Like Rene, my most-used apps of 2011 are probably the built in iPhone and iPad Safari browser, Mail app, and Reminders, Calendars, etc. via Siri. That’s just the nature of the job. But since I’m TiPb’s resident app editor, I also get to spend time with an incredible amount and array of App Store apps. Here are the ones I spent the most of my time with this year.

Starbucks

I love Starbucks and spend way too much money on $3 to $4 drinks. The Starbucks app further inhibits my addiction and has been one of my favorite apps since its release. Being able to reload my card with a touch of a button and pay for my drinks with a scan of my iPhone is almost too much awesomeness for me to handle.

• Free – App Store link

Tweetbot

There are many great Twitter applications out there, but Tweetbot always comes out on top as my favorite. I’m a huge fan the smart gestures like triple click to reply and swiping to the right to view conversations. I also thoroughly enjoy the sounds & animations that hold true to Tapbots’ style.

• $2.99 – App Store link

iMovie

I have a 16 months daughter whom I get gigabytes worth of video footage of every couple months. iMovie is such a great app for creating nicely edited movies to share on YouTube and ultimately on my blog. iMovie is by no means a fancy editor, but it’s a breeze to get quick, simple edits completed and runs fantastically on an iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

• $4.99 – App Store link

Instagram

Instagram is by far my favorite way to share photos. The filters are great, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite feature of Instagram – the social integration is. Instead of editing a photo and sharing it to the networks of my choice, Instagram has it’s own platform where I can share my photos and view other people’s photos and leave comments and ‘likes’. And because I still want to share my photos to Facebook and Twitter, it’s nice that I can do that at the same time with no extra effort.

• Free – App Store link

WordPress

I use WordPress for my blog and the WordPress app is perfect for blogging on the go. Often times I just want to throw up a quick photo of my daughter, and the WordPress app makes this super fast and easy. This year, WordPress finally added the functionality to choose pixel width/height of uploaded photos, and it was this feature that turned the WordPress app into one of my most-used apps.

• Free – App Store link

Brian Waring, vice president of marketing and category for Starbucks UK and Ireland, said: “Digital offers are very important to us and making WiFi freely available across our stores is the foundation for many other plans we have moving forward…Content partnerships are key and we also have an extremely exciting digital programme ahead for 2012.”

Source: The Telegraph

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

DropVox – @sethclifford

As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of Dropbox and apps that capitalize on it by tying into the APIs to create interesting new services. I also find Apple’s own Voice Memos app lacking in that there’s no easy way to get those recordings off my iPhone short of syncing (for now). DropVox is a little app that solves this problem simply. All it does it record audio and throw it into your Dropbox for you. Using compressed .m4a files, the app fires up quickly and sends faster than you might expect. It’s not the kind of thing you’d use to record a full album in the studio, but it’s super handy for quick thoughts. You can also set it up to record immediately on launch, which makes the flow even faster (this is how I have it set up because when I’m using something like this, time is of the essence).

It’s a clean-looking app, with a singular function, and it does it well. Check it out.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Twinkle Twinkle – @chrisoldroyd

My little girl loves singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star so she absolutely loves this app. “Twinkle Twinkle” tells the story of a friendship between a restless owl and a little star that watches over the forest. The simple touch animations are designed to help children relax. Touch the screen to watch the owl’s wing’s flap and hear the owl hoot. See the star spin around. Help the owl and the star fly across the sky with a flick of your finger!

It comes with different reading options as well as two videos showing the content of the book all beautifully rendered. It also includes a simple counting the stars game. If you have young children, they will love this app and story. Great for bedtimes!

[$2.99 - iTunes link]

OS X Lion – @reneritchie

Really, did you expect anything else? After OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, whose changes were as profound as they invisible to end users, OS X Lion finally brings some user experience refresh to Apple’s aging desktop operating system — and it brought it straight back from iOS. It’s not a gimmick either. Apple has spent decades trying to simplify and mainstream the computing appliance. What started with the Apple II in a garage has thus far come closest with iPad in 20 million homes. That’s not lost on Apple, Steve Jobs, or the OS X team. Lion is proof. We get full screen apps, LaunchPad which mimics the iOS home screen right down to folders and jigglies, saved state and auto-resume that blurs the distinction between open and closed apps, and multitouch gestures to swipe and pinch through it all. Even the built in apps, from the outstanding new 3-pain, threaded Mail, to the curious stitched leather iCal, look like their iPad equivalents.

It’s even distributed via the Mac App Store. For $30. For all your personal machines. (And you can bump that up to full on OS X Server for $50 more.)

Lion is not without it’s frustrations of course — beyond the above-mentioned stitched leather UI. Scrolling has been reversed, also to match iOS. Give it a week, however, and you’ll likely not want to go back. Pushing content really does feel more natural than pulling scroll bars (which Lion does its level best to hide anyway.)

Auto-restore, where every window comes flying back up when you re-start an app could potentially cause embarrassment depending on what kind of website you were last on, who you were last drafting an email too, or what video you last had playing, so user beware.

You can turn almost all of these fancy new features off in settings, but you can also get used to the brave new world of auto-saving, document versioning, sandbox securing, Mac App Store downloading wonder. It’s a glimpse at the future and Apple’s brought it to us today.

Bottom line, if you love iOS, you’ll love Lion. And if you want to no more, check out Ars Technicas epic 20,000 word review, courtesy of John Siracusa, which analyzes and critiques every byte and pixel from the controls to the code. You can even enjoy it on your iPad in ebook form if the mood strikes you.

[$29.99 - Mac App Store link]

Diptic – @Alli_Flowers

Diptic is a triptych app, pure and simple: three images together in a single work of art. On your iPhone, you can use 2, 3, or 4 photos, and arrange them into a single piece. You can take a new photo from your iPhone’s camera as you go, choose a photo in your album, use one of your Facebook photos, or grab something from Flickr.

There are a series of frame layouts from which to choose, and all you have to do is drop your photos into the box. Once there, you can zoom or rotate so you have just what you want. You can even get artsy and traditional and use the same photo in each box, with only a portion showing in any one section. You have total control over the frame’s thickness and colour.

Diptic is great if you have trouble deciding which photo is the best – you can just use them all in a single image, or if you have pets or children, and like to show them off simultaneously.

It’s an extremely easy app to use, and offers lots of flexibility.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Metal Gear Solid Touch – @skeetobite

My pick of the week is Metal Gear Solid Touch (played on the iPad). This universal binary continues the Metal Gear Solid line, a game franchise I first looked at on the Playstation! This first person shooting game is a little different than some others – you aren’t moving through corridors or buildings. Instead, you are stationary, and you have to aim your gun by moving the target around on the screen. You have a couple of different kinds of guns (for sniping or closer combat) and the goal is simple – survive and kill your enemies. The interface is very very intuitive, although for a while I was expecting the target to appear wherever I tapped (it doesn’t, you have to move it around the screen by sliding). The graphics are outstanding, and all in all this was a fun way to waste many hours this week. I wish there was a little more variety in some of the levels (although in fairness, I haven’t gotten very far so maybe it changes). This game has been fluctuating in price between, although I missed out on the most recent sale. If you keep an eye on it, you might get it at a greatly reduced price sometime soon!

[$7.99 - iTunes link]

FX Photo Studio – @llofte

FX Photo Studio just got a big update and now it has a Masking Studio. This is exactly what this app needed! FX Photo Studio has nearly 200 different filters you can apply to your photos, but, unfortunately, not all of them look good on the entire photo. There are many times when one filters does wonders to the sky, another to buildings, and still another to skin, while simultaneously making the rest of the photos look worse. With Masking Studio, you can mask in (or out) the part of the photo you want (or don’t want) to be affected by the filter. I love it! Hopefully the next update will have a “soft brush” update to better blend the edges of the masks.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Starbucks – @duscraftphoto (Reader’s Choice)

America is a country that is run on C8H10N4O2 (Caffeine) and it’s our crazy schedules and long work days that are to blame… Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an app that made the consumption of this popular potable even easier? Well, the good folks over at this little Seattle based coffee company called Starbucks have heard your cries and offer a solution… The Official Starbucks app.

The Starbucks app has recently gone through a major overhaul and is vastly better than the earlier versions. You now have the ability to completely control your Starbucks card collection, monitor your Gold Points, view nutrition facts, make and share custom drinks, find store locations and even buy gifts for people you’re fond of. The app also allows you to protect all of your super secret secrets with a passcode.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself “How this can help me improve my day to day life?” Well, let’s say you’re like me and your job requires you to travel a lot and work late into the night… We all know how lame that is. If i’m out of town and I need a quick Iced Soy Cinnamon Dolce Latte fix and I can’t find a Starbucks anywhere around me (which is highly unlikely if you’re on or around Earth). I can just pop out my phone, go straight to the Starbucks app and tap on the “Stores” button and with the power of GPS and, lets face it, magic… I’m on my way! All while avoiding having to Google a location.

Not impressed yet?.. Well, you can also use the app to pay for your coffee at most locations! You don’t even have to fumble with that pesky wallet and all of it’s Velcro tyranny . Nope, you just pull out your phone and tap the pay icon and hold your phone in front of their laser ray gun and BOOM! You’ve just paid for your coffee!

Maybe you’re one of those people that always orders their drinks in the wrong order and then gets the “correction” from the barista. That minor embarrassment is a thing of the past because now you can read your drink order to them from your Favorites just the way Schultz intended. No more “Can I have a Venti Iced Vanilla Latte with Soy?” and getting this response “You mean an Iced Venti Soy Vanilla Latte?..”

So go my caffeine addict friends, go and drink the sweet nectar of modern day life with ease and serenity… And while you’re at it, get me a triple shot.

[Free - iTunes link]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so we will be choosing one reader to make a submission each week! Just look for the announcement on twitter or our Facebook page each weekend for a chance to be picked! In the meantime, jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

PDF Reader Pro – @Alli_Flowers

If you’re anything like me, you receive a lot of important information in .pdf format. It’s become a pretty universal standard – everyone can read .pdf documents, regardless of platform, and the readers are almost always free. Newsletters, calendars, and even textbooks come in .pdf format, and with my iPhone, I always have them at my fingertips.

But what happens when I need to send a .pdf to someone else? That’s when PDF Reader Pro comes in especially handy. I can snap a photo of whatever document I need to share from inside PDF Reader Pro, and it turns it into a .pdf that I can then email right from inside the app. This has been especially handy for my auto registration, license, and insurance information!

PDF Reader Pro also makes it a snap to load documents to your iPhone (or iPad). You can transfer files from your computer using WiFi, download directly from a website, or download from a variety of webdav servers including Dropbox and GoogleDocs.

Unlike some other .pdf apps I’ve tried, PDF Reader Pro doesn’t choke on large documents. For example, I have my entire French 1 textbook loaded, and it’s quite manageable even on the small screen of the iPhone.

It would be a bargain at twice the price!

[$0.99 on sale - iTunes link]

Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray – @reneritchie

One pick to rule them all. One pick to find them. One pick to bring them all. And on TiPb, bind them.

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was as real and well executed as George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels were fake and ill-conceived. In the lush environs of New Zealand, with the brilliant practical and digital effects work of Weta, Toklein’s Middle Earth was brought magnificent, mesmerizing life.

And while Steve Jobs may call Blu-ray a “bag of hurt”, the truth is their high-capacity physical media is still the best looking bag of hurt available to movie aficionados today. As a bonus, the package also contains a “digital copy”.

If you’ve seen Lord of the Rings, I don’t need to say much else. If you haven’t, I refused to say much else. It’s Lord of the Rings, dammit. It’s where everything from Dungeons & Dragons to Harry Potter to Game of Thrones comes from. Go watch it.

[Amazon.com link]

Instacast – @chrisoldroyd

My quest this week has been to find a better way of managing podcasts on my iPhone. iTunes sync is a very convoluted experience on the desktop and on the iPhone itself. I wanted an app that would update my podcasts as a whole not one at a time manually. I tried out a few apps (Paid for them too, oh I wish Apple would give us a 24hr trial period) and have settled on Instacast.

Instacast does everything I need, one click update of all podcasts, a beautiful interface, download resume if you have a connection drop and full AirPlay support. One of the pains transferring to an app for podcasts, is having to re-enter all your current podcast subscription feeds. Not with Instacast, it looks at your podcasts in the iPod app and picks them all up and subscribes you to them. Fantastic! This app does it all for me and I want to thank @jjb70 for pointing out this awesome app!

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Play Dead – @andrewwray

Play Dead is an extremely simple app with one goal in mind: to prevent your friends from always using your iPhone! The only thing Play Dead does is display an endless loading screen that you usually see when shutting down your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. This can be a godsend for parents with children who constantly ask to play Angry Birds on their iPhone, and it’s saved me more than once at work recently when co-workers have asked to use my iPhone to see the latest awesome app they heard about though the grapevine.

So the next time you’re asked to hand over your iPhone so someone else can play with it, just fire up Play Dead with a sad face and inform them your iPhone is currently on the fritz — then get back to playing Angry Birds!

[free - iTunes link]

Verbs – @iMuggle

Several months ago I downloaded Verbs and found the interface to be absolutely beautiful. The problem was that the functionality just wasn’t there yet. No push notifications was a no go for me. The latest version of Verbs solves this problem and adds support for push (which works flawlessly).

I am also a huge fan of Droplr and Verbs offers built-in support for it. You also now have the option to stay online for 7 days. If you bought Verbs previously, you can just buy Verbs Pro as an in-app purchase for $4.99 in order to activate push notifications. I was surprised the price that high to add push but I think it’s well worth it. The app is quick, beautiful, and much more “iOS like” than other messenger apps like Beejive, which has been replaced by Verbs on the first page of my iPhone.

[$2.99, with in-app purchases - iTunes Link]

iSub – @sethclifford

I’ve talked about this before on the TiPb shows, but it’s so cool that it’s worth repeating. iSub is a universal iOS application that allows you to stream and listen to your entire music collection using Subsonic to serve up tracks. Subsonic itself is an open source server application that runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Unix. Mobile clients are available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. It requires you to have a machine on at home in order to access the tracks, but many of us might already have just such a machine that we remote into to do things. In my case, I have a Mac mini that functions as both a media server and redundant Dropbox machine, and I use this Mac to access Subsonic.

iSub is basically a mobile interface to Subsonic. I’m not overly thrilled with the design of the app and the UI could use a little work, but functionally it’s very solid. Since it accesses your personal server, the information on play counts, recent albums, newly added music et. al. is always pushed to your device, so you can navigate around fairly quickly. Another cool feature is an adjustable cache within the app to store offline music. As you play tracks, iSub fetches the next one (or few) and stores them to avoid gaps in playback if you lose signal. In addition to being nice, if you find yourself without any connectivity at all, you always have at least a few things locally stored within the app to listen to in a pinch.

It’s worth noting that while Subsonic is an open source project, in order to use the mobile API a donation to the project is required. However, you can determine the amount you’d like to donate, and in addition to mobile access, you gain an ad-free web interface and a personal server address so you can always access your server quickly and easily. Plus, you’re supporting a cool project. Oh, I almost forgot – iSub also offers lyric support, AirPlay support, Twitter integration, and Last.fm scrobbling, among many other things. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the functionality. It’s definitely worth a look.

Why wait for iCloud when you can have all your music on your iOS device right now?!

[$4.99 - iTunes link]

Order and Chaos – @JorjLim

I picked up Order and Chaos, when it was on sale for just $0.99. I do not regret it for one second.

The game is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that is played across four servers worldwide. You can choose a race between Human, Elf, Orc or Undead, and play as a Warrior, Mage, Monk or Ranger. The controls are simple and intuitive and are designed perfectly for a touchscreen device. So its incredibly easy to move around the world, chat with friends, and sort your inventory.

Unfortunately, there is a small monthly fee of another $0.99 (or $1.99/3 months or $2.99/6 months) to play; however, I am happy to pay it because it’s a huge game that is constantly being updated. Don’t buy this game if you have important things to do because it eats up your time when you’re busy levelling up. There are nights where I’ve found myself up until 4am playing this game.

Order and Chaos is also a universal app so it will work on both the iPhone and the iPad.

[$6.99, with in-app purchases - iTunes link]

Starbucks – @llofte

The Starbucks iPhone app has been updated with all kinds of goodies and I love it! Now you can make Starbucks card purchases with the app (like the Starbucks Card Mobile app), transfer balances, reload your card, and my new favorite feature – eGifts!

I am horrible when it comes to getting gifts, especially “congratulations” gifts. Most of the time I end up getting a Starbucks Card and mailing it a month later than what’s appropriate. Now, I will still gift Starbucks Cards, but as eGift cards and directly from this app! You can send the eGift through email or Facebook. Very cool.

The only strange thing is that now Starbucks has two apps: Starbucks and Starbucks Card Mobile. My guess is that they get rid of Starbucks Card Mobile now that Starbucks has the same functionality.

[Free - iTunes link]

Sleep Cycle alarm clock – @alfyboza (Reader’s Choice)

Sleep Cycle alarm clock monitors you as you sleep and wakes you when it determines you’re at your lightest phase of sleep. The app accomplishes this by detecting the intensity of your movements using the iOS device’s accelerometer to determine what sleep phase you’re in.

I was skeptical at first – and may not be a 100% believer just yet – but it’s worked every night I’ve tried it! (Or my mind’s playing games with me – I can’t tell). I am one to usually set three alarm settings to ensure I wake up in the morning, but I haven’t had to since I started using Sleep Cycle about a week ago. I am recommending it as an TiPb Pick of the Week so that perhaps someone else may benefit from it!

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so we will be choosing one reader to make a submission each week! Just look for the announcement on twitter or our Facebook page each weekend for a chance to be picked! In the meantime, jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Starbucks for iPhone as been refreshed with a new look and brings the ability to send eGifts via email or Facebook. You can now also transfer balances between cards within the app.

• Refreshed look and feel with our new logo and improved performance.
• Pay with your Starbucks Card using your phones, reload and transfer balances on your Cards.
• See your My Starbucks Rewards level and star balance.
• eGift functionality lets you send a gift to friends and family using your iPhone.
• Customizable navigation lets you use the app just the way you like it!

If you pick this one up, send me an eGift and let us know what you think! Screenshots after the break.

[Free - iTunes link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Starbucks has made their Card Mobile app available for iPhone and iPod touch users, allowing you to scan a barcode on your device and make mobile payments the same way it currently works for gift cards. The app works in conjunction with your already existing Starbucks cards. I tend to get a lot of Starbucks gift cards for birthdays and holidays, so it’s nice to be able to keep them all in one spot.

You can create a Starbucks account within the app and then add all your cards. You can also add any valid credit card as well to refill your Starbucks cards (or use the Paypal feature on iPhone).

When you go to a participating Starbucks location, they can simply scan the bar code on your phone and it will deduct from your Starbucks card. Over 6,800 Starbucks locations are currently participating as well as over 1,000 Target Starbucks locations. It’s an awesome way to say goodbye to some of the bulk in your wallet (or on your keychain). If you guys try it out, let us know how it works! I plan on trying it out for myself as well!

[Starbucks]

Sorry we’re a almost as late at AT&T with this one, folks. (We were busy engineering a TiPbDOS attack over on Stickam, it seems!) But like AT&T, we’ll keep on keeping on… In their case, however, it’s (finally!) making good on the 3G launch-day promise of free WiFi for iPhone users at AT&T hotspots.

According to SMS and email notifications going out, here are the deets:

AT&T knows Wi-Fi is hot, and FREE Wi-Fi is even hotter. Which is why FREE AT&T Wi-Fi access is now available for Apple iPhone at thousands of hotspots nationwide, including Starbucks*. Users can relax and access music, email and web browsing services with their favorite blend in hand from the comfort of their nearest location. For information visit www.att.com/attwifi.

So, if you find yourself at a Starbucks with your Gibson-esque Quinte-Vinte-Latte, let us know how good the side order of WiFi goes with that!

“The iPhone Wi-Fi offer that was scheduled to launch today has been canceled. Nothing has been announced by the company to our customers and will not impact existing customers. Additional communication will be provided if the status of the project changes.”

Read

Short weeks after Apple and Starbucks initially announced their partnership, Starbucks announced today that they’ll be giving away 1.5 million tracks per day for over a month. Their giveaway begins October 2nd and lasts until November 7th.

““Song of the Day” will offer hand-picked songs from top artists including Bob Dylan, Joss Stone, Dave Matthews, Bebel Gilberto, John Mayer, KT Tunstall, John Legend, Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell, Keith Urban and Paul McCartney plus great music from up-and-coming artists such as Sia, Band of Horses, Hilary McRae, Frederico Aubele and Sara Bareilles.”

The downloads are given away by means of cards that you get when you go to Starbucks and buy coffee, which you can then redeem for the free song of the day. Supplies are limited — the deal begins “each morning and while supplies last,” so get up and grab some coffee before you, uh, go to Starbucks for your coffee.

Starbucks was in the news for other reasons today too — they’re being taken to task by the National Labor Relations Board for illegal union-busting and myriad other labor-related woes. Full disclosure: I’ll take tea over coffee pretty much any day.