This Week’s Must-Have iOS Apps: Slices For Twitter, Cardiio, Posts & More [Roundup]

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Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a brand new Twitter client called Slices, which claims to be the world’s first Twitter app that allows you to break your timeline into individual streams, follow live events, browse Twitter by category, and more. We also have a “magical” app called Cardiio that accurately monitors your heart rate simply by looking at your face; the best blogging app for iPad yet called Pages; and more.

Slices for Twitter — iPhone (Free)

Still looking for that perfect Twitter client? If you’re tried all the Twitter apps in the App Store and still not found the right one for you, then check out Slices. It promises a “cutting-edge design, loads of features, and remarkable speed and responsiveness.”

It also claims to be the world’s first Twitter app that lets you browse a Twitter directory by category, follow live events, slice your timeline into individual streams, and more. “It brings content discovery to the forefront and solves some of the biggest frustrations users have with the Twitter experience.”

In addition to its unique features, Slices sports a clean user interface, support for up to five Twitter accounts, the ability to post to Facebook, the option to hide certain tweets without unfollowing anyone, and lots more. Slices is free with ads, and if you like it — which I’m sure you will — you can upgrade for $4.99.

Cardiio — iPhone ($4.99)

Cardiio puts award-winning technology in the palm of your hands with an app that transforms your iPhone into an a touch-free heart rate monitor. It uses your front-facing camera to analyze the amount of light reflected off of your face, and promises to accurately measure your pulse without any additional hardware.

Cardiio’s technology is based on cutting-edge research and science conducted at the MIT Media Lab. The measurement principles are the same as clinical pulse oximeters. Every time your heart beats, more blood rushes through the vessels in your face, causing them to expand. The increase in blood volume absorbs more light, resulting in a decrease in the amount of light reflected from your face. Using sophisticated software, your iPhone’s front camera can track these tiny variations in light that are invisible to the naked eye to calculate your heart rate.

According to the app’s developers, studies have shown that Cardiio’s heart rate measurements are within 3 bpm of a clinical pulse oximeter when performed in a well-lit environment. It doesn’t just read your heart rate, either — Cardiio also keeps a track of it, so you can look back over previous tests. The scariest bit? Cardiio will even tell you your potential life expectancy.

Cardiio is one of those apps that wows you the first time you use it, because you never thought your iPhone was capable of these things without expensive accessories. It’s well worth its $4.99 price tag; go check it out!

Posts — iPad ($9.99)

We wrote about Posts last week, but it’s certainly worth another mention. If you’re a blogger, it’s the app you should be using to get stuff done on your iPad while you’re on the go. Cult of Mac’s test editor, Charlie Sorrel, wrote a full review on this — which is well worth a read — so I won’t go into too much detail. But some of the app’s features include support for Blogger and WordPress, comment management, and offline working.

All your posts are presented by the date they were last saved or published, and you can tap a date on the built-in calendar to quickly find the content you’re looking for. There’s both an HTML and rich text editor, and you can quickly switch between the two while you’re working. Adding images and videos is simple, and you can even resize them right within Posts before you embed them.

As a full-time blogger, I’ve used just about every blogging app the App Store has to offer, and Posts is by far my favorite yet.

Vintique — Universal ($0.99)

If you love the effects Instagram adds to your images, but you’re not always keen on sharing those images, Vintique is a terrific substitute. There are 32 vintage filters to choose from; the ability to alter brightness, contrast, saturation, vibrance, temperature, exposure and more; and more than 40 frames.

Once complete, you can save your images to your camera roll. And it you do choose to share them once you’ve finished editing, you can do so via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or email.

TuneWiki — iPhone (Free)

TuneWiki is a new music player that has one special feature: as you listen to your favorite tracks, TuneWiki presents scrolling lyrics from the world’s largest lyrics database in over 40 languages. It also offers lyrics and photo sharing, as well as artist biographies and their catalog of music.

It also has a nifty way of discovering new music, by following the “top fans” of your favorite artists and viewing their music recommendations.

What’s Your Favorite?

So that concludes our list of this week’s must-have iOS apps. If you’ve picked up something that you think we should have included, be sure to let us know about it in the comments.

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