Whether you just received a new smartphone as a gift or want to upgrade your current phone, you can do so by examining your application situation. First, a purge may be in order: we recommend deleting any apps you don't regularly use from your phone to free up extra space and remove unnecessary digital clutter from your life. Yes, that goes for any pre-installed apps on your new phone that you know will otherwise be banished to a hidden folder. Once you've done this, think about any apps you don't currently have that you know you'd use or want to try. Do you constantly use public transportation and need updated train schedules or directions? Do you always work from coffee shops and need a VPN for digital protection? If you need some inspiration, here are the best smartphone apps we think you should try on your phone.
bitwarden
If you take away only one tip from this article, it's that you should download a password manager. If you've never used one before, it's hard to go wrong bitwarden. It won't wow you with beautifully designed apps, but it's one of our favorite password managers and you'll appreciate its fair business model. The best part of the Bitwarden experience is that all of its core features are free to use. Without paying a cent, you can use Bitwarden on as many devices as you want. By comparison, competitors can charge $3 a month or more for the same functionality. If you want to support Bitwarden, the $10 per year Premium plan is well worth it, as you get access to features like advanced two-factor authentication.
fire fox
If it's been a few years since you last used Firefox, now is a good time to revisit it. Last summer, Mozilla overhauled the Android version of its browser to bring many of its best desktop features to mobile. In that version, Mozilla added stronger support for third-party add-ons. It also introduced its Enhanced Tracking Protection feature, which prevents trackers from misusing your browsing data. Furthermore, with Apple allowing you to change your default browser since the release of iOS 14, there has never been a better time for iPhone users to break free from Safari.
Head space
I subscribed to Head space at the beginning of the pandemic. Since then, it has become one of the few apps I use every day. Yes, Headspace is a meditation and mindfulness app, but it's also much more than that. You'll find that it also has a mix of music designed to help you focus and exercises to relax you at the end of a long day. Overall, everything it offers is excellent and you will find that you will turn to it for more than just peace of mind.
Notion
Notion It's one of the most powerful productivity tools you can download right now, and if your goal for 2023 is to organize your personal and professional life, I can't recommend it enough. What makes Notion so powerful is an interface that looks simple but offers a lot of flexibility. I've used Notion to create to-do lists, write notes and features, and manage personal projects. It can be a little overwhelming at first. My suggestion is to go to Youtube to see how other people have used Notion's features to organize their lives.
libby
If you want to read more in 2022, forget about buying books through Amazon and download Libby. If you are not familiar with the application, allows you to borrow e-books, digital magazines, and graphic novels from your local library. All you need is a library card, which most systems in the US offer for free. Sometimes you have to wait to borrow the books you most want to read, but you'll find that Libby will dramatically expand your reading list.
Transit
There's nothing worse than waiting for a bus on a cold winter day or seeing three pass by one after the other. Avoid both situations with one of the best public transportation planning apps on Android and iOS. Transit It excels where other apps in the category fail thanks to its clean, easy-to-use interface that highlights all the options near you. It also has one of the best algorithms for predicting departure times, so you'll know exactly when you need to rush out of your house or apartment to catch the next bus, train or tram.
Peppers
Peppers It's the best $5 you can spend to make feeding yourself even easier. Basically, it allows you to download recipes from your favorite websites and make them accessible on all your devices. You can also use it to scale the size of the food you're about to cook and convert between metric and imperial measurements. Add to that a meal planner, shopping lists, and a tool to track the ingredients in your pantry, and you have a must-have app for home cooks.
pocket plasters
With podcasts becoming more and more popular with each passing year, there's a good chance you already have a few favorite shows that you listen to every week. As much as Spotify would like to convince you that it has the best podcast app, that distinction goes to pocket plasters. We like it because it offers a great, consistent experience across all the systems it supports. And if you use a mix of Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms, you don't have to worry about syncing either. It's also good to use software that doesn't feel trapped between two worlds like Spotify does. Pocket Casts is not intended to be more than a podcast listening app. That can't be said for Spotify, and it's often a source of frustration for those who turn to it for music.
Another way to read more in 2022 is to download Pocket. It is among the most popular read later apps out there and allows you to save articles you find online. Like Pocket Casts, what makes this app attractive is that it offers a great device-agnostic experience, making it a great option for those who haven't committed to a single ecosystem. Whether you use Chrome, Safari, or Edge, you can install a browser extension to save articles you come across. Then you can read them later without distractions on your phone or tablet. But don't forget to make a dent in your Pocket reading list from time to time.
Sign
We understand that asking your friends and family to install another messaging app on their phone can sometimes seem like a Sisyphean task, but the effort has never been more worth it. In Sign, you will find one of the most secure chat applications on the market. It has all the features you'd expect from a messaging program, including support for Snapchat-like stickers and Stories, but most importantly are the ways in which Signal differentiates itself from rivals like WhatsApp and Telegram. Signal is a non-profit organization and one of the few apps committed to privacy rather than earning revenue by collecting data. That means you won't see any ads in the app and the company won't sell your data to third parties.
notary
The top pick for the best free VPN in our guide is notary, making it a great option to download to your phone if you've never used a VPN before and want to try it out. No problem here: Windscribe is completely free to use, as long as you sign up with a valid email address. Free users get 10GB of data per month, unlimited device connections, and access to servers in 10+ countries. Windscribe passed all of our geo-blocking, streaming, and gaming tests, and it's pretty easy to use, too. If you end up liking it, you can pay for Windscribe and get access to even more servers in additional countries, along with unlimited data and access to an ad blocker. A full Pro subscription costs about $6 per month when billed annually, or you can create your own plan with just the features you need starting at $1 per month.
Instant seed
The latest phones come with excellent cameras. Still, even with the latest iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, or Google Pixel, almost all photos can benefit from an edit before sharing. The options you have for photo editing apps are almost endless, but if you want something that works well, look no further than Instant seed. It's an old favorite that offers a full set of editing options but never gets bogged down by too many sliders and dials. Best of all, it makes it easy to save edits to your camera roll and upload them to apps like Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-apps-to-download-on-your-new-smartphone-ios-android-180049321.html?src=rss
