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A Yalie’s Guide to Apple Apps

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Alison Hutchison
Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Jackie Manzer
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Yale chapter.

This year, I’ve replaced a backpack full of textbooks and notebooks with the Holy Trinity of Apple:  iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.  Needless to say, my backpack is much lighter.  But instead of lugging around a heavy backpack, I found myself facing an alternative daunting task: navigating the app store.  The options are more intimidating than Costco!  So here is a list of my favorite iPhone and iPad apps that get me through college.  I use them all daily in and out of classes at Yale.  I hope you’ll find them useful to your daily routine! 

For Your iPhone

Coocoo and Hopstop: Download both of these apps to help you get into and around the city.  I use Coocoo to figure out when the next train to NYC is scheduled to leave.  Hopstop is great for finding the quickest route on the subway (especially useful for dashing to different interviews!).

Instagram: Take artsy photos around campus with this camera app that puts different filters on your photos.  Since you can “follow” your friends’ accounts, it’s also great to use as a social network device.  My snapshots of Harkness Tower never looked better!

Scan Pages: My teachers love to hand out individual sheets of paper that are crucial to the course.  But by the end of the semester my room ends up looking like a recycling bin!  So I just use this app to “scan” pages (it cleans up photos of documents), then I send them to my computer.

Yale Dining: When I’m feeling particularly hungry in section, I check the dining app to see which dining hall I’d rather eat at.

Word Ref: Word Reference might as well be my homepage for the number of times I visit it while studying for my French class.  The app is even more useful; it’s quicker and it’s mobile!  It has so many languages to choose from.

Mint: I have a problem with budgeting my money!  But this app let’s you see your most recent purchases, how much you’ve spent over the month and allows you to set certain goals for your bank accounts.

Pandora: The perfect app to find good music when you’re studying, or just walking across campus.

For Your iPad

Bamboo Paper: I take all of my notes on this app, which works like a virtual notebook.  They have a variety of lined paper and pen options.  The app works best if you pick up a stylus from the Apple store to write with.

iAnnotate PDF: You can download all of the attachments from the Classes v2 server onto this app to read and annotate the documents.  Thanks to this app, I use my printer so much less!

iBooks: I hate walking to the Yale Bookstore, so this app is great for downloading the books that I need for class.  Most of the classic books are free, and anything more recent is cheaper than buying the real book.

Netflix: I’m addicted to my Netflix.  This app is the best because I can take it virtually anywhere to watch tv and movies.  If you have issues with procrastination, this app is an enabler, so beware!

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Jackie is a junior Sociology major at Yale University with a concentration in Gender studies. As a southern California native, she loves the sun, Mexican food, frozen yogurt, freeways and friendly strangers. Jackie plans to test out the rest of her early 20's on the east coast, but knows she will ultimately find herself back in the Los Angeles area. She spent the first half of last summer as a fashion intern near her home north of Los Angeles and the second half studying abroad in Prague. While interning, Jackie renewed her love of the fashion industry culture and affirmed her interest in pursuing fashion publications as a career. She had the time of her life in Prague and traveling throughout Europe where she was referred to as everything from "gypsy woman" to "Pocahontas" for her bohemian tribal style. Her fashion icons are Kate Hudson and Jessica Szohr. At Yale, Jackie pitched for the varsity women's softball team before suffering an elbow injury this year. In her spare time, Jackie enjoys thrift store shopping, running, and gossiping with her mom. Some of her obsessions include Starbucks cinnamon dolce lattes, Free People, Guide Dogs of America, baseball (Go Dodgers!), John Mayer and family.