Also any android apps that would be essential? Thanks everyone!
I'll preface this by saying... Enjoy your phone at first and DON'T unlock and root your device.
OK, now that I got that out of the way, you really should unlock and root your device.
You are going to get 100 different apps recommendations from 100 different people.
I'd give a bunch, but most of the ones I would suggest all require a rooted and unlocked phone. That's where all the COOL stuff happens.
You can load a custom recovery and do full, local backups of your phone (the stock recovery pretty much just factory resets). You can use apps like Titanium Backup in it's full strength, get the most out of automation apps like Tasker.... and tools like the Xposed Framework (which allows for some really cool features) require root.
That's where you 'get the most' out of your Nexus, but you can get your feet wet with Android first. As far as user apps are concerned, other than the widget stuff (which Apple doesn't do), all those apps you probably also get on an an iPhone. I mean, my go-to task and calender apps are Any.do and Cal... iOS peeps don't need to be told about those.
So if you want to take the red pill and go ahead and root and unlock, a couple of things: 1) It's a very easy and painless process if done following a few simple steps 2) The process is completely reversible back to bone, unmodified stock in case you need to return the phone for whatever reason and 3) Apple thinks people who jailbreak their phones are blaspheming troglodytes, Google's pretty agnostic towards root and the Google Play store is festooned with apps that require it.
And finally... you really have put in serious effort to brick a Nexus... trust me.... With a USB cable and a computer (With the Android SDK or Wugfresh's NRT toolkit loaded) you'll almost certainly be able to fix whatever screwed things up as long as the thing will turn on.