[SC-CSTD] The 101 best iPhone apps | iMore
David Andrews
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Sat Jan 6 12:30:11 UTC 2024
I will put you on hold, write me when you want to
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Dave
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><https://www.imore.com/best-apps-iphone?utm_term=413E2518-1D87-41B8-BDBB-179AF0568FB4&lrh=1afeb707e0acce52e1bbeb8e29e395ba6d6d5cbc25ca3a8742fbcd69e1f764a7&utm_campaign=13C4C340-949D-471A-8599-FDF5E04B29EA&utm_medium=email&utm_content=B2133210-A54E-4B22-BF7D-1D>https://www.imore.com/best-apps-iphone?utm_term=413E2518-1D87-41B8-BDBB-179AF0568FB4&lrh=1afeb707e0acce52e1bbeb8e29e395ba6d6d5cbc25ca3a8742fbcd69e1f764a7&utm_campaign=13C4C340-949D-471A-8599-FDF5E04B29EA&utm_medium=email&utm_content=B2133210-A54E-4B22-BF7D-1D
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>The 101 best iPhone apps in 2024
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>Contributions from last updated about 7 hours ago
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>The best apps for every iPhone
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>
>
>An iPhone is nothing without apps. Sure, a lot
>of fuss was made about the first iPhone’s
>standout design and, quite rightly, how it made
>the touchscreen so popular among the public. But apps gave the iPhone legs.
>
>More than 1.7 million apps live on the App
>Store. Useful as Apple’s app discovery tools may
>be, a pointer in the right direction can help
>anyone looking for inspiration, or those new to the iPhone ecosystem.
>
>We will run through all types of iPhone app in
>the list below, and we’re not just talking about
>apps for work versus play. There are completely
>free apps, ones you buy outright and, the
>favourite method of the moment, apps that ask
>you to subscribe to get full access and pay a fee each month.
>
>Only here for the freebies? We maintain a
>separate
><https://www.imore.com/best-free-iphone-apps>best
> free iPhone apps list, as well as a dedicated
><https://www.imore.com/best-apps-new-ipad>best
>iPad apps list. Let’s get started.
>
><https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/kRCmj4h5>https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/kRCmj4h5
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Books, Comics and Reading
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>Amazon Kindle
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>We’re going to assume most of you have heard of
>Amazon Kindle. It’s not just a series of ebook
>readers. It’s also the entire Amazon bookstore,
>which is fully accessible from your phone. It’s
>great as a discovery tool, particularly as
>Amazon lets you try out samples of books, to get a taste of the
>
>writing style before you commit to buying. You
>don’t actually buy books through this app, but
>on the Amazon app. Once purchased, the books then appear in this Kindle app.
>
>
>YACReader
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>This no-nonsense comic book reader app lets you
>add comics and graphics novels through a whole
>load of methods, indulging cloud services like
>Dropbox, the Files app and the YACReader app for
>PC and Mac. There’s no comics store here, but as
>long as you have a digital comics library, that
>means you get a cleaner, less clutter-filled
>experience. The panel view is the special
>feature of this particular reader app, letting
>you read graphics novels panel-by-panel. It’s
>not free, at $4.99, but is worth the investment
>if you like reading comics on your phone.
>
>
>Pocket
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>You know when you mean to read an article you
>saw online, but you end up forgetting where it
>was by the time you find the time to do so?
>Pocket is out to fix that. It’s an app you send
>links to, just as you might share a story with a
>friend over WhatsApp. Pocket then works it up
>into a super-readable format for later reading.
>And you can change the font size, and the font.
>There’s also a glitzy front end to the app,
>which lets you discover stories other folks are
>reading on Pocket. You can use this app for
>free, but to get rid of ads, unlock text
>searching and loads of fonts, you will need to
>subscribe. It costs $4.99 a month or $44.99 a year.
>
>
>Libby
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>
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>Did you know there’s a good chance you can
>borrow digital books and audiobooks for free
>through your local library? There are two key
>apps these services use in our experience: Libby
>(aka Overdrive) and Borrowbox. At one point we
>got so into borrowing audiobooks we went around
>the local area signing up to as many libraries
>as possible, just to get the widest possible
>array of titles. Who needs Audible? OK, Audible
>will get you a much broader catalogue, but Libby
>is well worth checking out, following a trip to
>your local library, folks. Use it or lose it.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Cloud Storage
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>Dropbox
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>Sometimes it’s a good idea to have a cloud
>storage provider not run by the folks who handle
>your emails, as they end up sharing your storage
>allocation. Dropbox offers 2.75GB storage for
>free. We use it all the time to share files, for
>work or just among friends. The app lets you
>create folders, and you can then share just
>specific folders. Or even specific files, so
>people don’t get access to your entire Dropbox
>library. It’s not a mega-exciting app, but
>useful? Absolutely. You can then access your
>stored files from anywhere, including the Dropbox web interface.
>
>
>Google Drive
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>
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>Cloud storage apps are not the most interesting
>of things. But they are a way to get a tranche
>of free server space without signing up for a
>paid subscription. You’ll need a Google account,
>of course, but each of those comes with 15GB of
>space. That’s a lot better than the 5GB Apple
>offers. Our favourite use for this space is to
>store photos. And you can do so by downloading
>Google Photos. However, using the Drive app you
>can fling any old files up on there.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Dating
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>Hinge
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>App dating has a bad rep, largely a deserved
>one. But many of the daters we talk to have less
>scorn to pour on Hinge than most. It’s an app
>where you are asked a series of questions, with
>which you can show off your wit. Yes, even among
>the better-regarded dating apps there is still
>potential for mountains of embarrassment. Hinge
>also makes you pose questions to be asked of
>your potential matches. When perusing profiles
>you can “like” certain parts, to make a match-up
>seem more specific, and hopefully get you off the cycle of swiping.
>
>
>Bumble
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>The Bumble quirk is women message first, giving
>this dating app quite a different vibe to the
>competition. It’s not just for heterosexual
>folks, but the USP does rather rely on having
>people of the opposite sex getting involved.
>Bumble has also opened up beyond pure dating.
>You can list your account as being out for
>friendship or business connections too.
>Responsiveness is part of the equation, as
>matches expire after 24 hours if no contact is made.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Drawing and Painting
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>Procreate Pocket
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>The ultimate version of Procreate lives on iPad,
>but we’re not throwing shade at Procreate
>Pocket’s creators. iPhones have smaller screens
>and do not support the brilliant Apple Pencil
>stylus, two elements that pair so beautifully
>with a digital painting app. However, aside from
>that, and the lack of support for 3D model
>painting (seen in the iPad version), this does
>feel just like the full version for iPad. Lots
>of professional artists swear by Procreate.
>
>
>Pixelmator
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>
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>This sleek and stylish design and drawing app
>can be used as a photo editor or a full-on
>drawing and painting suite. It’s packed with
>brushes, effects and advanced manipulation
>features like warp and pinch. Pixelmator reminds
>us of a mobile version of Photoshop. Crucially,
>it supports layers, making it suitable for
>fairly serious work. We’re impressed by how much
>has been packed in here, without making the app
>seem remotely unwieldy or unfriendly.
>
>
>Tayasui Sketches
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>
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>While Tayasui Sketches is a technically
>impressive app, it’s the vibe of the thing that
>proves so appealing to us. Developer Tayasui has
>managed to get away from the the slightly cold
>feel of some digital drawing/painting apps. It
>relies more on graphical depictions of pens and
>brushes when you pick your tool. And the way
>they interact feels fairly natural. You can get
>by for free with this app, but a Pro upgrade
>($7.99) unlocks different brush patterns and
>styles. The free version still has layers,
>though, so you can create pretty advanced art, gratis.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Education and Learning
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>DuoLingo
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>How do you foster good habits? Make doing the
>healthy stuff fun. DuoLingo does that for
>language learning, with a veneer of
>gamification. The idea is you practice a
>language for a few minutes a day, in order to
>maintain your DuoLingo streak. Even if you don’t
>end up remotely fluent, a daily dose of this
>must be good for your grey matter. It’s free to
>use, while the SuperDuolingo subscription gets
>rid of ads and stops mistakes from blocking your
>daily progress. More than 30 languages are
>supported, from Japanese to Swahili, and even
>the High Valerian, a language constructed for Game of Thrones.
>
>
>Khan Academy
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>
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>Learning shouldn’t top when your leave school.
>Khan Academy brings a massive treasure trove of
>video sessions in math, science, economics, arts
>& humanities and computing. Each subject is
>broken down into digestible chunks, and you earn
>mastery points to let you keep track of how much
>of each area you have covered. You’ll find
>everything from the Realism art of Manet to the
>molecular structure of ionic solids in here. And
>as it’s mapped against the US school system, in
>terms of being middle school, high school or
>college grade (or above), you have an idea of
>what to expect. It’s all free too. This is a real treasure trove of an app.
>
>
>Teach your Monster to Read
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>
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>This utterly charming app developed in
>collaboration with the UK’s University of
>Roehampton teaches your kids phonics and
>reading. But it’s no dry purely education-driven
>experience. It’s inspired by kids’ cartoons,
>games and, in particular, the character
>customisation in those video games many kids
>love. The experience of reading becomes part
>story-book, part interactive adventure. And
>Teach Your Monster to Read splits the learning
>process into three chapters: First Steps, Fun
>with Words and Champion Reader. Free to
>download, $8.99 to unlock the full app. Once
>your child is up to speed, don’t miss the
>follow-up, Reach Monster: Reading for Fun, which
>includes 70 free story books, which cycle around
>day after day (three available per day).
>
>
>Mimo
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>
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>Every wanted to learn to code? Us too, but it
>doesn’t half take a lot of time and brain power.
>Our latest (maybe last?) hope is Mimo. This is
>the coding equivalent of DuoLingo. It breaks
>down the process of learning coding of all types
>into teeny-tiny tasks you can digest in sessions
>of just a few minutes on your phone. There are
>modules on Python, SQL, Swift, Javascript and
>HTML. You can try out the first handful of
>lessons in each discipline for free, but will
>then have to pay up for a subscription. It costs
>$99.99 a year. If that’s too steep, check out
>Encode, which is similar but perhaps slightly
>less glossy, and costs $6.49 a year.
>
>
>Skillshare
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>
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>This may sound odd, but SkillShare is basically
>Netflix but for learning creative skills. You
>sign up for $31.99 a month or $169.99 a year,
>and get access to thousands of video courses
>across fields like creative writing,
>illustration, painting, film-making and
>photography. While there’s a lot of great
>tuition available for free over on YouTube, the
>smarter presenters clue up to their value and
>make courses people can sign up for. As they
>should. However, these are often quite pricey,
>while Skillshare lets you dabble in a bunch of
>fields to see what takes your interest.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Fitness
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>Strava
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>If it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen. It’s a
>popular saying. This app has become so
>ubiquitous, it is basically the default pick for
>exercise logging, particularly among cyclists.
>It can be paired up with many wearable platforms
>to log your run, ride and gym (and more) data.
>Or you can log outdoors sessions using the phone
>app itself, thanks to your phone’s GPS. This is
>effectively a giant social network for active
>folks, and is at its best when you add friends
>or find a group to join within Strava. It’s free
>to use but a paid subscription unlocks stats
>like your weekly intensity. $11.99 a month, or $79.99 a year.
>
>
>Zwift
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>
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>OK, so this one requires some extra equipment.
>Zwift is an awesome cycling platform, or game if
>you like. It lets you ride around a virtual
>world called Watopia, and other game worlds
>inspired by Japan, France, New York and London,
>among other places. You compete with other real
>cyclists if that’s your bag, potter around or
>take part in structured workouts. You need a
>bike and a smart turbo trainer to get the most
>out of Zwift, but there’s a runner’s mode too.
>This is a must-try if you are into indoor bike
>riding. There’s a free trial, after which you’ll pay $14.99 a month.
>
>
>Nike Run Club
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>Nike doesn’t just care about selling expensive
>trainers. It also produces this rather neat
>runner’s app. Sure, Nike Run Club doesn’t
>generally have the clout of Strava among the
>athlete classes. But it is ideal if you are just
>starting out and have no idea what you‘re doing.
>It features “guided runs” and training plans
>including a classic “couch to 5K” style program
>for beginners. While we tend to see people
>migrate on from Nike Run Club in time, it does
>even have a marathon training program. That
>ain’t for beginners. Well, aside from the very boldest of ‘em.
>
>
>ZRX
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>
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>Also known as Zombies, Run!, we’ve been
>recommending ZRX for what feels like forever. It
>turns your runs into audiobooks of a sort, with
>the action mapping onto the structure of the
>workout itself. It started off with just the
>zombie theme, but now there’s a Marvel module
>inside ZRX called Marvel Move. And Venture,
>which is home to hundreds of genre stories,
>including horror and sci-fi ones. If you find
>running terminally boring, this is one way to
>spice up those sessions. To unlock all episodes
>you’ll need to subscribe ($5.99/month). There’s
>a separate subscription one for the Marvel stuff ($7.99/month).
>
>
>AllTrails
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>
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>This was Apple’s iPhone app of the year 2023,
>despite being a core part of the app landscape
>for outdoorsy types for many years. It’s a
>brilliant hiking, running and cycling app that
>helps you find routes worth taking, mostly on
>cross-country trails. It feels a vibrant place
>too, as routes will have comments, reviews and
>photos taken by other AllTrails users. You’re
>also given a difficulty rating for each route,
>and roughly how long it thinks the walking time
>is. You can use AllTrails for free, but will
>need to pay $35.99 if you want to access
>features like 3D mapped previews and, much more
>important, offline downloaded maps.
>
>
>Apple Fitness+
>
>
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>When Apple Fitness+ launched in 2020 you needed
>an Apple Watch to even use it. That policy was
>dropped in 2022, but we highly recommend it for
>use with Apple’s wearable. Fitness+ provides a
>massive library of video workouts across a bunch
>of disciplines including yoga, weights,
>treadmill, kickboxing and mindfulness. And it
>puts your vital statistics on-screen, relayed
>wirelessly form your Apple Watch. We also
>recommend using AirPlay to get the video from
>your iPhone to a bigger screen if possible. So,
>yeah, some extra equipment required for the best
>experience. But Fitness+’s $9.99 a month
>subscription is still affordable compared to the average city gym.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Finance and Money
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>Cash App
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>You’ve probably already heard of or used Cash
>App, at least if you live in the US. It’s the
>app that lets you send money to other people,
>handy if you go out for dinner and need to split
>the bill, or if you owe someone cash for concert
>tickets. It can also be used like a digital
>debit card. We don’t recommend this next bit to
>many, but you also also use Cash App to trade in Bitcoin.
>
>
>YNAB
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>
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>You Need a Budget. That’s what YNAB stands for.
>It’s a no-nonsense outgoings calculator that
>works out how much you are spending in each
>category, from nights out to clothes to hobbies.
>The idea is you’ll be able to see what your
>spending is really like, rather than just
>fooling yourself. Its maker claims folks save
>"$600 in their first two months, and more than
>$6000 their first year.” Savings don’t appear
>out of nowhere, but if it helps you avoid debt,
>maybe the $14.99 a month ($99.99 a year) is
>worth it. UK readers might want to try out
>MoneyHub, which is much cheaper at £14.99 a year.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Gaming
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>PS Remote Play
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>
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>If you’re a PlayStation 5 gamer, you may have
>encountered Sony’s PlayStation portal, a
>handheld designed to stream games from your
>console. You can do this with your iPhone and
>the PS Remote Play app. Full disclosure: you
>need a great internet connection for this to
>work well. And your PlayStation 5 should ideally
>be plugged directly into your home internet
>router. Any opportunity to reduce latency and
>lag should be taken. Xbox fan? You can also use
>Xbox Game Pass Cloud gaming on your iPhone, but
>you do so through your phone’s internet browser.
>Fun fact: did you know Remote Play began more
>than 15 years ago with the Sony PSP and PS3?
>
>
>Twitch
>
>
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>If you enjoy games and haven’t tried Twitch,
>where have you been? Twitch is a bit like
>YouTube if it were made almost solely for live
>video game streaming. Find a creator you like
>and their streams will quickly start to feel
>like hangouts with a good friend, often one who
>is funny and charming to boot. You can easily
>lose hours to Twitch streams, so careful how you
>go. But if you have a work commute that could do
>with a cheer up, this app can help. It’s free to
>use, but Twitch relies on audiences supporting
>their favourite creators through subscriptions.
>
>
>Moonlight Game Streaming
>
>
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>This open source app lets you stream games from
>your PC to your iPhone. It works brilliantly as
>it uses your home network rather than your
>actual home broadband. If your PC has an Nvidia
>graphics card, you can use Nvidia’s own software
>to make this work on the PC side. Have an AMD
>Radeon PC? You’ll also need to download a client
>on your computer called Sunshine, by LizardByte.
>A tiny amount of tech know-how is required,
>then, but once up and running you can play
>advanced games on your iPhone with either a
>gamepad or even using touchscreen controls.
>
>
>Discord
>
>
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>Discord is where the weird, wonderful and nerdy
>communities of the internet come to congregate.
>Anyone can make a server, which in this context
>becomes a chat room, in which you can setup
>different areas for specific topics. We don’t
>tend to establish our own servers, though, and
>instead find existing discord channels for
>content makers we like. Lots of podcasts,
>streamers and content creators have their own discord servers.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Health
>
>
>
>
>
>Flo Period & Pregnancy Tracker
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>
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>The most popular period tracking app at the time
>of writing, Flo Period & Pregnancy Tracker
>monitors your ovulation cycle and estimates what
>your chances of pregnancy are on any particular
>day. You input your symptoms, sex drive, and
>even exercise and water intake, if you choose to
>go all-in. Its estimates are generally well
>regarded. And you can use Flo for free and get
>the core experience. A paid subscription ($11.49
>a month or $39.99 a year) unlocks more data
>analysis, community features, a daily advice feature and more.
>
>
>The Wonder Weeks
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>
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>The first few weeks (and perhaps years) of
>parenthood are a potentially scary, intimidating
>place to be. The Wonder Weeks app ($5.99)
>attempts to insert a bit of predictable
>structure into your potentially sleepless life
>by mapping out the “leaps” in development of a
>young baby. You log all of your child’s own
>milestones in their virtual “diary”. You can
>also use one of the developer’s add-on apps to
>turn a spare phone or iPad into a baby monitor.
>That’s a $3.99 upgrade, or you can get a $1.99
>subscription for access to that and an ebook.
>
>
>MyFitnessPal
>
>
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> From a look at its icon and name you might
> guess MyFitnessPal is an exercise logging app.
> While it can be used for that, steps and
> exercise are largely used to more correctly
> calculate your calorie deficit or excess. The
> idea is you’ll use the app to log all your
> food, and make sure your calorie consumption is
> on point, and that you are getting all your
> required macros in. Yep, it’s not the most fun
> job and it’s not the most healthy thing to do
> for some folks. But it is a pretty foolproof
> way to make progress in your weight and health
> goals. It’s free to use, but if you want to get
> rid of the ads and be able to barcode-scan
> foods, you need a sub. It costs $19.99 a month,
> but go for a year if you can, as it costs $79.99.
>
>
>Noom
>
>
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>This big-money weight loss program gets rave
>reviews from its users, and does legitimately
>seem to be a cut above most other diet apps.
>Yep, there’s the usual food-logging and calorie
>counting involved, but Noom is more about
>changing your behavior and thinking, rather than
>a quick fix. That’s the idea anyway. You get
>paired with a “coach” when you sign up, who can
>be messaged for advice or reassurance. Noom has
>had a rough time of it of late, with rounds of
>coach lay-offs. But, as far as we can tell,
>these are still real people. Noom is a pricey
>subscription, though, the cheapest solution
>being $209 for a year, rising all the way to $70
>for a one month rolling subscription.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Home and Garden
>
>
>
>
>
>PictureThis
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Are you a little bit green-fingered? PictureThis
>is a must-download. It is a plant identification
>app. You point the phone camera at a plant and,
>in all likelihood, this app will be able to
>successfully identify it. It’s super-useful if
>you come across something you’d want to grow
>yourself, but have no idea what it’s called.
>Tens of thousands of species are in its
>database. PictureThis will also show you
>collections of plants you should be able to see
>growing in your local area. It’s a charming app
>that can even attempt to diagnose the health of
>plants. Free to use, but an ad-free, unlocked membership is $29.99 a year.
>
>
>IFTTT
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>IFTTT stands for “if this then that”, and has
>been around since 2010. It seems kinda dorky on
>the surface, as it’s form of programming. But it
>also opens up countless neat possibilities.
>IFTTT lets you program your own automations
>based on all sorts of events, from you reaching
>a certain location to someone tagging you in a
>Facebook post. So many smart home systems are
>hooked up to IFTTT, you can run pretty much all
>your smart home gear through this app. You can
>create three automations, dubbed applets, for
>free. After that you have to pay for a Pro
>($2.75) or Pro+ ($5.50) subscription, which lift
>that limit to 20 applets, or remove the limit altogether.
>
>
>Zillow
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>The real estate app you should download depends
>on where you live, but Zillow is the clear pick
>in the US. It collates listings from all over
>the US, letting you snoop on home for sale even
>if you have no real intention of buying. It’s
>fast to scoot across the map to explore homes,
>some listings have 360-degere photos, and the
>layouts are coherent and clean-looking. Even if
>some of the homes aren’t. In the UK? Use
>Rightmove. Australia? Try RealEstate.com.au.
>
>
>Pinterest
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>We think of Pinterest as the place to go for
>home interiors inspiration. That may help
>explain why it ballooned in popularity so much
>over the pandemic, when many of us were stuck at
>home. The place to start is with a mood board,
>which is like a digital scrap book of ideas or
>styles you come across posted by other accounts
>on Pinterest. These aren’t just pictures either.
>They can link through to interior design DIY
>guides, for example, or YouTube videos. We used
>it recently when working out the color scheme
>for a kitchen, and it easily beats loitering around Google Images.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Learning musical instruments
>
>
>
>
>
>Fender Play
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>One of the most famous producers of guitars also
>makes one of the best apps for learning guitar.
>Fender Play is a video-led learning platform,
>one particularly well-suited to beginners. The
>app will teach you the basics (and plenty more)
>through learning songs from recent years, and
>those decades old. Each song (of which there are
>more than 1000) also includes clearly laid-out
>tablature, and a MIDI-syle rendition of each
>guitar line. This means you don’t have to head
>back to the instructor-led video whenever you
>want a reminder of how it’s meant to sound.
>There are also “play along” modes for full
>songs, as well as “riff” lessons when you want
>something quicker to learn. Access costs $9.99 a
>month, $89.99 a year. Guitar is the main
>attraction, but Fender Play has ukulele and bass guitar lessons too.
>
>
>Flowkey
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you want to learn to play piano, Flowkey is
>one of the very best app-based places to start.
>There are two rough sides to the experience
>here. There are courses, that show you how to
>play the piano, right from first approaching the
>keys. The other side is a huge library of songs
>to learn. We love the way Flowkey breaks many of
>these songs down into three difficulty levels.
>We’re not there yet, but we imagine being able
>to return to a song and “level up” your
>performance is hugely satisfying. Learning the
>songs comes in the form of both a video and
>scored music. The app can listen out for your
>own played notes, to check you’re getting it
>right. Flowkey costs $19.99 a month (or $119.88
>a year) for a single account, or $29.99 a month
>for a 5-profile Family account (or $179.88 a year).
>
>
>Songsterr
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Learning guitar? Once you feel confident with
>the basics you might want to try out an app like
>Songsterr. It offers hundreds of thousands of
>guitar tabs. The experience here is light years
>away from rifling through websites for tabs
>cobbled together by who-knows-who. You can
>listen to a digital recreation of each track,
>and as different parts of the arrangement are
>separated out (with tabs for each), the part
>you’re currently learning can be given
>prominence in the mix. More advanced guitarists
>can probably get by with Songsterr’s free
>service. But the $9.99 a month paid version is,
>granted, a lot better. You can listen along to
>the actual live track as well as the MIDI-style
>recreation, alter the tempo and even the pitch.
>This transposes songs to different keys, should
>you need to play alongside a singer whose vocal
>range is different to that of the original.
>
>
>Tenuto
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>There are pitfalls to using apps to learn to
>play instruments. They often give you a crutch,
>to make the process feel more seamless. And you
>end up relying on that crutch. Tenuto ($4.99) is
>a sort-of antidote to that kind of thinking. It
>is a music theory app that helps you brush up on
>your fingerings, intervals, chord constructions
>and more, for guitarists and pianists. There are
>24 exercises in total. And if you need to learn
>the basics in the first, there’s also a
>companion Theory Lessons app. You can actually
>access all of this on the developer’s website
>for free, at music theory.net, but this sort of
>endeavour is worth supporting if you ask us.
>
>
>Best iPhones apps: Meditation and Relaxation
>
>
>
>
>
>Headspace
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This app made meditation truly mainstream, at
>least among people we knew at the time, back in
>2017-2018 when it started to pick up a lot of
>attention. It’s a guided breathing app that
>looks at meditation from a mindfulness
>perspective. That means less of the spiritual,
>more focus on what’s going on in your body, or
>around you. If you’ve ever tried Headspace,
>you’ll know the voice of Andy Puddicombe. He
>co-created the app, and is the iconic voice
>behind the app’s guided meditations (you can
>choose another voice too). A few sessions are
>available for free. A full membership is $12.99 a month ($69.99 a year).
>
>
>Calm
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This is the key rival to Headspace. It’s a
>slightly less focused experience where your
>relaxation and meditation tools are split into a
>whole bunch of categories. As well as fairly
>classic guided meditations, there are sleep
>stories, calming music tracks, soundscapes and
>“tools” to help you regulate your breathing
>using visual and audio cues. This app has a
>particular focus on improving your sleep,
>although it’s good for general relaxation, and
>even concentration during work. A few taster
>bits in each category are available for free,
>and a subscription is required for full access.
>It costs $12.99 a month, $69.99 a year. Or you
>can pay $399.99 for “lifetime" access. Trying
>both Calm and Headspace to see which you prefer is a good idea.
>
>
>Dark Noise
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>A simple app, but one that can really help some
>people relax or get to sleep. Dark Noise is home
>to 50 soundscapes, from basics like white noise
>to the rather unusual “spaceship engine’. This
>app used to be a simple paid-for download. But
>like so many of its rivals, Dark Noise is now a
>subscription that costs $19.99 a year. However,
>you do get eight of the drones for free, no
>subscription required, including rain, beach and campfire.
>
>
>5 Minute Journal
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>A gratitude journal? While this may sound like
>flowery mumbo jumbo if you are looking for
>concrete ways to improve your mental health, the
>concept behind 5 Minute Journal is sound. Making
>journaling into a regular hobby takes you out of
>the rush and stress of the work day, makes you
>reflect a bit and focus on the present. And,
>sure, forcing yourself to not think everything
>is terrible the whole time might help some folks
>too. You can append photos to entries, and can
>lock them all behind biometric security so
>others can’t read into your feelings. Phew.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Messaging
>
>
>
>
>
>WhatsApp
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>The latest figures suggest WhatsApp has upwards
>of 2.7 billion users. We’re guessing most of you
>know about this app already. Migrating chats is
>the first thing we sort out when switching
>phones. And it’s a big part of why changing
>phones is no longer that much of a chore. It
>saves your messages and image history in the
>cloud, so all your memories are transferred
>through a simple download. It’s also a brilliant
>bridge between iPhone and Android users, getting
>rid of those pesky “green bubble” messaging issues.
>
>
>Telegram
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This messaging app was released in 2013 and fast
>became known as a more security and
>privacy-concerned version of WhatsApp. As such,
>it is a favourite among journalists looking to
>protect their sources. Curiously, you actually
>need to select “secret chats” to enable
>end-to-end encryption, which is on by default in
>the more mainstream WhatsApp. Surprising, right?
>Telegram also supports absolutely massive
>groups, with up to 200,000 members. We typically
>use Telegram for these public-style groups,
>because most of our friends are still on WhatsApp instead.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Music
>
>
>
>
>
>Spotify
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>With more than 200 million paid-up users,
>Spotify is the most popular music streaming
>service. Its main strength was getting in there
>early, arriving a whopping seven years before
>Apple Music. We like Spotify for its music
>discovery services, and sound quality is good
>when maxed out, if not “high res” like Apple
>Music and TIDAL. There’s more than music too.
>Spotify went big on podcasts in 2020, and even
>bundles 15 hours of audiobook listening per month with a subscription.
>
>
>Shazam
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This was one of the original demos we’d used to
>persuade smartphone skeptics that apps were
>neat. You know the Shazam deal, right? You open
>the app, start it listening when a song is
>playing and, after just a few seconds, it will
>tell you what the song is. Simple as that. The
>app has become a lot richer since those early
>days in 2008, though. You can see song lyrics,
>buy that song or look for concert tickets. Fun
>fact: Apple owns Shazam, and has done since 2018
>when its $400 million acquisition was finalized.
>Big bucks. And as it’s now Apple tech you can
>also just ask Siri to identify a song instead of using Shazam if you like.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Music Creation
>
>
>
>
>
>Garageband
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>How many music careers began with GarageBand?
>Where industry standard music DAWs, digital
>audio workstations, often cost hundreds of
>dollars and are almost impenetrable to new
>users, GarageBand is free and easy. Within
>minutes you can be laying down tracks, and
>downloadable (still free) modules offers lots of
>extra virtual instruments. It’s an amazing
>toybox, and also a pretty serious creative tool
>for those who want to work faster, and simpler,
>than Apple’s pro alternative Logic Pro allows.
>
>
>Korg Gadget 2
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Korg’s mobile digital audio workstation (DAW)
>often gets ignored in favor of FL Studio, but
>this one is powerful in its own right. It
>features digital odes to real Korg synths, ones
>made to be fairly easy to operate on a phone
>screen, as well as other “gadgets” that work as
>samplers or recorders. They sound excellent.
>Much like the popular desktop electronic/dance
>DAWs, Gadget 2 breaks your creations into
>“scenes”, the building blocks of a song.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Movies and TV
>
>
>
>
>
>Netflix
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Is recommending Netflix a cop-out? Sure, but you
>can think of it as a stand-in for Prime Video,
>Apple TV+, Hulu, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus and
>so on if you like. Netflix represents all the
>mainstream movie and TV streaming services we
>tend to dart between, making use of their
>no-contract approach to do what serves us best
>month-on-month. Netflix does have a great
>library, though, much as it catches seem flack
>these days for cancelling shows left, right and centre.
>
>
>MUBI
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>MUBI is our pick of the second tier of streaming
>services but it’s still a number one service
>in our hearts. This is your cineaste’s take on a
>Netflix alternative. It’s packed with world
>cinema and arthouse movies. You’ll pay $12.99 a
>month or $99.99 a year at the time of writing.
>Or for $17.99 you can sign up for MUBI Go, which
>includes a cinema ticket a week too. Check if
>you're local to a supported cinema, though, as
>it’s only available in a handful of big US/UK
>cities, and far from all cinemas inside them. We
>also have to give a shout-out to Shudder here, a
>horror-only streamer genre fans shouldn’t miss.
>
>
>Letterboxd
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Writing a journal can help you appreciate where
>you are, where you’ve been and where you’re
>going. Letterboxd offers that, but for movies.
>OK, perhaps that’s a bit highfalutin, but it
>does let you keep track of films you’ve seen,
>give them a star ranking and, if you really want
>to get into it, write a review. These can also
>be shared among the Letterboxd community,
>broadcasting your opinions to the masses. We’re
>in it purely as a little personal project,
>though, one that helps you get a view on what
>your year in cinema has really been like.
>
>
>YouTube
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you’re one of the few people who still think
>YouTube is just full of short junk videos, it’s
>time for a rethink. It’s an incredible platform
>where more than a billion hours of video are
>watched each day. There’s short-form comedy,
>long-form video essays and everything
>in-between. The trick is in finding the right
>content among the morass, and guiding the
>YouTube algorithm to show you stuff you actually
>want to watch. One way is to search for
>recommendations for content creators or
>channels, and you can be sure someone will have
>asked already. Probably on Reddit.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Navigation and Driving
>
>
>
>
>
>Waze
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This is the best car navigation alternative to
>Apple Maps and Google Maps, and it’s actually
>owned by Google. The Waze special sauce is it
>makes very concerted use of active data from
>other Waze users, to judge where traffic is, or
>is forming, and where an accident may have taken
>place. The experience of using it is much like
>that of a classic in-car GPS system. You put in
>your destination, Waze works out the route and
>you get turn-by-turn nav. We recommend trying it
>out alongside Google Maps and Apple Maps to see which you like the best.
>
>
>Roadtrippers
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Planning a route is one thing. Planning a road
>trip is something else. We need sights, we need
>memories. It has to be a good time. That’s what
>Roadtrippers is all about, working out a route
>along which some fun can be had. The only issue
>is Roadtrippers only really works in the home of
>the epic road trip, the US of A. If you want to
>work out a basic route, it’ll do that, but you
>won’t see the many possible attractions on the
>way elsewhere, like the UK’s Fleet motorway service station.
>
>
>CityMapper
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Scores of city dwellers we know swear by
>CityMapper. It’s our top app for navigating the
>public transport systems of the world’s biggest,
>most intimidating cities, across the west, Asia
>and Australia. It also collates multiple forms
>of getting around, and not just trains, buses,
>trams and tube systems. If there’s a bike or
>scooter rental system in a city, there’s a good
>chance CityMapper integrates its availability
>info. And we also rate its on-foot directions.
>Sure, there are some ads, but not ones that get in your way too much.
>
>
>What3Words
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Here’s an alternative to sharing a screenshot of
>your location on Apple Maps or Google Maps when
>trying to meet up with someone. What3Words lets
>you locate any place in the world using, you
>guessed it, a string of three words. A local
>cinema? Why that’s film.hogs.feeds, suitably
>enough. You just give the string of words to the
>other person, and they can then use What3Words
>on their end to find where to meet. Each block,
>which you select on a map view is 3 meters by 3
>meters. We have read it’s not a great idea to
>use this system in an emergency, perhaps due to
>the prevalence of homophones. But we’re talking
>about meeting up with friends here, not calling an ambulance.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: News
>
>
>
>
>
>Flipboard
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>The idea behind this long-standing app (released
>in 2010) is it makes a magazine-like interface
>out of stories taken from the internet. You pick
>your topics, which are displayed as hashtags.
>Flicking through your daily stream of stories
>feels more like turning the pages of a, yep,
>flipboard, than scrolling through the average
>social network feed. It takes some fiddling to
>make Flipboard feel your own you’ll want to
>“follow” your favourite publications but we
>like it a lot for one-handed use while on public transport.
>
>
>Apple News
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Apple’s own news aggregator app works best if
>you’re willing to splash out for Apple News+. If
>you don’t, your beautifully formatted news feed
>may well end up peppered with stories only
>available to premium subscribers. News+ grants
>you access to loads of magazines and paywalled
>sites like The Wall Street Journal and The
>Sunday Times from the UK. You can save more by
>spending more, as News+ is available as part of
>the top Apple One subscription, which bundles
>Apple services together. On its own, News+ costs $12.99 a month.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Photography and Camera
>
>
>
>
>
>Halide Mark II
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Some folks overestimate the usefulness of
>third-party pro-style camera apps for iPhone.
>They talk as if the JPEGs an iPhone spits out
>are the equivalent of a toddler’s crayon
>rendition of what the camera actually sees. They
>aren’t, but Halide Mark II does offer a
>different take on the camera app. It offers more
>direct control over whether or not to shoot RAW
>images, minimally processed files that can offer
>greater control over detail and noise. The app
>has “zero shutter lag” in certain modes because
>it buffers image data. And it includes widgets
>for the home screen that take you directly to
>ultra-wide, standard and zoomed camera views.
>It’s a paid app, though. $11.99 a year.
>
>
>Snapseed
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This app is as old as the hills, having been
>released in 2011. However, it’s still one of the
>best for fast, effective image editing. It has
>rotation, cropping, some good-looking filters,
>solid picture tuning. And each step of the
>process comes with loads of control. There are
>typically multiple sliders to control the style
>and intensity of every change you make. This is
>quite old-school image editing, not the kind of
>AI-driven that generates so much attention
>today. But there are some more advanced effects
>like lens blur an a (admittedly not amazing)
>heal tool. Google owns Snapseed, and has done since 2012.
>
>
>Photomator
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This is one of the best photo editing apps out
>there. At first it looks pretty familiar. You
>can auto-enhance images using the “machine
>learning” tool, apply filters an use the “heal”
>brush to remove blemishes. However, look closer
>and you’ll realise there’s some more special
>stuff going on here. For example, as well as
>having Photoshop-grade control over image tone
>and colour, Photomator can automatically
>separate out images’ subject, background and
>sky. This lets you make specific adjustments to
>each, with no fuss. You can also save editing
>styles to work out a signature look for photos.
>It’s multi-platform too, but isn’t free. It
>costs $29.99 a year, or $99.99 for a lifetime sub.
>
>
>Faceapp
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Next to our other photography editing apps,
>Faceapp is pretty fluffy and insubstantial. But
>it is a blast, particularly when you play with
>photos of friends. With their permission, of
>course. You may have come across this one when
>it went viral in 2019. You use it edit photos of
>people, changing their gender, making them older
>or younger, and changing their makeup and hair.
>Most of the filters are locked behind a
>subscription paywall, but a handful of the good
>stuff, including gender swap, is available for free.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Podcasts and Radio
>
>
>
>
>
>Pocket Casts
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you are bored of Apple Podcasts and fancy
>trying something else, you have at least two key
>options. They are Pocket Casts and Overcast.
>We’ve picked Pocket Casts this time as it has a
>slightly glossier interface. Slick as anything,
>this one. But at its core it is an intuitive and
>direct way to access your favourite pods. It
>also has some useful extra features like speed
>control and a sleep timer, if you want to fall
>asleep to the voices of podcasters.
>
>
>Spotify for Podcasters
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This app isn’t for listening to podcasts. It’s
>for people who make them. Spotify for Podcasters
>is a bit “on the nose” as names go, but it was
>once called Anchor, a company acquired by
>Spotify in 2019. The app lets you record and
>edit audio files, upload them to the most
>popular podcast platforms and see metrics on how
>many people have played your podcast, and your
>total audience size. It’s a neat way for
>beginners to try out the medium, there’s a
>library of royalty free background sounds and
>music, and you can get free hosting for your episodes.
>
>
>TuneIn
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>The number of radio stations current
>broadcasting around the world as you read this
>is mind-boggling. There were 44,000 in 2016
>according to the latest UN figures we could dig
>up. TuneIn lets you listen to a good chunk of
>them over the internet. As well as just
>searching for your favourites, you can scan
>around a world map to discover stations for
>across the globe. UK user? You’ll find stations
>outside the UK blocked due to licensing
>restrictions. These can be unlocked using a VPN,
>or you can try another (admittedly less fun) app like Simple Radio.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Productivity
>
>
>
>
>
>Brain.FM
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This app could have featured in the Music
>section of this round-up, or even the meditation
>and relaxation one. However, we use it as a
>productivity tool. It plays generated music,
>made up of semi-composed elements. You choose
>Focus, Relax, Sleep or Meditate, which are the
>four categories. Past that, though, you can
>customize the track by picking a “genre” or
>music style, from classical to post rock and
>electronic. Or go for a nature-inspired
>soundscape. We tend to go for these, as Thunder
>and Rainforest can really help you get in the
>work zone. It’s great if you end up working in a
>noisier environment, but find “real” music too
>distracting. The only bad bit:
><http://brain.fm/>brain.fm is quite pricey at $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year.
>
>
>ChatGPT
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This app isn’t much more than a portal to the
>popular AI chatbot. But if you have’t at least
>dabbled with ChatGPT, you’re missing out. It is
>one of the most talked-about developments in
>tech in years. You ask ChatGPT a question, and
>it answers. At the time of writing, ChatGPT uses
>GPT 3.5, and has knowledge of the world up to
>January 2022. As with any chatbot, you should
>treat anything it produces with a level of
>suspicion, due to AI’s tendency to “hallucinate”
>facts. But it’s less egregious than it was in
>ChatGPT’s early days. Given how impactful AI Is
>expected to be, it’s a good idea to get
>acquainted with this most famous of AI implementations.
>
>
>Things 3
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Once upon a time, we headed to Todoist when
>recommending organization iPhone apps. But our
>head has been turned by Things 3. If you want it
>to be a simple to-do list app, it can do that.
>However, dig deeper and this becomes a
>surprisingly capable little project management
>tool. You can arrange lists within lists,
>breaking down big tasks into smaller jobs
>without leaving them as disparate tick box
>exercises. There’s good clarity to how Things 3
>arranges your various future lists too, giving
>you a sense you’re in control. Even if, whisper
>it, you’re not actually in control at all.
>
>
>Microsoft 365
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Microsoft brought its Office apps to iPhone way
>back in 2014. The suite of apps is now called
>Microsoft 365 and, unfortunately, comes with a
>subscription attached. You’ll pay $69.99 a year
>for access to the lot, or $99.99 for a family
>pass. This also snags you a load of cloud
>storage, enough to keep all your files safe. You
>can also use the app without a subscription, as
>we’re basically getting the mobile version of
>Microsoft’s Office web interface here. The
>iPhone versions of the apps Word, Excel,
>PowerPoint all live within the one app. And
>they are naturally pretty stepped-back compared
>to the classic PC versions. But they crucially
>feel right at home on iPhone. Try these if you
>don’t get on with Apple’s iWork, which comprises Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
>
>
>Apple iWork
>
>
>
>If you're throwing out everything you knew about
>anything non-Apple, iWork is your replacement
>productivity bundle. It's the company's answer
>to Microsoft Office. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote
>will get the same results with a different
>interface. And, if your working companions are
>on Microsoft, it's no problem. You can export
>your documents to their counterparts. With
>iCloud, you can store all of your work in the
>cloud for easy access from any iOS device or on
>the web, whether you use a Mac or PC.
>
>
>Forest
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Heard of the pomodoro technique? It’s where you
>work in timed bursts, usually 25 minutes, and
>only let your concentration break in-between.
>That means no social media checks in that time,
>folks. Forest is a pomodoro timer with a
>difference. By following the program, you end up
>developing and growing a virtual forest,
>unlocking new trees along the way. That’s right,
>Forest gamifies concentration. There’s just a
>$3.99 entry fee to use the app, but there are
>elixir and crystal in-game currencies to boost
>the production of your forest. You can ignore
>all that if you’re just here to boost your work willpower.
>
>
>Otter.ai
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you ever have to conduct interviews as part
>of your work, or need to take minutes for a
>meeting, get Otter.ai. It’s a transcription app
>that works out what people are saying, and can
>separate out different voice in the
>conversation. A more recent AI addition also
>offers quick written summaries of what was
>covered in the interview/meeting. Handy. You can
>use Otter.ai for free, but you’re limited on the
>number of minutes per month, and can only import
>three audio files total (not per month). $10 a
>month bumps you up to 1200 minutes a month, and
>10 imported audio or video files. More than
>enough for most, and you may be fine with the free tier.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Recipes & Food
>
>
>
>
>
>Tasty
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Tasty was one of the organizations that helped
>define what social media cooking videos should
>look like. Top down view. Snappy and
>glossy-looking. Tasty is part of Buzzfeed, but
>quickly gained a whole life of its own. At the
>top of each recipe you’ll see one of Tasty’s
>classic sped-up video process guides. There’s a
>list of ingredients and a classic step-by-step
>written guide too, should these videos all be a
>bit “Gen Z” for your tastes. We like the
>formatting. We like the recipes. We’re kinda hungry now.
>
>
>Paprika
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Paprika is not just a recipe app. It lets you
>“download” recipes from across the internet, and
>automatically processes them to extract the
>ingredient list and instructions. All that guff
>about how the writer discovered this recipe
>while on holiday in Sardinia? Excised. And as
>you do end up visiting the origin websites in
>the first place on hunting down the recipe, we
>don’t even feel bad about it. Paprika will
>automatically work up shopping lists, and you
>can arrange meal plans into a calendar. You can
>be super-organized if you like, or just treat
>the app like a recipe encyclopaedia you build yourself.
>
>
>HappyCow
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>The closest the app sphere has to a vegan and
>vegetarian restaurant bible, HappyCow is a
>must-have for veggies on holiday, or just in a
>new area. It’s a way to find near restaurants
>with good vegetarian food, based on user reviews
>from the HappyCow community. You’ll find plenty
>of “normal” restaurants on there that simply
>have vegetarian and vegan options. But the map
>does have an icon based system to clearly
>delineate the pure vegetarian and vegan spots.
>There’s a small outlay for the app, $3.99, but
>it’s a quicker solution than endless Googling.
>And you can be sure the user-posted pics inside
>are actually of veggie food bonus. You don’t get that on TripAdvisor.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Ridesharing
>
>
>
>
>
>Uber
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Is the golden age of Uber over? Uber rides seem
>to routinely cost more than they used to. But
>that’s what you get when a service was based on
>swallowing up the entire market through oodles
>of VC funding, rather than a sustainable
>business model. That said, Uber can still
>generally be relied upon to have more active
>cars in an area than most other competing
>services. In the UK you can even use Uber to buy train tickets these days.
>
>
>Lyft
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>It’s worth checking out taxi service Lyft if
>there’s surge pricing on Uber, as its price
>jumps can be less extreme than Uber’s. Lyft has
>also attracted fewer negative headlines than
>Uber over the last few years, at least regarding
>the corporate culture within the company. The
>basic deal is the same, though. You plan a route
>and are given an estimated cost for the journey.
>We find Lyft cars tend to be a little less
>readily available than Ubers. But this is likely to vary based on location.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Shopping
>
>
>
>
>
>Vinted
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Used clothing giant Vinted has been around since
>2008, but it took about a decade for it to truly
>take off, and the last couple of years have seen
>its momentum stronger than ever. It’s basically
>a less corporate-feeling alternative to eBay or
>Facebook Marketplace. There’s no bidding on
>Vinted, you simply buy at the asking price, or
>make an offer. It’s not just clothes on sale
>here either. We once bought a Nintendo 3DS XL on the Vinted app. No joke.
>
>
>Etsy
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you took a local craft fair, blew it up to
>global proportions and stuck it online, you’d
>get something like Etsy. It’s packed with the
>work of craftspeople and artists, from jewellery
>makers to painters and furniture restorers. Of
>course, now Etsy is massive, you also get your
>fair share of drop-shipped nonsense and mass
>produced junk posing as the real deal. But that
>just means there’s a bit of work to do to find
>the good stuff, of which there is plenty.
>
>
>TEMU
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>TEMU became a bit of a viral retailer in 2023.
>That’s a strange phrase by itself, right? A
>viral
retailer? Nevertheless, it went big
>online thanks to the massive array of items
>(some would say tat) at incredibly low prices.
>It does this by shipping direct from China,
>where the stuff is manufactured. Much like the
>grandaddy of this kind of shopping, Aliexpress,
>you can get great stuff on TEMU. But it’s likely
>to be a little more hit-and-miss than the average local retailer.
>
>
>eBay
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>You know it. You love it? Maybe you hate it.
>eBay has more than 130 million active members.
>Some think of it as a pit of scum and villainy
>from both the buyer and seller side but it can
>still work for you with a bit of know-how. If
>you are buying from one of the big retailers,
>you might want to wait until a voucher appears.
>These are common. And if you are selling, you
>can wait for a discounted seller fees weekend to
>avoid those steep fees. They typically come around every two weeks.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Social Networking
>
>
>
>
>
>Narwhal 2
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Reddit's owners blew up the market for
>third-party apps for the platform, by charging
>folks to use its API the backend tech that
>lets an app developer access the social
>network’s content. Loads have closed down, but
>not all. Narwhal 2 is a nice UI upgrade to the
>so-so official Reddit app, letting you leap
>around your favourite subreddits much more
>gracefully. Unfortunately, there is a fee
>attached as anyone using the app racks-up costs
>for the developer. It’s $3.99 a month.
>
>
>Instagram
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Once the social network of images and photos,
>now a video-first platform, Instagram bridges
>the generations better than many. It’s not too
>oldie-loaded like Facebook. It’s not quite as
>youth-focused as TikTok. Is it just right? It’s
>a social network, of course it’s not. But if
>you’re after short-form cute animal video or
>makeup tutorials, the Instagram algorithm is only too happy to serve you them.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Sport
>
>
>
>
>
>Fotmob
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Stat-addicted soccer/football fans should
>download Fotmob. It’s a no-nonsense guide to all
>the upcoming and recent fixtures. But dig into
>those and you’ll find a whole world of data
>inside. There are stats on each player,
>including “traits" like how many goal chances
>they create. You can see the bookies’ odds for
>upcoming games and, of course, lots of info
>about matches already played. There are
>possession graphs, a live-blog-style guide to
>each match, and player ratings. It’s a football obsessive’s dream.
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you’re a multi-discipline sports fan who
>loves boxing, golf, basketball, football and
>soccer, Sports Alerts is an essential download.
>It collates all the fixtures and results from 23
>leagues, including NASCAR and Formula 1. We like
>its fast, clear and no-fuss delivery of info,
>and that you can tailor the app so it only
>displays the sports in which you’re interested.
>The way the tab-based layout lets you flick from
>one sport to another gives us the sense this app
>was designed by big sports fans, for big sports
>fans. One bad bit: it’s quite US-centric so there’s no cricket.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Video Editing and Content Creation
>
>
>
>
>
>LumaFusion
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Find iMovie too dumbed-down? LumaFusion is
>probably what you’re after. It feels like (and
>basically is) a full desktop-style editing suite
>crammed onto your iPhone screen. You get
>multiple video tracks for non-destructive
>editing, easy-to-apply transitions, titles and
>fistfuls of effects and filters. Want screen
>green? No problem. There’s even multi-cam
>support through a paid upgrade, to let you
>easily sync multiple sources into one “track”.
>Does the sheer depth of features here suit an
>iPad screen better? It sure does. Did we still
>manage to knock up a video in a few minutes? We sure did.
>
>
>YouTube Studio
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This is an essential download for anyone who
>wants to make it on YouTube. It’s the official
>app for creators, and lets you get a grip on
>your videos’ statistics, how people are finding
>your content and who those people are. Where do
>they live? How old are they? And what kind of
>other YouTube content do they watch? It’s
>insider intel on how other people see you as a
>content creator. Should that completely
>determine what you make? Probably not. But it
>tells you a lot about who YouTube thinks you are.
>
>
>iMovie
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Like Garageband, iMovie is another bundled app
>that shows Apple goes (or at least went) the
>extra mile for budding creatives. It’s a highly
>usable, quick, and easy video editing app. You
>trim and string together video clips, perhaps
>taken with your iPhone. And you can add titles,
>filters, sound effects, music and voice overs.
>It lets you speed up and slow down video too.
>Sure, this isn’t a pro-level video editing tool,
>but it’s a great way to introduce yourself to the basics of the practice.
>
>
>Canva
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you’re wondering how the people you follow on
>social network get those funky-looking graphics
>peppered throughout their videos, they may use
>Canva. It’s offers loads of templates to act as
>title cards for your videos. But it also works
>as a pretty powerful editing tool, with fun and
>easy animations that let you drag elements
>around your video canvas. If you want to get
>into content creation and want to add a little
>pizzazz to your videos, try it out. You can use
>it for free, or the paid-for sub ($99.99 a year)
>adds access to a lot more visual assets.
>
>
>Captions
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Want that poppy look of TikTok and Instagram
>videos where the captions appear on-screen,
>pretty much in time with what someone its
>saying? You get that effect with the Captions
>app. It works out what people are saying in
>video clips using machine learning
>transcription, then puts it up on-screen in
>punchy fashion using bold stylised text. You can
>use Captions’s suggested style if you like, or customize it hugely.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Travel
>
>
>
>
>
>TripAdvisor
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>TripAdvisor is the classic travel app for
>phones, originally released for iPhone all the
>way back in 2010. It’s still one of the best
>ways too find local attractions and decent
>restaurants when travelling around in cities. It
>did, in our opinion, used to be a bunch better
>years ago. Back in the day you could download
>entire cities' worth of data, should you not
>have free data roaming. This was shelved, for
>obvious reasons how is the app meant to make
>any revenue if you’re offline? Still, we tend to
>use TripAdvisor during every single holiday.
>
>
>Skyscanner
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>This is the best-known app, and website, for
>hunting down the best cheapest deals on flights.
>However, it has become an integral part of trip
>planning for us. Why? You don’t actually have to
>search for a specific destination, meaning
>Skyscanner can also be used to quickly home in
>on the destinations that are viable. That might
>be down to cost, or flight times that work,
>particularly for those quick weekend breaks
>away. Flights are the main appeal here, but it
>does the same for hotels too, hunting down the
>best deal from all of the most popular aggregator sites out there.
>
>
>Packing Pro
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Sure, you can use a free note-taking app to make
>a packing list for work trips and holidays. But
>Packing Pro is software made for the purpose.
>It’s a simple concept, an app that breaks down
>your list into categories, with a selectable
>list of items for each. This helps because you
>don’t need to think of everything that needs to
>go in your suitcase. Packing Pro makes the
>suggestion, you choose what you need, and then
>tick them off when they’re in your luggage. The
>same developer also makes a similar companion app, but for grocery shopping.
>
>
>Viator
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>There are a few apps that collate the things you
>can book nearby, like trips and advance tickets
>to museums. We find Viator to be the most
>comprehensive and easy-to-search, probably
>helped by the fact it is owned by travel app
>giant TripAdvisor. We use it on the reg to scout
>out day trips while on holiday. However, don’t
>forget you can use the app to find out what’s
>on, and then book direct rather than through
>Viator. This can avoid some customer service
>headaches down the line, and you may even find a
>special offer not available through an aggregator platform like Viator.
>
>
>Google Translate
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>Translate is such a plain-looking app, but it is
>so remarkably powerful. It’s a speech and text
>translator that supports 133 languages, and can
>be used in multiple ways. You can type away and
>get a translation, or use the microphone. The
>conversation mode offers two-way translation,
>letting both people see what the other is
>saying. You can use the camera, which we use all
>the time when on holiday. And you can download
>entire languages for internet-free text
>translation. As you use Google Translate you can
>also build up a phrasebook of translations
>you’ve saved. All of that, and it’s totally free to use.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: VPN and security
>
>
>
>
>
>ExpressVPN
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>The key advice when shopping for a VPN is not to
>trust free ones too readily, and to make sure a
>VPN provider has servers in the areas you need.
>While you’ll often want a VPN to spoof your
>location something we use all the time to see
>what websites look like in different countries
>for best performance you’ll want to pick a
>nearby server. In all honesty, we could probably
>have recommend standard favourites like NordVPN
>or SurfShark here too. However, ExpressVPN is
>the provider we’ve used for the last year, so
>find it easiest to vouch for this long-standard VPN master.
>
>
>1Password
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>If you run an all-Apple household, we think
>Apple’s baked-in Keychain password manager
>software is sufficient. But if you want to be
>able to use one password manager across multiple
>platforms, try out 1Password. This highly
>regarded app keeps all your logins in one place.
>And more. It’s designed to be a secure vault for
>all your important details, from your passport
>and bank account details to your router’s Wi-Fi
>password. You then only need to remember your
>one master password. 1Password also lets you
>login using an iPhone’s Face ID or Touch ID biometrics.
>
>
>Best iPhone apps: Weather
>
>
>
>
>
>Carrot Weather
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>One of our favourite ever weather apps, Dark
>Sky, has been discontinued. It was bought by
>Apple, its features largely subsumed into the
>standard Weather app. But if you don’t like that
>too much, try Carrot Weather. It’s a weather app
>with a bit of personality, a touch of barbed
>sarcasm to its delivery. And if you don’t like
>that, you can tone it down. That’s right, this
>is a weather app with multiple personality
>modes. It is also super feature-rich.
>
>
>RainToday
>
>
>
>Image removed by sender. App screenshots
>
>
>(Image credit: Apple)
>
>You know when you see a percentage chance of
>rain, it actually means it’ll be raining in that
>much of your local area at that time? Well, a
>rain radar is perhaps our favourite way of
>getting a visual look at whether it’s likely to
>rain in, say, the next hour. It’s where you can
>see the current rainfall on a map, and go back
>in time to see where those rain clouds are
>travelling. RainToday offers an intuitive view
>of such a rainfall map. Using a slider you can
>go back in time, and see an hour into the future
>based on currently predictions. A great way to avoid getting soaked.
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