Awesome iOS Apps

Here’s a list of really nice iOS apps, ideally ones that work on iPhones and iPads. I did once write a list specifically for iPhone apps, which you can check out if you want a blast from the past. Last updated November 2017.

General Apps

  • Overcast is my current favourite podcast app, though if cross-platform sync or video is important to you, Pocket Casts — is nice too.
  • Soulver — a really nice calculator app.
  • Bear — a beautiful notes app for iOS and Mac. Apparently there may be a web version coming some time, too.
  • Paprika — a recipe app that syncs with iPhone and Mac OS X.
  • Copied — a very nice clipboard manager that also has nifty text-replacement functionality with its custom keyboard, using scripts you can write yourself in JavaScript. Doubles as a drag shelf with iOS 11.

Development

This couldn’t have been a category a few years ago, but things are (slowly) improving.

  • Working Copy — A Git client for iOS that works really well with the built-in document pickers. Particularly sweet with…
  • Textastic — A very nice text editor that can open entire repositories from Working Copy, meaning you can browse your files in the text editor and commit the changes later in Working Copy.
  • Pythonista — Work with Python on iOS.
  • Coda — A not-as-reduced-as-you’d-think version of Panic’s Coda for Mac. Syncs with the desktop so you can SSH into websites and publish changes.

News and Networks

  • Flipboard — the best way to browse a lot of your stuff at the same time: Twitter, Instagram, etc. Can be customised to have sections made up of only your favourites from those services, which is handy.
  • Twitterrific and Tweetbot. Both excellent Twitter apps, though Twitterrific’s support for threads I find better. I mean, I wish threads weren’t a thing, but they seem to be.

Reading

  • Reeder — RSS, syncs with many of the current RSS engines, as well as doing local RSS.
  • Instapaper — recently purchased by Pinterest, still the most pleasant read-later service to my eyes. I quite like pagination, even if it is a little buggy.
  • Kindle — and of course, use Kindle Cloud Reader for a nice front-end to the Kindle store.
  • iBooks

Stuff in the world

  • Pocket Weather AU — a nice weather app that pulls data from the BOM, and shows a decent forecast weather line (though, not without issues).
  • Transit — a good public transport app that allows you to favourite entire lines, rather than stations… which makes more sense to me.

Exercise

  • Strava — my favourite of the running social networks, mostly for the best efforts it finds within your runs.
  • iSmoothRun — A really nice running app that’s been on the store for ages. Often I find myself switching back to Strava, but I keep this around. If you care about cadence, it records cadence. Well, even if you don’t, really.

Art and stuff

  • Paper by FiftyThree - I don’t really do any drawing on the iPad, but if I did, I’d do it with this.

Games

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Tom Charman Mastodon Mastodon