My favorite iOS apps - July ‘21
For me, the best part of the iOS experience are the amazing apps we can use. This usually gets forgotten in the iOS vs android debate. Compared to android, iOS have stricter guidelines and go through a pretty rigorous review process (the “human interface guidelines” for iOS apps is freely available online if you wanna give it a read). iOS developers also have to develop for a smaller set of screen sizes. Android developer on the other hand have to deal with so many devices it can get crazy, especially when phones like the Samsung Z Fold exist.
That being out of the way, here are my favorite iOS apps.
Productivity
Dawn
Bear
Tunnelbear
Scriptable
Livre
Sports and fitness
One football
Pitbox
Nike Run and Training club
Other
Unsplash
TV time
Photomath
Blackbox
Goat
Productivity
Dawn - free with an optional paid subscription
Dawn is a very minimal and a very well designed calendar and reminders app. The app acts as a complete planner and does what it does brilliantly. The app shows you what you have to do in the day, both calendar events and to-do reminders. However what I think makes the app amazing, is the widgets. I use the app mainly because of the widgets as I need to see my calendar events and reminders on my home screen to remember them.
However, you need to pay to sync your native iOS calendars and reminder lists to the app. In my opinion, the subscription is completely worth it if you need the native iOS calendars and reminder lists sync.
Bear - free with an optional paid subscription
Bear is a note taking and writing app that I love. Although I use this more on my Mac, it has an iOS version too and I love this app so much that I had to include it.
What makes it special is that fact that it uses Markdown text rather than rich text. What does that mean? Well it means that you style text without you hands ever leaving the keyboard.
For example if you wanted to put a word in a large paragraph in bold on a regular notes app, you’d first have to select the text you have just written, then set it to bold, move the cursor back to the end, press space, continue writing, realize that the bold option is still selected, select the text that didn’t need to bold, turn off the bold option.
While on markdown all you need to do is put your text between asterixes. So your text flows naturally, as you are typing place an asterix, type what you want in bold, place another asterix, continue typing. This also works with italics, underlines, heading sizes (title, heading, subheading, etc) and so much more.
Markup text is very popular among developers and writers who want to type fast with their fingers always on the keyboard. The paid subscription gives you cloud sync between devices and more note export options (word, pdf, etc).
I don’t pay for the subscription as I don’t need the features but it makes sense for people who like to access their notes on multiple devices.
Tunnelbear - free with an optional paid subscription
Keeping with the bear theme, Tunnelbear is a VPN app. Just like other VPN apps it routes your internet traffic through a proxy server, making it seem like you are accessing the web from another country. This can help accessing blocked sites in your country (ahem tiktok’s web version ahem) or just generally secure yourself online.
I haven’t used many other VPN apps as Tunnelbear has always just worked. Sure the free 500 mb is limiting but there aren’t many good free VPNs anyway, just pay for the higher tiers if you are going to use it regularly. Tunnelbears support staff is also amazing, always prompt and helpful
Scriptable - free
Scriptable is an app that allows you to run javascript code to automate task, create complex custom widgets or build in missing features. There are whole communities dedicated to making scripts for this app.
My favorite script is the WeatherCal widget. This widget lets you create a widget with weather, calendar events, reminders, news feeds, number of covid cases and so much more. Although I switched to the Dawn widget for calendar events, I still keep my modified version of the Weather-Cal script for news feeds.
Livre - free
Livre is a minimal and beautifully designed booklist. It helps you keep track of your reading list and how far along you are in each of the books. Okay, I might be a little biased here but Livre is one of my favorite apps. For those who don't know, Livre is my app, I just released its latest update with the ability to write notes on books and save your favorite quotes from them. I also added some great widgets.
Sports and Fitness
One Football - free
For a long time, I wanted to grow up to be a football player. I was obsessed with all things football but as the years passed, so did my interest in football. I always had a couple football apps and followed a couple newsfeeds but it wasn’t the same anymore. That was until I used One Football.
One thing you should know is that I can only use an app if its aesthetically pleasing, One Football met that immediate requirement. Next, came notifications. I have a rule with notifications, I always enable then but an app needs to earn the right to stay enabled. One Football delivered, notifications linked me to well written articles and I didn’t receive any promotional notifications at all. That brings me to my last point, the articles. One Football’s articles are clear, short and well written. I now regularly read a couple a day to stay informed on the world of football.
Pitbox - free
My favorite sport is Formula One. I never miss a practice, qualifying or race and stay up to date with the latest news. As a result, I am also always looking for apps dedicated to Formula One content.
Pitbox is an app, that shows really simple stats and information about Formula One races, drivers, teams and standings. The app is just starting out and i’ve been using it since beta but it has earned a place on my phone.
Nike Run club and Nike Training club - free
The Nike fitness apps are some of the best. They’ve been around forever and work brilliantly. They tie into Apple Music brilliantly (and I believe Spotify but I haven’t tried it). There’s not much to say here, they do what they are designed for brilliantly.
Unsplash - free
Unsplash is a service giving you access to photos that you can use freely anywhere (you don’t have to pay to use the photos commercially and non-commercially, although they encourage attribution). I use it mainly to get some absolutely great, high quality wallpapers for my phone and Mac. I usually change my wallpapers quite often as I can’t use the same one for extended periods of time and Unsplash is a great place to find new ones.
TV time - free
Tv time is a great app that helps you track tv shows and movies. The app allows you to see which episodes you’ve watched and show you when upcoming episodes are airing. Every episode also has a separate forum to discuss the episode which is always fun to see.
Photomath - free with an optional paid subscription
This app is simple, you can a math problem and it solves it. Every student should have this.
The paid plan is helpful but try using the free plan for while first. I didn’t upgrade yet but I am considering it.
BlackBox - free with in-app purchases
Blackbox is an amazing puzzle game made for iPhones. Think of any feature you can on your phone and you have to use it to solve a puzzle. It’s seriously fun and as a developer I can’t imaging how much effort the developer must’ve put into this app.
GOAT - free
Goat is an app where you can buy and sell sneakers and other name-brand fashion pieces. I love exploring new sneakers and this is the best way to do so. The app also has a styles section which allows you to see outfits incorporating the different products on sale.
And those are my favorite apps. This was one long post and I don’t even know if anyone will read this. If you made it here thank you!