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App Genie: 27 apps for 99 cents

You might think this "app of all trades" would be a master of none, but it's actually a solid collection of useful tools--with a price that's hard to beat.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
2 min read
App Genie can literally take the place of 27 standalone apps.

In the grand tradition of the Ginsu Knife, App Genie is 27, 27, 27 apps in one! Even if you find only a handful of them useful, you're definitely getting your 99 cents' worth.

App Genie's one-screen interface displays 20 attractive icons, which unfortunately are arranged randomly rather than alphabetically. Thus, finding what you're after (like, say, the tip calculator) is more difficult than it should be.

A few of these apps (like Tool Case) have various sub-apps, bringing the total number of tools to 26. After running App Genie a couple times, you'll see a notification asking you to e-mail a recommendation to a friend. Doing so unlocks a 27th tool (a flashlight, which gets added to the aforementioned Tool Case).

App Genie's other assets include currency and unit converters, a GPS-powered Where Am I? app, a price-comparing bar-code scanner, and an "amazing facts" reader.

Device Stats shows graphs of your device's memory usage, while Battery Level reveals how much standby, talk, Internet, and other time is available based on the remaining battery power.

App Genie can also translate typed words and phrases between dozens of languages, turn typed words and phrases into speech, reveal encyclopedic facts about the countries of the world, and store a simple checklist.

And so on and so on. Not all the apps are gems (what exactly is the point of a camera tool that snaps a photo when you shake your iPhone?), but there's more than enough good stuff here to justify 99 cents.

What's more, App Genie can take the place of many standalone apps, thus reducing some icon clutter on your home screens. If only the developers would let me reorganize (or at least alphabetize) the tools, I'd have no more wishes for this Genie.