1. NORAD Tracks Santa (Free)
Who could ever be in the spirit of Christmas without knowing exactly where The Big Man is at as he showers gifts all over the world. Maybe you are a Grinch, and don’t really care where Mr. Claus is at (that’s me), but, I can guarantee that the young ones at your Christmas Eve parties will. Not to mention that the official NORAD apps comes with a handy Elf Toss game that you can use to bide your time until you can start tracking Santa.
2. Camera+ ($.99)
Camera+ may be one of the best Camera apps that are available for the iPhone. It allows the user to quickly take many pictures and then gives them access to the Lightbox where the user can view, resize, crop, and edit the effects of the photo. There are some other great features of Camera+ like a very simple to use white balance mode and also you can enable the power up button on your iPhone to take photos. Pictures are super important during Christmas festivities, so it’s a good idea to go into them with a great Camera application.
3. Christmas (Free)
A nice free app to get you in the holiday spirit. Christmas for iPhone is a kind of “app pack” that gives you access to Christmas ringtones, streaming music, Christmas emoji, and even some nice HD wallpapers to spice up your iPhone for the holidays. I usually think that this type of thing is corny, but with the inclusion of the Grinch ringtone, I had to recommend this one.
4. Evernote (Free)
It’s easy to recommend Evernote for everything because, well, it does pretty much everything. Have to get a last minute gift tonight with the maddening crowd at Target? Snap a picture of where you parked so you don’t forget. Want to make sure you have gift receipts? Scan them in or snap a photo with Evernote and tag them. Or, my favorite, create a tag ‘xmas-2011-return’ and take photos of all the things that may not be exactly what you wanted for Christmas. After the holidy hubbub you search for you tag and have a nice list of the things you want to take back, or worse, have a list of people that you have to call for gift receipts.
5. Pandora (Free)
This is a good one especially if you are going to be a party entertainer this year. You can start creating a Christmas station tonight and hone it so you will have it ready for your party tomorrow. You can do this a couple of ways, either by Christmas songs you really like, or even choose an artist that you like singing a Christmas song. Pandora is pretty smart about selections, and if you work on it for a couple of hours you can get a great station for Christmas Eve and Day.
6. Capture ($.99)
Mr. Mike Vardy opened me up to this app for the iPhone and at a mere $.99 you can’t go wrong. Ever miss a moment of your child or drunk uncle Chester doing something at Christmas that you wished you would have caught on video? Well, with Capture you don’t have to worry about it. It’s pretty easy to use. Pull out your iPhone, tap the Capture icon on your homescreen, and you are instantly recording. Press the home button when you want to stop and save. Pretty easy and definitely a Christmas moment saver.
7. Instacast ($1.99)
If you are like many Americans then you are going to be doing some traveling over the next week or so. There is absolutely no better way to spend your time than listening to some enlightening podcasts with what I will call simply the best podcast streamer/manager for iOS. Instacast allows you to search and subscribe to your favorite podcasts, download them over WiFi, or even stream them on the go. The quality of this app is excellent (it actually feels like an Apple app). Need some podcast recommendations? Here you go:
Back to Work 99% Invisible Radiolab TWIT (This Week In Tech) Hypercritical This American Life ProductiVardy (I think I know this guy)
With the inclusion of these 7 apps on your iPhone, you are setting yourself up for one of the best Christmas’s yet. Any other apps that you couldn’t live without over the next few days? Leave them below.
