If you have some spare time, it can be a great investment in learning a new life skill. Interestingly, you don’t even have to go to a dedicated institute to learn; your smartphone 📱 is all you need.

There are many apps for Android and iOS that can help you learn a new skill from scratch. Whether you want to branch out to a different career or simply want to take a new hobby to make your life better, there is an app to help you.

In today’s post, I will list Android and iOS apps that will help you learn a new life skill or further hone your skills.

Learn to code

Coding is definitely a skill worth learning in this digital age. Whether you want to learn basic HTML and JavaScript to flex on friends or advance your career in creating video games with C , an app can make it happen. Mimo is a great app to learn to code, especially if you don’t have previous knowledge.

The app offers quick exercises to help you learn and apply code to create apps and websites. There are classes for JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Python, and more that you can take at your own pace. Most of the basic material is free, but you have to upgrade to Pro if you want to access advanced classes and hands-on exercises.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

Download Mimo on Android | iOS

Alternative to Mimo?

If you want a bit more advanced app, then SoloLearn is a better alternative. It offers free learning material on dozens of coding languages and personalizes it to your preferences. It also has a great community of coders where you can learn along with others. Its Pro version removes ads and lets you see SoloLearn users near you.

Download SoloLearn on Android | iOS

Learn First Aid

First aid is one of the best life skills you can learn to save your life and others. You also don’t need to have a medical background in studies to learn basic first aid solutions. The First Aid App by American Red Cross does an amazing job of helping learn common first aid scenarios using step-by-step instructions.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

There are also videos and animations to help your grasp complicating concepts, and all of this data is available offline. You can also call EMS right from the app in case of an emergency.

Download on Android | iOS

Learn a new language

Learning a new language is a great way to decrease cultural differences, and it’s perfect if you need to travel a lot. Duolingo is a great app to help you start learning a new language and improve reading, speaking, listening, and writing that particular language.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

You can learn over 35 languages, including Spanish, French, German, English, Korean, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Dutch, and many more. The app uses game-like lessons, mostly containing multiple-choice questions where you need to tell the answer in the language you want to learn. You can also read aloud sentences to improve your pronunciation.

You’ll level up and earn virtual coins for successfully passing tests, and there is also a section to track your progress. Best of all, the app is completely free to use with ad-support, and you can upgrade to the Pro version to remove ads.

Download on Android | iOS

Learn magic tricks

Whether you want to impress your nephews or do some street magic, an Android app can help you learn some cool magic tricks. Learn Magic Tricks is one of the best magic tricks; learning apps offer thousands of videos on magic tricks. The videos are divided into street magic, coin tricks, card tricks, beginner tricks, group magic tricks, etc.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

These videos are not by the developer, of course, but instead borrowed from YouTube. However, the developer has done a great job of compiling them and making it possible to view them online and download them to watch offline. The app is free to use but contains ads.

Download on Android

Business & marketing

If you are interested in starting an online business or marking your business online, then the Google Primer app has tons of content to get you started. Google Primer offers bite-sized lessons that you can spend 5-min every day learning about your interest topics.

You can learn about business planning, SEO, sales, advertising, social media, analytics, branding, marketing, website, and much more. Most of the lessons are given as flashcards, but some also require direct interaction from the user. You can choose from a list of topics you are interested in and keep track of your progress.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

The lessons are created by the Google Primer team or renowned entrepreneurs and writers like Josh McClain or Ryan Holiday. The app is completely free to use without any ads. Although some lessons directly come from brands which could seem a bit self-marketing.

Download on Android | iOS

Learn Math

Whether you are bad at math or want to improve your math skills further, Photomath is the right app to solve all your math problems. It’s a math learning app that helps you solve whatever math problem you provide and gives complete step-by-step instructions on how to do it.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

Not only it offers step-by-step instructions; it even offers multiple ways to solve a problem, making it perfect for learning math as you prefer. Besides basic problem solving, you can access interactive graphs, use a scientific calculator, view how-to animations, and much more.

Most Photomath functions are free, but you can upgrade to the Pro version to get extra features like word problem solutions, exclusive tips and explanations, and custom features that offer visual help.

Download on Android | iOS

Learn Meditation

Meditation is a great life skill to bring peace to your life and help improve focus. Headspace is one of the best meditation apps that offers beginners dedicated courses to meditate and reap the benefits immediately. The app focuses on tackling different issues using meditation techniques, including stress, anxiety, falling asleep or waking up, productivity, focus, pain, and more.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

Download Headspace on Android | iOS

If you already know the basics of meditation but looking for an app that can make sessions easier, then the app Calm might be a better alternative. The app offers 3 to 25min sessions of meditation where the app guides you specifically to cope with problems you want to fix, like stress or sleeplessness.

Download Calm on Android | iOS

There are more meditation apps and gadgets you can explore.

Learn to draw

You can learn to draw using step-by-step instructions with the app How to Draw. The app is for beginners, where it will help you draw an object by telling you the exact lines you need to draw. You can look at the steps and draw on paper or directly draw inside the app.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

All the drawings offered are basic pencil drawings but use different drawing styles. You can draw cartoon characters, animals, cars, trees, and much more. Each drawing contains 12-20 steps to complete.

The app is ad-supported, but all features are completely free; you can upgrade to the pro version to remove ads.

Download on Android | iOS

Improve typing speed

We all know how to type on our smartphones, but you might be interested in learning to type faster if you chat a lot. Typing Speed Test is an app to test your typing speed on the phone and help improve it. You need to type out a long paragraph over a given time, and the app will show you the results when the time is up.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

You’ll be given a score based on your typing speed and the mistakes you made. You can keep trying to beat this score to improve. There is also an option to take the test and your friends to see who can type faster. Overall, it’s a great app to check your typing speed and further improve it by taking tests regularly.

Download on Android

Workout without equipment

If you don’t want to go to the gym and don’t have workout equipment at home, it might be a good idea to learn how to use your body weight to work out at home. Home Workout is an exercise app that offers tutorials and instructions to workout from home without using any equipment.

Learn A New Skill In 2021 With These Apps Career

You can do chest, legs, abs, arms, and even full-body workouts using nothing but your own weight. There are dedicated warm-up exercises before you move to the main workout, and you can track your progress too. There are workout routines to build muscles or lose weight, focusing on different parts of your body.

Download on Android | iOS

Bonus app 😎

All the above apps help you learn or improve a specific skill. If the skill you are interested in learning isn’t mentioned here or are looking for an app that can help you learn any skill, give Udemy a try. Udemy is basically an online learning platform that offers thousands of video courses on different topics like coding, drawing, math, marketing, yoga, and over 2000 other topics.

There are both free and paid courses, and you can buy and download them for offline viewing.

Download Udemy on Android | iOS

If you are looking for completely free courses, then Khan Academy is another great app that offers thousands of courses and all of them for free.

Download Khan Academy on Android | iOS

Ending words

I will recommend you learn basic first aid as you might save someone’s life in case an unfortunate event occurs. Furthermore, learning a new language is not only good as a new skill, but it’s also excellent training for your brain. Best of all, you don’t need to dedicate much time to use these apps; 5-10min every day is more than enough to complete your daily lesson.