Your Must-Have iPhone Apps List for 2020

Software
1

As 2019 was ending, I was thinking of creating a list of my must-have apps for iPhone. I made myself notice the apps that I was using the most and have fun using. I then created a list of the 20 apps that I must-have on my iPhone. The apps are:

  1. Headspace
  2. Things 3
  3. Spark
  4. Sofa
  5. Audible
  6. LastPass
  7. Jumbo
  8. 1Blocker
  9. LookUp
  10. Halide
  11. Snapseed
  12. Paprika Recipe Manager 3
  13. Overcast
  14. Dark Sky
  15. Drafts
  16. Diarly
  17. Reeder 4
  18. Calzy
  19. 1.1.1.1
  20. Cocoon

I know I can cut a couple of apps from this list if I wanted to, but these are my must-have apps for 2020. I have written a blog post on the same if anyone is interested in reading it. You can find why these apps made the cut in the blog.

The reason I am writing this post is that I want to hear from fellow MacPowerUsers. What are your must-have iPhone apps

5 Likes
2

Todoist and Fantastical.

3

Here are my most used apps.

Drafts
1Password
Overcast
Dark Sky
Drafts
Day One
Maps
ETA
Hootsuite
Meetup
Pcalc
Soulver
Polarr
Camera
Camera+ 2
Instagram
Dayflash
Informant 5

4

Those are two great apps. I don’t know how I forgot to include Fantastical on my list.

5

Soulver looks like a great app. I am going to try it out. Thanks for sharing your list.

6

Thanks for sharing yours. I will be trying out Sofa.

1 Like
7

My list:

  1. Tidal
  2. Overcast
  3. LastPass
  4. Due
  5. Drafts (free tier)
  6. PCalc
8

I have never tried Tidal. Is Tidal really worth paying extra? Thanks for sharing your list.

9

I personally prefer Apple Music, but earlier I posted about Tidal’s current offer of 5 months for $5 (even for a 5-person Family plan), so it’s a cheap way to try for yourself (aside from the usual 30-day free trial)

1 Like
10

Overall a really interesting list. Especially interesting to me since my most-used, most-relied-upon apps are largely quite a bit different:

  • Hello Weather (with $6.99 subscription)
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Nuzzel
  • AAA (All About Apple), unlocked
  • NewsBlur/Unread/Reeder (never picked an RSS winner)
  • Ulysses (subscription)
  • IA Writer
  • Drafts (free)
  • Cardhop
  • Google Voice
  • Day One
  • 1Password
  • Pocket Casts
  • Starbucks
  • Camera+
  • Todoist (Pro subscription)
  • Anylist (subscription)
  • Readdle Calendars 5 (Pro version)
  • Firefox Focus (I use its Content Blocker to supplement Safari privacy)
  • Brave (has its own content blocker built in)
  • Pocket (subscription)
  • Pedometer++
  • Instagram
  • Jumbo (clears out old Facebook searches, archives old messages/tweets)
  • WeCroak (Pro)
  • CheapCharts
  • TimeShutter
1 Like
11

This is interesting to me mostly because I have many apps that I like to use but I don’t consider must haves.

So, must haves:

  • lire (using Inoreader for sync)
  • Apollo for reddit
  • 1Password
  • overcast
  • Libby by Overdrive
  • ExpressVPN (more generically, an app which manages my vpn)

Nice to haves but think I’d be ok if I used system version :

  • Bear
  • Things 3
  • Dark Sky
  • Fantastical
1 Like
12

Must haves:

  • Lose It
  • Fiery Feeds
  • Pocket
  • Twitterrific
  • WhatsApp
  • Instagram
  • Carrot Weather
  • Strava
  • Overcast
  • Slack
  • Fitbod
  • OneDrive
  • Slopes

Nice to haves:

  • Messenger
  • Apollo
  • AutoSleep
  • YouTube
  • Spark
2 Likes
13

Thanks for the tip. I will check out thee 5-month plan and see how it goes!!

14

Nice list. There are several new apps for me to check out.

15

Good call. I forgot to mention this! It might even be the single most expensive one-time IAP I ever made ($24) to get the full unlock, including notifications. I’d used a couple of Reddit clients before this one but it’s head and shoulders the best and most iOS-like Reddit client I found. Dev used to work for Apple if I remember right.

2 Likes
16

Drafts
GoodTask
Reeder 4
Readdle Calendar 5
Readdle Documents
Shortcuts
1Password
Trello
Pocket Casts
Musi
Soundy
Dynalist
Paperlogix

:wink:

2 Likes
17

Ignoring platform first party apps, current must haves:

Clear Outside
Star Walk 2
PS Align Pro Watch version
Duolingo
Feedly
Dark Sky
Google Translate
DiscourseHub
Today (weather app still works but is no longer maintained and you can’t add more cities)
Aeon Timeline
iThoughts
Scrivener
Ulysses (pre subscription version)

Apps that I occasionally must use despite how frustrating they are
High-Def Radar
Overcast - currently in the doghouse after burning through about 30GB of data in a day when I let it use wireless data

1 Like
19

For iPhone (as opposed to iPad):

  1. 1Password

  2. Mail

  3. Messages

  4. Safari

  5. Pocket Casts

  6. Audible

  7. Yarra Plenty Library / Overdrive/Borrow box

  8. Omnifocus

  9. Notes

  10. Scanner Pro

1Password

20

I spend more time on my iPad in apps than I do on my phone. The iPhone gets used for more things when I am mobile and don’t have the iPad with me. I also use a number of built in apps extensively. As example I use Apple Maps for navigation because of the way it works with the watch, announcing turns. I’m also retired so not much work related.

Overcast
Financial calc (HP 12c emulator)
Carrot weather
Wikipedia
1Password
Buy me a pie
Yelp

21

@appsntips The reason I use Tidal is that it offers lossless audio in CD quality. It was my only option for a long time, but now it seems Deezer is adding the “hifi” tier as well. I have not tested Deezer yet, and it is a hassle to change streaming providers… Maybe later.

Most people don’t listen that carefully to music (much of the time, I don’t either) but for focused headphone listening sessions, the added detail and clarity of high quality audio is worth it to me.

1 Like