The best apps for iPhone (iOS) in 2023
Table of Contents
If you have one iPhone, but recently left Android, finding the ideal apps for your day to day is no easy task. After all, there's a range of options, in all shapes and sizes, and with the App Store still displaying ads in some search results, it's even harder to discern which apps are the best. Fortunately, we showmetech we did the heavy lifting and separated the wheat from the chaff. Here you will find a list of applications that can help a lot in leisure and even work hours. Check out:
Videos
Netflix
A Netflix revolutionized the way we consume entertainment and is a great choice for all hours. Even if you don't have an account with the streaming service yet, we recommend that you try the 30-day free period to see if you like the movies, series and documentaries it has to offer.
Other streaming platforms such as HBO Max e Amazon Prime Video are good alternatives for those looking for specific catalogs and original series.
YouTube
It is also a good idea to install the YouTube to view content. There are thousands of great quality channels that post new videos every week.
It is possible to watch productions about games, music, movies, books and most of any imaginable hobby without difficulties. It also has cloud storage and is a pay-as-you-go monthly membership that you can cancel at any time.
Apple TV
The application Apple TV lets you search for content from over 100 video services. You can find movies and shows, live sports and news. It's available on iPhone, iPad and Apple TV – so you can watch it at home or wherever you want.
Crunchyroll
Are you an anime lover? So this app must be the first one to be installed on your iPhone. As Crunchyroll you have access to a huge catalog of anime and other oriental content, such as dramas. An hour after an episode has been released in Japan, it is possible to check that same episode subtitled in Portuguese. In the free version you have access to some animes, as well as there are ads during the episodes, however, in the paid version, you have unlimited access to the catalog and you are also free of ads.
Twitch
Now we have a suggestion for the gamer audience. If you belong to this group, surely you have heard about the Twitch, Platform of streaming which streams people playing various games. Between offline and online games and even some board games, it is possible to follow several streamers that are playing in real time around the world.
The Twitch community tends to be tight-knit and fun, a place where you come to make friends, either with the player who is streaming or with the other viewers, through chat, who have a lot of fun too. Twitch was acquired by Amazon, and by joining Amazon Prime, you get some perks on Twitch and also rewards in some games.
Music
Shazam
O Shazam is a very interesting application to have on your iPhone, especially if you usually listen to songs you like, but don't know by name.
With just a few seconds of the song playing, Shazam is able to hear and tell you her name quickly. Then the app even offers some simple ways to listen to or purchase the song legally.
Spotify
O Spotify It's one of the best services you can find for your smartphone if you're not an Apple Music subscriber yet.
It has millions of popular artists and songs, and you can create and share playlists with your friends. It's a streaming service that doesn't necessarily ask you to buy an album to play some of your favorite tracks. Other options like Deezer and the controversial Tidal, by rapper and founder Jay Z are also good alternatives.
Deezer
Although not as famous, the Deezer it also offers many great features for its users. It can offer navigation between more than 90 million songs for free, identify songs with SongCatcher, display song lyrics — and also check out the translation feature —, listen to music by genre and mood (your mood at that moment), access personalized recommendations with Flow and choose your mood filter, adding songs to your Favorites collection and much more.
Apple Music
Want to get the most out of Apple's services and apps? So most likely you might be interested in Apple Music. This is Apple's music subscription service built into their devices. With it, you can play virtually any song you've ever wanted to hear.
Unlike Spotify, Apple Music offers a catalog for purchase, and once a single or album is purchased, the music is available to play both online and offline.
GarageBand
One more for the music fans. O GarageBand from Apple turns your iPad and iPhone into a recording studio, so you can create and mix music – or even DJ – on the go. In a very intuitive interface, you can “play” several instruments and/or use ready-made loops to assemble your beats.
SoundCloud
O SoundCloud is a platform for streaming of music and audio with over 180 million tracks, many of them by independent artists. And it lets you upload audio too. A great option to find and share news.
Photos and video
Photoshop Express
The iPhone's cameras – whatever model it is – are excellent and its Photos app, which is already installed from the factory, comes with a series of editing tools. But for those who prefer more advanced editing tools, a good choice is the Photoshop Express. The advantage is that the Adobe application is free. The downside is that some features require subscription to a package and/or in-app purchases.
Lightroom
Another free Adobe application is Lightroom. Like Photoshop, it comes with advanced editing tools (considering that you'll be using a cell phone for this). But, just like Photoshop, Lightroom has several features that require a subscription and/or in-app purchase.
PicsArt
O PicsArt is an application focused on creative image editing. You can make montages; add stickers and text; resize (with various types of borders); and so on. As much as the app has features that need to be purchased, you can do a lot in the free version.
Professional camera
This app, unlike those mentioned so far, focuses on capturing images. That's because it gives you control over some features of the iPhone's camera when taking the picture, similar to Android phones and DSLR cameras (those professionals). Among these features are: shutter speed, ISO and white balance. O Professional camera is an application aimed at those who have – or seek to have – basic knowledge about photography. And it's willing to pay to play with those notions on the iPhone.
CapCut
This app by Bytedance (the same developer as TikTok) is a mobile video editor with a lot of potential and very popular. Using it, you can create videos by joining video clips and photos with music. You can also place stickers, text and effects. O CapCut it's free – although you can pay for additional features – and it has an intuitive interface.
Adobe Photoshop
All ready to use Photoshop on iPad or iPhone? If you have a valid subscription, just sign in with your Adobe ID. If not, try a 30-day free trial. Photoshop opens the same files as Photoshop on your computer (macOS or Windows) thanks to cloud technology, which makes it possible to sync your files across all your devices. Import your Raw photos directly into Photoshop, make fine edits, and share to get feedback right in the app.
Tumblr
Less restrictive than today's dominant photo-sharing app, Instagram, the Tumblr goes beyond photos by letting you post blog entries, GIFs, videos and more. But more important than posting is reposting, which promotes a lot of user interaction. The service avoids negative trolling from other social networks through its reblog rather than comment design.
Posts
Meta's messaging app is indispensable and almost needs no introduction. Over time, it has become an essential tool for both professional and personal life. In addition to exchanging messages, audios and stickers, you can send images, documents and even payments through WhatsApp. The app is free and requires you to have a mobile number to work.
Telegram
This is a messaging app similar to WhatsApp, but it serves as an alternative to the Meta app. Among its differentials are the encryption that protects the messages of your private and group conversations; the non-limitation of the number of members for groups; and the various customization settings. Like WhatsApp, the Telegram it is also free.
Facebook Messenger
Whether you're an active Facebook user or not, the messaging app linked to the social network is a lot of fun. You can make audio and video calls (in which you can use virtual augmented reality masks); play; and make payments. Precisely because it is linked to Meta's social network, the Facebook Messenger doesn't require a mobile number to work – and runs on any device.
Skype or Whatsapp
Continuing with our suggestions for iPhone applications, still in the Microsoft footprint, here we have the Skype or Whatsapp. The messenger from Bill Gates' company has several tools for communication, such as instant messaging, video calling, inclusion of emojis in messages and other types of features. Being an iPhone application, it allows you to call other Skype users free of charge, as well as allowing you to enter a phone number into the application, allowing people to call you and you answer directly through it.
Safety
1Password 8
For those who tend to forget their passwords easily, it might be a good idea to have the 1Password 8 installed. With this application you save and manage all your passwords, in addition to other private information, in a very simple way.
Best of all, this app offers great security and is used by millions of other iOS device users.
Google Authenticator
O Google Authenticator is an option for anyone who wants the iPhone as a security token. This allows you to use your phone for even more secure 2-step security checks, as it offers unique codes (which expire in a few seconds) to identify you to accounts across multiple sites.
tunnel Bear
Another interesting application for those who care about their security is tunnel Bear. Overall, many people use it as a VPN to access websites as if they were in another country.
And it also serves to protect your iPhone from possible risks with public Wi-Fi networks and other malicious websites that you can browse.
Utilities
T
O T is one of the most popular apps among iOS device users because it is easily one of the best in terms of organizing and creating lists, reminders, and tasks.
The cool thing is that you can still sort and organize all the notes based on their priorities and depending on the day or week you need to remember them.
Evernote
O Evernote is the Todoist of iPhone notebook apps: one of the best and most popular. You can create notes and search for information stored in your account. The downside is that, currently, the best parts of their differentials are limited to those willing to pay for them.
Office (Microsoft 365)
Mobile is not the ideal device for writing documents, creating slideshows and editing important spreadsheets. But the rush of everyday life may require you to do so. The good news is that there is the Office for iPhones, where you can create and edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel files.
You can also take notes in OneNote, access emails through Outlook and create/sign PDFs. Everything is synced on OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud. The bad news is that the app requires a subscription to some Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) plan.
Dropbox
If your routine depends on a stream of files that are on your computer at work, on your computer and notebook at home, on your cell phone, etc., then you will need to keep all that in sync. The tip here is to use the Dropbox, which does just that and the files are stored in the cloud. The interface is simple and the service has several storage packages.
gmail
Google's official email app, the gmail, can also be quite a helper for iPhone users. This application can be used to link other email accounts from domains like Hotmail, Yahoo and many others. In addition, it can also be synchronized with the Mail app, native to the iPhone, so that you have even more control over the emails sent and received. Just like on PC, Gmail for iPhone is also packed with smart features that can impress you.
Microsoft Outlook
An alternative to Gmail is Microsoft's official email application, Outlook. It has several interesting tools such as a calendar integrated into the appointment system, an inbox focused on the most important emails and many others. And even though it's an iPhone app, it's still possible to sync your account to an Apple Watch app, so you can stay on top of your emails with or without your smartphone nearby.
Wikipedia
Surely you've heard of a source from Wikipedia, right? This is the most popular collection of information on the internet. It, powered by anyone on the internet — who has knowledge of the subject and goes through a verification process —, offers information on the most diverse subjects, people, places, situations… Wikipedia.
Having it on your smartphone can help you quickly perform various queries. The fact that it is one of the first results when someone searches for something on Google confirms its relevance, although you should always be careful with what you read on the internet.
Google Maps
Another application related to the Google ecosystem, the Google Maps helps you on many occasions. It works like a locator map, that is, you can search for locations, addresses or city names to check whatever you want, geographically. For example, you can check the distance from one place to another regardless of how the route will be done: on foot, by car, bus, motorcycle… possible routes, generally giving preference to the shortest routes. Don't get lost!
Social Media
O Facebook almost no introduction needed. It is probably the most popular social network in the world. Use it to maintain your friendships or simply to view hidden memes from busybodies who spread propaganda.
O Instagram, an application owned by Meta (which also owns Facebook), is a social network dedicated to sharing photos and videos. Perhaps it is the home of influencers and probably concentrates the largest number of gurus and web-celebrities on the internet.
O LinkedIn is the social network aimed at the professional market. In addition to helping to create an online resume, it aims to network, promote job search, advertise vacancies and share contacts.
O Pinterest It's a DIY mecca. Want to do a lip scrub? It's here. Need Halloween party ideas? Also have! You can explore more than 100 billion pins in all sections and, to top it off, create moodboards to get inspiration.
This is one of the apps for the newbies and also for those looking for a latent sense of community. At the Reddit you can discover top trending topics, breaking news, viral video clips, funny jokes and hot memes.
Snapchat
O Snapchat is similar to Instagram (or is Instagram similar to Snapchat?). This is yet another one of the apps that has a stories feature, but it's meant to send quick snapshots to friends that are deleted forever when they're viewed, although the sender can always save them for later viewing.
TikTok
The basic use of TikTok is made by users who shoot videos lip syncing or performing creative dance steps. Its contents last from 15 seconds to ten minutes and can be selected from a library of music, effects and sounds to add to videos. The result? Generation Z's favorite social network.
good, the Twitter is perhaps the social network that became the birthplace of memes. With a character limit, everything is here, all the time, in real time, basically no filters. An infinite limit of possibilities and creativity.
beer
Imagine a photo social network for you to be “real” (read: no filters or productions). This is the concept of beer, which has become popular recently. Its operation is very different from what we consider normal, that is, from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and co. You can only post once a day, as soon as the app shows you can. And then you take a picture of what you're doing at the moment, a selfie at this moment, and you can add a caption to the montage. It's fun.
News
Google News
The idea of the application is to facilitate the habit of staying informed by consuming content from different media. In it, you point your favorite subjects and vehicles to literally build a news feed. The app also offers news digests, recommendations based on your interests and spaces for you to save reports and search results. Like the tech giant's other tools, the Google News it is free.
The proposal of this application is similar to that of Google News, only with more style. The app curates content on social networks and other partners on the internet (journals and blogs, for example) based on your interests. From this curatorship, a digital magazine-style feed comes out. O Flipboard It is a great choice for iPhone models with large screens. And it's free.
Languages
Duolingo
Finally, we have a great option for anyone who wants to learn or is already learning to speak a new language. O Duolingo it has classes and lessons in several different languages and they are very fun. As it features a system very similar to a game type, there is always an incentive to keep coming back and the exercises are never boring.
Accomodation
Airbnb
Despite some controversy in some areas over hotel laws, many people have had nothing but good experiences, clean rooms, and friendly hosts via Airbnb. The app has all the features you could want and more. Travelers can book their stay, chat directly with the host, get exact directions, and even explore specs like furnished treehouses. Hosts can review potential guests, manage their calendars and promote their properties through the app. It is an interesting proposal for those who like to travel frequently.
Booking
As in the previous application, the Booking offers several options for accommodation. According to the platform, more than 27 million hotels, vacation rentals, houses, apartments and other unique places are offered. In searches you can search by city, tourist attraction, point of interest or hotel name, as well as filter by price, review score, amenities and other important factors. There are daily deals and free cancellation on almost every room.
Transport
Uber
Considered a pioneer of running apps, the Uber it is also a strong ally for Carnival celebrations. Simple and direct, you just need to enter the destination, check the value of the ride and that's it! The app accepts multiple payment methods, such as credit card, debit card, Pix and cash.
99
Uber's main competitor, the 99 it also offers rides across a range of categories, grocery delivery to markets and — in some locations — snacks as well. All registered drivers go through a selection process, increasing user safety.
Moovit
The application Moovit It is indispensable for those who intend to move around using public transport. Present in more than 3.500 cities in 112 countries, the app shows you how to get from one point to another in the city using different modes of public transport, including buses, trains, subways and even ferries. In locations where public transport is equipped with GPS, you can track the location of the transport in real time, and know exactly the time of arrival.
Relationship
tinder
One of the best known relationship apps in Brazil and in the world — if it really isn't the best known —, tinder brings together close people who are looking for some kind of date. It works with a recognition radius, that is, the people who will appear available to you will be the closest within a few meters or kilometers. Whether for casual or more serious encounters, this app is very suitable for Carnival.
Happn
Similar to the previous app, the Happn it also displays people who would like some kind of date but your display is based on when you came across that other person. Not necessarily side by side, but showing that you were close at some point during the day. After checking who has a similar route to yours, just like her profile and if she also likes you, just exchange a chat!
Bumble
However much the Bumble whether it is indeed a dating app, it extends this concept to another level of relationship. Here you will find two modes, Bumble Date, which shows people looking for a romantic date and also Bumble BFF, bringing that group of people looking for friendships, conversations, etc.
Inner Circle
Already Inner Circle promises a safe space, with interesting people to meet, talk and meet in real life. A verified community, determined to have better dates and therefore willing to put a little more effort into information found in profiles, photos and messages. According to the company, with this app you meet people you'd really like to go out with.
Grindr
And ending not only the dating apps session, but also our list, we have here the Grindr, dating app for gay men. It gathers a lot of profiles with several options for you to show how you identify yourself. Check out photos of suitors, their location in relation to where you are, send and receive reactions, and much more. The service also has a paid feature to further expand its options.
Browsers
Firefox
Firefox, the open source browser, has come to the iPhone, and it is really a download that can please many users. Its tab layout is much clearer than Safari's and lets you sync your bookmarks and more with desktop Firefox. Reading Preview eliminates annoying mobile ads, and Reading List saves articles for later when you have time. Browser alternative to Safari? Here's a great indication!
Google Chrome
Download the new Google Chrome for your iPhone and iPad. Now it's simpler, safer and faster than ever. Make the most of Google Search and easily sync your bookmarks and passwords to Chrome on your laptop. Download the fast and secure browser recommended by Google.
Do you agree with the list? Do you have any suggestions? Put it here in the comments!
reviewed by Dacio Castelo Branco in 20 / 03 / 2023
See also:
12 Best Free Apps to Listen to Music Without Wi-Fi e The best 5G smartphones to buy in 2022.
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