It seems like hundreds of new iPhone apps pop up every week, but which ones should you bother trying? We explored the App Store and found five apps actually worth downloading.
Evernote Scannable
Over the last few years, Evernote has become one of the most popular note-taking apps available. It combines the need for quick, on-the-go note-taking with cloud storage, never sacrificing the option for more in-depth composition.
Now, Evernote has introduced Scannable, which allows you to scan documents, receipts, or all other manners of paper, save them, and then share them with your contacts. That needlessly tall tower of papers and receipts on your desk waiting to be sorted for April 1st? Yeah, no more of that.
Evernote Scannable is free in the App Store.
CommitTo3
Many productivity apps expect far more than we can reasonably deliver. Yes, for some it is indeed great to have all of a day’s tasks outlined and color-coded in a single app, but for others, this level of scheduling seems overzealous and daunting.
CommitTo3 is an app that allows you to set three reasonable goals for the day, then tracks your completion/success rate. It’s an easy way to gain momentum. Think of it as the Couch-to-5k of productivity apps.
CommitTo3 is free in the App Store.
Water Tracker
When I get a little ornery, I have a friend who will condescendingly ask me: “Are you dehydrated?” The answer is, almost always, yes. We keep hearing about eight glasses a day, or ounces-to-body-weight ratios, but we’re all almost always in a constant state of dehydration.
Water Tracker is the app we all need on our phones. It tells users how much water they should consume in a day and then holds them to that number. It also has input settings for other beverages, so you can finally see that your coffee-to-water intake ratio is medically irresponsible. 4 p.m. headaches, frustration and physical discomfort can all be curbed if we obey Water Tracker.
Water Tracker is available for $1.99 in the App Store.
Player
For musicians and amateurs, Player is an incredibly useful tool. For the rest of us, it’s one of the most fascinating digital experiments around. The app takes songs from your library and then analyzes them, breaking them down by chords for piano or guitar while also revealing other relevant information. It’s a way of learning to play songs, or simply developing a far more intimate relationship with your music collection.
Player is free in the App Store.
iGreet
iGreet is an amazing app perhaps more for what it represents than the purpose it actually serves. It allows users to create customizable greeting cards that can then be printed out at a nearby Walgreens. The card is then scanned by the recipient, revealing secondary “augmented reality” content.
True, it’s a way of jazzing up boring greeting cards and making birthday cards that much more affectionate, but it also evidence that our phones are the key to getting a lot more out of even the most mundane aspects of non-digital life.
iGreet is free in the App Store.