December 24, 2019

 

My favorite iOS apps

There are an infinite number of “best apps” lists, so I thought, “why not make another one?” So here is a list of my favorite apps…maybe some of these will be lesser known gems!

  • Dark Skies - there are so many weather apps, but they either seem to have too much or too little info. This app is the perfect balance of just what you need, and it’s extremely precise!
  • Transit - there are lots of popular navigation apps (WAZE, Google Maps, etc) - what makes this one awesome is that it’s focus is on helping you navigate public transit. The UI is awesome. I’ve always thought that public transit can be a little frustrating to figure out, but this app makes the experience easy to understand.
  • iA Writer - I really love the iA Writer app’s minimal distraction-free writing interface.
  • Brave - all browsers that run on iOS are required to use the WebKit rendering engine. This is a requirement of Apple for a browser to be allowed on the App Store, but Brave comes with built in add blocking and the HTTPS everywhere extension built in.
  • Spotify - music, podcasts, a great UI make this the best music app on iOS
  • Pixel People - I was really sad because my favorite iOS game was gone for a long time but now it’s surprisingly been resurrected! It’s kind of a city-building game like the original Sim City with the added job or repopulating humanity. The graphics are in the style of retro games from the 8 and 16-bit era. It’s amazingly fun and addictive.
  • Downwell - a very fun game with simple mechanics, a retro 8-bit style macabre art style. The user falls down a well (hence the title) and uses gun-boots to blast enemies as they plummet further down.
  • Flipboard - I’ve always liked the way that Flipboard presents interesting articles.

You’ll notice I didn’t include any social media apps in this list. Well that’s because it’s become clear to me that social media is a form of digital poison that should be minimized in our lives.