The top ten free apps downloaded from the App Store in 2023

The App Store Editorial team’s selection of games and apps to showcase useful and significant apps was made public a few weeks ago when Apple revealed the winners of the 2023 App Store Awards. However, a lot of apps that were excluded from Apple’s lists have been downloaded millions of times and end up on the home screens of every Apple product.

In the US, these are the most popular free iPhone apps downloaded in 2023.

1. Temu: Amass As Much as a Billionaire

Temu gained attention this year for providing users with extremely low prices on a variety of products, including apparel, home goods, and electronics and tech accessories. A company that develops mobile app software, MobiLoud, claims that Temu has more than 100 million active users in the US.

This year, ZDNET tested a number of Temu products and provided an overview of everything we know about the website, including what to avoid buying, how to buy safely, and why Temu needed to use multifactor authentication to protect its users.

2. The video editor CapCut

With CapCut, users can edit videos on their smartphones and produce high-quality content for social media. Users can upload their edited videos straight to their TikTok accounts by linking their CapCut account to ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

3. Max: Watch movies, TV shows, and HBO

The streaming service Max, formerly known as HBO Max, had a busy year. Max was a May joint venture between Warner Bros. and Discovery, though its initial release wasn’t well received.

Since then, Max has provided us with some of favorite TV series, such as “Succession.” Most recently, a deal was struck with A24, a well-known film studio, to bring critically acclaimed films to the streaming service.

4. The Instagram app Threads

Meta came up with the idea for Threads to lure people who weren’t happy with X, which was Twitter. Users had been complaining about more harmful content since Elon Musk took over X, and Meta hoped to capitalize on this issue. The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, said that threads would be a “sanely-run” Twitter-like platform.

When Threads first launched, it broke records with 150 million downloads in its first week. But, because the app didn’t have many of the features that users had hoped for when it launched, they soon lost interest. Since then, Threads has added new features to keep its devoted users interested.

5. TikTok

The short-form video app TikTok has gained widespread popularity in recent years. Wallaroo Media claims that TikTok has over 220 million downloads in the US and is popular with users of all ages.

TikTok has been closely monitored this year since numerous governments across the globe have prohibited the app from being used on official devices due to possible national security risks. The US Congress put forth two bills earlier this year that would do away with the obstacles the president would have to overcome in order to implement a nationwide ban on TikTok.

The CEO of TikTok spent hours testifying before Congress, telling lawmakers that his app was not used by the Chinese government and that safeguards were in place to protect the privacy of US user data.

6. Instagram

For more than ten years, Instagram has been a prominent social media application on home screens. Over time, the app’s features have changed, and user interest has fluctuated. Instagram provided us with a glimpse into its sophisticated algorithms earlier this year, enabling us to better understand why we see certain posts and ignore others.

This year, Instagram released a lot of new features, such as the ability to play music during photo carousels, the ability to show Feed posts only to Close Friends, and a redesign of Reels.

7. Google

Google launched a number of new features this year to help users find what they’re looking for more quickly, making it a big year for the search engine. Google’s search features now incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), as the powerful technology can both assist users in learning English and summarize Google search queries.

As per Statista, Google holds a commanding 83% share of the worldwide search engine market. Even for iPhone users whose primary browser is Apple’s Safari, Google Chrome is the most widely used web browser.

8. YouTube: Play, Listen, and Watch

The most widely used video streaming service is still YouTube, which hasn’t lost ground on the competition in years. Similar to many other internet platforms, YouTube has added more opportunities for content creators to make money off of their work as well as a fair share of AI-powered features.

But the biggest update to YouTube in 2023 was the removal of the ad blocker feature. Ad blockers were used by users on YouTube to avoid seeing unskippable advertisements when they clicked on their preferred videos. YouTube consequently prohibited users using ad blockers from viewing videos. Users were thus left with two choices: either pay for ad-free YouTube Premium or disable ad blockers. As a result, a record number of users removed their ad blockers.

9. Messenger on WhatsApp

This year saw a ton of new features added to Meta’s messaging and photo-sharing app, WhatsApp. WhatsApp improved its user experience by adding features like screen-sharing and eight-person video calls, as well as enhancing chat and user security.

Due to the fact that users can communicate with friends and family abroad without having to pay for international calling or messaging services, WhatsApp is widely used worldwide.

10. Gmail: Google’s email

Approximately 37% of email addresses globally end in gmail.com, making Gmail one of the most widely used web clients for email, according to Mailchimp. Gmail is easy to use and compatible with all hardware and operating systems.