You know one reason (or perhaps the primary reason) why people prefer an iPhone over Android is that you get the best quality hardware and software from Apple with apps like Siri, iMessage, FaceTime, etc. that’s not available for Android. That’s not all! You also get the first-class versions of all official apps by various vendors.
As you probably know few apps by Google work better on iOS than Android. When Google released Maps for iOS, several sources claimed that Google Maps for iOS is better than Android version. And this report suggests that Google’s apps run better on the iPad mini than the Nexus 7.
So it really means that you don’t have to buy an Android phone for the sake of apps. When you buy a phone you’re really investing in its ecosystem. And that’s the primary reason why people say they’re switching to Android or iOS instead of mentioning the brand name of a phone.
Today, I’m going to feature an app for each default app by Apple though I prefer to stick with official apps by Apple only. Since the core Apple apps like Mail, Safari, Maps, etc. can be replaced with one app by Google an iPhone is obviously the best Google phone too.
As you can see most of my preferred apps are made by Apple, Microsoft and Google.
If you’re installing an alternate app for each default app by Apple then obviously you took a bad decision when you bought the phone as it doesn’t make any sense to use an iPhone filled with their competitors’ apps. :P
The Default iPhone Apps By Apple Are:
Phone, Safari, Messages, Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Reminders, Calculator, Camera, Clock, Voice Memos, Music, Photos, Videos, Newsstand, Compass, Passbook, Stocks, Weather, Game Center, App Store, iTunes, and Maps.
And the alternatives are…
1. Skype / Google Voice / Viber (instead of Phone)
Skype (FREE)
Say “hello” to friends and family with an instant message, voice or video call on Skype for free. There’s so much you can do, right from the palm of your hand. Add a little Skype Credit to send low-cost SMS messages or call friends on their mobile or landline.
Google Voice (FREE)
Google Voice is currently only available in the US. Send free text messages to US phones and make international calls at very low rates, access your voicemail messages with transcription, and make calls with your Google Voice number.
Viber (FREE)
Viber lets everyone in the world connect. Freely. More than 140 million Viber users call, text, and send photos worldwide – for free. Viber is available for the iPhone and other smartphones. It’s completely free with no advertising.
2. Google Chrome / Opera Mini (instead of Safari)
Google Chrome (FREE)
Browse fast with Chrome, now available on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Sign in to sync your personalized Chrome experience from your computer, and bring it with you anywhere you go.
Opera Mini (FREE)
Keep Opera Mini handy on your iOS device, especially for those unavoidable times you are on a slow crowded network, away from Wi-Fi or when data roaming. Opera’s powerful servers compress data by up to 90% before downloading, so page loads are lightning fast.
3. WhatsApp (instead of Messages)
WhatsApp ($0.99)
WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform smartphone messenger currently available for iPhone and all other smartphones. Switch from SMS to exchange messages, pictures, audio notes and video messages with WhatsApp users at no cost.
4. Gmail / Sparrow / Mailbox (instead of Mail)
Gmail (FREE)
Get the official Gmail app for your iPhone or iPad. The newly redesigned app brings the best of Gmail with real-time notifications, multiple account support and search across your entire inbox.
Sparrow ($2.99)
Sparrow by Google is an iPhone mail client designed with love to provide you with an efficient and pleasant mailing experience. With its pane navigation, its new threading system and many new features, you’ll never look back.
Mailbox (FREE)
Mailbox is a completely redesigned inbox that makes email light, fast, and mobile-friendly. Quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash. Scan an entire conversation at once with chat-like organization. Snooze emails until later with the tap of a button — they’ll return to your inbox automatically so you can focus on what’s important now. Mailbox works with Gmail only and is available based on reservations – first-come, first-served basis.
5. Fantastical / Sunrise Calendar (instead of Calendar)
Fantastical ($3.99)
Fantastical is the fastest and friendliest calendar app. Just type in “Lunch with John in Cupertino on Friday” and Fantastical will schedule it! Best of all, the beautiful interface makes using your calendar fun and easy.
Sunrise Calendar (FREE)
Sunrise is a free calendar app made for Google Calendar users. Designed with love, Sunrise is a new experience that will make your life easier.
6. Smartr Contacts / Brewster / Addappt / IntouchApp (instead of Contacts)
Smartr Contacts (FREE)
Smartr Contacts brings you that magic. This free app automatically creates rich profiles for all your contacts, including communication history and updates from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Brewster Address Book (FREE)
Bring together everyone you know (including contacts from iPhone, LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter) to create your own personalized address book. Additionally, syncing Brewster to your iPhone address book keeps your contacts’ information up-to-date and adds large photos to every contact.
Addappt (FREE)
Addappt is an always up-to-date private address book maintained by your friends… on iOS, desktop and iCloud all with one free app. Change your contact information once in the app and your contact info is updated across all your connected friends’ address books. It is that simple.
IntouchApp Contacts (FREE)
IntouchApp is a simple and elegant solution for managing your contacts so you stay in touch with those that matter, forever! Never worry about your contacts ever again!
7. Evernote / Fetchnotes (instead of Notes)
Evernote (FREE)
Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders–and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, at work, or on the go.
8. Any.do / Clear (instead of Reminders)
Any.DO (FREE)
Organize your life in a simple and elegant way. Any.DO is a better way to make things happen.
Clear ($1.99)
Life is messy. Keep it together with Clear, an amazing new app for list-keeping that is unbelievably simple, quick and satisfying to use.
9. Calculator+ / Soulver / Quick Graph (instead of Calculator)
Calculator+ (FREE)
Calculator+ is an iPhone / iPad calculator designed with simplicity, usability, and beauty in mind…
Soulver ($2.99)
Soulver is the ultimate app for doing quick calculations and figuring stuff out on the iPhone. It’s a far more elegant way to work with numbers than a traditional calculator.
Quick Graph (FREE)
It is a powerful, high quality, graphic calculator that takes full advantage of the multi-touch display and the powerful graphic capabilities of the iPad and iPhone, both in 2D and 3D. A simple, yet intuitive interface that makes it easy to enter and/or edit equations and visualize them in mathematical notation.
10. Camera+ / Camera Awesome / KitCam (instead of Camera)
Camera+ ($0.99)
With Camera+ you’re able to use your iPhone to shoot the best photos you possibly can. Packed with several useful features that your standard camera app doesn’t include, your pics will improve the instant you start using Camera+.
Camera Awesome (FREE)
Camera Awesome takes your photos to the next level by shooting faassst and taking sharper, better-exposed shots. Make your memories come alive with stunning professional effects. 0-Tap sharing on the sites you love.
KitCam ($0.99)
KitCam is a virtual camera kit that contains an amazing assortment of lenses, films, and frames, which can be used to create incredible effects and turn your photos and videos into stunning works of art.
11. Nightstand Central / Rise (instead of Clock)
Nightstand Central (FREE)
Nightstand Central Free turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a high quality alarm clock with current weather information and customizable wallpaper. It also supports iOS 4 background alarms. You get many of the great features of Nightstand Central, but for free.
Rise ($1.99)
Rise is a delightfully simple and unique alarm clock, now available for your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. With its refreshing and clever way to set time, Rise is one of the simplest alarm clocks you’ll ever use.
12. Audioboo / AudioMemos (instead of Voice Memos)
Audioboo (FREE)
Audioboo is an application for recording and sharing your voice with the world. This free version allows you to create audio up to 3 minutes in length and post that to your own account on the web.
Audio Memos ($0.99)
Audio Memos is a professionally made audio recorder. It has an amazingly intuitive interface, which is easy to use and full of powerful features. Use it in interviews, lectures, music session, briefings, … and simplify your recording tasks.
13. Ecoute (instead of Music)
Ecoute ($2.99)
Ecoute for iOS is an alternative player using your existing musical library. It sports a clean and elegant interface, revolves around gestures to help you control your music quickly, and integrates Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm so you can share your favorites tracks.
14. Flayvr / PhotoFolders (instead of Photos)
Flayvr (FREE)
With flayvr all your iPhone’s photos and videos are magically sorted into beautiful interactive albums, for you to keep or share with friends. Finally bring your memories back to life – use flayvr instead of endlessly swiping through your Camera Roll searching for your lost moments.
PhotoFolders ($1.99)
Protect and hide your private photos without being obvious about it! PhotoFolders allows you to organize your photos into separate albums (folders) that you can password protect to lock or hide. Now you can share the photos you want to share, and hide the photos you want to hide all in the same app.
15. GoodPlayer / AVPlayer (instead of Videos)
GoodPlayer ($2.99)
GoodPlayer can play AVI, Xvid, Divx, DAT, VOB, FLV, WMV, WMA, MKV, MP3, MP4, 3GP, AAC, AMR, FLV, MPEG, etc… files and streaming directly on iOS devices. Just transfer the media files to your iOS devices by iTunes File Sharing or over Wi-Fi, then it can be played at once.
AVPlayer ($2.99)
The AVPlayer can play almost any computer video file format such as AVI, Xvid, WMV and much more clearly and effortlessly. No converting hassles. Just copy files via USB and just drag and drop into the AVPlayer’s Media Explorer.
16. Zinio (instead of Newsstand)
Zinio (FREE)
Introducing Zinio, a better way than ever to explore, read and shop for the world’s best magazines on your iPad. Zinio now has more magazines than ever, and a new app built to make it easier to read your favorites anytime and anywhere. Access thousands of titles, tens of thousands of issues, and millions of pages of the world’s best digital content.
17. Google Earth / Compass+ (instead of Compass)
Google Earth (FREE)
Explore distant lands or reacquaint yourself with your childhood home. Search for cities, places, and businesses. Browse layers including roads, borders, places, photos and more. Visit the Earth Gallery to find exciting maps such as real-time earthquakes, planes in flight, hiking trails, city tours, and more.
Compass+ ($0.99)
Compass+ offers you much more than the standard compass. It features: six beautiful themes, retina graphics, Google Maps integration, location tagger, distance and heading information, etc.
18. Gyft (instead of Passbook)
Gyft (FREE)
Gyft is a digital gift card wallet that enables you to upload, send & redeem gift cards. Get two free $5 cards from mystery retailers! Beautifully designed for your iPhone to track balances and buy gift cards from over 200 national retailers. Connect with Facebook to send gift cards to friends & family.
19. Yahoo! Finance / Bloomberg (instead of Stocks)
Yahoo! Finance (FREE)
You’ve come to expect the highest quality financial coverage from Yahoo! Finance. Now you can get it all in an app built for you. Ranging from broad market indices to the details on a specific commodity, it’s all here. This app has something for everyone, no matter what your need of financial detail may be.
Bloomberg (FREE)
Get instant access to all your business and finance news, market data and portfolio tracking tools from the most trusted source financial professionals around the world rely upon.
20. Haze / Weather Live (instead of Weather)
Haze ($1.99)
Haze is build around the idea of giving you a radiantly crafted forecast at a glance. Swipe through temperature, sunshine hours and rain chance or dive even deeper and get detailed information about the weather. Swipe down to get a 5 day forecasts and unlock multiple colorful themes to personalize the look.
Weather Live ($1.99)
Don’t let bad weather take you by surprise! Whether it is cloudy, rainy, snowy or even stormy outside, Weather Live will provide you with current weather conditions and forecast in your city and multiple locations all around the world.
21. Appsfire (instead of App Store)
Appsfire (FREE)
The new Appsfire is the best way to find your next favorite app. Appsfire makes it super easy to browse the best deals and exclusive promotions. Set up price alerts to be notified when that paid app you’ve had your eye on drops in price, or even goes free.
22. Spotify / TuneIn Radio (instead of iTunes)
Spotify (FREE)
Spotify gives you instant access to millions of songs on your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch. With the Spotify app, you can choose to listen for free, or subscribe to Spotify Premium. US users can listen to radio for free. If your station plays a song you really like, save it with a single tap. Unlimited songs and stations – listen forever!
TuneIn Radio (FREE)
TuneIn lets you listen to the world’s radio with music, sports, news, talk, and comedy streaming from every continent. Enjoy 70,000 live radio stations and 2 million podcasts, concerts or shows on your iPhone, iPad and iPod, all for free.
23. Google Maps (instead of Maps)
Google Maps (FREE)
Get comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use maps with built-in Google local search, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, public transit directions, Street View and more. Use Google Maps to discover great places to eat, drink, shop and play, with ratings and reviews from people you trust.
24. Google Search (instead of Siri)
Google Search (FREE)
Search the web faster and easier with the latest Search app from Google. Get new features available only in this app. Now, with streaming voice search.
Google Search app for iOS recently enabled Voice Search and it really works well. Since it’s not integrated with iOS it can’t do all things which Siri can do but it’s really smarter than Siri when you ask information from the web.
25. CloudMagic (instead of iPhone Spotlight Search)
CloudMagic (FREE)
Magically find anything when you need it the most. Lightning fast search across Gmail, Google Apps, Hotmail, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive, iCloud email and much more.
Again, though the primary purpose of CloudMagic and iPhone’s Spotlight Search is different, this app is worthy to feature here as an alternative to Spotlight Search as it offers a one-stop search box to search almost everything cloud.
BONUS: Even More Alternatives To Replace ‘Other’ Apps By Apple…
Now those were the best alternatives to the the default iPhone apps by Apple. And here are few more apps to replace iWork, iBooks, Find My Friends, Find My Phone, iMovie, iPhoto, Podcasts, and iCloud.
26. CloudOn / Documents To Go (instead of iWork)
CloudOn (FREE)
CloudOn brings Microsoft Office to your iPhone & iPad and links it to your Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and SkyDrive accounts.
Documents To Go ($9.99)
Looking to access your Microsoft Office files at any time? All you need is your favorite iOS device and Documents To Go to be constantly connected!
27. Kindle / Google Play Books (instead of iBooks)
Kindle (FREE)
The Kindle app is optimized for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, giving users the ability to read Kindle books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks and PDFs on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. You’ll have access to over 1,000,000* books in the Kindle Store plus hundreds* of newspapers and magazines.
Google Play Books (FREE)
With Google Play Books for iOS start reading today with millions of titles from Google Play on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Take your favorite books with you on the go and personalize your reading experience. Shop books in your browser on Google Play.
28. Google Latitude (instead of Find My Friends)
Google Latitude (FREE)
Google Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map. Check in at places to share them with friends.
29. Prey Anti-Theft (instead of Find My Phone)
Prey Anti-Theft (FREE)
Open source, cross-platform anti-theft tracker. Prey lets you keep track of *all* your devices easily in one place.
30. Vimeo / ReelDirector (instead of iMovie)
Vimeo (FREE)
The new Vimeo iPhone app is the fastest way to watch, create, and share Vimeo videos on the go. The smarter, more intuitive design makes uploading, browsing, and sharing ridiculously easy.
ReelDirector ($1.99)
ReelDirector is the 1st and the most feature rich, powerful video editor for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
31. Adobe Photoshop Express / PicsArt (instead of iPhoto)
Adobe Photoshop Express (FREE)
With Photoshop Express, it’s easy to improve your photos. Choose from a variety of one-touch effects, or simply drag your finger across the screen to crop, rotate, or adjust color. Add artistic filters like Soft Focus or Sketch.
PicsArt (FREE)
PicsArt is a free, full-featured photo editor and art community. PicsArt’s toolkit includes picture editor, magic effects, draw, sharing, and a photo art community.
32. Instacast / Downcast / Stitcher Radio (instead of Podcasts)
Instacast 3 ($4.99)
Instacast makes it easy to discover, create, and manage multiple podcast subscriptions. Subscribe a podcast via the integrated Online Directory, import episodes from your iPod Library and always stay up-to-date.
Downcast ($1.99)
Download and listen to your favorite podcasts directly from your iOS device without the need to sync with iTunes.
Stitcher Radio (FREE)
Listen to your favorite news, comedy, sports and talk radio shows on-demand from your mobile device. Discover the best of NPR, CNN, Fox, BBC, WSJ, Adam Carolla, SModcast and over 15,000+ shows and live stations. Change the way you listen to radio – on your schedule, not the schedule of traditional stations.
33. Dropbox (instead of iCloud)
Dropbox (FREE)
Dropbox lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Access any file you save to your Dropbox from all your computers, iPhone, iPad and even the Dropbox website!
Dropbox can’t be considered as a complete alternative to iCloud since iCloud is tightly integrated with iOS and Dropbox is more or less a cloud storage platform. But several apps support integration with Dropbox and you can access your Dropbox account from any device.
Do you know of any other good alternatives to native iPhone apps?
Image Credits: Flickr, Free Digital Photos
30 Default iPhone Apps By Apple And Its Great Alternatives is a post by Minterest