The popular e-mail client for Mac OS X, Sparrow, released its iPhone version last month. In addition to its similar appearance, the iOS app for iPhone comes with a few useful features, including swipe control of the entire interface, a smart contact list that sorts your contacts intelligently, as well as some features familiar to those users of the Mac OS X version.

The mobile version of Sparrow adheres mostly to the same design as the desktop client. Most of the app is controlled with swipe gestures instead of button presses, it imports pictures from Facebook for your contacts, and its most handy feature is that it intelligently lists your most frequently used contacts at the top of a list instead of keeping them in alphabetical order. It also offers the same threaded conversation view as the desktop client, an excellent search engine, a quick send switch, and a mark all as read button (one feature iPhone users have been asking for since the iPhone was first introduced).

Two issues with the iPhone version of Sparrow should be noted. First, it doesn't support POP3 e-mail accounts. If you have your own e-mail server and it uses POP3, you will have to take a pass or switch to using IMAP if at all possible. (We offer an e-mail setup that we like to call Inbox Heaven, which can pull all of your e-mail, irrespective which source, into a unified inbox, accessible via IMAP using desktop and mobile e-mail clients alike.) If you're using Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, or your own with IMAP support you'll be fine. However, the other big caveat is that Sparrow does not support push notifications. This means you have to manually check your e-mail and you won't be notified when new e-mail arrives. (We have no problem with disabling push notifications and strongly recommend you do so, too.) For anyone using our Inbox Heaven setup, Sparrow is an ideal companion on the iPhone, supporting your main IMAP account and any aliases that are directed to the unified inbox.

Sparrow is available now in the iTunes App Store for £1.99.

The plethora of task management apps doesn't have many that rise to the top, but Orchestra is definitely a front runner that has beaten many other free and paid apps with its ease of use and collaboration features.

It's available for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and as a web application. It even incorporates speech recognition and web sync, so you can view and manage tasks collaboratively via the web and mobile devices.

It's our favourite tasks app and we're sure it'll become yours, too!

Check out Orchestra:
http://www.orchestra.com
iTunes App Store (free)