The 100 best iPhone apps of all time

Those words were spoken by Steve Jobs when he unveiled the iPhone in 2007.He was partially right.While it was the iPhone that jumpstarted the smartphone industry, it was the introduction of the first third-party apps a year later that really unlocked the potential of this new class of device.When we set out to pick the 100 best iPhone apps of all time, our intention wasn't to simply do a list of the most useful or entertaining apps currently available. Just as a great teacher in your youth may have helped shape who you are today, groundbreaking apps of the past have had tremendous impact on the iPhone experience, even if their influence may have since waned or faded entirely. Ranking them was even more of a challenge. After whittling the list down to 100, we rated each app on its design, usefulness and cultural impact. We also took into account App Store data provided by analytics firm App Annie. Here's a full breakdown of our methodology.Though many names on this list are familiar, there are some surprises, too. These are the viral hits, the games we couldn’t put down, the utilities that helped us master our workday, the apps that burned brightly and then faded away, the ones that first made the iPhone feel like magic — and those that still do.

91. YoThe quintessential "dumb" app, Yo briefly captured the collective attention of the Internet when an app that only allowed you to say “yo” topped the App Store charts — even if it was for just a few days. The app quickly racked up more than a million users and inspired dozens of copycats (Yo Hodor, anyone?) while helping kick off a new trend of ridiculous and ridiculous-sounding apps.For a minute, it seemed like everyone was trying to recreate Yo’s success with apps like Push for Pizza (a one-button app that delivered you a pizza) and Ethan (a messaging app that let you talk to a guy named Ethan.)Later, Yo’s creators proved the app was much more than a joke when they opened it up to third-party developers who started connecting Yo to other services. Today, you can use Yo to turn on your lights, remember where you parked your car, or follow your favorite sports teams, publishers and Instagrammers. There’s also an Apple Watch app, perhaps one of the few apps that really makes sense to have on your wrist. Though the app wasn’t able to sustain its early virality, it proved that “dumb” apps can have brains, too.

86. MeerkatIt was one of those moments where everyone seemed to be talking about the same thing. Perhaps it was because much of the tech press were all gathered at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, but the impact of Meerkat during that show was real and quite lasting.The app, which actually arrived just weeks before, kicked off the live, social video streaming craze — quite a feat since the app was kind of ugly and had an odd name.Even with those handicaps, it became the app of SXSW, with everyone from journalists to CEOs were using it to broadcast their experiences and engage with their audience in real time. Meerkat took citizen journalism to a whole new level as "reporters" were able to respond to viewer comments, some of whom would direct where they wanted the Meerkatters to point their iPhones. No one saw Meerkat coming, especially Twitter. Meerkat was using Twitter's API to give users instant access to all their followers through the app (Twitter eventually shut down that feature). If you had a lot of Twitter followers, that made Meerkat instantly powerful. You could tell thousands of people that you were going live right now. It was instant gratification, on both sides. No rise was more meteoric and none was shorter-lived. Twitter already had a similar app in the works, and just a few weeks later, it pushed out Periscope. The app looked better than Meerkat, but also felt somewhat incomplete. In the end, though, Meerkat remains, but has lost its footing to Periscope. Will it survive? No one knows, but it will never lose its place as the app that put mobile-to-mobile video broadcasting on the map.

72. Flappy BirdCreated by a young developer in Vietnam, Flappy Bird took the App Store — and the world — by storm. The game was simple. Tap on the screen to guide a bird through various pipes. Hit a pipe and the game is over. Sounds frustrating, and it was, but it was addictive — and you could share your score on Twitter.Launched in May 2013, the game puttered along in relative obscurity until early December 2013. From pure word of mouth, Flappy Bird gained steam steadily, and it hit the App Store Top 10 in January 2014. By the end of the month, the game was the subject of immense media discussion. Flappy Bird amassed at least 50 million downloads and garnered nearly 16 million tweets.Flappy Bird also generated backlash because of its simplistic nature. People thought it surely had to be scam — there's no way a game like this could climb the App Store charts and become a global phenomenon overnight. But that’s exactly what happened.Unfortunately for developer Dong Nguyen, the criticism hit hard. He just wanted to make a simple game. But he was also concerned his creation was too addictive. And then something bewildering happened: At the height of the game's success — 28 days after hitting the Top 10 — Nguyen decided to remove the game from the App Store.That Flappy Bird wasn’t a scam — but a naturally occurring spectacle that came out of nowhere — only makes its triumph that much more incredible and its disappearance that much more bittersweet.

59. OcarinaBefore Ocarina, apps were things you tapped and pinched and swiped. Then, with one download, everything changed. When you launch Ocarina, the screen shows you four different-size dots along with a message encouraging you to blow into the microphone. Suddenly, you weren’t holding a “device;” the iPhone was now an instrument.A brief sensation upon its 2008 debut, Ocarina is all but forgotten now. But its creator, Smule, saw some success with other apps like the auto-tune creator I Am T-Pain and the fun-for-all-ages Magic Piano — one of the first apps to support 3D Touch on the iPhone 6S. Smule even has a more full-featured sequel to Ocarina itself.Ocarina's time in the spotlight was brief, but it showed the world how mobile apps could lead to entirely different experiences from desktop programs. By taking advantage of the integrated components, sensors and inherent portability of a handheld, a new class of software was beginning to take shape. Since then, legions of games, fitness trackers and augmented-reality experiences have picked up where Ocarina left off.

48. Draw SomethingWhirlwind fad is the only way to describe OMGPop's Draw Something. With zero publicity, the app somehow became a viral hit at the height of its runaway success in 2012.A knock-off version of Pictionary, Draw Something wormed its way onto over 50 million phones within its first 50 days. The game’s pretty simple: Players draw pictures of a word and then it's up to another friend to guess the word as the picture is drawn back, stroke for stroke. At its peak, over 3,000 drawings were made per second.Though there were plenty of social games by 2012 that had multiplayer modes, Draw Something stuck because it tapped into your Facebook friends. Creating new games with friends was a click away and you could see everyone who was playing.The game shot up the App Store charts to No. 1 so quickly, it caught the attention of Zynga, the social-gaming company behind hits like Farmville and Words with Friends. Zynga quickly purchased OMGPop and Draw Something for $180 million, hoping to turn it into a high-profile franchise.Unfortunately, like so many apps that go viral, Draw Something's success was extremely short-lived, and it fell off the charts just as fast it rose. Draw Something 2 was released a year later in 2013, but it was too late and the audience had already moved on. Draw Something will be remembered in the history books as a cautionary tale about apps that go viral; not every game can reach Angry Birds-level success.

45. SnapchatAn odd little app launched in 2011 with the name Picaboo, and it quickly became known for its signature “ephemeral” messages. A few months later, Picaboo disappeared and was reborn as Snapchat, and its emblematic ghost was on the way to being a star.Guided by its young cofounder Evan Spiegel, the app quickly took off with college students and teens who helped buoy the app from obscurity to the top of the charts in the span of a year. Its design was confusing and not intuitive at all — and offered little guidance for newcomers — but all that was intentional, the app equivalent of a “no parents allowed” sign.Though its popularity with tweens is frequently attributed to their affinity for PG-13 activities, the reasons for Snapchat’s popularity are much more complex. (If not, then any one of the myriad of better-designed copycat apps would have unseated it by now.)In a world where Instagram likes can dictate social standing and cyberbullying abounds, Snapchat was able to capitalize on its younger users’ need for authenticity. While Instagram is all about making a moment look perfect, Snapchat is about sharing whatever is happening right now — awkward selfies, blurry videos, silly faces and all. It may sound like a small distinction but it’s one that’s helped the app become one of the most-loved apps among notoriously hard-to-impress teens, an area that Facebook — for all its social-media might — has struggled with.

30. ShazamShazam is the magical music-identification genie that lives in our pockets in case of emergency — like needing to immediately know what the hell that song is playing in the elevator. The app relies on the iPhone’s built-in microphone and captures a 10-second clip of any song that’s within earshot. It matches the sample to its database of 11 million songs, and voilà, now you know Mr. Big sings '80s power ballad "To Be With You."While the company emerged in 2002 as an SMS service (called “2580”), less than a decade later it became one of the most-downloaded apps of all time. In 2014, the company announced it had more than 100 million monthly active users and had been used over the years to identify a staggering 15 billion songs. The app gets most of its revenue via ads and referrals (by directing users to services such as Apple Music or Spotify after identifying a song). While identifying songs remains the app’s main feature, it has since rolled out a discovery tool based on music you’ve previously Shazamed (the name was predestined to become a verb) and the ability to see what popular artists like Alicia Keys are Shazaming. The app has evolved beyond music: The app now works with a video database as well, letting users Shazam certain ads or shows to get special deals or specific information like cast details. While iPhone technology has advanced since the app’s debut, Shazam has aged well: Its ability to pull a song title out of what seems like thin air never gets old.

20. TinderForget for a moment that Tinder completely changed the dating culture for an entire generation. Tinder’s biggest contribution to the app world has been its design. Before Tinder, most people had never experienced an app that relied so heavily on simple swiping. The “swipe right to like” dynamic has now been copied by scores of other apps, dating and otherwise, that it’s almost cliche. But it was Tinder that started the trend.The benefit to the app is twofold: One, it makes it really easy for people to instantly understand how it works, and two, it's really easy to use one-handed. These two factors, along with the app’s hyperlocal approach to dating, turned out to be a perfect storm of convenience, supercharging Tinder's popularity.Speaking of which, Tinder pioneered a whole new type dating app. At a time when many dating apps were extensions of existing web-based services, Tinder’s app-only approach was unique because it really easy to connect with people nearby. Arguably too easy — what started as a mobile dating service became the de facto hookup app of an entire generation. Now Tinder had expanded beyond its initial swipes with tons of new features and a new premium tier that offers benefits like unlimited swipes and the ability to connect with people in other cities. Time will tell how these new features will play out but one thing is clear: Tinder will likely be remembered as the best and worst thing to happen to dating since the beginning of the Internet.

10. UberIt’s such a simple idea — your personal car service, summoned via smartphone — that it’s a wonder no one really tried it before. Maybe it was the politics: When Uber (then UberCab) launched in 2010, it was almost immediately attacked for operating in the “gray area” of transportation, garnering more than one cease-and-desist order, even in its hometown of San Francisco.Of course, Uber has never been a sticker for the rules. The startup has plowed through legal roadblocks, taxi revolts, abysmally stupid PR and even the despicable criminal behavior of a few drivers, all the while growing larger and more influential. It’s such a textbook example of disruption that “Uber for X” has become a default pitch among startups.Driving it all is one of the best app experiences in mobile. Download, create an account, and your first car arrives in a few minutes. Then, when you get out, don’t reach for anything except the door — payment is handled completely by the app. Because of surge pricing, that payment can sometimes be painful, but at least it alerts you before you call for a ride.Uber has expanded far beyond its original tap-for-black-car vision, now offering SUVs, car seats, food (how about a taco with that Escalade?) and even actual taxis. That’s a lot for one app, but the company isn't easing up on the gas: Its long-term plan is to command a fleet of self-driving cars. When the future arrives, it may well pull up in an Uber.

5. Angry BirdsIt seems a red, round bird with thick, scowling eyebrows is destined to be just as recognizable as Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog. Every platform needs that first game to push it to new heights, and for iOS, that game was Angry Birds.The simple idea of slingshotting disgruntled avians towards teetering towers of bricks, stones and pigs was the perfect fit for touch controls. It was helped along by challenging yet easy-to-play levels that could be attempted — and re-attempted — in a minute. Adding to the challenge was each level’s star rating, meaning you could still perfect your score and beat your friends. It changed the way mobile developers thought about games for years, with both a premium version and a free, ad-supported version available. Angry Birds eventually came in so many sequels and flavors — including tie-ins with Star Wars and Transformers — and spawned toys, cartoons and an upcoming animated film. It was the iPhone’s first transmedia smash, and there's something still perfect and inspiring about the original, now almost six years old. While mobile game fads may change, it has stood the test of time.

1. InstagramYou’d be hard-pressed to find another iPhone app that’s anywhere near as influential as Instagram. Sure, other players were experimenting with photo sharing and filters prior to the app’s launch in 2010 but it was Instagram that perfected the format.Moreover, the app’s dominance is closely linked to the iPhone’s popularity in a way few apps can claim. Instagram, which was exclusively on the iPhone for its first two years, was one of those “magic” apps that helped make the iPhone so coveted. (When half your Twitter timeline was filled with Instagram shots, the FOMO was real.) The app was simple, and its filtered creations easily shareable, which helped Instagram go viral almost immediately. Like many apps, Instagram owes some of its original virality to Twitter, which helped the app take off seemingly overnight.It grew so fast, in fact, that early users frequently experienced outages as the company’s two cofounders — its only employees in the early days — struggled to keep the app from crashing as hundreds of thousands of new users flocked to the service. Even as Instagram grew, it never got too cluttered with unnecessary features and updates. When Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, it was generating exactly $0 in revenue. Though some initially questioned the move, Instagram, which now counts more than 400 million users, has only grown its popularity and influence.Its design isn't perfect, to be sure (there's no way to zoom, for instance), but the app changed how we think about sharing experiences, and it's become one of the most influential social networks in the world.