Why I Settle For Apple's Built-In Apps

There have been a lot of complaints about Apple built-in apps. I have seen blogs about third party apps that work better than that of Apple's. I know that the new Apple Maps did fail to deliver but as for the other apps I think they deserve to be used more often than not. One of the reasons why I use the Apple Built-In apps is because they're already there! You don't have to search other apps, read reviews and not to mention pay for it, its there to begin with. Another reason is that I feel that they load faster (or this might just be me). I've tried replacing some of the native Apple apps with a few selections of my own but eventually ended up using the built-in apps instead because they load faster, this maybe due to the simplicity of the built-in apps. I remember reading a Steve Jobs quote, it said that before, when Steve was still making the early iMacs people urged him to make them with more storage capacity but he said it should be programmers who need to learn how to write software that occupies less space. And seeing as how Apple's devices are "limited" so to say, it seems that they are following this mentality. And I think its a good one, it urges us to slow down, think, analyse before doing anything at all. So here are a few of the Apple Built-In Apps and why I choose to use them.


1. iMessage

My most used app on my iPhone, I prefer if over the other messaging apps like Whatsapp they have the same service anyway and I made sure that all my friends and family use iDevices too, even so I still use Whatsapp for my non-iDevice user friends. I like it because its simple, you can also send media over it. Plus iMessage can be used free of charge over WiFi (and what places don't have WiFi nowadays right?) so you won't have to worry about data coverage most of the time. In my country mobile carriers provide subscribers with unlimited SMS service so even if we're out of data coverage we can still utilise  Messages for regular SMS usage.

2. Facetime

iPhone doesn't have FaceTime natively, instead its buried deep within the Phone App, but I use FaceTime a lot because my family lives on other countries. I use it more on my iPad, with its 9.7" screen I feel like I'm talking to a real person rather than a miniature face. I prefer it over Skype, though I still have Skype installed but I'm only reserving it for cases where the other person has no FaceTime. The service is very simple though it would be nice if there is a video conferencing option but I think Apple know what they're doing.

3. Calendar

Okay, so this is one of the apps that I see a lot of complaints about but I think its a matter of how you use it. Some people want to use their calendars like a planner, others like a reminder and some like a diary. But if you want these other services then the Apple Calendar app is not for you. The main reason why I like the Calendars App is because Siri can access it. There are times that I use Siri to see my schedule and make some adjustments and if I use a different calendar app then I'll lose this capability. Also the Calendar App syncs over iCloud, so whether I'm holding my iPhone, iPad or MacBook Air I can view and edit the same calendar entries.

4. Notes

I don't know about other people, but I'm not a serious note taker, if I get an idea and I want to jot it down quickly before I forget it, I use Notes and that's it. When I want to take down notes off of a lecture then I use a different app for that (Notability). I noticed that the Notes App on the iPhone and iPad launches as soon as you tap it. I tried a different and more organised note taking app Note'd but it takes a few more seconds to load, once, I had an idea and while waiting for the Note'd app to launch I totally forgot it. This was enough to convince me to go back to the native note taking app for iPhone and then just transfer these notes on Note'd later on to be organised.

5. Reminders

Pretty straight forward isn't it? If you want to be reminded of something you need a reminders app, but some reminder apps out there are too complex with their templates and calendars and all that other stuff, what I want is for my phone to just sound an alarm while flashing a keyword of what I need to be reminded of. No need for colour coding, organising and all that other stuff. Although you can still organise, just add a new Reminder List. With this you can make yourself an organised set of reminders, as for me I have Reminders, Chores, Errands, Grocery and Blog Articles.

So I have the Reminders for random set of reminders like text someone, email something, a due date etc. then I have Chores for house work of course, then Errands are for errands (duh!) and Grocery for the list of grocery items that I need to get and finally the Blog Articles so that I know what to write about to add more content to my blog. I've tried to use a different app before for each kind of reminder but I just organised as such so now I just have one app for all my reminding needs, saves space both in storage and screen real estate.

6. Camera

What I've observed with other camera apps especially the ones that give you controls like an SLR is that they load slowly. One thing that I have to accept is the inconvenient truth that I have an iPhone not an SLR so why bother having all those other controls I just want to point and shoot anyway. So I trimmed down my camera apps to three: Leme Cam, Multi-lens and Polatax. I don't use live filters for photo taking because I can do that later with iPhoto. Plus there are only a handful of times that I'll use my phone as a camera anyway (it eats up too much battery power) that's why I have a digicam (and you should too if you really like taking photos, like all the time). Some people want to immediately upload their photos that's why they like a camera app with a lot of capabilities but as for me speed on photo taking wins over composition of photos.

7. Safari

I use Safari because it syncs with my MacBook Air and iPad. Before, I was using Google Chrome but I noticed that that took a significant amount of space in my MacBook Air, so I learned how to use Safari the same way as I was using Google Chrome before. It really worked well for me, also I'm not bothered that Safari doesn't support flash its all a matter of how you use your browser, again, if it lacks capabilities that you want/need then its not for you.


So those are the built-in Apple apps that I use and why I stick to them. I don't think that third party apps are better than Apple's native apps I just think that different people have different needs and for some people the Apple Built-In apps doesn't suit their needs. But then again give the Apple Built-In apps a chance you'll never know what they can do for you. Plus the simplicity is amazing no need to configure a lot of things, just like what Apple says "it just works".