There has been a steady stream of mobile apps tailored to web developers and designers, transforming mobile devices into a virtual Swiss-Army Knife of tool applications.
I looked at the top one-hundred developer-oriented and designer-oriented apps with the highest user ratings and the most downloads for each of the top three mobile devices: Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android phones and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. I then handpicked from that group of one hundred to focus on twenty highly rated and popular developer and designer apps for each phone.
Download these apps and start developing and designing while on the go.
Developer Apps
Developer’s Tool Kit. A full-featured toolbox for any web developer or programmer featuring a computer science hex calculator that does binary, octal and logic operations, a fully categorized ANZI UTF-8 character set with over 10,000 characters, an RGB color wheel and a full Unicode character set. Price: $2.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on Android or BlackBerry.
FTP On The Go Pro. View and edit HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, ASP and other code with this mobile FTP solution that has all the functionality of a desktop FTP client. Price: $9.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “ANDFTP” for Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
SEO Search Ranking. Monitor your website's SEO performance using Google’s search data with this app. Track unlimited websites and keywords; graph trends in your website’s SEO performance over time; and even get country-specific results. Price: $2.99. Download for iPhone. Similar "SEO Keyword Checker" for Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
Concentric Sky’s Code Cheat Sheets. Concentric Sky offers an entire suite of developer code cheat sheets, from CSS to HTML to JavaScript to PHP to jQuery and more. Built by professional web developers. Easy-to-search specific codes, properties and values in an array of code styles. Price: $.99 each. Download all apps for iPhone: CSS Cheat Sheet, jQuery Cheat Sheet, HTML Cheat Sheet, MYSQL Cheat Sheet, Python Cheat Sheet, PHP Cheat Sheet, JavaScript Cheat Sheet, RegEx Cheat Sheet. Similar “HTML Test”, “CSS Cheat Sheet” and “HTML Cheat Sheet” for Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
Source Viewer. Quickly look under the hood of any website and see the HTML, CSS or JavaScript that runs the website. Copy and paste the code to a clipboard or email it out. Price: $.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “View Web Source” on Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
Cellica Database. Read and write to your desktop database tables, — via views, queries and stored procedures — with this app. Compatible with most of the major databases, including Microsoft Access, Excel, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, dBase and any ODBC compliant database. Price: Free. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
iMy. A full MySQL client for iPhone. Generate and save queries, get server statistics and terminate processes and upload large queries from a desktop machine without having to type. The entire app is keyboard free, featuring a pre-typed and searchable queries ready to send. Price: $5.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
MobileCan. A query and database manager for PostgreSQL databases. Pick tables, fields or SQL keywords when building your queries on the fly, brows table and index definitions and get the status of running processes on your server. Price: $3.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Network Ping. Debug, test and maintain your network by sending a ping to a single IP address or a subnet’s hundreds of IP addresses, traceroute to determine the route taken by packets across an IP network, and much more. Price: $3.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
TouchTerm SSH. Driven by OpenSSH open-source library, this is a complete SSH terminal app for full server, connection, password and SSH key management. Price: $3.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Designer Apps
WhatTheFont. Identify any font in a photo, ad, poster or on a website. Snap a photo of the font in question with your phone and view the font details in the app. Then use the data to update your own website with your favorite font styles. Price: Free. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
FontShuffle. Search through over 650 font families all sorted by visual similarity. Then bookmark your favorites and shake the mobile device to get new selections to choose from. Price: Free. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
The Typography Manual. A pocket resource for anyone that works with type. This 60-page booklet covers the history of type, type basics, how to properly set text and special characters on the web and more. Price: $3.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “Typography Junkies” for Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
CliqClicq Colors. Discover and manage colors and palettes, then quickly convert between RGB, HSB, CMYK for the language or code you work with. Price: $2.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “Color Palette” for Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
HEX RGB Colors Guide. A simple reference guide to RGB and HEX color codes. Download for iPhone. Price: $.99. Similar “RGB-HEX Konverter” for Android. Not available for BlackBerry.
HTML Colors. Select, preview and experiment with colors for use on a web page. Use the slide bars to adjust the red, green and blue color values for text or background colors. Price: $.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “HTML Color” for Android. Not available for BlackBerry.
Color Splash. With designers in mind, convert any digital image for use on a website to black and white while keeping individual details in color for a unique looking image. Price: $.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “Magic Color Picker” for Android. Not available for BlackBerry.
Full Screen Web Browser. Get 40 percent of your iPhone screen’s real estate back by hiding the buttons, URL address and status bars when you don’t need them so you can see web pages in their full form. Price: $.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Caliper. A virtual caliper that can make precise measurements in centimeters, inches or pixels. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Data, Server and Website Tracking Apps
Network Utility Pro. Check a website or server status from anywhere. You can also ping your site, perform geo-IP lookup, find IP address information and perform Whois queries. Price: $.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Are My Sites Up. Get an instant snapshot of any website’s uptime, downtime and monitor multiple servers so you can track and quickly solve any website or server outages. Price: Free. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Analytics App. Track all your Google Analytics data with this handy app. Monitor visitor habits, track the most popular pages on a website and see which browsers and devices users are viewing a website on. Price: $6.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “Mobile GA” for Android”. Not available on BlackBerry.
Ego. Manage and track all metrics data for Ember, FeedBurner, Google Analytics, Mint, Squarespace, Tumblr, Twitter and Vimeo in one app. Price: $1.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on Android or BlackBerry.
iBlueSky. A helpful app to get that project idea out of your head and into reality. Create organic flowcharts of data for a given project by brainstorming in this app. Price: $9.99. Download for iPhone. Similar “Thinking Space” for Android. Not available on BlackBerry.
MiniBooks for FreshBooks. Invoicing and time tracking on your phone — create and edit clients, manage projects and invoices, run timers, record payments and more. Price: $14.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Daylite Touch. A useful time management and productivity organizer app for use with Daylite on a Mac. Have access to all your clients and meeting times or delegate tasks and hand off leads to co-workers, all while on the go. Price: Free. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
Other Useful Development and Design Apps
Nomina. A research app for company name selection. Search out which domains are available at .com, .net, .org. .biz and twenty other widely used domain extensions, research existing trademarks and patents, search U.S. Library of Congress for existing similar names in use. If you develop apps, Nomina will search the iTunes app database to see if your product name already exists. Price: $4.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on BlackBerry or Android.
PassGen. A random password generator that creates 4 to 16 digit passwords comprised of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Price: Free. Download for iPhone. Similar “Password Generator” for Android](http://www.androlib.com/android.application.ewenson-apwdgen-Bjqz.aspx). Similar “Strong Password Generator” for BlackBerry.
Dropbox. Share and sync files online and across multiple computers. Simply install Dropbox on any desktop computer and then install the app and access files from any device anywhere you have a cell phone or Internet connection. Price: Free. Download for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry.
Air Sharing. Mount your iPhone as a hard drive on your desktop computer, drag and drop files between devices, zip and unzip folders and treat your iPhone like a wireless storage device. Price: $2.99. Download for iPhone. Not available on Android or BlackBerry.
