Great challenge Keith. I am not a heavy app user, I try and delete a lot so most of the time mine are down to less than 30 on my phone/ipad. Here are my top 10:

1. Twitter: surprise
2. Instapaper: I do a lot of research both for grad class and personal. I have no clue how I lived before instapaper. So much easier than listing out a bunch of URLs of articles.
3. OnStar: Especially in the winter. I tend to run in and out of meetings. It is nice to be able to start my car from anywhere right before the meeting wraps up and have it toasty inside.
4. Gowalla: I love checking in. Gowalla is best because I can take care of 4sqr as well within the same app. Guess it is not necessary but makes me happy.
5. Dropbox: Again, I research a lot. This means I write a lot as well. I love dropbox because I never have to worry about having up to date copies of papers or graphic files I am working on. I pull these up a lot on the go since I mostly just carry an ipad now.
6. ESPN Scorecenter: I love sports. I love checking sports scores when I am in places that I probably shouldnt be checking scores.
7. Pages: I probably should use evernote, but it is just as simple just to use pages combined with dropbox/google docs to keep up with all of my notes.
8. Skype: Now that they support video chat on iphone4, this is a killer app.
9. Wolfram: It is part of Wolfram alpha. I use a ton of stats and I love to pull them out at any opportunity. It is great to look up quick stats on anything.
10. This is a tough one. The previous 9 are nearly every day apps. Nothing else is. I am a bit of a news junky and I keep a folder with Huffingtonpost, Mashable, NY Times, CNN, and The Daily. I use all pretty much equally and all the time throughout the day. Huff Post probably wins by a narrow margin due to the instapaper integration.

My picks are for my iPod touch. We’ll see if they become iPhone picks this summer when I re-up with Verizon (but I’m leaning Android right now).

1. Instapaper — I often use this instead of starring or keeping items unread in Google Reader. And if I know I’m going somewhere without Wi-Fi, I’ll sync the stories I want to read before I head out.

2. Skype — To see friends overseas and just states away.

3. Instagram — It’s become my fave photo sharing site in the past month. If the quality of the shot’s good enough on its own, I share it as is. If quality’s a bit janky, I’ll resort to the filters. Plus the community inside of it is enjoyable.

4. Mint — Always nice to be able to check my bank accounts when I freak out.

5. VLC — No longer in the App Store, VLC opens more options for video content.

6. UDD Free — Urban Dictionary search. Helps at work. A few months back we had a story where someone said another was “Addicted to bars.” Turns out bars is street for Xanax. Could’ve used this app then.

7. ScoreCenter — From ESPN. I timeshift KU games, so I try to avoid seeing scores for the Jayhawks, but I check the other Big 12 teams’ scores when I can.

8. Dropbox — I only use free Instapaper right now, so this is plan B when I’m out of Instapaper slots.

9. Evernote — Because I’m forgetful.

10. Urbanspoon — Because I still don’t know many restaurants here and I’m indecisive.

Since I’m a primary Blackberry user, I’m not big on apps, but here are the ones I use most often on iOS:

1. Twitter – No surprise (though sometimes I will play with twitter alternatives: SocialScope is the only thing I run all the time on my Blackberry)…

2. Meebo – If I’m not tweeting you, it’s because I’m chatting with you on one of the dozen chat networks I’m on.

3. Foursquare – Always checking in.

4. Bing – Hands down my favorite way to search.

5. Yelp – Though I use Bing a lot to find places now, I still have Yelp as a standard.

6. See Click Fix – I’m privately obsessed with checking out issues.

7. OpenTable – I use Bing and Yelp to discover, then OpenTable to book known favorites.

8. PicPlz – Always liked this more than Instragram, but I’ll have to play with the other.

9. Fruit Ninja – Sometimes I need to kill a few minutes…

10. Facebook – Although I hate the interface, sometimes it’s the easiest way to check up on things.

Excellent Challenge.

In no particular order.

Echofon – I know that Twitter for iPhone is free…but I like that Echofon has more in-app image support (including current trend, Instagram).

Facebook – Indefensible but also somewhat necessary.

Gowalla – I like that I can check in using it and also post to FB, 4SQ and Twitter from one app.

Words With Friends – With so many games going at once, I always have a turn waiting for me.

Evernote – I only recently started using this. It’s indispensable now.

Wikipanion – Use it all the time to look up info.

Instagram – Another recent addition but I love posting photos and also seeing what’s out there.

MotionX GPS Drive – GPS navigation for use in the car. Don’t use it much in LR but I use it whenever I travel and it has always been very reliable.

ScoreCenter – Best way to keep up on scores for any sport or team you want to follow.

Amazon.com – Great for price-checking when you’re out and can wait a day or two. (Google Shopper app may overtake this one…I’m giving it a trial run).

The majority of my list is rehashes from the already submitted lists. So no need to rehash why they are here…
Yahoo Sportacular, Twitter, Facebook, Words with Friends, Evernote, Flashlight, Pandora, Instagram.

These last two are work related…

TN5250 Lite- I’m in IT and our work environment includes an AS400 system. I’m on call 24/7 for 1 week a month and when I need to reset a printer this comes in handy. I VPN in using the VPN in iOS and then launch this app. Done in a few minutes compared to booting a PC, launching a VPN, Remoting into my work PC, launching my AS400 Emulator, and completing the task in 20 minutes or so. I need to break down and buy the paid app.

ooVoo-Our department chose this over skype for our Video Conf./IM solution before I was hired. It’s not a great IM client by any means, but for work, it’s convenient to open this and reach everyone in the department instead of trying to call or txt someone.

Thanks Zac – Haven’t heard of TN5250 previously