We survey the best in (app) store for your iPhone and iPad, so you don’t have to
In an age where “iPhone withdrawal” is an acknowledged condition and not a T-shirt slogan, the extent to which iOS has come to dominate modern life is self-evident. The iPhone and iPad have evolved to become vital instruments of everyday life, and it looks that way for the foreseeable future.
What makes these gadgets so indispensable is the plethora of apps available to users, with the endless possibilities they can facilitate. At the touch of a button, you can herald a taxi, speak face to face with relatives on the other side of the world, initiate a flirtatious exchange with a stranger, or find out the name of a hip-hop song without suffering the indignity of having to Google the lyrics (thank you, Shazam). And these are just run-of-the-mill examples.
To prevent you from wading through the galaxy of apps available on the App Store, we’ve selected the best iOS apps out there, and broken them down into categories for your convenience.
Candid (free)
An anonymous social network sounds like a dreadful idea, but Candid’s users are surprisingly polite. Choose at least ten groups (Technology, Books, Music and so on) to get a constantly updated feed of posts from people with similar interests. Our selection included Instagram-style photos, quotes from books and songs, and complaints about awful bosses. You need to choose a pseudonym if you want to post content. Trolls are bound to take advantage of the anonymity, but abuse is policed pretty successfully.
InterNations (free)
InterNations is a social network for expats, with 2.3 million members spanning 390 cities from Abu Dhabi to Zurich, and it’s finally launched its own app. Use it to sign up to the InterNations community, find and chat with expats nearby, discover events in your area and join groups based on your hobbies and interests. Some of the app’s functions are buggy – events won’t sync to the calendar, for example – but it’s still easier than using the site in your mobile browser.
Reddit (free)
It has taken a baffling 11 years for Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet”, to launch an official app. This seems odd, as the social-news network is second only to Twitter for breaking news stories, often from unofficial (and not always accurate) sources, so it lends itself perfectly to the instant-access nature of mobile platforms. The app’s expanded view is more attractive than the text-heavy website, but you can switch to Compact view if you’d rather see more stories onscreen at once. Register for free to post, comment, save and share stories, or join a community to get the latest news on everything from astronomy to zoology, via more cat memes than you can shake a pouch of Whiskas at.
