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Top picks for replacement stock iOS apps

M

MOTiiVHATE`

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 4, 2015
137
107
What are some of your third party apps you’ve replaced stock iOS apps with and why?

I am looking specifically for weather, calendar, email and maps, and I’m especially curious if anyone uses a third party browser.
 
MOTiiVHATE` said:
What are some of your third party apps you’ve replaced stock iOS apps with and why?

I am looking specifically for weather, calendar, email and maps, and I’m especially curious if anyone uses a third party browser.
Click to expand...

I generally prefer stock apps because of the better integration with the OS but there are some apps that are just better.

Difficult to beat WeatherPro in northern Europe for weather prognosis. So that’s the only app I use for weather.

I use Calendars 5 just for the colour coordinated overview of the month. Very practical to see my schedule with a glance. Everything else I use the stock calendar app.

Email is a difficult one. I am used to the simplicity of the stock app. Though I do use the Gmail app for push notifications and to manage labels. Tried Outlook which a favourite among many, but I couldn’t get used to it. Heard very good things about Airmail too but haven’t tried it yet since it costs.

Maps is easy. I gave up to the stock app as soon as it got released because it did not even have colour aerial photos of my area. And even though it has gotten better, it still can’t beat Google in my area, and I’m not sure if it will anytime soon. I use the stock app a couple times per year when I send simple pinpoint information through iMessage. I guess if you live in an area where Apple has paid a lot of attention in cartography like New York or Stockholm, the stock app would be just fine.

Safari for browser almost exclusively. I have chrome as a backup but it’s rarely used. Safari is probably the most used app in my phone by far.
 
Newton mail. I have multiple email accounts and this keeps them all in one place / account. Also their superchargers are pretty awesome such as "email has been read"
 
For weather I use the Weather Channel app (paid to have ads removed). For my location it seems to be the most accurate and I like the detailed information it offers above and beyond the stock weather app.

For calendar I used Week Cal for several years, but recently switched to BusyCal for iOS since I also use BusyCal on my Mac. Honestly, Week Cal is probably better in terms of use and layout, but either is an improvement over the stock calendar app.

For email I use Airmail on both iOS and macOS. I switched to it to get my Gmail pushed and it works fine.

For maps, I use the stock app but I've used Google Maps before and liked that as well.

Safari is still my favorite browser on iOS (which is saying something because it's my least favorite browser on macOS). Firefox, Chrome and Dolphin are okay. I loved Atomic Browser but it's no longer developed.
 
AltaMail for email as it supports full window reading in landscape mode (Air 2).

WeatherBug (paid version) - use the same good weather app on my iOS and Android devices.

Chrome - use across all of my Android, iOS, and Windows devices.
 
Hi MOTiiVHATE`

I use Astro for e-mail. I love to use the same app on desktop (macOS) and phone (iOS). Astro is free and offers a ton of functionality on top of a great well-designed client: https://www.helloastro.com/

For my TO-DO I use Remember The Milk, I've been a Pro user since the early days, and now 12 years later, still my go-to todo-list manager. http://rememberthemilk.com

For Calendar I use Week Cal. Week Cal have an amazing month-view that looks a lot like the old paper-calendar we had in our house before our family shifted to a shared digital calendar :) http://weekcal.com/

For Weather I use AccuWeather - it's one of the few apps that works very well in Denmark where I live https://www.accuweather.com

I use Google's Chrome-browser on both my iPhone and my Mac.

- Daniel
 
MOTiiVHATE` said:
What are some of your third party apps you’ve replaced stock iOS apps with and why?

I am looking specifically for weather, calendar, email and maps, and I’m especially curious if anyone uses a third party browser.
Click to expand...

Here are my favorites :

Weather: BeWeather2, Partly Sunny (both I mainly use as a weather widget, but they also have great apps)

Calendar: Week Calendar

E-mail: Spark, Airmail or Edison are great options (I have installed all three but currently use Spark)

Maps: Google Maps (I use it as a car navigation and works pretty good in NL also with traffic support)

Browser: still using Safari
 
MOTiiVHATE` said:
What are some of your third party apps you’ve replaced stock iOS apps with and why?

I am looking specifically for weather, calendar, email and maps, and I’m especially curious if anyone uses a third party browser.
Click to expand...

I generally try to stick with Apple made apps. The reason is that 90% of the apps in the store sell your information to third parties such as Google or Facebook. I stick with Apple because they have no incentive on selling my browsing habits or reading my emails.
Now having said the above, I do find some stock apps unfriendly and unintuitive to use. For example I replaced the following:

- Calendar with Fantastical
- Reminder with Things

I read through their TOS and they were acceptable to me.
 
Calendar -> Week Calendar
Maps -> Google Maps
Weather -> Weather Pro

I use the stock apps for e-mail, web browsing and note taking
 
redgreenski said:
I generally try to stick with Apple made apps. The reason is that 90% of the apps in the store sell your information to third parties such as Google or Facebook. I stick with Apple because they have no incentive on selling my browsing habits or reading my emails.
Click to expand...

For the same reason above i cant trust 3rd party email apps, and except weatherPro for its widgets, i prefer the stock apps.
 
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Everything stock except...
Notability--- default Notepad
Google Maps -- default MAP
MyRadar -- default weather
Google browser -- The voice recognitions works 100 times better than SIRI.
For example "Ask both what years was Bret Farve Drafted". --- SIRI=fails GOOGLE provides.
same with "When was the last time the Astros went to the World Series"
not to mention the Google will pick up words that SIRI just can't understand.
 
Last edited:
Mail - Airmail
Calendar - Fantastical and Calendars 5
Podcasts - Pocket Casts
News - Reeder
Photos - Google Photos
Reminders - Cortana/Microsoft Todo
 
Calendar - Google Calendar
Email - Email (Edison)
News - Reeder 3
Podcasts - Castro 2
Notes - SimpleNote & Google Keep
Weather - Dark Sky
 
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