Organising photo apps: a task too far?

Photo apps, to paraphrase a famous phrase, are like a box of chocolates. So many to choose from, some with delicious centres, others slightly bitter. So how exactly do you find the ones you really need amongst the cornucopia of apps you have amassed?

With so many of them clogging up my iPad and iPhones I decided it was time to bring order to chaos. So I sat down, made a list of all my apps, created a few rudimentary categories for them and attempted to file each app under them. I wish I had stuck to something more simple, like calculating the value of pi in my head while juggling a set of fine china, standing on one toe.

It was a task that seemed so straightforward. Some apps function as alternatives to Apple’s basic camera app, others provide editing functions for existing images, while still others add artistic effects. So creating categories like capture, processing and art fx should handle all those, right? Wrong.

Camera apps like Camera+, ProCamera and King Camera are promoted as primarily image capture apps yet feature extensive processing and editing options. Apps like Photoshop Express, PerfectlyClear and Photogene, categorised mainly as editing apps, also have image capture facilties in their toolkit.

Likewise, would you classify apps that provide painterly effests like MobileMonet and AutoPainterHD in the same folder as Interlacer, ColorSplash or TinyWorld?

Then there’s the can of worms containing the likes of Hipstamatic, ClassicTOY, PictureShow and Plastic Bullet. Categories like Toy cameras, fun photos or filter fx come to mind. But is it fair to call apps that can produce such creative effects as these ‘toys’?

Thus I bend to my task, my head alternatively spinning and throbbing. It may seem frivilous to some but anyone that considers themselves an iphoneographer needs to be able to find their favourite ans trusted photo apps quickly or miss a vital shot.

This is also a problem that’s not going to go away. With new apps appearing in the App Store each and every week the confusion will only grow unchecked, unless some action is taken to come up with a workable classification system. How would you handled it? How do you handle it now? I’d love to know.