Bump, a popular iPhone app to share data like music and contact information between devices, was updated earlier today to include support for app sharing. The app, which is a free download in the App Store and was listed among the most popular apps for iPhone, revolves around the simple concept of “bumping” your iPhone with another person to share various kinds of information, locally and within seconds.
The new app sharing functionality allows you to build a list of your most used iPhone apps and select the ones you want to recommend to a friend. Once the list is created, bump your iPhone and your friend will receive the apps you chose as direct links to the iTunes Store. Bump doesn’t of course share the actual application file, but it comes quite in handy if you have lots of interesting apps to share with someone and you don’t feel like sending him an email with all the apps’ names.
What’s really cool is that, unlike app recommendation services that plug into your Facebook or Twitter accounts, Bump does everything locally with people you really know are interested in what you’re sharing. You don’t have to “like” or “upvote” recommendations, you just share items you know the recipient will be interested in.
As the developers write on the company blog:
This has been our biggest feature request of late, and it makes sense as to why. With more than 300,000 apps in the iTunes App Store, finding the best apps has become quite difficult. Who wants to sort through the 100 weather apps just to find WeatherBug? But what is the most common conversation among a group of iPhone users? “Hey, what cool apps do you have?”
You can download Bump for free here.