A big part of Apple‘s success, from the beginning, has been the humble app. Apps give developers a chance to make money via the trillion-dollar company’s tech, while users get to customize their products in order to fit their needs.
In order to keep you abreast of all the best, we sit down and look through what’s arrived on the App Store each month that might be relevant to your needs — whether it’s planning meals and burning calories or just making the sites we read every day that little bit better.
The Must-Download: Infinite Spanish — $5
Infinite Spanish, which is free to try and cost $5 in order to unlock the whole app, isn’t going to make you fluent in Spanish tomorrow. What it will do is give you a lot of easy-to-play games that teach you about 200 words in Spanish, so that you can better understand the language and lay the foundations to become fluent. It’s a lot of fun, especially if you’re working on getting a baseline knowledge of the Spanish language.
Burn — Free To Download, In-App Subscriptions
Need to get fit? Burn is designed to, well, burn calories. The app mixes both meal planning and workouts to help you stay on task, and it’s particularly useful for fitness newbies or people who just don’t have the energy to sit down and research everything about keto and kettlebells.
Fiery Feeds — Free, In-App Purchases To Unlock All Features
RSS is still one of the best ways to customize your news consumption and until Google sees the light and revives Google Reader (RIP), Fiery Feeds is a good, feature-rich substitute that ensures both that you’re always informed and that sites that don’t update as often don’t slip out of your consciousness.
V For Wikipedia — $6
Six bucks for a Wikipedia tool? Ah, but V isn’t just any Wikipedia tool. It finds relevant Wikipedia articles based on your location, tracks what articles are most read on the site so you know what’s capturing attention, and generally cleans up and otherwise makes Wikipedia far more readable and easy on the eyes.
If you like being informed, V does it with style.
Dreams And IGTV– Free
This oddball experiment with old TV and horizontal video is fairly simple. Download the app, open a channel (which features older content from cable networks and a few nostaglia shows), and then watch one episode per channel per week. It has an “episode guide” but it’s mostly designed to see if you’ll watch TV in portrait mode. If you will, you’ve got some free TV at your fingertips.
IGTV, if anything, leans even harder into portrait video. Also available on Android, IGTV is more or less Facebook’s bet that you’ll want to watch videos shot in portrait. But even if you only watch them on Instagram, it’s a good way to get caught up with friends.
Mezu — Free
Sure, the Venmo public feed is fun, but sometimes you don’t want to tell the world what you’re paying for. Mezu is designed to be a little more like cash; when you want to pay somebody, the app generates a 4-digit pin. You give that PIN to another Mezu user, and they get the cash. It’s not perfect, but if you want some more payment privacy, it’s a good start.
Caregiver
Run by Care.com, Caregiver is about, as you might expect, getting or receiving care for kids, the elderly, people with special needs, and even pets. It’s designed to cater both to those who need help and people who are looking for a second job babysitting, petsitting, or otherwise pitching in.
Animatix — $2
This app offers up a simple joy: Turning your photos into little animations. You can tweak the edges, adjust the photo itself, and otherwise have a little fun with any picture you’ve snapped. It’s slight, but it’s a lot of fun — ideal for birthdays and other occasions demanding a little cute.
Non — $3
Non offers soothing imagery and random soundscapes to ease you into relaxation and meditation. It’s one of the more soothing experiences you’ll find on the App Store, and if you need to chill, it’s money well spent.