You Complete Me (and other Apps I can’t live without)

First things first. If you don't have an iPhone, don't try to search your inferior cell phone’s app barn for these apps. You crackberry psychos love to pretend like your apps are just as awesome and free as iPhone apps. Give it a rest, we know they aren’t. Per wiki (the serious journalists’ first stop) as of September 1, 2010, there were approx. 250,000 third-party apps available on the App Store. I’m sure this is incorrect. There are at least 2 million. I haven’t done the leg work, but I am fairly certain all but 7 of those are free. Since there are so many apps, this is by no means a list of my favorites or the best…but it is a list of apps I heart.

Words With Friends - Ironically, there are no words to describe my love of this app. It’s a fancy version of Scrabble or Literati (for the Yahoo heads). I’ve literally tried to convert people to the iPhone solely in search of worthy opponents for WWF (that‘s what we serious players call it). Surprisingly, no one has left their mediocre cell phone providers just to have the ability to play this game. I have no idea why. Yet, I have managed to recruit all of my fellow iPhone users. Honestly, this has been hit and miss. My friend, who will go unnamed, (it was Miriam) just asked me “how come you never asked me to play ‘friends with words’ again?”. I told her the main reason was because she didn’t know the name of the game! The second reason? She sucks! Sorry Miri…many are called, but few are chosen (for a second game).

Amazon Kindle - All you suckas who paid $200 for the Kindle could have downloaded the Kindle for the iPhone app for free! Dear naysayers, you can change the size of the font so don’t give me that crapola about the words being too small. Most books are under $10 too. I’d stick with buying shorter books for the iPhone Kindle, maybe 250 pages or less. Although nothing beats holding a real book in your hands, this app helps if you’re too lazy to drive to a bookstore, having a hard time finding a specific book in stores, or most importantly when you want to read without people knowing - you know, like at work and church.

eBay Fashion - Up until very recently I was too good to shop on eBay. Now, I’m addicted. This app makes it beyond easy. As I am still too good for bidding on items…I only search for “buy it now” results. It’s like skipping to the front of the line. You can also filter searches for items with free shipping only. Also, familiarize yourself with NWT and NIB…never, ever buy anything that doesn’t include those words. Since I had to figure it out myself, I kinda want to make you do the same but I’ll spare you. The acronyms = “new with tags” and “new in box“. A bit of advice, don’t buy any high end merch on Ebay…cause it will be suspect. If you just have to search for designer duds, please have the decency to include the word “authentic” in your search.

Lose It - this is to track your weight, calorie intake and exercise. I have had a love/hate relationship with this app for years. It was a huge help when I lost 15 lbs 2 years ago and absolutely no help at all when I completely ignored this app whilst I gained it all back. All in all, this is perfect for folks who want to lose weight and record everything in one place.

Mint.com - I honestly don’t use this app. But, if I did…it would be great. I mean I used it a few times, but never consistently. The thing I like about the Mint.com app is you receive alerts when you have large deposits, large purchases, high spending and when you’re over budget. It’s a useful tool when you are balling on a budget. It will tell you how much you spent on groceries, entertainment, auto & transport, etc. The only issues most people have is you must give Mint.com your bank account info so they can sync your account with their site. You also have to go through and re-categorize a lot of your purchases. Trust, I have done the proper due diligence on the risks of linking your bank account to Mint.com and I am here to report, it is 100% safe! And once you put purchases in the correct categories once, you never have to do it again. Happy budgeting, you financial guru, you!

While you iPhone users are frantically searching the App Store for my FREE suggestions and you Verizon, T-mobile, and Cricket folks are feeling inadequate, I‘m going to look for the next IT app!