Day Twenty. App Twenty. Card Shark.

Card Shark Deluxe is our favorite solitaire app.  As of this writing, there are sixty-two different solitaire games on the Card Shark Deluxe app.  Sixty. Two.  That's A LOT of card games!  We haven't even made it through half of them; largely because we're hooked on our favorites and haven't gotten bored with those yet.  We like how straightforward the app is to use and the fact that we don't need to be online to play these games, making it a great choice for travel.

It's customizable too.  The card backs and playing table can both be changed, using a variety of choices provided.  Also, we just discovered a cool feature that allows you to use any picture in your photo library as the card back or the playing table- how fun!  In addition, you can choose from a variety of decks (front of cards) or even customize those using your photo library (although it's a bit more involved a process than choosing the card backs or table).  

There are a number of other options for customization, but you can explore those yourself and see what you think.  We love it.

Day Nineteen. App Nineteen. App Advice.

Our nineteenth app of choice is AppAdvice.  We like this app because is full of reviews... just like us, but with a team of thousands (we expect) to review and write about apps, and fuel the latest Apple related rumors.  We enjoy reading AppAdvice first thing in the morning when we have our cup of coffee.  It's like a special little present to open up and read what the latest thing is that we may be excited about.

AppAdvice is actually comprised of sections for news, guides, lists, reviews, as well as information on which apps are moving, new, updated, or on sale.  And, for the next few days they are doing a daily giveaway.  How exciting.  We aren't going to tell you more, just that you should check it out.

Day Eighteen. App Eighteen. Pages.

Pages is one of the spendier apps we've purchased.  We finally broke down and bought it as a way to view and create documents on our iPhone and iPad (mostly iPad) that were nice to look at.  There are other apps that do the same thing, but none that do it in as aesthetically pleasing a way.

Pages comes with a number of different templates (resume, recipe, party invite, flyer, etc.) that can get you started on creating your wonderful document.  For an example of a quick and easy pattern that was created using Pages, look at the pdf pictured here.

There are cool features for adding media and a variety of stock tables, charts, and shapes, all of which can be modified to meet your needs.  In addition, there is a spell check and word count available, as well as adjustments for all kinds of guides, margins, and tabs.  For a very simple design, we were amazed at the number of ways we could adjust our document.

Once you've finished your creation, you can email or print it, or send it to iWork or iTunes, or copy it to iDisk or Web Dav.  We wish there was an option for uploading it to Dropbox or Evernote, but we can work with what's there.  All in all, we feel that it's been worth our money... especially on the iPad.

Day Seventeen. App Seventeen. Nike Training Club.

It's been a few days since we've tried to motivate you to get some exercise, so we thought we'd give it a try again.  Because we have other things we'd like to do besides exercise, we're big fans of the quick, get-it-done, and get-on-with-other-things type of exercise. So, we have an app for that... and today we're sharing our review of it with you.

That app is Nike Training Club, which bills itself as "your personal trainer. anytime. anywhere."  When you open the app, you can choose whether you want to "get lean, toned, or strong," or do a 15 minute focused session (that's the quick one we like).  Once you've made your selection, the app provides you with both visual and audio instruction (that actually isn't annoying like some).  If you are unclear about the instruction, you can tap on the picture and it will take you to a more detailed video.  Then, once you're done, you can access information about your progress and unlock badges to make you feel good about your exercise.

We like it.  We use it after we've overindulged (see yesterday's app review)... and some other times too.

Day Sixteen. App Sixteen. All Recipes/Epicurious.

We like to eat.  Mostly we like ice cream.  However, at this time of year, we also like baked goods and soups (comfort foods, we suppose) and we even like to cook them.  Our app of choice for finding new recipes is actually two apps; we like both All Recipes (we splurged on the pro version, but a free option is available too) and Epicurious.  Both apps are great when you want to find a new recipe (or you're at the grocery store with only your phone and have no idea what you're having for dinner that night!  It happens.).  If you kind of know what you're after, All Recipes and Epicurious are both great, because of the ability to search for recipes based on ingredients and course, or just using a search box.  In both apps you can save your recipe, use it to create a shopping list (nice feature), or share it with others via email, Facebook, or  Twitter (Epicurious also has sharing to Google Reader, Instapaper, Pinboard, Read It Later, and Tumblr).

All Recipes also has the option to search based on the length of time it takes to prepare the item, and allows organizing of your "recipe box" by category too (soup, dessert, side dish, etc.).  Epicurious's recipe box can be organized alphabetically or by recency.   Right now, we are enjoying Epicurious's seasonal category options, including Holiday Treats, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Dinners, Holiday Desserts, Christmas Cocktails, etc.  We may need to be looking at the exercise apps again soon.  It'll be worth it though.

Day Fifteen. App Fifteen. SnapTell.

SnapTell is our featured app today. As you may have noticed, one of the primary things that drives our positive rating of an app is its ease of use. We like simple and intuitive. If we have to read a manual or watch a tutorial, our likelihood of using the app (at least as it was designed to be used), goes way down.

SnapTell scores on the ease of use factor.  It does just what its name implies; it snaps a picture (or scans a barcode) then tells you where you can find that item locally and online and for how much. You can then tap to purchase from the linked sites, or call or get directions to the local sites.  The variety of online sites are produced from amazon.com and searches of google, wikipedia, and yahoo!, so it's pretty thorough... or at least good enough for what we're after.

We've found the barcode to be more effective than the picture taking (not sure the picture taking has ever given us a result, but that may be because we so consistently use the barcode option that we'd actually rename the app ScanTell).  Anyway, SnapTell has been a good app for comparison shopping this holiday season. We've used it on multiple occasions to find the best price for an item.

So, there you go; we've saved you a little money. Merry Christmas.

Day Fourteen. App Fourteen. Grocery IQ.

We don't feel very inspired writing this app. Unlike other apps we've reviewed, we're just not that excited about this one. Knowing that, though, it should tell you a lot about the value of this app since we're recommending it in spite of our blah-ness. Now you're curious aren't you?

Okay, our blah and yet highly recommended app is GroceryIQ. Now you see why we're not "super amped" about it, don't you? It's a grocery shopping app. Whoopee. However, it's possible that our disdain for grocery shopping may be coloring our emotions.  We really do think this app is pretty awesome.

So, specifically, why do we recommend it? Because GroceryIQ takes a little of the pain out of shopping. You can enter your list by scanning barcodes (that actually does make us a little excited) or by typing in the items' names (the app provides choices to match what you've types in). It then automatically suggests what aisle/section of the store the items are in so your list is organized (that's also pretty cool). The items in your list all have little boxes next to them so you can check them off as you shop. In addition, you can add on prices, list different stores, email your list to someone else (and maybe get out of the grocery shopping?!?), etc.

All in all, it isn't enough to make us relish grocery shopping, but it definitely makes it better. If you're going to go grocery shopping, you want this app.