Apple Apps
Something I’ve been using to track my finances for a couple of years now. Having quick access to it means I can easily enter each transaction right after it occurs. Keeping your accounts up to date is one of the most challenging tasks with a finance app like this, so having this feature at my fingertips helps in that regard. Since the operation, I have been using Apple’s Health app to track things like heart rate and blood pressure. It isn’t great, but it served as a decent repository for that data and stayed backed up between phone switches.
Notes is the second Apple app that has earned a spot on my home screen. I like the multimedia aspect of it, and the sharing between the Notes app in El Capitan seals the deal. I use it for checklists and reminders. Music is yet another Apple app on the home screen. I still love the service. It isn’t glitch-free, but it is a perfectly capable app once you get used to it.
Awful is my window into the SomethingAwful forums, which remains a hilarious way to pass the time. Better than Twitter at least Overcast is the best podcast app out there. While I love the features in Downcast, Overcast’s Smart Speed is an amazing feature.
Row Four
Rego is a great travel app. I use it to mark places that we have visited as well as create itineraries for places we plan on going. The Today widget also has a “Mark this spot” button, which I use a lot for parking. I mentioned it in the Nerds on Draft show on navigation, if you want to hear more specifics on how I use it. PCalc has become a great home screen addition. I find myself using it quite a bit, and since the Apple Watch app is fairly capable, there are a lot of ways the app comes in handy.
Storm and the Wunderground app both vie for position depending on the weather. When the weather turns inclement, Storm is great for showing the fronts, the wind direction and speed, thunderstorm warning areas, and such. Underground is great for day-to-day weather information. If you create an account, you can use it on both apps to remove ads. Outlook for iOS is a surprisingly capable iOS app for handling your Office 365 or Exchange email. I use it exclusively for work email because I prefer to keep everything separate, and it is a highly polished email client. Phone another Apple app!1 Since this is a phone, it makes sense to have the phone app handy, and I do use it often enough to keep it around.
TapCellar is the best beer app for iOS. There is no better app for managing and grading beers on the Apple App Store. Buy it. Safari is such a capable browser for iOS, so I never felt the need to use a third-party version. I definitely wouldn’t use Google’s Chrome, and now, with ad-blocking apps (I chose 1Blocker), Safari has gotten even better. Spark is a new addition, replacing Boxer for now. It doesn’t have some of the interesting features Boxer has (like customizable smart folders with mail counts on them), but it has some pretty cool interactions. I haven’t deleted Boxer yet. We will see how things go with Spark for a while.
Row Six
Home Row
Launch Center Pro fell off my home screen in favor of an app called Launcher a while back, but with the customizable 3DTouch feature, I now use it as a way to create tasks for my taskpaper files using Drafts. It. Is. So. Cool. Messages get constant use. Integration with the Apple Watch and the fact that everyone I know uses it really make it an essential app. Slack is the best group and collaborative messaging app available. It is great. So very great. Drafts is generally where all of my text starts (except where previously mentioned). All of my new tasks start in Drafts, and they get sent over to my taskpaper file in Dropbox via some not-very-tricky automation. Now that Drafts is getting launched via Launch Center Pro, it is even more of an essential part of how I do things on iOS.
3DTouch has been a great addition to iOS. Its quick adoption has seen it land on my home screen in the majority of the apps that reside there. Fantastical, VSCOcam, Pinner, Notes, Music, Overcast, PCalc, Phone, Safari, Spark, Launch Center Pro, Messages, and Drafts all support it already.