Eight Great iOS Apps for Developers
The trouble with having over 200,000 iOS apps in the App Store is how difficult it is to find high quality apps to fit our needs. With that in mind, I have compiled this list of eight apps that I’ve found invaluable as a developer.
Without any further ado, here they are listed alphabetically:
Air Display
Price: $9.99
Type: iPad
Version: 1.0.1
Air Display lets you use your iPad as a wireless display for your Mac OS X computer. Why is this great for developers? Because we need screen real estate, baby!
Here’s a pic of Air Display in action as my 3rd monitor. The iPad monitor is perfect size for your Skype windows, API documentation, or a browser session with programming tutorials.
DomainStorm
Price: Free
Type: iPhone
Version: 1.0
When inspiration for that new web application hits you, the first (and most fun) thing to do is buy a great domain name for it.
DomainStorm is a relatively new app from Network Solutions built to help you accomplish just that. It tells you if domains are available, helps you brainstorm name ideas, lets you mark domains as favorites for later purchase, and even provides you WHOIS information so you can contact current domain owners about a purchase. A must have for sure!
Ego
Price: $1.99, $4.99
Type: iPhone, iPad
Version: 2.1
Obsessed with checking your site analytics? There is no better way to get a quick glance at your traffic than the beautifully designed Ego by Garrett Murray.
With support for Google Analytics, Ember, FeedBurner, Twitter, Mint, Vimeo, Tumblr, and SquareSpace this app has your analytics needs covered. Did I mention it was beautifully designed?
Evernote
Price: Free
Type: Universal
Version: 3.3.5
Evernote is a wonderful way to store all the programming tips, tricks, tutorials and gotchas that we accumulate as we go about our development efforts. The power of Evernote is the universal access to your notes that it provides. They have a web interface, Mac/Windows clients, and mobile apps including a highly polished iOS app.
If you haven’t tried Evernote yet, now is a great time to put all your notes in one highly accessible place. You can even save passwords in Evernote as they provide encrypted strings inside your notes.
iOctocat
Price: $4.99
Type: iPhone
Version: 1.7.1.1
iOctocat is, hands down, the best way to keep up to snuff with open-source development on GitHub from your iPhone.
This app features access to your personal news feed, repositories, individual commits, issues, user profiles and site search. While the app is not free as in beer, it is free as in speech and the source is aptly hosted on GitHub. That makes it a great candidate for learning iOS development as well!
iSSH
Price: $9.99
Type: Universal
Version: 4.2.5
Most developers have found themselves AFK when a very important server is having problems. If you know the feeling, then iSSH is your new best friend.
There are a few remote server control iOS apps available, but this one is the best one that I’ve come across. It allows SSH, telnet, and even VNC connections and boasts many features. The iPad version provides a display size large enough to allow determined coders like myself to fire up vim and get some coding done. The price is a bit steep, but if iSSH saves your butt one time then it has already earned its keep.
iStat
Price: $0.99
Type: iPhone
Version: 1.2
Bjango makes gorgeous and useful software including the OS X system monitoring tool iStat Menus. They also offer a similar app called iStat which displays your iPhone’s system stats.
The beauty of the iStat app for developers is that you can also use it to monitor remote servers running Mac, Linux or Solaris! You simply install a daemon on the server you need monitoring and iStat will show you its CPU, memory, disk, temps, uptime, and tons more information. It feels great to have intimate details about your servers always at your fingertips.
Nezumi
Price: $4.99
Type: iPhone
Version: 1.2
This one is specific to Ruby-using web developers. For those who fit that description, you absolutely need to try deploying an application to Heroku. It is the dead simplest way to get deployed and if you haven’t tried it yet then you don’t know what you’re missing out on.
For those who’ve seen the Heroku light, Nezumi is a must-have companion app for the Heroku service. Nezumi gives you instant access to your Heroku apps from your iPhone so you can add collaborators, manage your dynos, toggle maintenance mode, execute rake/console tasks, and even restart your application on the go. Love it!
So there you have ‘em. Eight great iOS apps for developers. Hopefully you’ll find that one or more of these apps helps you increase your productivity as a developer. I know I’m better off with them than I was without.
If you know of any other iOS apps that did not make my list, please give them a shout out in the comments, so we can all check them out!
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Thanks for your kind words on iOctocat! :)
Best regards,
Dennis
Our new app, “FAQ” is a great aid to app developers in supporting their customers (which is an important part of building up the success of an app, as good support leads to good reviews- or at least helps prevent bad ones- but it can take a big slice out of your day.).
“FAQ” is the app you need to take the pain out of customer support.
Developed by Soluble to handle our popular “MailShot Pro” group email app, it stores all the answers, information and diagrams you might need. You simply select all the bits you want to use in your reply and it combines them into a response for you. You can answer many of the emails you most often receive in a few taps, it is an ideal way to continue to give a responsive service when you are away from your desk.
More info on http://solubleapps.com/faq/
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XzzaoqzSOs
iTunes http://www.itunes.com/apps/faq