A week with iPhone 4S: my first 10 apps

For those of you just joining us for this adventure, you should know that I'm taking part in a real-life experiment in which I'm using an iPhone 4S for a week exclusively as my one and only smartphone. You should know, for context, that I generally use Android devices, having used the Samsung Galaxy Nexus essentially exclusively since it was released with Verizon, switching back and forth between it and whichever phones I've reviewed since. Though I've handled and worked with an iPhone a minor amount before, I've never before now had one as my own personal device – what follows are the first ten applications I found myself downloading right out of the box.

What we're going to explore here is how I work with the iPhone and react to it. Myself being a person who uses many different smartphones on a regular basis, most of them Android, some of them Windows Phone, but all of them consisting of the newest consumer technology in the world at any given time, this ought to be fuel for some interesting conversation. This first installment will explore in brief the 10 applications I felt necessary to install first, listing each reason and the apps functionality as I do so.

One of the first cases I agreed to get sent for review after I found out I'd be doing this trial with the iPhone 4S was the Intoxicase. I've got both the regular and the slightly higher-grade model sitting here on my desk, and I had to make sure I had the app to go with them. What this app does is to add a counter to its list each time you open a new beer, this getting specific with a gigantic list of brews in addition to allowing you to add your own specific names. The cases are nice too, I'll be reviewing them this week. [Download Intoxicase]

I had this application for about a week on my iPad 2 and can't get enough of it. You get a wide selection of KRINK-brand graffiti paints with tips to match and are able to paint on a canvas on your device. The iPad version is a bit more fun because this sort of app lends itself to a larger display, but in that I can create lovely drippy images with ease here, I'll be keeping the app around for the long haul. Also it has the ability to share strait to Facebook, so that's nice. [Download KRINK]

The folks behind Press Reader were nice enough to provide your humble narrator with a full account for a few months here on this awesome newspaper subscription service. Like the artwork app listed above, this app lends itself better to a larger screen, but I'm still grateful to be reading my local newspaper from my iPhone with ease, this including new editions delivered automatically each day. Who knew it'd take a smartphone to get me reading the newspaper again? [Download PressReader]

One of the reasons I love Google+ in its application form so much is its ability to instantly upload all of your photos to itself (through Picasa) as you take them. The iPhone app has turned up a bit different from the Android app in that this function is simply non-existent here in iOS. The rest of the Google+ app works tops though, moving swiftly and having just as nice an interface as the Android version. [Download Google+]

Since I first got my iPod Touch several years ago, this game has been my favorite. I downloaded it for my iPad 2 when I got it then, so too must I have downloaded it for this iPhone 4S because it's impossibly good. There's no drawbacks to this game. It's got the heaviest metal, the most excellent interface for a virtual pinball machine (made by Gameprom, the same folks who also bring you Pinball HD and AC/DC Pinball), and it's one whole heck of a lot of fun. This is what mobile devices were invented for. If I had a choice of only one app on this whole device, I'd choose Slayer HD Pinball over the basic phone app. It's that fantastic. [Download Slayer Pinball Rocks HD]