The 20 Best Apps of the 2010s

Established: June 20, 2012

What is it? A digital currency exchange based in San Francisco, known for brokering Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cyrptocurrencies

Why we care: Remember that time in 2017 when the price of Bitcoin just about reached $20,000 apiece? And then promptly crashed? The cryptocurrency hype cycle was uniquely 2010s in that it was so digital, it almost didn't make sense. Cryptokitties became a thing for folks willing to dump a bunch of cash to breed virtual pets for possible Ether. News stories and documentaries floundered over who Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto really was. Coinbase kept track of all of this history through its detailed register of cyrptocurrency prices. It quickly became home base for those early adopter investors looking to get rich quick through the virtual currency.

Established: May 3, 2009

What is it? A free service for sending texts, photos, videos or cat gifs; an app for making phone and video calls, plus texting.

Why we care: WhatsApp is the messaging service of the future, not only because you can connect with family and friends in different time zones, seamlessly, but because the entire service uses end-to-end encryption to prevent your conversations from getting into the wrong hands. It's a wonder that SMS text messaging is still not secure, but at least there's WhatsApp as a backup for now. Looking ahead, we're wondering when cell phone carriers will get with the program and adopt similar technology as a default.

Established: June 2017

What is it? An app for accessing digital library content; the way the cool kids borrow books from the library.

Why we care: Listen up, the library is cool and we all secretly know it. But what's even cooler is that the OverDrive-created and owned Libby app lets you borrow e-books, audiobooks, music, and more for free. Most public libraries with decent funding are on this platform, so it's worth downloading the app and entering in your library card credentials to see if your hometown supports it.

Beyond borrowing titles, you can also place holds and your books are automatically returned (or you can easily extend your borrowing period with one tap), so say buh-bye to those compounding late fees. And if you really want to up the ante as we head into the 2020s, Libby lets you export library content to your Kindle device for free if you hate reading on your phone screen.

Established: March 2009

What is it? The first ride-hailing app; the epitome of Silicon Valley's work hard, play-a-little-too-hard ethos.

Why we care: Prior to Uber, we still relied on taxis to get us from the house to the airport and we depended on friends with good impulse control to drive us home safely from the bar. Once Uber hit the scene, those options expanded and drunk driving accidents went down significantly. In New York, for example, drunk driving-related crashes decreased 25 to 35 percent between 2011, when the ride-hailing giant moved in, and 2017, when this City University of New York study was published.

Since then, the company has gone public, lost a CEO, and suffered multiple PR crises, yet remains one of the most valuable adds to our list of apps.

Established: September 2017

What is it? A super addictive game that will gladly take the money right out of your pocket; the game that made your friends, kids, neighbors—literally everyone—start doing a strange dance that kind of looks like "The Carlton."

Why we care: Impossibly, almost 80 percent of this decade did not include Fortnite (unless you were part of the development team), and yet it completely took over youth culture in record time. Epic Games packed it with three different playing modes, but the concept is always pretty much the same. Think: What if Minecraft and a first-person shooter had a cartoon baby with really expensive customization options?

And if you still don't know why kids continue to perform that strange dance where they swing their arms, also known as flossing—you can thank this game.

Established: April 2014

What is it? A photo-editing tool suited for the pros; an expensive tool for editing selfies, if that's your thing.

Why we care: Adobe Lightroom, itself, is not new. But access to the best parts of the professional-grade photo editing tool from Adobe was a big deal when it came out in 2014. While Instagram lets you select filters and adjust some basic elements of a photo, like the contrast and shadows, Lightroom gives you the freedom to do way more, like professionally edit videos or photos and export them in any format you normally might.

It's definitely made life easier for the photographers and videographers in the world (but note that to reap the full benefits, you'll need a regular subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud).

Established: February 2004

What is it? A social media website that is a one-stop shop for talking to long-lost friends and family, shopping, playing games; a hellscape for clicking ads and spreading fake news.

Why we care: Facebook might have been thriving in the later portion of the 00's, but things really heated up this decade with backlash against Facebook's targeted advertising strategies, a role in spreading fake news during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and a massive data leak connected to Cambridge Analytica, an IT service management firm. That's not to mention the outsourced, depressed workers helping to flag bad content from countries outside the U.S. and live broadcasts of murders, suicides, and porn on Facebook Live. No matter how you slice it, it's been a rough decade for Facebook.

And yet, according to App Annie, a San Francisco company that focuses on app market data, Facebook and Facebook Messenger were the two most-downloaded apps of the decade. While Facebook should probably be filed under "worst apps of the decade," we'll just leave this one here for you to make up your own mind.

Established: April 2012

What is it? The reason you don't have to carry around a flash drive with you 24/7 anymore; a cloud-based storage system for your files.

Why we care: There was truly nothing worse in the entire universe than working on a Microsoft Word file and having it crash before you hit "save." On top of it, the cost for that kind of software? Exorbitant. And the alternatives before Google Drive and Google Docs—which are both cloud-based, meaning they save your work, store the files, and allow you to collaborate with coworkers or classmates–were awful. Remember WordPerfect and all the wild formatting hoops you had to jump through? Yeah, don't remind us.

Established: 2014

What is it? A helpful friend for establishing better habits; a way to improve your body and mind that does not involve Gwyneth Paltrow.

Why we care: One of the worst things to come out of the app decade is our apparent obsession with what everyone else is doing, fueled by social media. But with that surge of self-loathing and comparing one's self to others came a wave of self-care apps that let you track your activities, motivate yourself and find community.

While the app used to be free, it now costs $13 per month (I've used it for two years and can confirm that it's amazing). For that price, you'll get expert-based notes on how to form good habits and remove nasty ones, plus a place to log all of your activity. It's great for both small changes, like remembering to drink more water, or full-on lifestyle improvements, like becoming a daily runner or remembering to read and feed your mind a little bit each day. Don't believe us? In 2018, it was voted one of the App Store's best in the self-care category.

Established: 2009; full release in 2012

What is it? A way to send cash instantly, while also letting your acquaintances see all of the cool and/or lame things you spend your money on. Verb: "Just Venmo me later."

Why we care: Never again must we worry about those awkward moments where we're caught without cash in a let's-do-one-check splitting scenario. The 2010s truly became the cashless decade (at least for millennials and Gen Z) with the advent of instant cash transfers that don't even take 1-3 days to process like your typical wire transfer. Of course, Venmo takes a fee up to $10 for this instant money, but that's no bother if speed is what you crave most.

Venmo started the decade with fewer than 3,000 users after it was created at the University of Pennsylvania but has grown into a massive Paypal-owned company forcing the banking industry to reconsider everything it's ever known. And given that this was the last decade where millennials came of age, it says a lot about their spending patterns: the need to split bills two, three, maybe even four or five ways to make ends' meet.

Established: June 2013

What is it? An on-demand app for food delivery; a way to minimize the amount of human interaction required to grab some grub.

Why we care: Hello, delivery economy! While online ordering has been around for some time now, with GrubHub technically debuting in the 00's, this decade has perfected the art of bypassing most human interaction to get a hoagie or some pizza. With competitors like GrubHub, UberEats, Postmates and Seamless, pretty much every restaurant in your neighborhood has some sort of delivery capability. That's because these apps have their own pool of drivers, allowing little mom-and-pop shops to outsource that labor.

Established: October 2012

What is it? A way to share photos and videos with short blocks of text, geotags, emojis, bitmojis and more; formerly, the best way to figure out who was talking to who, who was cheating on who.

Why we care: Even if you're more of an Instagram stories kind of person, you have to admit that you probably used Snapchat before that—it ushered in the whole concept of instant, short clips to quickly illustrate peoples' lives. And when you watch these videos, or stories as Snapchat has had us calling these curated feeds since 2012, you get some sort of picture of your friends' lives and what they're doing.

And that's sort of the beauty of the whole thing. Snap was the first real innovation in social media in a long, long time (if we're speaking in internet years), and you can see that legacy through Facebook's copycat versions on its own app and Instagram, which it owns.

Established: October 2015

What is it? An app for tracking your period and ovulation cycles; a woman's actual best friend.

Why we care: It shouldn't be scary, taboo or confusing to talk about menstrual or ovulation cycles in this era of health-based apps, like Fitbit, Samsung Health and Google Fit. There are apps for folks with diabetes and even apps that will tell you about your genetic likelihood of contracting a disease. With something as pattern-based as a period, it just makes sense for an artificial intelligence based app to keep tabs on it for you.

Flo is just one of the period app offerings, but it does a whole bunch of really useful things, like log over 70 different symptoms you may be experiencing to keep tabs on irregularities or potential harms; expert quizzes and articles to help you understand what your body is doing; and even a calendar function to help you know when the best days are to conceive.

Established: May 2016

What is it? A cybersecurity tool that helps you protect your data while using public WiFi.

Why we care: If you still don't know what a VPN is, it's time you brush up. VPN is short for virtual private network and it's one of the best ways that the average person can mask their location. Think about it this way: it's like you have a private connection that you can send between any devices, anywhere. NordVPN is one of the most sleek options for use on phones and tablets and allows Android users to safely lock down the data on their phone while connecting to public WiFi hotspots which, mind you, are not secure. The website for the app even claims that the encryption is "military-grade."

Established: 2013

What is it? A place where college kids used to anonymously share quick posts about their college campuses; a now full of trolls.

Why we care: Oh boy, did we learn some lessons from this app. First off, we learned the power of anonymity and reaffirmed how terrible trolls can be. While the app was still active, college kids basically used it to dox people, even though YikYak expressly blocked use of real names. But it did a few pretty incredible things, too, like allow people to express themselves and find community without risking retribution; proving the power of location-based apps.

YikYak was awesome when it showed the good side of community-based apps, but pretty terrible when it came to the abuse of anonymity. RIP to the now-defunct app that we clearly couldn't handle and definitely didn't deserve.

Established: January 2013

What is it? A social media app dedicated to short clips that are six seconds or less. Noun: "Do it for the vine!"

Why we care: The youngest millennials will remember when Vine first came out because it marked the first time that viral videos could unite a generation across Twitter (ironically, most Vine videos ended up on Twitter and you didn't even really need the native app to appreciate the humor). Not to mention, this app birthed a whole cast of modern-day YouTube and Instagram stars who found a way to monetize and ultimately make a career out of their Vine following. We're thinking: KingBach, Lele Pons and Brittany Furlan, among others.

When Vine went to digital heaven in October 2016, with the exception of its archive, everyone went wild. And while we still miss the short, hilarious clips, we at least have TikTok, now.

Established: July 2016

What is it? An augmented reality app that lets you catch Pokémon and face off against other players; a glorified walking app that also happened to make augmented reality truly popular for the first time.

Why we care: Before Pokémon Go, augmented reality was more of an idea than anything the public really used. But with the ability to find and catch the little critters on your phone, overlaid with what's really in front of you through the camera lens, people really embraced AR for the first time—and happened to get outside and walk around in the process.

Established: October 2008

What is it? A music streaming service; the official end of the Limewire era.

Why we care: Spotify came out last decade, but made the whole concept of a limitless cloud-based music library reality during this decade, when it gained most of its subscribers. After illegal pirating became passé, Spotify helped the music industry regain its footing, giving tiny bits of profit to music labels for each time a song is played. Without Spotify, we wouldn't have any of the popular music streaming apps that exist today, like Apple Music—at least in their current form.

Established: September 2012

What is it? A dating app connected through Facebook and Instagram to help keep out people lying about their identity; a way to find the love of your life if you don't shallowly swipe past their profile after seeing one photo.

Why we care: The digital world has made dating a whole new game. Or, at least, hooking up, which is mostly what is done through Tinder—this decade's top app for that kind of thing. By making it ridiculously easy to match with people and avoid embarrassment (mostly) at once, Tinder made online dating way more accessible. It also sort of cheapened the experience, depending on who you ask. Either way, "swipe right" is now part of our vernacular.

Established: April 2012

What is it? An addictive game that involves matching rows of colorful candies.

Why we care: It feels like Candy Crush must have come out prior to this decade because it seems we've been matching colorful jellybeans and other assorted (sometimes even striped or wrapped) candies for centuries while waiting in the dentist's office, sitting in the back of a car on a road trip or pretty much anywhere else to pass the time.

Since it came out, a bunch of users got sick of it, but undeniably, older generations still love this game, tossing aside the tiny smartphone app for the tablet version. What's part horrifying, part culturally fascinating and kind of a win for parent company, King, is that the game was actually turned into a live TV gameshow hosted by none other than Mario Lopez back in 2017. It only lasted one season—for obvious reasons.