GeekWire’s favorite smart phone apps

From social apps to baby apps, GeekWire brings you the must-have applications of the moment. (MyNW.com/file)

Mike Schneider is a former corporate lawyer who dropped out of the legal world to become an iPhone app developer. This week he joins GeekWire’s Todd Bishop and John Cook to talk about their favorite, must-have apps.

Life hacks:

Postagram and Postcard on the Run:
“The concept is: you write a short message on your phone, maybe you add a picture, and then you can send a physical postcard to anybody in your address book,” says Mike.

These apps, both available for iPhone and Android, are great for thank you notes, Christmas cards, or other occasions. You’ll never have to go to the post office again.

SleepCycle: SleepCycle is a scientifically designed app that turns your iPhone into an intelligent alarm clock. The application goes next to your pillow to sense your sleep cycle and wakes you up at the optimal time so you feel awake and refreshed.

Downcast: Downcast is great for iPhone users who love listening to podcasts but don’t like to store their whole music library on their smart phone. The app allows users to search, subscribe, download, and listen to podcasts without syncing to iTunes.

Baby apps:

Baby’s Musical Hands: “This is sort of an entry-level app for any baby that barely can function with an iPad,” says Mike, “And it’s basically just a bunch of brightly colored buttons that the baby pushes and it makes noises.”

Figure: Figure is the grown-up version of Baby’s Musical Hands. It’s a professional synthesizer tool that makes music on iPhone and iPad. It’s great for adults, but also fun for babies because they can continuously make and play back electronic music.

GoGo Kiddo!: GoGo Kiddo is a local app developer that makes the widely popular Creative Keys app, which makes an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone into a baby piano. They also make other educational and entertaining apps for babies and young children.

Unbaby Me: For those who are sick of their friends’ constant stream of baby pictures across social media channels, Unbaby Me is the solution. Just download the browser extension and use on just about any device to replace baby photos with something else that interests you, like puppy photos or monster trucks. The developers feel that they are doing the world a public service, so they give the app away for free.

Photo and video apps:

Vyclone: Vyclone is a social video application for iPhone that combines multiple videos to make a professionally cut phone film shot from multiple angles. The app connects to friends and compiles video based on location, combining videos shot at a specific time and location to get a complete picture of the action.

360 Panorama: “It enables you to capture a 360-degree image of where you’re standing,” says Mike. “You kind of move the camera around in a circle and you capture the whole environment.”

There are several panoramic photo apps out there, but Mike loves this particular iPhone and iPad app because you can send the image to a friend from the application. When you send the image, your friend gets a link where they can go to move around inside the 3D image and see every angle.

Weather apps:

Dark Sky: Dark Sky automatically detects location and gives iPhone users detailed hourly weather forecasts.

“This is a premium app,” says Todd, “It’s a hyper-local, real time weather app.”

Sun Seeker: “We were looking for a new house,” says Mike, “and I was trying to figure out how the sun would shine on this property – are we going to get sun.”

The application, available on iPhone and Android, has an augmented reality view so that users can move the phone around to check the path of the sun across a property. The app also shows the path of the sun over different times of the year.

Going places:

WhitePages: WhitePages gives iPhone and Android users contact information and names for their neighbors, which can come in handy for people moving into a new neighborhood – especially if you’re bad a remembering names.

WalkScore: WalkScore has been in the news recently for rating Seattle one of the most walk-able cities in the country. Iphone users can look up cities and neighborhoods before travel to plan transit when deciding whether to rent a car, take metro buses, or just walk.

Saga: Saga is an analytical iPhone app that tracks a user’s location and provides data – and points – based on where that user has been all day. It even suggests activities based on time and location.

Social apps:

Kouply: Kouply is a well-known relationship iPhone and Windows Phone application for couples. The app connects couples to compete in games for points, and even suggests special things to do to appreciate your partner.

Fitocracy: Fitocracy is a social network oriented around fitness. It’s designed with an easy user interface to help people who are losing weight or get in shape get support from friends and others with similar goals. Track work outs and turn fitness into a game by earning points and unlocking prizes.

Untappd: Untappd is a free app for iPhone and Android users that acts as a social network for beer connoisseurs.

“You can track what you drank, and you can take pictures of it,” says Todd, “people take glamor shots of their pint.”

Listen to the full conversation on GeekWire: