When it comes to recording your medical history, My Medical puts matters into your own hands. It stores your doctors’ contact info, upcoming appointments, lab test results, operations you’ve had, allergies, prescription medications, emergency contacts, and more in this password-protected pocket database. My Medical is especially handy if you visit a new doctor—you can email him or her your medical history right from the app.

PERMANENT RECORDS: Keep a comprehensive record of your—and your kids’—medical history with My Medical’s huge collection of fill-in forms. You can list prescriptions, test results, medical procedures, immunizations, allergies, and more. The first time out, save yourself some tiny-keyboard typing and go to My Medical’s website to fill in the forms and send the info to your app.

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Need other healthcare info, like translating symptoms into tentative diagnoses, descriptions of health conditions (asthma, diabetes, muscle strain), and information about prescription and over-the-counter drugs? Then WebMD Mobile is a worthy app to have in hand. This iPhone version of the popular online medical reference site includes a first-aid guide and displays nearby general practitioners, specialists, hospitals, and pharmacies on a map.

Intended as a physician’s reference, iPharmacy contains official Food and Drug Administration profiles of more than 7,000 prescription drugs, including information on indications and usage, dosage, adverse reactions, and interactions with other drugs. As you might expect from the name, the $1.99 iPharmacy Professional comes with additional resources for doctors and pharmacists, such as news stories and articles from clinical journals.

DRUG DATA: When your doctor prescribes a drug, iPharmacy can give you detailed information on it, like the symptoms it treats, its effects on your body, and warning signs in case you’re allergic. The app includes a PDF of the drug info sheet.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: Each drug includes a Dosage & Administration section so you can see the standard dose and dosage range of your medication, recommendations on how often you should be taking it, and recommended maximum dosages.

If you’re a “show me” type who also wants to lose weight, Tap & Track is for you. It records how many calories you consume, how many you burn, and just how many are in that fast-food burrito. Pick a diet plan (lose from ½ to 2 lbs. per week) and Tap & Track logs your meals, exercise, and caloric intake as you work toward your goal. The app’s calorie database works offline, so Touch owners can check the counts while eating out, too.

LOG ROLLS: Getting serious about eating better, losing weight, and living a more healthy lifestyle is a big commitment for many people. Tap & Track includes tools to help you plot a plan of action. To achieve balance, the app includes logs that record the number of calories coming in (the Food Log) as well as those going out (the Exercise Log).

PERSONAL FILE: When the holiday eating season ends and you decide to lose those newly acquired 10 pounds, Tap & Track helps you set up a plan of attack. Enter your current weight and the weight you want to be—and stay at. The app tells you how many calories you can consume per day and when you’ll reach your goal weight.

CALORIE COUNTER: Enter everything you eat and every exercise you perform in the battle of the bulge into Tap & Track. The app records your daily stats so you can see how well (or how badly) you’re doing. Tap the Full Nutrition Info button to see a snapshot of the day’s intake, broken down into total fat, fiber, protein, carbohydrates, sodium, and sugars.

GETTING EXERCISED: Want to know how many calories came off while you were on the rowing machine this morning? Tap & Track includes caloric burn for more than 180 exercises. Dial in the type of activity you engaged in and the amount of time you spent on it to get a rough estimate of the number of calories you burned. The app also has a Body Mass Index calculator.

ROAD FOOD: It’s easier to keep track of your calories when you cook your own food and you know what goes into it, but not everyone can eat at home for every meal. Tap & Track includes nutritional information on more than 2,000 brand-name foods and common menu items from more than 700 chain restaurants so you can factor them into your daily food log.

New to fitness training and daunted by exercise machines that look like medieval torture devices? GymGoal shows you what to do—literally. It demonstrates 280 exercises using illustrations and animations and suggests 52 strength-training routines. The app’s full version lets you schedule and record daily exercise sessions, and charts your workout history so you can see your progress. You can email workout logs from the app, too.

GYM DANDY: Far cheaper than most personal trainers, GymGoal whips up daily routines based on the equipment you have (like free weights) and the level of difficulty you choose. Make your sessions go faster with GymGoal’s built-in MP3 player’s free songs or supply your own iPhone or iPod tunes. GymGoal’s full version lets you track weights and reps over time.

FLEX TIME: Tap a body part on GymGoal’s Body Map to get a list of exercises that enhance just that area. The app gives you on-screen, step-by-step instructions for recommended exercises (“bicycle crunches” or “Russian twists,” for example) and demonstrates them with short animated videos so you can be sure you’re doing them correctly.

Yoga devotees Deepak Chopra and Tara Stiles teamed up to create this on-the-go yoga experience for the small screen. Authentic Yoga gives you a pocket full of poses that range in difficulty from sheer beginner to advanced yogi, all focused on breathing, body awareness, balance, flexibility, and strength. The app demonstrates the poses in both still and moving pictures, but you need a network connection for video playback.

BREATHE DEEP: Back in your hotel room after a long day sitting in the conference hall? Many of Authentic Yoga’s routines help relax certain parts of your body and take just 20 minutes or so. You don’t get a yoga mat with the app, so pack your own.

AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS: When you need a particular pose explained, the app downloads audio files (narrated by Deepak Chopra) and plays back short instructional video clips of yoga teacher Tara Stiles demonstrating the pose or position for you.

Harnessing the power of the iPhone’s GPS chip, RunKeeper tracks your daily runs according to several measures: the distance you ran, your average speed, and the calories you burned. And, thanks to those satellites in the sky, RunKeeper maps your course as you run. The app automatically syncs your stats to the RunKeeper website, where you can track totals and overall progress, and graph your performance over time.

TRACKING TIME: From the moment you take your first step, RunKeeper records your progress on a big, easy-to-read display. It sends each session’s activity to the RunKeeper website, where you can compare current and past performance. You can post your stats on Twitter or Facebook right from the app. And if you need a break mid-run, tap the Pause button.

MAP AND GO: Swipe RunKeeper’s Activities screen to switch to RunKeeper’s Map view, where you appear as a blue dot moving across the screen. Both the free and paid versions offer map-tracking, but busting out a 10-spot for the Pro version adds a handful of tools for serious athletes, like gauging target pace and creating interval workouts.

Fire up this GPS stopwatch and hop on your bike. As you pedal over road and trail, Cyclemeter records your speed, location, elevation, time, and distance traveled. You can configure the app to pipe up with audio updates on your time, distance, or new performance records. Cyclemeter pours your accumulated data into graphs and maps so you can track your progress—and beat all of your previous records.

DISTANCE LEARNING: Cyclemeter’s Stopwatch uses the iPhone’s GPS to calculate speed and distance as you pedal. It displays a screen full of current and averaged statistics, and stores historic data so you can graph and compare your performance over time. You can use Cyclemeter for other activities, too, like hiking, running, and swimming (but consider a waterproof iPhone case if you take to the water).

MAPPING THE ROUTE: Thanks to Cyclemeter’s Maps function, you can see where your ride took you and save the route if you want to pass that way again. You can even email the route’s Google Map URL to cycling friends. In addition, Cyclemeter adds your routes to its built-in calendar so you know when you took a trip. It stores all your info locally, so you don’t need a WiFi connection to review your stats.

Along with a shot tracker and electronic scorecard, ViewTi Golf gives duffers 3D aerial views of more than 30,000 golf courses worldwide, so you can plot your stroke strategy long before you tee up. The ad-supported free version lets you zoom in and pan around each hole. The paid version includes advanced features like a handicap calculator, the slope reading for each green, and shot analysis using video you take with your iPhone.

COURSE OF ACTION: If you’re in the mood for a round of 9 or 18 holes but don’t know where to go, ViewTi Golf identifies the courses near you (or you can use the Search box to look for a specific course). Tap a course name to see tee box information. Once you pick your starting tee, ViewTi Golf tracks your shots and keeps score.

TEE TO GREEN: ViewTi Golf displays an aerial view of each hole on a course. It shows you the hole number and par information in the top-left; the number in the middle shows the distance to the center of the green. Tap the red-dotted golf ball icon to activate the program’s Shot Tracker, which records your club selection and results for each stroke.

FLYOVER COUNTRY: To see the challenge before you as you shoot for the green, tap the 3D button (shown on the previous page) to zoom up to the sky for a perspective view (above) from tee to green, including traps and hazards. Tap the icon on the top-left to replay the flyover, or tap the icon on the right to return to the shot-from-above aerial view.

KEEPING SCORE: Forget about those tiny pencils and crumpled scorecards of yesteryear. Both editions of ViewTi Golf 2010 let you dial in your fairway and green strokes for each hole. To call up the electronic scorekeeper, tap the Scorecard icon (shown on the previous page). If you’re shooting a round with friends, the app records the scores of multiple players.

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The pro in question here is Kevin Streelman, who has appeared on the PGA Tour. The free version of Golf Like a Tour Pro includes shot analysis, tips, and video demonstations from Streelman. The paid version serves as a budget swing coach, with instructions on how to hit 50 kinds of shots from all over the links, along with slow-motion videos that demonstrate just how to get that little white ball to the middle of that vast green green.

Designed for those who like to take their iPhones everywhere they go, MotionX GPS tracks your moves as you hike (or bike, sail, ski, run, or just geocache around town). Once you save a trek, you can view it on a map, share it with friends, or view photos you took along the way (you can snap pics right from the app). The free version allots you just one trip and three waypoints, while the paid app gives you more of both.

TAKE A HIKE: MotionX’s menu screen serves as the dashboard for all your global-positioning needs. Tap the My Position button to get a fix on your current location in longitude and latitude; the Share button lets your Twitter and Facebook friends know where you are. Tap the Track Recorder button to record a trip, and Waypoints to set stops along the way. Tap the iPod button to add music to the mix.

MAPPED OUT: When you tap the Map button on MotionX’s main menu, the app displays your current position and pins it to a street or satellite map. You can zoom in and out of the map with the iPhone’s pinch-and-spread finger moves. You can download and store maps from within the app, and change map types (road, satellite, or hybrid) by tapping the calipers icon in the bottom-left corner.

The handbook of Britain’s Special Air Service is now a rough-and-ready app for those who like to face Mother Nature head-on. The free app features excerpts from the book, with survival checklists and basic guides to finding water and navigating by the stars. The full app contains the entire guide plus 16 survival videos by an SAS instructor, an English-to-Morse Code generator, galleries of edible and inedible plants, and more.

TEXTBOOK CASES: Written by retired SAS soldier and instructor John “Lofty” Wiseman, the print version of the SAS Survival Guide became a standard reference for dealing with extreme encounters in the wild. The full SAS app includes the entire book, along with a survival quiz to see what you’re made of, a sun compass, and a comprehensive first-aid section.

INTO THE WOODS: The SAS Survival Guide isn’t one of those dusty old tomes of yesteryear. It shows you, in text, illustrations, photos, and videos, the equipment and skills you need to survive wilderness encounters, whether they’re as tame as an annual Eagle Scout adventure in a national park or as fear-inducing as a bear that invites himself to dinner.

Even if you know the difference between a Northern cardinal and a tufted titmouse, BirdsEye can open your eyes to hundreds of feathered friends. The app includes bird photos, profiles, audio clips of calls and cries, and maps of bird sightings, along with driving directions to them. The Lite edition covers 135 common species, while the full version brings 847 North American birds home to roost on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

FIELD GUIDE: Tap the small red “+” dot in the corner of any photo to expand the image full-screen so you can see the bird’s markings more clearly. BirdsEye’s database has one or two recorded examples of most bird calls, so you can learn to identify each winged wonder by its sound as well as its plumage.

SPOT THE BIRDIE: If you’re looking for a particular fowl, check BirdsEye’s listings. The app collects regularly updated information that avid birders submit to the eBird database at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It presents that information in list form and on a map so you can find out where—and when—the bird was last seen.

Enhanced by ethereal music (that you can mute), this portable planetarium vividly depicts 9,000 stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies right on your screen. Raise an iPhone 3GS or 4 skyward, and the app’s digital compass pinpoints you and displays a virtual version of the skyscape you see, complete with overlaid constellations and labels on heavenly bodies. As you move the iPhone, the star map shifts along with you.

THE DAILY PLANETS: Launch Star Walk and you see the rising and setting times for planets in the night sky. Tap the arrows in the top-right corner to see the schedule for a different date, or tap the button to move on to the stars.

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT: In Planetarium mode, Star Walk reveals the galaxy itself. It displays the constellations, planets, and stars of the part of the sky where you point your iPhone. Drag your finger across the screen to pan around the sky.

When it comes to figuring out what to plant this year, GardenPilot serves as a handheld reference to plants, herbs, and vegetables available from mail-order houses like Burpee or from your local garden-supply store. While the free version of the app covers basic herbs and vegetables, the full version covers 13 types of vegetation (14,000 plants in all) with color photos that describe the plant’s foliage, blooming season, light requirements, and more.

GREEN ZONE: GardenPilot’s Navigator screen organizes plants, flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees into categories. Tap a category to browse big color images of the plants, or tap Search to look for a plant by its common or Latin name. For articles about plants and procedures (raised-bed gardening, for example), tap Articles.

SEED CATALOG: When you find a plant or veggie you like, tap its thumbnail image to enlarge it to full-screen. To see its botanical name, sun and water requirements, and growth height, tap the Tag button (). Tap the Buy Local button to find the plant/veggie at nearby grocery stores, or to buy the bulbs/seeds at a garden-supply store.

You’ll find plenty of great weather apps in the App Store, but WeatherBug focuses less on flashy graphics and more on detailed descriptions of hourly weather conditions using info from a huge network of weather stations. The app has its share of visual goodies, too, like radar maps, videos, and live weather cameras. The freebie app serves up ads with your forecasts, but the paid edition replaces the ads with more maps and features.

INSTANT INFO: Before venturing outside, use WeatherBug to see if the forces of nature are with you. The app shows you the conditions at your current location, the forecast for the next hour or the next seven days, National Weather Service alerts, zoomable radar maps, and weather cams. Mark your favorite locations on the map with a pin, and tap the pin to see the conditions and temperature there.

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While those in non-coastal areas may not need it, the Hurricane app can be a lifesaver for people in storm-prone areas like the Gulf of Mexico. Beautifully designed to depict horrible weather, Hurricane provides animated satellite images, data from the National Hurricane Center, and tracking maps to highlight areas in danger as a storm approaches. The images for 5-day forecasts make it obvious when it’s time to evacuate—or when the storm will blow on by.