While iPhones come with powerful built-in features, many third-party apps claim to enhance your device’s performance. Most of these apps are unnecessary and potentially harmful. Here are the ones I avoid.
1 Battery Savers
Battery apps promise to get more mileage from your battery after each charge and ultimately extend its lifespan. They do this by closing unnecessary apps, optimizing system settings, and providing detailed battery usage insights so you can take action.
Firstly, closing background iPhone apps doesn’t save battery power. You can also enable Low Power Mode to optimize system processes. Furthermore, the battery settings allow you to see which apps are draining your iPhone’s battery already.
2 QR Code Scanners
QR code scanner apps are unnecessary since your iPhone has that feature built-in. Simply open the Camera app, point the camera at the QR code, and it will detect and process it then show you a little yellow button that you can tap. Not only is this more convenient, but it also eliminates the need for potentially unsafe third-party apps that might compromise your privacy.
3 Calculators
Before iOS 18, the Calculator app was relatively minimalist and lacked advanced features. It had no back button, history panel, unit converter, or ability to draw graphs. It had some scientific functions that you could access from a landscape orientation, but that’s about it.
Back then, you had to rely on third-party calculators to get these features. This had its drawbacks, as many of these apps are full of ads. You could remove them by purchasing or subscribing to the premium version.
That changed with iOS 18. Now it has all those things, including the brilliant Math Notes feature.
4 Journaling Apps
If you want to get into journaling, you don’t need a third-party app. The built-in Journal app, which has been bundled with the iPhone starting with iOS 17.2, allows you to express yourself using moments stored on your iPhone. That picture you took, a song you listened to on Spotify, or a workout you tracked using the Fitness app—the Journal app allows you to turn them into journal entries.
Perhaps the best feature of the Journal app is Journal Suggestions. It keeps you on your toes by suggesting events and activities you can turn into journal entries.
The Journal app doesn’t have all the advanced features that some other popular journaling apps have (they usually lock them behind the premium version anyway). But considering it’s free and well-integrated with my Apple ecosystem, I don’t see why I’d need another app of this kind.
Any app that promises to delete duplicate contacts from your iPhone is also useless since iPhones can now do that natively beginning with iOS 16.
Once you open the Contacts, you should be able to see how many duplicate contacts you have (look below your contact card). From there, you should be able to merge them with a few taps.
6 System Cleaning Apps
System cleaners promise to help you identify and remove unused apps and junk files. This is done in the hope of freeing up storage space on your iPhone and improving performance. However, you don’t need these apps since you can do this in the iPhone’s storage settings.
Your iPhone can recommend actions to save storage space by going to Settings > General > iPhone Storage and checking the Recommendations section. Below that section, you can check your installed apps and uninstall or offload the ones you don’t need.
System cleaners can’t really do much on iOS due to the way that apps are sandboxed. If you want to free up space taken up by an app, delete the app and reinstall it. If you want to clear temporary files, try restarting your iPhone. If you want to recover space taken up by a pending update, install the update.
7 Antiviruses
Another app you don’t need on your iPhone is an antivirus. iOS is known to be a highly secure operating system due to its robust security. Though no platform is truly immune to malware, you’re much less likely to run into trouble on an iPhone than you are on Android or Windows.
One example is sandboxing, a feature that isolates and places each app in a separate and restricted environment (hence the name sandbox). This is done to prevent a rogue app from doing damage to other parts of the system. You still need to be careful which permissions you grant to an app if you’re concerned about privacy, though.
Furthermore, the iPhone gets regular security updates that strengthen its resilience against malware (which can now be installed without a restart). Apple attempts its best to only allow apps on the App Store that are malware-free through a strict review process. Though it’s possible to install apps from third-party sources, the hassle of doing so and the “walled garden” approach to iOS security means that your iPhone is unlikely to get infected.
While third-party apps may promise enhanced functionality, Apple’s built-in features are often more than sufficient for most users’ needs. By avoiding unnecessary apps, you can maintain your privacy and storage space without compromising functionality.
