The time has come once again for Apple to tighten its grip on our souls.
iOS 8 officially dropped last week and the sound of 500 million ecstatic basics catching their life was heard ‘round the world. If you are still reeling from the shock of entering smartphone paradise and don’t know where to start with the immaculate upgrades, never fear—here are the top four must-have iOS 8 apps to snatch up.
Kiwi for iOS 8
Aesthetically, iOS 8 hasn’t changed much from the last OS, but one long-awaited feature has finally arrived and it will transform your everyday life: third-party custom keyboards. Apple has improved a bit upon their own default keyboard, but honestly you’ll probably never see it again once you’ve discovered Kiwi for iOS 8.
Kiwi lets you create your own personalized keyboards with color gradients, background images, customized keys, text fonts and blur effects — it’s cocaine for the Pinterest design queen in all of us. There are a few keyboard apps out there, but Kiwi has the sleekest and simplest interface and the most freedom in customization.
Kiwi also lets you make multiple custom keyboards and seamlessly switch in between them on the fly by adding a keyboard selection widget to the notification center. Best of all, you can freely share your Kiwi keyboards for download and use by anyone. Maybe that selfie keyboard of you chugging a Trenta PSL will go viral and the phrase “I’d tap that” will take on new life. One can dream.
Via: imgur.com
1Password
With the great celebrity nude photo leak of 2014 still fresh in our minds (though hopefully not on our screens), issues of Internet security and online privacy have come to the forefront of our attention. Luckily for us, the cross-platform password-generating sign-in titan 1Password has gone freemium with the release of iOS 8 and that means you can put your own nude leak nightmares to rest.
1Password keeps your login secure by generating long, complex passwords accessible from one login, integrates with Touch ID and easily extends to outside applications like Safari. Previously a paid app, users that already have 1Password will inherit new “Pro” features like combining passwords into shareable groups and support for a wider range of accounts including email, bank and wireless routers.
Bottom line: no one has the 2.5 seconds of time it takes to actually type in whatever traumatically awkward password they devised in middle school every time they get presented with a login screen. Take back your life, take out them passwords.
Via: cdn1.appleinsider.com
Evernote
This note-taking phenom has been a classic for a while, but the iOS 8 update essentially integrates it into the very fabric of your device. Now you can clip notes from literally any app on your phone, snatching photos, text and links for later. The game changing development comes in the form of a quick note widget addition to the notification center so that you can pop out a text post, snapshot, reminder, photo or list without ever opening the application.
Evernote is everything Apple’s own Notes app should be. You haven’t known your phone’s full note-taking capability until you’ve worked in an application like this. If you don’t feel like lugging around a laptop or archaic spiral notebook, whipping out Evernote is a decent stand in for all of your daily class needs. Banish that sad yellow notepad to your “Useless Utilities” folder and make Evernote your new note taking bae.
Via: i1.wp.com
Finish
In a similar trend of iOS 8 widget transformations, the popular to-do list app, Finish, has added an update that places the meat of its life in the increasingly handy notification center. From anyplace on your phone you can sneak a peak at your next three tasks and even mark them as completed or add a new task right then and there.
Additionally, notifications now make use of interactive features so that when a task is due you can mark it as finished or stall it for a day right from the notice banner. There are a ton of configuration options for each task you set for yourself, from brief memos, to continuous time-of-day reminders, to custom completion timeframes so that your to-do list is always perfectly structured to fit your nuanced schedule and motivation needs.
Honestly, I ignore most of the necessary tasks in my life simply because checking my to-do list is a daunting and nauseating undertaking. With Finish only a flick away, it’s nearly impossible to continue rationalizing your complete and utter laziness with forced forgetfulness.
With iOS 8, all of your favorite apps are coming together to create a complete, unified mobile experience that breaks the boundaries of separate, self-contained applications. Make the most of it, especially if you’re on that iPhone 6 flow.
Back to the cave until Apple’s next tech-enslaving update.
Featured photo courtesy of: imgur.com
