free iPhone apps - page 4

Slip — Utilities — Free

Slip knows that exchanging business cards can be annoying. You have to find your cards and then take theirs and then maybe jam it into the back of the thing where you keep your cards, and hopefully it fits. And then later, you find their card and can’t remember why you’d met in the first place.

So instead of that, Slip uses Bluetooth to exchange contact information wirelessly. You go in and toggle which bits of information you want to share and just flip it over to another user with a single swipe. You can also text or e-mail it to people without Slip, but that’s not as much fun.

Slip – Yodel Code

Lucid Dream Ultimate — Utilities — Free

While you’re getting all that sleep we talked about in the last app, you might as well pay some attention to your dreams.

Lucid Dream Ultimate is a dream journal and reality checker that plays a noise during the day that cues you to remind yourself that you’re awake. It’ll send you the same noise throughout the night; the idea is that when you hear the noise in your dream, you’ll realize you’re dreaming, and then you can start the important business of conjuring up all the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephants you’ve ever wanted.

Plus one of the tones is an Inception-esque “BWAAAAAAAH,” and that’s just straight-up magical.

Lucid Dream Ultimate

Best Sleep Hygiene — Health & Fitness — Free

Alright, so “sleep hygiene” is kind of a weird way of describing one’s sleeping habits, but this is a pretty useful app, regardless.

It starts out with a questionnaire that asks about your pre-bed routine, including how much TV you watch, alcohol consumption, and when you ate your last full meal, and then it ranks your results and offers suggestions for how you might make your sleepytime more effective.

My results put me in the bottom 25 percent of respondents, which is probably why I spend all day lapsing in and out of consciousnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn–huh? I’m up. What are we doing?

Best Sleep Hygiene

2014 Team USA: Road to Sochi — Sports — Free

The 2014 Winter Olympics start in just a week and a half, and if you feel like a bad American for not having any idea who is competing on our various national teams, The U.S. Olympic Committee has an app for you.

Here in one simple interface, you can find athlete bios, news, team rosters, and more handy information to prepare you to watch people in ridiculous shape do incredible things while you sit on your couch and create new and elaborate curses for various judges.

It’s the true spirit of the Olympics, really.

2014 Team USA: Road to Sochi

Inlight — Lifestyle — Free

If you have a few minutes to stare at your phone, and you don’t really feel like watching a video, you might want to look into Inlight. It’s a really good-looking app that collects articles from the Internet in one place and lets you browse by categories like “Me Time” and “Nourish.”

So that’s a little weird, but I found a lot of interesting stuff in there. For example, now I know, as a man, which 21 compliments I crave. And that’s just news I can use.

Inlight

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 another cool timer, a money-saving challenge, and a thing to help you unwind.

Here you go:

52 Weeks Money Challenge — Finance — Free

If you haven’t heard of the 52 Weeks Money Challenge, you probably don’t have a Facebook account. And I envy you for that.

Anyway, the challenge is a way to help you build up a nest egg through regimented saving. You put away one dollar the first week, two dollars the second, and so on. At the end of 52 weeks, you’ve set aside a total of $1,378. This app tracks your progress and grand total, and it will even send you weekly reminders in case you’re the forgetful type.

52 Weeks Money Challenge

Relaxatron — Entertainment — Free

People keep telling me I’m too highly strung, which is probably why I keep finding relaxation apps to write up. It might also be why I just yelled at my TV for 15 minutes for refusing to contain any episodes of Quantum Leap.

Anyway, Relaxatron has two things going for it: a badass name and a little more interaction than some of those other calming apps. You create a “seed shape” by placing dots into a grid, and then you just tap the screen and watch calming patterns emerge, and …

That was two hours ago.

Relaxatron

Night Sky Guide 3D+ — Reference — $1.99

Alright, this one’s really cool.

Sometimes, I’m outside at night (fewer bees then), and I’ll see something in the sky and think, “Is that a planet, or should I call NASA and tell them that we’re all probably about to die?”

Night Sky Guide 3D+ will save me a lot of embarrassing phone conversations with scientists. It uses your iOS device’s GPS and compass, so you can just hold it up and it’ll show you a notated view of the patch of sky you’re facing.

So it was just Jupiter. Sorry, NASA operator.

Night Sky Guide 3D+

Tico Timer — Education — $0.99

Here’s another app from the maker of the very clever Humming Timing. Developer Ricardo Fonseca made Tico Timer for children, and it counts down using animated shapes instead of numbers. So the clock will expire when, for example, all the squares disappear from the screen. Or when the large circle shrinks down to a point and disappears. And all of this happens while some very relaxing music plays.

The goal of the app is to teach kids a sense of time, but I’ll probably use it myself because it’s the most relaxing timer I’ve ever seen.

Tico Timer

Relaxatron — Entertainment — Free

People keep telling me I’m too highly strung, which is probably why I keep finding relaxation apps to write up. It might also be why I just yelled at my TV for 15 minutes for refusing to contain any episodes of Quantum Leap.

Anyway, Relaxatron has two things going for it: a badass name and a little more interaction than some of those other calming apps. You create a “seed shape” by placing dots into a grid, and then you just tap the screen and watch calming patterns emerge, and …

That was two hours ago.

Relaxatron

52 Weeks Money Challenge — Finance — Free

If you haven’t heard of the 52 Weeks Money Challenge, you probably don’t have a Facebook account. And I envy you for that.

Anyway, the challenge is a way to help you build up a nest egg through regimented saving. You put away one dollar the first week, two dollars the second, and so on. At the end of 52 weeks, you’ve set aside a total of $1,378. This app tracks your progress and grand total, and it will even send you weekly reminders in case you’re the forgetful type.

52 Weeks Money Challenge

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 quick slide-show creator, an app that will help you snag some wheels, and more data than you require.

Here you go:

Presentics — Productivity — Free ($9.99 unlock)

If you have a presentation to prepare at the last minute or you think PowerPoint is too clunky, you might want to look at Presentics. It’s an iPad app that will help you make a minimalist slide show quickly and easily. It just takes a few taps and some typing, and you’ll have a quick, clean project. You can also embed images, audio, and video right inside the app if you want to go all multimedia on it.

You have access to everything in the free version, but the $9.99 unlock lets you save more than two projects and share over the cloud.

Presentics

Cold Tires — Utilities — Free

If you prefer to add air to your favorite vehicle’s radials in the comfort of your own garage, you might be interested in Cold Tires. It’s a quick and simple calculator that will automatically compensate for the temperature difference between where you put the air in and where you’ll actually be driving. Meaning outside. Where it’s probably freezing. Because winter.

Just add a few bits of data, and the app will tell you how much extra air to add to make sure the pressure stays where you want it.

Cold Tires

Puzzle Sidekick — Reference — Free

Puzzle Sidekick is an ambitious app that hopes to serve as a reference guide for people who do crosswords, augmented-reality games, puzzle-driven scavenger hunts, and whichever other situations one might need a working knowledge of semaphore.

It also contains guides to codemaking (and breaking), information on our solar system, and a couple dozen other random topics that I can’t even remember right now. So even if you’re not following a puzzle trail anytime soon, it’s still an interesting collection of random information that’s worth a look.

Puzzle Sidekick

Legítimo — Productivity — Free

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to get something in writing, like if you and your roommate agree to split utilities in exchange for the right to have pizza and wear Hawaiian shirts on Fridays. Crucial dealings like those are the sorts of things you bring ink and paper in on. But what if you don’t know how to speak Official-Sounding Legal Document?

Legítimo is here to help. You can use it to draw up loan agreements, leases, sales and purchases, and service contracts and even sign them in the app. And everyone gets a copy via e-mail or text.

Also, help me figure out which category that utilities/Pizza Day deal falls under. No reason.

Legítimo

Bykes — Travel — Free

Bike-sharing programs are popping up all over the world now, and here’s an app to help you navigate some of them. Bykes will help you find stations for 11 bike fleets in five countries (more to come). In addition to just showing you where the depots are, it will also tell you how many bikes are there and how many stalls are available for those looking to return their borrowed wheels.

So if you live in — or are visiting — Dublin, London, Brisbane, Melbourne, Boulder, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, the District of Columbia, Montreal, or Toronto, you’re all set. If not, just wait or drive, I guess.

Bykes

Bykes — Travel — Free

Bike-sharing programs are popping up all over the world now, and here’s an app to help you navigate some of them. Bykes will help you find stations for 11 bike fleets in five countries (more to come). In addition to just showing you where the depots are, it will also tell you how many bikes are there and how many stalls are available for those looking to return their borrowed wheels.

So if you live in — or are visiting — Dublin, London, Brisbane, Melbourne, Boulder, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, the District of Columbia, Montreal, or Toronto, you’re all set. If not, just wait or drive, I guess.

Bykes

Legítimo — Productivity — Free

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to get something in writing, like if you and your roommate agree to split utilities in exchange for the right to have pizza and Hawaiian shirts on Fridays. Crucial dealings like those are the sorts of things you bring ink and paper in on. But what if you don’t know how to speak Official-Sounding Legal Document?

Legítimo is here to help. You can use it to draw up loan agreements, leases, sales and purchases, and service contracts and even sign them in the app. And everyone gets a copy via e-mail or text.

Also, help me figure out which category that utilities/Pizza Day deal falls under. No reason.

Legítimo

Puzzle Sidekick — Reference — Free

Puzzle Sidekick is an ambitious app that hopes to serve as a reference guide for people who do crosswords, augmented-reality games, puzzle-driven scavenger hunts, and whichever other situations one might need a working knowledge of semaphore.

It also contains guides to codemaking (and breaking), information on our solar system, and a couple dozen other random topics that I can’t even remember right now. So even if you’re not following a puzzle trail anytime soon, it’s still an interesting collection of random information that’s worth a look.

Puzzle Sidekick

Cold Tires — Utilities — Free

If you prefer to add air to your favorite vehicle’s radials in the comfort of your own garage, you might be interested in Cold Tires. It’s a quick and simple calculator that will automatically compensate for the temperature difference between where you put the air in and where you’ll actually be driving. Meaning outside. Where it’s probably freezing. Because winter.

Just add a few bits of data, and the app will tell you how much extra air to add to make sure the pressure stays where you want it.

Cold Tires

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 self-improvement program that wants to save you time, a guide to how to properly brush your teeth, and a timer with a beat.

Here you go:

Better Every Time — Productivity — Free

The App Store is full of things to help you set goals and keep you accountable, usually by making everything visible to your friends so they can goad you into persevering. Better Every Time takes a different approach, offering no social media connectivity whatsoever. Instead, it turns your quest of betterment into a journey to the top of a mountain and leaves it to you to check in along the way. Doing so just takes a few seconds, leaving you free to improve yourself.

So it’s basically an app that doesn’t want you to use it too much, which is an interesting angle.

Better Every Time

Swear Jar — Lifestyle — Free

In these troubled economic times, we don’t really have the luxury of putting real coins into a jar every time we drop a bomb in front of Grandma. Luckily, we have Swear Jar, a virtual container you can drop change into so you can quantify your dirty mouth. You can use any denomination of change you want, and it’ll keep a running tab of your blue streak. It even has motion controls so that you can jingle the coins around.

Because you have to do something between curses, right?

Swear Jar

Simple Additives — Health & Fitness — $0.99 (lite version available)

Food labels can be scary places. Reading the ingredients of whatever you’ve just crammed into your gob can be confusing or even the worst decision you’ve made all day. I don’t know how to keep the stuff in your food from terrifying you, but for those perplexing moments, try Simple Additives. It’s an app that will tell you what those unpronounceable things in your snack do and also whether or not they’ve been linked to cancer or harmful side effects.

I don’t know if I’m really doing you a favor by pointing you toward this, though. Everything’s tasted like poison for like three hours now.

Simple Additives

MyTeeth — Education — Free ($1.99 unlock)

It’s important for people to learn proper tooth-brushing techniques, and not just because toothpaste and floss are way cheaper than root canals and fillings. Brushing is just an important part of fitting in with society because society is full of people who will notice if you have broccoli stuck in your teeth or if your breath smells like the inside of a garbage disposal.

MyTeeth is here to help with a selection of slightly creepy-looking children who will brush along with your kids — or you — to ensure that your chompers get nice and clean. Just don’t stare into their beady little eyes too long. I think I saw Cthulhu in there.

MyTeeth

Humming Timing — Utilities — Free

I’ve featured timers here before, but this is one you should definitely check out.

Humming Timing looks at other time-keeping apps and wonders why they have to be so quiet. Its solution: to make a countdown using music from your iPhone’s library. So for example, you’ll put your cake in the oven, set the app for 35 minutes, and it will craft an exactly 35-minute-long playlist from your tunes and tell you which song to listen for for the end.

It’s basically a timer you can dance to. If that’s something you’ve been looking for.

Humming Timing

Humming Timing — Utilities — Free

I’ve featured timers here before, but this is one you should definitely check out.

Humming Timing looks at other time-keeping apps and wonders why they have to be so quiet. Its solution: to make a countdown using music from your iPhone’s library. So for example, you’ll put your cake in the oven, set the app for 35 minutes, and it will craft an exactly 35-minute-long playlist from your tunes and tell you which song to listen for for the end.

It’s basically a timer you can dance to. If that’s something you’ve been looking for.

Humming Timing

MyTeeth — Education — Free ($1.99 unlock)

It’s important for people to learn proper tooth-brushing techniques, and not just because toothpaste and floss are way cheaper than root canals and fillings. Brushing is just an important part of fitting in with society because society is full of people who will notice if you have broccoli stuck in your teeth or if your breath smells like the inside of a garbage disposal.

MyTeeth is here to help with a selection of slightly creepy-looking children who will brush along with your kids — or you — to ensure that your chompers get nice and clean. Just don’t stare into their beady little eyes too long. I think I saw Cthulhu in there.

MyTeeth

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 something to keep you up-to-date on late-night TV, a creepy virtual boyfriend, and an app to help you randomly name your baby.

Here you go:

Late Night Talk Show Review — Entertainment — Free ($0.99 Upgrade)

If you missed your favorite late-night talk show, and you’re jonesing for a monologue, a Top 10 List, or whatever the hell Jay Leno does, you might want to pick up Late Night Talk Show Review. It collects video clips from 11 shows (and an assortment of things from Comedy Central) and updates them regularly. So if people are still gathering around water coolers these days, you will be all set to discuss that funny thing that Conan said.

I don’t know — my office just got a water cooler recently. I don’t really know how this whole thing works yet.

Late Night Talk Show Review

PocketBoy — Entertainment — Free

PocketBoy was the developer’s idea to keep his girlfriend from feeling lonely when he was away. It’s a blank virtual “doll” that you can slap your loved one’s face on and listen to it say adoring things in a not-at-all creepy robot voice. It’s endearing in a way that I can’t quite figure out, and the different “play” modes are pretty cute. I’m not sure what the whole “Frog Mode” bit is all about — “There is no Frog Mode, silly” — but even that’s pretty cute.

This app is cute. I admit it.

PocketBoy.

Name My Baby! — Lifestyle — Free

Unless you have some amazing relatives you were close to and to whom you want to pay tribute, naming a baby is hard. And not just for the reasons outlined in this amazing Saturday Night Live sketch where Nicolas Cage reveals that cruel schoolchildren can make fun of any name you can come up with. Name My Baby hopes to take the stress out of the whole ordeal by randomly generating first and middle names for both boys and girls. And even if you aren’t expecting, it’s kind of entertaining to see some of the combinations it comes up with.

Name My Baby!

Swear Jar — Lifestyle — Free

In these troubled economic times, we don’t really have the luxury of putting real coins into a jar every time we drop a bomb in front of Grandma. Luckily, we have Swear Jar, a virtual container you can drop change into so you can quantify your dirty mouth. You can use any denomination of change you want, and it’ll keep a running tab of your blue streak. It even has motion controls so that you can jingle the coins around.

Because you have to do something between curses, right?

Swear Jar

Better Every Time — Productivity — Free

The App Store is full of things to help you set goals and keep you accountable, usually by making everything visible to your friends so they can goad you into persevering. Better Every Time takes a different approach, offering no social media connectivity whatsoever. Instead, it turns your quest of betterment into a journey to the top of a mountain and leaves it to you to check in along the way. Doing so just takes a few seconds, leaving you free to improve yourself.

So it’s basically an app that doesn’t want you to use it too much, which is an interesting angle.

Better Every Time

Goalability — Productivity — Free

A lot of people say that if you want to stick to a goal you set, the best thing you can do is tell other what you’re trying to do. If you keep it inside, you’re only accountable to yourself, and guess what? You lie.

Goalability aims to add that missing piece by making your goals public and putting them out where all your Facebook friends can see them and check in on you.

And you can do the same to them because karma is very real, and we are all of us its agents.

Goalability

Big Questions? Short Answers! — Entertainment — Free ($2.99 for full unlock)

This strange little app contains 400 questions of varying philosophical value and only gives you 140 characters with which to answer them. The idea is to let you browse through other people’s responses in order to discover varying viewpoints and share your own. It remains to be seen whether this project will live up to its potential or if “lots n lots of candy” is the norm, but you throw caution and cogency to the wind when you ask anonymous people on the Internet to think seriously.

Big Questions? Short Answers!

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 something to help you make good choices, a simple flight locator, and instructions for keeping your hands really super clean.

Here you go:

Smart Decisions — Productivity — Free

I clearly have a lot on my mind — I can’t even decide which pants to wear. Luckily, Smart Decisions exists. It’s an app that breaks up your major (or minor) quandaries into their component parts and helps you reach conclusions simply and methodically. First you identify the problem, and then you list out the alternatives. After that, you figure out the most important factors to consider and rank them in order of importance. The app then has you compare two options at a time based on the factors you listed. After you’ve exhausted all combinations, it tells you what your best choice is.

Apparently, I want cereal more than pancakes. That was a surprise.

Smart Decisions

Hand Wash — Health & Fitness — Free

Cold and flu season is upon us, and you might not know this, but that thing where you just hold your hands under the water for a second before wiping them off on your pants? That’s not doing a darn thing.

If you’d like to know a better way to wash your hands, Hand Wash is here for you. It trains you in the World Health Organization’s Five Moments method, and it even contains a little game that will grade your mastery of washing technique and duration.

Now, stop using your hand as a tissue and go clean up. I want to sneeze just looking at you.

Hand Wash

Where Is My Flight — Utilities — Free

Where Is My Flight is a pie-simple tracker with a single box. You put the flight number in there, and it tells you where and when to find it. If you’re the one flying, you might find it helpful that the app tells you which terminal you’ll be in so that you can plan your overpriced airport meals accordingly.

If you’re not the one flying, you’ll find the landing-time estimates handy so you can time your pick-up accordingly. It’s just a simple, useful app, and anything that removes any of the annoyances of air travel is worth checking out.

Where Is My Flight

Thyme — Utilities — Free

Here’s an app that might come in useful for any big meals you might be planning.

Thyme lets you set individual timers for each burner of your stove and your oven so that you can see at a glance how much longer everything has to go. It sure beats my usual method of setting one timer on the microwave, one on my phone, one on the back of the stove (which never works, anyway), and then just watching the clock.

We’re all about simplifying here, people.

Thyme: A kitchen timer for your culinary arts

Billy: The Bill Samurai — Utilities — Free

So you go out to dinner with a bunch of your friends, and when the bill arrives, you decide to save time and just pay the whole thing yourself. But you’re a little obsessive-compulsive, so you insist that your friends pay you back exactly what they owe. But how do you figure it out? That’s a lot of math to fit into one head.

This app has you covered. You just enter in the menu price of every item, tell it who ordered what, and enter in the tip and tax percentages, and it gives you the exact amount each person needs to pay you back, to the cent. And nothing screams “friendship” quite like making change.

Billy: The Bill Samurai

Billy: The Bill Samurai — Utilities — Free

So you go out to dinner with a bunch of your friends, and when the bill arrives, you decide to save time and just pay the whole thing yourself. But you’re a little obsessive-compulsive, so you insist that your friends pay you back exactly what they owe. But how do you figure it out? That’s a lot of math to fit into one head.

This app has you covered. You just enter in the menu price of every item, tell it who ordered what, and enter in the tip and tax percentages, and it gives you the exact amount each person needs to pay you back, to the cent. And nothing screams “friendship” quite like making change.

Billy: The Bill Samurai

Thyme — Utilities — Free

Here’s an app that might come in useful for any big meals you might be planning.

Thyme lets you set individual timers for each burner of your stove and your oven so that you can see at a glance how much longer everything has to go. It sure beats my usual method of setting one timer on the microwave, one on my phone, one on the back of the stove (which never works, anyway), and then just watching the clock.

We’re all about simplifying here, people.

Thyme: A kitchen timer for your culinary arts

Where Is My Flight — Utilities — Free

Where Is My Flight is a pie-simple tracker with a single box. You put the flight number in there, and it tells you where and when to find it. If you’re the one flying, you might find it helpful that the app tells you which terminal you’ll be in so that you can plan your overpriced airport meals accordingly.

If you’re not the one flying, you’ll find the landing-time estimates handy so you can time your pick-up accordingly. It’s just a simple, useful app, and anything that removes any of the annoyances of air travel is worth checking out.

Where Is My Flight