Google Play Store for Android has millions of apps and the same goes for App Store for iOS. There are tonnes of apps under any category and genre you can think of. We decided to compile a list of the best student apps across various categories including note-taking, presentations, timekeeping and management, password keeping, financial tracker, apps for keeping a tab on the tasks you are doing, and more.
These are the best apps for students to work with iPhone and Android. You check it out that will be helpful across the board no matter if you are looking for a distraction-free writing app or programming app on your iPhone or Android.
Note Taking
Microsoft OneNote: The OneNote from Microsoft lets you take notes of whatever comes to your mind. It could be an idea or a to-do plan or something like a discovery or say something you want to remember or annotate.
It is a complete package as it allows you to write notes, organize them as per your needs, draw on its flexible canvas where you can pick objects and items and drop it anywhere on the canvas in a way you remember it. It is like a notebook on your smartphone and it is great for note-taking. No doubt it is regarded as one of the best study apps to download.
Evernote: Evernote is a goldmine of apps when it comes to the note-taking category on both iOS App Store and Google Play Store. One of the oldest, Evernote has a refined user interface that allows users to take notes or just jot down things or ideas that they want to remember or recall later.
It’s an all-in-one app that has cross-platform support, can take notes in various file formats including videos, text, audio, photos, documents, etc. You can also scan documents and save them without the need to have a different app for it.
See More: 7 Best Note-Taking Apps for Android Phone and Tablet
Writing Papers
Google Docs: If you are an avid Microsoft Office user, I know it is a bit difficult to use any other word processor no matter even if you are using a smartphone to write something. Well, Google Docs is a rather pleasant, light-weight word processor that has an appearance similar to that of Microsoft Word.
Since Google manages the app, you can expect lightning-fast updates in terms of usability and features on-board that make it a powerful word processor unlike any. You can directly store everything you write in Google Drive and in fact, any changes made are saved on the cloud right away. The app is fully integrated with your Gmail account that enhances its cross-device, cross-platform usability.
iA Writer: Rated as one of the best plain text editors, the app iA Writer offers a distraction-free canvas to write on. It has a simple user interface with no additional distraction-causing features unplugged from it that helps focus on your work without any hassle.
You can edit your documents, spread it across different clouds, view it as HTML, and use the app for a lot more thanks to its distraction-free writing environment that enhances productivity for sure. It has templates that users can customize as well as allows posting photos, tables, text files, etc that can be viewed in HTML.
Screen Recorder
AZ Screen Recorder: When I say a screen recorder, it doesn’t always mean to record the screen. Yes, AZ Screen Recorder is one of the best apps for recording the screen, especially when you are studying and some material may not be available for downloads.
The app also enables taking a screenshot of the screen when needed apart from the built-in mechanism to take a snapshot. The app can also upgrade the quality of the videos you record on-screen as well as the audio quality is good, although the latter depends whether you can record only internal sound or mic as well.
Download: Android
Record it!: Recording the screen might of help especially when you are studying on your device where content is not downloadable. Of course, there is another application of this app as well. Record it can help grab the screen for you that you can share or broadcast when required. It is available with video tutorials if you want to set it up right away.
It also has a feature that records the screen as well as turns on the front cam for recording reactions. It can also record only commentary audio as well and comes pre-loaded with a powerful video editor to edit the recorded videos.
Download: iPhone
See More: 7 Best iOS Screen Recorder Apps for Recording iPhone Screen
Study Groups
Slack: A great way to communicate with your classmates and teachers is Slack. The app lets users organize teams or students by topic or project and offers integration to various apps including Twitter, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
The app for both iOS and Android is of great help as you can send a message to the entire group or send it personally to someone if you have any doubts regarding any topic or subject while you are preparing for the upcoming exams and so on.
WhatsApp: May it be a bit of distraction but WhatsApp is undoubtedly one of the best apps to communicate with others. May it is your study group or a group created by your teacher at colleges, it helps communicate with text, photos, docs, videos, and more. Since the UI is simple, it doesn’t create much of the distraction unless you stick to answering messages from others and spend hours chatting so keep calm and study well.
Organization Tools
Alarmy: To be honest, studying or any task that you should do may not be as difficult as waking up for it from a goodnight’s sleep. Well, check out Alarmy, an innovative alarm app that won’t turn off just because you pressed that snooze or disable button.
The app has a photo mission where you set up task and time (alarm) and when the alarm goes off, you’ll have to walk into that area where you clicked that first photo to turn off the alarm. Other missions include shaking the phone until it reaches a goal, solving maths questions, or take a photo of any barcode to turn it off. Say no to procrastination.
Todoist: If you don’t remember what tasks you are going to complete today or if you tend to forget things, Todoist can help. The app lets users create a to-do list which is an easy way to remember everything you are going to do today or tomorrow, etc.
The app has the cross-device capability so you just need to login to your account on any smartphone and bingo, it will collate all the information and present a list of items you are required to do. Keep track of everything, mark things when done to see your progress and more with Todoist.
See More: 6 Top Apps to Create Location-Based Reminders on iPhone
Music
Spotify: Take a nap or take time out to chill and relax with music. Spotify has one of the largest libraries of music across different languages. You can sort it as per the genre or check out the millions of playlists available on it.
You can create your playlists depending upon your happy or sad or angry or rocking or any other moods. Spotify offers a premium UI and has tonnes of other features that you can unlock with its premium membership. And yes, it offers specialized subscription plans for students so you are in for a treat for sure. Feel frill-free with Spotify, one of the versatile & best apps for college students.
Apple Music: Rival to Spotify, Apple Music too has one of the largest music libraries spread across different languages and genres. You can search for any song you like or check out the extensive catalog of playlists that suits your mood.
The premium plan of Apple Music is also one of the most subscribed in the United States. It offers premium sound quality with a huge catalog of music to choose from and an alluring user interface to go with. No need to download songs anymore, simply open Apple Music and play your favorite music on the go.
Photos & Images
Google Photos: Take unlimited photos and videos of notes and whatnot and store it in the Google Photos app. Once you click a photo, it is automatically backed up in the drive and so reflects on Google Photos.
This means you have an extended memory to use where all the photos and videos retain their quality without any compression that could ruin your photos by lowering the quality. The app comes pre-installed on Android smartphones and can be downloaded on iPhones. Google Photos segregates photos & videos based on dates, months and faces among filters.
Skedio: Skedio is an app that aids in vector drawing. It minimizes your efforts that would otherwise build up if you have too many vector drawings and diagrams to create. Use this app that comes pre-loaded with features like undo and redo, intuitive erase tool, and tools to create precise forms, curves, lines, etc.
Skedia is an all-in-one vector making an app that has an infinite canvas that doesn’t bind your creativity while allowing you to zoom multiple times to add finer details that would make it stand against the odds. The premium subscriptions add a tonne of new features as well so do try it out.
Download: Android
See More: 7 Best Android Apps to Scan Old Photos
Programming
Dcoder: Okay, I won’t exaggerate but Dcoder is truly a must-to-have app if you are looking for a code editor on your Android or iPhone. The app is a coding IDE for mobile where you can code and learn. The interface is pretty easy, there is a code editor with not much distractions where you choose the programming language and start working on it.
Simply tap on the ‘Play’ button to view the code in action and save the files right away. You can also import the codes to any other devices if you want. The app supports plenty of languages including Ruby, C, C++, Java, Python, Objective-C, Perl, Pascal, Swift, R, F#, NodeJS, Kotlin, HTML, Haskell, and others.
Pythonista 3: If only programming on a smartphone was too easy? Well, turns out it is thanks to Pythonista 3, a great scripting app for Python available across the iPhone and iPad. The app supports both Python 3.6 and 2.7. Open the code editor which comes with highlighting and code completion capability.
The app has an object inspector, visual debugger and all other mechanisms required to write Python code on a smartphone as efficiently as possible. Moreover, you can multi-touch as well as creating games, user interfaces, animations, and whatnot. If you are learning Python and need an app for practice or to create codes for any app or animations in college, Pythonista 3 is one of the best apps for college students.
Download: iPhone
Health
Headspace: Studying too much or for too long isn’t the best idea according to me. It adds stress while taking away the capability to retain information once you are done studying. Not to forget that studying for a long time does makes students tired which is why a bit of meditation could give you a breath of relief.
Headspace is a meditation app that offers video instructions on various types of meditations to relax your mind, body, and soul. Once you are relaxed, you can work into your room and get back to study and hopefully, you’ll retain more than you could. Check out Headscape, one of the best apps among study apps you would find on any platform.
Pocket Yoga: Yoga is worthy of a try and Pocket Yoga brings an instructor in your pocket. The app has various levels of difficulty, different practices and exercises and durations that you can perform anywhere, anytime. Yoga does relax your mind and body and can be instrumental in improving your posture, memory, and the ability to retain information rather than clinging to the same topic that you already read just before you forgot it.
See More: 12 Best Calorie Calculator Diet& Tracker Apps for iPhone and Android
Storage
DropBox: Clear the internal memory of your device and store everything in the cloud (metaphorically). DropBox is a great app that offers access to tens of gigabytes of cloud storage across both Android and iOS smartphones.
You can store technically anything from documents to photos to software setup files to zip files and so on. It also offers offline access which gives it an upper-hand over Google Drive which may not have not of offline accessibility. It is also one of the best apps for college students to save everything on the cloud as well as office goers.
Google Drive: I have been using Google Drive for a while now. The best thing about Google Drive is that you get 15GB of cloud storage free and accessible across any device with the condition that you have your Gmail account logged in. You can store anything from software to movies to photos to videos and more.
Google Drive also stores everything you do on its suite of Google Docs, Spreadsheet, PowerPoint and other apps that you can access on your phone, tablet, laptop, computer, and other devices. The app is also cross-platform so you will find it on both iPhone and Android smartphones.
See More: Best 4 Cloud-Based Productivity Software & Reasons to Switch
Presentations
Google Slides: Worried about that last-minute presentation making or the changes you would have to do in an already prepared presentation? Google Slides can help you create, edit, and collaborate slides on presentations using your smartphone. You can create your presentation using a full suite of options and features you would get on a computer right on your smartphone.
The app does a lot and since it saves the files in the cloud and operates upon the cloud as well, it needs Wi-Fi or internet to function and rest is all the app will take care of. You can export the PowerPoint files and dazzle the audience with your creativity.
Keynote: Keynote for iPhone and iPad is a powerful presentation app for your device to create mind-blowing presentations, add transitions, animated charts and a lot more on your phone itself. It is integrated with iCloud that keeps the presentations you edit saved in real-time across all the paired devices. It is a great way to create presentations and add text, photos, animations, fonts, select slide layout, style, and others.
The Keynote app has a powerful animation and transition suite that will surely have a mind-boggling response from the audience you will be showcasing the presentation too either via a wired or wireless channel.
Download: iPhone
Password Manager
LastPass: Talking specifically for a student, you may have a number of accounts of a number of websites and apps. Be it social media or networking or video streaming or learning any other apps, it becomes a bit of a task to remember those passwords required to log in.
Since there is already a huge load on your head to study hard, I think LastPass is a must. Store all your passwords here, create and remember a master password and that’s all. The app will handle all the logins after you punch in the master password and that’s all.
Dashlane: You may have seen Dashlane’s advert on a video on YouTube. The app is all about saving you from the frill of remembering all the passwords you have set up across different apps and websites.
Dashlane can do it all, you just need a master password to unlock Dashlane, store all your apps and websites passwords here and bingo. Next time when you log in to any website, Dashlane will autologin and these passwords are secured using AES 256 encryption so you don’t have to worry about the passwords getting tracked or something.
See More: 7 Best Cross-Platform Password Managers for Android, iPhone & PC
Time Management
Cold Turkey: For today’s digital nomad, another meaning for procrastination is to cling on a favorite website or app and watch or surf endlessly keeping all the work to pile up. Cold Turkey is a powerful app that won’t allow you to procrastinate but engage you to complete your work right now. The app blocks out websites and applications which helps in actually concentrating on the work at hand. It has daily limit limits and Pomodoro-style breaks. Overall, it helps elevate productivity to a great extent.
Download: Android
Toggl: If you are looking for an app that can help timekeeping and tracking, well Toggl can help you. Available on Android and iOS, the app has a one-clock timer to track a task, it gives reminders, and has over 100+ app integrations that help keep track of everything you are doing on any app on your device.
The Toggl app has calendar integration to mark entry and exit of tasks manually and has a great reporting dashboard that provides all the information you want to do about the time you spend and where.
Video Editing
Kinemaster: This app is easy to use full-featured and full-fledged video editor available on your smartphone. It has a ton of tools that you would require for video editing including special effects, blending modes, voiceovers, multiple video layers, transitions, speed control, chroma key, and the list is pretty huge.
The app lets users trim, crop or splice a video, add another as an overlay or as a continuous video with the capability to export videos at up to 4K resolution at 30fps and that’s all on your smartphone.
LumaFusion: LumaFusion is available for iPhones only and it is one of the best mobile video editing tools available. In fact, the app is regularly used by professional video producers as well. You as a student can use it to create breath-taking videos for any presentation or fulfill any other requirements such as editing a short video to earn money.
The app itself has a string of features from creating projects suiting various aspects ratios, adjusting frame rates, add color tags, etc. The app is equipped with features to add videos, sound effects, loops, drag, and drop features, and more.
Download: iPhone
See More: 10 Best Android Video Editor Apps for Tablets and Phones
Media Players
VLC: Watching a movie or a documentary or TV series or any videos is easy with VLC. One of the most popular media players, VLC does have a lot of calibers and yes, it is completely free. It shows a whole library of audio and video files you have and can run file-formats including FLAC, Ogg, MOV, MP4, MKV, AAC, Wv, M2TS, TS, MP3, etc.
The VLC app has multi-track audio and subtitles support as well along with a tonne of controls for brightness, seeding, the volume which are based on the gesture. The best is that it doesn’t have any ads so it is distraction-free as well.
PlayerXtreme Media Player: The app offers support to a tonne of video formats including MPG, Flv, DivX, 3gp, Avi, MPEG, Mkv, MOV, etc. It is a powerhouse where you can watch a tonne of movies, music, shows, and more in connected devices such as Wi-Fi hard drive or PC itself and it will sync without any hassle. The app also offers to cast to bigger screens with Apple AirPlay and Google Cast and offers free substudies in real-time in multiple languages so you can watch and movie no matter if it has a foreign language.
Math
Wolfram Alpha: It isn’t alpha by just the name but has all the features of an alpha app if you are searching for a good math app on your smartphone. Wolfram Alpha takes math solving to the next level as it has a plethora of data and algorithms stored and enables it to compute answers and supported reports along with it.
The app is a massive ocean of knowledge where it covers domains such as units & measures, computational sciences, earth sciences, physics, mathematics, etc. This means you are getting all bundled into a single app that requires an internet connection to run. This app going to be a huge help and titled as one of the best apps for college students without any doubt.
Download: Android
PCalc Lite: A usual calculator wouldn’t satisfy the needs of a programmer or scientist or an engineer as they need more than the four operators. Well, PCalc Lite is a feature-rich application available on iOS App Store where you can do a lot of tasks including unit conversions to constants, multiple undo and reno, binary, hexadecimal, and octal calculations and more all at free of charge. The app has a lot to offer over its free variant for which, you will need to subscribe to its premium version.
Download: iPhone
See More: 7 Best Math Problem Solver App for Android and iPhone
Security
Malwarebytes: Now you people usually stay connected to the internet almost every day, there is a great chance that malware or any virus could escape in their device and infect it. Thus, you need strong antivirus software to do it all and that is where Malwarebytes shines.
The app has a tonne of features including active adblocking on web browsing apps, it prevents cookies and other ways of tracking your movements on the internet, etc. It has active call protection that safeguards against fraudulent calls with ID warnings and more.
Avira: Avira is again a well-known name when it comes to antivirus apps on a smartphone. It app has identity protection so you can ensure if your email address or accounts have been leaked or not, a privacy advisor, an efficient scanner that scans for viruses, malware, and other unwanted elements and roots it out of the device. It has a built-in AppLock that prevents prying eyes from peeping in your privacy, a mic and camera protection prevents spying attempts and more.
See More: 10 Best Android Antivirus & Mobile Security Apps with Anti-theft Protection
Career Tools
LinkedIn: Fortunately, if you are a student and looking forward to your career, LinkedIn is the best place to start with. The app lets users create a virtual CV at first and make contacts with people who can be instrumental in making your career, in the long run, thanks to something called networking where a profile could do miracles.
You can join as many groups as you want, stay updated with the latest job openings and news and more on a social network for people to make connections with other people and businesses.
Resume Star: The very first step towards commencing your career is to make a resume that leaves a positive impression on the recruiters. This is a popular app when it comes to resume-making where it has all the tried and tested templates that have proven their caliber. These templates have all the sections pre-listed and you just have to fill data and done. Download the resume in the PDF format and take a printout and you are ready to get close to starting your first or any number of jobs you are walking in for.
Download: iPhone
File Management
iZip: An app that falls under the file management category, iZip is a powerful all-in-one ZIP/RAR file management app available on iPhones right now. It can unzip any files with formats such as 7Z, RAR, TBZ, ISO, CAB, JAR, TAR, ZIPX, ETC.
The iZip app can secure unzip any compressed (zipped) files and compress any normal files as well. It does have support to open files from cloud storage like Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. The app supports Face ID and Touch ID for added security although this feature is limited to Pro version only.
Download: iPhone
WinZip: It certainly doesn’t need any introduction. WinZip is a popular tool that enables users to unzip compressed files and compress any files as well. Large files such as a software setup file or a folder with a large number of files are usually sent across devices in a zipped file format which is compressed to save space than the actual file size.
This makes it easier for users to transfer or move or receive files in a jiffy. Here, the WinZip tool comes handy as it can be used to extract those zipped files or either compress or zip it when needed.
Download: iPhone | Android | Website
Finances
Mint: For anyone who is budget conscious or something who keeps track of expenses and income, a budget tracking with finance management app like Mint is truly a great way to start. The app keeps track of all your bank accounts, bills, investments, credit cards, and more in one place.
The mint app showcases everything you need from balance to transaction to more. The app also has a free credit score monitoring as well and can manage bills and stay updated with the most secure framework needed to safeguard all your information far away from intruders.
Wally: Wally is a budgeting app that keeps it lowkey. It has all the features you need to keep you on the right track of spending even if you are traveling out of the country as the app supports almost all foreign currencies.
The Wally app keeps track of the money you have in your bank accounts and mark the budget for the money and all other trackers to keep an eye on all your finances as well. It keeps track of all your cards, cash, debt, and savings so you can check everything on a single app rather than going on different apps and get confusing.
See More: 5 Best Budget Apps for Couples to Manage Personal Finance
Here are the best student apps that you must try on both iOS for iPhones and Android smartphones. Note that some apps are either available on iOS or Android while many are available across the two platforms.
You can always search for alternatives if there’s some app not available for your OS as we have extensively covered a lot of categories of best apps for college students of which, most of the apps are really helpful for others as well.