My wonderful world of iOS

List of applications and tools that make my iOS experience even more amazing

• Focus
• Applications
  • Productivity
  • Social
  • Photos
  • Learn
  • Write
  • Music
  • Travel
  • Automation
• Widgets
• Shortcuts
• Control Center
• Games
• WatchOS
• iPad
• My wonderful world of macOS
• Related
• Contributing

Focus

I have two active spaces on my phone to minimize hand movement. Everything is optimized for reachability and partly aesthetics. I use dark mode most always on iOS. On macOS I tend to vary between light and dark themes preferring light theme.

iPhone for me is a consumption and communication device primarily. Everything I can do on the phone, I can do faster and better on mac. Thus I limit the kinds of activities I do on the phone and don't do things for long. Podcasts, chat, Twitter/Apollo/IG, photography..

Applications

Here is a list of apps I use the most, sorted by category and their importance.

Productivity

2Do - Flexible task manager

• My task manager of choice. I use tags to organize my tasks and work on tasks based on priority.

Fantastical - Calendar

• Prefer it to stock calendar app due to a cleaner design and ability to add events quickly with natural language.

Strong - Workout tracker

• Use it to track my workouts. I have few custom workouts I made that I can start and simply follow the exercises and the number of sets for the exercise as my workout progresses. I most usually start and track my workouts with my Apple Watch using Streaks Workout to start bodyweight exercise workouts and Workouts to start cardio workouts (Running/Cycling).

1Password - Password manager

• Can't live without the app. It holds all my passwords and anything private so that I only need to remember one thing. My master password. It seamlessly integrates with the OS so I can autofill saved passwords in seconds.

Drive - Cloud Storage

• All my documents (files) are stored in iCloud. However Google Docs/Sheets are amazing tools for collaborating on documents.

GitHub - GitHub on the Go

• Use it respond or create issues on GitHub & keep up to date on activity of my watched repos.

Wipr - Safari ad blocker

• Use the app to block annoying ads and tracking in Safari.

Bobby

• Use the app to track my ongoing subscriptions. I review it at the end of every month and update my budget for the month accordingly.

Paprika - Recipe manager

• I use the app to collect my favorite plant based recipes.

Safari - Browser

• One of the best features of Safari is fast access to bookmarks on opening of new tabs. Here are my top bookmarked sites I use:

Social

Telegram - Messenger

• My favorite messenger due its speed, its ability to sync with a native macOS client and the many free and awesome stickers you can use. I use Pocket to add links I want to check at some point in time. I also use Telegram Saved Messages and send messages to myself (links/quick-todos) that are of higher priority than Pocket. Adding quick todo to Telegram is much quicker than 2Do and it is assumed that the todo/note will be dealt with as soon as possible. I also use Saved Messages to share media between devices.

Apollo - Reddit client

• My favorite client for browsing Reddit. I love how you can operate the app seamlessly with gestures. I also customized the app to work with my own gestures (i.e. swiping back & forth by initiating the swipe in the middle of the screen and not on the side).

Spark - Mail client

• My favorite email client that I love due its simplicity of UI and UX as well as separation of emails based on their type (Inbox, newsletters).

Slack - Team communication

• Only keep essential teams I am signed up on there.

Photos

Photos - Photo library

• The place for all my personal photos/videos synced with iCloud. I love its Memories features.

Darkroom - Photo & video editor

• Use it to quickly edit photographs I made as prefer its filters and editing options than other photo editors.

Slidebox - Photo & Album Organizer

• Use the app to quickly delete bad photos and sort photos into albums quickly. I try have all the photos in my Photos library be placed in some folder and this app lets me easily do that.

Instagram - Photo sharing

• Love it as a way to share my life through photographs, videos and stories.

Learn

Overcast - Podcasts

• Lets me listen to the plethora of podcasts I love. I love its smart speed feature to cut out on silent pauses.

Audible - Audiobooks

• If I am not listening to a podcast or relaxing by playing music, I listen to books.

Reeder - RSS Reeder

• Use the app to read through my Inoreader feeds of blogs I follow.

Books

• Use it to read books (PDF & EPUB). And listen to audio books I downloaded that Audible doesn't have.

V for Wiki - Wiki reader

• Amazing and beautiful Wikipedia reader. The typography of it and the design makes you explore and easily get lost in reading the wiki.

Write

Ulysses - Writing

• I use the app to make edits to my wiki. Since the wiki is a bunch of markdown files in a folder that I keep on Dropbox, I can add that folder to Ulysses as external folder and make edits to it.

Music

Spotify - Music streaming

• Love using it due to superior music recommendation, UI/UX and social features like playlist sharing .

Travel

Google Maps - GPS, City Navigation & Traffic

• Use it as my main navigation app and a travel guide. Collect lists of places I want to visit and places I loved seeing.

Automation

Scriptable - Automation using JavaScript

• Lets you write JavaScript code and combine it with Siri Shortcuts. Can even edit the code on the mac and instantly run the shortcuts on the phone. Plan to learn how to use it well to write more sophisticated shortcuts.

Widgets

Here are the widgets I use:

Shortcuts

I color all shortcuts I use with gray color for consistency. All the top shortcuts I use are activated with widgets (as seen above).

• Translate - Open Google Translate.
• Event - Create new event with Fantastical.
• Next - Show directions to next event(s).
• Ask - Ask Google Assistant.
• Places - Find (Work/Parks/Libraries/Groceries/Restaurants/Attractions/Cafes/Home) in Google Maps.
• 2Do - Make new 2Do task.
• Contacts - Type into Cardhop.
• Tweet - Start typing new tweet.
• Focus - Play rain sound using Dark Noise.
• Podcast - Play most recently played or first unplayed podcast episode.
• HN - Opens hckrnews in Safari in new tab.
• Photo - Open Camera app to take photo/video.
• Drive - Search Google Drive.
• Sort - Open Slidebox.
• Notes - Opens Ulysses Favorite notes.
• Saved - Open Telegram Saved Messages. Can replicate it by adding an action to send message to yourself (Telegram provides it).
• Mail - Create new mail with Spark.
• Home - Show public transport directions to Home in Google Maps.
• Record - Start recording audio. Tap to stop. Then share it.
• Dictate - Start recording speech and transcribe it to text. Tap to stop. Then share the text.

I use Test shortcut to prototype new actions/ideas quickly. I then duplicate the working prototype & give it appropriate name. I use the same prototyping idea with KM macros.

Control Center

Here is how my control center looks:

WatchOS

I use Apple Watch as a way to track my health and fitness and view useful information at a glance like current time and events.

I use only one Infograph Modular watch face. It shows the current time and day, the weather and my current or future calendar events (with Fantastical). It also lets me quickly start cardio workout (running/biking) or bodyweight workout (with Streaks Workout). I can also start a timer or see the time of a timer if one is already running.

iPad

I mostly use my iPad for drawing with Procreate and Apple Pencil. Or playing Chess. I also sometimes use it as second screen with Sidecar.

Games

I prefer using PS5 for playing games as the games there are much better. Some games I do play on iPad are:

• Lichess
• Hearthstone

My wonderful world of macOS 💻

If you found this interesting, I also have a similar repository going over what applications I use on macOS.

Related

• Awesome iOS
• Sharecuts - Public repository of shortcuts for the Shortcuts app.
• Shortcuts Gallery

Contributing

Suggestions and pull requests are highly encouraged!

I love finding new awesome tools and apps. If you have a favorite tool or app that you think I missed, please say it.

Thank you

You can support me on GitHub or look into other projects I shared.