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This series includes some of our favorite picks from a regular series of articles exploring the apps we couldn’t live without. Read them all here.
Everyone has apps they can’t live without. The essential icons that are exploited every day. Many are loyal utilities, like cards and banking. Others help you communicate and stay connected. Some help you find joy, whether through creativity or mindfulness.
We have discovered and installed many applications in 2024: the magnificent Thinkrolls to entertain the little ones; Plum for helping to set aside rainy day funds; ShutEye for better rest.
We’ve also featured some old favorites from throughout the year: classic apps that we think everyone should have installed on their smartphone. Waze for navigation, Pixelmator for editing images, Babbel for learning languages and Google Keep for taking notes.
But here we’ve selected nine apps that we’ve tried in 2024 that do something a little different. In the list below you will find applications that facilitate activity, creativity and productivity. There are beautiful apps to inspire you and insightful apps that help you learn.
Whether you have an iPhone or one of the best Android phones, each app here is one we return to throughout the year. Install it on your own phone and we think you’ll do the same.
1. The path
If you’re overwhelmed by the different meditation categories found in apps like Calm and Headspace, The Way might be the way to go. Rather than selecting a specific area of mindfulness, like stress or anxiety, The Way has you following a single path, guided by Henry Shukman, a Zen master.
Each of the 110 sessions takes you further on your journey. The first sessions focus on the “basics” of mindfulness, before going deeper. Henry also briefly explains where the course is going and why. In our The Way review, we found that the voiceovers were perfectly recorded, with natural delivery and a quiet background creating an overwhelming sense of calm. We also found that a few minutes a day was very effective.
As the app is new, there is an Early Supporter offer, which costs £9.99 (£9.99) per month (normally £19.99) or £69.99 (£74.99) for the year (usually £139.98). We think it’s good value for money.
2. Superlist
Created by the same people who created Wunderlist, Superlist is a super-app for managing your tasks, reminders and notes. It offers a clean, tidy way to help you track what you need to do, divided into lists and days. This makes it easy to separate work and personal actions. It also benefits from smart integrations, such as the ability to turn Gmail emails into in-app tasks – and summarize their content using AI.
Because it works on iOS, macOS, Android, and the web, you can easily use Superlist to track tasks across multiple devices. While it naturally integrates more easily with Gmail and Google Calendar, you can also pay for additional integrations, such as Slack and GitHub. With more features arriving with every update, including sublists in the latest version, we can see Superlist becoming an indispensable productivity tool.
3. Bloom
If you need help keeping your houseplants alive, Blossom deserves space on your smartphone. Take photos of your potted friends and Blossom will identify them, then add them to your virtual garden. Our Blossom review found the image search tool to be incredibly effective, and with a library of over 30,000 plants, flowers, and succulents, you’d need something very rare to cull it.
Once your plants are identified, Blossom will then create a personalized schedule for when to water, fertilize and repot. You can adjust this as you get to know your plants. The app can also help you identify diseases and problems that might be affecting your leafy friends. Blossom is a quick, simple and effective way to improve your green thumb activities.
4. Softer Series
Sequences can help with fitness consistency, but they don’t always work in the real world. You might be in pain, sick or on vacation. That’s where Gentler Streak comes in: it retains the motivational power of a goal, without penalizing you for taking days off. It’s all based on an activity path, which records your activities on a bar graph. Rather than focusing on individual workouts, the goal is to balance your efforts so that they follow the trend line.
The app will learn your body’s fitness level and recommend activities accordingly. Take it easy one day and it might suggest you push a little harder the next time you exercise. Run hard over the weekend and a recovery yoga class might be a suggestion on Monday. Our Gentler Streak review found it to be a more realistic way to maintain our progress, without any feelings of guilt when you take a day off.
5. Advancement
When time is short, reading often takes a back seat. This is where Headway is your friend: it summarizes books as 15-minute readings or audio recordings. It distills the highlights of each text into a succinct summary, giving you the main takeaways without the time required to turn each page.
Purists might balk at the idea of going through the books this way, but Headway makes them accessible to people who would otherwise be too busy to read them in their entirety. Our Headway review found that the summaries accurately represented their source material in most cases, and the app adds value by letting you highlight sentences. It also recommends readings in selected categories, helpfully grouping suggestions of similar titles together.
6. Relive
A storytelling app for hikes and walks, Relive lets you record and document your travels. Rather than sharing meaningless route markers on a map, it turns your movements into engaging videos. Whether you’re on two feet or two wheels, it all starts with tracking your activity: you can follow existing routes or create your own using GPS data. It also works well with tracking devices like Apple and Garmin.
A key part of the process is capturing photos and videos as you go. Once you’re done, Relive will automatically create a highlight video for you. You can customize the generated clip to your liking, so you’re left with a much more interesting memory to share with friends and family. Some features are only available with Relive Plus, for $38.99 / £38.99.
7. Topping
Breaking your kids’ sleep habits may seem like an art form, but Napper uses science to help you soothe them. A sleep tracker that creates tailor-made nap schedules for little ones, it’s designed to take the guesswork out of the nighttime routine. Once you have entered your child’s details, the app enters its ‘learning phase’, where you will need to enter the times your child wakes up, naps and goes to bed. You can also chart foods and temperatures.
After a few days, Napper will start making predictions. After a week, we found that it becomes remarkably reliable – and its accuracy only improves with time. It also adds value in other ways, both with restful soundtracks and the Baby Sleep Bootcamp – a set of training courses that give you useful, research-based information on sleep and sleep theory. ‘attachment.
8. Forward
A little introspection can go a long way. If you want to change certain behaviors, we’ve found that Ahead can help you do just that. An app-based coach that hosts a catalog of emotional intelligence journeys, it can help you with everything from procrastination to silencing your inner critic. Its clean interface and attractive visuals help make it a software you’ll want to open every day.
Select a trip and the app will present a range of techniques tailored to your goal. As you go through each level, you’ll cover different topics, with information and activities to help you understand at each stage. The app guides you without judgment, with helpful tools like a learning journal to help you see how far you’ve come.
9. Cosmos
If mood boards are part of your creative flow but you want to try an ad-free alternative to Pinterest, take a look at Cosmos. Like Pinterest, it allows you to take visual inspiration from things other people have created. Unlike Pinterest, it contains no advertising or sponsored content. As a result, its monochrome interface is distraction-free, letting inspiration take center stage.
Our Cosmo review found that the user experience was so beautifully minimalist that the process became almost meditative, allowing you to delve deeper into your creative process while exploring ideas. It’s all centered around items (images, links, and videos) and clusters, which are custom collections for organizing saved items. This seamless mix is complemented by Infinite Canvas, as well as an AI-powered search tool and a helpful “Discover” section.
