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There are thousands of iOS apps to choose from - so many, in fact, that it can be hard to suss out which ones are worth downloading to try.

Whether you're an experienced iPhone user or someone who has recently left Android for iOS, finding the perfect app for, say, sending email, checking the weather, jotting notes or playing a relaxing game is no easy task. You have a multitude of options, and with the Apple App Store serving up ads in some search results, it's even more difficult to discern which apps are the best. Luckily, we at Pocket-lint have tried more apps than you can imagine and have been using the iPhone since it first released.

To help you out, we've made this ultimate guide to the best iPhone apps. Download any of these, and you won't be disappointed. We ordered the apps by category to make it easy to digest.

Best iPhone audiobook and podcast apps

Audiobooks and podcasts are a great way to speed up a long drive or make a workout a little easier. Deciding on which app to use to listen to your podcasts can be as simple as using the built-in Apple Podcast app on your iPhone. However, there are some better options out there in our opinion.

Overcast-1
Overcast

Overcast is an app specifically designed for podcasts, with a host of cool features that similar apps lack. That includes a Smart Speed feature. It speeds up your podcast during pauses in speech or other lulls. Voice Boost is another feature that improves audio quality of Podcast speakers, making it so everyone's voice hits your ears at the same volume.

Other top audiobooks and podcast app picks

Our other picks are all great options but are pretty interchangeable.

  • Spotify - Spotify offers sped-up audio for podcasts and no ads if you're a premium subscriber.
  • Apple Podcasts - Apple's built-in Podcast app is great for finding new podcasts.
  • Audible - Audible is the best choice if you're looking for Audiobooks. It also offers original audio-only series.

Best iPhone e-book and reading apps

Reading a book might be the one way you can stare at your phone for hours on end without feeling bad after. Of course, spending hours reading a book means picking an app. Apple offers its built-in Books app on your iPhone, but we went with another big-name book app for our No. 1 choice.

Kindle-1
Kindle

Kindle is the reading app from Amazon. It's our No. 1 choice because the app turns your iPhone into a Kindle e-reader whenever you open it.You get the same great features from Kindle, like X-Ray reference tool or the WhisperSync feature that will read the book aloud while you read along.

Other top iPhone e-book and reading app picks

Our other top book picks each come from Apple and Google. They are fairly similar, but we would rank the Google Play Books and Audiobooks app ahead of Apple Books just because it's a little more versatile by easily letting you open your books in other apps.

Best iPhone dating apps

If you're single, dating apps can be a great way to meet that special someone. Of course, it may just take wading through a few thousand not-so-special someones in order to get to a person worth your time. To get that number down, here are our best dating apps for the iPhone.

Bumble-1
Bumble

Bumble works by giving women the power to make the first move, making like the Sadie Hawkins dance of dating apps.After a woman matches with a man, that guy will have 24 hours to respond. In same-gender matches, matches with two non-binary people, or matches between non-binary people and men, either side will be able to make the first move.

Other top dating app picks

There are a ton of dating apps out there, and the most important factor you should consider when choosing one is if they're reputable. But all of these apps subsist on getting you to sign up for in-app purchases or subscriptions.

  • Tinder - Tinder is basically the same as Bumble, but without women making the first move.
  • Grindr - A dating app designed specifically for the LGBTQ community.
  • OkCupid - OkCupid works like a social media app where you create a profile and message other users freely.

Best iPhone finance apps

Finance apps can encompass many apps that all do different things. We led off our list with the built-in Apple Wallet mostly because of one feature, but each app we've included in our other top finance picks also contains really valuable tools to help you save money, purchase stocks, or just split a bill with friends.

Apple Wallet
Apple Wallet

Apple Wallet offers Apple Pay, which lets you pay with a tap at most stores using just your phone.You can also apply for Apple's credit card or apply to get a new Apple device on credit within the Wallet app as well.

Other top iPhone finance apps

The App Store offers a ton of apps aimed at helping your finances in all sorts of ways, from investing to sending money to friends.

  • Venmo - Venmo is a social media platform for sharing money.
  • Acorn - Acorn rounds up to the nearest dollar whenever you make a purchase and starts a savings for you.
  • Fidelity Investments - Fidelity is a trusted brand with a great app for trading stocks.
  • Coinbase - Coinbase is our top choice for a bitcoin wallet.

Best iPhone games

The best game for you will probably come down to what type of games you enjoy. Luckily, there's a ton of options to choose from. If you're interested in taking full advantage of what the iPhone can do gaming-wise, check out the Apple Arcade subscription. It'll give you free access to over 200+ games in the App Store.

Fortnite
Fortnite

Despite being six years old, Fortnite is still one of the most popular console games, which makes it an easy choice for our top gaming app.Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, has had problems with Apple in the past regarding splitting up profits from Fortnite, so you'll have to download the game from the Epic Games store.

Best other iPhone games

Whether you're into classic games like Oregon Trail or the newest indie developer titles, there is a never-ending list of options for gamers directly in the App Store. Here are some more of the best picks:

  • Among Us - Among Us is a multiplayer game that rose to massive heights of popularity in 2020.
  • Pokemon Go - Catch all your favourite Pokemon while making sure you get all your steps in.
  • The Oregon Trail - An updated version of the classic desktop game is available in the App Store.
  • Don't Starve: Pocket Edition - The survival indie hit Don't Starve has a mobile version now available.

Best iPhone health and fitness apps

Tracking your health and fitness has never been easier with an iPhone. The top two iPhone Health and Fitness are, well, Apple's Health and Fitness apps. It might seem obvious, but they offer great features and are free with the iPhone - while many of the other great health and fitness apps have subscription tiers. There are still many other awesome apps that offer specific benefits for tracking your diet and workouts, or monitoring how you sleep at night.

Apple Fitness
Apple Health and Fitness

The best options for health and fitness apps in an iPhone come straight from Apple.Apple's Health and Fitness apps let you monitor your steps, as well as your heart rate and other vitals if you have an Apple Watch. They also can track how you're sleeping and the effectiveness of your workouts.

Other iPhone health and fitness app choices

While the Apple in-house apps do a great job giving you a little bit of everything, there are other apps that might be perfect for a more specific issue, like sleeping trouble or dieting help.

  • MyFitnessPal - A great way to track your calories for a diet or how much you're burning off exercising.
  • Nike Training Club - Offers access to exclusive training-led workouts and workout plans.
  • Sleepscore - This app uses sonar to give you a score for how you're sleeping.

Best iPhone music app

Taking your music with you everywhere you go has always been one of the best parts of having an iPhone. Now the problem is just deciding which service you'd like to go with.

Spotify
Spotify

Spotify is our pick as the best music streaming app for iPhones. Spotify uses. the lossy Ogg Vorbis audio format for high-quality streaming 320kbps audio. That goes along with an ever-expanding list of features that include car mode, crossfading tracks, and remote group sessions.

Other top iPhone music apps

There are other great music streaming apps to pick from - depending on what you're looking for and how you like to listen to your music. There's also music editing apps, like Garageband, as well.

  • Apple Music - Make sure your iPhone or other Apple devices didn't enable you to six months free of Apple Music.
  • YouTube Music - If you prefer watching music videos or live concerts then YouTube TV is the way to go.
  • Garageband - Garageband is a music editing app for the aspiring musicians out there.

Best iPhone photo and video apps

One of the most impressive parts of every iPhone are its cameras and, of course, there are apps that give you access to new photo-editing tools to make those impressive pictures even better. There's also a selection of apps that will supercharge the power of your iPhone camera. We went with Google Photos as our top photo and video app. The main difference between it and our second choice, Adobe Lightroom, is that Google Photos is free.

Google Photos - PL
Google Photos

Google Photos is our choice for best photo and video app.Photos offers the obvious perks you'd expect like unlimited storage of all your pictures and videos. It also has easy to use editing features to help make sure everyone looks great in all your pics.

Other top iPhone camera and photo apps

In addition to Google Photos, there are also more intensive photo editing apps, like Adobe Lightroom, as well as apps that improve your camera performance in the app store.

  • Adobe Lightroom - Lightroom is a phone-sized version of Photoshop that costs $9.99 per month.
  • Halide - Halide offers RAW image storage, which leads to better images, along with many more camera improvements.

Best iPhone security apps

We most often think of security apps like Norton and McAfee as tools for our desktops and laptops. Our phones can be exposed to more viruses and malware than those devices, so it makes sense to protect our phones the same way.

Norton
Norton 360

Norton 360 offers antivirus and malware protection for your phone, as well as a password manager, a smart firewall, and 2GB of Cloud backup storage. There are more features, including NortonVPN, available for higher subscription tiers.

Other top iPhone security apps

The most important factor in choosing a security app is making sure you're dealing with a reputable and trustworthy company. Cheaper security apps can just be fronts for harvesting your data. Here's a couple more quality security apps.

Best iPhone shopping apps

Shopping is one of the best ways to pass the time on your phone. Which one you should go with is all dependent on what you're looking for, and how fast you need it on your doorstep. For those two reasons, Amazon Shopping is our top pick for iPhone shopping apps.

Amazon - PL
Amazon

Amazon offers two-day shipping to all Amazon Prime members. Their online shop allows users to find just about anything they're looking to buy. Those two factors alone make it one of the iPhone shopping apps, before adding in exclusive sale events like Prime Day.

Other top iPhone shopping picks

Walmart offers the next best thing to the Amazon Shopping app, but if you're looking for specific products, like furniture, clothing, or jewellery, there are tons of specialized retailers with great apps.

  • Walmart - If you're looking for the next closest thing to Amazon's shopping app, then look no further than Walmart.
  • Shein - Shein offers amazing deals on clothing, although the shipping can take a little while.
  • eBay - eBay is a shopping and selling marketplace where you can sell your own stuff.
  • Etsy - Etsy is filled with shops filled with items from different creators and artists.
  • Wayfair - The best app for furniture and home goods.

Best iPhone smart home apps

Once you avoid getting up to shut the lights off by doing it on your phone, you'll be hooked on smart home gadgets. That means deciding on an app that you'll use as a hub to control them all. We went with Amazon's Alexa app because it's usually a slightly easier set-up than the Apple or Google counterparts. It's not enough to make a huge difference if you're already in the ecosystem of either one of those though.

Alexa
Amazon Alexa

Amazon's Alexa app is our choice for the best smart home app for iPhone. That's because in our expansive experience setting up smart home devices, it is usually the easiest app to get a new device going.Alexa works with just about every major smart home brand. It's an even better option if you have Amazon's Echo speakers around the house.

Other top iPhone smart home apps

Our other top choices come from the other big Tech brands, Apple and Google. The biggest reason you might want to opt for one of these apps over Alexa is if you prefer to deal with one brand's ecosystem, AI assistant, or home speaker set-up.

  • Apple Home app - Apple's Home app is a great choice if you're already fully enveloped in Apple's ecosystem.
  • Google Home app - Google's Home app is perfect if you're already set up with Google's speakers and other smart home devices.

Best iPhone education apps

Education apps can cover a lot of different things. There are apps like Duolingo, that are built around teaching you a new skill. Then there are apps like Google Classroom, which has become a necessity for students and parents all over the world. There are also a ton of apps that can help prepare slideshows and presentations for students if you need them. If you're a parent you probably already know how.

Duolingo
Duolingo

Duolingo is used by over 5 million users every day to help learn a new language. It also recently added math lessons as well.The app gamifies the process of learning by setting attainable goals in small practice sessions that will, hopefully, keep you coming back until you're proficient.

Other top iPhone education apps

iPhones can be a great way to build new skills and learn new things. The hard part is finding the right app. Here are some of the best options.

  • Google Classroom - Google Classroom has become commonplace throughout classrooms.
  • Kahoot - Kahoot is used to create short trivia and quizzes for review in classrooms.
  • Khan Academy - Khan Academy is a study resource for students.
  • Canva - Presentation creator for both students or businesses.

Best iPhone entertainment apps

At its core, the iPhone is built for entertainment. Still, its smaller screen means it might not be your first choice for streaming the latest movie release. Instead, we went with the best apps for entertaining you on a smaller screen. So, our top choice for the best iPhone entertainment app is YouTube, with TikTok and Reddit coming in close behind. We also included our top streaming service apps below them.

YouTube-1
YouTube

YouTube is Google's video platform, and it's our No. 1 choice for best iPhone entertainment app because of the diverse type of content it offers.YouTube has full-length movies and shows, tons of user-created content for every niche you can think of, and now with YouTube Shorts, it also has a TikTok clone.

Other top iPhone entertainment apps

Choosing the best entertainment apps for you depends on what you find entertaining. The first question you should ask if whether you're more likely to use an app that's based on video or reading. Video apps include your streaming services and apps like YouTube and TikTok. The more reading-intensive ones are apps like Reddit and X/Twitter.

  • Reddit - Reddit is filled with communities based around shared interests.
  • TikTok - TikTok is a social media platform filled with short, fun, and informative videos.
  • Netflix - Netflix is one of the leading streaming services with hits like Stranger Things.
  • Prime Video - Amazon Prime subscribers get free access to Prime Video as well.
  • Hulu - Hulu is the home for streaming most of your favourite TV shows.
  • Disney+ - Disney+ is one of the newer streaming services but has an impressive catalogue.
  • X/Twitter - X/Twitter is a great choice if you're just looking to find something interesting to read for a few minutes.

Best iPhone food apps

Food delivery service apps like DoorDash and GrubHub allow you to get food delivered right to your doorstep without speaking to another person if you don't feel like it. Choosing the right food delivery app starts with availability in your area. DoorDash is more widely available, but Grubhub usually has less in additional fees.

DoorDash
DoorDash

DoorDash is a food delivery service app that can pick up your order from all the restaurants in your area and deliver it directly to your door.It's more widely available than our second choice, GrubHub. While it can be slightly more expensive than GrubHub, the DashPass subscription service negates any difference between the two while DoorDash also pays its drivers more.

Other top iPhone food apps

  • Grubhub - Our second choice may be the top choice depending on availability where you live.
  • UberEats - Formerly Postmates, UberEats is another top Food Delivery service with wide availability.
  • Instacart - Instacart is based more on delivering your groceries than fast food.

Best iPhone messaging apps

Finding a messaging app can be as easy as just using the stock Messages app that comes on your iPhone. Apple offers end-to-end encryption on all texts between Apple devices, so it's a perfectly fine and secure option. If you're looking for something even more secure, our top option is Signal.

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Signal

Signal is a messaging app that prioritizes security above all else. It offers end-to-end encryption on all messages, and disappearing messages, and is built to protect your data better than other messaging apps.It also features everything you'd expect like a camera for sending photos in messages, in addition to more social media-like features, for instance, the ability to post stories for your friends to see.

Other top iPhone messaging apps

The other top choices come down to what you're looking for. Meta's messenger app is our second choice because of how easy it is to find your friends and family, so long as they have a Facebook or Instagram account.

  • Messenger - Meta's messaging app is built to connect with people you're already friends with on social media.
  • Messages - Apple's in-house messaging app is a great option that includes encrypted messages.
  • Snapchat - Snapchat is a great option for starting up a group chat with all your friends.

Best iPhone productivity apps

iPhones can be a great tool for staying productive. Unfortunately, most of the other apps we're listing here can slow you down from hitting the goals you need to achieve. That's where productivity apps come in clutch. Whether you're just looking for help managing all the tasks you need to accomplish or finding the best app to open your email in, we've rounded up the best options, but topping the list is Todoist.

Todoist
Todoist

Todoist helps you break up tasks into on-step-at-a-time to-do lists.It can be used as a self-help organizer, like a day planner. If you used your day planners throughout school, this app can function as that for your adult life.You can also use it to work collaboratively with others on large projects.

Other top iPhone productivity apps

This is another category of apps that offer tons of options for specific needs. There are a few great options for email apps, as well as calendars, and writing and planning tools like Google Docs. Our two next productivity options are Apple Mail and Gmail. We ranked Apple Mail slightly ahead of Gmail, just because we found Apple's version runs a little more effectively on the iPhone than its Google counterpart.

  • Apple Mail - Apple's email app comes preloaded into your iPhone.
  • Gmail - Gmail is a great choice if you're looking to manage multiple email accounts.
  • Google Calendar - Google Calendar is a great way to manage your day or keep track of your schedule.
  • Google Docs - Google Docs is a collaborative writing app that's part of Google Suite.
  • Microsoft Outlook - Microsoft's answer to an email reading app.

Best iPhone social media apps

Chances are you already have at least one social media app you're using regularly. We're going with Instagram as our top choice, mainly because it's currently the second-most used social media app in the US while combining a lot of the best features available in other social media platforms.

Instagram - PL
Instagram

Instagram is owned by Facebook's parent company Meta.Instagram started as a place to post and edit your photos with a nice caption. It has since evolved into a place where you can find comparable or better versions of other social media platforms' best features. Things like Instagram stories and hashtags started at other social media platforms before coming to Instagram and helping make it a better app.

Other top iPhone social media apps

  • TikTok - Watch short-form video content from users all over the world.
  • Twitter/X - Twitter/X used to be a great way to get real-time news updates, but, uhh, new leadership and all.
  • Snapchat - Snapchat is a photo-sharing-based social media and messaging app.
  • Facebook - The most-used Social Media platform in the US, but it's also constantly embroiled in data-stealing controversies.
  • LinkedIn - A social media platform built entirely around furthering your career and building relationships with colleagues.

Best iPhone travel and transportation apps

Travel and transportation apps are another category that covers a wide range of apps. There are ride-share platforms like Uber and Lyft. Then, there are apps that help you when traveling like Google Maps, Roadtrippers, and Hopper. There are also apps that'll help you find a place to stay, like Airbnb and the Booking.com app.

We're going with Uber as our top choice though. We believe the ride-sharing apps are just going to be used a lot whether you're visiting or living in a city looking to get around easily.

Uber
Uber

Uber is our choice over Lyft for the best iPhone travel app.There are two main reasons for that: Uber is on average quite a bit cheaper than Lyft, especially if you avoid high usage times. The other reason is that Uber is more widely available, as Lyft only operates in the US and Canada.

Other top iPhone travel and transportation apps

There are a ton of travel and transportation apps that cover everything you need to pull off your next trip or vacation without a hitch. That includes apps that help you find the cheapest flight or the coolest pitstop on your road trip.

  • Lyft - The other top ride-sharing platform in the US and Canada.
  • Google Maps - Google Maps is the best option for guiding you to your destination.
  • Airbnb - You can skip the hotel and stay at an apartment or home with Airbnb.
  • Hopper - Hopper is a tool to help you get the best possible price on your next flight.
  • Roadtrippers - Roadtrippers will help you find the best and weirdest roadside stops on your trip.
  • Booking.com - Booking.com's app is the best place to find a hotel at a great price.

Best iPhone weather apps

The best weather app for iPhone is pretty clear-cut. Carrot Weather lets you pull in weather data from multiple sources to compile the most accurate possible weather for where you live.

Carrot
Carrot Weather

Carrot uses Foreca, one of the world's most accurate weather services, to power its basic forecasting services. From there, subscribers can add data from other weather services to improve the accuracy of the forecast. You can pair Carrot with your own personal weather station.

Other top iPhone Weather apps

Our other top choices are The Weather Channel app and Apple Weather. We've decided to give The Weather Channel app the nod here because in our experience it's just been more accurate. It's also less glitchy when trying to access the radar screens.

How did I choose these apps?

I chose each app on this list through a combination of App Store user review ratings and my own personal experience as an iPhone user for the last decade. Every top choice either represents an app I would have trouble living without now (such as TikTok and Overcast), or one that takes tasks off my plate and makes so I don't have to worry (like Todoist and Norton 360).