| Cult of Mac

PlayTimer insists that you put your phone down

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PlayTimer

Maybe you have a busy life, and you need some help making time for the things that matter. Like, a lot of help. I’m talking about zero willpower here.

PlayTimer is for you. It locks your phone down but good so that you can play with your kid or focus on other things for a while. You just set the interval, press the cute smiley face, and you’re off. If you touch your phone, an alarm sounds unless you show the app your unlock key.

The unlock key is your child’s face, and that’s kinda weird, but I do like the idea.

Source:PlayTimer – Free | UNICEF Sverige

Gesture Alarm Clock does f***ing everything

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Gesture Alarm Clock

With Gesture Alarm Clock, you set wakeup alerts by drawing numbers on the screen. It has a sleep timer that plays a variety of soothing music and sounds to lull you off. Plus, it has three different vibration strengths, several gesture-based snoozes, and if you think you’d wake up easier if your iPhone’s flashlight turned on, it’ll do that for you, too.

It will also automatically wake you up earlier if it detects traffic delays, and it displays the current weather.

But it won’t cook my breakfast, so I can’t really recommend it.

Source:Gesture Alarm Clock – Free ($1.99 upgrade for full features) | RV AppStudios LLC

BetterFit tracks your exercise and protein for maximum mass

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BetterFit

Here’s a fitness app with an interesting extra feature.

BetterFit lets you keep track of when and how you exercise. You can design custom routines from a giant list of activities or make your own. But it also includes a second tracker that lets you measure how much protein you consume during the day. It has a list of preset food items, or you can input it manually and set daily goals to make sure that you’re feeding your muscles properly.

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go stock up on lentils because they’re as delicious and full of protein as they are fun to say.

Source:BetterFit – $1.99 | David Price

Countability reduces your entire life to dots on a graph, if you want

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Countability

Maybe you’re trying to quit smoking or drinking, or maybe you’re just curious how much coffee you drink or how often you go to the gym. You have to track all that stuff somewhere, and Countability wants to be that place.

You can add anything you want to keep track of and tick them off with just a swipe and a tap. It’ll handle the graphing and numbers for you, and you can look at daily, monthly, and annual numbers.

I haven’t really had that many bikini waxes, by the way. That’s just the number of times I’ve overheard people discussing them in public.

Source:Countability – $0.99 | Bobinair

Curiator is a browsable and portable worldwide art gallery

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Curiator

I like looking at art, but I don’t always like going to galleries because my fellow patrons don’t usually appreciate my habit of giggling uncontrollably whenever I see pictures with naked butts in them.

And sometimes galleries are really far away, too. I probably should have just said that.

But Curiator puts a whole lot of art from all over right into your phone and lets you browse and giggle as much as you want without bothering anyone but your coworkers, roommates, or people on the bus. But you probably annoy them daily, anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.

Source:Curiator – Free | Curiator

Top iOS games of the week

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DIY 4 Beginners

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?

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a home-improvement app, a bunch of motivational quotations, and some virtual flooring.

Here you go:

You probably have a few improvements you’d like to make to your home, but it’s possible you have no idea how to do them yourself. Or maybe you do, but you’d like some handy tips on how to store and maintain your paintbrushes or something. This app has you covered either way; it comes from Skil Power Tools, and it contains a wealth of information including tips on removing broken spade handles, tips about proper tool usage, and step-by-step directions on a ridiculous number of projects.

So now I can finally build that deck for my apartment. The landlord will love that.

DIY 4 Beginners – Free | Skil Power Tools

Style My Floor

Style My Floor is a decorating app that lets you sample an assortment of different hardwood materials and styles. And even cooler, you can request a “Quick Key” that’ll let you see how different floors will look in your house. You just print out a PDF, lay it in a corner, and then point your iPhone or iPad camera at it. Magic does the rest.

Or technology. Probably that.

Either way, it hits my “easily impressed” button.

Style My Floor – Free | QuickStep Flooring

Daily Productivity Quote

A lot of apps hope to inspire you to improve yourself and focus by offering you words of wisdom from people whose names you recognize. Like that rather stern one up there, which comes courtesy of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Maybe you’ll get something out of this app, which gives you a new quotation every day to make you work harder and feel better. But I’m going to use it to reply back to coworkers who have silly inspirational quotes in their e-mail signatures. It’s the ultimate passive-aggressive office way of saying, “Leave me alone, and get back to work.”

I’m sure my boss will love that.

Daily Productivity Quotes – Free | Michael Paddock

Cigar

Cigar is a new aggregation app that pulls in new content from crowd-funding site Kickstarter, Netflix, TED Talks, and the App Store and presents it to you in a giant pile for your consideration. You run through them one at a time, swiping up to dismiss ones you don’t like and double-tapping to save some for later.

It can be a little daunting when it throws like 300 things on your stack. But Cigar also e-mails you a digest of things you liked, so you don’t have to go back to the app and sort through your “Liked” list again.

Which is nice.

Cigar – Free | FiveIron Software, LLC

TextSync makes your computer a giant iPhone keyboard

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TextSync

TextSync is kind of a confusing app, and it took me a while to figure out what the point was. It lets you link your computer and your iPhone or iPad over Wi-Fi so that whatever you type on the big screen appears on the smaller one. You can then copy that text to paste elsewhere or save it as a note.

But what’s the point? Well, it’s a good workaround if you don’t want to spring for a Bluetooth keyboard, and it’s handy for these really long and tedious iMessages that I send all the time.

They’re epic, people. Blue boxes for days.

Source:TextSync – Free | Notable Group

Cigar feeds you all those Kickstarters you might otherwise miss

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Cigar

Cigar is a new aggregation app that pulls in new content from crowd-funding site Kickstarter, Netflix, TED Talks, and the App Store and presents it to you in a giant pile for your consideration. You run through them one at a time, swiping up to dismiss ones you don’t like and double-tapping to save some for later.

It can be a little daunting when it throws like 300 things on your stack. But Cigar also e-mails you a digest of things you liked, so you don’t have to go back to the app and sort through your “Liked” list again.

Which is nice.

Source:Cigar – Free | FiveIron Software, LLC

Daily Productivity Quotes wants you to work smarter and harder

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Daily Productivity Quote

A lot of apps hope to inspire you to improve yourself and focus by offering you words of wisdom from people whose names you recognize. Like that rather stern one up there, which comes courtesy of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Maybe you’ll get something out of this app, which gives you a new quotation every day to make you work harder and feel better. But I’m going to use it to reply back to coworkers who have silly inspirational quotes in their e-mail signatures. It’s the ultimate passive-aggressive office way of saying, “Leave me alone, and get back to work.”

I’m sure my boss will love that.

Source:Daily Productivity Quotes – Free | Michael Paddock

Style My Floor augments your drab home’s reality

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Style My Floor

Style My Floor is a decorating app that lets you sample an assortment of different hardwood materials and styles. And even cooler, you can request a “Quick Key” that’ll let you see how different floors will look in your house. You just print out a PDF, lay it in a corner, and then point your iPhone or iPad camera at it. Magic does the rest.

Or technology. Probably that.

Either way, it hits my “easily impressed” button.

Source:Style My Floor – Free | QuickStep Flooring