My Top 6 iPad mini Apps | Digital Minimalism

It's been quite a while since I made a video about my favorite iPad Mini apps, I believe a little over two years now. And in that time, I've definitely found new apps that have brought me some value in some type of way, and I think some of you might find them useful as well. I try to make this list as diverse as I could as far as the app types and use cases, as well as free as well as paid apps. These are my current favorite apps for my iPad Mini. But first, if you're new to my channel, thank you for stopping by. Here we talk about minimalism, frugal living, tech, and things of that nature. So if that sounds good to you, and you end up liking the video, be sure to like, and please bow and arrow choke the subscribe button. Let's get started. One quick thing before I do get started, all of my phone and iPad wallpapers are still free to download. I'll have a link for those in the description box and maybe in the comments section as well. I plan on maybe adding a few more in the coming months. So if you're interested in some free wallpapers, go ahead and check those out. Solves. And I really just have to get this one out of the way. Solves is a no fuss, clean and free calculator app that works great on iPad Mini. Because as of writing this video, there's still no native iPad calculator app and Solves completely fills that void for now. As a matter of fact, I like it so much that when the native OS calculator app does come out, I might just keep this one. It has some cool small features like customizing how the calculator actually looks, currency conversion, as well as built-in history in case you're like me and you're accidentally hitting the incorrect buttons all the time. I particularly like using this at my desk because the iPad Mini's screen size complements the calculator's landscape mode perfectly. There's really not much else to say other than this should be like the first app you download if you get an iPad Mini. Procreate Dreams. I've gone on and on about how I believe Procreate might just be the best app ever made, period. At least in my opinion. And only fairly recently did I come around to experimenting with Procreate Dreams. Procreate Dreams is more animation focused, whereas Procreate is more drawing focused. I've had some fun creating some really simple cartoon animations here and being able to seamlessly bring in my drawings from Procreate to Procreate Dreams has been very nice. I'm definitely no animator or even really good at drawing, but I do think there are better animation apps out there for a little bit cheaper. But since I'm so familiar with Procreate, it makes this a little bit easier to use, hence why it's on this list. But I will say if you draw on your iPad and never considered giving animation a try, this would be a great way to look into it because it has built-in tools to make it a lot less tedious than it sounds because it's essentially just drawing picture after picture. I recommend Procreate Dreams for someone who's already pretty familiar with Procreate, but if not there's some other simple animation apps to look into as well. I've used Procreate Dreams for some of the simple animations that I show in my videos. Forest. Forest is a four dollar app that taught me how to focus when it's time to focus. And it's such a simple concept, but so effective. Basically, you start by planting a tree, setting a timer for however long you want your work or study session to be, and in that time your tree grows. And if you leave the app, your tree dies. Pretty simple. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed using this when I was surrounded by my usual distractions. And I think part of it is because since I did pay for the app, I feel a little bit more obligated to use it how it was intended. But I digress. Over time your trees turn into a lush forest which is pretty cool. And not to mention, it's just super minimal looking. It's a nice aesthetic and since it is paid for, I'm never bombarded with apps or pop-ups of any sort. You're also able to have it as a widget on your home screen if you need to be on your home screen for whatever reason. Forest perfectly blends the pompadour technique with a nice aesthetic and I can't recommend it enough. Doodle Draw. Now starting with probably the best part about this app is that it's completely free and even still it doesn't have any pop-ups or side advertisements or anything annoying like that. Doodle Draw is basically a drawing prompt to do once a day for practice and get that creative ice broken. Something I noticed when I first started to draw was first of all, I sucked. And secondly, I never really knew what to draw. In this app, basically every single day, you're just given this randomly shaped blob with no instruction with what to do with it. But the idea is for this shape to inspire you to draw some sort of character using this shape as a rough outline. It sounds incredibly simple and maybe even a little silly on the surface, but apparently this app was an Apple designer finalist, if that means anything to its credibility and how cool it is. Like I said, it's completely free whereas most of the good drawing apps aren't. So if you just want to get started, I highly recommend Doodle Draw. Kindle app. And as of right now, the Kindle app is definitely my favorite way to e-read because between Apple Books and the Kindle app, I've just found a little bit more familiarity with the Kindle app. And I found it to be a little bit more user-friendly in my opinion. The Kindle app's a nice way to have a collection of books without having the physical clutter of them. And something that's definitely worth mentioning is that there are sales fairly regularly on the Amazon bookstore. There have been plenty of times where I couldn't find what or I just didn't feel like getting up off my fat ass to go find the book. So I would just download it straight to my iPad from the Kindle bookstore in a few minutes for just a few dollars. And it was just super convenient. Admittedly, I still think I do prefer to read paper books over electronic books. However, a couple of months ago, I got a paper-like screen protector for the iPad mostly for drawing purposes, but it has given the iPad more of a matte finish and it's a little bit easier on the eyes when looking at it for extended periods of time like reading. I have no affiliation with paper-like as of making this video, but this thing is really cool. Faster than light. And I wanted to have at least one game on this list. So I landed on FTL or faster than light. A friend of mine was the person to show me this game. And ever since then, it's proven to be one of the coziest games to install on an iPad mini, although very difficult. I think it's rather safe to assume most people who exclusively game on iPads are pretty casual gamers. But for those of you who are tired of repetitive mobile games, FTL offers a high replay value. And it's just something really fun to play when you need to kill time at work or on the toilet. I'm not going to go too much into the details of the game itself because this isn't a review, but it has a pixel art style, takes place in space and a super cozy soundtrack to get completely immersed in. It does cost $10, which in my opinion is rather high for an app, but the reviews speak for themselves. And if you're looking for something fun to play, I highly recommend it. Anyways, these were just a few of my favorite iPad mini apps. As of right now, I have at least another dozen more I could have included in this video, but I'll save those for another. Hopefully you found some value in this video and you will check out some of these apps for yourself. Anyways, as always, I appreciate the time you spend here and I appreciate you watching. If you did like this video and you like this type of content, be sure to like and consider subscribing to my channel and I'll see you next time.