7 Things (Which Are Apps) This Week [#4]
- AirBuddy 2 for Mac recreates the quick, easy, and beautiful card-based interactions like those on iOS for all the AirPods and Beats headphones. Even more, it provides battery status and power user options for many other Bluetooth devices. [Guilherme Rambo]
- Hush for Mac, iPhone, and iPad blocks all those annoying pop-ups on websites for you to confirm the use of cookies. Over. And over. And over again. You just set it, then forget it. [Via John Gruber]
- HealthyShoe is a really simple app for iPhone that integrates with the Apple Health database to keep track of the miles you put on your running shoes. I used to track this with Nike+ Running, but I’ve long since gone all-in on the Apple Watch’s workout app. Just tell HealthyShoe when you started using each pair of shoes, and it automatically totals up the miles and recommends when you should replace them. No account, no personal data tracking, just a simple utility. [Via Steve Troughton-Smith]
- Personal Best Workouts, like HealthyShoe, is an app that integrates with the HealthKit database on iPhone. This app shows you insights and metrics on your workouts like time spent, calories burned, and distance traveled. You can see your bests over selected time periods, and drill down to individual workouts. As someone who enjoys reviewing stats of all kinds, and who is getting back into fitness, these kinds of utility apps are right in my wheelhouse. [Via Club MacStories]
- Brain.fm is an iPhone and iPad app that I’d heard of before but always passed by. I was able to use it for free this month, and I think I might subscribe. Being able to have dedicated focus “music” that doesn’t influence my actual music library recommendations has been great. It really has helped me to focus, and I like that the sounds are set on a timer, which keeps me on track throughout the day. [Via Club MacStories]
- Robinhood captured the world by storm this week. I’m not a gambler, but I did take advantage of all the explainers this week to learn more about how the stock market actually works. Here’s a good one by The Verge on the whole fiasco. Turns out I had a free $5 stock from Robinhood that I set up a couple of years ago. So far it’s earned…$1.65! [Elizabeth Lopatto]
- ScanThing is an app for iPhone and iPad that fills a particular need that I’ve had for a while. I used to use the Scannable app by Evernote for all my digital scanning needs, but it hasn’t seen significant development for a while. Despite the plethora of scanning apps out there, they all have more complex workflows. I really valued the simplicity of opening an app straight to its scanning mode, having it auto-capture, and then send off to another app or the file system for saving with a custom name. I’ve tried creating a custom Shortcut to solve this problem, but it never worked quite right. ScanThing does it perfectly and comes with a few other awesome bells and whistles. It automatically applies OCR, so I can search the text of a document later. It can also capture just the text of something in the viewfinder, which is perfect for copying tracking numbers from receipts and other similar situations to get text from the physical world. And, the real magic, you can “scan” objects, which automatically removes the background around the subject to great effect. I take a lot of pictures of items that I can no longer keep but don’t want to forget, and then add them to my Day One journal. ScanThing is a winner. [Pierre Liebenberg]
Bonus: Craft is a new note-taking and personal wiki app that everyone is raving about. I’m giving it a try as a place to store work-related notes for a few current projects. It hasn’t really clicked with me yet, but I might have more to say on it in the future. [Via MacStories]