The 10 Hottest Must-Have Mobile Apps Of 2019

Fun new games, plus apps for productivity and security, are among the top apps you can download right now for iOS and Android devices.

Apps To Try

As you head into the holiday season, who can blame you if your mind is turning a bit more to leisure? Taking a break from reality is as easy as pulling out your smartphone and firing up Super Mario Kart or one of the 100 games you can find on Apple Arcade. Of course, your device has plenty more to offer than just games: there are highly useful apps available for focus and meditation, improved photos, productivity and security, and much more.

What follows is our roundup of 10 must-have mobile apps you can download right now for your iPhone or Android smartphone.

Apple Arcade

Price: $4.99/month after one-month free trial

Platform: iOS

True, Apple Arcade is not a single app--it's 100 game apps in one. The service from Apple launched this year to offer a wide array of mobile games for a monthly subscription. With a subscription to the service, users can download a new game to their phone whenever they like from the Apple Arcade tab in the App Store. And so far, so good: top games on Apple Arcade initially have included Sayonara Wild Hearts, Shinsekai Into the Depths and our favorite, the absurd and ever-surprising What the Golf?

Dark Sky Weather

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: $3.99 (iOS), free for Android (premium subscription required for down-to-the-minute forecasts)

You've probably already got a weather app pre-installed on your device, but Dark Sky Weather has something different to offer: forecasts on when it's expected to start raining or snowing down to the minute, at your precise location. Those forecasts also extend to when the precipitation is going to stop. Meanwhile, the latest overhaul to Dark Sky Weather brought an improved user interface that places forecasts on a single page, while the update also added a precipitation map and a "Time Machine" feature that lets you explore weather in the past (going back decades, even) or in the future.

Facetune

Price: $3.99 (iOS), free with "VIP" paid features (Android)

Platform: iOS, Android

There's no shame in being a Facetune user--especially not after the revelation that it was one of the most-downloaded apps of 2019. Facetune allows you to touch up your selfies before posting them on Instagram, with the ability to edit any part of your face and hair. Removing blemishes, whitening teeth and smoothing out skin are just a few of the possible uses. The popularity of the app is no doubt in the fact that its adjustments often look very natural, and its tools are intuitive to use, too.

Forest - Stay Focused

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: $1.99

Without a doubt, smartphone addiction has become an epidemic. Apple and Google have even launched tools for helping users to better control their time on devices, such as the ability to set daily limits. The Forest – Stay Focused app, however, helps you take a different approach to curbing your phone usage. To help you concentrate on other things, Forest lets you plant a seed that will grow into a tree--as long as you stay in the app and resist the urge to use your phone's other apps. If you do leave the app, your tree will wither. While it's a simple idea, just having this sort of prompt has proven popular with users that are looking to keep their focus on the task at hand (or just need to stay off social media for a bit).

Insight Timer

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: Free

Speaking of focus, one of the best things you can do for yourself with your device is to download a great meditation app. While there are plenty to choose from, Insight Timer stands out both for being free and for its large number of guided meditations--24,000. (As the app's website points out, most other meditation apps stop being free after a short amount of usage.) Meditations range widely from "beginner kits" to meditations focused on specific benefits, such as healing, stress or performance. And of course, the app also includes its widely used meditation timer (the app's original feature). Premium features available for a subscription of $5 a month include extended courses, a daily curated meditation and offline listening.

Mario Kart Tour

Price: Free

Platform: iOS, Android

Not all of the coolest games are on Apple Arcade, of course (or exclusive to iOS). Mario Kart Tour launched this year on both iOS and Android, and became the top-downloaded free game on iOS and No. 3 on Android devices. Mario Kart Tour allows users to relive the nostalgia of Super Mario Kart racing from the Super NES days, with players able to quickly jump into the go-kart frenzy with classic characters and courses—plus some new additions.

Otter Voice Meeting Notes

Price: Free (Premium subscription available)

Platform: iOS, Android

We'll start with productivity apps. While transcription features are now available in many apps, Otter Voice Meeting Notes is for the power note taker. Along with automatically transcribing meetings in real time, Otter also records audio of the meetings, highlights key points and allows users to share transcripts live with other participants. Otter's meeting transcripts are also searchable--allowing you to easily find a certain point in the audio--and can be edited by other collaborators. The app can even be trained to identify speakers over time, too. Otter Voice Meeting Notes provides users with 600 minutes of transcription per month for free, and users can get more minutes (along with other premium features, such as custom vocabulary) with a paid subscription.

ProtonVPN

Platform: iOS, Android

Price: Free (Premium subscription available)

ProtonVPN is a highly respected provider of virtual private networks, which encrypt data transmitted from devices across the Internet--ensuring confidentiality and security. For the mobile app edition of ProtonVPN, the Switzerland-based company allows users to hide their IP address and ensure that their encrypted traffic can't be decrypted, even in the event that an encryption key is compromised down the road. Ultimately, users of ProtonVPN can safely browse the web even while using public WiFi sources--and the company itself does not track or record user activity, either. Notably, ProtonVPN is free even though the app has no adds or bandwidth limits. Optional paid plans are available, with more servers and features, and those subscriptions go toward supporting the free version of the app, ProtonVPN says.

Spectre Camera

Price: $2.99

Platform: iOS

Named iPhone App of the Year by Apple, Lux Optics' Spectre Camera is another app that uses advanced technology to easily modify and improve how a photo turns out. But this one isn't for selifes: instead, Spectre Camera enables users to take long-exposure photos that look incredible, by completely removing crowds and vehicles from the images. Spectre Camera removes much of the difficulty of doing long exposures and offers some other cool features too, such as taking enhanced photos of water scenes such as waves and waterfalls.

Things 3

Platform: iOS

Price: $9.99

While there's an endless number of to-do apps out there, Things 3 may just be the ultimate. Things 3 enables users to "Collect Your Thoughts" (brainstorming your tasks ahead and pulling in data from other apps); "Get Organized" (create a project for each goal and come up with the necessary steps); "Plan Your Time" (crucially bringing together your to-do list with your existing calendar events); and finally, "Make the Most of Your Day" (with the "Today" feature, which provides a quick scan of your to-dos and what is coming up in your life). Ultimately, Things 3 pulls together all of your priorities in one place so you can finally achieve the sort of productivity you've longed for.