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.
Square’s Cash App just got far more rewarding. The Cash Boost program now offers cash back at several well-known restaurants and stores, including Shake Shack and Chipotle. Even better, now anybody can participate.
With a little strategy, you can save loads of money on everyday purchases. Here’s how you can earn cash back at restaurants every day with the free Cash App.
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.
The Acorns app is a great way to build up small savings. It automatically rounds up every purchase you make to the nearest dollar and invests that spare change for you.
And, if you download the app this month and refer 12 friends, Acorns will give you $1,000. No joke.
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.
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.
Drafts 5 has launched, the sequel to Drafts 4, and you may be a little confused as too what it actually new. Should you upgrade, for example? After all, it’s just the same old note-creating app with a lick of paint, right? Well, the definitive answer to that is “Hmmm, kinda…” While Drafts 5 doesn’t get many big new features, it has been completely redesigned. It looks better, works better, and the settings are way less confusing.
Oh, and you can finally use it as your only notes app, without feeling like you’re doing something dirty.
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.
PhonoPaper is an iPhone app that turns sound into images, and uses the camera to turn pictures back into sound. It’s also probably the most fun you’ll have with your iPhone today.
The image-identification technology in Google Photos is now in the iOS version of this software. Google Lens can find objects and text in pictures and then provide more information. For example, by examining a photo of a business card, the artificial intelligence can pull out all the contact information.
Anyone wanting to try out Google’s rival to Siri can now do so on their iPad: A version of the Google Assistant optimized for iOS tablets just debuted.
With the press of a button, the application will answer questions and retrieve information from the internet, but that’s just the start.
Although people most often use Alexa to ask about the weather or play music, Amazon’s smart assistant is capable of much more, including connecting with friends and family. A convenient Alexa calling feature is now available on a range of tablets, including the iPad. This allows the tablet to make voice or video calls to an Amazon Echo.
All that is required is the Amazon Alexa app for iOS (and giving Alexa access to your list of contacts).
Google Street View now offers panoramic views from nearly a dozen Disney theme parks, giving users a glimpse inside.
These join thousands of other immersive images from attractions around the world already in the app.
If you’re in the market for a new iPhone, you have lots of options this week. Plus, TechRabbit is running its “best of Apple” sale. Don’t miss out on your chance to save on iPods and MacBooks as well!
This week, check off a couple New Year’s resolutions. First, you can cut the cable cord with the best deal yet on Apple TV 4K. Then, get fit with Bose sport headphones and a free heartbeat-tracking app.
Guitar Gravitas is yet another iOS chords-and-scales app for guitar players, but this one’s worth a look because the layout is so damned useful. Unlike many other scale and chord apps, Guitar Gravitas presents exactly the information you need when you have the guitar in your hands and are ready to practice. It puts as much info as possible onto a single screen, without getting cluttered or confusing.
This week, GarageBand saw the first new entry in its Sound Library since the feature was added in version 2.3. The Sound Library is a kind of App Store for music, letting you browse and download all kinds of samples, loops, presets and even brand-new software instruments. These come in sound packs arranged around a theme or genre. The new one is called Flex and Flow, and it brings you chilled hip-hop.