The App Store, oh has it grown since its inception in 2008. I can remember getting my first iPhone 3G and discovering the App Store. Although there were some pricey and high quality applications present, almost every one I found (for free anyways) was definitely less than useful.
Well that was 2008. Today is 2011 and the collection of apps available to us has not only grown tremendously, but the quality is beyond anything I ever thought I’d see on a phone before.
Here I present to you, three apps that not only define the App Store as elite, but define our devices as kings of the category. These are applications available only on iOS that best describe the quality we have come to know and love. Beginning in no apparent order, number one.
1: Snapseed by Nik Software ($4.99)
Snapseed by Nik Software (available for iPhone/iPod touch, iPad, and Mac) is an application that edits photos with an extremely unique procedure. Including basic editing options such as autocorrect and tuning, Snapseed has an original feature called Selective Adjust. Placing an adjustment button on your photo captures similarly coloured areas nearest to that button and then you can edit saturation, brightness, and contrast without altering the other colours in the photo. Think pulling out the green in the grass and brightening up the red roof of the barn without changing the sky above it. Pair that with amazing filters, borders, and exporting options (even printing via AirPrint) Snapseed does it all in one amazing application. Click here to download Snapseed
 
2: iWork Suite ($9.99 each)
OS X is known for having an amazing collection of creative applications such as Logic and Final Cut. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have it’s own productivity applications. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote (for the Windows user, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint respectively) are highly advanced programs that specialize in their field of work. Apple brought these three applications to the iPad, but has recently released them for the iPhone/iPod touch. Resembling their big sister counterpart, the iPhone/iPod touch versions of these applications are extremely simple and highly productive.
They allow for quick adjustments to a document you have loaded on to your device (or a document you’ve received in an email), or even having a document quickly created in need of some visual organization of a block of text you have, numerical information, or photos/information that needs to be displayed in a presentation. All three applications do their jobs perfectly and with the soon-to-be released feature in iCloud that allows for wireless syncing of iWork documents between devices, the best collection of documents you can take, edit, and share without on the go. Click here to download Pages, Numbers, Keynote
 
3: Genius Scan (Free or $2.99)
Technology is currently emerging in areas never thought practical in the past. Receipts are being emailed, assignments are being submitted online, and jobs are being acquired without actual human connection or even a phone call. In all of this the conversion from paper to a digital format usually depends on the use of a scanner. Sitting on your desk at home, waiting for it’s next chance to help you in one of those situations. The problem is the time when you need a scanner the most, is when you’re nowhere near one.
Genius Scan fills the gap between you and your scanner by utilizing the quality of your iOS devices camera. After taking a picture of a document you want, well documented, you outline it and apply the necessary enhancement. What you come out with is a highly detailed image perfectly cropped around your document just like your scanner would deliver. In a mobile setting, I can’t recommend Genius Scan more to anyone in the business world constantly battling paper. Click here to download Genius Scan
 
Well, there you go. Those apps, although they’re not the only ones, are very good representations of the high quality applications available only through the App Store. Without apps like them, the App Store wouldn’t have the respect it does today.
So, do you have any other iOS exclusive apps that are absolutely essential for you? Let me know and I’ll look into them.
