best iPhone Apps is on its way!

Full of colorful and helpful illustrations, this one-of-a-kind catalog gives you the quick lowdown on each app, with brief tips on how to use it. No other guide can help you sort through the wealth of iPhone apps to find the true nuggets. Written by Missing Manual author and iWork specialist Josh Clark, Best iPhone Apps is the guide for discriminating downloaders.

Turn your outing—or anything you do—into a slideshow to share with others. Whrrl bundles photos and text messages into “stories.” Friends can add to the tale from their phones, too. Anything’s fair game: Your kid’s birthday, a paintball match, a night out, a conference, whatever. Take photos, post messages, and when you’re done, sign into whrrl.com to edit your story into a slideshow to share on the Web, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

Storytellers: Whrrl’s main screen shows a rundown of “featured stories”: a mix of slideshows posted by you and your friends, along with publicly shared slideshows selected for greatness by the Whrrl staff. Tap a story to see the slideshow, or start your own by tapping “Say where you are.” Announcing your location creates a new story where you post photos and messages.

Location, location, location: Stories are pegged to places. If other Whrrl-toting friends are in the same place, they can join the story and add their own photos and messages. You control who can see the story as it’s happening, changing the privacy settings anytime. You might share the story with more people, for example, after you get home and edit it into shape. The story ends when everyone leaves the location.

Feed me: Stories have two layouts, “feed view” and “story view.” Feed view shows the blow-by-blow events that construct the story, listing the messages, photos, arrivals, departures, and comments that float through the location as the story happens. In either view, visitors can add a comment by tapping the speech-bubble icon next to messages and photos. Tap a profile photo to see more about a person, including their stories.

Story view: This is the slideshow of the event. Photos and messages are each individual slides; the effect is like a silent movie where images and dialogue weave together. The front “card” shows who was there as well as visitor comments. When you’re done making the story, the slideshow remains on the Web, and you can edit it, share it, keep it private, or toss it out. (You have to sign into whrrl.com to edit or delete your stories)

Share with anyone: Friends, family, and coworkers don’t have to use Whrrl in order to see your adventures. Post stories on Facebook or Twitter while they’re in progress. (After a story is finished, you can still share it, but you have to do it from the website.) You can also have Whrrl create a photo album on Facebook for every story you create, copying your story photos automatically to your Facebook account.

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