15 FREE iPhone Apps You'll Actually Use

0:00 Here are 15 actually free iPhone apps that are really powerful, including the brand new app from Raycast, video editing using the Instagram edits app, my favorite app for keeping track of grocery lists, another one of my favorite apps that's now on the Mac as well as iPhone and iPad. Create beautiful screenshots and more. Now, I'll link all the apps below and they are completely free to download. Yes, many of them offer a premium tier or subscription, but these are actually apps I think are worth it even if you just go with the free version and never pay for it at all. Number one, which is brand new to iOS and lots of people have been telling me to try on the Mac is Raycast. Now, I have not gotten super into the notes feature. I know a lot of people love that part, but one of the reasons it was really interesting, one, ton of customizations, which I'm going to jump to soon. And if you want to deep dive into Raycast, let me know down in the comments. But if you go to the

0:46 Raycast AI, you have access to all of the major LLMs like Perplexity, ChatgPT, Claude, and more. But what really caught my attention is they offer great shortcuts actions. So, if you're here in shortcuts, create a new one. And let's look up raycast. Look at all these actions that came with version one of the app. You can expand this ask AI action and choose from all these different models right here in shortcuts. Now, a lot of these models are behind the payw wall, but you can access some of them on the free version. For instance, you can jump into the chatpt version, and you'll see which models require a subscription, which ones are free. You can jump over to Claude and then expand that to see which ones you can use. Again, most of them are behind the payw wall, but I think it's worth it just to be able to use the free models and the powerful shortcuts

1:31 actions that are available. Number two is the Edits app. This is Instagram's free video editing app. It is a meta product, but after trying it, I have to say it makes editing vertical videos on your mobile device really easy. Adding captions, adding music, you can add overlays. And I think I actually prefer it to Cap Cut. Now, Cap Cut is more powerful, gives you more flexibility and more options, but it really wants you to upgrade to the premium version, and edits is just enough for me to use completely for free, add those animated captions and some overlays, and my vertical videos are ready to go. Completely free. I recommend trying it. Number three is Cheat Sheet. Cheat sheet is a super fun app where if you just want to have a piece of data or create a widget, like maybe you travel often and you just want to have your hotel room visible in a widget whenever you need to

2:17 look at your phone. You can add an icon, you can add a title, and now you can actually display that on your lock screen as a widget. Go to your home screen, go into jiggle mode, then when you search for the cheat sheet app, you can add the widget. I'll actually put it in the smart stack up here. Then you can tap on it and you'll see the information that I have in the cheat sheet app is just right there. Now, if you want, you can hide certain pieces of information from the widget. So, you would just tap the three dots. You can say don't show in widget. You can also create folders and do lots of powerful stuff if you upgrade, but just using the free version for putting some quick reminders or information right on your home screen. Pretty cool. Number four, you've probably heard of it, but Delta the emulator app is awesome. Even if you just want to play some Smash Bros like N64 style, you can of course install

3:02 ROMs from files, but the app is completely for free and it was recently updated to version 1.7. Highly recommend. Super fun. Next up is Wii Transfer, which you might not have even known it had an iPhone app, which I don't think I did, but it's a great way to send large files if you don't have a cloud service to upload to. Of course, it does want you to upgrade, but you don't have to. Then once I sign up and confirm my email, I can tap the plus icon. Let's upload some large files. I'll go to browse my files and maybe I want to share this semi-large MP3 file. Tap open. It'll upload it to Wii transfer. You can choose when it expires, whether or not you want to add a password or send it directly in email. And once you tap transfer, you'll see it upload to Wii transfer. Your speed will vary depending on the size of the file and your bandwidth. And just like that, the link is ready. You can copy it and then someone else can download that large file. That was actually the latest

3:48 episode of Primary Technology. By the way, that's my tech podcast with Jason Aton. You should totally subscribe. Link above. You can listen in any app. Those links are down in the description as well. Number six, the best grocery app bar none is Any List. I use it for multiple stores. My spouse and I use it for meal planning. Now, some of those features are behind a payw wall, like if you want to use the meal planning calendar, adding recipes with specific ingredients, which we do all of that. But I love Any List. There's also a great Apple Watch app that is part of the paid subscription, but you can use the total free version to make your list, keep track of it, and there's also a really cool Instacart integration. So, you can order Instacart and it will just pull all the items from your list. You do have to go one by one, but it's a pretty cool feature. Number seven is push cuts. If you use shortcuts and you want to have a way to create notifications for things that don't

4:35 normally have a notification, you can do that with push cuts. And you see I have several set up here. things like if a door is left open in HomeKit, I can get a notification for that because that's not a built-in automation. I also have notifications when my iPad battery falls below a certain percentage and when it's charged. Now, the free version of Push Cuts, you can create three notifications. And for a long time, that was enough for me. I just wanted to know when certain doors were open and to know when my battery for iPad fell below a certain percent. And it's really easy to do. You just click the plus button, title your notification, tap add, and then you'll see this web hook URL. You can copy that URL by tapping down here, copy URL. Then all you would do is create an automation in shortcuts and use that URL in a get contents. So for instance, maybe I'll hit the plus icon

5:21 and I could create this on my iPad and I'll get a notification on my iPhone because that's where push cuts is installed. But let's say I want to be notified when the battery level falls below 20%, I want this automation to run immediately. Next, new blank automation. And it's just a one-step shortcut. Use the get contents of URL action. Paste it here in the URL field. And that's literally it. Tap done. And now when battery falls below 20%, you'll get the notification you titled over here in push cuts. Great extension for the shortcuts app. You can use it for free and create up to three push cuts. Number eight, I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but the chat GPT app being completely for free. I know my kids use this all the time for searching and just asking it random questions. Obviously, it's powerful. I do pay for chat GPT plus because I use it all the

6:08 time for different videos, getting me summaries for transcriptions, and I've created some custom GPTs, which by the way, I have a custom shortcuts GPT, which you can get if you support my community. You could join over 1,400 people part of my shortcuts community. And if you support with $5 a month, you get access to a new shortcut of the week, which I've been adding one every week, not shown in any of my shortcuts videos. You can access my shortcuts GPT, which is great for building shortcuts using API features like I did with movie database or the National Weather Service. Plus, you can search my shortcuts database, and you get priority shortcuts request, which I comment and try to build every one that you ask for. I may not be able to make every shortcut, but I definitely respond to every single request in there. So, you can join at create.beard.fm. Would love to have you part of that community.

6:53 Number nine, another AI app, Perplexity. Now, I know there could be some privacy and security concerns with Perplexity, especially when the CEO says he loves tracking and ads, but I did an entire video recently showing the new integrations that Perplexity added specifically to the iPhone, being able to play Apple Music, add reminders and calendar events, send emails, and more. You can check out that video above. It's pretty impressive, especially comparing it to Hey Dingus, the built-in assistant. But you can try all those features for free. You don't have to pay for Perplexity Pro to access those iPhone integrations. Next up is OneTap. One tap is a great place to keep links that you might use often or want to share like a YouTube channel link or a podcast and then you can use it as a thirdparty keyboard. So if I was about to share something on social media, I could pull up the one tab keyboard and here you see I have different folders. That is a pro feature, but you can not

7:40 have folders and just have a few links ready. Then I can share our YouTube channel just by tapping there. I have our main show page and it's a great way to keep links that you use often at the ready. Which is side note, they recently released a Mac app and it lives here in the menu bar. you still have quick access to all the links that you had saved on your phone. You can manage it here or your other devices. It's a great way to just quickly copy something to your clipboard. Next is a really nicely designed app called Pretty Progress. It has some really nicely designed widgets which if you want a countdown to an event or a trip you're taking or just a countdown for the day, you can add different size widgets. It tells you the percentage. You can create something new by tapping the plus icon here. You can choose from different units of measurements, change the design, and if you want unlimited, you'll have to pay, but you get a number of free ones. Nice to have just on your home screen

8:25 somewhere. Next is my favorite app for sharing screenshots, which is called Share Shot. I'll take a screenshot right now, and you'll see just when you open the app, it's going to use the latest screenshot you took, put it in a nice frame, and the free version, you can do this. You get some limited options for theming. I did upgrade to the pro version, but use it for free just to get some nice frame screenshots out of it. I think there is a watermark on the free version, but if you pay for pro, there's also a really cool feature which is the control center action. So, anytime you take a screenshot, tap that control center action, automatically puts the latest screenshot in a frame for you. Then you can also change the aspect ratio if you want to go widescreen or tall. And you can go all the way to the right for a PNG with a transparent background. Great if you want to use these in other videos or thumbnails, things like that. Next up, I've talked about this app a lot, but Sofa. I love

9:12 Sofa for keeping track of books I want to read and to read movies and TV shows I've read or to watch. And I do pay for the pro version so I can do things like smart list. And you can even play podcast now in the Sofa app. But even if you just go for the free version, keep track of just movies and shows you want to watch and a couple other things. I'll link my full video review in the top. Highly recommend. Love Sofa. Also, I did an entire video on Bear recently. I love Bear for so many reasons. I also did an entire in-depth video on this. So, you can check out 18 reasons I love Bear. I'll link that above as well. If you want to sync between devices, you do have to pay for Bayer Pro and to get all the templates, but even for free, it's a great note-taking app. And finally, number 15. If you want to record any kind of podcast or videos, like with an interview guest from your phone, the best app for that is Riverside. Now,

9:57 full disclosure, I'm on the Riverside team. That's why you see my face literally all over their YouTube channel, which if you want to learn about podcasting and YouTube growth, you can go there. But to be clear, I still personally pay for Riverside to record primary technology. and I used it way before I started working at Riverside. And if you've ever tried to record a podcast with a remote guest from your iPhone or iPad, you know it can be a real challenge. But Riverside makes it easy. But if you want to learn about Bear and those 18 reasons why I love it over Apple Notes, I'll put my video on that right up here. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel and hit that like button. Lots more videos coming soon. WWDC is just in a few weeks and iOS 19 and all the new updates. I'm going to be covering it right here on the channel. So be sure to get subscribed. And if you want to learn more about shortcuts, which I do on a regular basis here, check out this video. That was my last shortcuts video

10:43 and more to come. Thanks for watching.