Get a free iOS app every day from AppGratis

AppGratis finds a daily freebie that's worth your time.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)

There are countless ways to find free apps for your iPhone, iPod, or iPad. You can peruse the App Store. You can subscribe to a Twitter feed like 148Apps Now Free. Heck, you can even use an app; I continue to be a fan of Appsfire Deals, which serves up a huge helping of freebies every day, right on your iDevice.

But here's the thing. Sometimes you don't want a seemingly endless list of unknown apps to wade through. You want a personal recommendation, like from a friend who says, "Hey, I found a great freebie today, check it out."

That's the idea behind AppGratis, a free app that tells you about other free apps -- but only one per day. Each is hand-picked, tested, and reviewed, so there's a good chance it's something cool and worthwhile, not some crummy waste of space. Plus, most of the apps are those that usually cost money, but happen to be free on that day (and only that day).

Today, for example, AppGratis has PicShop HD, a highly rated photo editor with lots of frames, filters, effects, and overlays. It normally sells for $4.99. What's so great about it? AppGratis provides a brief hands-on overview, not just boilerplate description from the developer. If it sounds good, a couple taps is all it takes to fetch it directly from the App Store.

I should clarify that although AppGratis will deliver only one push notification per day, it actually lists a couple freebies (and/or discounted apps). So while PicShop is today's primary "gratis" app, you'll also find Fera HD for iPad (free) and animated e-book Puss in Boots HD (discounted 75 percent to 99 cents).

And that's pretty much everything you need to know. Where most freebie aggregators overwhelm you with options, this one separates the wheat from the chaff to bring you one or two gems per day. Color me impressed.

Have you found a better way to score free apps? Tell me about it in the comments!