10 Infographics and Visualization Apps for iOS

As infographics continue to evolve and grow in popularity, so do the different ways we can view them.  A bunch of infographic specific apps have begun showing up on mobile devices. The functions of these apps include viewing world statistics, infographic design portfolios, company dashboards, creating mind maps, finding new apps and exploring your music collection visually.

Today we look at 10 Infographic Apps for iOS devices (in no particular order):

1. Stats of the Union  (FREE)

(iPad ONLY)

Stats of the Union is a data visualization app from Ben Fry, Fathom Information Design and GE.  Summarizing the census data by county, you can easily explore Births, Deaths, Diseases, Demographics, etc.

Explore the nation’s vital signs―from life expectancy to access to medical care―and make your own conclusions about America’s health. See a stat you’d like to share? Save it as a snapshot.

Stats of the Union is powered by the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) report, which consists of data from federal agencies including the Census Bureau, Department of Health & Human Services, Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency.

2. Photo Stats ($0.99)

(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)

A very cool app from Dear Future Astronaut AB.  The Photo Stats app analyzes all of the photos on your iDevice and creates 11 different personal visualizations using the meta data of the photos.  Then, with the click of a button, it will combine these data visualizations into one cohesive infographic that you can save or post directly to Facebook or Twitter.

Create cool infographics about how, when and where you take photos on iPhone. Visualize your iPhoneography habits, learn how to make better photos and show off photo skills to your friends.

3. Discovr Apps ($0.99)

(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)

Discovr Apps is a great, interactive mind map of related iOS apps, and works as a discovery tool to find new apps.  Starting with one of your exisiting apps, the recommended apps or using the search, the app shows you related apps.  Tap any of the to expand the related apps, and continue to explore deeper into any app displayed on the screen.

The author, Jammbox, has applied this same exploration user interface to Music with Discovr Music ($1.99) to find similar music and artists.

Simply search for an app that you like or choose from one of our featured apps. We’ll show you how the apps you choose are connected in a massive, never-ending map of the App Store, and we’ll give you great recommendations for other apps to download. 

When you find an app you like you can read the app descriptions, check out the screenshots and ratings, or buy it directly from the App Store. You can also share your favorite apps and maps with your friends via Twitter, Facebook or email.

4. Infographics, by Column Five Media (FREE)

(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)

From the infographic design firm, Column Five Media, the Infographics app is a visual portfolio showcasing many of their designs.  I love the coverflow mode when you view the list in landscape.

We have really appreciated everyone who is staying connected through our Infographics newsletter, and we are happy to bring fresh infographics to you for the iPad and iPhone with our brand new Infographics app, which you can download for free. If you have a chance to check it out on an iPad, that is definitely the way to go for the best browsing experience, but the iPhone version will give you some mobile eye candy as well. This is version 1.0 and there are a lot of new features in the works along with a version for Droid coming soon.

5. The Economist World in Figures 2011 Edition ($0.99)

(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)

From a collaboration between The Economist and XPLANE | Dachis Group, comes The World in Figures 2011 Edition.  This app lets the user view global data and compare world statistics between countries.

“The process definitely challenged our designers, making us consider new ways to enhance functionality around how data was being presented, while also fostering intuitive interaction between the user and the application,” said Parker Lee, executive vice president, global account services, Dachis Group. “The end result really does put a new face on information.”

6. MindMeister for iPad ($7.99) or MindMeister for iPhone (FREE)

(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)

MindMeister started as an online mind mapping service that allows you to build, collaborate and share mind maps online.  With the iOS apps you can access your online maps and edit them from your mobile device.  Works with a free MindMeister account, but more features are available to members of MindMeisterPro.

Easily create, view and edit conceptual mind maps from this intuitive app, and then share them with friends and colleagues online. Automatic synchronization with the online MindMeister service ensures that your creations are with you wherever you go. This sync allows you to continue working on your ideas in our award-winning and full-featured web interface, on your own or together with your friends.

 7. Planetary (FREE)

(iPad ONLY)

Planetary is a very cool app that visualizes your entire music library (as loaded on your iPad) as a galaxy.  Stars are artist, planets are albums and moon are individual tracks.  You can playback the tracks from the app, so it also makes a good visualizer.  They even did the calculations to base each moon’s speed on it’s track length, so when you play a song it lasts one complete orbit.  There a lot more behind the scenes information on the Bloom Blog.

Planetary is an all-new, stunningly beautiful way to explore your music collection, available only on iPad. Fly through a 3D universe dynamically created by information about the recording artists you love. Visit planets that represent your favorite albums and control the playback of your music on iPad by browsing and selecting astronomical objects.

8. Adobe SiteCatalyst Visualize (FREE*)

(iPad ONLY)

This only works if you are an existing Adobe SiteCatalyst customer (which isn’t free), but if you are, the Adobe SiteCatalyst Visualize app will allow you to explore your web stats in a handful of different, visual ways.

Adobe SiteCatalyst Visualize enables active data exploration via trend analysis of key metrics. Business analysts and marketers can use “multi-touch” capabilities to zoom and focus on specific data points within the last 90 days. In addition, using a visual “word cloud” of the most frequently selected metrics, marketers can easily add or change metrics to customize the presentation of data. Finally, marketers can easily share the analysis by sending report views via email or connecting to an external display for presentations.

*Please Note: You must be an existing Adobe SiteCatalyst customer with valid login privileges to use the application.

9. Roambi - Visualize (FREE)

(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)

Roambi - Visualize is a mobile dashboard app that lets you explore different business reports and data visualizations.  You can view data from Microsoft Excel or CSV/HTML data sources for free, or there are a couple paid levels of the Roambi Publishing Service that offer many more data source options.

Roambi is an innovative app that quickly transforms your business reports and data – from many popular business applications – into secure, interactive mobile dashboards, instantly delivered to any iPhone or iPad. It lets you easily view and interact with up-to-the-minute company information – giving you the insight you need for on-the-go analysis, impromptu presentations and smart decision-making. Roambi puts the pulse of your business, in the palm of your hand.

 10. Pennant ($4.99)

(iPad ONLY)

Pennant is a beautiful app that visualizes over 50 years of baseball history (from 1952-2010) with some beautiful visual designs.

Pennant is an interactive history of baseball like none other seen before. Using Pennant’s rich interface fans can browse and view data from over 115,000 games that have taken place from 1952 to 2010. For more info as well as a video preview please visit http://www.pennant.cc

Did I miss any that I should include in a future post?  This is absolutely only the beginning, so expect to see more in the future.

Recruit-O-Graphic

What a great idea!  Kite Consultants designed this infographic job posting, Recruit-O-Graphic, as an innovative way to visualize the job requirements and to show some aspects of working for Kite.  What would have been a long, wordy job posting is now fun and easy to read.  You also get a great sense of the company culture and attitude.

I’m definitely doing something like this for InfoNewt when it’s time to recruit!

Thanks to Sebastiaan for sending in the link!

The Art and Science of S'mores

I love this cool infographic from REI, The Art and Science of S’mores. 

 A group of REI sweet tooths has put together what is perhaps the definitive infographic on s’mores. Check it out, and share it with your camping buddies. We’re betting The Art and Science of S’mores will make your next campground outing just that much more interesting.

This is a fantastic example of designing an infographic to be informative about a fun, interesting subject related to your brand.  Very shareable in social media channels, and it doesn’t feel like an REI ad.  You don’t have to be an outdoor enthusiast to enjoy the topic either, so the audience is a very wide array of people.  Even my 11 year old son loved it!

Found on Visual News.

The Power of Data Visualization: iPhone Tracking

Inofrmation is power.  Data visualization has the power to change the world!  Change our habits, our laws, our business strategies and what we understand about the world around us.  Our understanding of data forms the foundation of how we make choices, form opinions, and at least one study claims that up to 80% of the human brain is wired just to interpret and remember visual data.

Anyone reading this blog has a basic understanding that data visualization makes things easier to understand.  It puts data into context and allows the viewer to see large data sets summarized in a much smaller space.  I’ve avoided updating to the latest iOS on my iPhone until I could put together this post since it’s such a great example of how visualizing data turns it into information that people can use.

Earlier this year, Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden announced at the Where 2.0 conference that Apple’s iPhones were tracking all of your location data in an open, accessbile file on your computer.  ALL of the location data since the phone was first turned on, which could be years of data.  Heavily covered by the press, you can see their announcement here.  The reason I bring this up on Cool Infographics, is that I believe the visualization itself is what caused this to become a major media event sometimes referred to as “Locationgate.”

Some industry and forensic experts knew about this data already, and many others had tried to to make the public aware of it without any success.  Just telling people that your cell phone is storing location data doesn’t make it real and personal enogh to get the press and the public to care.  In fact, there have been other stories that Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 also gather this tracking data, but only Apple’s data was turned into a visualization and captured attention.

Alasdair and Pete wrote a simple application that anyone could download and use to see their own location data visualized on a map.  This not only made the story more understandable but it made it personal because I could see my own data.

We’d been discussing doing a visualization of mobile data, and while he was researching into what was available, Alasdair discovered this file. At first we weren’t sure how much data was there, but after we dug further and visualized the extracted data, it became clear that there was a scary amount of detail on our movements. It also became obvious that at least some other people knew about it, but it wasn’t being publicized.

iPhoneTracker is an open-source project that visualizes the location data that your iOS device is recording.

Created by Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden using the OpenStreetMap and OpenHeatMap frameworks.

As you can see above, they were even nice with data, and aggregated it into a simple grid that isn’t the actual GPS locations or location of the cell towers.  (This shows my trip to DisneyWorld in Florida)  The size of the circles shows the frequency of data points within that specific location.  So the visual shows an approximate location, but the actual data file on the iPhone was much more detailed.  Of course, the application was open source, so others started playing with the code and created much more detailed versions of the software.  Here’s that same data using the Creepy Edition of iPhoneTracker:

I believe that this use of data visualization to communicate the story was the primary factor that caused a media furor, lawsuits, press releases, interviews, government hearings and proposals to change our laws.

Apple posted an official press release responding to all of the attention and released a software update that deletes most of the historical data.  Sadly, the next time I update my iPhone, the historical data will all be erased.  Personally, I wish I had the option to continue to gather my own data because I’m into this sort of thing.  This file is now also encrypted if you turn on “Encrypt iPhone Backup” so it’s no longer easily accessible.

What’s the point?  Data visualization can be used to make your information relevant to your audience and get their attention.  Don’t just tell people your story, show them.

Update on Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 3:15PM by Randy

Since posting this, I have found the OpenPaths project from the NYTimes. 

OpenPaths is an anonymous, user-contributed database for the personal location data files recorded by iOS devices. Users securely store, explore, and manage their personal location data, and grant researchers access to portions of that data as they choose.

Even though I can’t continue to let my iPhone track my location, I did donate my data and can use the interactive map whenever I want.  At least I haven’t lost the data.

The Crayon-Bow, Crayola Color Chart updated

I’m not sure how I missed this, but the designer know as Velociraptor has updated his original Crayola Color Timeline that I posted about last year, into the the new Crayon-Bow (half rainbow - half rising sun).

The original was a square, straightforward representation, but the colors in the later years were shown in very small slices are hard to see.

A number of other visual layouts were tried, but the arc style visual not only allowed the colors from the later years to be easier to see, but the original eight colors pointing inwards look like the tips of brand new crayons as well.

I love the new version.  Found on Twitter: @printmag, @wired, @awaaza

Visualizing the U.S. Debt

The U.S. Debt Visualized is a great visualization of scale, and can be found at usdebt.kleptocracy.us, where you start with a single $100 bill, and start stacking them in orders of magnitude.  Stack them on pallets, start stacking the pallets and show them in comparison to other real-world items.

$114,500,000,000,000. - US unfunded liabilities
To the right you can see the pillar of cold hard $100 bills that dwarfs the
WTC & Empire State Building - both at one point world’s tallest buildings.
If you look carefully you can see the Statue of Liberty.

Numbers this large become too big to truly comprehend to many people, and I love visualizations like this one that put the unbelievable high numbers into context and scale.  Here’s one trillion dollars:

A visualization like this has a natural bias.  Whatever object the designer chooses to show in relation to the stack of bills can make the pile appear large or small in comparison.  In this example, the piles of money are truly staggering, but that’s all the reader can walk away with.  In it’s defense, this visualization isn’t trying to propose a solution, it’s just trying to make the viewer understand how big the number is.

Found on SeeWhatYouMean, VizWorld, Business Insider and Information Aesthetics.

The VIZoSPHERE - Visualizing DataViz People on Twitter

From Moritz Stefaner on Visualizing.org, comes the VIZoSPHERE project (Click the image to see the high-resolution image viewer).  Using GePhi, Moritz started with 18 seed accounts on Twitter, and then mapped 1,645 of the connected, networked accounts that relate to data visualization.  Bubble size in this visualization shows how many followers each account has from within this DataViz pool of users.

This map shows 1645 twitter accounts related to the topic of information visualization. The accounts were determined as follows: For a subjective selection of “seed accounts”[1], the twitter API was queried for followers and friends. In order to be included into the map, a user account needed to have at least 5 links (i.e. follow or being followed) to one of these accounts. The size of the network nodes indicates the number of followers within this network.

[1] The seed accounts were; @moritz_stefaner, @datavis, @infosthetics, @wiederkehr, @FILWD, @janwillemtulp, @visualisingdata, @jcukier, @mccandelish, @flowingdata, @mslima, @blprnt, @pitchinteractiv, @bestiario140, @eagereyes, @feltron, @stamen, @thewhyaxis

The zooming interface is crucial to view such a highly-detailed visualization and be able to read any of the nodes.  I was about to find my own Twitter account (@rtkrum), but it would be nice if Moritz would also provide a listing of the Twitter accounts or some way to search the map.

Great job Moritz!

Found on FlowingData and Robin Richards (@ripetungi) on Twitter.

35 Years of Apple Products - Visual History

From Mashable come The Apple Tree, a visual, iconic timeline 35 years of Apple product releases.  Designed by Mike Vasilev (@mvasilev on Twitter).

When it comes to industrial design, few consumer electronics or computer makers have the legacy or influence of Apple, Inc. In the last 35 years, Apple has introduced a myriad of products and devices, some very successful, some, not so much.

Artist Mike Vasilev created this infographic for Mashable, highlighting the major Apple product releases and design changes from 1976 through 2011.

I love how recognizeable all of the product illustrations are.  I’ve owned way too many of these products over the years.

Found on Social Media Graphics.

Bye Bye Space Shuttle infographic

I really like An Uncertain Future, a tribute infographic for the Space Shuttle program’s last launch of Atlantis scheduled for Friday.

Designed by Alberto Cuadra for the Washington Post

Last week I published what could be my very last Space Shuttle infographic. As a space exploration enthusiast and a professional visual artist, NASA’s spacecraft will be sorely missed. Over the years, the Shuttle was the focal point in many of the most fun projects I’ve been involved, directly or indirectly.

I really like the arc timeline.  Not only is it a different design than you usually see, but it also indirectly implies the flight paths of the shuttles up into space and back down to Earth.

Found on Visual Loop

Client Infographic: Waste in the Texas Energy Market

Waste in the Texas Energy Market from ChooseEnergy.com is a new infographic by InfoNewt and designer Jeremy Yingling.  This one tells the story of how much money is NOT being saved by households that don’t take advantage of lower pricing since Texas has a deregulated electricity market.

As the economy struggles to recover and households continue to cut back on spending, one of the easiest ways to save money might just be in your electric bill. In these tough economic times, consumers realize the importance of watching how every penny is spent. Today we look at the “Waste in the Texas Energy Market” and how pennies can certainly add up quickly to improve consumer finances.

Following the Infographic Release Strategy from InfoNewt, ChooseEnergy also did a great job setting up a dedicated landing page and custom URL for the infographic.  All of their links then drive traffic to this single page.  So the company blog post, Twitter feed and Facebook posts provide additional descriptions and links to this landing page.

While highlighting the fact that the Texas energy market is the 11^th largest in the world, the infographic also shows that 48% of the electricity consumed is from residential use.  So what’s the big deal?  On average Texas residents pay about 11.5 cents per kWh for their home electric use when they could be paying 8.5 cents per kWh.   Doesn’t sound like much does it?  Well, those 3 pennies can add up fast and they add up to $3.7 billion for the Texas consumer market.

You can follow ChooseEnergy on Twitter at @texas_electric