We all have our favorite apps. You know, the ones you instinctively tap open first thing in the morning, long before your first sip of coffee. The ones you return to throughout the day, whether to guide you around town, put you in touch with people or mindlessly entertain you.
You have yours, and Robert Scoble has his. The Rackspace Startup Liaison, blogger and hyper-geeky tech evangelist talked to ReadWrite about the eight apps he uses every day and can’t live without. If you follow the Scobelizer online, much of his list isn’t terribly shocking, but it’s always interesting to see where well-known figures in tech spend their digital attention and limited time.
8. Quora
Quora may have fallen from its buzz peak, but it’s still popular among many of the early adopters that flocked to it in the first place. Scoble is one of them. He still routinely uses the site, often answering questions posed by other users. The Q&A site is still frequented by Silicon Valley figures and others who work in tech, so it’s still loaded with interesting threads that sometimes contain rather candid insights.
7. Google+
Your normal, non-techie friends may not be hanging out on Google+ much yet, but it’s a fast-rising social platform beloved by many in the media and technology scenes. Robert Scoble, quite naturally, loves it. “My friends aren’t on it either, but the people who are I quite enjoy and the search engine here is better,” says Scoble.
6. YouTube
It’s hardly a cutting edge, under-the-radar app, but the world’s biggest user-generated video site is a staple in Scoble’s digital diet. Just like Google Maps, the newer version of YouTube for iOS is light years better than what used to ship on iPhones and iPads by default.
Like the rest of us, Scoble consumes his fair share of YouTube videos via its iOS and Android apps, but he also publishes his own videos to more than 12,000 subscribers, who have clicked the play button a cumulative 5.5 million times. Damn, Scoble!
5. Waze
There are a number of traffic apps for the iPhone, but few are as widely beloved as Waze. The crowd-sourced navigation app has been a huge hit among iOS-using drivers like Scoble, who cites it as “the best way to see traffic on the road ahead (and cops too).”
4. Flipboard
Flipboard hasn’t evolved that radically since its launch in 2010, but it remains a mainstay on the docks of many an iPad user. Thankfully what the team launched almost three years ago was extremely well-designed and plugs in to just about any source of Web content you can think of.
Flipboard’s heavy focus on social integrations makes it ideal for Twitter mavens like Scoble. “It takes some setting up for someone like my dad, who doesn’t know what Twitter is for,” he says.
As much as he loves Flipboard, Scoble says Prismatic is a close second when it comes to news apps – to which he can’t seem to break his addiction.
3. Twitter
@Scobleizer has a pretty sizable following on Twitter. On his various devices, he prefers the home-baked official mobile app to third party clients like Tweetbot and Twitterific. He uses it more or less like the rest of us to, to manage lists, read tweets, reply to people and post his own updates.
When asked which social platform he would give up if he was forced to lose one, he told us he’d get rid of Twitter before losing Google+ or Facebook. “That said, you’d pretty much have to kill me first.”
2. Gmail
Google has been busy revamping its apps for iOS, and the work has paid off. Google Maps and YouTube are both way better than the default apps that used to ship on iOS, and Google Drive, Google+ and Gmail follow the same new visual language, each boasting its own list of impressive features.
Indeed, if you’re a Gmail user, it’s hard to get too enamored with the iPhone’s default Mail app when Google has its own, far more delightful offering.
“This has better notifications and gives me better access to Gmail’s features like labels and spam marking capabilities,” Scoble says. “Plus it’s more secure with Google’s new two-factor authentication which I highly recommend.”
1. Facebook
More than any other app on any device, the one Scoble taps the most is Facebook. He cites the service’s massive user base, which encompasses friends, family and just about everyone in the tech industry.
“It’s – by far – the best social network for keeping lists of people and watching both their private and professional lives and interacting with them,” Scoble says.
If there was one service you’d have to pry from his cold, dead hands, it’s Facebook.
Lead photo courtesy of Robert Scoble.