Everyday October 2026

7 apps that made the cut out of 400+ we screened

Most apps get opened twice and forgotten; out of more than four hundred tried for these lists, these seven kept their place on the home screen. Each does one job a phone does not do well on its own: naming a bird by its song, keeping you on one task, settling a shared bill, finding your keys, counting the daylight you got, reading a sign in another language, and getting you round the traffic.

The apps that made the cut out of 400+ we screened are Merlin Bird ID, Focus Train, Splitwise, Tile, Sunshine, Google Translate and Waze. I built Focus Train and Sunshine; the other 5 are other developers’ apps.

MiaAppLog— an iOS developer who reviews other people’s apps
Published October 2026 · apps and prices last checked 13 October 2026

Four stars is my score for how well an app answers this moment. An app I built gets four and a half — that is a rule, not a comparison. The App Store’s own average is on each card beside it.

1. 

   Merlin Bird ID

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Reference · App Store 4.9 (113,778)

   Hold your phone up to a singing bird and it names it. Free.

   Skip it if you keep a long life list in it — reviewers report updates signing them out and the list coming back empty, and recordings no longer saving unless you wait and save them by hand.

   Official site ↗More lists with Merlin Bird ID

   
2. 

   Focus Train Editor’s pick

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.5 · Free · Productivity · App Store 5.0 (5)

   Every focus session is a train ride. Look away and it just waits.

   App Store ↗More lists with Focus Train

   
3. 

   Splitwise

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Finance · App Store 4.0 (28,750)

   Add the bill once and it works out who owes who. No awkward math.

   Skip it if you split a lot of expenses — the free version now caps how many you can add, and reviewers who used it for years say the features they relied on have moved behind the subscription.

   Official site ↗More lists with Splitwise

   
4. 

   Tile

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Lifestyle · App Store 4.8 (1,019,176)

   Ring the tracker on your keys, or see on a map where they were last.

   Skip it if you need to find things lost away from home — reviewers describe a short range, batteries that give out well before the promised year, and an app that wants your location all the time.

   Official site ↗More lists with Tile

   
5. 

   Sunshine Editor’s pick

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.5 · Free · Health & Fitness · App Store 5.0 (7)

   Tracks how much daylight you actually got, with nothing to press.

   App Store ↗More lists with Sunshine

   
6. 

   Google Translate

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Reference · App Store 4.3 (83,905)

   Point your camera at a menu or a sign and read it in your language.

   Skip it if you use the camera to study text character by character — reviewers say recent redesigns folded it into Lens and took away controls they relied on, and spoken translation does not always pick up the speaker.

   Official site ↗More lists with Google Translate

   
7. 

   Waze

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Navigation · App Store 4.8 (3,194,718)

   Live traffic and accurate ETAs, rerouted around crashes as they happen.

   Skip it if you would rather stay on main roads or plan a drive in advance — reviewers report reroutes through residential side streets, GPS that drops out mid-trip, and the plan-a-drive feature getting harder to reach.

   Official site ↗More lists with Waze

   

Focus Train and Sunshine are mine — everything else on this list is someone else’s app. How that works.