Another year has come and gone, and with it, another round of fun and useful new apps. It’s impressive that there continues to be so much innovation of new apps more than a decade after the first iPhone was released, but 2018 stayed the course with plenty of fresh new ideas to make our lives more convenient than ever. Let’s take a look at some of the best new apps to hit the App Store and Google Play whole 2018 and gain maximum popularity.
GroupMe
Even though they usually, technically include the ability to participate in text exchanges with multiple people, the built-in messaging apps on most phones aren’t exactly the smoothest experience and can make it difficult even to know who is talking in an individual message. GroupMe provides a much more fluid and more intuitive interface to chat with your friends, including the ability to name your groups and even save media to a group to look at later.
Facetime/Google Duo
As wireless bandwidth has increased in recent years, it should come as no surprise that video chat has rapidly become the preferred method of communication for many people. Apple’s Facetime app is proprietary to IOS devices, but Google Duo is available on both IOS and Android platforms, and both of them work on both WiFi and regular cell networks.
Bitmoji
People love their emojis, and no app gives you a greater breadth of emoji possibilities than Bitmoji. You can customize avatars, browse a vast library of stickers, and send your unique creations through any messaging app that supports copying and pasting. It can even be linked to Snapchat to make your Snaps and stories as impressive as ever.
Slack
Technology has made collaboration easier than ever in the business world, and Slack is one of the best messaging apps around for that purpose. Whether used for individual teams or company-wide, Slack has proven a terrific way to not only exchange messages, but share ideas and track progress on any project.
Splitwise
Figuring out who owes what when the check comes after dinner is the classic calculus problem from hell for most groups of friends. Splitwise makes the process much simpler, and whether it’s keeping track of who bought which meal, who still needs to pay up for their concert ticket, or anything else, Splitwise makes it simple as cake and even integrates with Paypal and Venmo so you can send your friends the cash right away.
Otter Voice Notes
Transcribing audio and dictating notes can be an incredibly tedious and glitchy process, but Otter Voice Notes uses a specialized AI that does a ridiculously good job of learning your speech patterns and providing accurate transcriptions. This makes it easy as can be to make sure you never forget your ideas, shopping list, or thoughts after any meeting.
Conclusion
This is just a small sampling of the many apps you can find for your mobile device of choice. Whether you want to watch your favorite sports teams, conduct big business, or even just prank your friends, 2018 has been an excellent year for new and innovative apps, and a sign of what’s to come in 2019 and beyond.
