5 Crazy Productivity iOS Apps That You Must Try Out
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works — Steve Jobs
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works — Steve Jobs
In a sea of millions of iOS apps, finding truly exceptional ones can feel like searching for a needle in a digital haystack. Today, I’m highlighting five extraordinary iOS apps that stand out with their stunning UI, intuitive UX, mesmerising animations, and innovative functionality. These aren’t just useful tools — they’re experiences that showcase what’s possible when developers push the boundaries of mobile design and make the user come back to the app time and again.
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1. Not Boring Habits — Habit Tracker with Personality
What makes it exceptional: Not Boring Habits transforms the mundane task of habit tracking into a delightful, gamified experience. Each habit you create becomes a unique character with its personality and animation, bringing a sense of playfulness to your daily routines.
The app features fluid transitions, vibrant colours, and reactive interface elements that respond to your touch with satisfying micro-animations. The attention to detail is remarkable — completing habits gives you a dopamine rush not just from the accomplishment but from the celebratory animations that follow.
Beyond its visual appeal, the UX is thoughtfully designed with customizable reminders, flexible habit scheduling, and insightful progress tracking. It’s a perfect example of how great design can transform a utilitarian concept into something you genuinely look forward to using.
The app offers various skins to match your personality, widget selection for reminding you and much more. The app runs on a freemium model and starts with a free plan which does almost everything for you.
2. Craft — Beautiful and Powerful Document Editor
What makes it exceptional: Craft redefines what a document editor can be on iOS with its sleek, touch-first design and fluid, intuitive interface. It’s more than a note-taking app — it’s a full-fledged writing and organisational system built specifically for mobile. The block-based structure feels dynamic, with smooth animations that make moving, merging, and editing content feel natural and satisfying.
The interface uses layered cards, subtle shadows, and parallax effects to create depth without distraction. Navigation feels spatially aware thanks to seamless zooming transitions, helping users maintain context as they move between documents. Typography and themes, especially dark mode, are finely tuned for readability and visual harmony.
What truly sets Craft apart is its powerful internal linking. Backlinks are animated subtly to reveal relationships between content, while hoverable preview cards offer quick context without interrupting your workflow. It’s a rare mix of form and function, tailored for a truly modern writing experience.
3. CapCut — Video Editor with Professional-Grade Effects
What makes it exceptional: CapCut brings pro-level video editing to iOS with an interface that feels both powerful and inviting. It turns complex editing into an intuitive, visually rich experience. The touch-optimised timeline lets you trim, snap, and rearrange clips with natural gestures and real-time previews that offer instant feedback.
Transitions between editing modes are fluid and help maintain context, while the effects library showcases real-time previews in a carousel layout. Colour grading is made accessible through responsive sliders, and the keyframe animation system brings desktop-level control to your fingertips with curves and touch-sensitive handles that feel precise and satisfying.
CapCut’s audio tools stand out too — waveforms zoom and scroll effortlessly, and beat detection visualises rhythm to help sync visuals to music. Even loading states and exports are thoughtfully animated, keeping the experience smooth and engaging from start to finish.
4. Endel: Focus & Sleep Sounds — Personalised Soundscapes with Adaptive Technology
What makes it exceptional: Endel fuses advanced technology with minimalist design to create a dynamic, real-time audio experience tailored to your environment and state of mind. What makes it stand out is how seamlessly it turns complex neuroscience and adaptive algorithms into a soothing, intuitive interface that feels alive and responsive.
The main screen features a slowly shifting visualisation that reacts to your gestures with ripple animations and synchronised haptic feedback, making the experience immersive and meditative. Mode selection is fluid, represented by a rotating gradient ring that lets you blend between focus, relax, and sleep states, with transitions that gently crossfade both visually and audibly.
What truly elevates Endel is its environmental adaptability, factoring in your location, time, weather, and even heart rate to subtly personalise the soundscape. These inputs are visualised through soft particle effects and colour shifts that feel natural rather than technical. Combined with a “less is more” interface philosophy, contextual controls, and elegant onboarding animations, Endel offers a focused, ambient experience that’s both calming and deeply sophisticated.
5. Arc Search — Find it, Faster — Reimagining the Search Experience
What makes it exceptional: Arc Search reimagines mobile search as a rich, spatial journey rather than a linear task. Its “Browse for Me” feature visualises AI-powered search results as a fluid, living canvas — animated, interactive, and almost sentient in how it surfaces information. Results pulse gently with ripple effects, making the process feel active and engaging rather than static.
The gesture-based navigation system turns interactions into a seamless dance — swipes and pinches are met with perfectly tuned spring physics and context-preserving transitions. Tab management adopts a spatial carousel, replacing the typical stack with depth cues and smooth animations that help you maintain orientation while browsing across topics.
What truly elevates Arc is its emotional intelligence. Micro-animations celebrate small wins, giving users a sense of delight and reward. The interface combines sleek layouts with playful motion, adapting gracefully to ambient lighting and motion, and turning even routine tasks into an experience that feels personal, thoughtful, and unexpectedly joyful.App Store Link
Honourary Mention: Stoic — Your Mental Health Co-Pilot with Mindful Design
What makes it exceptional: Stoic redefines digital journaling by merging ancient philosophy with modern UX, offering a daily ritual wrapped in serenity and intention. Its minimalist dashboard adapts to your time of day and mood, with flowing transitions that feel meditative — nothing snaps or jolts. Ambient animations gently pulse, creating a sense of calm aliveness that mirrors mindful breathing.
The app invites emotional honesty through expressive iconography and soft gradients that respond to mood inputs with micro-animations — subtle gestures that feel like quiet encouragement. Prompts inspired by Stoicism, CBT, and mindfulness emerge with poetic grace, while background transitions adapt to themes like gratitude or stress relief, turning journaling into a guided, reflective experience.
What sets Stoic apart is its emotionally intelligent feedback. Mood patterns are visualised through flowing, intuitive motion rather than cold analytics. Breathing exercises, affirmations, and meditations are deeply immersive, using restrained haptics and optional soundscapes to tune the experience to your state of mind. Stoic doesn’t just look beautiful — it feels intentional, creating a space where UX nurtures emotional wellbeing with rare thoughtfulness.
Conclusion
What sets these five apps apart isn’t just their functionality — it’s the meticulous attention to how users experience that functionality. From delightful animations that provide feedback to intuitive interfaces that anticipate your needs, these apps represent the gold standard of iOS design.
They demonstrate that exceptional UX isn’t just about making apps that work well — it’s about creating experiences that bring joy and satisfaction to everyday digital interactions. If you’re looking to be inspired by what’s possible in mobile app design, these five apps are must-try experiences that will change how you think about what apps can be.
What are your favourite iOS apps with exceptional design? Share in the comments below!