Gadgetwise: App Smart Extra: Stocking Stuffers for Teens

6475 alt="" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/12/16/technology/personaltech/16gw-app/16gw-app-blog480.jpg" width=480 height=320> Infinity Blade, an iPhone game that was the top choice among friends of Ryan Koenig, a high-school student in Sudbury, Mass.

Thursday’s App Smart column offers ideas for people who want to give apps as gifts. Probably the hardest group to buy for, though, is teens, since they don’t like to talk to adults about anything, least of all their phones.

That’s what interns are for.

My intern, Ryan Koenig, is a 14-year old high school student in Sudbury, Mass. A few days ago, I asked Ryan to survey his fellow students and come up with a list of the apps they’d most want to find in their Christmas stocking. The top choice, by a mile, was Infinity Blade ($6), followed by Fruit Ninja ($1) and any app that lets you take video on an iPhone 3G. (Among the best of a flawed-but-improving group: Camera Genius, $2, and Camera Plus Pro, $2.)

Honorable mention included Fragger ($1), Pocket God ($1), TextTwist Turbo ($ 1), Doodle Jump ($1) “and any car game.” (My suggestions: Need for Speed Shift, on sale at the moment for $1, or Real Racing, for $5.)

Mr. Koenig’s own top choices? Infinity Blade, Cut the Rope ($1), 360 Panorama ($1), Bloons TD ($3) and Jenga ($3).

All highly rated, all great choices for tricking out your teen’s iPhone.

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