An Apple Watch app that could actually save your life by watching for irregular heart rhythms is just of one of the picks for this week’s “Awesome Apps of the Week.”
In addition, we’ve got a console-quality racing game, a new iOS web browser, and an app that will let you stream video to your Apple TV by simply dropping a video onto your Mac. Check out our picks below.
Apple Heart Study
Photo: Apple
Open to Apple Watch Series 1 and above users in the U.S., the Apple Heart Study is a watch app that could actually save your life — not exactly something that can be said about 99.9 percent of apps.
The app, which requires users to participate in a large-scale study, is a collaboration between Apple and Stanford Medicine. To measure heart rate and rhythm, it uses the Apple Watch’s LED sensor and light-sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through the wrist. Using artificial intelligence, Apple Watch can then isolate heart rhythms from other noise and identify irregular heartbeats.
While hopefully all of your readings will be normal, if the smartwatch identifies an irregular heart rhythm, the wearer receives a notification on their Apple Watch and iPhone, a free consultation with a study doctor, and an electrocardiogram (ECG) patch for additional monitoring. You can’t say fairer than that!
Available for: Apple Watch
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
Microsoft Edge
Photo: Microsoft
Okay, we get that Microsoft is the sworn enemy of Apple (or is that Google? Or Samsung? Or Qualcomm?), but a lot of folks still use Windows in addition to their iPhone.
That’s where Microsoft’s Edge web browser comes into play. Edge offers everything you would expect from a modern mobile browser, including a private browsing mode, voice search, and a QR code reader — in a way that will feel totally familiar to existing Edge users on Windows 10.
On top of that, it’s geared to playing nicely with your Microsoft account, with the ability to sync favorites, passwords, and reading lists between mobile and PC using your Microsoft account, in addition to “continue on PC” functionality.
It’s not yet perfect: there’s still no optimized tablet mode, nor optimization for the iPhone X’s Super Retina HD display either. However, if you simply must have Edge on your iPhone, Microsoft is here with an early Christmas gift.
Available for: iPhone
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
GRID Autosport
AAA racing game GRID Autosport raced into the iOS App Store this week, bringing “console-quality” graphics and gaming onto iPhones and iPads.
The game offers 100 real cars, great controls, and a whole lot of circuits — all for the one-off price of $9.99, with no additional charges for later content.
One word of advice, though: The game is pretty large. The actual download is 4GB in size, although a DLC pack is 912MB, and 623MB for the HD textures back. It’s well worth it, though!
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: $9.99
Get it from: App Store
DropStream
Photo: AirSquirrels
Apple makes it easy to move photos between iPhone, iPad, and Mac. But what if you have a video clip or audio file that you want to watch on your Apple TV? That’s a lot harder to do.
Fortunately, it no longer is — courtesy of a new app called DropStream. DropStream lets you drop a movie or audio track onto a Mac window, and have it immediately begin playing on your Apple TV (or Chromecast) with no additional steps. What could be simpler? To paraphrase Apple, “it just works.”
Available for: Mac
Cost: $9.99
Get it from: Squirrels Store
