NYT Now is a brilliant and free news app.
The New York Times has made one of the best news apps with NYT Now. There's an entire team at The New York Times that is responsible for making sure it is constantly updated with not just breaking news — and features — from the Times, but also with highlights from other news outlets. And the icing on the cake is its easily digestible breakdowns of the day's news highlights.
Oh yes, and it's free for anyone.
Price: Free
Fresh Air is a beautiful weather app.
Fresh Air is a gorgeous new weather app that emphasizes visuals with its minimalist weather graph. You can scroll forward in time to see how the weather will be in the future, and it also connects to your calendar app to give you forecasts on upcoming appointments.
Price: Free
Overcast magically erases the pauses in podcasts so you can listen faster.
Overcast is the best app for listening to podcasts and, thanks to a big new update, it's free. This means you can get access to "smart speed" — which takes away pauses to speed up the podcast — voice boost, and downloading on the cellular network.
Price: Free
Photoshop Fix brings powerful photo-editing tools to your phone for free.
Photoshop Fix is a new standalone app from Adobe that breaks off many of Photoshop's retouching capabilities and gives them to you for free. You can do things like smooth or sharpen "objects" (think skin), or use the "liquify" tool to reshape any area as if it were liquid.
Price: Free
Slash is a custom keyboard that lets you send videos and GIFs without leaving the app you're in.
Slash is the best iPhone keyboard out today, and its killer feature is taking the pain out of jumping between your apps. Slash's innovation comes in the form of a blue forward slash that sits at the bottom of the keyboard. That slash is a magic button that can instantly give you access to a slew of app-based search engines baked into the keyboard itself.
Price: Free
"Alto's Adventure" is the most beautiful game of the year so far.
"Alto's Adventure" puts you in control of a snowboarder as you try to make it as far as you can down the endless mountain, chasing llamas, performing double back flips, and grinding rails for points along the way. The physics-based gameplay and beautiful night and day animations combined with a stunning environment make this game worth the download.
Price: $1.99
Product Hunt is the best place to discover trendy new products.
Product Hunt has evolved to become Silicon Valley's go-to list of rising startups and apps, and there's now categories covering games, books, and podcasts as well. The app allows you to follow startup founders, view curated collections, post new products on the fly, and download apps directly while browsing.
Price: Free
Manual gives photography experts full access to all of your camera's settings.
Manual lets you open up the hood of your iPhone's camera, giving you full independent control of advanced settings like shutter, ISO, white balance, focus, and exposure compensation.
Price: $1.99
Vesper is an elegant way to record your thoughts.
Vesper is a note-taking app that takes a lot of the hassle out of organizing your thoughts. You can easily tag each entry so you can search for a specific thought by keyword later, and all your notes will be synced to your Vesper account for free.
Price: $9.99
Paper is the best sketching app for iPhone.
Paper for iPhone is an app that expands the notion of what "taking notes" means on your phone.
You can use it to make everything from lists to presentations that include charts and graphs. It basically helps translate the experience you have writing on "paper" to your phone — bringing back all the tasks that more traditional note-taking apps lack.
Price: Free (iOS)
Clear is a simple, well-designed to-do list that helps you stay on track.
Clear is one of the simplest ways to keep track of what you need to do. You can easily drag and reorder your to-dos, and adding a new item is as easy as pulling down your list and typing it in. When you're done with a task, just swipe right.
Price: $4.99
Tweetbot 4 will make you a Twitter master.
Tweetbot 4 is the best Twitter iPhone app for power users. It lets you easily monitor all the stats on your individual tweets, and your account in general, and it cuts out all the ads you would have seen in your timeline.
Price: $4.99
Giphy Cam helps you make insane GIFs out of everyday moments.
Giphy Cam is a new app that's like Photo Booth, on Mac computers, for creating GIFs.
You choose filters and backgrounds — like flying tacos or psychedelic swirls — and then hit the record button to make your own GIF. You can then save it to your phone or post it to social media so your friends can admire your GIF game.
Price: Free
Mr Jump" is the new "Flappy Bird.
"Mr Jump" is a charming platformer that walks the fine line between addictive and difficult. You control Mr Jump as he hops his way across canyon chasms and leaps over spikes, and the latest expansion introduces new levels and a new jet-pack ability.
Price: Free
Hyperlapse from Instagram transforms your shaky footage into a stunning time-lapse.
Until recently, to create smooth time-lapse videos, you needed expensive tripods and stabilization gear. Luckily, Hyperlapse from Instagram uses its image-stabilization techniques to smooth out shaky footage, and the results are impressive. It's great for capturing sports moments, car rides, weather, crowds, and journeys on foot.
Price: Free
Litely is great for adding subtle filters.
Litely is a powerful photo app for adding subtle filters to your photos, giving them a film-like tone. You can tap the screen with two fingers to see what your photo looked like before adding any presets, and the app's non-destructive editing features mean you never have to worry about losing your original.
Price: Free
Dark Sky tells you exactly when it's about to rain or snow.
Dark Sky does one thing very well: It tells you exactly when inclement weather, like rain or snow, is going to happen. The app is beautifully designed and features a precipitation timeline that lets you know minute-by-minute predictions for when you can expect rain.
Price: $3.99
Pedometer++ is a great way to keep track of your daily fitness.
Pedometer++ is perfect for viewing your daily activity and fitness goals with a quick glance. There's two quick ways to check your daily progress. You can swipe down and see the Pedometer++ widget in your iPhone's Notification Center, or you can check the tiny red badge on the app icon, which displays your current steps.
Price: Free
"Afterpulse" is a gorgeous new shooter for iOS.
"Afterpulse" is a third-person shooter that continues to blur the line between mobile- and console-game graphics. If you're a fan of games like "Call of Duty" and "Gears of War," you'll love "Afterpulse's" fast pace and online multiplayer matches.
The game also works on Apple TV, so if you prefer to game with a physical controller instead of touch-screen controls, you can use one of Apple's certified Bluetooth controllers for a slight upper hand.
Price: Free (iOS)
Loopy HD is an easy way to create music on your own by layering looped recordings.
You might remember Loopy HD from "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," where Fallon teamed up with Billy Joel to sing "The Lions Sleeps Tonight" with the help of the app. With an easy-to-use interface, Loopy HD lets you layer beat boxing, instruments, and singing to create vibrant songs all by yourself.
Price: $3.99
Alien Blue is the best way to browse Reddit on your phone.
Reddit, the so-called front page of the internet, is an ever-changing ecosystem of interesting articles, pictures, and discussions, but it's notoriously messy to browse on your smartphone. Alien Blue fixes that, wrapping Reddit's content into an eye-catching design that brings to focus the essential information, like photos, post titles, and comments.
Price: Free
Sky Guide is a beautiful astronomy app that works like magic.
Using Sky Guide is simple. Just aim your phone or tablet at the sky and Sky Guide will highlight the constellations, stars, and planets high above you, displaying details about each. If you want to try locating things on your own, you can use the app's built-in compass to guide you.
Price: $1.99
Moleskine's Timepage calendar app is as elegant as its notebooks.
Moleskine's new calendar app, Timepage, is beautiful and simple to use. The app organizes your appointments in a list — there's no month view — and it also incorporates weather forecasts and lets you quickly hail an Uber right from within the app.
Price: $4.99
Additional reporting by Steven Tweedie.