Best 10 Free Apps for iOS 14 in 2023
2023-12-07 15:40:58 • Filed to: iOS Tips and Tricks • Proven solutions
Having an iPhone in your hand is no different than a laptop these days; what’s more, with the ease of use that a smartphone brings, and advances in AI powering it, it’s no wonder that our phone is virtually a personal assistant. It will certainly be productive if we could make the best use of our assistant, which has led us to create a list of the must-have free iPhone apps you can’t miss out on iOS 14.
Top 10 Free iPhone Apps You Can’t Miss on iOS 14
1. PDFelement for iOS
PDFelement for iOS features at the top of our list for the best free iPhone apps for iOS 14, simply because is the most powerful PDF tool available on the App Store. Sporting a minimalistic design, the application provides you with all the features you will need to play with your PDFs: be it viewing documents, adding comments, searching through the file, or even adding your signature to the pages!
However, what really makes PDFelement stand out from the crowd is providing the functionality of directly editing the text and images of the PDF, and the variety it offers for file management; you can create PDFs from scanned documents, merge and reorder PDF pages, and even change the font-style, and size.
Pros
- PDFelement lets you work with your PDFs in the same way you might operate on your Word documents (.docx files)
- You may use Font Recognition to find out the font style of PDFs, and even change it
- The file management functionality is an additional bonus, which lets you create customised PDF folders, and import PDFs from a range of options, including Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive
Cons
- The only downside, if it can even be considered one, is the fact the application does not provide an option for the user to convert their PDFs to other file formats – such as docx and jpeg – and vice-versa
2. Duolingo
Whether you’re a teenager, a professional, or simply an adult willing to learn a new language, Duolingo is one of the best free apps for iPhone and iPad on iOS 14. The application lets you learn languages on the go, and offers 20+ options to choose from, which include popular choices such as German, French, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, and even Japanese.
Duolingo offers an interactive design that shows lessons, and then relevant exercises and activities which aid in fully comprehending a language. The lessons also have a progress bar, which can be interpreted as the user’s mastery of the specific lesson.
Pros
- Data on your Duolingo app is synced with your account, so that your progress remains updated on all the platforms where you might be using Duolingo
- A placement test is offered for the users who may have prior understanding of a language but want to learn it further. They are then shown lessons according to their proficiency
- Separate attention is paid to the communication, reading, writing, and speaking aspects of the language
Cons
- A sequential order needs to be followed while learning the language; higher-level lessons remain locked if the previous ones have not been passed
- Duolingo makes use of crowd-sourced information, which can lead to inaccuracies while gaining a higher-tier of proficiency
3. Spotify
Even though the iPhone comes loaded with the Apple Music app, Spotify still remains a popular choice among users, and is one of the best iPhone apps for 2020 on iOS. Spotify boasts over 50 million songs to choose from, and with a plethora of genres, and charts, the application will not disappoint you.
Spotify records the type, and mood of songs you play, and feeds the information to its song recommending algorithm. This helps the app let you discover new music, and increase the number of songs in your favourite playlist.
Pros
- The app contains songs from many languages, and even displays the most played songs by each country, which means that the user, no matter which language they speak, will always have something to choose from
- Unlike its desktop counterpart, the iOS app offers “Behind the Lyrics” functionality which displays key-lyrics from the song being played.
- Playlists made by you can be kept private, or shared with other Spotify users, or your friends, making the sharing of music, an easier process
Cons
- The free version contains audio advertisements which can make listening to the music a lesser joyful experience
- The audio quality is capped at 128Kbps for the free version, and 320kbps for the paid version
4. Mint
Healthy financial habits make tracking of all expenses, and incomes essential for a person; what could be better than having a tracker right in the palm of your hand? Mint is a web-based software that provides the tracker, and much more in its iOS application.
Mint acts as your financial assistant, keeping track of your budget, bills, transactions, and credit score. When your account is first set up, Mint uses information on your past transactions, and activities to create a profile that will highlight your financial habits, and possible trends.
Pros
- Mint focuses extensively on automation, and enhancing the user experience by incorporating AI into their algorithms
- The interface features a simple design which makes the numbers displayed easier to understand, and analysed
- The application uses bank-grade security in handling your financial information, i.e. the application itself does not hold information about what you type
- You can use the application to set up your goals, and check your daily, weekly, or monthly progress relating to them
Cons
- The mobile application does not keep track of your investments; you will need to use the web application for this purpose.
- Even though Mint shows your bills, it is not possible to pay them through the app
- Being a free app, Mint relies on advertisements for its revenue, and shows targeted advertisements depending on your financial assessments
5. Google Maps
Keeping the rivalry of Google and Apple aside, Google Maps remains one of the top apps to download and use paid apps for on iOS 14. Revolutionising the purpose of maps, Google Maps remains clear of Apple’s default Apple Maps application.
The application can save your frequently visited places, such as Home and Work, and additional labels can be added to places you want to mark. Through the use of Google’s specialised algorithms, it displays all the possible routes, and chooses the route which would take the least time, by default. It will then let you choose your mode of transit – including driving, cycling, walking, or public transit – and even alert you if tolls are payable on your chosen route.
Pros
- The Voice Guide feature, when activated, gives you audio directions for your route so that you do not keep checking your iPhone for directions manually
- Popular places have user reviews which contain pictures, and comments from the persons that visited the place, helping you decide if you would want to visit it.
- It gives additional features to help search for petrol pumps, ATM machines, cafes, and the like on your route
- You may view the amount of traffic you can face throughout your journey
Cons
- The estimated time for cycling, or walking may not be accurate for most users
6. MyFitnessPal
In this day and age, people pay special attention to their fitness, and a major component of fitness depends upon the amount, and type of food a person intakes every day. MyFitnessPal comes up as the best free app for iPhone on iOS 14 that measures your calorie consumption.
To start using the application, a person enters information relating to their current weight, height, age, and BMI (Body Mass Index), which is used by the app to understand the current calorie consumption of a person, and how much calories their body requires to function each day. Using this information, and the diet you log for your day, it performs some math, and lets you know if your current diet plan would lead to weight-loss, weight-gain, or a constant figure.
Pros
- It contains an extensive list of names of food, which helps cater to different cultural foods, and diet-plans
- It keeps a record of your diet-plan, and calorie intake which is used to graph your progress, helping you understand, and attain fitness goals
- You can create your own food recipes, where the quantity, and names of ingredients are added. MyFitnessPal will then give you an accurate number about the calories your recipe contains
Cons
- The free version does not show the macronutrients of your diet-plan, i.e. proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates, etc
7. PicsArt
The editing tool available in the original Photos app for iPhone proves to be ample for most users, but PicsArt is there to take the editing on your iOS to another level; drawing tools, magic effects, and a plethora of filters make it one of the best free iPhone apps for iOS 14.
PicsArt became popular among teens due to its AI-powered art filters which converted the images to give a painting lookalike: it copied the art-style of vintage artists, and produced an image by “painting” the fed image using the same art-style. However, it has risen to offer much more than filters, and become the most-packed photo-editing tool on the App Store.
Pros
- In addition to editing single photos, you can add multiple photos onto one to create a collage of pictures. These collages can have a white background, or you may customise it to your liking
- There are more than 20 brush types, catering to your artistic likings
- The edited images can be saved directly to your camera roll, or uploaded through the application to the social media platforms
Cons
- The auto-correction tool does not always result in a better picture
- Some of the filters may leave the photos looking over-edited or embellished
8. Onion Browser
Onion Browser, which can be considered the iOS version of Tor Browser, features on our list of the best free iPhone apps for iOS 14 simply because of its efficiency in data protection, and online privacy. Data has become a commodity for the internet giants, which has led to an increased need for us securing ourselves, and our data.
The Tor Project aims to provide internet users with the means to communicate anonymously, with the users being able to privately access the internet – helping in protecting personal data. Moreover, many states have laws for online censorship; Tor provides safe access to restricted websites. Onion Browser is the only Tor-based open-source application which has been endorsed by The Tor Project.
Pros
- The user is protected from being tracked by websites online. This becomes important when it has been reported that some websites have even been allegedly tracking off-website activity
- No additional VPN has to be used with the Onion Browser; the browser itself provides the complete functionality
- Onion Browser helps access .onion websites, which are otherwise only accessible through the Tor browser itself
Cons
- As the data being sent through Onion Browser is encrypted, it slows down the browsing experience
- Online video streams, and video files are not supported by the browser, as they claim that multimedia can bypass Tor’s security Images
9. Todoist
Another tool, which finds immense use by most of the smartphone users is an application that lets them make lists: be it for grocery shopping, for daily tasks, listing instructions, or even a recipe; a to-do app is one of the must-have free iPhone apps you can’t miss out on iOS 14. Todoist, as the name implies, is a beautiful to-do list app which performs its job splendidly, and even provides additional features.
In addition to helping you list out your stuff, Todoist provides the option of adding a due date for the task, and adding additional comments to the task. Moreover, the users can make “projects” on this application, which can be thought of as tasks which comprise of several sub-tasks. These projects can be colour-coded, and set to a priority level as desired by the user.
Pros
- Through Todoist, you can collaborate with other users on the same project. Simply put, the collaborators become a part of the project, and can then view, edit, or share the tasks present within the project
- Being a cloud-based application, the data is synced instantaneously, helping you keep track of your goals both on your PC, and your smartphone
- The application can also be connected to email platforms, e.g., Gmail and Outlook, from which an email can be converted into a task on your schedule
Cons
- Many important features of the application, such as setting reminders for different tasks, or adding labels to them are only available in the paid versions
10. Pocket
The last, but not the least on our list of the best free iPhone apps for iOS 14, is Pocket. How many times have we been guilty of opening up web articles, saving them to read later, but never opening them again? Pocket has been designed specifically for procrastinators like us, and helps us catch up with all the reading we have put on hold.
Pocket promises to capture content from any application, any website, and any publisher, and then curate it to provide you with the best reading experience. It features a unique design, and typography which keeps your eyes from straining, and leads to a more comfortable reading session.
Pros
- Pocket features a “listening” functionality which reads the user their articles, making it possible for us to gain knowledge any time we would like
- Based on your taste, Pocket also recommends similar news pieces, or content if you have read up all your saved posts
- More than articles, Pocket can be used to view multimedia from the curated websites too
Cons
- Pocket provides limited functionality in regards to sharing the posts, as it provides only an option to email the links to your contacts Images
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Audrey Goodwin
chief Editor