Best Free Apple Apps That Everyone Should Download

Just got an iPhone/iPod/iPad?  Need to update your app collection? Here’s my list of best apps, tried-and-tested, that everyone should have:

In no particular order…

1. Shazam

Hear some music that you don’t know the name of?  Just open up this app and with the click of a button, it listens to a few seconds of the song an searches its database to give you the song name and artist.  I was  actually surprised at how good it was; it identifies obscure music from TV shows (I ran Shazam while streaming CSI during a part where they were playing a few seconds of an electronic track that sounded cool and got a hit) as well as foreign music.  As long as the music is recorded, it should be on their database. 

2. Dropbox

At first I was skeptical of this app, but now I’m a huge fan of Dropbox.  The function is pretty straightforward: it allows you to “drop” files into Dropbox so that you can have it available anywhere—online, on your computer, or on another device.  It allows you to sync files between your computer and your device (you can also choose which files are shared, and turn off auto-sync if you prefer) and share files between other Dropbox users (and if you want to share something and the other person doesn’t have Dropbox, it’s super easy for them to download it).  The reason why I love it: I use it to back up my work (my Dropbox is set to sync my work folder in case my dying computer finally dies or if I decide to step into work without my laptop and need some files from it); I’ve used it to share nearly a gigabyte of photos with a friend in another city—uploading on to an email would have been so slow; and I’ve used it to add music files (and play them) since I’ve misplaced my charger and can’t sync my itunes to my iPod.

If you need to install Dropbox on your computer, sign up and download: https://www.dropbox.com/home

3. VLC

Lets you play downloaded movies & tv shows, as well as music in various formats.  Has various codecs already installed it supports AVI, MKV, MPEG, MP4 as well as many others (full list on VideoLAN’s website, see link below). 

Okay, so this one is not available on the Apple store, because it’s open-source—so available for any device, including non-Apple ones.  It’s available for download from VideoLAN’s website: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html   

4. Timer+

This is the best free timer that I have found, and trust me, I’ve looked.  It saves the timers that you run, which can be easily edited.  This is useful especially when you have tasks that you do often.  For myself, I have a laundry timer and a bunch of timers for my lab work.  It lets you run multiple timers simultaneously; lets you pause, cancel or even edit the time while a timer’s running and provides customizable notifications when a timer is done.  Limitations: The max a timer can be set for is 24 hours; any timer that you run will be saved so if you only want to run it once and never again, you have to go to the list and delete it (what I do is modify the time on an existing generic timer to avoid an extensive list); there’s ads at the bottom of your list.  Overall, this app is not overly complicated like some that I have used, and it has been crucial for when I’m running multiple experiments, especially since I’m so forgetful…

5. Skype

Video-calling now available through your Apple device.  Voice quality is pretty good from my experience, though it seems like video quality is dependent on your internet and camera.  Video on the iPod is limited because of its camera, but it should be good on the iPhone.   There’s occasional crashes, but hey, it’s free.

This is an independent review of apps, and I’m not in any way affiliated with the companies/products mentioned. 

See my other article on activating features on your apple device such as how to get battery life in %, turn your calculator into a scientific calculator, and more: http://computersight.com/hardware/peripherals/free-iphoneipod-tricks-enable-simple-inherent-features-of-your-apple-device-to-make-it-better/#ixzz20cucI5vb