Last week, while we were all sitting here in The Wayne Stater newsroom, editing articles, designing the newspaper and putting articles in said newspaper, I and a couple of others got into a discussion about which apps we use on our devices.

Early on in the conversation, I mentioned that I used a lot of third-party apps. Third-party apps are a lot like off-brand items at the grocery store. Some of them are really nice and better than the official app, but some are not as good as the official app. Yes, some of these third-party apps do cost money, but at the end of the day, sometimes you have to pay a little more for quality.

With that said, my favorite third-party apps are the following. Please note that these apps are only available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.

Tweetbot: I have been using this app as my primary Twitter app since 2012. It costs $4.99 in the iOS App Store. The reason I like this app more than the official Twitter app is because the Twitter app, in my opinion, has too many unnecessary features like “Moments.” With Tweetbot, you get a beautiful simplistic design and due to the $4.99 price, you don’t get those annoying and unrelated ads. The app is available for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple Watch and Mac ($9.99 for the macOS version).

Spark: This is a free emailing app that supports many different emailing services (Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo to name a few). What I like about this app is that the design is a lot nicer than the default Apple Mail app and that I can get and read email directly from my Apple Watch. It might sound stupid to want to read emails on your Apple Watch, but I am all about convenience. The app is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

CARROT 5: Many people like to use the default Apple Weather app for their current weather conditions. As for me, I like an app that thinks outside the box. This app allows users to see their usual weather conditions but adds some humor to it. For example, while writing this article, I checked the app and it said, “You’re ugly and you smell. Also, it’s cloudy right now.”

Another thing that makes it unique is that you can choose what your political party is. So, if you are a Republican or Democrat, you can customize the app so that it makes political jokes in your favor. My favorite feature of the app is that I can see the “Feels Like” temperature on my Apple Watch’s watch face and get weather alert notifications in real time. CARROT 5 costs $4.99 for the cost of the app and does have some premium subscription features. Users can get a Premium Club subscription that they can either pay for monthly (49 cents a month) or an entire year’s worth of a subscription ($3.99). The other one is the Ultrapremium Club. It’s $1.49 a month or $9.99 per year. The difference is that users can choose where their weather source comes from (Dark Sky or Weather Underground) and on the Apple Watch, users will have access to a live radar on their watch face. CARROT 5 is available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac and the Apple TV.

People sometimes think they only have one option when it comes to downloading apps. However, next time you’re looking for an app for a social network like Twitter, look into third-party apps. They may cost you some money but are well worth it in the long run.