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The 10 best iPhone apps you should use in 2016
Google Photos is an overall better solution to Apple's built-in iCloud Photo Library for backing up and managing your iPhone's photo collection. You get free unlimited storage with optional paid plans for storing ultra hi-res images.
The app has fancy image recognition that lets you search for things like dogs, food, or a particular mountain range and find relevant photos. You can share albums with others and create fun GIFs, too.
A recent update to the iPhone app added collaborative albums and the ability to scan your photo library and delete photos off of your camera roll that are already backed up in the cloud.
Foursquare is your best friend when you're trying to find a place to eat or grab a drink. Thanks to the company's Pilgrim technology, the app knows where you are and can deliver expert "tips" about what to order from its 50 million users.
If you want to make your photos look better, one of VSCO's dozens of retro film filters should do the trick. The app offers more extensive editing capabilities than Instagram, and each filter preset is designed to emulate the effect of an old-school film camera.
VSCO offers free cloud syncing and uploads to a personalized VSCO Grid account, which is essentially a hi-res, ultra-minimalist version of Instagram that has less of a focus on social networking and more of a focus on sharing pretty pictures.
Most weather apps give you a basic forecast, but Dark Sky takes it a step further with notifications that warn you when it's about to rain or snow in your exact location. It's also an excellent app with a beautiful, minimalist design and access to weather radar.
It's like having a weather psychic in your pocket, and you'll be glad you bought it the next time you almost get caught in the rain.
Dark Sky costs $3.99.
If you're on the hunt for the perfect email app, you need to give Spark a try. It's completely free and highly customizable and has features like email snoozing for reading messages later.
A bookmarking app may sound lame, but just wait until you try Pocket. The service lets you save any webpage you come across and read it later in a beautifully minimalist reading environment.
Lots of apps integrate directly with Pocket, including the iPhone's built-in Safari browser, to let you save articles and videos. The Pocket app itself can download stories for offline reading. It even reads text to you with a Siri-like voice. You can also share — with comments — articles with other Pocket users, and the service learns what you like and recommends more articles you might find interesting.
Simply put, no other social network is as hot as Snapchat right now. Millennials love it, and older people are starting to use it, too.
You may think Snapchat is just for sexting, but trust us, it's an entirely different way of communicating all aspects of life — from the most mundane to the exciting moments. If you don't already feel like you're missing out on what your friends are up to by not being on Snapchat, you will by the end of 2016.
Sworkit uses a combination of aerobic, strength, resistance, and flexibility workouts to create routines that work for all kinds of different fitness goals.
The app has been scientifically proven to work, too. A recent analysis of 30 popular free fitness apps by a team of sports scientists found that Sworkit Lite was the most closely aligned with the American College of Sports Medicine's training guidelines. Tech Insider science writer Kevin Loria swears by it.
Sworkit has a "Lite" version that's free to use with ads and a "Pro" version that costs $3.99 to remove ads and unlock features, like the ability to save and build multiple custom workouts.
The next time you need to mail something, just use Shyp. With the app, you take a picture of whatever you want to mail, and a Shyp courier comes to your door and takes it to a nearby facility. There it's expertly packaged and sent on its way for the lowest possible shipping rate available from partners like UPS and FedEx.
The app's most recent update lets you create a user name for your address so people can send you things by entering only your name. There's also a built-in packaging tracker that works for senders and Shyp recipients.
Shyp's normal $5 pickup fee is waived if you're an eBay seller, which makes the service especially compelling for small businesses.
By taking your interactions with the post office out of the equation, Shyp has proven that it delivers an experience people want. So far, the startup is only operational in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, but plans are in the works to expand elsewhere.
Navigating through public transit in a big city can be overwhelming, but Citymapper's free app makes it easier. The app digests all of the public-transit options available and helps you get from point A to point B without losing your way.
There are all kinds of little bells and whistles in the app that make it the ultimate digital chauffeur, including "get off" alarms that tell you when your stop is approaching, the ability to show you the optimal place to stand in the subway to get to your next stop, and the option to plan your journey ahead of time.
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