(FYI- Some of our favorites apps are listed at the end of this post… but they only appear if you read the whole thing )

This July will mark the one-year anniversary of Apple’s App Store opening for business. Applying the music store commission model to applications meant that developers (after school entrepreneurs to full-fledged software companies) can not only develop for cutting edge devices & technologies with support, but also find digital distribution at the source with freedom to charge as they see fit. Now having just surpassed 25,000 apps (Fortune), it’s interesting to see what some of the most successful have been. Games to software extensions to business portals: what users consider to be their personal “top apps” likely range all across the board. Some of the best are undoubtably simple lifehacks & convenience apps, likely from the same time-saving minds who develop browser extensions & plugins.

Also across the board is the “marketing,” design and user experience of these 25,000+ apps (Note- It’s also worth acknowledging the many apps available to jailbroken devices since long before the appstore, too). It’s been interesting- from all sources- to find apps from “beautiful- but useless”, to “diamonds in the rough.” Good ideas have suffered my negative judgement and frustration due to poor GUI or even before that, ugly screenshots on the appstore (in true judgement of a book by its cover).

The day the Store launched, I remember there being multiple “flashlight” apps and ultimately decided based on “free” in the end. There were no shortage of novelty apps early on… one that comes to mind was a branded beer game where navigating a pint across a bar earned the user an accelerometer-powered beer (simulated beer filled the screen/glass and responded to tilt). That lasted about 3 days before its hold on app button real-estate was conquered by its uselessness. Neat design and visual appeal but utterly worthless after the initial “wow!” wore off. There are a number of free and low-cost reading (literature) applications that source public domain works, but the most expansive (library wise) of which seems to interpret an unformatted text file without margins or justification. While you can alter some text attributes like size and color, it’s harder on the eyes than reading on a full computer screen. Sadly the app is well built and an excellent idea, yet too difficult to use in practicality due to poor design.

A good app meets both functionality of some value to the user (time saving, entertaining; whatever) and solid GUI and UX, not just one or the other. However, before this can fully be determined, the app has to be downloaded. I realized, as I am sure most other App Store users have, that deciding to download an application really comes down to a balance of a few factors:

1) Price – the obvious “how much is it, and is it worth the cost for gain?” question. Free goes alot farther in convincing me to give up button space or risk the addition of another application screen on my device, especially against priced/pricey alternatives.

2) User review & ratings – a child of Amazon’s user reviews, I always take these into account and can pick out the worthwhile ones in a heartbeat. However, that’s only if I’m not scared away by a low star rating (anything under 3/5 stars turns me off). Assuming I press in for more info, the price often correlates to how many reviews I read. Unless an app has near 5/5, I am inclined to read more extensively of users’ opinions before committing any hard earned dollars to it. Often it is here that I find recommendation for a competitor app, and have even chosen a paid one over the free from this user input route. I trust user feedback at LEAST as much as marketing. It’s also worth noting that some of my favorite apps, particularly the ones that I have had the longest, make note of their attention to user feedback in their updates.

2) Marketing – Now that multiple screenshots are available for applications in the info space, I really judge an app by these (if it passes the star and review tests). Sometimes I even flick down to this part right away, if I am comparing similar apps. I am sure I have overlooked many great ideas simply based on visual appeal (or lack of), unfortunately. As a user, I assume that the screens shown here are the best indications of the look & feel and features the app has to offer. Did you have your little cousin make make a quick GUI (with his pirated copy of photoshop) to save some money on skinning your killer app? It will likely make a difference…

So enough blabber: as Carrot starts pushing out iPhone apps for our clients (and we can announce them publicly), you can tell us how well we do. In the meantime, here’s some favorite iPhone/iTouch apps from the @carrotcrew:

Bobby:
Sol Free: A classic game that we all know and love, that dates back to the days of Windows ’95, it’s Solitaire. Now it lives in all of its glory on the iPhone, looking better then ever and quickly cures any case of boredom.
> Honorable mention: Shazam

Chris:
Classics: Of all the Free literature apps out there for Apple products, the reading experience is by far the best here. Their public domain collection of books are each laid out with excellent overall spacing & typesize, and great contrast between “page” and type that doesn’t wear on the eye. Their novel drag-to-turn page effects and other design elements are done beautifully, lending to make this app the best reading experience available on small screen devices.
> Honorable mentions: Instapaper and iZen Garden or Koi Pond

Kyle:
Instapaper: This is the missing link between my RSS reader, twitter links and shared links from friends. Offline reading is perfect for train rides – and compared to offline RSS apps – I don’t have long downloads for articles I may not even be interested in.
> Honorable mentions: Tweetie and iShoot

Maury:
Tweetie: The vein in my neck has ceased to throb since I downloaded this phenomenal example of modern programming skill. Seriously, it’s so well done I cry with joy every time I open it.
> Honorable mention: Tumblr (this is so well done I get all furklempt just thinking about using it. A slick UI plus amazing mobile access to the addictive tumblr platform make this app a winner.)