Ian Fuchs - page 6

With podcasts increasing in popularity, Castro has been one of the top third-party podcast players on the market. In version 2, Castro changed the way users manage their unplayed episodes with their podcast triage system. While it was a great update, and included some gorgeous design touches, it was missing some key listening features. With version 3, Castro adds in users most requested features to make it a truly great podcast player.

Reading books. It’s something we’ve all done at some point in our lives. People read for fun, learning or taking a break. The trouble is, having a huge collection of books takes up space and can literally weigh you down.

E-books are the solution, and the Kindle app is an excellent way to enjoy the world of literature without straining your back or your physical space. With the Kindle app, you can carry an entire library’s worth of books on your iPad or iPhone.

How many logins and passwords do you have? If the answer is more than one, then ask yourself how many accounts use the same password? If that answer isn’t zero, you need Dashlane. Reused and weak passwords are one of the biggest vulnerabilities on the modern web, but remembering a bunch of unique and complex passwords is nearly impossible. What isn’t hard is using your thumb or face to open a password manager with all your strong passwords.

Every day, millions of people watch more than a billion hours of video on YouTube. More than half of those views come from mobile devices.

From tutorials and tech reviews to vlogs and movie trailers, YouTube is the largest video sharing service in the world, growing at a rate of 300 hours of content every minute (that’s an average of 18,000 minutes being uploaded every minute of every day). If you’re not using the YouTube app to dive into this ocean of video content, you’re not doing it right.

Not all tasks are simple or straightforward. Sometimes a task involve multiple complex or repetitive steps. Having the ability to use a “program” to do these tasks quickly and easily makes you more efficient. Unfortunately, we aren’t all programmers. Workflow for iOS makes performing complex or repetitive tasks a breeze, all without needing to know a programming language.

The iPhone and iPad are arguably one of the most powerful computers most of us own. While much argument has been had as to whether you can do real work on iOS, apps are a proving ground for what an iOS device is capable of. Coda for iOS harnesses the power of iOS to make a feature rich programming app, turning your iOS device into a shell terminal, FTP client, remote file viewer, and pocketable coding app.

Email is a necessary evil. Whether it’s personal communications, work-related updates or the latest sale at your favorite store, email is something we deal with nearly every day.

After trying dozens of email apps over the past eight years, Astro is the best email app I’ve come across, and the first that I both recommend and enjoy using.

There has been a lot of talk about online security lately. Having good internet habits is important, and using a good VPN like BulletVPN features is a great way to make sure your data doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. Encrypt.me is an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand VPN app for iOS (and Mac, Android and Windows) that can help keep you safe.

Podcasts are a great way to stay informed and entertained, or just to pass time. The number of podcasts is booming, and if you listen efficiently you can hear even more of them.

With the Overcast podcast app for iOS, you get a great podcast listening experience along with some awesome time-saving features.

iTunes and the App Store are two of the best online stores for buying digital content like movies and books. They’re also really good at getting you (the customer) to spend money. CheapCharts for iOS is the perfect companion to the App Store and iTunes Store, helping you get apps and digital content at the best price possible.

Have you ever visited a website, only to be bombarded with pop-ups, ads and “dickbars“? Purify ad blocker for iOS will kick those annoying JavaScript trackers and ads to the curb, providing you a faster, more private browsing experience.

Public transportation can be a nightmare. Traveling in an unfamiliar city or relying on trains and buses to get around can leave you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

Transit for iPhone makes finding train bus, and subway schedules simple. With support for more than 80 U.S. cities and dozens more around the world, it is one of the most useful apps for making the right choice of transportation.

While there are dozens of note-taking and writing apps available on iOS, few strike the balance of rich features and simple design the way Drafts does. Whether you’re looking for a quick way to digitally jot down a passing thought, take notes in a meeting, or store an address or phone number, the Drafts app makes it easy to quickly capture text before taking action.

The iPhone’s camera is arguably one of the best cameras most people will use for capturing life moments. Sometimes, though, those photos don’t turn out quite as perfect as you hope. The iOS Camera and Photos apps have some basic editing tools, but if you’re looking for more fine-tuned tweaks, Snapseed is a powerful, free photo editor for iOS that helps revive and tweak your shots.

Knowing when to answer a call from an unknown number is a game of chance. It might be a family emergency, or it might be a scammer trying to rip you off. Hiya Caller ID and Block is a simple iOS app that attempts to determine whether incoming phone calls are telemarketers, spam, or something worth picking up for.

Weather is something we all deal with, and an accurate idea of what’s coming can help inform your day-to-day decisions. With the Dark Sky Weather app, you can know exactly when to expect a change in weather conditions.

Unlike many of its competitors, Dark Sky goes deeper than a simple high-level summary of the day’s forecast. It offers hyperlocal forecasts for your exact address, with down-to-the-minute notifications about changing weather conditions. Uncannily accurate, it’s a shining ray of light in the storm of weather apps.

As online shopping becomes an integral part of our lives, one pain point remains: Keeping track of when all our precious packages will arrive.

That’s why online shoppers will love iOS package-tracking app Deliveries. It eliminates the irritation of keeping track of where packages are and when they’re going to be delivered. Forget about dealing with the nightmare of order-confirmation emails and online accounts. Deliveries consolidates info on all the packages in transit to your home. Then it lets you keep tabs via a single timeline in an easy-to-use app.

With a mind-boggling 2.2 million apps in Apple’s iOS App Store, how do you find what’s good? That discovery problem is why we’re starting the 50 Essential iOS Apps series, a curated list of the best iOS apps on the planet, with new apps added every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Throughout this series, we will highlight essential iPhone and iPad apps in a variety of categories. We will show off apps that display excellent design, functionality, features and value. Or, most often, a combination of those desirable traits. Whether you’re looking to boost your productivity, take advantage of important data or just have a little fun, we’ll recommend great iOS apps to suit your needs.

CHICAGO — Apple’s vision for the future of the classroom is clear: Students armed with iPads and quality apps, and instructors leveraging creative teaching methods. Laying the groundwork for a combination of interactive group projects, immersive audio and video experiences, and some gamification, Apple thinks students will find greater success in schools through the use technology.

With yesterday’s big educational event behind us, we know a lot more about Apple’s vision for the classroom of the future.

During Apple’s big education event tomorrow, we undoubtedly will hear Cupertino’s grand plan for reshaping the classroom. Just as Apple predicted that the future of television is apps, what if the future of classrooms and textbooks is also apps?

It’s time to consider what Apple’s rumored new ClassKit framework will mean for students and teachers — and what role a new, cheaper iPad could play in education.