The best apps and services for new graduates

Many navigation programs can help a graduate find their way in an unfamiliar city, but Waze can offer the best road. The free service’s crowd alerts can help drivers avoid construction or traffic jams that aren’t always visible in competing apps, including Google Maps. Connections to streaming services like Spotify and TuneIn make it easy to enjoy music on a long trip without using separate apps. Ads running on hold aren’t ideal, but if it helps a graduate land a new job on time, it may be worth the sacrifice.

If your graduate uses public transport, Transit program in fact it must be. It provides detailed, real-time mass transit directions in hundreds of cities, letting drivers know when to leave and which stops to pick up. More importantly, it is integrated with alternative transport options such as shared bikes, scooters and Uber rides. The basic app is free, but it’s worth paying $25 a year for a Royale subscription (unless offered for free by your local agency) to look up any transit line and future schedules.

Today, ridesharing is more than just going to parties or visiting family, it can be the most efficient way to get to work for some. In this regard, a subscription Lyft Pink or Uber One can easily be a nice gift. The $10 bimonthly services offer discounts on rides and food delivery, as well as a number of other perks, like free priority pickups from Lyft and access to Uber’s top-rated drivers. Both services are good options, although you’ll want to make sure there are plenty of drivers where your buyer lives.

Students can get by with a free cloud account or join a parent’s family plan, but there’s a good chance they’ll want a paid account of their own after graduation. Thankfully, all major platform creators have cloud service packages that cover most of what they need. Apple One ($17 per month for individual), Google One ($20 per year for basic) and Microsoft 365 Personal ($70 per year) all provide additional cloud storage, as well as services you can use for entertainment, productivity, and security.

The choice of service depends on what your graduate is looking for. Apple One is, unsurprisingly, the best for iPhone and Mac users – you get 50GB of iCloud storage, Apple Music, Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade. Meanwhile, Google One provides 100GB of shareable storage, advanced Photo editing features, and a VPN to protect your connection. And Microsoft 365 Personal gives a big boost to productivity with Office apps, 1TB of storage, and security tools like Windows Defender. While these packages may not cover all possible needs, they can easily save you money instead of paying for each service individually.

A VPN (virtual private network) can be extremely useful for the security conscious. It can hide sensitive information from prying eyes and help you access regional content that is usually banned. There are a lot of good VPNsbut it is our choice for graduation ExpressVPN. While it’s not the cheapest at $100 a year, our security reporter Katie Malone says it’s extremely comprehensive. It’s easy to install, works on multiple devices, includes a password manager, doesn’t log activity, and is even game-friendly. Simply put, your former student is more likely to have a VPN working regardless of what they’re doing.

Passwords are already a hassle at school, but once you leave, they’re even worse—how is a graduate supposed to remember all those new logins for utilities and other essential services? That’s why we recommend it 1 Password. For $36 a year, it makes it easy to access on multiple devices. It can also store credit cards and other sensitive information. And most importantly, 1Password switches to toggle switches to access their accounts. A graduate won’t have to worry about someone guessing their master password and effectively accessing their entire digital life.

Money management will be more important than ever for recent graduates and Quicken’s Simplifying budgeting program can help them solve their financial problems. this our current favorite budgeting app and to the service we recommended most Mint users switch to after that service shut down earlier this year. We like Simplifi’s clean interface and overall ease of use: it’s a relatively painless process to connect all your accounts, including those with Fidelity, and the app then shows you things like recent spending, upcoming recurring payments, top spending categories, snapshots, and more. your current spending plan, etc. The app also does a nice job of categorizing transactions, and your graduate can do things like tag certain transactions as recurring, like a monthly phone bill. You can gift them a subscription to get started, but the standard price of $48 per year will hopefully be affordable enough that your gift recipient will continue to pay for it in the future if they find it useful.

To-do lists can help anyone stay organized, but free options (such as Google Keep) may not cut it for a graduate who suddenly has more classes to juggle. If so, they are a Todoist Pro subscription as a gift. While the free version already includes advanced features like filtering and labels, the $48/year Pro adds some really useful extras like reminders, automatic backups, more filters, and larger 100MB file uploads. Get access to multiple platforms and it’s an easy choice for those who know how to manage their personal and professional lives.

Graduates don’t have to stop learning just because they get their degree. Subscription Individual master class At $180 a year, it may seem expensive, but it can easily help graduates learn important personal and professional skills from (often famous) experts in a variety of fields. They can perfect their cooking with Gordon Ramsay or write with Margaret Atwood. Best of all, it’s not just about watching videos – students can follow a curriculum that involves completing real projects. Skillshare ($168 per year) may be more suitable if a new graduate values ​​creative skills first, but Masterclass may be worth the splurge for developing life skills or just for curiosity.

If you know an alum who has an iPhone and wants to fit in, an Apple Fitness+ it’s an easy gift to subscribe to. A relatively low $80 annual fee provides access to 12 types of workouts covering a wide range of durations and skill levels that can fit into a busy schedule. There are even audio-only jogging and walking workouts for those who prefer to exercise outside. The service works best when paired with an Apple Watch, but that’s no longer necessary — an iPhone is all they need to participate.

Peloton’s gear isn’t always an affordable gift for a graduate, but a Peloton One subscription of course it can be. A $13-a-month membership gives Android and iOS users access to Peloton’s renowned trainers as they guide you through a variety of workouts, including boot camps. It’s also an ideal gift if your recipient prefers structure – there are a number of programs that help develop skills such as running marathons. Add community elements (like seeing who else is participating in the same workout) and it can help newbies stay committed.

The graduate in your life has a chance to listen and subscribe to the music of their commute or work day. Apple Music ($99 per year) or Spotify Premium ($10 per month) should provide exactly what you’re looking for. Both of music streaming services offer ad-free streaming and offline access to large selections of songs and well-curated playlists on multiple devices — you can listen to Apple Music on your Android phone or play Spotify on your favorite game console.

The choice depends on the taste of the graduate. Apple Music has an obvious advantage for users heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, but if you want lossless or spatial audio, it’s also best. Spotify, meanwhile, has a strong social element, wider device support (especially for smart speakers), exclusive podcasts, and a hard-to-beat library of niche playlists.

There’s a real possibility that your gift recipient is already signed up for Amazon Prime Video or Netflix, but what if they want more? there a streaming service whom Disney+ a subscription may be useful. The $110-a-year ad-free plan ($8 a month with ads) won’t beat the bulk of its competitors, but it does provide access to a library that includes plenty of new and back-catalogue material from many of Disney’s biggest franchises. What graduates can see The Mandalorian it’s all about, or check out the Marvel Cinematic Universe before the next big movie comes out.

YouTube TV has been exposed to the price is flyingbut still the best live TV streaming service for most people, including recent graduates. The basic $73 monthly plan offers more than 100 channels, including multiple 24-hour news networks and live sports from ESPN. Extras also bring networks like HBO. There’s wide device support and unlimited cloud DVR storage means a graduate won’t have to miss a favorite show.