In this post I’m going to share a number of apps that I enjoy and have been using of late. This is NOT a list of all the apps I use, that would be too long and so it’s really apps that you may not have heard of or my favorite app in a category (like weather).

The MVP award of all these apps goes to Carrot Weather. If you pay for one app - this is it. Make sure to dial up the personality and play its games.

Homescreen Apps

DayOne - fantastic journaling app. My wife and I have been using this for many years to record memories, photos and funny things our kids say. Read my review. At the end of each year we print a book.

1Password - password manager created with love.

Things 3 - treated todo / project management app for my life - work and home.

Overcast - best podcasting app for iOS

Instapaper - for saving things to read later

CARROT Weather - best weather app with the wittiest sense of humor. Let’s face it - weather is boring and CARROT makes it funny and cool

Bear - for writing. I love the simplicity of writing without any fonts or layout and just exporting somewhere else.

Lightroom - for pro photo management

NPR One - for catching up on the latest news from anywhere

Apollo - best Reddit app. I’ve started to use Reddit a lot (following some of my favorite products and topics in subreddits). There is something in Reddit for everyone!

LookUp - awesome “word of the day” app with great watch integration, notifications for word of the day, and the ability to favorite and makes lists of words you like

Television Time - For tracking TV shows that you are watching

Deliveries - for tracking package deliveries. Works across iOS and macOS

GoodNotes 5 - for taking notes on my 11 inch iPad at work

Cardhop - really cool and smart contact management app

Fantastical 2 - great calendar application with smart / intelligent entry of appointments

Gemini - simple and powerful app for cleaning up your iOS Photos. I run this 1x a month to keep things tidy

Reeder 4 - for reading RSS feeds across iOS and macOS

Create

Clarity - for making great photo backgrounds for your iPhone

Tailor - for stitching screen shots of long web pages or screens together

Utilities

Highball - for storing recipes of my favorite drinks

Credit Karma - for keeping tabs on your credit report

Splitwise - group expense tracker which I use on all vacations with friends or families to keep track of costs and settle up in the end

Square Cash - best way to send money to someone

Tax Caster - simple and fast estimate of what you will owe or get paid back during Tax season

Current - allowance for kids

Pillpack - pharmacy now owned by Amazon. Get all your mediations, prescription, OTC and vitamins delivered

Paper Karma - take a photo of junk mail and unsubscribe!

Time There - great app for time zone calculations to schedule meetings

Hiya - stop spam phone calls

Text Case - handy utility for changing the case of apps

Date and Time Calculator - great app for calculating dates such as 120 days from today

1BlockerX - for blocking unwanted ads and trackers in Safari

Soulver - neat way of doing math and calculations

Airtable - cool spreadsheet + database app

Health

Slopes - sweet app for tracking your skiing

AllTrails - if you want to hike use this to find a trail. Integrates with the Apple Health App.

Home

WatchCam - app for Nest cameras - supports Siri Shortcuts cause Google never will.

HomePass - keep track of all your HomeKit codes

Baby Monitor - if you are traveling and want to monitor your kids if you leave them alone in a hotel room (assuming they are old enough) this is a nice way to have 2 - way communication.

Entertainment

Shazam - if you want to know what that song is. Now owned by Apple with great Apple Music integration

Audible - if you are in to audio books

Kernel - for tracking movies you want to watch

Network

Speedtest - test your network speed

TunnelBear - VPN when you need it and 200MB free per month. I use this when I travel and want to get US websites without geo stuff messing things up.

Marco Polo - I use this to stay in touch with my wife and kids when I travel. It’s a video messaging app. Really great.

ChatterBoss - I have an assistant that I pay hourly to do various tasks for me through this app.

Travel

V for Wiki - great wikipedia app that I use a lot when traveling as you can “see things around you”.

Journy - I use this quite a lot to plan vacations in cities for 3-4 days. They take care of day by day ideas, restaurant and cultural reservations and tips. You pay per day.

PeakFinder - wondering what that mountain range is? Or how tall that mountain is? This app is for you.

Travefy - awesome app for planing group vacations

TripIt - indispensable app for staying organized and getting alerts.

Elk - sweet currency translator with fantastic watch app. By far the most functional watch currency app

Currency - more feature rich than Elk and can show you multiple currencies at once.

Google Translate - indispensable for travel

Allergic Traveler - translate all your allergies into other languages

Blacklane - for booking drivers and cars

Guides - by Lonely Planet which is a great way to get some local tips in book format

Trips - by Lonely Planet which gives you ideas for trips to take

Flights

Google flights - not an app, but the best way to find ticket prices and monitor them

Flight Board- wondering what flights are leaving or arriving at an airport? I use this to figure out where inbound aircraft are coming from at the gate I am departing from so I can do some detective work when the airline is being optimistic on travel delays

Plane Finder - nice app to get flight details

Seat Guru - great to get intel on a seat for a flight. App could use a lot of work but it gets the job done.

Lounge Buddy - find out about airport lounges and if you can get in with your credit card or other membership.

Flightradar24 - indispensable tool for getting lots of geeky details about a flight. It has an AR mode so you can point your camera at a plane overhead and see where it’s going.

Photography

PhotoPills - handy one stop shop for photo calculations such as moon phase, depth of field etc

Sun Seeker - tells you where the sun is going to be for sunrise and sunset

Sky Guide - for spotting stars, satellites, planets and constellations