The App Star Awards is a contest that highlights brilliant and innovative upcoming applications for the iPhone (and now the iPad, too). Created by AppsFire, the service for sharing iPhone applications, the event draws submissions from all over the world. This year’s group, for example, included 80 unreleased applications from 20 different countries including Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Spain and Italy, in addition to the U.S. The finalists, 33 in total, have been broken down into three main categories: “Games,” “Utility and Other,” and “Entertainment and Fun.” As part of the jury for this contest, we got a first look at some of the apps. Some early standouts are below.
iPhone Apps
Silentale: A startup that organizes your conversations and contacts from multiple services including email, Facebook, Google, Twitter, SMS and more, is soon to be an iPhone application. This may actually prove more useful than the web app itself since you can browse your contacts by name or type, access links to their social network profiles and see a list of all your communications – no matter what platform they originally occurred on.
Atlas: Another application fighting check-in fatigue. Similar to check.in (previous coverage), this app automates check-ins to Gowalla, Foursquare, Brightkite and, wait – what’s that? – Facebook, too? Hmm.
Solar Walk: A model of the solar system for the iPhone. But this is no mere science fair mockup – you can pinch and zoom your way through space, rotating planets, reading details about the celestial bodies and more. It’s like Google Earth for the Universe.
Pocket Zoo: An adorable (and educational) app for kids featuring over 40 animals, illustrations, photos, animal info and live animal cams from around the world.
Woobius Eye: An app that lets you share sketches with phone call recipients. Take a photo, add an email address and make a call. Point to the drawing with your finger and circle items. The friend on the other end of the line can do the same.
LiveCycle: A wireless cycling app and mounting system for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Features a hi-res color interface, real-time performance feedback, GPS feature, data file system and performance analysis.
Glowfish: A bit.ly client for iPad. Shortens links (of course), but also tracks clicks, lets you copy and tweet, share on Facebook, browse popular bit.ly links and more.
iPad Apps
Why Your Kid Will Steal Your iPad:
1) Mag Canvas for iPad: This iPad app duplicates the experience of drawing on a magnetic Etch-a-Sketch type board.
2) iBrite: It’s Lite Brite for the iPad. No explanation needed.
3) Thumbelina: An interactive storybook app for kids based on the Andersen story.
4) Redfish: An interactive play & learn game for iPad.
Other iPad Apps:
Mixr: A music-mixing application for both iPhone and iPad. Features play, cue, pitch, crossfader, EQs, volume and effects controls, a music collection and custom library and a multi-touch turntable.
IsoCards: A multi-touch gesture and physics driven deck of cards that lets you play any card game you want. For both iPhone and iPad.
iMockups for iPad: This app lets you create wireframes and mockups for your website, iPhone and iPad applications.
