The Best Free Apps for a New iPhone

When I first got up new iPhone 5S (thanks to my parents), I instantly went to the app store and starting downloading apps! Having a smartphone and not using apps is like having a computer and only using it to browse the Internet. If you have an iPhone, you’re also lucky because the Apple app store is still better than the Android app store in terms of number of apps and quality of apps, in my opinion.

So what are the best free apps to download for your new iPhone right away? Well, there are a bunch! Obviously, everyone will have their preferences, so I’ll try to keep this list fairly general and useful for anyone. In addition, I won’t list many alternatives, just one or two at the most and normally the best ones.

I’ll also break it down by category, so if you’re looking for the best video app or chat app, you can skip down to the appropriate section. I’m not going to mention any games because the “best” game changes everyday and there are already enough lists online for finding good games. I’ll also not mention news apps and a couple of other categories that are pretty self-explanatory.

Best Maps/Navigation Apps

Google Maps – I pretty much use the GPS on my iPhone all the time when driving and it’s completely replaced the Garmin GPS I had used for years before. Apple Maps is pretty good now, but it’s still lags far behind Google Maps. Since it’s a Google product, you can log in using your Google account also and have all your data synced, which makes life a lot easier.

Waze – Waze is turn-by-turn navigation with the addition of a social community that helps brings in useful information for drivers. It has been acquired by Google, but it still a separate app. Eventually, it might be merged into Google Maps,

Best Weather Apps

Yahoo Weather – This is my favorite because it’s got a beautiful interface and pretty much all the information you need, unless you’re hardcore about weather, in which case you’ll probably be spending money on a fancy weather app. But for free, this is just perfect.

Weather Underground – A lot of people swear by this app and I’ve used it also and really liked it. It’s free, but it includes ads. That’s the only downside. You can pay 99 cents and get the ads removed, but we’re trying to only mention the best free apps. Regardless of the ads, it’s still an excellent weather app.

Best Camera/Photo Apps

flickr – The flickr app lets you browse your Flickr photos and also lets you upload everything from your iPhone up to their free 1 TB storage account. If you take a lot of photos, this is a great option. It’s also got filters and editing tools, so you can fix up your photos before uploading to flickr, Twitter or Facebook.

Google+ – Google+ is mostly a social networking app, but I listed it under best camera/photo apps also because it is actually really great for photos. If you used Picasa Web Albums in the past, those have been converted into Google+ photo albums and you can access them all from the Google+ app. It also auto uploads all your photos and videos to Google+ and create animated GIFs, enhances photos and more for you automatically.

Instagram – It’s hard not to find a friend who isn’t using Instagram. Even though Facebook bought them, they are still one of the most popular photo sharing apps out there.

Best Cloud Storage Apps

Dropbox – The most popular and widely known, Dropbox is pretty sweet for storing your files in the cloud. It works on pretty much every device and on the iPhone it’s amazing for uploading all your photos and videos automatically. Only downside? Expensive for storage. If you use a lot of data, you’ll be paying way more than the competitors.

Google Drive – My new favorite because of the huge price drop: $10 a month for 1 TB of storage. You only get 500 GB on Dropbox for $500 a year. My new plan is to move most data from Dropbox to Google Drive and then continue to use Dropbox, but only on the smaller less expensive plans. Google Drive can’t aut0-upload anything from your phone. Google+ can, but the two don’t currently integrate very well, something Google needs to do if they want to compete more with Dropbox.

OneDrive – Even though it’s from Microsoft, it’s a pretty good app. Just about everyone has a Windows PC, which makes this app actually useful. OneDrive is integrated into Office 2013, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Microsoft Surface and other Microsoft products, so if you are in the Microsoft world, this is a good cloud storage app. It’s also cheaper than Dropbox in terms of storage.

Best Messaging/Chat Apps

Best Social Apps

News Feed in a much more modern looking UI. Everything looks better in the Paper app and it lets you follow popular news stories on a variety of topics.

Twitter – If you’re not on Twitter yet, you really should jump on the bandwagon. Even if you never post anything, you can get a lot of useful info by following the right people or companies on Twitter. Actually, I get better customer service from companies by posting on Twitter than by calling or emailing nowadays.

LinkedIn – Even if you work for yourself, you should have a profile on LinkedIn. It’s the best social networking site for professionals. Companies use LinkedIn like crazy for finding good talent, so keep tabs on your connections via the app.

Pinterest – I’m not a huge user of Pinterest, but that makes me an exception. Pinterest has huge traffic numbers and people seem to love it. Find interesting stuff whatever your interests might be.

Google+ – Google+ isn’t going to ever replace Facebook, but it’s a good complement. The posts on Google+ are more polished and newsy rather than photos of someone’s lunch or babies.