noteworthy apps - page 2

This isn’t the most practical app for everyone, but it’s certainly interesting to look at.

Re(play) features six clips of athletes being all athletic and stuff. High-speed cameras captured the footage at 236 frames per second, and you can either watch the maneuvers play out or scrub back and forth to study the movements in detail. That could be nice for people studying movement for art or animation.

But even if you don’t have any professional or artistic need for Re(play), it’s really just kind of hypnotic to watch.

Source:Re(play) – Free | JC Pinheiro

Spring is here, and–holy crap, do you see that bird? No, the other bird. It’s over by the tree. No, the tree by the shrub. Yeah. That bird there. Do we have those here, or is it some kind of bird-stranger?

Local Birds will help keep inane, interminable thought processes like that one from happening. You tell it your location, and it shows you birds in order of commonality to your region. So when I told people the other day that I saw a Western Scrub Jay, and they were like, “Nuh-uh,” and I was all, “Uh-huh”?

I can totally prove that that was possible now.

Source:Local Birds – Free | Thomas Benner

I know that your iPhone already has a calculator in it, but here’s a specialty app for people who suffer from the curse of Man Thumbs.

SwipyCalc is a basic calculator that gives all the screen space to the numbers. Only the numbers. You enter your basic functions — adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing — with swipes in one of four directions. It’s fast and easy, especially once you realize that the comma in the lower left corner is what you use for a decimal point.

Unless you’re in one of the 60+ countries that uses the decimal comma. That won’t slow you down at all.

Source:SwipyCalc – Free | Domenico Scalambrino

This new self-improvement app from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance has a simple premise: Trying to do everything is hard, but doing one thing isn’t.

Sounds obvious, but what you do here is select a few habits you’d like to form; pre-loaded examples include drinking more water, inviting friends over, and going to bed early. You can also devise your own if you want to do something that isn’t on the list. The app sets goals, and you check them off when you do them. Eventually, you can “commit” to doing a thing without prompting and start on something else.

Source:Do One Thing by SCCA – Free | 2Morrow Mobile

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration.

This time, our picks include a donut locator, a good-looking scheduler and a quick house-hunting app.

Here you go:

I’m kind of obsessed with monitoring and comparing numbers like blog views and podcast downloads. It’s probably a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I made up my own word for it: “metriculous.”

Whether is an app that satisfies that part of your brain, if you have it. It lets you compare today’s temperature, precipitation, wind, and humidity to the same day last year. The temperature panel is free, but you can unlock the rest — and any future ones — for $2.99.

So it’s basically a cool-looking weather app with an extra layer of trivia on top of it for crazy people inquisitive, metriculous types.

Whether App – Free | Sturmware

It can be stressful when you have way too much stuff to do and it’s hard to keep track of everything.

Candooit is a new app that lets you add your obligations with a few simple gestures and then presents it all in an attractive, easy-to-read infographic. Once you select the type of activity (the app includes eight color-coded categories with numerous sub-items), you drag left and right to set the start time and up and down to set the duration. You can make notes, view by week or month, and even sync with your Google calendar.

And the busier you are, the cooler it looks. So that might actually be kinda dangerous.

CandooIt – Free | Panurge

Not everything in the App Store has to be a Swiss Army knife. Sometimes, you find an app that does one thing and does the heck out of it.

Doughbot is one such app. It tells you where you can buy donuts.

You can also get directions, read Yelp reviews, and look at pictures from Instagram, but that’s just overkill. I can count on one finger the number of bad donuts I’ve had in my life. Just point me toward the nearest besprinkled blip on the map so that I can start pointing at lumps of fried dough I’d like to cram into my face.

Doughbot – $0.99 | Timothy Tolbert

House hunting can be stressful and annoying, especially if you’ve never done it before. But the Doorsteps Swipe app wants to help you out by letting you quickly look through a bunch of listings in your desired location, then reject or save them with a single swipe. It also compiles data (average price, number of beds and baths, etc.) on the ones you’ve liked so you can get some idea what you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any cloud houses or big shells yet. But I haven’t gotten all the way through the list yet.

Doorsteps Swipe – Free | Move, Inc.

House hunting can be stressful and annoying, especially if you’ve never done it before. But the Doorsteps Swipe app wants to help you out by letting you quickly look through a bunch of listings in your desired location, then reject or save them with a single swipe. It also compiles data (average price, number of beds and baths, etc.) on the ones you’ve liked so you can get some idea what you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any cloud houses or big shells yet. But I haven’t gotten all the way through the list yet.

Source:Doorsteps Swipe – Free | Move, Inc.

Not everything in the App Store has to be a Swiss Army knife. Sometimes, you find an app that does one thing and does the heck out of it.

Doughbot is one such app. It tells you where you can buy donuts.

You can also get directions, read Yelp reviews, and look at pictures from Instagram, but that’s just overkill. I can count on one finger the number of bad donuts I’ve had in my life. Just point me toward the nearest besprinkled blip on the map so that I can start pointing at lumps of fried dough I’d like to cram into my face.

Source:Doughbot – $0.99 | Timothy Tolbert

It can be stressful when you have way too much stuff to do, and it’s hard to keep track of everything.

Candooit is a new app that lets you add your obligations with a few simple gestures and then presents it all in an attractive, easy-to-read infographic. Once you select the type of activity (the app includes eight color-coded categories with numerous sub-items), you drag left and right to set the start time and up and down to set the duration. You can make notes, view by week or month, and even sync with your Google calendar.

And the busier you are, the cooler it looks. So that might actually be kinda dangerous.

Source:CandooIt – Free | Panurge

I’m kind of obsessed with monitoring and comparing numbers like blog views and podcast downloads. It’s probably a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I made up my own word for it: “metriculous.”

Whether is an app that satisfies that part of your brain, if you have it. It lets you compare today’s temperature, precipitation, wind, and humidity to the same day last year. The temperature panel is free, but you can unlock the rest — and any future ones — for $2.99.

So it’s basically a cool-looking weather app with an extra layer of trivia on top of it for crazy people inquisitive, metriculous types.

Source:Whether App – Free | Sturmware

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a network diagnostic tool, some laundry guidance, and a reminder that Reno 911! was a thing.

Here you go:

If your Internet connection is dragging, and you have no idea why, NetHero can offer some helpful tips to get you back up to speed. You just register, and it will check out all the devices on your home network to give you a general idea of whether or not they’re working properly. You can also download the app to your individual devices like your laptop to run speed checks and get alerts and advice that will hopefully get your devices running better and save you some aggrivation.

NetHero – Free | Pie Digital

When it comes to doing laundry, I’m a “just throw it all in, cold wash, walk away” kind of person. And that’s equal parts no time, ignorance, laziness, and the fact that my washer and dryer have coin slots in them. But here’s an app that lays the entire laundry process out for you if you care enough to do it right.

Complete Laundry Care takes you through the entire process starting with sorting and ending with folding, and it offers an abundance of helpful tips along the way. Most of these involve reading the care label, but it also taught me what the hell all those symbols on the label mean. The more you know.

Complete Laundry Care – Free | Renowne, LLC

If you have a cool story or a handy travel tip you’d like to share, Grawler will let you. It’s a new app that wikis up the world by having its community add photos, waypoints, and descriptions of their favorite destinations. And if you happen to live in a less-than-popular travel destination *cough*Lincoln*cough*, it comes preloaded with articles from Wikipedia.

And since I’m pretty sure nobody else in the community has this kind of insider information, I think I’ll go ahead and create my definitive guide to private places to sneak naps on the University of Nebraska campus. Worldly travelers need to know that.

Grawler: The Local Wiki – Free | Cosmix

If you’re on the go and missed last night’s episode of The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s new official app can hook you up. It offers a wide selection of programming, including talk shows, series, and standalone shorts. All the new stuff is right there for the viewing, but you’ll have to go through a cable-company login to check out everything else.

Just be aware of your surroundings. You don’t want to be another crazy person laughing on the bus.

Comedy Central – Free | Comedy Central

Maybe you’re walking down the street, and you see a squirrel fighting a feral cat over half of a hot dog. That’s awesome, and you must capture it.

But what if a construction crew is ripping up the sidewalk 50 feet away, and you don’t need that messing up this amazing moment? That’s what Hush does: It captures video without sound. It even preformats your video in an Instagram-friendly square format so that your friends can cheer on that plucky undersquirrel as soon as possible.

Plus, it’ll save them the embarrassment of having the noise of a thousand shrieking metal demons blasting out of their phone in public. They’ll owe you one.

Hush – Free | Zhukovskiy

Maybe you’re walking down the street, and you see a squirrel fighting a feral cat over half of a hot dog. That’s awesome, and you must capture it.

But what if a construction crew is ripping up the sidewalk 50 feet away, and you don’t need that messing up this amazing moment? That’s what Hush does: It captures video without sound. It even preformats your video in an Instagram-friendly square format so that your friends can cheer on that plucky undersquirrel as soon as possible.

Plus, it’ll save them the embarrassment of having the noise of a thousand shrieking metal demons blasting out of their phone in public. They’ll owe you one.

Source:Hush – Free | Zhukovskiy

If you’re on the go and missed last night’s episode of The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s new official app can hook you up. It offers a wide selection of programming, including talk shows, series, and standalone shorts. All the new stuff is right there for the viewing, but you’ll have to go through a cable-company login to check out everything else.

Just be aware of your surroundings. You don’t want to be another crazy person laughing on the bus.

Source:Comedy Central – Free | Comedy Central

If you have a cool story or a handy travel tip you’d like to share, Grawler will let you. It’s a new app that wikis up the world by having its community add photos, waypoints, and descriptions of their favorite destinations. And if you happen to live in a less-than-popular travel destination *cough*Lincoln*cough*, it comes preloaded with articles from Wikipedia.

And since I’m pretty sure nobody else in the community has this kind of insider information, I think I’ll go ahead and create my definitive guide to private places to sneak naps on the University of Nebraska campus. Worldly travelers need to know that.

Source:Grawler: The Local Wiki – Free | Cosmix

When it comes to doing laundry, I’m a “just throw it all in, cold wash, walk away” kind of person. And that’s equal parts no time, ignorance, laziness, and the fact that my washer and dryer have coin slots in them. But here’s an app that lays the entire laundry process out for you if you care enough to do it right.

Complete Laundry Care takes you through the entire process starting with sorting and ending with folding, and it offers an abundance of helpful tips along the way. Most of these involve reading the care label, but it also taught me what the hell all those symbols on the label mean. The more you know.

Source:Complete Laundry Care – Free | Renowne, LLC

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include _____, _____, and _____.

Here you go:

Idea Maker Flashcards is a new app that hopes to get your creativity going by showing you different ways to think about and approach your work. It also includes video examples of each of them for you visual learners out there.

It’s intended mostly for marketers and public-relations folks, but even people outside of those industries might be interested in some of the projects. Like the story of the Dortmund Concert Hall, which raised its attendance and membership by selling milk from cows that had listened to the upcoming symphonic program.

No, really.

Idea Maker Flashcards – Free | Hoboglobal Intergalaktik

Picking the right word can be challenging. Or maybe you’re just trying to make yourself sound smart by using something that would be a formidable figure on a Scrabble board. Either way, Thesaurasize can get you those synonyms but quick. All you do is type in the boring word you’re starting with, and it spits out a list of other candidates.

Just make sure you read the definitions Thesaurasize provides so that you know what the synonyms mean, though. You don’t want come off sounding fatuitous.

Thesaurasize – Free | Next Wave Services Inc.

I’ve always been interested in origami, but it’s been hard to find directions that consistently make sense. It’s all dashed lines and dotted lines and arrows pointing in vague directions, and it’s supposed to be relaxing, damn it. But Origami Club is here to help you out with video tutorials in which a pair of helping hands walk you through the entire process, even pausing occasionally to point out details on potentially complicated steps.

The videos are also surprisingly calming just to watch even if you don’t end up with a little mouse or whatever. But I think you want to end up with a little mouse.

Origami Club – Free | Alexey Liger

Your days of endlessly hitting “Refresh” to see if a price has come down may be over (unless you like that sort of thing). Punchr is a new app that will monitor any part of a web page for updates and then let you know when it happens. You just navigate to the site and then select the part of it you want to look out for, and it’ll send you a push notification if something changes.

So now you can spend less time refreshing Twitter when it’s down and more time taking pictures of your lunch to post on Twitter when it returns.

Punchr Page Monitor – Free | BitMelter Ltd

I don’t have a lot of time to read, so it’s always nice to find an app to help me out there. SprintReader employs <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_serial_visual_presentation”rapid serial visual presentation to let you read one of a selection of classic (i.e. public-domain) works with haste.

You get a box, and the words appear one at a time. They always appear in the same place, so you just plunk your eyes there and let the text come to you. The selections are a bit limited right now, but if you’ve never read Pride and Prejudice or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, now might be a good time.

SprintReader – Free | Robert McBride

If your Internet connection is dragging, and you have no idea why, NetHero can offer some helpful tips to get you back up to speed. You just register, and it will check out all the devices on your home network to give you a general idea of whether or not they’re working properly. You can also download the app to your individual devices like your laptop to run speed checks and get alerts and advice that will hopefully get your devices running better and save you some aggrivation.

Source:NetHero – Free | Pie Digital

I don’t have a lot of time to read, so it’s always nice to find an app to help me out there. SprintReader employs rapid serial visual presentation to let you read one of a selection of classic (i.e. public-domain) works with haste.

You get a box, and the words appear one at a time. They always appear in the same place, so you just plunk your eyes there and let the text come to you. The selections are a bit limited right now, but if you’ve never read Pride and Prejudice or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, now might be a good time.

Source:SprintReader – Free | Robert McBride

Your days of endlessly hitting “Refresh” to see if a price has come down may be over (unless you like that sort of thing). Punchr is a new app that will monitor any part of a web page for updates and then let you know when it happens. You just navigate to the site and then select the part of it you want to look out for, and it’ll send you a push notification if something changes.

So now you can spend less time refreshing Twitter when it’s down and more time taking pictures of your lunch to post on Twitter when it returns.

Source:Punchr Page Monitor – Free | BitMelter Ltd

I’ve always been interested in origami, but it’s been hard to find directions that consistently make sense. It’s all dashed lines and dotted lines and arrows pointing in vague directions, and it’s supposed to be relaxing, damn it. But Origami Club is here to help you out with video tutorials in which a pair of helping hands walk you through the entire process, even pausing occasionally to point out details on potentially complicated steps.

The videos are also surprisingly calming just to watch even if you don’t end up with a little mouse or whatever. But I think you want to end up with a little mouse.

Source:Origami Club – Free | Alexey Liger

Picking the right word can be challenging. Or maybe you’re just trying to make yourself sound smart by using something that would be a formidable figure on a Scrabble board. Either way, Thesaurasize can get you those synonyms but quick. All you do is type in the boring word you’re starting with, and it spits out a list of other candidates.

Just make sure you read the definitions Thesaurasize provides so that you know what the synonyms mean, though. You don’t want come off sounding fatuitous.

Source:Thesaurasize – Free | Next Wave Services Inc.

Idea Maker Flashcards is a new app that hopes to get your creativity going by showing you different ways to think about and approach your work. It also includes video examples of each of them for you visual learners out there.

It’s intended mostly for marketers and public-relations folks, but even people outside of those industries might be interested in some of the projects. Like the story of the Dortmund Concert Hall, which raised its attendance and membership by selling milk from cows that had listened to the upcoming symphonic program.

No, really.

Source:Idea Maker Flashcards – Free | Hoboglobal Intergalaktik

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a sleep meter, an app that’s all ads, and something to help you get home safely.

Here you go:

I know I don’t get enough sleep, but I’m kinda dumb, so sometimes I need to look at pictures to really put things into perspective. That’s where SleepBattery comes in. You tell it how old you are, and it suggests how much sleep you should be getting every night. When you go to bed, you tap a button, and the screen-sized battery begins to fill. When you wake up, you tap the screen again, and the battery begins to drain.

When it’s completely empty, it tells you to go to bed. And I probably won’t, but it’s nice to know the app cares.

SleepBattery – Free | Max Haubold

Hey, did you know that the Veronica Mars movie is out now? I didn’t until I saw it listed on HypeDrive. I’m not interested in the Veronica Mars movie, but good looking out, HypeDrive.

It’s an app that lets you keep track of all the movies, TV shows, games, and other projects that interest you. You can add them to a list to stay up-to-date, but that requires a login. If you don’t feel like registering, you can also just look stuff up, but it won’t save. You’ll have to write it down or something. Like a caveman.

Hypedrive – Free | Hypedrive LLC

Sometimes, I’m standing in the produce section of my local grocery store, and I see fruit I’ve never even heard of before. And while nobody has developed an app that will let me taste them to see if they’re any good, Wholesome gives a pretty good idea of how good it is for me.

The app groups everything, mostly by color, but it also has categories for spices, meat and seafood, dairy, etc. You just pick your group and food, and then the information is all there for your perusal. You can even adjust quantities if you’re working from a recipe.

That fruit-tasting idea is free, by the way. Somebody please get on that.

Wholesome – Free | Sachin Hegde

Bind is kind of a weird idea for an app, but then again, I know people who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials. So if you want big companies to try to sell you things without all that pesky programming getting in the way, here’s where you should go.

It collects ads. Just ads. Do you want to watch ads? Bind has all the ads including movie trailers and those ones people at work were attempting to describe (poorly) the day after the Big Game. And you can rate and share your favorites with your friends.

So at the very least, it’ll save you a trip to YouTube.

Bind – Free | Bind Group LTD.

So maybe one night you’re stumbling to your car and realize you really shouldn’t be driving. And also you’re so drunk that Siri can’t understand you. And the buttons in your contact list are so small.

Enter Too Drunk To Drive, an app that hopes to keep you from ending up dead in a molten hell of metal and glass. You pre-program it with the numbers of your local cab company or a reliable friend, and then all you have to do is plunk your drunken thumb down on one of the app’s two enormous and clearly labeled buttons.

Giving the other person directions is still up to you, though. So good luck with that.

Too Drunk To Drive – Free | Steffen Lund Andersen

So maybe one night you’re stumbling to your car and realize you really shouldn’t be driving. And also you’re so drunk that Siri can’t understand you. And the buttons in your contact list are so small.

Enter Too Drunk To Drive, an app that hopes to keep you from ending up dead in a molten hell of metal and glass. You preprogram it with the numbers of your local cab company or a reliable friend, and then all you have to do is plunk your drunken thumb down on one of the app’s two enormous and clearly labeled buttons.

Giving the other person directions is still up to you, though. So good luck with that.

Source:Too Drunk To Drive – Free | Steffen Lund Andersen

Bind is kind of a weird idea for an app, but then again, I know people who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials. So if you want big companies to try to sell you things without all that pesky programming getting in the way, here’s where you should go.

It collects ads. Just ads. Do you want to watch ads? Bind has all the ads including movie trailers and those ones people at work were attempting to describe (poorly) the day after the Big Game. And you can rate and share your favorites with your friends.

So at the very least, it’ll save you a trip to YouTube.

Source:Bind – Free | Bind Group LTD.

Sometimes, I’m standing in the produce section of my local grocery store, and I see fruit I’ve never even heard of before. And while nobody has developed an app that will let me taste them to see if they’re any good, Wholesome gives a pretty good idea of how good it is for me.

The app groups everything, mostly by color, but it also has categories for spices, meat and seafood, dairy, etc. You just pick your group and food, and then the information is all there for your perusal. You can even adjust quantities if you’re working from a recipe.

That fruit-tasting idea is free, by the way. Somebody please get on that.

Source:Wholesome – Free | Sachin Hegde