iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Friday, July 25, 2008
News Category: Site News

iLounge is pleased to announce the winners of our Quest for the Best iPhone App Contest, which gave developers the opportunity to spotlight new iPhone and iPod touch software in three separate categories: Games, Business/Productivity/Professional, and “Just Plain Cool.” We selected three winners, one per category; each will receive a Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod Speaker System (retail value: $599), provided by B&W, along with a $100 Apple Store Gift Card courtesy of iLounge. Continue reading to see the contest winners.

With solid controls, a variety of game modes, and nearly endless customization via direct downloads, Shanghai Mahjong ($5) came away the winner in our Games category. This impressive tile-matching game lets novice players enjoy a simple alphabet matching version, while advanced players can use more subtle or unusual tiles; many puzzles and background graphics can be selected as well. We hope that future iPhone and iPod touch titles will take a page from MobileAge’s book and offer so many user-selectable options.

In our Business/Productivity/Professional category, we selected an application that everyone can use in their daily lives to make smarter purchasing decisions. Save Benjis, a free application, lets you research and compare pricing for over 15 million products right from your iPhone and iPod touch, and even allows purchasing directly from the app. Over one thousand stores are indexed by the program at present, and you can search for items using names, keywords, and UPC codes. The results aren’t always perfect, but they’re very nicely displayed and more convenient than running multiple Safari searches on your own. We hope to see this app become even better in the future, but as-is, it does a very impressive job.

Finally, our Just Plain Cool category winner was a game that really showed off the iPhone’s audiovisual hardware, suggesting just how powerful future 3-D titles will be on Apple’s pocket platforms. A mixture of good graphics, straightforward gameplay, and just a hint of Road Rash-style fisticuff action gave Freeverse’s Moto Racer ($10) the edge on its many submitted competitors; it’s hard not to look at this game and be impressed by just how much iPhone developers can accomplish in the first generation of software.

In addition to the winning applications, there were plenty of other great submissions ranging from games to complex task management applications, which can be found in our iPhone Application Gallery. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all the developers who entered!