It's becoming an increasingly difficult chore trying to scour the App Store for decent apps given its very saturated library. A plethora of excellent apps intermingle with shovelware, and it's often a tall order to sort the ones worthy of downloading from the ones that aren't. A tall order, sure, but not impossible. Here's a chief list of the best iPhone apps for 2016.
Evernote
Evernote has struggled to sustain its relevance given the amount of alternative note-taking apps available in the App Store. Despite this, Evernote remains the definitive app of choice for rigorous note-taking for research and bundling ideas in multiple notebooks. It has become the general grab-bag tool for storing memories, and users never have to worry about losing notes since everything is synced to the cloud and is accessible in a variety of platforms such as PC, Mac and even Android devices.
Evernote is available for free on the App Store with different subscription models available.
Waze
For travel junkies or the common folk not gifted with inherent navigational skills and street know-how, the free community based traffic and navigation app Waze surely comes in handy. The app even detects how fast its host is driving the vehicle and provides alternative detours mid-traffic to expedite the driver's commute. Beyond its ingenious traffic solutions, Waze will also notify the users with regard to constructions, accidents and instances when police are within vicinity.
1Password
1Password allows users to store unique passwords for all devices that they use, eliminating the daunting chore of having to remember bizarre password combinations. Users just have to remember one password and 1Password takes the remaining chore out of users' hands.
IFTTT
IFTTT or "if this, then that" in the longform, allows users to outfit apps with triggers to have them automatically perform a secondary task when the trigger is activated. For example, one can order IFTTT to save each photo a user uploads to Instagram onto Dropbox or Google Drive. It's a terrific cross ecosystem for apps as it assumes the bulk of a user's workload. More importantly, so many so-called "recipes" are being added on a regular basis, and there's likely at least one or two that'll cater to users' needs. The best part? It's free.
SwiftKey
SwiftKey is a free keyboard alternative for iPhone. For a long time, Apple didn't allow installation of third-party keyboards for the iPhone, but this all changed two years ago when Apple decided to let users install other keyboard apps as iOS 8 became available. Swiftkey is arguably one of the best alternative keyboard apps out there. It learns nuances and spelling preferences overtime as a user types, making for a truly smart keyboard.
Slack
Slack has been the choice corporate messaging app of late with its beautiful user-interface and a laundry list of tools that make messaging between colleagues easier. It's free, it works, it's pretty and it's fast.
WhatsApp is the leading messaging app for smartphones in the world, most prominently used in China but slowly bleeding into huge relevance in other markets over time. The app offers messaging, voice calling and video calling over the internet. It's single-handedly one of the best messaging apps out there.
Duolingo
Duolingo makes learning other languages easy, interactive and most importantly, fun. It's a completely free tool that parses learning into minute daily chunks of information so users aren't exhausted with learning new languages. Sure, it's a far cry from Rosetta Stone, but Duolingo still packs a punch.
Adobe Photoshop Fix
Adobe Photoshop Fix augmented and packaged the most basic photo manipulation tools in the desktop version of Photoshop and put it inside the iPhone for fast, easy and powerful image editing. It's free and it hosts a number of editing tools useful enough for quick photo touch-ups before posting on Instagram.
Prisma
Prisma is a free app that essentially turns one's photos into something that belongs inside a gallery. The app uses server-side neural networks with the help of artificial intelligence to render photos into styles very reminiscent of famous painters.
Magisto
Over 80 million users have downloaded Magisto, one of the finest and most stylish video editing app for the iPhone and the iPad. The app is free to download with a yearly subscription model that's quite a bit pricey. Magisto has a lot of video editing features, but the "Auto Video Maker" feature, which turns photos into video stories, is quite popular among its user base.
Snapchat
Snapchat, made by the recently renamed Snap Inc., needs no introduction at all. It's an oft-wacky augmented reality-powered camera app that lets users share photos or videos with a short lifespan. It's fun, it's quick and it's silly; the three things an app needs to win hearts.
Spotify
Spotify has been the longtime choice for a definitive music subscription app for both iOS and Android. For $10 a month, users can have access to Spotify's already-large yet still massively growing music library. It's a hyper-rare occurrence that one's favorite artist won't be on Spotify.
Overcast
Overcast is a simple, powerful, fast and fully featured Podcast client for iOS. With features such as "Smart Speed," "Voice Boost" and "Smarter Playlists," Overcast heralds the discovery of new content as one of its most important selling points. Overcast is available in the App Store for free, but there's a premium option to remove ads.
Google Duo
FaceTime killer Google Duo has a huge advantage over FaceTime: Android to iOS video conferencing and vice versa. The app is a little slow in generating traction, but once it gathers a sizable chunk of users, it's not hard to imagine it being the video calling app of choice.
Bonus Apps
Day One Journal is an excellent note-taking app for those who prefer something simpler than Evernote. Its bare bones approach to writing makes for a finely trimmed journaling experience without unnecessary add-ons.
RunGo is an app that generates routes for daily runs with GPS voice navigation to make sure a user is always on track. Best of all, the app features a running community with tons of running routes, freshening up each running activity.
Signal makes private messaging simple, easy and intuitive. The app will never have access to the owner's server nor will it store any data shared between conversation inside the app.
Mint is an excellent app for tracking expenses, creating budgets, receiving bill reminders alongside getting tips and tricks for saving money and reducing fees.
Instapaper saves all articles to be read later and renders it in a streamlined, clutter-free view, eliminating unnecessary elements that turn reading into a visually heavy chore.
Thought of an app that's not on this list? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
