Eight Apps Apple Could Make Obsolete This Year
Giant tech companies like Apple are constantly adding new features to their platforms, but they can’t do everything. To fill in the gaps, we have third-party apps: these developers can hone in on features that Apple products either don’t have or implement poorly, and can focus all their efforts on making those features great. It’s actually a win-win – that is, until Apple decides to take these great ideas and implement them on their platforms for free.
This practice occurs so often that it has a name: sherlocking. This applies to Apple’s search app Sherlock, which has taken on the functionality of the third-party search app Watson. With every major update to iOS and macOS, Apple introduces features that threaten or effectively replace independent programs. Eight such apps and categories are clearly in the spotlight this year. In fact, analysts estimate that Apple’s changes in iOS 18 themselves could impact apps that earned nearly $400 million last year . But as we’ll discuss, the fact that Apple introduces these features does not automatically make these apps obsolete.
Magnet
Wouldn’t you know it, but the OS known as “Windows” has traditionally had better window management than macOS. For years, it’s been easy to dock Windows windows anywhere: If you want one window to be on the left half of the screen and another on the right, it’s easy to do with drag-and-drop or a keyboard shortcut. Apple has added some window management options to macOS, including both in and out of full-screen mode, but they still fall far short of the simplicity of keyboard shortcuts that Windows offers.
This is where third-party apps like Magnet come into play: these utilities essentially add Microsoft window management to macOS: Windows can be locked in place using keyboard shortcuts or by dragging windows to specific corners of the display. For any PC user moving to a Mac for the first time, apps like Magnet were a must-have .
It wasn’t until WWDC that Apple accidentally unveiled its new window management system for the Mac. It’s a simple system: drag windows to the sides and corners of the display to lock them in place, or use keyboard shortcuts to do the same. But this simple system takes care of most of the functions that people turn to macOS window management utilities for. This is bad enough for free software, but considering apps like Magnet cost $4.99, it can definitely hurt the developer.
1Password
Apple has long had a decent password management system: iCloud Keychain has done enough in recent years to keep me from considering third-party alternatives like 1Password or Dashlane . However, iCloud Keychain’s biggest downside was its lack of centralization: it works great in the background, automatically generating and saving new passwords, and automatically filling in those passwords when you need them. But when it comes to manually retrieving your credentials, having a full-fledged app definitely improves the experience.
Of course, that’s exactly what Apple is doing this year : iCloud Keychain is now an app called Passwords that syncs across your Apple devices. You now have clear separation of things like passwords, 2FA codes, passkeys , and Wi-Fi passwords , and you can also access shared password collections. However, other than these much-needed changes, it’s still a fairly basic experience. I don’t think dedicated password managers are at risk from this new experience, and existing users are likely to stick with their chosen platform because of the additional features they offer. But third-party apps will likely have to convince new users why the Passwords app for their iPhone and Mac isn’t good enough for them (especially since it’s likely).
TapeACall
Recording phone conversations on iOS failed . There was never a built-in way to do this, so you had to use a half-baked workaround in the free Google Voice app (which only worked for incoming calls) or pay an expensive subscription to an app like TapeACall .
Soon, however, call recording won’t just be part of iOS: you’ll actually be encouraged to try it out. Apple advertises this feature as another menu option when you’re currently on a call: Just press the record button, and iOS will record everything you and the other party say. This likely sent shivers through TapeACall, whose $10-a-month subscription now seems a bit pricey compared to the free iOS 18 update.
However, Apple touts the feature as part of Apple Intelligence , the company’s brand of large artificial intelligence features. If this is true, only the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (as well as future iPhones) will be able to use this phone recording feature. This leaves a significant market for apps like TapeACall to continue marketing to. (Fingers crossed for lower prices, though.)
Grammar
Speaking of Apple Intelligence, the company’s upcoming AI assistant will be happy to help you proofread your text and rewrite any sentence or paragraph on the fly—whether you’re writing on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
This shouldn’t be good news for companies like Grammarly , which offer solutions for the same set of devices to check spelling, grammar, and sentence structure as you type. In the age of artificial intelligence, Grammarly even introduced AI writing tools: at the time, this might have seemed like a competitive move compared to options like ChatGPT or Gemini. (Why copy and paste text into a chatbot when the Grammarly extension can do it for you right in the text field?) But now that Apple also has an AI-powered writing bot, the question becomes: why download the extension?
Of course, as with the TapeACall conversation, the audience for Apple’s AI features will be limited at first. Apple Intelligence is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and M series Macs, meaning any writer on an Intel Mac will still want to keep their selected proofreader.
Newji
Apple Intelligence is generative AI, which means it must have an artistic AI component . Among these new features is the ability to create new emojis to share in chats. As far as AI art goes, it seems harmless and even funny if the existing emoji options don’t quite hit the vibe you’re looking for.
However, this is kind of a bummer for apps like Newji . Essentially, it works exactly like Apple’s new feature: you tell the AI what you want your emoji to look like (Newji’s flagship example is “big rat carrying a slice of pizza”) and it generates variations for you to choose from. Luckily for Newji, Apple Intelligence is slow and won’t be available on most iPhones—at least for now. So the company has some time before more people start buying Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhones.
AllTrails
New to the Maps app across the Apple ecosystem is its suite of hiking features, with updates adding downloadable topographic maps to the app as well as thousands of hikes that can be saved offline. Even if you don’t have access to the internet, these offline maps and hikes offer turn-by-turn voice navigation, as if you were pulling information from a live feed of the trails. You can even create your own routes if you wish.
Hm. Sounds suspiciously similar to AllTrails, doesn’t it? Luckily for them, AllTrails already has a huge user base, so it can offer more features than Apple Maps, at least at launch. But given the enormous popularity of the iPhone in the US, the more tourists turn to Apple Maps for hiking, the larger this community could grow. And, unlike some of the other options on this list, all Apple devices compatible with this year’s updates get these features because they’re not bundled with Apple Intelligence. It will be something to behold.
Otter.ai
Transcription is another non-Apple Intelligence feature coming to Apple devices this year. (Still powered by AI, however.) When you make an audio recording in Voice Memos (or Notes), iOS or macOS transcribes it for you. This is a great advantage: you can quickly look back at a conversation you’ve recorded, or perhaps a presentation or lecture, and find a specific topic mentioned.
Of course, this is also a big advantage of services like Otter.ai . One might think that Apple’s AI transcriptions would threaten Otter.ai and the like, but I see that as of now it’s largely unaffected. Otter.ai is so feature-rich and integrated with various work packages that it likely isolates it from Apple’s new features. I see Otter losing a lot of business to new transcribers who just want a quick way to view a voice memo. Why look for a solution when the transcription now appears directly with your recording on your iPhone or Mac?
Bezel
Of all the apps on this list, Bezel has the most problems. With macOS 15, Apple is adding iPhone screen mirroring. This means you can view and control your iPhone’s display wirelessly from your Mac while keeping your iPhone locked and tucked away.
Bezel is undoubtedly the most popular third-party option for mirroring your iPhone’s display on a Mac, but it may not be able to compete with macOS Sequoia. First, Bezel requires a cable, and macOS supports wireless iPhone mirroring. But the bigger problem is that Bezel costs $29 to use on one Mac and $69 to use up to three Macs. Meanwhile, Apple’s screen mirroring feature is free when you update to macOS 15 on any supported Mac. It’s definitely a tough situation for Bezel.
But again, just because Apple adds a new feature to iOS and macOS, that doesn’t mean third-party options offering the same feature are gone. The App Store is full of apps that sell on features that Apple has been building into its platforms for years, and they succeed by offering a different (or perhaps better) Apple experience. I think most of these apps have the same capability, but it really depends on what the users want.