14SEP2025: iOS 26 Indie Apps Edition

Happy Sunday everyone!

This week, in an effort to keep my mind and eyes off the news, I've been ordering a whole bunch of new Apple gear, participating in a great fun 9/11 Memorial Ruck, dreaming about Kenichiro Kawabata's home/workshop, setting a reminder to grab this NASA Orange Timex when it drops this week (thanks Bobby!), revisiting No Man's Sky on the Switch in light of the forthcoming ship building update, finishing reading this great History of Chinese Martial Arts, and grabbing this great vertical desktop stand for my MacBook to clear up space on my desk.

This week we're doing something a little different— With iOS 26 dropping tomorrow and bringing a shiny new user interface to the iPhone and iPad, I wanted to share a few fun indie apps that are going to really sparkle on the new OS.

First things first, if you're looking for a good overview of what all is changing on your iPhone, check out Stephen Robles' great iOS 26 review/roundup video.

Now, on to the apps! Some of these are apps I currently use every day, others are from developers I like and respect, and others still just look like fun apps that are on my list of things to try after iOS 26 comes out tomorrow. There are way too many awesome apps to mention, so I’m focusing on smaller indie apps that some folks may not have discovered yet.

Please also note that I'm sending this out Sunday night, so some of these apps won't actually be available for download in the app store until tomorrow (the 15th). If you find a great hidden gem app that's been updated for iOS 26 but not on this list, please hit me up— I’m always looking to feature more!

Let's start with apps that I have personally used and enjoyed—

Daylish - Manuel Kehl, creator of my favorite meditation timer app, Zenitizer, has created this delightful day planning app that leverages iOS 26's new Alarm Kit feature to help you make sure to never miss a super important meeting. The app launches tomorrow, but you can catch the preview video at the link above!

Noir - Jeffrey Kuiken's Noir is one of my favorite Safari extensions on iOS, as it very handily helps add a dark mode to any website you visit. This is perfect for late night scrolling when you don't want to wake your partner or fry your eyeballs by visiting a site that doesn't support dark mode natively. It's ready to go with a new Liquid Glass design. Be sure to also check out his Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Mario Kart World Travel Guide apps as well!

Chronicling - Rebecca Owen's lovely Chronicling is one of the best looking tools out there for keeping track of, well, anything. Keep track of habits and routines, health metrics, books read, when you water your plants, you name it. The iOS 26 update brings a new liquid glass design and Apple Intelligence support for smart event logging.

Glu Sight - Jay’s Glu Sight is a beautiful, iOS native app for tracking your glucose and insulin levels, and it’s getting a Liguid Glass polish this week. Also check out Mira, his cool new video and mood journal app, also getting the iOS 26 treatment.

Glass - Joao Dordio is the iOS developer behind Glass.Photo, an awesome independent photo sharing platform/community. The app has always been gorgeous and design-forward, and it's getting even better with an iOS 26 update coming out tomorrow.

Orbit - Joshua Newton's Orbit is a gorgeous app for finding and keeping track of all of your subscriptions, and it's getting a great looking Liquid Glass update. I personally have saved a couple hundred bucks thanks to Orbit helping me hunt down and cancel some subscriptions I forgot about.

Alyx Caffeine Tracker - This is one of my favorite iOS 26 exclusive launches that I've gotten to beta test— It's a really silly, super fun caffeine tracker with personality. It makes good use of HealthKit, Alarm Kit, Apple Intelligence and more to make it effortless to keep track of your caffeine, how it might or might not impact your sleep, and even when you need to cut yourself off from your feel good juice so you can make it to bed on time. It won't officially release until the 15th, but will be worth the wait.

Moonlitt - Flipping Hues' Moonlitt is a beautiful moon phase tracking app that I really enjoy for the Apple Ecosystem. It's got a number of beautiful widgets, watch complications, and more, all getting a slew of iOS 26 updates.

Quiche Browser - Greg de J.'s Quiche Browser is a beautiful, customizable web browser for iOS that's getting the full Liquid Glass treatment.

Cleft Notes - Jonny and Justin's Cleft is an awesome voice note transcription and summarizing tool getting a bunch of iOS 26 features like Spotlight Integration, Apple Watch syncing, speed updates, and even more features coming in Cleft 2.0 in November.

Sofa - Shawn Hickman's Sofa is a delightful app for keeping track of things you want to enjoy later— Shows, movies, books, video games, podcast episodes, you name it. It's getting a great iOS 26 boost tomorrow.

Flyleaf - Max Melzer's beautiful Flyleaf is a really clean read-it-later app for saving articles from the web to read in a much more pleasant reading view without pop-ups, ads, etc. The new update brings a Liquid Glass design update.

65x24 - Héliographe's 65x24 is a stunning panoramic camera app for the iPhone getting a big design and functionality update tomorrow.

GamePal - Jeremy Swinnen‘s GamePal is my favorite way to keep track of my gaming back log, and has an iOS 26 refresh all tee’d up for the big day.

And here are some apps I've not gotten to try yet, but that look like they'll be fun to check out this week—

Elytra - Nikhil Nigade's Elytra is a simple, private and feature rich RSS feed reader for the Apple Ecosystem that's getting a Liquid Glass glow-up with some new under the hood improvements as well.

Garden - Quotes Club - Victoria Ali's Garden is a lovely looking app for finding/tracking meaningful quotes releasing tomorrow.

Plant Daddy - Jordan Hipwell's Plant Daddy is a lean, iOS-forward app for tracking when to water and otherwise care for your plants. Jordan's done a great job of integrating lots of Apple ecosystem features like widgets, iCloud syncing, notifications, and now an updated look for iOS 26.

Keepfully - Alexander Käßner's Keepfully is a clever iOS app for keeping track of things you've loaned out and things you've borrowed, who has them, when they're due back, and so on. It's getting a Liquid Glass update.

MinTask - Rafael Ramos' MinTask is a playful productivity app built around the Eisenhower Matrix for smart task management.

That's it for this week! May the updates only bring you joy and very little frustration, and may your deliveries be on time.