Garmin iPhone ANT+ Adapter and Garmin Fit app Review | DC Rainmaker
(Update – July 2013: I’ve taken the rather unusual step of actually prefacing the review with some really clear guidance: Don’t buy this.
In short: It ONLY works with the Garmin Fit app, which won’t upload/download from your existing Garmin devices.
It won’t work with any other apps.
For the same price, you can get the Wahoo Fitness iPhone adapter, which works with 150+ apps and can actually upload your Garmin device files.
Full details .)
Garmin today announced a new iPhone ANT+ Adapter as well as a pair of fitness apps for both the
The adapter provides ANT+ enablement of your iPhone, similar to how the
works today.
This in turn allows you to use the Garmin Fit iPhone application, which can track your fitness activities with ANT+ data like heart rate or speed/cadence.
The Garmin Fit App doesn’t require you to have the ANT+ adapter however, and will work just fine recording your activities without it.
If you’re Android phone has ANT+ built into it, like the
– then you’re good to go without an adapter.
But first, let’s walk through the iPhone ANT+ adapter unboxing.
The Garmin ANT+ iPhone Adapter:
The Garmin
costs $49 has precisely one piece.
Well, the packaging actually also has a piece of paper, but essentially just one physical component.
The dongle itself is a touch bit bigger than a quarter, and is slightly larger than the standard iPhone/iPod connector:
Installed, the dongle would add a bit of height to your iPhone – but as myself and many other iPhone accessory users would tell you, it’s not too bad.
I routinely use the Wahoo Fitness iPhone dongle on my iPhone all the time without issue:
When you plug the accessory in for the very first time it’ll automatically notify you that an app is available to download, which will take you to the Garmin Fit application page.
In addition, if you’re a feisty one and want to download the app using a QR code scanner, you can do that as well from the back of the packaging.
This would allow you to check out the app packaging in a retail store and then download the app first.
Now that you’ve got it all set and installed, it’s time to get on with using it.
Quickly though, for those familiar with the Wahoo Fitness dongle, you’ll find this nearly identical. Below, on the left is the Garmin ANT+ dongle, and on the right is the Wahoo Fitness dongle.
The Garmin Fit App:
When you first open up the app (which, btw, costs $.99), you’ll find the same series of questions around user profile that you would if you bought a Garmin Forerunner or Edge device:
From there you can go ahead and either create a Garmin Connect account, or sign in to an existing one.
Once signed in you’ll be brought to a welcome screen, where you can start a new activity.
You’ll also see all of your Garmin Connect activities along the top – which includes ones that you did on other devices.
For example, my swim for this evening with a :
You’ve also got a settings icon where you can configure some basics such as units (miles/kilometers) and whether or not Auto Lap is configured.
Additionally, in here you can configure ANT+ sensors – including a heart rate sensor, bike sensor (Speed/Cadence) and running footpod.
Back onto the main page you have a history button, which enables you to look at any activity uploaded to Garmin Connect:
You can then drill down into a given activity to see maps, charts and laps:
It’s this ability to quickly browse the Garmin Connect site that you get your 99 cents worth out of the app.
The app is very quick to respond, and the charts and detail come up seamlessly.
And from here you can also create new manual training log additions on the fly:
Finally, you can go out and record activity and have the ANT+ sensor gather the data along with GPS from the iPhone.
The app supports running/walking, cycling and ‘other’.
With ‘other’ essentially being anything you can think of.
When recording an activity, you can choose Indoor or Outdoors.
When Outdoors, you’ll use GPS for speed/distance.
While indoors you’ll use the ANT+ sensors (footpod or speed/cadence sensors):
Additionally, you can configure a playlist with the option to shuffle.
Once you’ve started your activity it gives you four screens of information.
First is the map screen, which shows you present location and total distance/time:
Next is a bit of a summary screen which shows time, distance, pace and calories:
Then we’ve got another screen showing heart rate, avg HR, cadence, and strides:
And finally, we have the lap screen, which shows information about the current lap:
Once you’re done you can select to end the activity and it’ll be automatically uploaded to Garmin Connect for you.
Additionally it’ll show up in the main screen of the Garmin Fit application.
General Thoughts:
At this point, I haven’t been able to get full use of the app yet due to it only being populated tonight in the iTunes store.
However, based on what I’m seeing thus far – it offers far less functionality than many other iPhone apps out there – including free ones.
It does however offer a really good way of viewing activities stored in Garmin Connect.
While I fully understand that this is indeed an initial release of the application, I had hoped to see some more bridging of the ecosystem between Garmin’s fitness devices and this app, aside from just looking at Garmin Connect uploaded data.
Of course, being a first release – the pickings usually tend to be slim.
After all, most iPhone apps that are now powerhouses in that arena started out with few data fields.
There’s no reason to think that eventually with more development this app wouldn’t end up the same way.
It should be noted that the Garmin iPhone ANT+ adapter is not compatible with the , and more importantly – not compatible with any of the
there today that support the Wahoo Fitness dongle.
In my opinion, I think the ANT+ ecosystem would have benefited from Garmin simply re-branding the Wahoo Fitness dongle (like other companies have done) – rather than creating yet another ANT+ dongle (there are many past entrants here, most eventually ending up dead).
With the app priced at $.99 it’s already priced higher than incredibly popular and free MapMyRun/MapMyRide and RunKeeper apps. And there are of course literally hundreds of other fitness tracking apps out there.
Thus at this time, I’d be leery of the value it delivers compared to other apps out there in the market that are free or of similar price.
I do think that ultimately the accessory will sell well – merely because of the Garmin brand and name recognition.
Ultimately there are tons of creative things that Garmin could do or develop to make this accessory unique.
For example – adding
like Wahoo has done.
Or an assortment of other ANT+ enabled functions like Geocaching with the ANT+ enabled Chirp.
But we didn’t seem to see those being delivered in the first generation, which ultimately would have significantly differentiated this app from the already crowded field.
Thanks for reading!
If you have any questions, feel free to post below.
Additionally, with the app just launching in the Android store today as well – I’ll look to update this review in the near future for that also.
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At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device.
The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love).
As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
I’ve partnered with Clever Training to offer all DC Rainmaker readers an exclusive 10% discount across the board on all products (except clearance items).
In the event you for some reason decide to, you can pickup the Garmin FIT ANT+ Adapter below (honestly, again, ).
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By doing so, you not only support the site (and all the work I do here) – but you also get a sweet discount.
And if you happen to spend more than $75, you get free US shipping as well.
Additionally, you can also use Amazon to purchase the unit (though, no discount).
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If you’re outside the US, I’ve got links to all of the major individual country Amazon stores on the sidebar towards the top.
Though, Clever Training also ships there too and you get the 10% discount.
Thanks for reading!
And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible.
And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below.
Finally, I’ve written up a ton of helpful guides around using most of the major fitness devices, which you may find useful in getting started with the devices.
These guides are all listed on this .
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Have you recently gotten your hands on an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and want to know what you should do with it? The new hardware bells and whistles, along with the improvements in , should keep you busy for a little while. However, eventually you'll need to start downloading some apps to help you get the most out of your new smartphone. The breadth and depth of quality content on the App Store is one of the iPhone's biggest selling points. And for your convenience, we've painstakingly narrowed down that impressive catalog into the following list of the 100 best iPhone apps.
Many of these apps will run just fine on a range of iPhones. However, if you have managed to snag the latest models, you'll be able to interact with apps in new ways using 3D touch on the pressure-sensitive screen. For example, you can press firmly on the Facebook app icon to bring up a menu and immediately start updating your status. Now that the
are out in the wild, we expect apps to take even more advantage of the phones' unique functionality in the future.
The apps on this list have been tested and recommended by the experts here at PCMag. Our favorites include video-streaming services, fitness trackers, and tools to take your photography to the next level. We've broken this list into several categories, so you can just browse the apps that most interested you. You'll also find links to our full reviews.
In the past, this list also featured some of the coolest video games the App Store had to offer. But the App Store gaming scene has become so robust that we felt it really deserved its own separate, expanded list. So you can check out our feature on the . And if you want to see some of these games in action, watch , our ongoing video series showing off the latest and greatest mobile games.
Looking for even more iPhone app lists? Check out the short and sweet , or for the frugal smartphone owner, the . And be sure to revisit this page in the future. Cool new apps arrive on the App Store all the time, so we periodically update this list with the most promising discoveries. Have you been using a great app we failed to mention? We'd love to hear about it. Leave a comment and we might add your suggestion during our next update.
With that, click on over to the next page or scroll through the slideshow linked above and below to read our list of the 100 best iPhone apps. The only thing that's changed is everything.
Information (1-9)
Google Maps, which was once included with all iPhones, is now an app that you have to download separately&and you should. Google Maps has proven itself more accurate than Apple's own map app, with turn-by-turn directions by car, foot, and public transportation. With Google Maps, you'll see estimated travel times, integration with your Google account for quick access to your home and work addresses (optional), and the ability to rotate the map by pressing two fingers to the screen and twisting them.
With more than 30 languages supported and the ability to deliver impressively accurate results most of the time, the Google Translate app is one of the most remarkable programs you can load onto your iPhone. Most people probably won't need it too often, except when traveling or studying a language, but it can be amazingly useful in unexpected circumstances.
(also called Movies by Flixster, with Rotten Tomatoes)
Free Flixster isn't just another movie- and theater-information app. Yes, it does list movies with ratings and plots and theater show-times, but it also offers some extras, such as Rotten Tomatoes ratings and social integration. It's a clear, well-designed app that efficiently gets you the information you need to make your movie-viewing decisions and to easily purchase tickets. You can even watch movies right inside the app if you purchase them or already have them in your
collection.
Free"What was the name of that movie& the one with Ally Sheedy and Fisher Stevens?" The next time you can't remember the name of an actor, television show, or film (Short Circuit, by the way) IMDb saves the day. One of the handiest reference websites on the planet, IMDb never fails when it comes to looking up anything that has to do with TV, film, or Hollywood. The IMDb Movies & TV app also lets you find which movies are playing at your local cinema, and even purchase tickets. With an IMDb account (free or paid for Pro), the app provides even more features, like the ability to create a watchlist of movies you want to see.
(formerly LinkedIn Contacts)
The worst thing you can say to someone you've met before is "It's a pleasure to meet you." The mobile app LinkedIn Connected (formerly LinkedIn Contacts) prevents that embarrassing situation from happening by telling you before a meeting who you're meeting and whether you've met before. The app looks through your calendar, email, address book, and of course LinkedIn, and gives you an impressively quick summary of past communication and friends in common.
Free Weather Underground, our Editors' Choice for iPhone weather apps, succeeds because it sticks to what it does best: clearly presenting lots of hyper-local information in a simple and highly customizable interface. The rich data in this excellent app will keep the most info-hungry meteorology geek satisfied.
Free Half the fun of having a smartphone is looking things up when you're in the middle of a bar bet&and hopefully being right. Wikipedia is the go-to source for fact-checking in the mobile age, and the Wikipedia app usually returns results faster than a mobile search engine.
WolframAlpha is like a math and science version of Wikipedia. It's an outstanding source of nerd knowledge and computation about virtually anything, from basic algebra to the depths of the universe. It's like a search engine for algebra, physics, engineering, and so much more&even nutritional information. The app does require an Internet connection to work.
Free There are plenty of apps, both free and paid, for the iPhone if you want a second opinion about the forecast from the stock Apple Weather app. One of the best alternatives is Yahoo Weather. The design is pretty similar to Apple's app, until you begin swiping. It's sleeker, includes a photo from each city or town, and has maps, too.
Organization and Productivity (10-21)
F Premium from $2.99 per month
List-making and task-management app Any.do has a unique feature called the Any.do moment that encourages making a habit of reviewing your daily tasks. Geolocation reminders actually work in this app, and it's an overall great app for jotting down tasks and goals.
$3.99 As the name implies, Awesome Note (+Todo) is an iPhone app for creating notes and to-do lists. Of all the personal organization apps on Apple's mobile devices, Awesome Note is one of the most visually compelling, letting users choose which colors, background images, fonts, and icons they want to use in their notes. It's a treat to play with all these options, plus the app's graphical calendar, while also being productive.
Free Reasonably accurate and fast, the Dragon Dictation iPhone app cuts the typing out of jotting down a note, drafting an email, posting to Twitter, and a few other light tasks. As a simple dictation app, Dragon transcribes whatever you speak with good accuracy. The app does have some shortcut buttons to push the transcribed text through to Facebook, a new email message, and a few other places, but Dragon Dictate doesn't actually store any notes in the app itself.
FreeThe free iPhone app EasilyDo works as a personal assistant and automation machine. You connect the app to a variety of online services, like your email, calendar, Facebook account, and so forth, and then EasilyDo looks for things it can help you get easily done. For example, a notification might ask you if you'd like EasilyDo to add the contact details of someone who has recently emailed you to your address book. Or it might spot an upcoming birthday of a friend and let you set up a "happy birthday" post to their timeline in advance. It's an amazing productivity app that helps you take care of a variety of tasks quickly and efficiently.
Free& Without the Evernote app for iPhone, I'd be a lot less productive while I'm away from my desk. This free, straightforward note-making app outrivals most competing apps thanks to its strong search capabilities and effortless organization. But the real key to its success and popularity is that Evernote synchronizes all your files by saving them to a cloud service, meaning anything you create or alter from your iPhone will be there waiting for you when you log into any other version of Evernote.
Evernote Scannable quickly scans stacks of business cards, notes from a meeting, and documents using nothing more than your smartphone and its camera. It's even faster than Evernote's own in-app business card and document scanner, and it's free to use. It's a keeper and a PCMag Editors' Choice.
Free Google Drive users can access their files with the Google Drive app, but you'll need the Docs app to edit them or create new Word processing documents. The office productivity suite is free to use, and documents created with Google Docs don't count against your overall storage allotment in Google. That's a pretty sweet deal.
Similar to the Google Docs app is Google Sheets, another companion app to Google Drive that lets you edit and create spreadsheets. Unlike Microsoft's mobile office apps, Google Sheets (and Drive, and Docs) don't require an annual subscription. If you're a Google Drive user, be sure to download all three apps.
Free The Google Search app isn't really about just searching anymore. It's now about Google Now, which is an included service that delivers personalized information, such as directions to an upcoming appointment in your Google Calendar from your home or office. It also can send you traffic alerts before you leave, and let you know sports scores and game summaries from your favorite teams as they happen. It's a wonderful app that's highly customizable, and it looks sharp, too.
Free 'If this, then that'&shorten that little tag line to ifttt, and you've got one of the best apps on the market. This amazingly simple yet powerful iPhone app can automate just about anything you'd want to do in your digital life: for example, if I add a new contact in Gmail, then save that person's contact information to my Evernote account. If you're turning your home into a smart home, you definitely want to keep the ifttt app on your iPhone, as it can help you manage a range of devices, so that if you get into your smart bed, then the app can turn the lights off for you.
iPhone users who also have a Mac running Yosemite know the simple joy of cross-device syncing. Effortless syncing starts to come apart at the seams, however, when you have other operating systems in your mix, like a Windows computer and an Android tablet. Pushbullet fills in the cracks. It lets you quickly push links, addresses plotted on Google Maps, images, and other information to from one device to another in just a matter of taps or clicks. Pushbullet also pushes other kinds of content if you subscribe to it, like daily cartoons from Cyanide and Happiness, acting something like an RSS reader. It won't replace other syncing services that you might use, but it's good to have for those times when you just want to move one thing quickly from a computer to your iPhone, or vice versa.
Timeful is a free iPhone app that helps you find time to do the things you want to do, without crowding out the things that are already on your plate. It connects to calendars you already use to get a sense of what you must do, then it lets you adds new appointments, or even daily habits that you would like to do. It suggests times that might be optimal to complete these tasks you assign yourself and becomes smarter the more you use it because it learns from your accepting or rejecting the suggestions. The result is an app that helps you not only find time to do the things you want to do, but also keeps track of how often you do them, and when.
Utilities (22-33)
$19.99 free for users of AVG Family Safety for desktop AVG Family Safety for iOS is a powerful family-friendly browser that blocks all sorts of inappropriate content from young eyes: porn, malware, scams, phishing, and much more. It's an Editors' Choice parental control app for iOS. Parents have two sets of controls, monitoring and filtering, to configure from a remote Web interface. However, if you'd rather not go through the setup, just choose presets from one of four age categories and you're good to go.
FreeThis all-in-one calculation app, Converter Plus, delivers numbers on nearly everything, from currency conversions to loan interest figures. It converts metric to imperial measurements for temperature, cooking volumes, length, and more.
F Premium account from $29.99 per year Password manager Dashlane puts your login credentials at your fingertips with this iPhone app&and literally if you have an iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, or iPhone 6 Plus, as the TouchID can be your authenticator. With iOS 8, it has an added capacity to communicate with other apps, making for easier logging in. If you're unfamiliar with Dashlane, it's a password manager with both desktop and mobile apps for syncing your passwords across devices, keeps all your username and password combinations safe. It can generate strong passwords for you. As with any password manager, all you have to remember is one strong password to unlock your Dashlane account, and all your other passwords will be accessible to you to unlock all your online accounts.
FreeIf your files live all over the place&your office computer, home desktop, laptop&having a dependable syncing program is a must. , the service that lets you store your files in the cloud and access them from anywhere you have a signal, fills that role nicely with a Dropbox iPhone app. It has a simple interface, easy uploading, and swift syncing across all accounts.
$1 per month The venerable password manager LastPass&a favorite here at PCMag&is one of the top 100 iPhone apps because it lets you access, manage, and create unique passwords wherever you are. The app syncs with other installations of LastPass, such as those on your laptop or desktop computer. Granted, it's a bit clumsy to use, but that's more an issue with the limitations of iOS than problems with LastPass.
Free Google is going full steam ahead releasing iPhone apps, and Google Drive is one of the latest. If you use the free service, there's simply no question that you will want to download the iPhone app so that you can get at your files even faster when you need them.
Ladies, keep track of your most private calendar&that of your menstruation cycle&in the My Days app. This free app helps you track ovulation, intimacy, and periods. Push notifications are optional, but if you want to know when the "flowers will be in bloom" next, this app will send you subtly worded reminders.
RedLaser, an app that turns your iPhone's camera into a barcode scanner, has long been on every new iPhone owner's list of free apps to download. Overtime, the app has only improved, and it's now a multi-functional scanner that works on QR codes, too. When shopping, scan any item with a barcode, and RedLaser delivers detailed information about the product, including whether you can buy it at a better price nearby.
If you frequently find yourself firing up the iPhone's built-in timer to measure or track units of time, then the Repeat Timer Pro is a must-download. The $1.99 iPhone app is packed with functionality not included in the default iOS clock timer&a whopping 26 alerts, three independent timers, background functionality with notifications, an interval timer, and more. In short, if you need to time anything&a yoga session, meal preparation times, etc.&this is your app.
Free This simple productivity and business app can spare you countless headaches. The next time you have a document that requires your signature in a hurry, just open it with SignNow, place your John Hancock, and be done with it. The app can open files from email, Dropbox, the Camera app, and other sources.
F requires account from $9.99 per monthOne of our favorite file-syncing services, , added an iPhone app to its offering in 2011. SugarSync gives you access to your files from a multitude of devices, no matter if you store them on your laptop at home, desktop computer at the office, tablet, and so on. You can use SugarSync to stream music, back-up photos, collaborate on projects, and more.
Free With the release of iOS 8, Apple iPhone users can finally install custom keyboards. One of our favorites is SwiftKey. It lets you type with swiping gestures. You drag your finger around to or near the keys you want, and it figures out what you're trying to say. Typing this way is faster and easier than doing individual key presses. You'll lose the dictation microphone with this keyboard, but it's easy enough to swap back to the stock Apple keyboard by tapping the globe icon in the lower left.
Communication and Social (34-46)
Free The iPhone app Cloze collects tweets, emails, Facebook posts, and other bits of communication from your contacts, and prioritizes them based on people who are most relevant to you. In other words, even if your boss isn't chronologically at the top of your Twitter feed, she will be at the fore of your Cloze view. It's a wonderful tool for getting relevant information about people in your network, and its Web app has even more features and insights to love.
FreeSpeed, better search functions, and color-coded threading make the standalone Gmail iPhone app preferable to the built-in Mail app (where you can access Gmail). The Gmail app for iOS 4 and later, made by Google, gives users another choice for managing email. It allows iPhone users to decide what they value in an email app. Do you value search capability over text displayed at readable sizes? Is it more important for your various email accounts to be managed in one app, as Mail arranges them, or would you rather have a dedicated app just for Gmail that looks more like Gmail on the web, with color-coded threading? The Gmail app searches your entire email so much easier and faster than the pre-installed Mail app.
Free As a new convert to Google Voice, I really love the ability to have another phone number that I can use when I don't want to give out my direct iPhone number. Google Voice lets you screen calls, gives you a free voice-mail system, and also enables free text messaging and calls (among U.S. international rates vary). The Google Voice app is a great addition to the iPhone.
(formerly YouSendIt)
Who among us hasn't felt the sting of a failed delivery in email due to the size of an attachment? Hightail, formerly called YouSendIt, specializes in remedying that problem by allowing users to upload large files to its servers and then share them simply with a generated link. The company's revamped iPhone app lets you not only email large files, but also digitally sign documents and store files in the cloud as well.
Free LinkedIn provides an effective online network for keeping up with your contacts. It's easy to rely on LinkedIn more than your own address book for finding otherwise long-lost colleagues and business partners. Anyone in the job market will want to stay on top of LinkedIn for both its networking aspects and its wonderful database of job listings. It works well on an iPhone, although I like the
even better.
F subscriptions varyMention scours the Web day and night to find new instances of search terms of your choosing and alerts you when it finds them. The search-and-alert program is an alternative to Google Alerts, taking the core concept from that competitor and blending it with social media monitoring tools, resulting in a supremely rich package for businesses or anyone in a branded-persona line of work.
Free Pinterest is a virtual pinboard, but don't be fooled by that description. It's for shopping, and that includes virtual window shopping. Pinterest lets you organize and share all pictures of anything you find online or in your life. With Pinterest on your iPhone, it's easy to snap photos in the real world and upload them to your boards. You can watch what others are pinning on Pinterest, and often, the items are for sale and can be purchased by following a link out to the retailer's site.
Free Skype is one of the best, free communication tools for the iPhone. As of version 3.0, the app lets you make video calls. As with other versions of Skype, you can call or chat with other Skype users at no charge, or buy credit to call any other phone number, landline or mobile.
Free Sexting and
aside, the visual chat app Snapchat can be a lot of fun to use&and let me emphasize "fun." Snapchat should not be used as a private and secure messaging app. Rather, it's a simple app that you can use to swap funny, ephemeral visuals with your friends. Messages sent through Snapchat disappear from the receiver's phon the sender chooses up to 10 seconds as the limit. Snap a picture, draw or write on top of it if you like, choose the amount of time the recipient can see it, and send away. Just bear in mind that all digital media is reproducible, and that you should never send anything illicit, private, or anything meant to be secure through this entertainment app.
It may not say great things about our society, but the quick and easy dating app Tinder is a full-on cultural force. Since it only allows communication between people who mutually like each other, you won't get bogged down with random, unsolicited love notes. And swiping left or right on a picture is a lot less stressful than combing through an entire profile. Whether you're looking for the love of your life or something more casual, you should try out Tinder.
FreeFor a long time, Twitter Inc., the company that owns the 140-character social network, didn't make its own app. Dozens of third parties did, however, but not all the resulting apps were worth using. So when Twitter released its official Twitter app&and it worked well and loaded quickly!&users folded the new tool into their iPhones happily. If you tweet, it's a no-brainer to have this app. If you don't tweet and have been on the fence about joining the masses, the iPhone app makes it easy and convenient to get on board.
Live streaming is the hot new way to constantly document your life and share it with the world. Twitter's Periscope app makes it easy to find interesting new streams or start broadcasting one of your own. You can save streams and revisit them later, and privacy options mean your face will only be seen by a select few if that's what you want. Welcome to the future of vlogging.
FreeVine is Twitter micro-video sharing app, and it is well worth exploring if you've never seen it action before. Some of the most talented video artists on Vine share six-second stop-motion shorts, jokes, sleight of hand tricks, and tromp l'oeil works of art. You can also make and share your own ultra-short videos with the simple interface, although you won't find any editing tools. Part of the charm is in the quick-and-dirty nature of these amateur films.
WhatsApp remains one of the most-popular cross-platform messaging apps on the market, worldwide. If your brother in Shanghai has an Android, and your best friend in Rio has a Blackberry, you can text with them both, practically for free, from your iPhone. WhatsApp bypasses SMS (and all the charges it can rack up) and sends messages to your contacts over Wi-Fi when available (3G, etc., when it's not) so that you don't incur charges. The app is free to download and free to use for a year, but costs 99 cents per year thereafter.
This chat app lets you send self-destructing encrypted media and messages over a secure system, proving that you don't have to sacrifice usability for the sake of security. You can send basic text messages, images that you can mark up in the app, and 30-second audio recordings as well. Wickr lets you decide when your messages self-destruct on the recipient's device. The app even has a Shredder features that obliterates every trace of your old messages, for when you want to be super secure.
Entertainment (56-63)
Netflix remains our Editors' Choice for streaming video services on iPhone. But while that popular service has plenty of great movies and original series to enjoy, its catalog still has holes. With Amazon Instant Video, you'll find countless movies and TV shows you can pay for individually. And if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, you'll be able to watch a selection of content for free.
$9.99/month
Apple didn't spend billions on Beats just for a headphones brand. Apple Music is the company's big Spotify competitor. While you can still buy songs from iTunes, now you can pay a monthly fee to stream most of the iTunes library to your iPhone. Other features include Ping, a social network for connecting to musicians, and exclusive radio stations starring heavy hitters like Dr. Dre. Spotify is still our favorite music-streaming service, but you should take advantage of Apple Music's free trial and see if you like what you hear.
$2.99 If you obsessively listen to podcasts, as I do, go buy the Downcast iPhone app. It shines with excellent features, smart downloading options, and a great interface. It's worlds better than the stock Podcasts app from Apple (which, as of iOS 8, comes included on your phone with no ability to remove it). Downcast is suited for people who want a lot of control over their podcast listening experience, and it's that fine level of control that makes it our Editors' Choice. My favorite feature: Downcast lets you customize not only how often the podcast catcher checks for new episodes, but also where you are when it does using geo-fencing, e.g., "check for new episodes when I arrive at work."
Dubsmash lets you create and share short videos of you lip syncing to an audio clip. It's silly, pointless, and a lot of fun. Sometimes that's what you need. The app is more than a goofy idea, though. The huge catalog of user-submitted sound files includes everything from questionable political quotes to famous movie one-liners to animal noises. If it's good enough for Hugh Jackman, it's probably good enough for you.
Free If you like both live radio and curated stations, download iHeartRadio. iHeartRadio manages to capture the radio's spontaneity (complete with ads and annoying DJs), while giving users options to create commercial-free custom stations. It's also a great app for listening to live sports when you want to hear the announcers for your home team.
D requires membership from $7.99 per monthThe Netflix app for Apple iPhone enhances the value of a Netflix subscription by letting you watch movies from its streaming, or Instant, service directly on your handheld device. In the latest version, Netflix has added the ability to rate movies from your smartphone, but it removed DVD (disc) queue management tools, so you'll have to use the Netflix website for that.
Plex is by far the easiest way for you to set up your own home media server. With a home media server, you can access movies, songs, and other media files from anywhere in your house as long as your device is connected to your Wi-Fi network. Plex's iPhone app is slick, intuitive, and now, free. Pay for a premium pass and you'll get even more perks like syncing content to your iPhone for offline viewing.
F optional subscription $9.99 per month Rdio combines a redesigned, easy-on-the-eye interface, quality audio streaming, and lots of options into an iPhone app that music fans will love. If you choose to purchase a subscription to the service for unlimited mobile streaming ($9.99 per month, which also includes unlimited streaming through Roku and Sonos), be sure to do so via the website and not through the app itself.
$5.99 If you hear a song and don't know what it is (or for the life of you, can't remember who sings it)&Shazam to the rescue! Launch Shazam and hold it as close as you can to the speakers, then let her rip. Within a few seconds, the app will tell you the title, artist, and sometimes even find the album art, too. Shazam is a whiz with most radio-play songs, new and old, originals and covers, but it occasionally gets stumped by obscure b-sides.
FreeOf all the music streaming apps in the Apple App Store, Slacker Radio always seems to pound just a few beats harder than the rest. The same outstanding service you'll find in Slacker Radio's online version is on the iPhone and has been for a long enough time for the company to have massaged the interface and performance to the point that you can appreciate it audibly.
F Premium subscription optional Another excellent music-streaming service, Spotify, formerly had a lot of lock-down features in its iPhone app for people who were not paying subscribers to the service. Not so any more. A
now allows anyone to listen to an artists, playlist, or album in shuffle mode (and with intermittent audio ads). Premium subscribers paying $9.99 per month can listen to their playlists in the order they create, and save playlists offline, too, all without encountering advertisements.
FreeTired of Apple's Podcast app? Try Stitcher instead, an alternative way to manage your podcasts. It has good controls for organizing groups of podcasts and limiting how many episodes are downloaded locally to your phone to help you manage free space.
Twitch.TV's iPhone app may not allow you to stream your own gameplay videos, but it is the best way to watch your favorite streaming personalities and chat with fellow gaming fans on your mobile device. Twitch is the service to turn to if you want to watch countless people, from professionals to hobbyists, streaming every video game you can think of. And it's mostly free of the harsh copyright restrictions that are currently kneecapping competitor YouTube Gaming. Twitch on iPhone is a great portable portal into the Twitch community
Hobbies (64-71)
Free Adobe knows something about image editing, and the free Adobe Photoshop Express 2.0 iPhone app gives you a taste of this expertise. While the app itself is free, you'll need the $4.99 upgrade for full functionality. All in all, Adobe Photoshop Express is a solid tool for making light photo edits on your iPhone.
Could your learning a new language somehow add value to other people all over the world? It's a strange idea, but one that's playing out when you use the free language learning Web app
(4 stars), which now has an iPhone app as well. As far as free, mobile apps for language-learning go, the Duolingo iPhone app is easily the best. A recent update makes your next lessons available offline, so you can continue learning even when you're not connected to the Internet.
FreeESPN's free app lets you check the game quickly, and discreetly when necessary (that is, with your phone under the dinner table), for your favorite teams in more sports than most other apps. It can pull game data from baseball, basketball, American football, the sport the rest of the world calls football (soccer, in the U.S.), ice hockey, cricket, rugby, and more.
With Google Photos, iPhone shutterbugs can enjoy the benefits of Google's enormous cloud resources and image-technology prowess with free, (nearly) limitless storage and powerful search. It's not quite as precise as Google Image Search on the Web, but it does include extras like a clever multi-select feature, photo and editing filters, and face and object detection.
Hyperlapse from Instagram is an app that works in tandem with the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app to give you the power to make time-lapsed (i.e., sped-up) videos. The app makes creating hyperlapse videos simpler than ever, although it also works as a video stabilizer, which is pretty neat, too. Hyperlapse is currently only available for iOS, and it's designed for both iPhone and iPad. It does only one thing, but it's impressive and fun to use.
FreeInstagram is a light photo-editing and sharing app. Many of the camera filters that you can apply to images will give them a retro-hip style, but they're fun and can turn out some rather beautiful images with a little practice. It's fun to browse images that other people upload, too.
FreeNASA has released many iPhone apps, most of them with a specific focus (NASA Television, ISSLive, NASA Space Weather) but this app is the space agency's flagship app, and, in that role, it aggregates a wide range of NASA content. Space enthusiasts and curious minds will love how it packs a wealth of news stories, features, images, video, and information about the space agency's activities into this one mobile app.
$4.99 Snapseed is our Editors' Choice among iPhone camera apps for its non-destructive editing capabilities, powerful photo correction, localized adjustments, and many image-enhancing effects. Snapseed also works very well when it comes time to share photos, integrating with all the major social networks, and it sports a clear and innovative interface. Moreover, it's the only iPhone app that even approaches the power of desktop digital image editing software. At nearly $5, it's a bit more expensive than some other iPhone camera apps, but its power and features help it handily outshine the competition.
Free Beer enthusiasts the world over use the Untappd mobile app to keep track of what they drink and share tasting notes with others, which is a huge selling point for this app. Its poor user experience and middling search functionality, however, hold it back from app greatness. Nevertheless, it is the best beer search and logging app you'll find, with a great social network, too.
Finance (72-77)
Free BillGuard connects you to your online credit card statements and flags merchants who frequently charge consumers for products or services they've either forgotten about or they didn't know they were requesting. BillGuard is smart because it has isolated one element of personal finance that can get lost in the noise of more robust applications.
began as a personal finance education website for women. These days, it's less gender-specific and much more interactive, especially if you download the company's free iPhone app. The LearnVest app is a well-designed, comprehensive solution for monitoring your money, creating budgets, prioritizing your financial goals, and educating yourself about personal finance. It's easy to use largely because it connects directly to your financial accounts&savings, checking, credit cards, investment, you name it&and automatically pulls every line item of your income and expense history. It's similar to Mint, but more about financial education. If you want to read up on investment strategies, for example, LearnVest will be more your speed than Mint.
Free LevelUp is an iPhone (and Android) app that lets you make purchases using your credit card via QR codes that the app displays. Participating merchants simply scan the QR code on your screen using his or her own smartphone, which initiates a credit card transaction, and you're on your way. The fact that LevelUp doesn't require any special hardware, other than an iPhone (or Android phone), gives it a huge advantage over the other strong player in the mobile payment space, , which uses a near-field communication (NFC) chip to communicate with PayPass readers, installed on some credit card swipe machines at checkouts. And bonus: A lot of LevelUp merchants give you a discount if you use the app to pay.
The website and
helps you keep detailed accounts of your finances by connecting to all your financial accounts (and then some) and tracking all the money you earn and spend.
iPhone app extends the experience so users can keep an eye on their spending better while on the go. The app gives you deep insight into how you're spending your money and whether you're sticking to the budget you've created in Mint. It's one of the best personal finance apps you'll find.
More and more, I find myself relying on PayPal to quickly reimburse friends when they pick up the check and I don't have cash on hand to chip cover my share. The PayPal mobile app allows you to initiate payments no matter where you are. The app also has some shopping features so you can pay for goods and services without ever taking out your wallet at merchants that accept PayPal.
Devices like Square and services like Apple Pay make it easy for you to pay businesses without cash or cards. But if what if you just want to pay back a friend for a fun night on the town? With Venmo, you won't have to scrounge up dollar bills or remember how to write a check. Just download this app, enter your bank account or debit card data, connect to your friend, and start letting the money flow. Venmo also talks to Facebook so you can share your wildest transactions with the world.
Health and Fitness
$4.99 Bicycle tracking app Cyclemeter (for iPhone) collects a wealth of data, is very accurate, contains several well thought out features, and appeals to fitness enthusiasts who participate in more than one sport, which is why it's an Editors' Choice app. This $4.99 iPhone app maps and records your bicycle rides, then compiles all your data into excellent graphs. And despite its name, Cyclemeter doesn't just record cycling. Other activities, from cross-country skiing to running, come preloaded so at the touch of a button, you can leverage the app for more than one sport&an enormous benefit.
In a crowded market of fitness apps, the Johnson and Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout app is one of a few truly free apps that can help you break a quick sweat at an intensity level that's right for you. The interface is polished, and the instructions for quick workouts are clear. The real beauty of this app is that you can choose from a wide variety of workouts, some of which are quite challenging and much longer than seven minutes, and some of which are designed for beginners. I highly recommend the Johnson & Johnson 7 Minute Workout app for frequent travelers who need to squeeze in short workouts in hotel rooms, as the exercises require nothing more than a few square feet of space and a chair.
FreeThe free fitness app MyFitnessPal is one of the best all-in-one calorie counter and exercise trackers for the iPhone. A simple design and interface make using the app a quick chore rather than a fatiguing project, which is essential when trying to reach a long-term fitness or weight goal. The selling feature of this app is its exhaustive food and nutrition database, which trounces every competitor's that we've seen.
The Pear Personal Coach app talks you through runs, at-home workouts, yoga routines, and even training programs for running races. Real human voices make the audio part of the experience excellent. In-app purchases can add up, but this free app is among the best fitness apps you'll find on the iPhone, and an Editors' Choice winner.
$4.99 Don't be fooled by Runtastic's name. Runtastic PRO isn't just for runners&it's for anyone who wants to track an activity, including cycling, hiking, skiing, kayaking, or just walking. Runtastic spits out a wealth of information about your activities and route. Maps of your route, for example, have mile markers on them, and you can pull up detailed charts to see your speed, pace, elevation, and more for each leg. When you wear a supported a heart rate monitor while using the app, the app will show you that data in your final outputs, too. Audio feedback, music integration, and much more make this one of the best running (and sports activity-tracking) apps.
F Premium account $6 per month or $59 per year
Runners and cyclists who thrive on competition love the Strava app. After a major overhaul and release, this app is better than it was before. Whether you're competing against yourself to beat your best time, or looking at the long list of strangers who have smoked you on some nasty uphill stretch of your favorite route, Strava brings a fierce competitive angle.
F subscriptions for content $3.99 per month or $9.99 per year
If you need someone to kick your butt into shape, MMA World Champion Georges St-Pierre may be the one to do it. His iPhone workout app, Touchfit: GSP, coaches you through a series of exercises for a total body workout. After each set, you "touch in" to tell the app whether it was easy, hard, very hard, or impossible to complete. The app uses that information to adjust your workout to make sure you're always challenged, but not pushed beyond your boundaries. You're sure to feel sore tomorrow.
FreeWebMD is much more than a diagnosis app, although you certainly can use it to input symptoms you are experiencing and find some clues as to what's ailing you. It also contains listings for healthcare professionals and pharmacies in your area, as well as first-aid guides&simple instructions for dealing with an emergency that everyone should have accessible to them at any time. This free reference app is one you hope you don't need, but the moment you do, you'll be glad you downloaded it.
Reading (85-91)
With the beta release of the brand-new Digg Reader gone public, Digg has breathed new life into its iPhone app, notably by adding an RSS feed reader. The app is both speedy and responsive, with a lovely design and wonderful overall user experience.
$2.99 RSS reader Feedly delivers the content you want from your favorite websites into your iPhone. It's a full replacement to Google Reader that includes updates that you want from Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instapaper, and other sources around the Web. On the iPhone, Feedly looks great and works seamlessly with the Web app.
FreeFlipboard, an app initially designed for the iPad that curates content from your social networks and Web partners (think periodicals, blogs, etc.) based on your interests and turns them into stunning magazine-like digital pages, is now available on the iPhone. The app is free to download and requires a free user account. Flipboard absolutely shines on the iPad, taking advantage of swiping gestures with both visual and interactive grace, and on the iPhone, it's still elegant, but a little tight.
Free If Kindle and Nook don't tickle your fancy, Apple has its own little online bookstore where you can download and save novels, magazines, newspapers, and other reading material&and yes, many of the books and periodicals are free! iBooks, a personal digital library, works on iPad as well, so you can browse for books on the go from your phone and save them to read on the tablet later.
$2.99 If you read a lot, Instapaper helps you in two ways. First, it strips out some of the annoying ads, images, and extra junk on a Web page so that it's easier to read on a small screen. Second, it saves Web pages and content for you to read later by downloading a simplified version of them (again, stripped of junk). Read newspaper articles, blogs, and other online content, even when you don't have a signal, when they're saved to Instapaper.
Read books, magazines, and newspapers right on your iPhone without ever buying an e-reader. The Kindle app gives you access to buy or download for free hundreds of thousands of books, and more than 100 different newspapers and magazines.
Free Reeder is another RSS feed reader that works well on the iPhone. Like Feedly, Reeder provides a seamless experience when you're away from your desktop or laptop computer and want to keep tabs on what's happening online. The app lets you browse by feed or folders, manage starred items, mark pages as read or unread, and more.
Travel (92-100)
FreeGateGuru (for iPhone) is an app to pack. It will help you navigate airports, anticipate wait times, find the freshest food, and travel with greater confidence. Imagine this grim scene: You have a three-hour layover and the unenviable dining choice between the bloated cinnamon bun and a greasy sports bar. Which is less likely to inflict damage on your stomach lining? GateGuru can help you avoid the plight of past LaGuardia travelers with its user-submitted reviews of services in the airport. It also has airport maps and checkpoint wait times will spare you from extending your tenure.
FreeThe Hipmunk iPhone app, a spinoff of the
is a travel booking app for flights and hotels. What makes Hipmunk unique is it incorporates accommodation options from alternative sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway, two services that let homeowners rent out their private real estate by the day or week.
For getting a deal on car rentals, Hotwire's iPhone app is actually amazingly useful, as long as you don't mind knowing which company you'll end up using. The good news is, you're guaranteed to get one of the major players. Hotwire is also decent with hotel search and booking, especially at the last minute, which is when you'd probably be using it on your phone anyway. It doesn't include flights or package deals, but for deals on car rentals and hotels, it's a winner.
99 cents (free version also available) Travel booking site Kayak is a wonderful multi-purpose travel app, helping you find and purchase flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. While there is a free version of the Kayak iPhone app, the Pro version is worth the dollar if you're an avid traveler. One of the perks: detailed maps of more than 100 airports.
FreeThe free app and website MenuPages keeps a database of restaurant menus, with prices included. If you've ever gritted your teeth at a restaurant's online menu that omits the prices, try MenuPages for unbiased information. Admittedly, MenuPages is not a great app for every location, but in major U.S. cities, it's awesome, especially when Yelp's recommendations seem skewed by college students who give five-star ratings to fast-food burgers and less-than-fresh sushi. With MenuPages, you can make your own decisions about a restaurant's dishes and prices. The app and website won't give you much insight into quality, but it will help you quickly weed out places that are too pricey or don't serve the kind of food you have in mind. It's also useful for ordering take-out.
Free OpenTable has long been a choice service for making dinner reservations without picking up the phone, and with iOS 8 and any iPhone with TouchID (the fingerprint sensor), the iPhone app now has a whole bunch of new features. You can not only make a restaurant reservation, but also pay for your meal at the end of it using Apple Pay. The redesigned interface makes use of the iPhone 6 Plus' extra-large size, too.
Free Travel-confirmation emails always contain way more information than you actually need to get out the door and to the airport on time. One app that can help you
when it comes to travel is TripCase. It does 90 percent of the work of culling and collating travel confirmations into one itinerary, resulting in a clear overview of your trip in chronological order, with flight details, hotel addresses, car rental reservation numbers, and more. It's quite similar to TripIt (listed next), except in how you import your data into the travel app. In TripCase, you forward emails to a special address. With TripIt, the service automatically grabs travel information from your emails for you.
F optional Pro service $49 per year The TripIt iPhone app is a lightweight front end for a powerful itinerary organizer. TripIt finds travel confirmations in your email accounts and collates them into concise itineraries. TripIt is a bit heady-handed on trying to upsell you on the Pro service, but the free app is still an excellent itinerary organizer. The app's greatest strength is the ease with which it gathers your reservation information, which would be difficult to replicate even with a carefully curated series of email folders.
FreeThe most comprehensive review app, Yelp turns out to be an invaluable tool for finding businesses nearby, especially when you're in a town you don't know well. Yelp's mobile app has helped me find a hairdresser when I was in a pinch in Washington DC, and a suitable lunch while driving through Ohio (shout-out to Moreland Hills!). Need to find an acupuncturist in Austin? Or the most popular coffee shop in Charlotte (emphasis on "popular" and not necessarily "best," by the way)? Yelp's the app to do it.
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