Do you guys know creative apps?

Bantam AI is an iOS app that lets you generate and share responses from top AI models directly in iMessage.

Check it out on the app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bantam-ai/id6759182483

And if you like it please rate it 5 stars! It will help me gain some traction!

Hey everyone!

I'm exploring ideas for an iOS app to build in 2027, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I'm not looking to create another generic AI app or a copy of something that already exists. I want to build something that solves a real problem and offers genuine value to its users.

I'd love to know:

• What problem do you face regularly that existing apps don't solve well?
• Is there an app you wish existed but haven't found yet?
• What type of app would you actually be willing to pay for?
• Are there any everyday tasks you think could be made significantly easier with a well-designed iOS app?

I'm especially interested in ideas for the US, UK, Canada, and other Western markets.

Hi everyone. Like everybody else, I have hundreds of screenshots that I compulsively save as a kind of note-taking. Sometimes I sort through them later, but often (once they pile up into the hundreds) I don't. It's a mess. I've got screeshots from courses, events, trips, reading suggestions, podcasts, ideas... you name it.

The thing is, I've tried several times to test some app that would help me with this, without success. That is, an app that automatically organizes notes, lets me extract information, classifies captures...

Recently, too, with the ease of creating new apps, there are new apps of this style by the dozens.

Captr and CaptainShot, for example, are some of the latest I've tried. But they don't quite work: they don't pull out the key ideas and they don't categorize well.

Has anyone found one that actually works? A good IA second brain app for managing screenshots? There seem to be thousands of them, but none that does it well.

Thanks!

Just released an app a few days ago, havnt really done any marketing yet. How would yall say im doing so far??

Dictating a reminder in your kitchen makes sense. Announcing 'follow up on the overdue invoice' to a train carriage is a different feature demo.

My take: voice can be the fastest way into an app, but typing shouldn't feel like the emergency exit. Switching between them should keep the same note or task, rather than make you start over. A transcript you can fix before saving matters too.

Which iPhone app gets this right for you? A specific moment where you switch to typing would be more useful than a feature list.

Disclosure: I work on an iOS assistant project, so I'm thinking through this tradeoff.

My address book had grown to a few thousand contacts across iCloud, Google and an old Exchange account, with plenty of duplicates and half-filled cards. Here’s what worked for me, starting with the free options built into iOS.

1. Back up first
On iCloud.com, open Contacts, select all and export a vCard. If something goes wrong later, you can re-import it. Do this before any cleanup, whatever tool you use.

2. Merge the obvious duplicates (free, iOS 16+)
Open Contacts. If iOS finds exact duplicates, a “Duplicates Found” banner appears at the top of the list. Tap it to review and merge them. It’s quick and catches identical cards. It won’t catch cards that differ slightly, like the same person with two different phone numbers.

3. Check where new contacts go
Settings > Apps > Contacts > Default Account. If new contacts land in an account you rarely use, you’ll end up with the same split problem again.

4. Use Lists to make sense of accounts (free, iOS 16+)
Tap Lists in the top-left corner of Contacts. You can see each account on its own and create lists like “Work” or “Family”. This helps you see which account a duplicate actually lives in before you delete anything.

5. Where the built-in app runs out
The built-in app has no bulk edit, so changing a company name on 40 cards means opening 40 cards. It also has no field-by-field merge for cards that aren’t identical, and no way to see your whole address book at a glance.

Disclosure: that last gap is why Compact Contacts Manager. I’m the developer. It works on the contacts already on your iPhone or iPad and keeps syncing through iOS, so it’s not a second address book. It adds:

• Duplicate review with a field-by-field merge, where you choose which phone, email or address to keep, plus a 30-day undo for the latest merge
• Bulk edit with a before/after preview of every card before anything is saved
• Multi-select, swipe actions, an A–Z scrubber and a landscape grid view
• CSV and vCard import/export
• Sample Contacts: a fictional address book so you can try every feature without giving access to your real contacts

Pricing: US$12.99, a one-time purchase that covers both iPhone and iPad. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads, no account. iOS 18 or later.

https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6795653671?pt=129119018&ct=reddit_iphoneapps&mt=8

I’m also curious how others handle this. Does anyone have a free trick for near-duplicates that I missed?

I keep getting markdown files from AI apps. What do you use to open them?

Disclosure: I am the developer of a free reader for this called Marko. It's free, with no accounts, no ads or in-app purchases. I'm mostly curious what people actually want from one, so tell me what's missing, or what you use instead.

A 'quick capture' app that makes you choose a project, add tags, set a priority and pick a date starts to feel like paperwork with a nicer icon.

My take: an iPhone app should earn its place by reducing decisions, not just organizing them into more menus. A widget that gets one thing out of your head can be more useful than a dashboard with twelve ways to sort it.

But there's a tradeoff: dump everything into one inbox and eventually you've built a second inbox to clean. Too little structure can become work too.

Which iPhone app gets that balance right for you, and what does it let you skip? I'm especially interested in notes, reminders and calendars you keep using after the novelty wears off.

Disclosure: I work on an iOS assistant project, so I have a stake in this question.

I noticed how often I picked up my phone without thinking and ended up scrolling longer than I intended. So I have Latch: Scan to Unlock to help create a little friction between me and distracting apps.

You can block apps and use schedules, QR codes, or NFC keys to control when you unlock them.

I'm still learning what works best for people, so I'd appreciate hearing how you deal with mindless scrolling and what tools have helped you.

I'm also offering free Pro codes for a limited time for anyone interested in trying Latch.

Thanks for reading!

I noticed that there were tons of comments on the app, game pigeon, and how to remove it from iMessage on the AppStore. You basically just go to settings > apps > messages > iMessage apps and then selected game pigeon.

I upgraded to the 18 Pro and it uninstalled all my movie apps, does anyone know any with active App Store links?

i've been helping a friend cut clips from a small podcast for youtube shorts. most episodes are around an hour, so we go through the recording, pick out interesting moments and turn them into clips that are usually under a minute. i've been using premiere for the longer edits, but it feels like overkill when all i need is to crop the video vertically, remove pauses, add captions and highlight a few words. i've been testing capcut for the short clips because it seems easier to get those basics done quickly. how well does it handle captions when people talk over each other or use names that might be transcribed incorrectly? also, do you edit each short separately or prepare a batch from the same episode?

I used a small app called Stitch in the past, light and free. Just works. But yesterday I noticed the app no longer available in the AppStore. The version I had was 1.1 and only other thing I know is an email address for customer review mind.stitch zohomail com

Anyway, I started searching for the app and checking if it had been replaced in the appstore with something else. Maybe I downloaded it from different country AppStore. But then I found another app called Stitch - Long ScreenShot on Australia appstore. It is also a nice free app for long sceenshot that works well. There are some more free interesting apps from the same developer.

I swear every time I look for a simple iOS app these days, there's another subscription.

• Scan a document? Subscription.
• Remove duplicate photos? Subscription.
• Convert a file? Yep, subscription.

Some of these apps barely do anything, yet they still want $5-8 a week.

I don't mind paying for good software, but come on. Not everything needs a monthly or weekly fee.

What's the most ridiculous one you've come across?

Bonus points if it's something the iPhone can already do for free.

I keep hearing about Rork for launching iOS apps, what about lovable? Is it not reliable enough to launch from lovable?

’m not a professional iOS developer. I used to be an assembler coder back in the 80s but I have been keen to look at iOS apps, I did an online course and built little apps but nothing good.

So over the last six months I coded a list app for myself using AI-assisted coding, and it has somehow turned into a fairly substantial SwiftUI app.

The basic idea is deliberately simple: You make a list, and you put items in a list items can have sub items and I have number of fields in each list item date time descriptions a number a rating

I have not found any type of list that didn't work with those things.

I'm tracking books, tv shows I have a squirrel list for things I put somewhere safe and then lost. I have a list for the F1 schedule this year, It is not a task app, deliberately not a task app but I did add some tasks bits that you can add to a list if you want to but no notifications.

I love tags so I worked really hard on designing how the tags work

I went sort of overboard with tons of features but they are all things I thought would come in handy and they did. I put it on the App Store because I wanted to go through that and because a friend of mine wanted to use it to. This is not an ad , I haven't mentioned the name, and it is free in the App Store anyway.

I wonder if anyone wanted to talk about what worked and what went horribly wrong building a real app this way.

Does anyone else lose track of time on their phone? Looking for a live stopwatch overlay app
Every day I end up on my phone far longer than I meant to, without even noticing. And the longer I scroll, the harder it gets to pull myself out. That's not what I want, and it's really hurting my productivity. My intention is always to take a quick break and relax, but social media is designed to keep you hooked so you never want to stop.
I've tried setting alarms, and I've found that the shorter the alarm, the better it works. So I think what I need is a live stopwatch overlay: a small counter in the top-left corner of my screen that doesn't block anything but is impossible to ignore. It would count up from the moment I open an app, showing minutes, seconds, and milliseconds, something like 00:12:47.38, with the last digits flickering by so fast I can literally watch my time slipping away. That constant sense of urgency is what I need to make myself put the phone down.
Ideally, the stopwatch would track each app separately, and I could open the app itself to see my daily stats. The only difference from Apple's built-in Screen Time is that it would give me that pressure in real time, helping me control my scrolling instead of mindlessly wasting my time.
Does anyone else have this problem? Any app recommendations?

I keep seeing “live” used for different things in iPhone voice changer listings.

Sometimes it means changing a recording after you make it. Sometimes you can hear the effect on your own voice while the app is open. What I need is different. I want to speak in one app and have the changed voice reach the other person in the voice chat at the same time.

I don’t want to jailbreak my iPhone. On a normal iPhone, I haven’t found a software only option that can change the mic in real time and pass that audio into another app. That makes an iPhone feel more limited than a PC for this.

I’m planning a short character improv session with friends, so the cross app part matters. Whether it’s an app or an accessory like Dubbing AI earbuds, I’d want the demo to show what the other person hears during a conversation, rather than just the effect playing back on the same phone.

When something says it does “live voice changing,” what would you want to see in the demo before believing it works in another app?

Back in the early days, notifications used to be super useful. Someone PM'ed you? You got notified. Someone replied to your comment? Notified. Did your favorite YouTube creator upload something? Notified.

This all stopped sometime around 2016 and now giving an app notification permissions just floods your home screen with spam. I hate this crap so much. Reddit gave me 4 notifications today about random mediocre threads I'm just not interested in. Meanwhile YouTube fails to notify me when one of my favorite subscriptions starts live streaming. The whole notification pipeline has just been flooded with spam to try and entice me into spending screen time on your app.

Such a great and useful mobile phone feature has just been used and abused into dysfunction. Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk.