For me, an iPhone is essentially a consumption and communication device. Everything I can do on the phone, I can do faster and better on my MacBook. Thus I find it is very valuable to give each of these devices a well defined purpose and use them appropriately.
With all the freedom and power that a smartphone brings, it also brings a lot of distraction. There is Twitter, Reddit, Instagram with their endless feeds of streaming live updating content. Reddit, Hacker News, Medium or any other news outlet you prefer to stay on top of news. Staying on top of everything at all times is exhausting and addictive.
I use my phone when I am not using my computer. I use it to read books, make photographs, quickly edit them, check tasks I have set out to do, listen to podcasts, music, audio books, read Wikipedia, answer messages on Slack, Telegram, write quick notes and memos, search the internet and read my mail. I of course do other things too, but these are the main ones. With that said, I try to use the best tools that I can to get these tasks completed.
Applications
Here is a list of apps that I use the most in my day to day life, sorted by category and their importance.
I use it to track my workouts. I have a few custom workouts that I made that I can then start and simply follow the exercises and the number of sets for the exercise as my workout progresses.
Use it to read PDF books and documents. I love its Text Reflow feature that allows me to focus on the text and see only that. I try to not waste time on my phone and always do something proactive and useful. I also have a huge list of books I want to read.
This is my favorite messenger and I prefer it over others due its speed, its ability to sync with a native macOS client and the many free and awesome stickers you can use.
I also use the app to quickly send media/messages between my mac and the phone.
My preferred client for browsing Reddit. I love how you can operate the app seamlessly with gestures. I also customized the app to work with my own gestures.
My favorite email client that I love due its simplicity of UI and UX as well as separation of emails based on their type (Inbox, newsletters) and ability to snooze emails.
Use it to quickly edit photographs I made as I much prefer its filters and editing options than other photo editors. I then post the edited photos I like to Instagram.
Use the app to quickly delete bad photos and sort photos into albums quickly. I try have all the photos in my Photos library be placed in some library and this app lets me easily do that.
Aside from PDFs that I read in PDF Expert, I also read .epub books which this app handles well. It also syncs my notes and highlights as I read the book.
I have very low attention span on reading books so listening to audibooks is perfect for me. I listen to either a podcast or an audiobook when I am commuting or going to sleep.
Can't live without the app. It holds all my passwords and anything private so that I only need to remember one thing. My master password. With iOS 12, the app seamlessly integrates with the OS so I can autofill my saved passwords in seconds.
Ulysses is my go-to place for anything I want to write. I mostly use the app to make edits to my wiki. Since the wiki is a bunch of markdown files in a folder that I keep on Dropbox, I can add that folder to Ulysses as external folder and make edits to it.
Awesome app that lets you write JavaScript code and combine it with Siri Shortcuts. Can even edit the code on the mac and instantly run the shortcuts on the phone. I plan to build a library that will let you create Alfred Workflows on iOS with Siri Shortcuts and either present results on screen or speak the results aloud.
Safari Browser
I plan to make more Shortcuts for automating my browser use.
One of the best features of Safari is fast access to bookmarks on opening of new tabs. Here are the ones I use most often on iOS:
Widgets
Here are the widgets I use:
Control Center
Here is how my control center looks:
Games
I don't play games often but the games I do like to play on iOS are usually puzzles. Here are some games I am playing now.