Reviews - page 68

The company we know as Strapple (a company featured in Cult of Mac’s Watch Store) sounded a bit too much like the maker of Apple Watch. The tiny brand speedily changed its name to Strapa and doubled-down with the release of one of its most striking Apple Watch bands yet — the Primus.

Strapa explains Apple’s (minor) involvement in its sudden name change and site relaunch. During this transition, this company continues to make some of the best leather bands we’ve worn. The Primus Apple Watch Band is the latest in Strapa’s lineup.

For the last few years, health has been a key focus area for Apple. Fitness tracking, sleep tracking, nutrition tracking, mindfulness and even reproductive health have made their way into the Health app. Unfortunately, when it comes to your sexual wellbeing, Apple’s offering is pretty minimal. With Clue: Period and Ovulation Tracker, you can track a wide range of physical and mental details and gain useful insights into patterns and abnormalities in your natural cycle.

Spect is in the one-thing-well school, apps that focus on a single task and make that task as easy and fast as possible. And because Spect comes from Panic developer Steven Frank, it does its task very well indeed.

So what is Spect? It’s a Mac image browser app that lets you dump folders containing thousands of images onto it, and then speed through them, viewing, culling, selecting and deleting along the way.

Some of the most useful apps on iOS take system features and turn them up to 11. For a few years, the photos app has had basic markup tools but it’s felt underwhelming and lacked pro features. Annotable for iPhone and iPad adds pro-level annotation and markup tools to highlight or hide whatever you want in an image.

A wireless charger for your iPhone is very convenient, and now you don’t have to miss out when you’re on the road. The mophie Charge Stream Travel Kit includes a travel-size Qi wireless charger and the add-ons to use it in a hotel room or even your car.

This mobile charging kit currently sells for $49.95 on Amazon, and is compatible with the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus. It also works with any Qi-compatible phone or accessory. Don’t miss our hands-on review. 

If you’re learning to play the guitar, then you will constantly be looking up two things: Scales and chords. After you get a bit further into it, you’ll add arpeggios to that list. And you will keep referencing them for years, becasue there are a zillion way to play each chord, scale, or arpeggio on the guitar. And here’s the problem. Reference materials for these three essentials are a pain to use. Either you spend more time clicking around an app than you do practicing, or you have to keep a ton of PDFs around, and try to keep those organized. Now, though, a super simple (maybe too-simple) app finally ge ts it right. It’s called Fretbud, and I love it.

For the last few years, discussions about whether you can do “real work” on iOS have circled the internet. One of the most commonly cited issues with iOS was the lack of a file browser. In iOS 11, Apple gave us the Files app, but it suffers from some major limitations. Documents by Readdle takes the file management on iOS to the next level.

Just how much aluminum and glass can you take? If you’re a longtime Apple fan but you’re getting bored with your devices’ sleek surfaces, wood could be the answer.

In particular, wrapping your iPhone in a wooden case from Rustek might cure you of your aluminum ennui. With eye-catching graphics made of laser-cut wood veneers, these cases look really different.

Menace Synth is aptly named. This experimental iOS synth starts off sounding cranky, and rapidly goes downhill from there. Let’s check it out.

This is less of a review, and more of a heads-up. If you’re looking for a desktop iPad stand, then you should probably just go ahead and buy the AboveTek Elegant Aluminium iPad Stand Swivel Stand.

Yes, I’m serious. It may be a no-brand Chinese commodity gadget, sold under different names by different sellers, but it’s also the best iPad desk stand I’ve ever used.

If you’ve ever done a freelance project, worked as a consultant, or spent any time being self employed, you know how important keeping track of time spent working can be. Some people prefer to log their time on a sheet of paper, while others have little routines to mark the start and stop of work. Hours for iPhone is a time tracking app designed to make logging your time easy.

Since its introduction, the iPad has slowly won over new markets of people. Over the past couple years, photo and image editing apps have found a home on Apple’s tablet. Pixelmator for iOS takes photo editing and graphic design on iOS to a new level, bringing a photoshop-like experience to your fingertips.

The Newton MessagePad is simultaneously one of Apple’s biggest flops and one of the company’s most underrated products.

A series of PDA devices available during the 1990s, today Newtons are much-sought-after relics among a group of enthusiastic Apple fans. These collectors recognize the devices for the forward-looking gadgets they truly were. The Newton product line is now the subject of a new feature-length documentary, titled Love Notes to Newton. Can it do justice to its beloved subject matter?

When a “premium accessories maker” known for its battery packs and dongles sets out to make wireless headphones, you might fear for your ears. But the only thing in danger from Moshi’s Avanti Air Bluetooth headphones is your wallet.

With a price tag of $299.95, these headphones certainly fit the “premium” bill. Happily, they’re beautifully designed and will please your ears as well as your eyes.

Streaming music has revolutionized the way we listen to music on the go. Starting with streaming radio, and quickly evolving to carrying millions of songs in your pocket (thanks to cellular data), streaming services have enabled incredible access and discovery of great music.

With Spotify, you can experience your favorites and discover great new music better than ever, thanks to algorithmic intelligence and some genius features.

Brooklyn brand Ghostek manufactures some really interesting phone cases, backpacks, speakers and headphones. One of its latest offerings, the Ghostek Rapture Bluetooth headphones, are some of the first to hit the market with graphene drivers.

These lightweight on-ear headphones come in at just $125 (or $99 if you pick them up on Prime Day) but sound a lot better than any other wireless headphones I’ve tried at that price point. Check out my full review below.

For a huge percentage of mobile photographers — from amateur snappers to creative artists — the iPhone is the camera you always have with you. Every iPhone packs an undeniably great camera. But, as with DSLRs or mirrorless cams, the more you shoot, the more variety you crave.

Swapping out lenses at will helps you create a vast mélange of visual adventures with your iPhone. Our roundup of the best iPhone lenses shows you how to find the right external lens or lens kit for your needs.

Apple’s new MacBook Pro offers buyers significantly improved performance at the same price as last year’s models, as well as a “quieter,” improved butterfly keyboard and a True Tone display. But is it worth the upgrade?

Early reviews of the 2018 update are out now. Here’s what they say about Apple’s fastest and most impressive laptop yet.

If you live near a big city, or travel to metro areas frequently, you know what a pain in the butt parking can be. Parking lots and garages use confusing signage to trick you into spending more money, and some less expensive spots are often poorly labeled or hidden entirely. With ParkWhiz, you can get the most bang for your buck, and know exactly what you’re getting. Best of all, you’ll save time so you can enjoy your trip without adding stress.

In the ’90s and early 2000, animated GIFs were a staple of web design. Today, they’re still imperative to the web, but for entirely different reasons. With GIFwrapped, you can search a massive database of GIFs, create a personal library of your favorites, and save the ones you find on social media for later.

It used to be that the first-party iOS apps were only used by people who didn’t care enough to download something better. Mail, Notes, Contacts, the Calendar — all of these were immediately dumped into a junk folder by experienced users, to be replaced with a proper app. But something happened along the way to 2018. Now, Apple’s apps are every bit as good as third-party apps. (Well, mostly. The Contacts app is still awful.)

Today we’ll take a look at a few of Apple’s surprise hits.

It’s road trip season, and that means gas prices can have a big impact on your vacation. Sometimes what seems like a decent gas price is actually a ripoff because you don’t know about the local station around the corner that’s selling fuel for far less.

If you want to get the best gas price, use GasBuddy for iPhone. The app shows you where all the nearby gas stations are. Better still, GasBuddy helps you find the best prices on gas, wherever you are.

After I made a video showcasing my favorite iPhone X cases, I got a lot of feedback from readers wanting to know more. By far the most popular iPhone X case in that lineup — and the one I get asked about the most, even to this day — is the LuxArmor Classic.

The super-sleek $24 case bears no branding whatsoever. It’s extremely thin and light, but adds a surprising amount of protection. Now, LuxArmor has launched a new collection of iPhone X cases that keep that great, minimalist style but add extra protection.

In today’s video, I give you a quick hands-on look at the new LuxArmor Elite cases. Plus, we’ve got 10 of these to give away!

Do you ever wake up feeling exhausted, even though you are sure you slept well the night before? Or do you find yourself getting that 2:30 feeling a few hours early without any clear explanation? With the Pillow sleep app for iPhone and Apple Watch, you can get detailed analysis of your nightly slumber. Even better, you can gain insight into your body’s ideal sleep and wake times.

There are tons of ways to give money to a friend or family member. You could mail a check, hand them a stack of cash, or send it digitally. With the Cash App, sending money to someone is as easy as entering an amount, dropping in their $cashtag, and hitting send. While this is very similar to Apple Pay Cash, the Cash App packs a few extra perks that make it awesome.