Michael Hodge and Benoit Cazenave are serious iPhone app aficionados.
Although the two winners of the Appolicious iPod touch Giveaway were customers of the iTunes App Store from the moment it opened, both found the experience lacking when it came to researching potential app downloads and sharing their experiences with friends.
“I am always looking for ways to find new applications,” “I am always looking for ways to find new applications,” said Benoit Cazenave, who lives in France and currently owns nearly 300 iPhone apps.
After being disappointed with the Genius recommendation feature released by the App Store in September, Cazenave turned to Appolicious after reading about the new service in several blogs.
“The social aspect Appolicious offers is something that Genius can’t bring,” he said. “Once I can get my friends on it, they will recommend apps closer to the ones I need.”
Cazenave won his 32GB iPod touch in a random drawing of the top 15 percent of active users on Appolicious. Activity was measured by the amount of apps downloaded to his Appolicious App Library, the number of followers he attracted and the amount of apps he reviewed and ranked on Appolicious.
A social networking fanatic, Cazenave says he can’t live without the Facebook and Tweetie 2 iPhone apps, which he describes as “the perfect Twitter app.”
“It’s better than using it on a computer,” he said. “I use it all the time.”
Cazenave anticipates deeper integration between Appolicious and Facebook in the months ahead.
Michael Hodge of Windham, Maine is not much of a social networker and prefers iPhone apps that help him with his job as a biomedical electronics technician. Apps like Conversion and QuickMetric – which make a multitude of calculations between U.S. and metric measuring systems – are regularly used by him. During his lunch break, Hodge catches up on the news with the USA Today iPhone app and the CNN Mobile iPhone app.
The owner of nearly 80 iPhone applications first learned about Appolicious from one of the 30 Google News email alerts about apps he likes to “zip through” each day. Hodge says he appreciates independent review sites like Appolicious because he can’t always trust the comments he reads about apps in iTunes.
“Going to iTunes makes me feel jaded,” he said. “People flood the site with [overly positive] reviews. It’s really difficult to figure out if an app is worth [downloading] or not.”
Hodge won his 32GB iPod touch as part of a random drawing of all registered users of Appolicious prior to December 1.
