If you have an iPod Touch, then you know the benefit of finding apps that work offline. But some iPhone owners, too, need offline access from time-to-time. Maybe you spend your commute in an underground subway or perhaps your office building has shoddy cell coverage, or maybe you just want to use your iPhone on a plane…whatever the reason, offline access to apps is still a necessary evil these days.
Not to worry, though, lack of a signal doesn’t mean you have to put your iPhone (or iPod) away - there are plenty of apps today that work offline. Here are some of our favorites.
Evernote
The newest version of the popular Evernote note-taking app introduced one of the most requested features: offline notes. Through a new button called “favorites,” you can mark notes for offline access. If you have Evernote on your iPhone already (who doesn’t?), then check the app store for updates because this one is a must-have. Evernote newbies can just download the app now.
Stanza
The Stanza ebook reader lets you port reading material from your computer to your iPhone wirelessly so you can take your books with you when you’re out and about. Once loading up with books, you can read them anytime, whether or not you have an internet connection. Download Stanza here. (Another option is Readdle, or check out our previous article for even more ebook readers.)
Instapaper
The Instapaper bookmarking tool for iPhone lets you bookmark web pages for offline reading. As any iPod Touch user knows, mobile Safari’s tendency to auto-refresh pages means you can’t open up web pages and save them for later reading offline. You could also choose to buy the Pro version for $9.99 which uncaps that limit while also adding other features like tilt scrolling and an adjustable text size. Download here.
Encyclopedia
The Encyclopedia app from Steam Heavy Industries delivers a complete copy of Wikipedia to your iPhone/iPod Touch for offline access. By complete they mean the complete article text, but not references, image descriptions, user profiles, etc. Being warned, though, this app needs quite a bit of storage space: 2 GB. Download here.
NYTimes
The NYTimes iPhone app lets you read the news from the New York Times right on your iPhone. You can navigate through the stories quickly, select up to four favorite sections for one-touch access, choose to browse by photos which link to the stories upon touch, and, of course, read the news offline.
MiGhtyDocs
The MiGhtyDocs iPhone application takes your Google documents offline for access anywhere. You can’t edit them and save your changes, but at least you can get to them. Currently, only text documents and spreadsheets are supported. No word on slideshows yet.
An RSS Reader
There are actually quite a few RSS readers available from the iTunes App store, many which sync with your Google Reader for offline access. However, this author’s personal favorite is Byline, a $2.99 app which offers a 2-way sync with Google Reader. You can even star, share, add notes, and email your RSS feeds, just like in Google Reader itself. To really juice it up with tons of feeds for an extended period of offline time, go into your Settings app and configure it to archive 200 items instead of its default limit.
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I have yet to add a single app to my iPhone. Need to check these out.
Posted by: Hutch Carpenter | October 29, 2008 7:50 AM
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Not a single app? Did you just get it a few minutes ago?
Posted by: Sarah Perez | October 29, 2008 7:51 AM
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Good list Sarah, also Zenbe is a great list tool, AP mobile news, Pandora radio, Exposure for Flickr, Translator. All free apps.
Posted by: Bill Arneson | October 29, 2008 8:23 AM
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Thanks Sarah, I have an iTouch and have yet to upgrade to the iphone. I have a few apps on my itouch, all which require wifi access which I am rarely accessible to. These will be a nice addition so I can actually utilize my itouch for now.
Craig
www.budgetpulse.comPosted by: Craig | October 29, 2008 8:24 AM
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Ha! No, I’m still fundamentally a mobile luddite. I need to inch my way out of the immobile cave I live in…
Posted by: Hutch Carpenter | October 29, 2008 8:37 AM
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>1.delivers a complete copy of Wikipedia to your iPhone
>2.By complete they mean the complete article text,“Complete copy” and “just the article” are *NOT* the
same things.Posted by: Betty | October 29, 2008 8:42 AM
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I like the article. Not 100% sure if those are the top 10 apps needed but they are good. I like the Bloomberg app, Showtime,Urban Spoon and Sport Spectacular.
We actually launched an app last week allowing people to buy concerts, sports and theater tickets as well as recieve a discount on them. Feel free to check it out
http://www.ticketsdirect.com/iphonefaq.html. Its interesting to be on the other side where we actaully put out something that was downloaded over 3000 times in the first two days, so yes I am bias about it being a top 10 app.The most important thing is that Apple allows the development of the Apps. The approval process wasnt as hard as we thought it would be. Took about 5 days. We submitted it, they told us what to change we fixed, sent again and they appoved it.
I know this is off topic, but just a suggestion everyone who has an idea can have a app built and hoplefully one day get on a list like this.
Posted by: Tickets Direct | October 29, 2008 8:49 AM
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I think I’m up to 7 pages of icons now. Each page isn’t full, but still.
Posted by: Phil Glockner | October 29, 2008 9:31 AM
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this is a great list of apps. anyone find a good one for showing powerpoint decks?
Posted by: Campaign08 | October 29, 2008 10:49 AM
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I’m amazed at how many apps have information on local transit systems. I live in the Bay Area, and use the BART all the time, so I’ve found iBART app for my iTouch extremely useful. You might have a local transit app for your area too, and most of them are free.
Posted by: slug | October 29, 2008 11:38 AM
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Thanks for mentioning Instapaper, Sarah!
One correction: Instapaper Free isn’t limited to 10 articles. You can save as many as you’d like. The Free application isn’t artificially limited like that in any way — Pro simply has additional features that many people find useful.
Posted by: Marco Arment | October 29, 2008 12:13 PM
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Great list. MiGhtyDocs was new to me and looks like it might be really useful.
Instapaper and Evernote is also on my personal “best-of” list (http://www.di-bella.de/index.php/2008/10/13/updated-list-of-favorite-iphone-apps/).
Concerning the RSS Reader, my favorite is NetNewsWire. A great offline reader, which syncs with the web and your desktop App as soon as you’re back online.
There is also an app which lets you control Keynote and Powerpoint. Nice when you’re doing presentations a lot. It’s called “Pointer”.
bye, Ingo
Posted by: Ingo Di Bella | October 29, 2008 12:34 PM
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Tickets Direct, this article was about offline applications.
Posted by: James Mayes | October 29, 2008 5:21 PM
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I’m a sucker for iphone app list articles, and this is a good one. Thanks Sarah.
Also, kudos for using “Accelerando” by Charles Stross (accelerando.org) in your screen shot for Stanza. For those who don’t know what it is, Accelerando is a free (as in beer) sci-fi novel about a hypothetical near future economic/technological singularity, dealing with lots of interesting post-human themes. You can download it as plain text, PDF, and other formats. It’s a real page turner and if you’re looking to load up some content for your shiny new reader, you could do worse. He reminds me a lot of Iain M. Banks.
Posted by: josh rehman | October 29, 2008 6:13 PM
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