Whether you just received a new smartphone as a gift or you want to update your existing phone, you can do so by checking your app status. First, a cleanup may be in order: we recommend deleting all apps you don’t use regularly from your phone to gain extra space and eliminate unnecessary digital clutter from your life. Yes, this applies to any pre-installed apps on your new phone that you know would otherwise be deleted to a hidden folder. Once you’re done, think about any apps you don’t currently have that you know you’ll use or want to try. Do you frequently travel by public transport and need the latest train times or routes? Do you always work in a coffee shop and need a VPN for digital protection? If you need some inspiration, here are the best smartphone apps we think you should try on your phone.
Bitwarden
If you only take one piece of advice from this article, it’s that you should download a password manager. If you’ve never used Bitwarden before, you can’t go wrong with Bitwarden. It won’t wow you with beautifully designed apps, but it’s one of our favorite secret managers and you’ll appreciate its fair business model. The best part of the Bitwarden experience is that all of its core features are free to use. You can use Bitwarden on any number of devices without paying a penny. By comparison, competitors can charge $3 or more per month for the same functionality. If you want to support Bitwarden, the $10 per year Premium plan is well worth the money as you get access to features like advanced two-factor authentication.
Firefox
If it’s been a few years since you last used Firefox, now is a good time to get back into it. In the middle of last year, Mozilla overhauled the Android version of its browser, bringing many of the best desktop features to mobile devices. In this version, Mozilla has added stronger support for third-party add-ons. It also brings enhanced tracking protection that stops trackers from abusing your browsing profile. Plus, since the release of iOS 14, Apple has allowed you to change the default browser, and now is the perfect time for iPhone users to free themselves from Safari.
headspace
I subscribed to Headspace at the beginning of the pandemic. Since then it has become one of the few apps I use every day. Yes, Headspace is a meditation and mindfulness app, but it’s so much more than that. You’ll find it also includes music designed to help you focus and exercises to relax at the end of a long day. Overall, everything it offers is excellent and you’ll find yourself turning to it for more than just peace of mind.
concept
Notion is one of the most powerful productivity tools you can download right now, and I highly recommend it if your 2023 goal is to organize your personal and professional life. What makes Notion so powerful is that its interface looks simple but offers a lot of flexibility. I use Notion to create to-do lists, write notes and features, and manage personal projects. It can be a little overwhelming at first. My suggestion is to go to YouTube and see how others are using Notion’s features to organize their lives.
Libby
If you want to read more in 2022, forget buying books through Amazon and download Libby instead. If you’re not familiar with the app, it lets you borrow e-books, digital magazines, and graphic novels from your local library. All you need is a library card, which is available for free on most systems in the United States. Sometimes you have to wait to borrow the book you most want to read, but you’ll find that Libby will greatly expand your reading list.
transportation
There’s nothing worse than waiting for the bus on a cold winter’s day or watching three cars pass by one after another. Avoid both scenarios with one of the best public transportation planning apps available on Android and iOS. Transit’s strength is its clean, easy-to-use interface that highlights all the options near you in a way that no other app in this category can. It also has one of the better algorithms for predicting departure times, so you know exactly when you need to leave your house or apartment to catch the next bus, train or tram.
chili
Chili powder is the best $5 you can spend to make eating easier on yourself. Essentially, it allows you to download recipes from your favorite websites and access them on all your devices. You can also use it to scale the size of the meals you’re cooking and convert between metric and imperial measurements. Add to that meal planning, shopping lists, and tools for tracking pantry ingredients, and you’ve got an app that home cooks can’t live without.
pocket casting
With podcasts becoming more popular every year, there’s a good chance you listen to a few favorite shows every week. As much as Spotify would like you to believe it has the best podcast app, that honor goes to Pocket Casts. We love it because it delivers a consistently great experience on every system it supports. If you use a mix of Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms, you don’t have to worry about synchronization issues. It’s also nice to use software that doesn’t feel like you’re caught between two worlds like Spotify. Pocket Casts just wants to be an app for listening to podcasts. That’s not something you can say about Spotify, and it’s often a source of frustration for those who turn to Spotify for music listening.
Another way to read more in 2022 is to download Pocket. It is one of the most popular read-later apps that allows you to save articles you find online. Much like Pocket Casts, what’s compelling about this app is that it offers a consistently great device-agnostic experience, making it a great option for those who haven’t fully committed to an ecosystem yet. . Whether you use Chrome, Safari, or Edge, you can install browser extensions to save articles you stumble across. You can then read them later on your phone or tablet without distraction. Just don’t forget to leave an occasional mark on your pocket reading list.
signal
We understand that asking your friends and family to install yet another messaging app on their phone can sometimes feel like a Sisyphus task, but the effort has also never been more worth it. In Signal you’ll find one of the most secure chat apps on the market. It has all the features you’d expect from a messaging program, including support for stickers and Snapchat-like Stories, but more importantly what sets Signal apart from rivals like WhatsApp and Telegram. Signal is a non-profit organization and one of the few apps dedicated to protecting privacy rather than generating revenue through data collection. This means you won’t see any ads in the app, and the company won’t sell your data to third-party marketers.
Climb the wall
Our top pick for the best free VPNs is Windscribe, which is a great option to download to your phone if you’ve never used a VPN before and want to give it a try. No problem here: Windscribe is completely free to use as long as you sign up with a valid email address. Free users get 10GB of data per month, unlimited device connections, and access to servers in over 10 countries. Windscribe passed all of our geo-blocking, streaming, and gaming tests, and it’s also incredibly easy to use. If you end up liking it, you can pay for Windscribe and get access to more servers in other countries, as well as access to unlimited data and ad blockers. A full Pro subscription costs around $6 per month when billed annually, or you can build your own plan with just the features you need, starting at $1 per month.
snapshot seed
Recent cell phones come with great cameras. Still, even with the latest iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, or Google Pixel, almost every photo could benefit from editing before sharing. The options for photo editing apps are nearly endless, but if you want an app that works well, look no further than Snapseed. It’s an old favorite, offering a comprehensive set of editing options but never getting bogged down with too many sliders and dials. Best of all, it makes it easy to save edits to your camera roll and upload them to apps like Instagram.
This article was originally published on Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/best-apps-to-download-on-your-new-smartphone-ios-android-180049321.html?src=rss
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