Apps are big business, and they’re one of the main reasons for the success of iOS.
Android may shift more units than iOS, but the App Store still tends to get the lion’s share of the best apps, from high-end audio tools through to cutting-edge education offerings.
But what can you get if you’re not willing to spend anything at all? Surprisingly, quite a lot; as our selection shows, fantastic free iPhone apps are available for all manner of tasks, from sprucing up photos and composing music through to keeping fit and exploring the world.
There’s no user-accessible file system on iOS. Documents are stored inside apps, which makes them a pain to share and access elsewhere. Dropbox works nicely as a surrogate file system for iOS. Many apps directly support the service, and the app itself successfully previews all kinds of files. For free, you get 2 GB of storage, and up to an additional 3 GB if you use Dropbox to save photos.
Apple initially made a mess of its own maps solution, and even today it’s imperfect. The Apple Maps app is pretty good for driving directions, but it’s not great on foot and it remains poor for locating points of interest. Fortunately, Google’s alternative is excellent, accurate, and also bundles the useful Street View, for checking out routes before a long and unfamiliar journey.
Find My iPhone isn’t the most exciting app in the world. Install, sign in, and the app will locate any of your devices that have been approved for use on the service. But if your device is lost, Find My iPhone gives you a chance of locating it, in part by sending a full-volume sound for up to two minutes, even if the device is set to silent. As a worst-case scenario, you can use the app to remote-wipe your device.
Download Find My iPhone here [3] Â
Rather than packing your device full of music (and bear in mind iOS device storage cannot be expanded), try Spotify instead. The free version of the app provides access to millions of songs, with the caveat that albums are always shuffled and are occasionally interrupted by adverts. If you want to get around that restriction, a Premium subscription’s available for £9.99/US$9.99 per month.
Download Spotify Music here [4]
If you’ve a large music collection, it can be a hassle deciding what to listen to. Groove utilises Last.fm data to create personalised playlists based on the listening habits of millions. The app combines tracks based on genre or act, and it’s a perfect complementary app for Apple’s Music, enabling you to rediscover old favourites you’ve not heard in a long while.
The developers of this app call it a ‘personal trainer in your pocket’. If you opt for RunKeeper’s ‘Elite’ membership (£2.99 monthly), that might be the case; for everyone else, it’s instead a free, efficient means of logging your hikes, runs and bike rides, and taking a quick gander at the exercise your friends are doing (or not). Routes are mapped, stats are stored, and if you feel really tired half-way through a run, you can procrastinate for a few seconds by taking a photo from inside the app.
The iOS Camera app has some basic editing functionality built in, but Photo Editor goes much further. Along with offering a slew of filters, you get one-touch enhancements, level editing, and tools for drawing and retouching. Blemishes can be banished, or you can convert an image to black and white and paint colour back in. For kickstarting a meme, there’s also a text tool.
Download Photo Editor by Aviary here [7]
BBC iPlayer’s the video catch-up app we want to shove in the faces of execs from certain other networks and yell: LOOK! THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE! Finding programmes is simple, and they can be streamed live (over Wi-Fi or 3G) or downloaded to your device for later playback. Also, the BBC doesn’t hate you, and so shows can be streamed over AirPlay to an Apple TV. Again, take note, other network execs!
TED’s food for the brain, packed full of riveting talks by all manner of extremely clever people, which you can watch live or download to view offline. Given that TED’s an app about discovery, we’re particularly fond of the Inspire Me section. Define the type of content you want to see and the time you have available; the app will do its best to offer a selection of talks to suit.
It’s funny to think that not long ago people were predicting the end of radio, but the medium has found a second wind online. With TuneIn Radio, you can enjoy 100,000 live radio stations and two million podcasts. Set it running and plonk your iOS device in a speaker dock; who needs a DAB radio now?
Download TuneIn Radio here [10]
There’s all kinds of movie goodness lurking in this app, from ratings to trailers (even if much of it’s a wee bit US-oriented). However, the magic is really found in the app’s location awareness. Tell Movies by Flixster where you live and it finds local cinemas, any of which you can flag as favourites. Then pick a film, tap ‘Showtimes’ and it’ll show where and when the movie’s playing locally!
Download Movies by Flixster here [11]
Of late, augmented reality has become equated with creepy advertising or wearable tech, but it has magical uses too. With SkyView, you can take your device outside, stare up at the heavens, and discover precisely what stars and planets you’re looking at. If it’s a bit cold out, you can do the same from inside, or partake in a bit of time travelling, checking out the sky on different times and dates.
Download SkyView Free here [12]
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Twitter’s come a long way from merely flinging 140-character nuggets of genius across the ether. Today’s Twitter is a company wanting to own breaking news and media sharing. Its iOS client has therefore evolved accordingly, and now boasts integrated photos and article discovery. The Notifications feed also enables you to keep track of who’s responding to you, and who’s retweeting your posts.
Facebook’s mobile app beats using the desktop, but it’s Paper that feels like the next step on the social network’s journey. The interface is modern and sleek, eschewing clutter and presenting a distraction-free environment for browsing and reading news stories. Standard Facebook controls are present and correct, too, meaning you can replace the Facebook app with Paper. (Note: Paper currently requires a US iTunes account. TUAW shows how to get one [14] ).
Download Paper â€" Stories from Facebook here [15]
Codecademy is a fantastic project, with the laudable goal of teaching the world to code. The website provides dozens of tutorials on a range of languages, but it can be a little overwhelming. The interactive iOS app is a better starting point for anyone lacking confidence, presenting the basics of coding in a session that lasts about an hour.
The remote control you get with an Apple TV could be considered elegant compared to the button-frenzy evident on most equivalents; however, it’s a mite fiddly for anything more than very basic menu navigation. With Remote, you can control your Apple TV using your iOS device, which rather helpfully includes a keyboard when making searches. The app can also control local iTunes libraries and send the audio on via AirPlay.
Download Remote here [17] Â Â Â
As of iOS 7, the Camera app gained eight live filters, but Retrica’s selection is much larger, drawing on decades of photographic styles. Other tools further boost creativity, including vignettes, blurs and borders. Our favourite feature, though, is the interval timer, which takes a number of consecutive photos and stitches them together in a user-defined layout.
Apple’s FaceTime generally works very well, but it doesn’t work at all unless the person you’re calling also owns Apple kit. Skype is available for a much wider range of platforms and can also be used to call landlines and mobiles; Skype-to-Skype calls are free, and calls elsewhere are usually cheaper than mobile plans. The app also includes instant messaging, for when you’d rather type than talk.
Download Skype for iPhone here [19]
This sound toy eschews traditional instruments. In their place: a selection of shapes and lines. These are added to the canvas, whereupon they create generative music through collisions. A selection of samples is included, providing scope for creating hours of ear-bashing ‘music’. If you want more, additional kits and shapes are available via IAP.
When the iPhone was first unveiled, there was no App Store. Apple’s cunning plan was that everyone should write web apps. Although the web app bandwagon trundles on, few apps of that ilk rival native alternatives. One major exception is Forecast. The online service provides immediate and upcoming weather data, with eerily accurate rainfall predictions. To save it on your device, load the site in Safari, tap the share button, and select Add to Home Screen.
Please follow Syncios on Twitter, Facebook [23] . [22]
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Links
- ^ Download Dropbox here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Google Maps here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Find My iPhone here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Spotify Music here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Groove here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download RunKeeper here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Photo Editor by Aviary here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download BBC iPlayer here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download TED here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download TuneIn Radio here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Movies by Flixster here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download SkyView Free here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Twitter here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ TUAW shows how to get one (www.tuaw.com)
- ^ Download Paper â€" Stories from Facebook here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Codecademy here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Remote here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Retrica here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Skype for iPhone here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Download Musyc here (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Visit Forecast here (forecast.io)
- ^ Twitter (twitter.com)
- ^ Facebook (www.facebook.com)
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