Apple reveals the most popular free iPhone apps of 2025 – and there’s a surprise runner-up for ChatGPT

Apple has already named the 2025 App Store winners – a relatively short list of 17 apps and games with spotlights across each of their platforms (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro included). But today, the Cupertino-based tech giant is also sharing a bit of the people’s voice in apps.

We have top 10 lists—along with expanded App Store rankings—for the most downloaded apps and games on iPhone and iPad, broken down by free and paid. There’s even a list of the most downloaded Apple Arcade titles. And while we all could have guessed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT would rank high, it ranks as the number one free app for iPhone. Still, there are a few surprises when you look down the lists.

Number two on the most downloaded free iPhone apps is Threads – yes, the still-new platform from Meta that Mark Zuckerberg hopes will steal the thunder from X (formerly Twitter and Bluesky). This means that a significant number of people have downloaded it, whether they discovered it on their own or via recommendations from the Instagram app.

Instagram itself isn’t far down the list at number six, and TikTok – which is still in somewhat of an awkward spot here in the US – comes in at number four. You can see the full list below, but it’s worth noting that Google also had a strong presence in the top ten, with Gemini, YouTube, the main Google app and Google Maps all making it.

On the iPad side, while Instagram finally arrived on the platform, it didn’t break into the top 10 free iPadOS apps. As expected, it’s a streaming-heavy list, with Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video all securing big slots. YouTube takes first place and Google Chrome is not far down the list. The ever-popular GoodNotes – a notes app with a range of AI functionality, including handwriting cleanup and extensive folder organization – also makes an appearance.

You can keep scrolling to see the full top 10 lists for the best free and paid iPhone and iPad apps, the best games for each, and the overall list of the most downloaded Apple Arcade titles. It’s always fun and often insightful to browse through these year-end lists to see what people use the most—or in some cases, download and open just once.