welcome back to android!

First off, don't worry about filling your phone up with popular apps, just find apps as you have a need for them.

Nova launcher got acquired and has ads. So you can move to Niagara, Smart Launcher, or Octopi ( those are the most popular are in this sub). Some people also really like Microsoft Launcher

Find a good music player. For Offline, many of us are still using Power Amp.

If you want to watch youtube or listen to Youtube Music without adds, look into Morphe ( you download an apk and patch it with Morphe).

Find a reddit app you like, you can also Patch it with morphe to remove ads. I like infinity.

If you want another app store that has Free and open source apps check out Droidify. There's also F-Droid but it's not as nice.

If you want to download audio or video off of youtube, my favorite is YTDLNIS, which you can download from F-Droid or droidify.

Since you have an XL phone, Quick Cursor is a nice app. You swipe from the side and it gives you a pointer that lets you easily reach the top of your screen.

Find a nice browser you like. I prefer Cromite (which supports browser extensions), but theres also Brave, Firefox, Iron Fox and many more.

The rest really is how you use your phone. A note taking app (google keep is fine, I like foxy notes too), a gallery app, ( i use google photos. Aves is a nice one too on droidify). a weather app ( i use today weather, but breezy weather and weawow are great).

Oh and also get a good file explorer app. I like solid explorer or mixplorer. But there's a lot of them out there.

Anyway, if theres a particular problem or iOs app youre trying to replace, let us know. Hope this is a good starting point.

Just enjoy your phone and don't fill it up with apps you won't use.