Top iPhone Apps of 2009

1. AllSubway
AllSubway makes waiting for a friend at a bar an international daydreamscape. It’s plain fun (for me, at least) to compare subway systems: the surprisingly comparable Beijing to Berlin, the wild mess of Tokyo, the simple straight line only once split of Helsinki. Exquisite.

2. JotNot
The equivalent of a scanner on your iPhone. Perfect for snapping a shot of a great paragraph in a great book, and keeping it for later revisiting/consumption.

3. Ping!
A web-based way to text your overseas friends without getting bilked for a quarter every time, Ping’s masterful for keeping costs low, while keeping crazed text messages to people asleep across the Atlantic high.

4. Sportacular
Sports gambling addicts or casual fans will love this, especially if they set the alerts. The phone will ping you when the score changes, so you don’t look like a prick for repeatedly checking your phone at dinner.

5. Photogene
Snap a picture, add a speech bubble with something ridiculous inside. Perfect for amusing those in your life that understand your inside jokes.

Honorable Mention: Opium’s QuickFix with Jiggle Technology.
The newly launched literary app for the ages, that brings reading while driving back into vogue  at a price that just feels so good!

Todd Zuniga is the founding editor of Opium Magazine, and the co-founder of the Literary Death Match reading series, which has now been produced in 15 cities worldwide. He has a novel in submission, and daydreams often about life with an EU passport. His picture was taken at the Dead Sea.