The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

The iPhone comes with a bunch of apps you never use. Some of them are poorly implemented. Others are lacking important features. Fortunately, there’s a whole world of developers offering some very viable third-party alternatives. You still can’t delete the apps your iPhone comes with, but here are some alternatives that will free you from their boring grips.


The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Phone/FaceTime: Skype

Google Voice is very close to being merged into Google Hangouts, but in the meantime, Skype is just about the best alt-phone app you can find. The VOIP app lets you make domestic and international calls, it’s just about the best cross-platorm video chat app around, which means you can do a face-to-face with people other than your Apple friends and family. Skype is very widely used at this point, so call away! Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Messages: GroupMe

This is hands down one of the best ways to text, especially amongst different groups of friends or colleagues. The best part is it’s totally free, on any platform you can think of, and compatible with SMS. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Mail: Mailbox

There’s a strong chance you have either a Gmail or an iCloud account, in which case Mailbox is a very good say to whip your inbox into shape. It’s fast, easy to navigate, and it learns which crap emails you’re more inclined to delete off the bat. The point is to get you to the white whale of inbox zero, which is a very good thing. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

iCal: Sunrise

Sunrise pulls in your Google and Facebook Calendars, shows you the weather for the day, and gives you directions to scheduled events using Google Maps. It even lets you wish someone a happy birthday via text without leaving the app. Also? It looks beautiful. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Camera: VSCO Cam

The stock camera app isn’t bad, but there are better camera apps out there. Our resident camera expert Michael Hession likes VSCO because it has a simple UI with quick access to iOS 8’s manual controls, its adjustments are familiar to photographers and its preset (though they cost money), are subtle and varied. Free (with in-app purchases)

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Video Player: GoodPlayer

Never run into a video format that your player won’t support. GoodPlayer works with everything from AVI to Xvid to Dvix to FLV to pretty much anything else you can throw at it, so you can watch whatever you want without having to convert it first. $3.79

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Notes: Evernote

Like Apple notes, Evernote syncs your jots across devices. But it also lets you do extra things like record audio, search for text in images, save tweets, and so forth, all across multiple platforms. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Weather: Yahoo Weather

You have a full cornucopia of choices when it comes to weather app, but per our Lifehacker friends, Yahoo Weather is number one because it has a ton of features without being overwhelming. Radars! Forecasts! Satellites! Heat mats! Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Clock: Alarm Clock Pro

Waking up to a harsh, incessant buzzing sucks. Instead, you can use an app that lets you wake up to your favourite songs from you iTunes library, pick new themes, and just get up a little bit happier in the morning. $1.29

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Reminders: Any.Do

Any.Do is great because it toes the line between simple and stocked with features. It syncs to the cloud, has a desktop client, and includes time- and location-based reminders in a clean, pro-productivity interface. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Calculator: QuickGraph

Say for some reason you need to do some higher-level computations. No need to dig up your old, expensive TI-84 — you get all of the same graphing calculator functions in QuickGraph. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Stocks: Real-Time Stock Tracker

This gives you more than just basic data. It pulls from more than 50 different exchanges and markets and gives you real-time data, before- and after- market hours. It presents data in different charts and graphs, and even includes BitCoin price-tracking. Free (with in-app purchases)

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

iTunes: Spotify

I don’t even use iTunes any more. I just pay Spotify’s flat monthly fee to stream all the music I want from my iPhone. Trust me, it’s worth it. Free download, monthly subscription

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Contacts: Brewster

There are about a dozen ways you can get in touch with someone, which makes for a messy address book. Organisation on your own is tedious, but Brewster pulls together all of your contacts from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, your address book and more into one place. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

iCloud: Google Drive

iCloud is an ok service, but as recent celeb news would show, it’s not that secure. Also you can get a lot of storage for not a lot of money from Google Drive. You have apps that work across platforms, and chances are, you’re already using Gmail and other Google products already. Synergy! Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

iBooks: Kindle

Amazon just has a better, cheaper book selection, plain and simple. And if you aren’t exclusively using Apple devices, this reader app will work on whatever you’re using. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Voice Memos: iTalk Recorder

This app is a little more advanced than what you get pre-loaded. You get more control over editing the audio and you can make longer recordings, and it will also pick up sounds the stock app won’t. I use it regularly to record interviews. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Maps: Google Maps

Here’s an absolute no-brainer. Apple Maps has gotten better but when compared with Google Maps, it’s still not great. Google Maps is wonderful and reliable. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Browser: Chrome

Safari certainly leaves something to be desired, but Chrome is terrific. It’s fast, it syncs with Chrome on the desktop, and it’s pretty much the browser you know and love in mobile form. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Compass: Compass

Do you use the compass app? Nope, didn’t think so. But in the event you get lost in the woods with no cell service, you might need some help finding your true north. This compass is insanely simple for getting yourself pointed in the right direction. Free

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The Best Alternative For Every Pre-Loaded iPhone App

Podcasts: Pocket Casts

Lifehacker digs Pocket Casts to organise your podcasts because it’s both easy to use and full of features. It automatically syncs your ‘casts across iOS and Android, backs everything up in the cloud, and plays nice with both AirPlay and Chromecast. It also comes with a nice playlist-making feature so you can listen to a mixtape’s worth of your favourite podcasts. $4.99


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