Maybe you picked up a one of the best iPhones over the holidays, either as a gift or as treat for yourself. Or maybe you've had the same iPhone for a while and just want to freshen things up at the start of a new year. Whatever the reason, nothing makes an iPhone feel like it's fresh out of the box like installing new offerings from the App Store.
By default, Apple's phones include a ton of built-in features that make them more than capable, everything from tracking your to-do lists to playing music and watching TV. But if you're looking to take things a step beyond what's preloaded on your phone, the App Store lets you take a step into an expansive — and at times overwhelming — world of third-party iPhone apps. Not only can these apps extend what you can do with your smartphone, but sometimes they do it even better than the vanilla default options.
CARROT Weather
Yes, Apple has its own weather app. And it's not bad. But like many of Apple's built-in offerings, it sticks to a one-size-fits-all approach. That's where CARROT Weather comes in.
This award-winning weather app is incredibly customizable, not only featuring tons of built-in themes, but also letting you choose exactly what information you want to prioritize or hide. For example, if you care about things like the current UV level or air quality than the current wind speed or phase of the moon, you can choose to feature those more prominently.
CARROT Weather also supports a variety of different weather sources to pull from, offers live activities for precipitation, and has several widget options. Plus, who can say no to its snarky robot personality? (Well, you can, if you don't care for it: like the app itself, the app's tone is fully customizable.)
Flighty
For globetrotters, there is simply no better tool than Flighty. This flight tracker extraordinaire keeps you up to date on your own flights, complete with live activities and up-to-the-moment notifications that often beat what you get from dedicated apps put out by various airlines. You can also share those details with friends and loved ones, even if they don't use the app, and track your friends' flights too.
Flighty can sync with your calendar or travel site TripIt, as well as let you import your flights by simply forwarding on your confirmation emails. While many of the best features require a $4.99/monthly Flighty Pro subscription, one of my favorite options is that you can pay for just a week's subscription if you only need it for a particular trip.
Fantastical
While Apple offers a perfectly serviceable built-in calendar app, Flexibits's Fantastical is the undisputed choice for power users. In addition to allowing you to manage a slew of different calendars with its calendar sets feature, Fantastical lets you integrate your to-do lists and sports several different ways to view your calendar. (I like the clever DayTicker interface that lets you swipe back and forth while showing an easy-to-read list of appointments).
The app also includes powerful natural language processing for adding events so you can just type "Dinner with Brian at 7pm at Sarma" — Fantastical will fill in all the appropriate fields for you.
For those with truly busy calendars, you can even create polls for meetings and let people schedule appointments with you based on openings in your schedule. The free version of Fantastical gives you access to basic features, though the most powerful are only available with a $4.75/monthly Flexibits Premium subscription.
Libby
We're all deluged with content these days: music to check out, podcasts to listen to, shows to watch. But sometimes it's nice to take a breather and, yes, read a book. Even better when that book is free!
That's when I turn to Libby: it's the app interface for your public library, letting you browse, reserve, and check out ebooks and audiobooks, all for free. Just sign in with your local library account and start browsing. You can even tag books you want to read later, or those you want to be notified about when they're available in the catalog.
Best of all, books can be read on your phone or on a linked e-reader if maybe it's time to put the phone down. Happy reading.
Dark Noise
Sometimes when you need to concentrate, or maybe just unplug from it all, nothings better than popping in your earbuds and piping in some background noise. While Apple offers a built-in accessibility feature called Background Sounds as well as ambient music in the Control Center, I prefer Charlie Chapman's Dark Noise.
Dark Noise features a substantial variety of audio, including basic white noise—and variants like pink, brown, and gray noise—along with nature sounds, urban soundscapes, and even appliances. You can mark certain sounds as favorites, set a timer for the sound to turn off, and use widgets or Siri Shortcuts.
My personal favorite feature is the ability to mix multiple sounds together to create my ideal background noise. (If you're wondering, it's Green Noise mixed with Airplane Interior.)
Television Time
I'm an inveterate watcher of television shows, but these days there are so many shows, it's hard to keep track of when they're on and what I've already watched. So I use the excellent Television Time from Maximilian Litteral.
Television Time lets you keep a catalog of shows that you follow, alerting you when they're coming back on the air and letting you mark the episodes you've already seen. There's a customizable interface — including the layout, color, and app icon — and a filterable and sortable list for all the shows you track. Best of all, you can set Television Time to hide details of episodes beyond what you've watched, just in case you're the kind of person who always ends up getting spoiled.
Star Walk 2
For the avid or introductory stargazers or for those, like me, who just find themselves looking up at the sky and wondering "What star is that?", Star Walk 2 is an indispensable resource.
The app's use of the iPhone's built-in sensors lets you hold your iPhone up to sky, moving it around to show you precisely what you're looking at. A handy red-tinted mode makes sure you don't blow out your night vision and Star Walk 2 has an extensive catalog of stars, planets, nebulae, and even manmade objects (not to mention the odd jolly old elf). Personally, I find Star Walk handy to see just what constellations are supposed to look like: how exactly is that supposed to be a swan?
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