The 25 Best Apps of 2012 (So Far)

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS

For the third iteration of the Tumblr app, David Karp's team rebuilt its iOS app from the ground up. The result is a faster, cleaner, and more feature-filled app. There's now support for high-res images, Spotify, and offline access. There are also cool new gesture-based controls for thins like composing a post or taking a photo. They won't speed up your posting, but it's a nice, thoughtful touch. The same can be said for the app as a whole.

Price: $2

Platform(s):iOS

Unless you're from or have friends in a certain city, shopping is a crap shoot. Sure, you can Google the best places to shop, but you won't really know where to go to get the really dope wares. That's where Goodstuff comes in. The city guide app indexed over 1,000 dope sneaker and street wear stores in major cities around the world. You find stores by the brands they sell, their proximity to you, the type of stuff they sell, and more. Each store and brand page is full of photos, information, and user reviews so you don't waltz into a store unprepared. Think of it as a Yelp for cool kids.

Price: $5

Platform(s):iOS

Realizing that most people were reading their articles on iPads, the folks behind Longform, the website that curates great long form writing from around the Net, decided to come out with an app. How does it work? When you open it up, you'll be greeted with articles picked by Longreads from the likes of The New Yorker and the Atlantic. Is it worth the $5? Well, that's debatable.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

The people at TED realized it couldn't take over the world without first taking over Android. Like the iOS app, TED for Android lets you browse the library of over 1100+ videos, bookmark videos for later viewing, flag videos for offline viewing, and listen to audio streams of videos.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS

The Seamless Web app for iPad is our favorite food delivery app for a number of reasons. It's elegantly and intuitively designed, it's quick, and it enhances the already great Seamless.com experience. Instead of the cramped iPhone version, you now get big beautiful icons and images of food. You can filter your restaurant search with a couple quick swipes of your finger. There's no better way to order food on your iPad.

Price: $1

Platform(s):iOS

We want our to-do list apps to do two things: Tell us our tasks and get out of the way. That's exactly what the beautifully designed Clear app does. Not bogged down with features, Clear lets you put in what tasks you need to do, color-code them by importance, and then swipe them away once they're complete. It's one of the best to-do list apps we've ever used, if not the best.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

Imagine having a Spotlight-like feature that, instead of searching your computer and phone for files, searched your online data. That's what CloudMagic is. The Android app indexes your Google, Gmail, and Twitter information so you can get instant results when you search for either an email or a tweet.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS

If you haven't noticed, GIFs make the web go 'round. Now you can easily make your own with Cinemagram. It's similar to Instagram, but instead of still images, you can create little moving images and share them with friends. Trust us, once you get going, it becomes quite addictive.

Price: $5

Platform(s):iOS

Apple knew that if it ported its iPhoto software to iOS it would need come correct as it would doing battle against the already successful myriad of photo apps available in the App Store. Thankfully, it did. The iPhoto app allows you to quickly edit photos with simple-to-use, but powerful tools. You can also apply Instagram-like filters. But the real draw is the organization. You can flag photos as favorites and create journals of specific events so you no longer have to scroll through your whole catalog to find a photo. Is it worth the $5? Yes.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

What do you do after your game racks up over 40 million downloads on iOS? Head to Android. That's what the folks behind the Indiana Jones-like adventure game did. The gameplay is the same, as are the power-ups and characters. If you have an Android phone and love killing time, do yourself a favor and download this game.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

The social drawing game that had everyone attempting to draw firetrucks and Jay-Z made its way to Android this year. Some people have been experiencing trouble when trying to play. OMGPOP says its aware and are working on a solution.

Price: $5

Platform(s):Android

Now that season's over, get your basketball fix with one of the best basketball videos game ever made. Finally made available on Android this year, NBA Jam will run on nearly every popular Android handset including the Samsung Nexus, HTC One X, Samsung's Nexus S series, and more. The arcade gameplay is still there as are the three game modes from the iOS version. Our favorite thing to do is go head-to-head against a friend via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in the multiplayer mode. The game is so fun you'll lose track of time. By the time you look up baseball will be winding down and it'll be time for the season opener.

Price: $3

Platform(s):iOS, Android

There's very little harder than starting or breaking a habit. If you're having trouble getting into a routine for anything—exercise, writing, reading, struggle rapping—this app will help you. When you figure out something that you want to do each day, you put it in as a commitment and then each day you will get a message asking you if you completed the task. If you do, you will see the days begin to add up and that will act as encouragement for you to keep going. Is it worth $3? That depends. How badly do you want to better yourself?

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

After finding success on iOS, the Turntable.fm team decided not to fix its unbroken formula. The Android version features the same dancing avatars, and the ability to go from room to room while still listening to music from another room. However, unlike apps that only let you sign in with your Facebook info, Turntable.fm for Android lets you rock with your Twitter handle.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

Instagram on Android was inevitable. With Google's mobile OS dominating smartphone sales, it was only a matter of time before the image-based social network left the iOS stable and made new friends. There's nothing new here: The app is basically a facsimile of the iOS version. You snap a picture, pick a filter, write a witty caption, and send it out into the world. All that's missing now is Windows Phone. Oh, and BlackBerry.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS

The Simple Finance Technology Corporation wanted to make banking an easier, more enjoyable experience. To do so it started Simple, a new digital banking service that's working to be a viable alternative to brick-and-mortar banks. With Simple, you can do pretty much everything you did with your old bank, but on your phone and for cheaper. Using the elegant Simple app you can view your transactions, pay bills, deposit checks, search through your transactions, and see your "Safe-to-Spend" balance. When you sign up, you get a VISA card so you can make purchases and take money out of ATMs. Next time you find yourself cursing your bank, this new option.

Price: Free

Platform(s): iOS

As soon as Spotify made its way to smartphones people began clamoring for an iPad port. In May, Sean Parker & Co. finally came through with an app that was at once beautiful and intuitive. The team had a couple goals in mind when creating the tablet version of the popular app: It needed to replicate a true stereo experience, allow users to better discover new music, and enable better interaction with the tunes and people who enjoy them. We think it accomplished all of those goals.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

We won't call Google Drive a Dropbox killer—that would be premature. However, we do think Google Drive is a Dropbox bully. Formerly known as Google Docs, Drive is a cloud-based storage service that allows you to also collaborate in real-time on documents. While the iOS Google Drive app only lets you view documents, the Android version allows you to edit documents directly from your phone or tablet.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS, Android, Kindle Fire

It's impossible to get through all the videos, articles, GIFs, and photos that get sent to you during the day by friends and co-workers. Now you don't have to. With Pocket, formerly Read It Later, you can save everything in a central location for viewing either on your computer on your smartphone or tablet.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS, Android

Since Microsoft refuses to release mobile versions of its Office Suite, third parties will have to pick up the slack. One such company, CloudOn, Inc. did just that with its CloudOn app. Available for both Android and iOS, CloudOn allows you to create, view, and edit Microsoft Office documents on your iPad or Android tablet. The only catch is you need to be connected to the Internet while doing so, but if you need to handle Office docs, that's a small price to pay.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS

After Microsoft famously scrapped its Courier tablet project, the engineers behind it decided to compile their talents and go for self. The result was FiftyThree, Inc., the development company behind the incredible and elegant Paper app. Paper app aims to make analogue activities like drawing, painting and scribbling notes feel both natural and enhanced using the iPad's technology. It has five modes: Draw, Sketch, Outline, Write and Color. The Draw feature is free, while the other modes can be unlocked in an in-app store for $1.99 each (full set = $7.99). Anything made in Paper can be easily exported or shared to your social networks and Tumblr. Download it and let your inner artist out.

Price: $1

Platform(s):iOS

Look, we know you don't want to spend $1 on a weather app that doesn't come with radars and live weather cams, but hear us out: WTHR is one of the most enjoyable apps we've come across this year. That sounds odd to say about something that just tells you if it's raining or sunny, but it's true. Aesthetically in line with you would expect from Apple, WTHR dose away with any extraneous information and design. We wish more apps were made with the same design philosophy.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS, Android

We had high, high hopes for the mobile version of the popular desktop browser. Thankfully, Google came through with an app that's so good, we wish we could make it our default browser on our iPhones. Lightweight, quick, and beautiful, Chrome resembles and operates how a mobile browser should in 2012. The tab functionality is spot on (we love the act of whisking away tabs we're no longer using). We enjoy the unobtrusive status bar that let's us know if a page has stalled out. And the universal search/address bar makes everything that much easier. Safari works fine, this is true, but if you want a little better than OK, give Chrome a try.

Price: Free

Platform(s):iOS

Considering Facebook is the largest image-sharing site on the Internet, it makes sense for the company to chisel off its most popular feature into a stand-alone app. The Camera app adds much-needed features like the ability to share multiple images. Users can quickly do some light editing to photos and easily tag friends in photos by simply tapping their image. It's not revolutionary, but for those who post a ton of photos on Facebook, it's much needed.

Price: Free

Platform(s):Android

Similar to the way some hotel websites fill empty rooms at a discounted rate, Savor works with OpenTable and Zagat to the same with restaurants. Going with the notion that an empty table is a bad table, you can find out which spots have space available and save up to 40 percent when you book a table within the app. What's a Groupon?