We may earn commission from the links on this page.When Apple announced the iPhone 12 (along with the iPhone 12 Mini, Pro, and Pro Max), there was a lot to unpack: The new design, which features flat edges and comes in seven colors. The addition of MagSafe, a wireless charging system that centers the phone perfectly for a quick charge every time. The new OLED screens—we’re talking major improvements to picture quality here. And, of course, 5G capability, giving you high-speed internet access almost anywhere and everywhere. We could go on and on but it’s much more fun to get your hands on all the changes yourself.
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Iphone 12 Pro
Best iPhone app of the month: Pixelmator Photo
Screenshots showing Pixelmator Photo on iPhone
(Image credit: Pixelmator Team)
$7.99/£6.99/AU$12.99
Pixelmator Photo wowed on its 2019 iPad debut. It let you improve photos with a single tap, by way of a machine learning system trained on millions of pro-grade pics. And if you wanted more control, you could endlessly fiddle with a selection of sliders and filters.
The iPhone incarnation of Pixelmator loses none of the functionality of its iPad sibling. Impressively, it remains usable too. Sure, it’s comparatively cramped, due to the iPhone’s smaller display. But it wisely provides fast access to important controls, and lets you hide away what you don’t need.
It might sound hyperbolic to say you should only avoid buying this app if you don’t want your photos to look better, but that’s the truth. There’s nothing else like it on iPhone, whether you want lighting-fast one-tap fixes or to dig deeper into fine-tuning your snaps.
Best iPhone photo editing and camera apps
These are our favorite iPhone apps for editing snaps, capturing photos and video and applying the filters that actually make things look good.
Halide Mark II – Pro Camera
(Image credit: Lux Optics Incorporated)
Halide Mark II – Pro Camera
Free trial + IAP
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Halide Mark II – Pro Camera isn’t mucking around. It has serious pricing – $11.99/£11.99/AU$19.49 per year or $39.99/£38.99/AU$62.99 ‘forever’ – but then it’s a serious camera, designed to get the most out of your iPhone.
The app’s layout doesn’t bombard newcomers with options, yet puts powerful functions within easy reach, with gestures mimicking actions you’d make with real-world cameras. Manual focus puts you in control, while peaking and similar tools ensure you never take a duff shot.
Best of all, the app can optionally smartly marry Apple’s processing with the needs of pro photographers, making the RAW format accessible and immediate. In short, Halide is a better camera app for your iPhone’s camera.
Inkwork
(Image credit: Code Organa)
Inkwork
$2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49
Inkwork is an app designed to instantly transform a photo into a sketch-based work of art. And, yes, we’ve seen this all before – but few filter apps catch the eye in quite the same way as Inkwork.
The interface is sleek and polished. You can quickly switch background and ink colors, and the size of the strokes, thereby making your virtual sketch more detailed or abstract, but really it’s the filters themselves you’ll spend most time fiddling with.
There are loads of them – perhaps a few too many, because the choice can initially be a bit overwhelming – but for anyone who likes black and white art, there’s everything here from scratchy pen hatching to stylized comic-book fare. Selections happen instantly and without needing the internet, cementing the app’s place in our list.
RTRO
(Image credit: Moment Inc.)
RTRO
Free + IAP
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RTRO is a vintage camera app from the folks behind Pro Camera. But whereas that app’s a serious sort, attempting to transform your iPhone into a DSLR, RTRO is a mite more playful.
That doesn’t mean the app isn’t stylish, though; RTRO has a minimalist retro vibe that sits nicely alongside its various vintage looks that you apply to your movies. These range from distressed VHS fuzz to subtle color shifts and film grain. Every filter has notes from its creator, outlining what they were aiming for.
Shooting is simple, and you can capture up to 60 seconds of video across multiple shots, before sharing your miniature masterpiece with your social network of choice. Neatly, although there is a subscription charge, you can alternatively opt to buy one-off looks at a couple of bucks a pop.
Apollo
(Image credit: Indice Ltd)
Apollo
$2.99/£2.99/AU$4.99
Apollo enables you to apply new light sources to Portrait Mode photos. This kind of photo records depth information, and can be shot on any relatively recent iPhone (iPhone 7 Plus/8 Plus/any ‘X’ iPhone). In Apple’s Photos app, you can add studio-style lighting, but Apollo takes things further.
The interface is usable, and offers scope for creativity. It’s simple to add multiple lights, and then for each one define distance, color, brightness, spread, and mask effects for simulating effects such as shadows being cast from light coming through a window blind.
Apollo perhaps isn’t an iPhone app if you want an instant fix. It demands you delve into the details, and fine-tune your settings. Also, it doesn’t always create a realistic result. But when it works, this is a little slice of magic, enabling you to apply complex lighting to a photo after the fact.
TouchRetouch
(Image credit: Adva-Soft)
TouchRetouch
$1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99
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TouchRetouch can rid photos of unwanted elements. Such tools are commonplace – even in free apps like Snapseed – but TouchRetouch being dedicated to the task affords it focus; more importantly, the tools you get are really good.
Blemishes on faces can be removed with a tap. Larger objects can be painted out, whereupon the app fills in the gaps. Alternatively, you can clone from one part of the image to another. There’s also a line remover, which smartly makes short work of power lines and the like that otherwise carve their way across your pic.
Obviously, automation of this kind has some shortcomings – TouchRetouch can’t match desktop apps where you partake in painstaking, time-consuming, pro-level retouching. But for the average iPhone owner wanting to remove annoying things from pics, it’s well worth the small outlay.
Darkroom
(Image credit: TechRadar)
Darkroom
Free + various IAP
Darkroom is yet another photo editor for iPhone, but just a few minutes in, you’ll likely decide it should be forever welded to your home screen.
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The app is efficient, usable and sleek. Immediately, it invites you to delve into your on-device images. There’s no mucking around. Cropping tools and adjustments sliders bring out the best from what you shoot. Splash out on some IAP and you gain access to pro-oriented curves and color tools.
Edits are non-destructive, and you can save your work directly to your Camera Roll (in a manner that can later be reversed), or export copies. The process feels effortless
throughout, but pause for a moment and you realize how powerful Darkroom is. Only to be avoided, then, if you for some reason don’t want your photos to look better!
Camera+
Camera+
$2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49
Camera+ is a combined camera and editor. Despite the wealth of available options, the interface is initially quite minimal, with a modes strip across the top of the screen, a zoom slider, and the shutter. But tap the + button and you reveal further modes, including a timer, a stabilizer and smile detection.
Similarly, tap the viewfinder area and Camera+ enters a ‘pro’ mode, with manual controls, and scene options for shooting under specific lighting conditions. The interface is finicky compared to Obscura 2, but Camera+ is undoubtedly powerful.
Post-shooting, you can edit with adjustment tools, filters, and frames in the Lightbox. This all comes across as impressively friendly and straightforward, and although the range of tools doesn’t compare to Snapseed’s, it’s enough to keep you within the one app for the most part.
Oilist
Oilist
$2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49
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Oilist is a generational art app. You feed it something from Photos, choose a style, and it gets to work, continually repainting your image. It’s like someone’s trapped a tiny van Gogh in your iPhone.
In fact, it’s like a slew of artists are stuck in your device, because Oilist has a massive range of styles to choose from, taking in everything from classic oil painters through to modern art. Although the app can be left alone in a dock, you can capture stills for posterity, or fiddle with settings (including brush strokes, mood, ‘chaos’ and gravity) to redirect the virtual artist.
Whether you interact or just sit back and watch, Oilist is mesmerizing – kind of like a painterly lava lamp, only what you see is based on one of your own cherished photographs.
Snapseed
Snapseed
Free
Snapseed is a free photo editor with a feature set that rivals the very best premium apps. It’s geared towards users of any level, from those who fancy applying quick filters to anyone who wants to dig deep into adjustments and powerful editing tools.
The range of options is dazzling, and the interface is smartly conceived. You can crop, make adjustments, and edit curves, all with a few swipes and taps. Often, vertical drags select parameters, and horizontal drags define an effect’s strength – tactile and intuitive. Even better, edits are non-destructive, and can be removed or changed at any point by accessing them in the edits stack.
As a final sign off, the app enables you to save any combination of adjustments as a custom preset, which you can then apply to any image in the future with a single tap. Superb stuff.
Obscura 2
Obscura 2
$4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99
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Obscura 2 is the best manual camera app for iPhone. It achieves this not with a slew of features, but by providing an interaction model that’s so brilliantly conceived that you simply won’t want to use another iPhone camera.
Echoing manual cameras of old, everything is based around a contextual wheel that sits above the shutter. Initially, you use it to select a tool. When setting focus or exposure, the wheel enables you to make fine adjustments with your thumb. You get a real feel of precision control, with optional haptic feedback confirming your choices.
The app makes the odd concession to modern photography trends with a range of filters, but mostly Obscura 2 wants you to think a little more about what you’re snapping, all while breathing in its minimal yet approachable and deeply pleasing design.
Retrospecs
Retrospecs
Free + $1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99
Retrospecs is a camera app that wants you to see the world as if it was being rendered by ancient computing and gaming hardware. Load a photo – or take one using the app – and you can select from a wide range of systems, such as the Game Boy, Commodore 64, and original Mac.
But this isn’t just a single-tap filter app for aficionados of pixel art. You can adjust dither, image corruption, and virtual CRT distortion. You get animation effects and video support. And should you get fed up with the included emulated systems, you can even make your own.
So whether you believe all your photos should look like an eight-bit video game or want to add a crazy glitch sequence to your next YouTube video, Retrospecs fits the bill perfectly.
Mextures
Mextures
$1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99
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Modern iPhones have some seriously impressive camera hardware, and are capable of taking clean, vibrant shots. So it’s perhaps no surprise that iPhone users are often hell-bent on slathering said images in filters and messing them up.
Mextures is a decidedly extreme example, providing a theoretically unlimited number of layers to play with, each of which can have some kind of effect applied. These include grit, grain, light leaks, gradients, and more.
Because each layer can be fine-tuned in terms of opacity and blend mode, you can get anything from subtle film textures to seriously eye-popping grunge effects.
Hit upon something particularly amazing and you can share your ‘formulas’ with other people. Or if you’re in need of a quick fix, you can grab something that’s already online to overhaul your snaps.
Hipstamatic
Hipstamatic
$2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49
There are two sides to Hipstamatic. In its ‘native’ form, the app apes old-school point-and-click cameras. You get a tiny viewport inside a virtual plastic camera body, and can swap out lenses, film, and flashes, along with messing about with multiple exposures and manual shutters. It’s pleasingly tactile and twangs your nostalgia gland, but feels a bit cramped.
If you’d rather use your entire iPhone display to show what you’re snapping, you can switch to a ‘pro’ camera mode. That’s closer in nature to Apple’s own Camera, but with Hipstamatic’s huge range of rather lovely filters bolted on – a great mash-up of old and new.
And if you’re wedded to Apple’s camera, Hipstamatic’s still worth a download, given that you can load a photo, slather it in filters, add loads of effects and bask in your creative genius.
Best iphone 13 apps
LastPass: The best password manager for a new iPhone
best apps for new iphone lastpass
(Image credit: LogMeIn)
As you add accounts and subscriptions to your iPhone, you’re going to have a lot of passwords to keep track of, especially if you follow good security practices and never reuse the same password across multiple accounts. Even the most photographic of memories would have a hard time keeping all those different passwords straight, but with a good password manager like LastPass, you don’t have to worry about it.
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LastPass, our pick for the best password manager overall, stores all your passwords in one secure place. You just remember your single master password, leaving LastPass to autofill any password prompts. Besides passwords and personal data, you can store credit card info, too.
If you just want to manager passwords on your iPhone, LastPass is available for free. Adding a premium or family subscription lets you store an unlimited number of password across multiple device, and you have access to encrypted file storage, too. Subscriptions start at $3/month and you can check out the service for 30 days to see if it’s for you.
Download LastPass for iPhone
Fantastical: Best planning tool for new iPhones
best apps for new iphone fantastical
(Image credit: Flexibits)
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Toting around an iPhone means you’ve got a computer in your pocket, with all the organization tools that implies. And few apps can keep you on top of your day-to-day activities like Fantastical.
You get the typical day, week, month and year views with Fantastical, but the app really earns its stripes with a DayTicker that shows upcoming appointments in a glanceable way. Fantastical also takes advantage of the widget support in iOS so that your events, tasks and to-dos are always front-and-center if you prefer.
You can download Fantastical for free to manage basic events. But a $5/monthly subscription opens up the full slate of Fantastical features, including cross-device syncing, extended weather reports, and management for video calls in Google Hangout, Google Meet and Zoom.
Download Fantastical for iPhone
Pcalc: The best calculator for new iPhones
best iphone apps for new phones pcalc
(Image credit: TLA Systems)
Yes, the iPhone has its built-in calculator app, and it’s fine for doing basic math on the fly. But the $9.99 Pcalc offers that something extra in a beautiful-looking package. Highlights include an optional RPN mode, multi-line display, paper tape and support for multiple undos and redos. You can even customize the look of your calculator’s buttons.
If the thought of paying $9.99 for a calculator when the iPhone already has one, you can try out Pcalc Lite for free. It offers the RPN mode, undo and redo support and unit conversions and constants, plus a choice of two layouts — just enough to give you a taste of the power of the full version of Pcalc.
Download Pcalc for iPhone
Bear: The best writing tool for the iPhone
best apps for new iphones bear
(Image credit: Shiny Frog)
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Believe it or not, many people consider the iPhone a great device for writing, even if the largest screen space available is the iPhone 13 Pro Max’s 6.7-inch display. Maybe all those people who enjoy writing on the iPhone do so through Bear, a writing app designed to make you want to jot down whatever’s on your mind.
Bear lets you get started quickly, and a focus mode can block out distractions when you want to focus on the writing in front of you. You can turn to Siri and the built-in Shortcuts app to quickly create Notes in Bear, and if you have an Apple Watch, you can even dictate notes. There’s a to-do list feature if your notes tend to focus on upcoming tasks, and encryption features keep sensitive notes out of view.
Hashtags keep everything organized, and even let you link different notes together. Themes and typography let you tweak the app’s look to your liking. The basic note-taking features in Bear are free, while a $15 annual subscription unlocks all of its capabilities.
Download Bear for iPhone
Yelp: The best app for finding new places
best apps for new iPhones yelp
(Image credit: Yelp)
Yelp’s reach is so extensive that Apple even builds its ratings and reviews directly into iOS 15’s Maps app. But to unleash the full power of Yelp, you’ll want to download the free app onto your iPhone.
Yelp can do more than just find restaurants. It’s also a business directory for finding services, getting quotes and booking appointments. Filters let you refine your search and see what exactly people have to say about the business you’re researching. A collections feature even lets you group together places you’ve found on Yelp for easy finding later on.
Download Yelp for iPhone
Overcast: The best podcast manager for your new iPhone
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best apps for new iphones
(Image credit: Overcast Radio)
I’ve never been that impressed with Apple’s built-in Podcasts apps, so I turn elsewhere for an app to download, organize and play all the podcasts I listen to. My pick for best podcast app is Overcast, which not only helps you find podcasts but improves playback, too.
Features include Smart Speed, which speeds up the playback with minimal audio distortion, and Voice Boost for consistent audio quality. You can also create playlists of your favorite episodes for better podcast management.
Overcast is a free download, though you can pay $10/year to hide the ads that otherwise appear within the app. You may find yourself eager to pay for Overcast anyhow, given all the features packed into this podcast manager.
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