Responding to Apple’s new subscription rules, my internet-buddy and podcast co-host Scott posted the apps on his home screen and whether he thinks they’d work as a subscription.
I thought I’d do something similar, but this is an assessment of whether I personally would pay to subscribe to these apps.
| App | Subscription? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1Password | Yes | I wouldn't use either the existing Family or Teams plans, though, as the current options are either underpowered or offer too many options that I wouldn’t use. But if I had to subscribe, I would. This app is indispensable. |
| Day One | No | I'd likely switch to a simple Dropbox-based text file journaling system. Maybe this one? |
| Drafts | Yes | Drafts is essential to how I write my blog. If I ever stopped blogging, I wouldn't need it anymore. |
| Fantastical | No | I could get by with the default calendar app. |
| Google Maps | No | Google gets enough of my data anyway. They shouldn't need money on top of that, and Apple Maps is good enough. |
| Instapaper | Yes | I already pay $3/month for Premium access. |
| OmniFocus | Yes | I can't do my job without this app. Like 1Password, it would be hard to get by without it. |
| Overcast | Maybe | I currently pay $2.99 for 3 months of patronage at a time just to get access to the dark theme. |
| Slack | Yes | I already pay Slack a recurring yearly fee. |
| Tweetbot | Yes | Twitter is the last social network I still use regularly, but I wouldn't use it if it weren't for Tweetbot. |
| Unread | No | I could probably find a way to pipe RSS feeds into Apple News if necessary. I do pay an annual fee for an RSS service, though (FeedWrangler). |
| Wunderground | No | Although I've already paid to have the ads removed from the app, and that fee recurs every year. |
Going even further, here are the other third-party apps on my phone:
| App | Subscription? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1Blocker | Yes | I'd pay for a good ad blocker if it meant that the blocking rules would be regularly updated. 1Blocker's rules haven't been updated since March, and it shows. I'm seeing ads everywhere now. |
| Amazon Video | Yes | I already do as part of my Prime subscription. |
| Annotable | No | There are many competing tools that would do the same job admirably. |
| AnyList | No | My wife and I share grocery lists through AnyList, and while it's convenient, it's also easily replaced with something else. |
| Coda, Prompt, and Transmit | No | These are fantastic, first-class apps, but I keep them around for work emergencies when I don't have another device nearby. Paying a recurring fee for a what-if situation doesn't make sense. |
| Copied | No | It's not necessary. |
| Dark Sky | No | It's nice, but it only works about half the time these days, and it's ultimately unnecessary. |
| Deliveries | No | Again, it's handy but unnecessary. |
| Documents | No | This is another once-in-a-while app that I use for moving files around. I could probably use iCloud Drive for this. |
| Dropbox | Yes | I already pay for an account. |
| Dropshare | No | I could probably replace the functionality I get from this app with Workflow. |
| Flow | Yes | We're paying for an account already. |
| GIFwrapped | No | This piggybacks on Dropbox, which I already pay for. |
| IMDb | No | And I wish they'd stop asking. |
| Just Press Record | No | It's nice, but the built-in Voice Recorder app works fine. |
| Linky | No | Again, I could replace this with Workflow. |
| Netflix | Yes | Already do. |
| Pedometer++ | No | I could get by with the built-in Health app. |
| Television Time | No | A printout would work fine. |
| Workflow | Yes | The more I use iOS, the more I rely on this one. I couldn't write this blog without it. |
Out of the 34 apps I use, I already pay subscriptions for 7 of them. This feels like a lot, and now I feel compelled to shut some of these off.
All told, I’d pay for 12 of them. If they all started charging subscriptions tomorrow, roughly two thirds of the apps on my phone would go away.