My selection of iPhone apps for freelancers and front-end developers

Front-end development

Keeping Informed

• Notifications, 2,39€
  This is this year’s favorite for me. This app allows you to take the best advantage of Apple’s push notifications. Indeed, you can set up alerts for your email (any which one you want), your replies and DM on Twitter, your RSS feeds, etc… Coupled to a REST API and a rather fine tuning, the possibilities for notifications are almost endless. Unavoidable.
• Newsstand, 3.99€
  Because technical watch is very important. To my taste the best RSS reader app. It synchronizes (both ways) with Google Reader if you want it to. Fast, pretty, versatile, that’s the one I kept after trying quite a few. To be known: pretty much all RSS reader apps that are as powerful (ie. Byline) cost basically pretty much the same price.
• jQuery Cheat Sheet, 0.79€
  Updated regularly, gives you ready access to all useful references for jQuery, with an integrated search engine. Also exists for PHP, CSS, HTML, etc…
• CheatSheet, 2,39€
  All cheatsheets in one app. Each CS is downloaded the first time you read it and won’t need a connexion afterwards (except for updates, that is). For those who need many different CS, less expensive (and more exhaustive) than buying them one by one…

Créer

• Color Oven, 0,79€
  Allows you to choose colors, create color themes, try them out on a “template” web page, etc.
• FontShuffle, free
  Handy to test out a word or sentence in various styles of typefaces. Unfortunately requires a connection.

Coding

• WordCounter, free
  Very useful to know the number of sentences, words and characters that make up a given text.
• FTP On The Go, 5,49€
  A tad expensive but very complete: connect in FTP to desired sites (w/ bookmarks), download/upload and open all kind of files (images, mp3, txt, html, etc), edit html or txt files, see the results of your modifications in the integrated browser, etc… Convenient to work on those emergency modifications while in the train!
• Source Viewer, 0,79€
  Useful to see the source code of a web page or a CSS or JS file without having to connect to a server and download the file, with syntax highlighting! Also allows to extract links (a, link, script) from a given page, as well as images!
• Serial Mail, 1,59€
  Allows creating/editing customized HTML and (limited) CSS mailings. Based on a system of templates with placeholders to call your recipient’s infos (name, email, note, etc). The generated mails are then sent through the iPhone’s Mail app. Interesting but dense. The free version adds a message at the bottom of each sent email.

Freelancing

Getting organised

TouchTodo, 1,59€
An excellent task manager, synchronizing (both ways) with your Google Calendar, in order to benefit from push notifications on those events with reminder. Management of projects, tags, repeating events, notes, connected to the iPhone contact list, etc., in short a lot of possibilities, which I advise you check out in the AppStore page for this app… :)

Se connecter

• WifiFinder, free
  Hotspots (free or not) directory, around you or an address you input.
• WifiTrak, 0,79€
  To find Wifi networkds, opened or closed, around you and get connected. Is able to ignore those networks you tell him to.

Connecting desktop and iPhone

• JumpingURL, 0.79€
  Not available on the FR store, but still on the US store. Allows you to easily transfer URLs from your iPhone to a PC (and back). For example, you’re traveling, you find on your iPhone websites that you’d like to peacefully and confortably (on a real screen) visit once you get back home: you copy-paste those urls from Safari to the app, and once home you click on a button in Firefox (with the corresponding extension) or to go on their site and log in (with your gmail account), to get those URLs one by one in your browser. Going the other way around, it’s very easy, with the Firefox extension or the dedicated site, to transfer URLs from your PC to your iPhone to visit those sites while on the way. If copying from the iPhone to PC is still a bit cumbersome, it should soon be better since the developer has planned a bookmarklet for iPhone’s Safari.
• CopyHerePasteThere, 1,59€
  Coupled to a desktop client (Mac only for now, Windows and Linux planned), allows you to easily copy-paste text between your desktop and your iPhone. Might be used like JumpingUrl for example, but it also allows for copy-pasting really big texts. But it requires installing a client. Choose what you prefer!
• QuickLeech, 1,59€
  To download very big files, unzip them, open them (if supported by the iPhone) and to pause/resume downloads. You can also share downloaded files with your desktop.
• DropBox, free
  Finally, DropBox has its iPhone app. Very useful to manage documents on many computers, including the iPhone now. Their offer starts with free 2Go storage.
• Print and Share, 5,49€
  Allows to open all sorts of files and print them, as well as printing emails, pictures, on your desktop directly from your iPhone. Requires a desktop client, which will route print requests from your iPhone to your printer. Also permits to manage a virtual disk and to easily transfer files between the iPhone and your desktop.
• iRemote Suite, free
  Control your PC or Mac from your iPhone (while on the same Wifi network), with a zoomable viewport of your screen, via a client installed on your desktop. The iPhone’s screen is also used as a mouse, the iPhone internal keyboard being used as your desktop kayboard. Finally, a shell access (command/bash) is available, for the geekest of you…

Staying in touch

• Twittelator Pro, 3,99€
  ThE perfect Twitter (and identi.ca) client: multiple accounts, millions of options, infos and actions available in very few taps, more for power users. The recent addition of interface templating (choosing colors, typefaces, etc) is a small plus but quite anecdotal. Go on their site for a detailed list of the numerous features…
• Groups, 3,99€
  Ultimate app for managing contact groups on the iPhone : manual or “smart” groups, group mail sending, editing the contact cardsetc. Pretty, fast, handy.
• iBeam, 0,79€
  Very useful for sending one (or many) VCF cards by email, from one iPhone to the other in Wifi (with the same app installed on both) or with a 2D barcode (one by one) !
• Digits, 0,79€
  A good-looking and simple interface to quickly (3 taps) add a contact to your contact list. Essential during Paris Web 09 for example :)
• QuickPigeon, free
  A nice app to organize a meeting or do a quick survey. Allows you to ask a yes-no question by email to one or more person and to count the answers, while being notified by push. No need to dither for hours between Japanese and pizza for lunch :)
• Skype, free
  iPhone version of the desktop app, Skype is useful but curiously quite unfinished yet, some bugs are very annoying but should be solved soon, the app being updated regularly.
• LinkedIn, free
  A professional network that has become rather incontrovertible, LinkedIn has an app that will allow you to manage your contacts and keep informed of their news.

Misc.

Because even your precious sometimes need some maintenance, and because even freelance front-end devs are allowed to relax once in a while, here are some utilities and games…

Utilities

• Memory Sweep, free
  Allows you to free 15 or 30Mb of “ram” memory, thus more or less insuring that your apps (especially games) will run smoothly. To run, 1 click and 5 seconds, when you’ve been doing a lot of things and you can feel the iPhone getting somewhat sluggish…
• Battery Gauge, 0,79€
  Among the plethora of “battery management” apps, this one has the good taste of being pretty and to self-caliber on your specific usage, for a more or less “customized” remaining battery life estimation.

Games

• Sudoku Grab, 1,59€
  In my opinion simply the best Sudoku app, pretty, quick and powerful, noticeably allows you to importe grids through the camera.
• Alphabetic, 1,59€
  Totally addictive and pretty, with its psychedelics (but not ugly) neon colors, a very cool game where speed and precision will be vital to win all the challenges.
• Green Fingers, 0,79€
  Offered by the same developers as Alphabetic, Green Fingers is a really nice discovery: very cute and detailed graphics, a well thought and executed addictive gameplay… everything I love.
• I Love Katamari, 3,99€
  The iconic game from PS2 comes to the iPhone with a different but rather efficient gameplay. Except for the fact that controlling it is a bit difficult (or I am really bad at it, which is highly possible) and some slowing down when your ball gets really big, the enchanting power of the game is still there in the iPhone version.
• Sol Free Solitaire, free
  Quite a classic, the game of Solitaire is still at the top of those cool and restful games. This one is very pretty, fast, and offers different versions of the Solitaire rules.

Conclusion

Well there you go, that was my small selection…

If you have other recommendations, opinions, etc, I’m all ears :)

And to share your opinions about apps and read those of others (different from those on the AppStore), I’d recommend appolicious.com or appsfire.com (which has an iPhone app too).

See you soon!