Best free iPhone apps of all time

There’s a huge number of free apps in the iTunes App Store, and it can be difficult to sift through them all looking for winners. Lucky for you then that we’ve run down the very best in free apps for your iPhone, so you don’t have to.

Google Maps

Apple’s navigation app famously had some problems when it was launched, but Google Maps is a useful alternative that is pretty impressive. The app brings iOS users the Android-style Maps experience, complete with features like step-by-step navigation directions and voice instructions. The app also syncs with the browser version of Google Maps through your Google account, making it easier to find locations you’ve already searched or save them for when you need them again.

Facebook

Though it likely needs no introduction, Facebook continues to be a must-have app for iPhone users. With more than a billion people worldwide using the app, it’s still a great way to share photos, promote causes and companies, check in with family and friends, send messages and more. And if standard Facebook isn’t your thing, you can still access Facebook features with its Messenger, Paper and Pages Manager apps.

Evernote

If you intend to use your iPhone for productivity, Evernote is for you. It offers the ability to take and save notes of all sorts, from quick bits of text to voice memos and even annotated photos. Evernote also syncs all your notes online so you can access them from multiple devices, and allows for easy sharing and collaboration with other users.

Gmail

Google’s answer to email brings lots of the web version’s features to iOS, and is updated with more features all the time. Beyond checking email, you can also download attachments and organize your messages into folders, and use Gmail to do things like respond to Google Calendar requests. The app also supports as many as five different Gmail accounts so you can access all the mail you might possibly need.

Instagram

The uber-popular photo-sharing social network and photography filter app has only grown since it was bought by Facebook. Instagram now supports sharing video as well as photos, and generally is just a handy way to quickly slap a filter on a shot to make it look cool and share it with friends. Instagram also supports a number of other social networks to make your sharing even easier.

Spotify Music

Music streaming service Spotify made a big splash when it released in the U.S. a few years ago, but up until recently, you had to pay a subscription fee to stream music to your mobile devices. That’s not the case anymore, and now users have the ability to access Spotify’s database of millions of songs from wherever they are — as well as share tracks with others, create playlists, and follow other users and their music selections.

Yelp

Anytime you find yourself wondering where you should or whether a business is any good, Yelp will help. The app is a wealth of information about businesses and is packed full of user reviews to tell you what to expect at that restaurant you wanted to try, or whether your local pet food store has the best prices. You can also post your own reviews and see info like business phone numbers and menus.

Amazon Mobile

As you might guess from the name, Amazon Mobile gives you access to the online retailer’s huge catalog of items, but it also packs a lot of other useful features. You can use Amazon Mobile as a barcode scanner to compare in-store prices with what you’d get online, and also lets you search for items by text, voice or snapping a photo. Then you can make Amazon purchases quickly and securely from your device.

Google Drive

There are several different apps that let you access documents you’ve saved to the cloud, but it’s versatility that sets Google Drive apart. It lets you save and access files stored in your Drive account, but what’s more, it lets you edit and create documents, add notes, collaborate with others in real time.

Vine

Twitter’s super-quick video-sharing service took a little time to get off the ground, but users have found some seriously cool ways to create using the app. It allows you to shoot and share quick six-second videos with your device, which you can edit and cut together to make whatever you want. Vine doubles as its own social network so you can see vines created by others and leave comments on them as well, and you can also share your vines to Twitter and Facebook.

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