Nyscate Workshop

In case you are wondering how you and your friends can start your own iBand, here are the apps used by the musicians in the above video along with their download links:

SoundGrid

by mifki - App website | Other Apps

Price: 2.99 USD

NLog Free Synth

by tempo rubato - App website | Other Apps

Price: Free

Melody Bell

by CONIT Co., Ltd. - App website | Other Apps

Price: 0.99 USD

Guitarist

by MooCowMusic Ltd. - App website | Other Apps

Price: 3.99 USD

iGOG: Massive Drums

by WaveMachine Labs, Inc. - App website | Other Apps

Price: 2.99 USD

Bassist

by MooCowMusic Ltd. - App website | Other Apps

Price: 3.99 USD

Pocket Organ C3B3

by insideout ltd. - App website | Other Apps

Price: 2.99 USD

Percussions+

by CRIMSON TECHNOLOGY, Inc - App website | Other Apps

Price: 6.99 USD

Bebot - Robot Synth

by Normalware - App website | Other Apps

Price: 1.99 USD

Pianist Pro

by MooCowMusic Ltd. - App website | Other Apps

Price: 4.99 USD

Now go play! Thanks to Gizmodo for pointing these out.

There are a variety of unique ways apps use the GPS capabilities of the iPhone. I’ve decided to cover the most basic and common need: Search. I have probably tried most apps in the AppStore that provide local search, and its time I listed the best of the lot.

Localscope

Hands down my favorite app for finding anything around me. Besides the top notch user experience and all the other great features seamlessly packed into this wonderful app, the key reason that this app remains my number 1 is that Localscope is the only app out there that lets you search for the same query using multiple search sources, without having to retype the query again and again. This feature is of the highest importance as I have not yet found one service that provides the best results for everything. I find better restaurants using Google, but for the best nightclubs and pubs, I use Foursquare. Twitter is the best place to look for public opinions about a place, and the most landmarks and buildings are marked at Wikimapia in my region. Localscope lets me search for one search phrase across all of these services, and I have to type the phrase only once.

Moreover, Localscope provides the widest set of actions that can be performed on the search results, including dialing phone numbers directly, get directions using a choice of navigation apps like navigon or share the found place with friends over facebook, etc. Localscope is one of my homescreen apps since its launch, and definitely worth the money.

Localscope

by Cynapse - App website | Other Apps

Price: 1.99 USD

WhereTo?

Where To? is probably the second most polished app in my list after Localscope. I love the circular dial in its first screen, but hate the fact that it only appears in the first screen. The most unique feature of Where To? is its huge database of pre entered search terms. While I hate typing on my phone and tapping a search term in the list is much easier, I find the activity of searching through search terms to then search for real results a little crazy! The Where To? database lists a LOT of search terms including a lot of brands like Starbucks, McDonalds etc. (They claim to have over 2,400 brands) However, it doesnt list a lot of brands that are local to me. Fundamentally I don’t see the policy of pre entering all the possible search terms into the app, as for the developers to cover all the brands of the globe, they would have to fill it up with all of the worlds yellow pages. Of course you could go ahead and delete the brands and search terms that are irrelevant to you. Besides this basic design annoyance, Where To? is still a great app.

Where To? - Discover your next destination

by FutureTap GmbH - App website | Other Apps

Price: 0.99 USD

Google Places

The official app from Google, the places app provides reliable results along with much details for the results. Being a Google app, it obviously only uses the Google info-bases for the results, which is one of the best sources for Geo search results. However, the user experience is quite basic and in my experience far inferior to the Android app by Google by the same name. One of the biggest advantages is that Google Places is absolutely free to use and does not have the highly irritating permanent banners that the other free apps do.

Google Places

by Google - App website | Other Apps

Price: Free

AroundMe

A popular choice, used by many as its basic version is free and advertisement supported. I do not mind ads in some of my apps, but for a local search app that is usually used on the road, banners take up valuable mobile bandwidth as a result slowing down the entire experience of quickly finding the right place. Ads can be removed for an in app purchase of $2.99 but for that price, there are much better apps out there in the AppStore.

AroundMe

by Attorno A Me S.R.L. - App website | Other Apps

Price: Free

Layar

Layar is a pure augmented reality app that is full of features including downloadable ‘layers’ i.e. search engine sources that are both free and paid. Layar is an ambitious app and has received a lot of press coverage and popularity for their Android version, however it also has a bad reputation of crashing and slow performance on the iPhone. A certain version of Layar was also booted out of the AppSstore as it received a lot of complaints of crashing and being unstable. The app has since then been improved and re-approved for AppStore. I love the fact that you can download and switch between various sources, but I quite dislike the cumbersome experience to switch between them. Localscope provides a much smoother method to do the same, and since Localscope also has an augmented reality view, I choose Localscope over Layar.

Layar Reality Browser - Augmented Reality software

by Layar B.V. - App website | Other Apps

Price: Free

MotionX GPS

MotionX GPS is not just a local search tool. It is a complete mapping / navigation app that also provides geo searching. It is also the most popular app in the Navigation category as its maps work globally unlike other navigation tools. I am personally not a big fan of ‘all-in-one’ apps and prefer point purpose apps that perfectly do the one thing they are meant to do. MotionX GPS is no exception here, as most of the search apps listed here outperform MotionX GPS in the search and discovery field, and pure navigation apps like Navigon and TomTom provide much better maps and navigation features. If you think otherwise and prefer an all in one app for all your map and search needs, then check out MotionXGPS, it is the perfect upgrade to your default map app.

MotionX GPS

by MotionX™ - App website | Other Apps

Price: 1.99 USD

Robotvision

Another simple AR app that searches Bing, Twitter and Flickr and shows them in an augmented reality view. I like its UI as its simple and icon driven and the fact that it focuses on getting photos from Flickr along with normal search results, but have faced quite a few crashes in the limited time I tested it. Its a fairly basic app and might appeal to a few because of its lower price point.

Robotvision

by Tim Sears - App website | Other Apps

Price: 0.99 USD

Ubique

Ubique provides a unique augmented reality view by superimposing a map view into the AR view. This is quite helpful as it provides a new frame of reference to the vicinity you are gazing into. However search capabilities in Ubique seem to be minimal as it focuses more on fetching all local content from Wikipedia and showing them. If search is not the most important thing you are looking for and would like to try out a new way of viewing maps, you might like Ubique.

ubique

by Felix Lamouroux - App website | Other Apps

Price: 1.99 USD

My Local

Similar to aroundme, free and ad supported. In fact its quite hard to point out feature differences between the two. Chose My Local over AroundMe if you prefer black toolbars and buttons over the navy blue ones offered by AroundMe

My Local

by Hana Mobile - App website | Other Apps

Price: Free

Where To Go?

Where To Go? started off as a cheap replica of the WhereTo? App. So cheap that they couldn’t even think of a new name and icon or probably wanted to confuse potential WhereTo? customers into buying their app. Since their launch though they have added a few features unique to the app, and at this time it is the only app which is universal and works natively on the iPad (which is the only reason i have put it on this list). I personally loath their UI and the cheap imitation of WhereTo’s sexy dial UI.

Where To Go? HD - Find Points of Interest using GPS.

by Networking 2.0 - App website | Other Apps

Price: 2.99 USD

So there you have it, my top ten apps for searching and finding places in your vicinity. Localscope is my clear winner. I still have kept WhereTo? and Layar installed on my phone just in case I need some of their unique capabilities some time, though that hasn’t happened yet. Have a favorite? Lemme know in the comments.

So we have decided to come back and explore the world of mobile apps on deplugged.com and we are starting off with focusing on our favorite mobile platform – iOS. Since Apple has nearly single handedly caused the recent mobile app revolution, and since it currently has the most mature app market by far, we have decided to concentrate our efforts first into the iPhone, iPad and the iPod.

Stay tuned, we are gonna do a lot of cool stuff on this site!