I’ve discovered some great little indie iOS (and sometimes Android!) apps recently. I wanted to quickly jot down some links to some of them, and links to the places that I found them – usually interesting newsletters.
Newsletters
First of all, where do I find these things? Well, while I don’t track exactly where each thing I discover comes from, I know broadly where I find such things:
- The Verge’s Installer – great weekly newsletter with recommendations from both The Verge’s David Pierce (currently on paternity leave) and from readers.
- Clicks ‘n Clacks – Andrew McKee sends weekly awesome links and keyboard-nerd stuff.
- The Hiro Report – weekly curated tech stuff – excellent!
Indie Apps
I love these apps because they tend to be:
- very small;
- app that do one thing very well;
- privacy-aware with on-device data, private sync via iCloud, and little tracking or personal data being collected;
- free of pop-ups, ads, upsells, and other annoyances/distractions;
- integrated with the Apple Ecosystem (sorry Google/Android folks, most of these are iOS only – that’s just where I’m at) working well with iOS features and occasionally with companion MacOS apps too;
- often with one-off unlocks for premium features and no subscriptions;
- developed by real people you can actually follow and talk to!;
- beautifully designed with excellent user experience, not gamified to make you come back again and again.
Often these apps are “done” software. They work. They might get updates, but they probably don’t need them. This fits well with how I like my small web apps.
- Rift Notes – A nice take on note taking with some quirky themes and ideas and good privacy promises. This has become my quick/short note taking app of choice for now. A one-off $10 unlocks sync between iOS devices using iCloud. There hasn’t been an update for a while, but there is a roadmap. Hope the dev gets back to it sometime soon.
- Quiche Browser – Free, fast, simple, minimalist, highly-customizable, privacy-aware iOS browser. This quickly became my default. The dev is responsive and working hard on improvements. Just really good!
- Pill Buddy – completely free, easy to use, privacy-aware and… funny?… medicine reminder all. Sure, iOS has this built in, but it’s not as cute, or amusingly-annoying.
- Short Reps – completely free, privacy-aware app for micro-exercise routines with video instructions and a built-in habit tracker. Amazing.
- PixelDrop – completely free photo redaction app with some advanced features and automation. Having visited the website for the app and seen lots of tokens and de-fi stuff, you might consider this app risky, but it promises complete, on-device privacy.
- Send to Self – OK. Think “iMessage, but only to myself”. But, like, why would you want that? And I’m sure this is stupid – iMessage does this already! – but I really like the idea of this private chat-with-myself for sending stuff between devices in a way that is saved and searchable. And all in a separate app that does this one thing. Custom and secured categories can be unlocked for a one-time fee. I’d just love it to be able to use images/photos too. Then it will be perfect!
- Octave Pour-over Coffee Guide is the most ridiculous app. But I love it and it brings a smile to my face daily. It’s a pour-over timer. But it’s fun and has character. Visit the site. You’ll get the idea. Nicely done!
- Flyleaf – a read-it-later app that’s beautiful and functional, but that also syncs privately with iCloud. And yes, it will import from the recently-deceased Pocket!
- Play – as someone who carefully curates their YouTube experience, Play really takes watching YouTube to the next level. I send videos from YouTube to Play with the share-sheet. Play lets me play them with Picture-in-Picture, often without ads (somehow!), and with some default settings. It’s my personally-curated video playlist app and I LOVE it.
- Flexiboard – I mostly use this for the clever clipboard history. I’ve always wanted something like this, but so many of the apps seem bloated or over-done. Flexiboard gives me a bunch of tools located inside a custom iOS keyboard. It’s very clever, and perfect for when I’m copy-and-pasting multiple things between apps. This IS a subscription app, but you can get lifetime access for just $19.99 too.
- Fantasy Hike is an activity tracker that turns your steps into a Lord-of-the-Rings themed journey/story. It’s very well done with the blatent rip-off-ish-ness being funny and absurd at times. But it actually motivates me to keep walking. I’m determined to stay ahead of the “ghost” competitors. You can track a small distance each day for free, and a small, one-off payment unlocks the story with unlimited distance. Small subscriptions exist that unlock more features including sharing progress with other people, and there’s a family plan if you want to get your family into it too. Lots of fun. And genuinely keeps me moving!!
- Soosee – This app is a food ingredient scanner than can help you find allergens (or just thing you don’t like… my wife has the coriander-hating gene!) in long lists of food ingredients on packaging. Very clever. Would I trust it if I had a death-inducing allergy? Probably not. Use it to quickly rule-in allergens, rather than rule them out. Still speeds up shopping. Totally private and free with supporter options if you want to leave a tip.
Enjoy! And let me know if you have cool, privacy-aware, bloat-free apps that you like. These things are GREAT!!