It’s about time I talk about my third hand, my iPhone. This entry has been sitting on my drafts for close to about a year now so I finally decided to update it and share my thumb’s best friends. In no particular order, these are the apps I mostly use on a daily basis:

SOCIAL MEDIA

The apps that I use are pretty much self-explanatory: Facebook, TweetBot (best twitter client, hands down), Instagram, Snapchat, Swarm. I have Path but I only go on it sometimes to keep track of my friends back in Jakarta because it’s pretty much the no. 1 social networking app there now. I have Goodreads downloaded when I’m currently reading a book so I can track my progress easily.

More categories below!

Communication

This is where you will find the answer to the question of why I need so many messaging apps outside of iMessage. As much as I would only like to keep one, each one has its pros that it’s hard to just settle with a single app. Not to mention different friends have different preferences when it comes to messaging so there’s that. I’m happy to be able to live in a world where communication is so easy but at the same time you can’t help but worry about how communication is becoming limited to these apps. I guess it’s all about balance.

LINE

Giraffe Riders group: very important! Not a day goes by that I do not “talk” to Mark and Rob about anything and everything.. about how our day went, the latest news (or not), food, people, feelings, even the most TMI of things. This friendship has transcended from being online to offline to always online and I wouldn’t trade it for anything! My closest college and high school friends group is also on Line because it’s widely popular back in Jakarta. This is how we get to catch up from time to time.

WhatsApp

I communicate mostly with my dad on WhatsApp, whom I talk to almost every day. We have a lot of funny conversations and it helps a lot when I start missing him. My Core Girls Group and Jakarta barkada (aka my Filipino family growing up in Jakarta) is also on WhatsApp, and this includes my best friend, Noomie! I also managed to convince my (now ex) boyfriend to use this. I think WhatsApp is probably my favorite of all because it’s so straightforward, simple and fast.

Viber

All of my Cebu group of friends are on Viber. These are the people I see most on a daily or weekly basis and Viber is where we plan our nights that turn into days. It gets very noisy because it only has ONE notification option so most of the time I mute it.. everyone gets so “talkative”! My team at work is also here.

Facebook Messenger

My yoga group schedule is here, and so are ALL my Facebook friends that need to contact me and/or vice versa. As much as I have a love/hate relationship with the main Facebook app, Messenger has mostly done more good than bad when it comes to communication.

Skype
This is reserved for someone special. I’ve been using this app SO much lately.

Slack

When I started at my remote job, my bosses were a bit skeptical about Slack but I managed to convince them to use it and we have not looked back ever since. They even bought Pro accounts for all of us! I looooooooooooooove Slack because it makes me feel like I’m really part of a team and not just “the remote girl”. All of our work communications happen at Slack 80% of the time and it has really improved my productivity. Thank goodness this app was made. Great UI/UX too!

PHOTO EDITING/ENHANCING

Snapseed

For me, Snapseed is THE photo editing app to have. I’ve used this from the early days when it still cost people $5.99 but I got it for free because of a promo. Google then bought it and bam, it became absolutely free for everyone. I hope every one that has a smartphone has this app on their devices because it does such a great job of making photos look great, with the right use of its features. I love this.

VSCOcam

VSCO is one of the apps I bought when it still cost money. $2.99 to be exact. I’ll never forget it because I was debating so much on whether to buy it or not. I was glad they decided to give the legacy pack for free to people who bought the app when they made it free. I love this app but I feel like after years of owning it I still don’t know how to fully utilize its potential? I even bought all the filter packs but I somehow always end up wasting minutes having to choose which filter to use that I end up just not editing it altogether.

Afterlight

One of my favorite photo apps because I think it has the most realistic polaroid effects. The filters are also great but I hardly use them. I just like to test them on my photos and pretend that I’ll post them.

Squaready
My comfort zone photo squaring app from day 1. I love the sound effects!

Actioncam
Very good for fast shutter gazillion selfie taking. I can’t ever part with this app even though it hasn’t been updated for ages.

Over

Got this for free during one of the App Store’s weekly features! It was pretty expensive just for a text on photo app at I think $6? Or was it less? It had great reviews though and it really is easy to use and has a great selection of pretty fonts and stickers.

PuddingCam
I love this for its live filter features. It’s one of those selfie apps that makes you look pretty! Side-eyeing you, Camera360.

Picfx

I recently bought this a few weeks ago after my cousin’s recommendation. It has a good selection of really pretty (sometimes over the top) filters to enhance your photos.

PRODUCTIVITY

Dropbox, 1Password, GrabTaxi are I think pretty self-explanatory apps in itself. My favorite GTD app (after all the gazillion ones I’ve tried and attempted to apply into my life) is Clear. So easy to use, so easy to manage, and the only app that has proven its productivity use to me. Simplenote has also replaced Apple’s Notes app because it has password protect capabilities, web access and a Mac app. Most importantly, it’s not a heavy-duty app like Evernote. Uber is also great if I am in either Manila or Jakarta, or anywhere that has Uber, really.

FINANCE

Gots all my bank apps: BPI (the best), Metrobank (eh), Citibank PH (really annoying with all the two step verification every time you want to transact), UnionBank (okay), and HSBC (meh). I’ve got PayPal for my remote job salary and XE Currency too to keep up with all the ForEx rates. I use Chronicle to keep up with my bills.

GAMES

I don’t play a lot of games on my phone. This is why I bought an iPad Mini. But for my phone I currently have Smash Hit (can never get past level 8), Jelly Splash (this is my Candy Crush but much prettier), 2048, and Heads Up for any dull events that may need any ice breaking.

MUSIC

Spotify, hands down. My Music app is completely empty. Well, not really. I have a few Years & Years songs.

OTHER APPS

Clue is what I use to track my menstrual cycle (damn you, PCOS). Google Maps is to know where I want to go or where I’m going. I’ll have Waze up if I’m back in Jakarta. I was pretty shocked to know that people “Wazed” in Cebu too.. but it’s not that useful to me in this lovely city. For my remote job I use the Gmail iOS app, Wrike for project management and GoTasks to track Google Tasks! I don’t know why there isn’t a legit Google app for this yet.

That’s pretty much it on the apps front on my phone. I used to hoard lots and lots and lots of apps and now what I finally described what I do with each other them, it’s time to delete the ones that were not mentioned in this entry.