Can you really get something great for nothing on the App Store? That’s the question – and not just when it comes to the big-name apps everyone now expects to be free. (Let’s be honest – no one’s rushing to pay for a maps app when Apple Maps comes preinstalled on every Apple device and Google Maps costs nothing.)
This article is about true surprises – apps that offer genuinely impressive features for free, especially in areas where you’d usually expect to pay. For each one, we’ll explore what it does, how well it performs, and – crucially – whether there’s a hidden catch.
Night Sky (free + IAP)
Free astronomy apps exist elsewhere on the App Store, but they’re mostly limited, ad-ridden, or a bit clunky. Night Sky gets the nod here because, even in its free incarnation, it feels like a premium app and is packed full of features.
The main view lets you explore the heavens with a finger or by using your device’s accelerometer and compass to align virtual on-screen stars with real ones in the sky. The built-in search is fantastic for quickly getting to objects of interest.
Want to dig deeper? Tap an item to access facts and photos. With a planet, you can go further, exploring it in 3D or AR, cracking it open to see what’s inside, and even viewing the stars from its surface. IAP adds more – an orrery; sky tours; planet portals. But for no outlay, Night Sky is excellent for anyone with an interest in astronomy.
Sketchbook (free or $3/£3)
Since the iPhone’s earliest days, Apple’s devices have been a boon for digital artists. Whether you enjoy the odd scribble or create artwork for a living, a toolbox that fits in a pocket can be revolutionary – if you have the right app.
Where Sketchbook excels is in its marriage of elegance and depth. Newcomers should find it simple enough to get to grips with, but pros can happily delve into a varied toolset that includes layers, perspective grids, shapes, curves, and an almost unnecessarily large selection of brushes.
The vast majority of the app’s extensive features are fully available in the free edition. Only a few more advanced tools are gated behind a single one-off payment – and most digital artists won’t miss them. If you’ve mobile Apple hardware and are armed with an Apple Pencil or a pointy finger, we suggest taking full advantage of such generosity.
Picsart Animator (free)
No app’s going to help you on the way to becoming the next star animator at Disney. But your iPhone can give you insight into what it takes to make drawings move – at least if you install Picsart Animator.
Given that the app costs nothing, the toolset is surprisingly comprehensive. At its most basic, it’s a flipbook. When drawing a new frame, adjacent ones are faintly visible, helping you line everything up. Brush, shape, and fill tools help you infuse your creation with color and character.
What’s perhaps surprising is the app includes a layers system. This lets you keep elements separated, scribble over an imported photo, or even add sound to your work. Give it enough time and you’ll be fighting for Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars. Probably.
Arc Search (free)
Searching the web on your iPhone can feel like a slog – especially when you’re trying to pull together information from a number of different websites. Fortunately, Arc Search does the hard work for you.
You start by typing a query and then tap the ‘Browse for Me’ button next to whichever option looks best from the provided list. Arc Search will then, within seconds, package information from relevant websites into a handy summary akin to a mini magazine article. Source links are provided, so you can dive deeper if something catches your eye.
The app also handles single-page summaries beautifully. On supported sites, simply pinch a page. In moments, you’ll get a bulleted list of key points. Is that enough to tear you away from Safari for day-to-day browsing? Maybe not. But as a dedicated tool for smarter searching, Arc Search is an excellent freebie.
Adobe Scan (free)
Scanners are an odd one on iPhone. Time was, there were loads of free scanning apps with one-off premium payments. Today, most demand eye-watering subscription charges for even fairly basic functionality. Adobe Scan has a subscription too – but most people won’t need it.
The app works much as you’d expect. Put a document in front of your iPhone and the app figures out where the edges are and shoots a photo of it. You can make some basic adjustments and then save the result. But Adobe’s app also uses OCR so you can export each scan as a PDF with selectable text.
Having a standalone scanning app is more efficient than using Notes, and Adobe Scan’s no-nonsense approach appeals. The subscription lets you combine files and export documents to Microsoft Office formats. But for free, this app does what most people need from an iPhone scanner.
Infuse (free + IAP)
These days, the idea of a video collection seems quaint – streaming media has made shiny discs almost redundant. And even if you’ve digitized your collection for posterity, you might wonder what to do next.
Infuse is the answer. Put your videos on a shared network drive (on a PC/Mac, a NAS, or a hard drive plugged into a router that supports such things), fire up Infuse and it’ll explore the files, grab cover art, and let you start watching.
Of the apps in this space, Infuse is by far the most elegant. You can quickly access subtitles, organize playlists, and make edits when metadata isn’t right. It’s also great on Apple TV (depicted above). Pay and you get cross-device sync and can optionally stream from files stored on cloud services; but, again, this app does an awful lot entirely for free to keep your eyes glued to the screen.
Nike Training Club (free)
The exercise and fitness industry is huge – and workout apps tend to demand a monthly fee. This is even true for Apple, with its Apple Fitness+ subscription, which integrates with Apple kit. Nike Training Club lacks such deep integration, but has the big advantage of being free.
This wasn’t always the case. Nike’s app used to have paid components, but during the pandemic the company removed them all. It even later removed the sole nod to money – a Shop tab in the corner. This means the sleek, efficient interface is solely dedicated to making you healthier.
Workouts are provided for a range of skill levels, time spans, and circumstances. Instructions are easy to follow, and videos help make sure you’re moving as you should be. If you want to go the distance, there are multi-week programs, and statistics to check how you’re performing over time. Naturally, your activity can be synced with Apple’s Health app.
Snapseed (free)
We’re not going to pretend there are no free photo/image editors on the App Store. In that regard, Snapseed isn’t at all unique. But when you use its rivals, you’ll tend to see the same patterns: watermarks; IAP for high-res image exports; hidden fees for many of the features.
Snapseed has no truck with any of that. On launch, it provides you with immediate access to a range of one-touch filters (‘looks’) that can make your snaps shine. Should you want to dig deeper, you can delve into a whopping number of tools and customizable filters.
The interface is intuitive and touch-first. Edits aren’t baked in and can later be tweaked or removed. Should you fashion an edit stack you love, it can be saved to later apply as one of the aforementioned ‘looks’. In all, Snapseed would be a bargain even for a fee. For free, it’s an unmissable gem.
MindShift CBT (free)
There are countless wellbeing apps on the App Store, but although they might make you feel better, the same’s not true for your bank account. MindShift is a rarity, though, in avoiding commonplace subscription demands, instead helping you ground yourself for free.
The app utilizes proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) strategies to help relieve stress, anxiety, and panic, making it an ideal app to draw on when you feel the need. You can quickly and easily track your mood and symptoms. There are tips for when you need immediate help, and coping cards aligned with specific types of issue.
Not having to worry about money is of course a part of that, hence us being grateful not only for MindShift’s quality, but also its lack of a price tag. For meditation and mindfulness, check out Smiling Mind as well, which is similarly impressive (and free).
GarageBand (free)
There’s a reasonable chance you might already have GarageBand on your iPhone or iPad. You might have even dipped into it, but found it a bit overwhelming or decided you don’t want to have a crack at chart super-stardom. But if you do have any interest in making a noise, it’s worth breaking down what GarageBand is.
Apple calls GarageBand a full-featured recording studio, but explore the individual components and you realize this is in fact several apps in one: a synth; a live loops player; a set of guitar amps and pedals; a drum machine.
Elsewhere on the App Store, any one of these things at this quality level would cost you serious money. That they don’t here makes GarageBand one of the most amazing freebies available for your Apple device – even if you only ever use a fraction of its power and features.
Khan Academy (free)
Saying you can “learn anything” with an app is quite the claim, but one Khan Academy largely makes good on. It’s available in a range of languages and makes few assumptions about abilities. For example, with math, you can delve into early math, which starts with the basics of counting and addition. At the other end of the scale, you can immerse yourself in complex multivariable calculus!
Lessons are delivered as videos, interactive exercises, and articles. Videos have live transcripts. Bookmarks enable you to flag interesting/favorite lessons – or even download a lesson for offline playback.
For those in education, it’s worth being mindful of methodologies because what’s provided in-app may differ from the course you’re on. But, ultimately, knowledge is knowledge, and Khan Academy has plenty of that to share. Perhaps the best praise we can offer is that during use you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, such as abruptly being asked to pay to complete a course. But that moment never comes. There’s a lot here, and it’s all completely free.
Note: for younger learners in the age range 2–6, there’s Khan Academy Kids.
Serial Reader (free or $3/£3)
For many of us, reading the classics is something we’ll get around to one day. Only that day may never come, because the thought of working through dusty tomes when there’s other media fighting for your attention doesn’t always seem terribly exciting. Serial Reader has the solution.
The app has you ‘subscribe’ to a much-loved classic, which is then served up to you daily, in bite-sized chunks. The idea is you’ll spend 15 minutes reading, making it a cinch to fit a classic into your day. Before long, you could tick off everything from Frankenstein to War and Peace. Fair warning, though: the latter will take about eight months to get through in this app!
Still, Serial Reader doesn’t limit you to a single book from the hundreds on offer. And while the core experience is free, a small one-off payment is available if you get impatient and want to read ahead or sync your progress across multiple devices.
NetNewsWire (free)
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the news. But also, social networks have a tendency to prize interaction over balance. Too often, they’ll display what’s likely to garner the most clicks, not what’s best for you. NetNewsWire is different, because it’s all about focus.
The app has you subscribe to favorite websites, whereupon recent headlines are downloaded. Select one and you’ll see an article synopsis or an entire article. In the latter case, a button forces the entire piece to load inside NetNewsWire, or you can opt to instead read it in a browser view.
Stay within NetNewsWire and what you read is devoid of junk – only the article’s text and images are displayed. Old hands might note RSS readers of this sort aren’t rare on iPhone and iPad. But NetNewsWire serves up a stellar and ad-free user experience, including iCloud sync and Home Screen widgets, entirely for free – and that is rare.
Yousician (free + IAP)
Learning a new instrument isn’t easy, and music tutors cost a fortune. So can Yousician turn you into the next Hendrix for free? That might be a riff too far, but if you’re aware of the restrictions of the system itself – and the limits of the free version – there’s a lot to like here.
Yousician resembles videogame Guitar Hero turned 90 degrees. The app teaches you chords and notes, which during lessons march across the screen, challenging you to match them. It’s a fun, accessible way to get started with guitar, although the method lacks depth in the long term.
For free, the main thing Yousician restricts is time. Depending on the current lesson, you may max out at ten minutes or fewer, and that can feel miserly when you get into the groove. But as a bite-sized way to get your axe on daily, it’s at the very least a good starting point – and the game-like interface really is fun.
Swift Playground (free)
You probably spend a fair bit of time using apps – but have you ever thought about making one? That’s what Swift Playground is here for – an Apple-made app that gently introduces you to programming concepts.
The short lessons involve tinkering with code and instantly seeing the results in a 3D world you can rotate with a swipe. As you progress, the challenges grow more complex, gradually guiding you through the core building blocks of real-world app creation.
What really sets Swift Playground apart is its real-world potential. You’re not just learning abstract concepts – you can build real apps on a real Apple device. And if you have a developer account, you can even submit a finished app to the App Store, all from within Swift Playground itself.
The catch? It’s iPad-only for now. But if you have an Apple tablet and a curiosity about coding, Swift Playground is the perfect place to start.