I recently shared my top ten list of Apple and non-Apple tech. This time I’m following up with some of my favorite third-party apps for iPhone and Mac.
In putting this piece together, I realized that I don’t often use apps for entertainment. On iPhone and Mac alike, the vast majority of my choices perform a useful function …
iPhone
CityMapper
Both Apple Maps and Google Maps have gotten better over the years at helping navigate cities using public transit. There are also individual transit authority apps available for many cities around the world. But when it comes to travelling, you can’t beat the convenience of a single app with a familiar user interface that works in many different cities.
Citymapper supports walking and cycling as well as all the various types of public transit options available within a city. It has also proved extremely reliable in my experience in its awareness of delays and closures that might affect your journey.
Beeline
My one exception is that I use Beeline for cycling. This uses crowdsourced ratings for cycling routes in order to find out which ones are preferred, and this can make a big difference.
I also love compass mode for when I have a destination, but want to allow serendipity to take me there. In this mode, you just get a single arrow pointing directly toward your destination and can then wind your way through the back streets, knowing that you’re always heading in roughly the right direction, but without having to follow turn-by-turn directions.
Blackmagic Camera
As I own two Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K units, it’s no surprise that the company’s iPhone app has become my favorite way to shoot video on the device.
The company is an absolute genius at allowing you to take full control of your shooting whilst keeping the user interface incredibly minimalist and logical. The iPhone app UI mirrors the company’s hardware incredibly closely.
For those times when I don’t have time to take full manual control and just need to be able to do run-and-gun shooting, then Final Cut Camera is my alternative. This is every bit as easy to use as the stock camera app, but allows you to record to an external SSD.
Libby
I do get to include one pure entertainment app. Libby is an app that lets you borrow both ebooks and audiobooks from your local library. You will often have to join a waiting list for popular new releases, but it can save you a lot of money against buying them.
For me, one huge advantage of the app is that I will be willing to give a chance to books where the purchase price might seem too much of a gamble.
Awesome Habits
If you’re trying to form new habits, whether that’s exercising more, sticking to a calorie-controlled diet, reading more books, journaling, or just taking a daily walk, it can be much easier to come up with goals than to stick to them on a daily basis.
The Awesome Habits app is a simple but extremely effective way of tracking how well you stick to your daily goals. Once you’ve entered them, the app gets a badge counter for the number of habits you haven’t yet completed each day, acting as a constant reminder to open the app and check what is left to do.
Mac
Aqua Voice
I’ve only been using this for a couple of months, but it has easily become my absolute favorite Mac utility in that time. It’s an incredibly accurate voice dictation service that has completely revolutionized the way I use my Mac.
Check out my full piece for more information. For now, I will simply say that I’m dictating this piece as I do almost all my work these days.
PhraseExpress
When TextExpander turned into a subscription app, I looked around for alternatives and PhraseExpress has been the one I’ve been using ever since. It lets me have a large collection of standard macro texts and to activate them with a few key presses.
It has to be said that it’s a port of a Windows app, and the user interface very much looks like it. But what it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in functionality.
NordVPN
VPN apps obviously offer protection when using public hotspots, but also serve a couple of other functions for me. As a UK-based writer for a predominantly American site, I very often need to ensure I’m looking at the US version of a website, so VPNing to America is an easy way to do this. There are also some TV shows and movies that are available in the US on streaming services, but not in the UK, and a VPN will generally let me watch these.
NordVPN is my chosen service for a couple of reasons. First, privacy. It keeps no logs, and opens itself up to third-party audits to verify this. Second, it has proven by far the most reliable service at staying ahead in the cat-and-mouse game between streaming services and VPNs! On the rare occasions the IP address is detected by a streaming service, it will almost always work when I try it again the next day.
Scrivener
In my view, Scrivener is hands-down the best writing app ever created. It’s well over a decade since I reviewed it here, but everything I said then still applies today.
It’s a fantastic tool for structuring your writing, enabling you to easily switch back and forth between different sections, or to have more than one section on the screen at the same time. I also love the way that I can keep all of my research, notes, saved webpages, and everything else I might need in the same app as the writing itself.
I’ve used it to write three novels and I’m currently using it to write a non-fiction book. I wouldn’t dream of writing a book in anything else.
What are some of your favorite third-party iPhone and Mac apps? Please share in the comments.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
