These Are Our 5 Favorite iPhone Apps of the Week

It seems like hundreds of new iPhone apps pop up every week, but which ones should you bother trying? We explored the App Store and found five apps actually worth downloading.

Weather Lock

Sometimes it’s the most simple app that’s also the most practical. Even Weather Lock’s name is intuitive — the app puts a basic graphic in your iPhone’s lock screen with a small strip of local weather info. No need to open a second app or check the weekend weather report. It’s a tiny fix to make your iPhone that much more useful during your day-to-day.

Weather Lock is $1.99 in the App Store

Wave Podcasts

Plenty of apps curate news and alerts for their users. Wave Podcasts is an incredibly useful tool that does the same thing but with podcasts, offering you a dedicated stream of episodes based on your preferences and friends’ recommendations. It takes countless podcast networks and combines them into a single listening tool, which means hours upon hours of easy, seamless listening.

Wave Podcasts is free in the App Store

SNL

After Saturday Night Live’s brilliant 40th anniversary special, this app gives you a fantastic way to enjoy the series’ best sketches. Not only can you cycle through thousands of different video clips from the show’s history, but you can also use the app to watch new episodes of SNL. The app can recommend clips you might enjoy based on your viewing history, and it comes with emoji add-ons for your texting keyboard.

SNL is free in the App Store

Darkroom

Darkroom is an advanced photo editor that makes it easy to post your results to Instagram and other social media networks. Users can create their own filters, which can be applied over other photos. The app directly accesses your photo library, which means you don’t need to select and import photos. An in-app purchase also allows you to toggle the RGB scale endlessly in order to make your photo look just right.

Darkroom is free in the App Store

Wanderu

During my senior year of college, I started traveling by bus to visit my brothers in an adjacent state. On occasion, I would find tickets from Chicago that were under $5 with Megabus, but an arbitrary price switch would put the same ticket north of $30 dollars just 24 hours later. Wanderu is like Kayak but for bus tickets—which would have helped me save a lot of money a few years ago. It helps travelers find the best ticket prices, at the most convenient times, and takes advantage of the growing number of affordable bus operators.

Wanderu is free in the App Store