Important Apps That Shaped Mobile In 2013

Snapchat (iOS/Android) See also: Why Snapchat Is The Perfect App At The Perfect Time Love it or hate it (or love to hate it), Snapchat captured one of the mobile Web’s most fascinating pivots: the shift from archiving toward intentional ephemera. Snapchat forgoes Facebook’s reign of the cohesive narrative in favor of brief, chaotic social snapshots that literally self destruct. The app is enough of a threat (or a fascination) to have piqued Facebook’s interest to the tune of $3 billion, after all. Snapchat’s moment may fade as quickly as one of its frenetic missives, but 2013 will always be remembered for the rise of the Snap. Yahoo Weather (iOS/Android) It might just be for checking the weather, but Yahoo’s reinvented app manages to encapsulate everything about the big Y!’s Mayer-era makeover. Bright, fluid and playful, it’s everything the old Yahoo’s mobile presence wasn’t. Remember back when Yahoo had literally 70 different apps? Yeah, those days are long gone. If This Then That [IFTTT] (iOS, Android in the works) It might not be a household name (yet), but IFTTT is the multitool of mobile. A playground for productivity nerds, IFTTT invites users to craft simple formulas that text you when it’s about to rain, call you when the rent is due, back up your Instagram photos to Dropbox … and just about anything else you can think up.