Would you love to have an Android phone that actually delivered software updates and security patches in a timely fashion? One option is to get a Nexus 6P or a Nexus 5X, both of which are excellent devices that get new software as soon as it’s ready. The other option is to do what I did by buying an iPhone 6s and loading it up with all of your favorite Google apps. PhoneArena has posted a nifty guide for getting all of Google’s best apps running as defaults on iPhones and it offers some neat tips that I hadn’t yet considered.
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Here’s PhoneArena’s full list of recommended Google apps for your iPhone: Maps, Keep, Chrome, Drive, YouTube, Photos, Newsstand, Calendar, Docs, Slides and Sheets. I have Maps, Photos, Chrome and Drive installed on my device but use other apps such as Sunrise for calendar functionality. Regardless, these are some good apps that are very much worth checking out, particularly the tremendously underrated Google Keep, which serves as Google’s own in-house widget that’s designed to make sure you never forget an appointment or task.
The key to really making these apps an integral part of your iPhone, however, lies in using the “Open In” settings to make sure various links and documents open in your Google apps and not in Apple’s default iOS apps.
“Since you can’t replace the stock iOS app that Apple has determined to suffice for a given task, the next best thing is to use the ‘Open in’ setting that a lot of third-party apps, including Google’s ones, have in their menus,” PhoneArena writes. “You can set URL links you get while messaging or emailing to open up in Chrome instead of Safari, for instance, which would be useful if you are a Chrome user on your desktop, and want to keep the experience on your iPhone, too.”
The whole post is full of interesting tips for making your iPhone into a great device for Google apps. Check it out here.
