The top six (free!) iPhone apps that will make your life easier, cooler, and more fun.

iPhone
“Can you imagine life before people had iPhones? Me neither.” (Photo by Ricky Romero used under Creative Commons license)

By Ashleigh Buchanan

Can you remember life before people had iPhones? Me neither. If you would have told me back in the 1990s when my family got our first cell phone, that eventually I would be carrying a phone that has a touch screen with internet, video chatting, email, and a personal robot that can tell me if it’s raining or not, I would have said “What’s email? I’m going to go play snake.”

I’m a bit of an app hoarder. At night when I can’t sleep, I download random free apps. One morning I woke up had a palm reading app I don’t even remember downloading. But, during these late night downloading sprees I’ve found some gems. I’m going to share these awesome apps with you, along with a few my friends have told me about!

Songza: This is my favorite app I’ve ever discovered. It’s an app that plays music according to what activity you are doing and the genre you want. For Example…  Right now (Friday morning) I’m listening to a Pop Diva, Feeling Confident playlist. Is there a better way to start my day other than listening to Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Christina Aguilera? For all you guys, don’t worry, if you choose the Feeling Confident “Baller” playlist, you’ll be listening to Rick Ross or Lil’ Wayne. My other favorite playlists are the Drop-a-beat Workout and Coffee Shop Indie playlists.

Find My iPhone: This one is pretty self explanatory: If you have this app on your phone, you can look up the location of it from any device with iCloud. Seriously download this app right now. Take advice from someone who lost their iPhone in Downtown Austin an hour before their flight left. If I had this app then, maybe Allison Pardue wouldn’t have had to pay off a homeless man to get it back for me.

RunPee: “Because movie theatres don’t have pause buttons.” Don’t you just hate when it’s the middle of the movie and you have to go to the bathroom? And by the time you get back you are totally lost. Well this is an app that tells you the best times during a movie to go. Brilliant, I know. It also tells you if there are any bonus scenes after the credits.

Fooducate: Fooducate is one of my favorite health apps. It scans the barcodes on food items and gives you nutritional information about them like a grade depending on how good it is for you, tells you about the pros and cons of the product, and gives you healthier alternative products. It’s a great wide to find out if the food that seems like a healthy choice, really is healthy or not.

Nike Training: Nike Training is a great app for the gym. You pick the type of workout you want or what area of your body you want to target, and it leads you through a workout. It tells you what to do and has videos you can watch that show you the moves, but you can still listen to your music through your headphones too! Plus you’ll look like a pro at the gym doing all these workout moves, and no one will know you have a voice in your ears telling you what to do.

BeFunky: BeFunky is one of the best free photo editing apps out there. Because we all know its not enough to just put an Instagram filter on a photo anymore. BeFunky gives you a lot of editing options such as adjusting the brightness/contrast, different effects/filters, and cool photo frames. You’ll have the most liked photo on Instagram in no time.

Sometimes I feel pretty extravagant having a phone that can do all of these things plus a million other things that other apps offer. But it is pretty cool to basically do everything I can do from a laptop on my phone. And have those super useful apps like my lightsaber, air horn, and pocket whip apps. Who knows what apps the world will come up with next?

Happy App-ing 🙂