Mike Nudelman/Business Insider
We’ve put together the definitive list of the best mobile apps out right now.
There are over 1.3 million apps in Apple’s App Store, and another 1.3 million in Google’s Play store, so finding your next app can be overwhelming. We live and breath apps for a living, so we’ve sifted through them to tell you which are the best.
Click here to jump straight to our list of the world’s 100 best apps »
How did we come up with the list?
Just like last year’s App 100 list, a lot of these apps are some of our favorites that we use every day. We also took nominations from readers, and had a careful look at some of the best and most popular apps that launched over the past year.
The best apps are eye-catching in their design, intuitive and speedy in their execution, and at the end of the day, they make our lives more enjoyable.
The apps listed here aren’t ranked. Instead, we broke everything up by categories. You can click the big link above to view our full list, or jump to one of the following categories below:
Productivity
Daniel Goodman/Business Insider
News/Reading
Flickr/RLHyde
Social Networking
REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
Entertainment
Flickr/Björn Olsson
Games
Reuters/Ray Stubblebine
Fitness/Health/Food
Flickr/Nottingham Trent University
Sports
Reuters/Ralph Freso
Photo/Video
Photojojo
Shopping
Deklofenak at www.shutterstock.com
Travel
Flickr/michalo
Utilities
Flickr/Kārlis Dambrāns
PRODUCTIVITY
Humin acts like your digital butler.
Humin is an app that remembers all the tiny details about how and where you met someone, so you can focus on the moment instead of remembering. All you need is someone’s number, and Humin will do the rest. You’ll then be able to search through your contact using familiar phrases like “met last week” or “lives in Brooklyn.”
Price: Free
Available on: iOS
Paper by Fifty Three wants to become your virtual sketchbook.
Paper is just as useful as it is beautiful. The app lets you draw out ideas and sketches on your iPad, and you can store them away in various virtual notebooks. It comes packed with a variety of brushes and pens for your ideas, and there’s even an official Pencil stylus that responds to the pressure of your input. If you’re looking for inspiration, you can check out the Mix ecosystem within the app, which is a creative commons space for remixing ideas.
Price: Free, but you’ll have to pay extra for more brushes and tools.
Available on: iPad
Evernote is your online notebook for everything.
Evernote is an online collection of everything you want to remember. It’s like digital notebook that stores photos, web pages, notes, PDF files, audio clips, and to-do lists. What’s great about Evernote is its indexing feature. Once you add things to your notebook they’re completely searchable and can be accessed on your desktop, the Web, or your mobile device.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, PC, Mac, Google Chrome, and the Web
Mailbox will help get your inbox down to zero.
Mailbox is a clean and minimalistic take on mobile email that uses gestures to help you quickly get your inbox to zero. It works in tandem with Mailbox for Mac, and one of the coolest features is the ability to “Snooze” an email with just one swipe, which will send it to the top of your inbox at a designated time like “Later today,” “This evening,” and “Next week.”
Price: Free
Available on: iOS
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, free of charge. Reorganizing your notes is made simple with a hold-and-drag motion, and if you want to prevent a cluttered collection, a simple swipe archives your entry, storing it behind the scenes until you need to search for it.
Price: $2.99
Available on: iOS
Timeful learns your behaviors in order to help you change your habits.
Timeful is an intelligent calendar app mixed with a to-do list. The app’s algorithm learns how you get stuff done and smartly suggests ways to build new habits and get things taken care of, all on your own terms.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS
Sunrise is a calendar app that performs flawlessly.
Sunrise is another gorgeous calendar app that pulls directly from LinkedIn so you can see the picture and profile of who you’re meeting with. It supports multiple Google Calendars in addition to iCloud and Exchange, and its Quick Add Event works just like Fantastical for quickly adding events as you type them in.
Price: Free
Available for: Android and iOS
BONUS: A close second is Fantastical, which is an iPhone calendar app that’s ridiculously easy to use. Besides keeping you organized, the app’s best feature lets you enter simple phrases, which it will then translate into a calendar appointment automatically. For example you can type, “Meet with Steven for lunch at Chipotle at 3pm” and Fantastical will handle the rest.
Price: $4.99 (iPhone) and $14.99 (Mac)
Available on: iOS and Mac
Quip is an alternative to Microsoft Office for iPad.
Quip is a mobile word processing app created by Facebook’s former chief technology officer. Quip infuses a messaging element into the app to make collaboration a breeze. You can use the app to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You can also use the app to collaborate on blog posts, manage projects, or even share a grocery list.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS
Gmail is still one of the best ways to check email on the go.
Gmail’s app gives you access to the arguably the most popular email service around, and it’s lightning fast. The app supports up to five Gmail accounts, and searching through your mail is easier than ever with Google’s predictions that fill in as you type. With a Gmail account, you get plenty of storage for free, meaning you likely never have to delete an email again. (You can always purchase extra storage just in case).
Price: Free
Available on: Android and iOS
Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive are your best bets for storing files online.
Dropbox lives on your desktop as a virtual folder. You can drag and drop files into your Dropbox and they’ll appear on all of your devices. You also have the option to store files in a public folder so you can easily share them with a simple download link.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, Mac & PC, Web
Google Drive is an online productivity suite that can be accessed with any device that’s connected to the internet, either through an app or on the web. You can share and collaborate on documents and presentations, and it’s great when multiple people need to poke around a file at the same time, as you can always see who else is viewing or editing a document.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, Web
OneDrive is a great place to store all of your documents, photos, and videos, and you get 15 GB of free storage when you sign up. Since OneDrive is a Microsoft service, you’ll always know that your files will play nicely with other Office apps, so you don’t have to worry about if a document will open in Word or not.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Web
Clear is a simple, well-designed, to-do list to help 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 re-order 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. Clear makes it easy to jot down a thing you need to do and pull it up on either your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, and it all syncs over iCloud.
Price: $4.99
Available on: iOS, Mac
Day One is a classy app for keeping a journal.
Day One brings the daily journal into the modern age, and it’s great for micro-journaling or whatever you want your daily writing to look like. The app can record the weather conditions and location of your entry, and if you’re particularly proud of a day’s journal, you can upload it easily to Facebook in a gorgeous webpage format. Since you don’t always know which device you’ll be around when the urge to write hits, you can use Day One with your Mac, iPad, or iPhone.
Price: $4.99
Available on: iOS, Mac
Slack revolutionizes team communication by doing away with email.
Slack is a great way for keeping in touch with your team at work without sifting through dozens of emails. It is a chat room of sorts, and you can tag users and create multiple channels for smaller team projects. The desktop client sends non-intrusive desktop notifications to the corner of your screen, allowing you to stay on top of what’s happening while keeping your eyes on your work.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Mac, Android, Web
NotesPlus is note-taking app with an emphasis on natural gestures.
If you’re a fan of old-fashioned, pencil-on-paper notes, NotesPlus is as close as you’ll get to the real thing. The app’s intuitive vector-based system turns your handwritten notes into text, and you can select multiple drawings and notes together by simply drawing a circle around them. There’s a built-in web browser that you can swipe right to access, which makes grabbing images and details a cinch.
Price: $4.99
Available on: iOS
GoodReader is your trusty app for reading virtually any file.
You never know when you’ll need to open up a random PDF or annotate a text file, and GoodReader is meant to process them all, and quickly. With the ability to add annotations, text boxes, sticky notes, highlights, and drawings, you’ll never be caught with a file you can’t fiddle with.
Price: $2.99
Available on: iOS
NEWS/READING
Alternative Twitter apps Tweetbot and Twitterific offer more features than the official Twitter app.
Tweetbot and Twitterrific are two awesome alternatives to Twitter’s official iOS app that allow you to completely customize your experience. Both are full-featured clients that offer sounds, multi-account management, gestures, and more.
Price:
Tweetbot:$2.99 (iPad), $4.99 (iOS), $19.99 (Mac)
Twitterrific: Free (iOS), $4.99 (Mac)
Available for:
Tweetbot: iPad, iOS, Mac
Twitterrific:iOS, Mac
Kindle, iBooks, and Nook are great for keeping the bookworm in you alive.
The Kindle app gives you access to Amazon’s extensive ecosystem of over 1,000,000 ebooks. There are plenty of magazines, newspapers, and textbooks as well, and the app will keep track of your place when you’re reading, making it easy to switch between devices. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you’ll get access to Kindle’s Lending Library, which lets you borrow one book at a time from a selection of titles, and there’s always Kindle Unlimited if you want a Netflix-esque service, but for books.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
Apple iBooks is always bound to have the latest bestseller, and there are also plenty of interactive ebooks and textbooks that will take advantage of your iPad or iPhone’s touchscreen. Another great feature is the ability to open ePub and PDFs, and your page is always saved when you sync over iCloud.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS
Nook is a fan-favorite for being flexible in the ebook formats it reads. You can open ePub and PDFs, and there’s over 1 million free titles in the Nook store, and you can try over 1,000 magazines and newspapers free of charge for 14 days. There’s also a great Nook LendMe feature that let’s you loan out a book once to any of your friends.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android
Never miss another of Reddit’s famous AMA interviews with the Ask Me Anything app.
Everyone from Woody Harrelson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and President Obama have participated in Reddit’s popular AMA interviews, where commenters can submit questions for the chance for a direct answer. Since Reddit can appear cluttered and confusing for new users, Ask Me Anything organizes the interviews in an easy-to-peruse format, even alerting you to new AMAs and allowing you to explore past ones too.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Yahoo News Digest turns browsing the news into a beautiful experience.
Yahoo News Digest sends you two curated digests of 7-10 articles each day: once in the morning and once in the evening. The articles pull from multiple sources, including essential factual nuggets called “atoms” that give you all you need to know in a beautiful format. It’s arguably the best-looking news app out there.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Circa News distills the world’s news down to the facts so you can stay informed on the go.
Circa News keeps it brief, making it the perfect app to stay on top of the news on the go. Circa’s editorial team artfully condenses long articles into quick reads, and you can read its articles offline too. If you’ve been following a particular story, you can choose to be updated if it develops further.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Paper by Facebook turns combines your Newsfeed and current events in an elegant way.
Paper by Facebook is a new way to ingest all of the stories you see on Facebook, whether they be from your friends or a newspaper. Paper features an incredible attention to detail, getting rid of the clutter of your Facebook Newsfeed and instead focusing on the pictures and words of each post. You can post directly to Facebook from within the app, or customize the topics you’ll see with a nifty carousel that lets you mix culture, science, news, and whatever other topics are up your alley.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS
Alien Blue is the best app out there for browsing Reddit on the go.
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 essentials information like photos, post titles, and comments.
Price: Free (iOS), $3.99 (iPad)
Available on: iOS and iPad
AP Mobile is still the best app for keeping up with breaking news.
The Associated Press claims to be “where the News gets its news,” and there’s no better place to stay up to date on the latest breaking local and national news. You can customize what kind of stories are in your feed, and the app constantly refreshes so you don’t miss any new developments.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, iOS, Windows Phone
Digg is the best app for staying on top of your RSS feed.
After the death of Google Reader, the world now relies on Digg’s reader app to wrangle what’s happening on the internet into a tidy, readable format. Digg does all of this and more, allowing you to import feeds from any news site and view them in a clean interface, now with video. The app even has a section full of stories curated by Digg’s editorial staff.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
If you see something on the internet and want to read it later, use Pocket.
When you find something interesting, you tuck it into your pocket, and the same holds true with the internet and Pocket’s mobile and web app. You can save practically anything you see for later viewing (even when you’re offline), and the app works with iOS 8′s new extensions feature so you can save things directly from Safari and keep browsing.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
SOCIAL NETWORKING
WhatsApp is a simple way to message for free.
There’s a reason Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion earlier this year, and that’s because WhatsApp is exactly what every messaging app should aim to be. It’s designed well, free to use (even for international messaging), has a thriving user base, and lets you send texts, voice messages, pictures, and videos.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Snapchat is the best photo messaging app out there.
Snapchat began as just an app for sharing self-destructing photos and videos to your friends, but it’s quickly evolved into the No. 1 app for visual communication. With its new Stories feature, you can now weave together photos and videos into a visual status of sorts, and you can also send texts from directly within the app.
Price: Free
Available on: iPhone and Android
There’s no better place to share photos than Instagram.
Instagram is one of our favorite iPhone apps of all time. With over 200 million users and host of photo editing filters, it’s a great place to show off your artistic side and share some photos of your own.
Price: Free
Available on: iPhone and Android
Hinge/Tinder/Grindr/OkCupid are the next generation of dating apps.
Meeting people has never been easier with these four apps.
Hinge: Hinge helps you discover people that your Facebook friends already know, requiring a Facebook account so you can view the interesting details about a person while removing the “random” aspect of other dating apps. You get to see a curated list of potential matches, and select those you’re interested in. If someone “likes” you back, Hinge introduces the two of you to help get the conversation started.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, iOS
Tinder: Tinder is best known for its swiping system, which lets you swipe right if you’re interested in someone or left to move on to your next potential match. If two people both swipe right on each other, Tinder lets you know you have a match, and you can message your match from right within the app.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Grindr: Grindr is a location-based dating app targeted towards gay and bisexual men. The app lets you know what singles are nearby so you can meet up with them, and with over 7 million users, there are plenty of choices.
Price: Free
Available on: Android and iOS
OkCupid: OkCupid has most of the same features as other social networks. Users can chat, send status updates, message potential matches, and let the service match you up using its algorithms. The mobile app also lets you know what singles are nearby for impromptu meetups.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Vine is a creative way to share six-second looping videos.
Vine lets you splice together clips that play on a loop and share them with your friends. You can edit videos on the spot and post to Twitter and Facebook, and you can now import videos from your phone too. The community also allows you to find, follow, and interact with other Vine users.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Windows Phone, Android
The official Twitter app is a great way to keep up with your tweets on the go.
Twitter’s official app lets you stay on top of your tweets from your phone. Besides that, it offers some unique features that aren’t found in third-party apps. For example, you can set specific push notifications for individual accounts so you’ll never miss an important bit of news.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone
Update your blog on the go with Tumblr.
Tumblr lets you follow blogs and create simple updates via text, audio, photos, quotes, and video. It’s a great way to seamlessly manage your blog while also seeing what other people are interested in.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, Windows Phone, iOS
LinkedIn is the best network out there for managing your professional connections.
With over 300 million users, LinkedIn is a great place to network and connect with other professionals. The app is well-designed, syncs with your phone’s calendar to help stay on top of meetings, and even lets you view and save recommended jobs. If you’re a Premium subscriber, you can also see who has viewed your profile every day, right from your phone’s Notification Center.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.
Stay in touch with your friends and family wherever you are with Facebook.
Facebook is still the best social network out there for staying in contact with those you care about. Besides letting you see what your friends are up to, you can share updates, photos, and videos on the go, and push notifications quickly alert you to any activity that involves you. You can also play games and use your favorite Facebook apps.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
TapTalk makes it easy to send photos and videos to your friends with a lightning-fast interface.
TapTalk is a personal messaging app that’s all about speed. By arranging your friend icons in a grid-like layout, you can quickly tap their picture to capture a photo. To send a video, just hold down their icon to record, and release when you’re done.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Secret is a social message for saying what’s really on your mind.
Secret lets you and your friends speak freely with each other and the world, but you’ll never know whose secret you’re reading. People post and comment anonymously, and you can now easily ask “Yes or No” questions that people can respond to. To help make the text-based posts more beautiful, Secret now gives you access to Flickr’s photo library for background images.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Facebook Messenger is great for reaching out to your Facebook friends.
Facebook Messenger handles all your real-time communications on Facebook. You can message your friends, send pictures and videos, and even call them over WiFi or your data plan when you’re out and about.
Facebook is in the process of spinning out Messenger from the regular Facebook app. Soon, it’ll be the only way you can send Facebook messages on mobile.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Pinterest is perfect for sharing photos of your interests with your friends.
Pinterest encourages you to find things you’re interested in and “pin” them to your virtual pinboard, which acts like your own creative collage. Friends and those who follow you can then comment on your pinboard or re-pin a photo, and if you’re using an iPhone, you can pin an item directly from within the Safari web browser.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, Windows Phone, iOS
ENTERTAINMENT
Twitch is the best place to watch and livestream your favorite games.
Twitch makes it easy to livestream a game session or watch the world’s top players as they battle their way to a world-first achievement. You can chat with others while watching a stream, browse different game channels and genres, and the app will even notify you when your favorite stream is broadcasting.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android
YouTube is hands-down the best way to watch web videos.
YouTube is where viral videos are born. From movie trailers to web series to feature-length films, there’s always something new to watch. Google’s taken its time developing the app, and it shows. You can save videos to your “Watch Later” list, subscribe to your favorite channels, and now you can even watch a YouTube video in the corner of the app while browsing.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS and Android
Use Netflix, HBO Go, and Amazon Prime Instant Video to stream movies and TV shows.
Netflix, HBO Go, and Amazon Prime Instant Video all offer access to your favorite TV shows and movies on-demand.
Netflix costs $7.99 per month and has its own original series like “Orange is the New Black,” “House of Cards,” and “Arrested Development.” Besides its own series, Netflix has a ton of popular content that will satisfy the entire family. Netflix is available on the Web, streaming boxes like Roku and Apple TV, video game consoles like the PS3, and several TVs with built-in WiFi.
Price: Free (with subscription, staring at $7.99 per month)
Available on: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone
HBO Go is great for watching “Game of Thrones” and other HBO shows like “True Detective.” You’ll need to already be an HBO subscriber to sign into the app, but you’ll get access to the network’s entire original series TV catalog and a ton of movies. You can access it via iOS, Android, Kindle fire, Roku, some Samsung TVs, Xbox 360, and Apple TV.
Price: Free (with an HBO subscription)
Available on: Android, iOS
Amazon Prime Instant Video is included with an Amazon Prime Membership ($79/year). With Prime Instant you’ll be able to stream thousands of popular movies and TV shows. You can watch Prime Instant videos on iOS, Kindle Fire, PS3, Xbox, Wii, Roku, and a ton of TVs and DVD players.
Price: Free with a $79/year Amazon Prime Subscription
Available on: iOS, Kindle Fire (included)
Spotify is the best music app out there.
Spotify is our favorite music app. For $9.99/month, you can listen to millions of songs, from small indie bands to major record label releases. You can search for specific tracks, build playlists, stream curated radio stations, listen offline, and discover new music with Spotify’s clever Discover feature. Both the desktop and mobile app are smartly designed, and since Spotify has deals with most major record labels, you can usually enjoy your favorite band’s new album the same day it hits the shelves.
Price: Free (Premium subscription is $9.99/month)
Available on: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone
SoundCloud is where modern artists share their music.
SoundCloud started as a destination for you to share the sounds you’ve created, and the platform has quickly evolved into a diverse ecosystem of free music from both established and up-and-coming artists. It’s great for finding new music, comedy, and podcasts, and SoundCloud’s new look for its app is simple and stunning. If you’re looking to discover new music, SoundCloud’s algorithm is great at making suggestions.
Price: Free
Available on: Android, iOS
Bandsintown is the best way to see when your favorite artist is coming to town.
Bandsintown scans your iTunes, Spotify, Rdio, or Pandora account to get a sense of who your favorite bands and artists are, and then it keeps you informed if they’re playing nearby. You can browse upcoming tour dates, set up notifications from your favorite artists, and even buy tickets using the app.
Price: Free
Available on: iOS, Android
Pandora is the best app out there for listening to internet radio.
Pandora lets you create music stations based on a genre, band, or song you like, and over 400 music characteristics are taken into account when it chooses your next song. Pandora’s a great way to discover new music that’s rooted in a style you already enjoy, and if you hear a song you like, you can buy it right from within the app. You can listen for free if you’re willing to put up with ads, or you can pay $4.99/month for Pandora One, which is ad-free and streams music at a higher quality bitrate.
Price: Free to download ($4.99 for Pandora One, a premium subscription)
Available on: iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
Pocket Casts is a beautiful way to listen to your podcasts.
Pocket Casts is the best podcast app around. The app is straightforward and simple, and with automatic downloads, you’ll only have to open the app when you’re looking to listen. There’s a smart filtering system for seeing the podcasts you haven’t listened to yet, and if you’re watching a video podcast, you can quickly switch to audio-only if you’re