While Android boasts incredible personalization, Apple’s iOS has a well-deserved reputation for interface design and aesthetics. The limited number of devices and screen size makes iOS an easier environment to develop, which brings many apps to debut on the Apple platform. With Apple enjoying strong sales of its latest phones, it’s time to look at some of the best iOS apps that the App Store has to offer. From cool image editors, smart games, journaling applications and complete utilities, here are 15 of the best iOS apps in the App Store right now.
15 best apps for iOS that you do not find on Android
Enlight Photofox (free)
Enlight Photofox is the latest edition of the award-winning photo editing app, which allows users to create stunning double exposures and other cleverly manipulated effects. The app comes with a wide range of tools to influence color and tone, with filters, masks and layer effects that make it easy to edit photos using a variety of blending modes. The app offers some free effects, with an unlimited subscription that unlocks all features.
Focos (free)
Focos takes advantage of the dual lens cameras of the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X to allow users to tinker and refocus the images after taking them. The result is a more customizable Bokeh effect with varying shapes, adjustable aperture and aperture settings and added depth filters. You can also edit existing photos in portrait mode. Although it does not have the new customizable lighting features of the updated Portrait mode of the original camera, it is an excellent addition to your photographic baggage.
Apollo for Reddit (free)
Apollo is an excellent iOS Reddit browser, with loads of features such as comment markdown editing, a scroll bar for quick browsing and an excellent multimedia viewer for anything from photos, videos and GIFs. The collapsible comment viewer simplifies navigation in a comment, while configurable gesture controls simplify navigation.
Alto’s Odyssey ($ 4.99)
Until Alto’s Odyssey will reach Android next month, your iPhone is still the favorite player to enjoy this endless game. And that’s good because the same magic that made the original Alto’s Adventure a success returns to this wonderful sequel. As in the first game, players guide Alto’s and friends through an ethereal landscape, this time exchanging snow and plateaus for impossible dunes and desert views, while pulling out tricks and jumps to avoid rocks, cliffs and other hazards as you try to capture as many coins as possible. What distinguishes Odyssey is the addition of many new environmental elements, such as tornadoes, balloons and cliffs that you can wallride, expanding the original gameplay without changing too much.
Airmail ($ 4.99)
Airmail is a powerful email client for macOS and for some time has made the leap on the iPhone and iPad. It offers a rich set of features and interface elements designed with the latest version of iOS in mind. The app provides support for Gmail, Exchange EWS, IMAP and POP3 systems, with gestural controls, single or threaded message views, labels, filtered search and more, all synchronized between your Mac and iPhone. Airmail also works well with other services, supporting the import of documents from OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox and allowing you to open links in many different browsers. It also has “send to” support for apps and services like Trello, Evernote, and Pocket.
Agenda (free)
Another app that arrives on iOS after conquering fans on Mac, Agenda is an app that has a date-oriented organizational approach. Your notes get timestamps, which allows you to easily view your progress as projects evolve. Agenda allows you to organize notes by project or category. You can also highlight specific elements, making them easier to find. Synchronize your notes on iCloud or share them in a variety of formats. Everything is easy to use, with a $9.99 in-app purchase unlock the premium features available in this iOS version.
Astropad Standard (iPad: $ 29.99)
Astropad turns your iPad into a mobile graphic tablet for your favorite Mac apps like Photoshop, Illustrator or Pixelmator. Just connect the iPad to your Mac via USB or WiFi, and Astropad allows you to draw on your touchscreen directly in your graphic apps, turning your iPad into an alternative to an expensive graphic tablet. The app supports a variety of styles brands, such as Apple Pencil, Adobe Ink and others. It also includes customizable shortcuts. Professional users looking for even greater functionality may also want to try subscription-based Astropad Studio, which requires an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
Bear (free)
Bear is a flexible app for writing and taking notes, ideal for annotating quick notes, doodles, poems and prose or even code fragments. The focus mode allows you to enter the business world and a markup editor supports 20 different programming languages. Support for images and photos in-line combined with Apple Pencil and hand drawing make adding scribbles and illustrations a simple task. Bear also includes cross-linked links and tag support for easy searching. A pro subscription – $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year – includes note synchronization, export options for multiple file types and extra editing tools.
Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 (free, unlock $ 29.99)
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI brings the historic 4x game premier to your touch screen, leading you to the great earthly civilizations from the Stone Age to the future. Explore the world, take advantage of its resources and develop your culture and science, carefully balancing your military and diplomatic needs in this compelling strategic title. The game allows you to try the first 60 rounds for free, after which you will have to pay the full price ($29.99) for the rest of the game, with additional civilizations and scenario packages available as in-app purchases. You’ll need a fairly new iPad to run the game.
Deliveries ($4.99)
Deliveries is one of the best all-in-one package monitoring apps available online, with support for a variety of services, such as UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL. A simple system allows you to enter package information via tracking numbers or via iCloud synchronization that extracts delivery information from emails and receipts to automatically fill in the list of incoming deliveries. You can then view a quick summary of the inbox and delivered timelines of ETA and packages; you can even find the location of your packages on a map, if available, or through the provider’s online monitoring portal. A widget today keeps you informed of upcoming packages and informs you of package arrivals.
Halide ($4.99)
Halide is a camera app that balances powerful functionality and a user-friendly interface. Customizable gesture controls let you easily adjust focus and exposure settings, and more in-depth controls such as manual camera settings and focus peaks are available for greater control. Whether you’re shooting simple automatic shots with autofocus or you’re trying to create a more studied and technical shot, it’s worth taking a look at Halide. Now that it is available even for iPhone X, Halide has even begun to integrate new features, such as an interface created for the edge-to-edge screen, along with editing tools that take advantage of depth detection with the new dual cameras of the phone.
Affinity Photo ($19.99)
When it’s time to do some serious photo editing, you do not need to break down MacBook Pro. Just contact Affinity Photo, an iPad exclusive that offers professional photo editing tools. The developer Serif Labs states that this iPad app was created from the same back end of the desktop version of Affinity Photo, tailored only for Apple tablets. Highlights include full support for unlimited levels, retouching and correction tools and an advanced brush engine among other pro-focused features. And Serif Labs promises fast performance that can benefit from tools like Apple Pencil.
Just Press Record ($4.99)
Just Press Record is a versatile one-tap recording app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with built-in transcription features to help you capture notes. Users can record with a long press on the app icon, from a lock screen or from a notification widget. (There is also an Apple Complication watch just press Record if you have one of Apple’s smartwatches.) The app can transcribe the speech with support for a number of spoken languages. The recordings are sorted by date and time and can be renamed manually. The transcription also allows you to search through the recordings for specific terms. Recordings and transcriptions sync to iCloud and you can share them with a variety of apps.
Overcast (free)
Overcast is an app for iOS podcast by Marco Ament, creator of Instapaper, offers a clean design and audio management features that make it a great mobile podcatcher. It features the basics of podcatching for episode downloads, new episode notifications, offline playback and podcast detection. It contains Voice Boost that normalizes the sound levels of the voice, automatically increasing the silent voices and lowering the noisy voices. Smart Speed automatically stops spaces and silence in the podcast, accelerating the player without distorting the sound. Some Overcast features are blocked or limited in the free version, which can be unlocked with a $ 4.99 in-app purchase.