The iPhone is dangerously conducive to an incurable case of Social Media Addiction. Symptoms of SMA include the inability to enter any establishment—even a dentist’s office or a Kinko’s—without checking in on Foursquare. Sufferers of Social Media Addiction are known to tweet while driving, or send status updates to Facebook while undergoing surgery. If you’re not afflicted with this ailment, avert your eyes now. If you are SMA positive, go ahead and check out our favorite social networking apps for the iPhone.
This app is not currently available in the App Store.
TweetDeck is a Twitter and Facebook client for power users. What’s a power user? Let’s just say it isn’t someone who needs to keep track of three followers, and only update once or twice a month. TweetDeck allows you to set up separate pages of smart lists. You can have one for people you follow on Twitter, but another of just your best friends. Or another with live results of a hashtag search, or a trending topic. Same goes with Facebook. You can even use Tweetdeck to update both services simultaneously.
OkCupid Dating
Developer: OkCupid
Price: free Download on the App Store
Let’s face it: until that one magic moment when you meet someone great, online dating is an agonizing test of patience. OKCupid.com aims to ease the pain inherent in the process by mimicking a social network– a place where you actually want to spend time. To this end, the OKCupid app is actually fun to use. Peruse profiles, answer survey questions, send messages, and just be a shameless flirt, all from the safety and convenience of your iPhone. Like the service, the OKCupid app is free of charge.
PhotoScatter
Developer: Unique Apps
Price: $0.99 Download on the App Store
PhotoScatter is an app that streamlines the process of sharing photos on your favorite social media networks. When you open the app, you will be prompted to either take a photo or select an existing one. From there, toggle the networks you want to use, and then PhotoScatter will do all the leg work, posting your photo wherever you want it to go. Pre-load all your login credentials for Facebook, Flickr, ShutterFly, Twitter, and others, and sharing your pictures will take less time than ever before.
fring
Developer: fringland Ltd.
Price: free Download on the App Store
Much like Trillian on Windows and Adium on the Mac, fring: Video Calls + IM is a chat program for the iPhone that conveniently signs into all your services at once, be they Gchat, AIM, Facebook, Yahoo!, or whatever else. fring will also display status updates from Twitter or Facebook. Even more amazingly, you can use fring to make outgoing calls, just like VOIP apps like Skype. It will even do video calls, just like Apple’s Face Time. fring is so useful, it’s able to replace a handful of other uni-tasker apps, so you can free up some space on that crowded homescreen.
Tumblr
Developer: Tumblr, Inc.
Price: free Download on the App Store
Tumblr is fun little service that combines an easy-to-pick-up blogging platform with the follow-and-share conventions of a social media site like Twitter, and adds to the mix a sleek, sans-serif heavy aesthetic that is immensely popular with graphic designers and typeface nerds. The Tumblr iPhone app brings with it this sensibility. Tap the “Post” tab to upload and share some text, a quote, a photo, or even a chat transcript or audio snippet. Tap the “Dashboard” tab to see your friends’ updates. Blogging like a hipster has never been easier.
Tapatalk
Developer: Quoord Systems Limited
Price: free Download on the App Store
Before there was Facebook and micro-blogging, there were internet forums. These were those clunky, ugly places where the good people of the internet would come together to exchange ideas, opinions, and Avatar fan art. Well, guess what: internet forums never went anywhere, and they can still be extremely fun and useful. Tapatalk Forum App is a great application that downloads forum content and re-displays it in that minimal, cool iOS style. You can even log in and create original posts. It works on over 11,000 internet forums, with hundreds more added every week.
Etsy Addict
Developer: Daniel Dickison
Price: $0.99 Download on the App Store
Etsy would be considered merely an online marketplace– like Craigslist or eBay– were it not for its legions of avid, social-media-savvy fans. Etsy’s customer base has worked hard to instill a sense of community, and so Apple has rightly categorized the Etsy Addict app as “Social Networking.” Etsy Addict makes great use of the Etsy public API, so any comments, descriptions, and pics of the hand-made crafts you’d find on the full website will be neatly reformatted for your iPhone. Etsy Addict lets you search by multiple criteria, add favorites, leave feedback, and more.