The 5 Best iOS Apps Of 2026 (So Far)

Apple's old slogan for the App Store is probably more accurate today than when the company first used it: "there's an app for that," with "that" representing any specific need an iPhone user might have. With a catalog of over 2 million applications, the iPhone can offer a rich computing experience, as developers keep coming up with new ideas each year.

Apps like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Google Maps, and Meta's WhatsApp may always be at the top of the App Store's most downloaded list because they provide solutions to our most important needs, including access to AI tools, navigation, and social interactions. But each year brings new iPhone apps that stand out, including games and useful new tools, with some of them going viral. 2026 is no different, and halfway through the year, we've identified five of the best iOS apps released in the past few months. The list may change, but it currently includes the following entries: DualShot Recorder, NYT Crossplay, Instants, XChat, and Lovable.

Put differently, the list includes apps that provide a key camera tool, a multiplayer word game, various social features, and advanced AI tools on the go. Some of these apps are available as free downloads, and some are free to use. For others, you'll have to pay a one-time fee or a subscription. Most of these apps will run on older iPhones that don't have to be updated to iOS 26 or iOS 27, but at least one of them will need iOS 26 or later installed on the device, as you'll see below.

As soon as someone watches Derrick Downey Jr.'s DualShot Recorder demo below, they may wonder why Apple has not added this functionality to the iPhone's default Camera app yet. DualShot Recorder allows users to record portrait and landscape videos at the same time. Recording video in landscape will look better on TV, desktop, and YouTube, but the reels people scroll through on Instagram and TikTok are shot in portrait mode or cropped to look that way.

DualShot Recorder is the iPhone app that solves that problem, especially for content creators who want to target both video formats. A single app lets them record the same video in portrait and landscape modes at the same time, eliminating the need to use complex video recording rigs and avoiding the hassle of editing video for these two viewing formats. Derrick Downey Jr. is a popular content creator himself, focusing on shooting video of squirrels. His Instagram and TikTok accounts have over a million followers each, proof that he's the kind of experienced developer aware of what content creators might need.

According to The Verge, DualShot Recorder went viral almost immediately. It took the app about 12 hours after hitting the App Store to become the most downloaded app on the App Store's top paid apps list. DualShot Recorder launched at $6.99 initially, though the app also comes with subscriptions as of this writing, at $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year. DualShot Recorder requires iOS 17.6 or later, which means it needs an iPhone XS/XR model or later. The app supports 4K video recording, in addition to Full HD, as well as 24, 30, and 60 fps modes. DualShot Recorder works with both the front and rear camera systems.

You'll also need an iPhone XS/XR or later, which can run iOS 18.1 or later, to install NYT Crossplay: Word Games, another popular iOS app of 2026. As the name implies, this is an iPhone game coming from The New York Times Company, which also owns other popular games like Wordle. Crossplay is also a word game, as the app's name hints, and it's ranked number seven in the Word category chart on the App Store, as of this writing. According to TechRadar, Crossplay was the number one app in the Casual games ranking in late January when the app went viral.

Crossplay is a Scrabble-type word game that lets you play against other opponents, including the computer, friends, and other people who have installed the app, and test your word-wielding abilities. Crossplay may be more challenging than Wordle, as it forces the player to think fast and beat their rival. The app is free to use, but it comes with in-app purchases, including more expensive subscriptions than DualShot Recorder. The monthly tier costs $5.99, while the annual $49.99 fee will get you a better deal. While DualShot Recorder doesn't collect any data for tracking purposes, Crossplay will track users who grant it such permission across apps and websites.

Speaking of user privacy, you may expect any app coming from Meta to collect plenty of user data and attempt to track users across the web and other iPhone apps. However, the free-to-use Instants app has much better privacy protections than expected, according to its App Store listing. The app is made by Meta subsidiary Instagram, and it's also one of the notable iOS apps that stood out in the first half of 2026.

Instants is a social app, like most of Meta's portfolio, but it has a different purpose than the more widely used Instagram. It's not entirely original, which is another thing to expect from Meta's social apps. The giant tech company has been adapting Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp over the years to offer features more similar to social apps that went viral, including Snapchat and TikTok. Instants allows users to go live in the moment, sharing their immediate, unedited reality with their followers, without leaving a permanent public post behind. This type of temporary social media interaction was made popular by apps like BeReal and Snapchat.

Rather than packaging the feature only inside its already established social apps, Meta chose to release a standalone app that users can download and use separately. Instagram users can also use the Instants feature. Instagram users who want to curate permanent content on Instagram and share ephemeral content elsewhere can use the Instants app separately. As of this writing, Instants ranks 16th in the Social Networking list on the App Store, with an average rating of 4.8 stars out of more than 14,000 reviews. You need iOS 16.3 or later (or an iPhone 8 or later) to use it.

We can't talk about 2026 and ignore the standalone XChat app that X launched in mid-April. XChat is an end-to-end encrypted chat app for iPhones that allows X users to talk to their friends and followers outside of the main X app. The existence of the XChat app may seem counterintuitive to the purpose of X. Elon Musk is expected to turn the social network into an "everything app" similar to the WeChat app in China. Breaking out a messaging app from X may complicate that strategy. However, X also launched a standalone Grok AI chat app, even though the AI model is also available inside X.

The XChat app isn't as popular as Instants, ranking 170th in the same Social Networking chart. The app has an average review rating of 3.9 stars from about 2,000 users. Like other chat apps, XChat supports file sharing, group chats, and disappearing messaging. XChat also supports voice calling, and users can block screenshots, edit chats, and delete messages.

While the app is free to use on devices running iOS 26 or later (iPhone 11 or later), it hardly collects any user data. The App Store listing says the app doesn't track users or serve ads, offering "total privacy." XChat may not replace iMessage or WhatsApp right away, but it may be an instant messaging alternative for many people, especially X users who want a secure way to talk to their connections without having to deal with everything else happening in the main X app.

It would be strange not to feature any AI apps in a "best of" list of apps in 2026 since artificial intelligence continues to be such an important topic in technology and day-to-day life. In early June, Apple announced a new ChatGPT-like Siri experience in iOS 27 and other operating systems. Then, Apple increased the prices of Macs and iPads on account of the AI-related memory chip shortage. Lovable is the only AI app in our list (so far), and it's the kind of app that some developers and even larger companies may use to create future iPhone apps.

Lovable launched in late April, bringing vibe-coding support to the iPhone and iPad. In other words, you may download and use an app like Lovable to create your own app experience directly on the same device where you may later use it. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, as coders may need to transition between iPhone, iPad, and a computer to craft their apps and websites with Lovable, but the standalone iPhone app can be the place where it all starts. Instead of jotting down an idea in an AI chat app or in the Notes application so you can start working (with or without AI) at home or at the office, you can start tinkering on that idea directly in the iPhone app.

Lovable lets users issue commands via chat or voice, so AI agents can start work immediately. Users can switch back and forth between devices to continue work on the project. The app requires iOS 15.1 or later to work, and while it's free to download and use, you may need to pay for more credits or for a subscription in case you need support for more advanced AI work.

It's practically impossible to stay on top of all the new iPhone apps launched in the App Store each year, and it's very likely that many other 2026 iOS apps could have made this "best of" list. However, we tried to highlight only some of the iPhone applications that made an impression with users or the media during the first half of the year and focused only on apps that were released in 2026. We looked at apps that come from well-known developers, such as The New York Times, Meta, and X, but also from independent creators who came up with an incredibly useful idea (the DualShot Recorder app) that many iPhone users will appreciate. As for the inclusion of an AI app on the list, Lovable could help other iPhone users test new iOS app ideas on their iPhones, before creating viral iOS apps of their own in the coming years.