Quantifying the best mobile apps can be a bit difficult considering the wide array of uses in our everyday lives they can have, and it gets even more splintered as specificity grows. Not everyone may need apps directed toward certain trade work, but everyone has at least one social media app and YouTube on their home screen. Popularity metrics and download counts factor in as well, but in a year like 2023 where the app ecosystem was heavily impacted by the diversification of social media and the constant rise of generative AI, importance might be the most apt measuring stick.
The impact of such apps among others isn’t fully known as the year comes to a close, but what we do know is that letting advancement outrun awareness makes for a bitter pie. So, with that in mind, let’s run through Paste’s best apps of 2023.
TikTok
Despite continued attempts to pass sweeping bans against the platform, TikTok remains the emergent player in social media. The short-form video app remains one of the most downloaded apps globally while its use keeps evolving as other online platforms do their best to make their clones of the app catch on with audiences. Google cited TikTok as its biggest challenger in search this year, which is surprisingly accurate (though another entry on this list may be rising in that arena) and the app usurped platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, as the center for online activism amid global crises in Gaza and Ukraine. TikTok Shop doesn’t appear to be more than a worse WhatNot and the spread of misinformation and disinformation remains a key issue, but there is no denying TikTok is doing more to have staying power than its competitors.
ChatGPT
Generative artificial intelligence is a lightning rod and it isn’t going to shake that status anytime soon despite the now weekly AI evangelist self-own that gives the internet a cautious laugh. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is at the heart of the issue as the most popular and well-funded large language model going today. Putting aside the recent controversy that undoubtedly will shape the path OpenAI takes in the coming years, ChatGPT offers plenty of good in the right hands. It’s extremely alarming that it and other apps like it continue to be weaponized to threaten careers and undermine copyright, two issues that are likely to get more contentious as OpenAI plans to roll out a storefront for custom GPTs in the near future, but seeing how educators and programmers utilize it provides examples of practical uses that actually aid users. Plus, ChatGPT is emerging as an alternative to search, pitting it against Google and its array of AI tools.
Beeper Mini
Look, I’m not one to subscribe to the strangely classist battle over the color of a text bubble, but iMessage elitism is taking a hit thanks to Beeper Mini. The latest app from Beeper gives Android users the ability to send and receive iMessage communications without the burden of tethering devices to Mac servers which makes the process cumbersome and expensive. The app is already drawing the attention of Apple, which put the kibosh on its access to iMessage quickly after launch this week, but the Beeper team remains committed to bringing it back online. Get ready for 2024’s first big tech fight.
Threads
While Elon “Telling advertisers to go fuck themselves is so edgy” Musk keeps bringing X, formerly known as Twitter, to new lows, Meta threw its hat into the micro-blogging social media game in a big way this year with Threads. While the app’s rate of user signups has certainly cooled off from its massive launch earlier this year, Meta continues to build out a serviceable Twitter replacement that doesn’t require an invite code. The addition of a web app to complement its mobile app and untying Threads account deletion from Instagram account deletion makes it more attractive to former Twitter users as well.
Artifact
