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Google warns Android app reviews may take longer due to coronavirus
Google is warning developers that Play Store app reviews may take longer than usual due to work schedule adjustments, Android Police reports. In a statement, the company cautioned developers to "expect review times of 7 days or longer." This likely applies to both new app submissions and those that trigger a manual review.
All the best app reviews last week on TUAW
Last week was a busy one for apps in the iOS App Store, giving your favorite TUAW writers a chance to post some great reviews of the apps that grace their home screens. Here's a quick roundup of our recent reviews -- and a few app roundups -- you may have missed: Here's a new iOS app for sending personalized handwritten cards Recharge perfectly with Power Nap HQ Spread kind messages far and wide with the Ripple effect Rise and shine with Gentle Wake Alarm Clock Moju's got mojo: Dynamic photo/video sharing with a twist Lucha Amigos is Angry Birds meeting a cultural game of pool Spyglass: A full featured nav app for outdoor enthusiasts PLAYER for iOS teaches you how to play your music library Crack the code in Do Not Believe His Lies PhotoTime: An incredibly powerful iOS photo organizer and tagging tool Gifx adds animations to your photos to create movies, GIFs Air Race Speed: Futuristic jet racing with stellar controls Improve your ski trip by using Ski Nation CARROT Hunger: Better health through insults and bribes CBS relaunches its news app for iOS Super Kitty: This Game's Got Claws Watermark Plus adds watermarks to your photos quickly and easily Fly By!: A Choppy Ride Spell World is a hard, confusing adventure powered by words TUAW will be back next week with another round of app reviews, so be sure to drop by to see what's new and what's cool.
All the best hardware and app reviews last week on TUAW
Last week was a holiday week but that didn't stop new hardware and apps from making their way into TUAW's virtual office. Here's a quick roundup of our recent reviews you may have missed. App Reviews Pocket Drive turns your iOS device into an external drive Tunity turns your iPhone into personal TV headphones LifeBox for iPhone is strange and addictive TripCast: Capturing and sharing your travels Translator Speak and Translate Free gives you a simultaneous interpreter in your pocket Hardware Reviews SpotCam is a capable Wi-Fi camera for your home Mountie: An inexpensive and innovative way to attach iPhone or iPad to your Mac The Puzlook iPhone case combines a puzzle and photography TUAW will be back next week with another round of reviews, so be sure to drop by to see what's new and what's cool.
Bestie simplifies shopping with a Pinterest-esque approach
Bestie is a shopping app that provides a Pinterest-esque approach to shopping and sharing. Bestie is a free app, which requires iOS 6 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad and is optimized for iPhone 5. At its heart is the concept of curated collection of goods. You can use the app to shop a wide variety of online retailers and add their products to lists you manage. You can follow lists created by other people (and retailers) and they can follow yours. You can also add products to lists that are based on web searches or even photographs you take yourself. There is an appeal to this kind of social shopping. As we all know, often the best finds are those we get from friends: "Where did you get that? I had no idea that even existed!" And Bestie is interesting in that it somewhat obscures the line between recommendations (or at least, "Hey, I thought this was cool looking") from friends and promoted products from retailers actively curating their own collections. As you wander through the products, you can save any item you like to one or more lists you wish to maintain. You are given a "Gifts I want" list by default. Each product lists the number of times it has been saved by others. If you are a Pinterest user, think of "Save" as "Pin It" and you will understand what it does. On the downside, in order to get more detailed information about a product, you have to tap the "Buy Now" button, which takes you to the original website for that product. That is counter-intuitive and a button that indicated that it could be used for "More Info" as well as "Buying" would be a lot more helpful. When first run, you are given the option to create an account but this is not a requirement to browse around and read other peoples' comments on various products. Once you get into creating or following lists, connecting with friends, or buying, you will need to create an account. This comes with agreeing to get on a mailing list (that you can unsubscribe from later if you choose) so if that kind of thing bothers you, you can decide not to join. The App provides five main sections accessed via a tab bar at the bottom of the screen. The main screen, "Home", is simply a scrolling list of the latest additions posted by the people or companies you follow. As I write this, Amazon seems to heavily promoting wall decals of cute sayings that you put on your walls (someone will need to explain the appeal of that to me). Shop, indicated, cryptically, by an icon that denotes trending instead of, say, an icon the denotes shopping, is a matrix view of pictures that can be filtered and sorted in many different ways. The center tab sports a Bestie icon with a plus and is, as you might guess, where you can add products from online stores or through a combination of a photograph you take and providing a URL to the product (useful for someone who runs their own store, for example). Next is a search function that lets you search by arbitrary text (I rather like the steampunk cuff links available on Etsy). Finally, the last tab gives you access to your own profile and your own lists. At the top of every one of these sections is access to notifications (if, for example, you requested to be notified when someone "saves" a product you added) and a screen to follow top users, and friends on Facebook who are or are not using Bestie. I did notice a few quirks along the way. For example, websites that do not render properly on an iPhone screen are virtually useless as I was not able to scroll sideways or pinch to zoom out. So, I was unable to add to any of my lists the cool LEGO Steampunk set. The Search section has a back arrow at the far upper left, even after you have gone as far back as you can. Since the app remembers your scroll position from when you left that first screen, I could not see the search box that is at the very top and was momentarily confused until I thought to scroll up. I am left with one big question: What's the point? What is Bestie providing that doesn't already exist? Wish Lists (both social and private) are available on many sites and Amazon's allows you to add items they don't even sell. Pinterest does much of what Bestie does and already has an established and enormous user base. This is where my wife, a power shopper if ever there was one, ended up after she played with it for awhile. She felt that the app was so simplistic as to hold no real value for her. Especially since it duplicates features she already uses on other sites that are well established. One could argue that it is the all-in-one-place presentation of the content and they may have a point. Most of the shoppers I know (especially my wife) is not looking for something to make the process simpler or to speed it up. In many cases, the journey is the reward and greatly simplifying that journey is not that interesting to them. The other argument in favor of it that I find more compelling is the social aspect. Bestie's ability to share and comment and be part of a communal experience is powerful, but it does have a chicken and egg problem: you need people to use the app to get that value but people may not use the app until it has that particular value.
Star Walk Kids is a fun constellation browser for children
Star Walk Kids is a version of the astronomy apps Star Walk and Star Walk 2 - the latter of which TUAW's own Mel Martin called "impressively good looking" - designed specifically for educating kids about the wonders of the stars and the universe. It features use of the iPhone and iPad's built-in gyroscopes to label the stars as you pan your device across the sky, plus other information like solar system planets and facts presented in a fun manner for children. It requires iOS 7.0 or later and is available universally for US$2.99. What I love right off the bat about Star Walk Kids is there's no setup required which is ideal for kids. The app launches with a cartoonish landscape view of the world and stars in contrast to the regular Star Walks apps geared more toward adults. The cartoon-style is far from a bad thing though, it's actually quite attractive. Using your iPhone or iPad's gyroscope, pan the device around to find stars, constellations and planets. Panning down will reveal what's on the other side of Earth that's not currently visible in your night sky - a very nice feature. The first constellation I happened to glaze by was Andromeda. She appeared as I was panning, but when I tapped it the app said the name out loud. Tapping the name in the bottom left corner brings up a fact sheet including number of stars in the constellation, the brightest star and its latin name. Most, but not all, constellations come with an audio clip playable by tapping the audio icon in the fact sheet. This will play a short recording with an additional fun fact or two. I wish the audio clips were longer and more detailed, but they're still adequate. A limited number of constellations come with well-designed cartoon clips too, further explaining background information in a playful manner appealing to kids. Back on the main screen, there's some additional tools to aid in browsing the depths of the universe around us. If at any point you want to focus in on a particular area of the sky without your hand movements affecting the app, tapping the Compass icon will lock your position. Otherwise, it serves as a handy location guide. The Clock icon above that brings up a slider to rotate the view of the sky, essentially moving back or forward throughout the length of a day. If you want to skip the discovery aspect altogether, the magnifying glass displays a complete library of planets in the Solar System, constellations, individual stars and extras: the Hubble telescope and the ISS. The developers didn't miss a beat. The vast amount of information in this app is really impressive, especially given that it's a kids' app. Could there be more? Absolutely, but there's plenty here for the app to have serious educational value. Animations are buttery smooth and Star Walk Kids as a whole just makes learning about astronomy that much more fun. For just $2.99 including both iPad and iPhone versions, Star Walk Kids shapes up to be a must-have for kids curious about all that surrounds our planet.
Kunin - Ninja in Training: high flying, sword swinging addiction
Released today for iPhone and iPad users is the newest member of the "ninja cutting things up" family of games, Kunin - Ninja in Training. In the game, our little ninja perches on a single stalk of bamboo in the middle of a misty lagoon, while unseen folks throw all manner of blades at him, including throwing-stars, throwing-knives, scythes, which the little ninja must jump up to fend off with his sword, or at least avoid being hit by. The process is brutally addictive. Part of the success of this game is the simplicity. You touch either side of the screen and your ninja will jump. He can actually jump upwards 4 times, before descending back to his bamboo perch. You touch the right side of the screen, he look/slashes right, and the same thing for the left. That is the entirety of the controls. The ninja only jumps straight up, so there's nothing to consider, outside of "is the danger on the left or the right?" and to keep moving. If you park on the bamboo too long, it will sink into the lagoon and then you're all wet (aka dead). Another major success for this game is the use of sound and music. The backing track is a percussive, up-tempo, and (naturally) very Asian and appropriate to a game about ninjas. The sound effects, meanwhile, are mixed very loud and impactful, making the game even more stimulating and intense. I highly recommend experiencing this game with headphones, instead of your device's internal speakers. The music and sound effects come together occasionally, with each successful strike by your ninja being accompanied by a melodic tone that fits into the soundtrack. This was a particularly nice touch. The game offers unlimited lives (though your score does return to zero), and the music is not interrupted between tries. This only adds to the addictiveness of the game. Besides the dangerous objects, magical scrolls are also thrown back and forth, which help our ninja in various ways. Some scrolls are worth points, which earn you medals at the end of each turn. Some scrolls give you a boost in "overdrive" which makes you jump higher. Best of all the scrolls, are the scrolls that turn all the dangerous projectiles into harmless rice balls. The pace of play is very fast and requires full concentration and timing, or you will die very quickly. The game starts awarding you with wooden medals after 10 points, and continues up into the thousands, eventually awarding medals made of pearl and unobtainium. The game offers other awards for various accomplishments, such as the "Bushi Master," awarded if you can stay scoreless for 25 seconds. Because your ninja automatically strikes any danger it faces, this is particularly challenging. One of the obvious drawbacks with this game is that, simply put, it is a ninja game. Everybody loves ninjas, but a simple search for the word "ninja" in the App Store will illustrate how unoriginal it is to create a game, in which a ninja hits things with a sword. Again, it is awesome to be a ninja and to hit things with a sword, but to call the idea "saturated" would be grossly understated. That said, this game is so fun, and so well delivered, that the lack of creativity on the concept side of things is eclipsed by the playability, replayability, and general excellence of the whole package. Kunin - Ninja in Training, which is free in the App Store, is highly recommended. Controls are simple enough for anyone. It looks and sounds great. It is challenging to master, but doesn't require mastery to be enjoyed. It can entertain for as short or as long as you want; a regular turn is usually less than 10-15 seconds. Be warned, though, that it is hard to put down once you begin playing. This game is well executed and seriously addictive.
Squiggle Racer's new world tour mode keeps you hooked
Squiggle Racer is back with a brand new world tour mode that adds hours of additional gameplay. The app is a deceptively difficult racing game that's wrapped up in an always nostalgic 8-bit design. The simple controls and easy instructions yet frustrating results evoke memories of Flappy Bird. Squiggle Racer is free with in-app purchases and requires iOS 7.0 or later. Kelly Hodgkins of TUAW gave her review for an earlier version of this game, all of which still applies to the game now. In addition to the new world tour game, there are basic tracks to complete - short and long tracks - with the goal of merely trying to beat your own record. You also pick from one of six cars to use, each very slightly different in speed and handling than the others. Left and right arrows toward the bottom of the screen guide the car along the track. Simple, right? Wrong. Squiggle Racer is brilliantly designed to appear easy but it's actually far from it. The cars typically take very wide turns, making it particularly hard to maneuver around curves in the road. In a typical racing game, one might consider this a flaw in the game's design. However, here it actually enhances the experience because although it's thwarting, you always find yourself coming back for more. This gameplay style doesn't change in the new world tour mode. The biggest differences between this mode and the regular racing tracks are the way the track is set up as well as a new list of challenges to accomplish. In world tour mode, the track is seemingly endless and scrolls along as your car moves. In classic modes, the entire track is shown on screen from a bird's eye view. When you enter world tour mode, Squiggle Racer presents you with the option to head straight to the tournament or practice in a grassy, desert or city area. I recommend getting some practice first because it takes plenty of time and patience to achieve a score even remotely decent. Regardless of what you select, before you play you have to choose a car. There's the original racer, sports car, Hummer, school bus, buggy or super racer. They range from being fast and furious to slow but steady to light and agile. Keep in mind though that this is an 8-bit game so none of them bring any wow factor to the table. Enter the tournament to see your three challenges. The first three are to pass 20 checkpoints, collect 40 coins and make it to the desert. You level up when you get past these. If at any point during the race you crash (and trust me, it's inevitable) you have to start from the beginning, unless you're willing to fork up 100 coins. If you run out of coins, packs of them are available as in-app purchases. The more cost-effective solution though is just to buy the full game for US$1.99 to unlock all the race tracks, remove the ads, gain 10,000 coins and reduce the amount of coins you have to pay to continue in the world tour mode. It's a pretty solid deal. The new world tour mode adds an extra layer of entertainment and dramatically increases the value of replaying it over and over. Squiggle Racer is ridiculously addictive and fun, and for free you really can't go wrong. You just have to be content with possibly throwing your life and productivity away.
Super Mega Runners is a run through 8-bit nostalgia
Super Mega Runners, which is free in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users on iOS 6.0 or higher is a retro style runner game where your object is to run and jump, collecting coins and items while jumping over and on enemies to reach the end of each level. Instead of the standard third person runner this game is played like a classic 8-bit platformer running left to right, just like a plumber used to with the run button being constantly held down. The game is very easy to pick up and play. You initial character, "Abe Zigen" just keeps running to the right and all the player has to do is tap the screen to make him jump. Holding the screen for certain lengths of time controls how high and long he jumps. Other characters are available and have new abilities like double jump or slide. These characters can be unlocked if a certain number of coins are collected in a level or though points by watching advertisement videos or signing up for services. The good thing is the advertisers are on a separate screen so they do not ruin the experience by popping up during play. The game starts with the player with three lives and you lose them by running into enemies when you are small or falling into a pit or other hazard. There are numerous checkpoints throughout each level so you do not have to start over from the beginning of a level if you lose a life. Continues are available when all three lives are gone. If you have collected 2,000 or more coins you can continue, or if you can cash in one point from clicking on advertisers. There are items hidden in exclamation point boxes which help you along the way. Strawberries make the character grow and if you collect enough of them, the character takes up the whole screen and can run through anything, while the bananas act like magnets and attract all the coins to the character. Enemies have the same look as classic 8-bit baddies which is great in a nostalgic game like this one. Some levels can be a bit frustrating as the difficulty really amps up after the first few levels. The hit points on the same enemies is not consistent so the player may kill one and get killed by the other even after jumping on their head in the same spot. So if you are looking for a quick game that is simple to pick up, and give you a little rush of nostalgia for classic 8-bit games gone by, then download Super Mega Runners and enjoy. I highly recommend it.
Glitch Wizard is a fun way to make glitchy images and animation on your iPhone
Glitch Wizard creates animated or still images based on a series of pre-set "glitches" you can apply to your photos. You've possibly seen "glitch art" popping up around the web lately, with flickering GIFs of colorful digital weirdness warping ordinary photos. While they may be a passing fad like the Harlem Shake, they require a bit of work to create in a program like Photoshop. Enter Glitch Wizard, which is a simple but polished app that takes your photos and adds glitches and allows some basic animation of those glitches as you sequence the effects you add to the photos. The app is nicely designed with three icons at the bottom on launch: the standard camera icon at the bottom of the screen to either take a picture or use one from your photos. The app opens with a list of featured glitch artwork, which I assume is curated by the folks who make the app. You can get to these later by tapping the star icon. I found this interesting on first launch as a sort of example of what the app can do, but ignored it later. Then there's a grid of the glitches you've saved when you tap the grid of squares icon. To create glitches, grab a photo and you're taken to a composition interface, with an area showing each glitch, a playback button, settings and a series of effects each categorized into four groups. I won't go into each group of effects, as part of the fun of Glitch Wizard is seeing what each one does (and it can be wildly different depending on the image you start with). Suffice it to say there are a lot of options for making truly wild images and animations. Some effects allow you to tweak them, but most are simply applied and can be a bit random, as is the nature of glitch art. Also, you can keep adding effects to further glitch your images. The progression is often really fun to see animated. What I enjoyed was playing around with the effects, then seeing how progressing them would make an animation smoother or weirder. In all, it's just a lot of fun. While I'd like more editing options I realize there's little here I couldn't do in Photoshop with filters. But that's not the point -- this is designed to be quick and fun. You can delete individual frames, but I couldn't find a way to re-order them. You can also change the speed from slow to medium to fast, and set the animation to ping-pong back and forth or just loop. Once you're done you have a variety of sharing options, which I found interesting in their end results. On Twitter, for example, you can post a "native GIF" aka a GIF that Twitter has tuned for consumption on Twitter (and is no longer really a GIF). Although Twitter supports animated GIFs, I found it was easier to share them via this app than pulling them from my camera roll because Glitch Wizard doesn't actually save GIFs to your camera roll. Moving on, Instagram and Facebook posts are converted to videos. The thing about glitches and web video, however, is that compression relies upon sameness from frame to frame (generally speaking). My glitches looked really fuzzy if they were really wacky glitchy GIFs to start with. This isn't Glitch Wizard's fault, and frankly I appreciate the fact that it creates a video versus posting some lame link to a page that will inevitably break years later. Kudos on the sharing options for Glitch Wizard, as it's one of the best models I've ever seen in an app. Too bad Facebook compresses them so horribly. I found Instagram posts to have fewer artifacts and hence more clarity. Yes, you can save your creations to your camera roll, among other options (like tumblr, although one of my GIFs didn't post as animated when I tested it, so this could be a buggy area). My only complaint here is it's too easy to lose your creation. If you don't save to your glitches in the app or to your camera roll, however, your creations are lost forever. Also, it's a little odd that the app doesn't actually save a GIF to your camera roll, but rather an .m4v file. If you pull this onto your Mac you'll have to use another application to convert to GIF. If you want the GIF itself, the only option is to email it to yourself. Glitch Wizard is a simple but fun app that creates crazy glitched artwork from your photos. That's really all there is to it, although it's wrapped up in a great design and works very well. It's currently on sale but I'd recommend it at the full US$1.99 if you enjoy making glitch art.
Wake Up Time alarm is a simple, effective desktop companion as long as its awake
Wake Up Time from Rocky Sand is a desktop alarm clock that'll work like a charm as long as your Mac is awake. The app is a simple alarm clock with a handful of pleasing alarm sounds that range from "wake me up now" to "what a pleasant sound to snooze along with." The app has simple controls with a side drawer that you can drag or double-click to open. Set the alarm time, the sound settings and get back to work. The app has a few customizations options that allow you to set the snooze length, switch to 24-hour time, and add custom alarm sounds. You also can change clock faces, if you are using the paid version. Performance of Wake Up Time is stellar, but it has one drawback that requires mentioning. Without fail, the alarm went off as long as my Mac was awake, but when my Mac went to sleep, so did Wake Up Time alarm. Rocky Sand is aware of this limitation and has provided a helper app that'll allow Wake Up Time to wake up your Mac from sleep under certain circumstances. Wake Up Time is available from the Mac App Store in two versions -- a free one with a single clock face and a paid version (US$1.99) that includes extras like optional clock faces.
Lenshare offers iPhone photo sharing with audio and privacy
Many people seem to be drifting away from photo sharing systems that splash your photos all over the web for anyone to see. For some, it's an issue with Facebook and some of the other social networks, although other apps like Instagram can send photos directly without public postings. Of course iOS devices can email or iMessage any photo, but Lenshare (free) gives you a bit more. To begin, you sign up for a free account, then snap photos or grab them from your camera roll. You can annotate the photo with a quick audio clip, and add a template like Travel or Foodie. Lenshare then accesses your address book (with permission) and allows you to select one or more people as recipients. They will get an alert, and can view the photos with audio that can be your comments, the sound of where you are, or whatever else you decide to capture. I think the biggest plus with Lenshare is that everything is private. It's better than sending a static photo, and for many people, shooting, editing and sending videos is a bit too much trouble. Your photos are stored in the cloud, and you can retrieve them at any time. There are a couple of negatives with Lenshare. First, people need the app to see what you send. So if they are on their computer, or another mobile device that is not iOS-based, they are out of luck. Also, there are no editing controls. That makes the app a bit less handy for quick sending of photos where you might also want to make a quick crop or small edit. Of course, you can always edit the photos with another app and then send them off from Lenshare. Lenshare is a good idea and will find some favor among photo swappers. I'd like to see the developers find a way to not require the app for receiving -- for instance, having a website people can go to if they wish to see your photos. As it is now, Lenshare is too restricted to iOS, and although we may wish all our friends were using iPhones, that is not always the case. The developers say an Android version is coming, but they've provided no specifics on dates. Lenshare requires iOS 7. It's iPhone-only because it uses an SMS key for signup.
Ripil encourages you to be kind to each other
Doing a good deed is always a good thing. If you want to share those charitable moments with others and encourage them to do the same -- well guess what? There's an app for that. Ripil is a kindness tracker that allows you to list the good deeds that you do in order to improve your kindness score. You can create your own deeds or use Ripil's suggestions if you need some inspiration. The app tracks your deeds and provides an optional map view so you can see where you performed your random acts of kindness. You can earn more kindness points by inviting others to join the Ripil community and by passing on your good deeds. This "Passing on" feature is designed to get strangers involved in your kindness quest and allows you to see how your one small act can quickly extend to a large number of people. The app also includes kindness challenges allowing you to compete against friends to see who is the most kind. This competition can be extended to groups so you can arrange an event that pits a large number of people such as a school or a city against each other. Ripil even has a leaderboard that shows your kindness ranking as compared to others around you. Ripil is a delight to use with a UI that doesn't get in the way of the app's ultimate goal -- to make you more kind to others around you. With its leaderboard and scoring system, you'll find yourself getting motivated to improve your kindness score by doing more good deeds. I also appreciated Ripil's philosophy -- it may not resound with everyone, but I found it provided a refreshing take on the social network that promotes kindness and other positive experiences. Ripil is available for free from the iOS App Store. It requires you to set up a Ripil account so you can track and share your kindness moments. The app is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7.
Percentage Calculator does the math so you don't have to
Percentage Calculator is one of those utility apps that you don't realize you need until you need it. The app is not your typical calculator with a numeric keypad and operators. Instead, it's a forumla tool that lets you calculate interest, percentages, loan payments and more. The app has a straight-forward and efficient UI that makes it easy to navigate the app. Just tap the calculation you want to perform, enter the values and the app does all the calculation for you. You can enter in the equation values or the result and the app will fill in the missing blanks. The app has a variety of business and everyday calculations, including simple percentage calculator (5 percent of 40 is 2) percentage increase/decrease (5 percent decrease from 40 is 38) tip calculator discount calculator convert fractions to percentages (5 / 20 is the same as 25 percent) profit margin VAT sales tax compound interest loan payment My favorite is the price/quantity calculator that allows you to compare the unit prices of two different items, such as a 10 ounce bottle of marinade that costs $5.75 with a 25 ounce bottle that costs $12.50. Percentage Calculator supports 13 languages and a variety of currencies. It's free and works with both the iPhone and iPad.
imojiapp spices up your messages with custom stickers created from your photos
emoji are a wonderful way to communicate without saying a word. If you want to get creative with your stickers and move beyond the default set that ships with iOS, then you should check out imojiapp. imojiapp lets you take any image on your iPhone and turn it into a textable sticker. Imojioapp is easy to use, just snap a photo, use the crop and eraser tools to remove the part of image you don't want and the app will turn the remaining shot into a bordered sticker. You then can use iMojiapp to drop it into your iMessage and send it along to your friends and family. Like most creative tools, imojiapp allows you to organize your images for your own usage and for sharing with others. The app has a growing community of user-created emojis that you can browse and then use in your own messages. imojiapp is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS iOS 7.
Hemingway text editor comes to the Mac with Markdown support
Hemingway started off as a web-based a text editor that offers corrections on your writing as you type. The app focuses on basic grammar, such as adverb use, passive voice, long sentences and more. Hemingway recently transitioned its app to the desktop, offering versions for the Mac and Windows that allow you to bring your writing and editing offline. Unlike the web version, the desktop version offers support for saving and opening files, allowing you to use Hemingway as both your writing app as well as your editor. Hemingway has a distraction-free writing mode that allows you to focus on your writing and a separate editing mode that highlights mistakes and offers suggestions for improvements using the same color-coded editing that is available online. Two buttons allow you to quickly switch between each mode. The app summarizes all its suggested improvements as well as provides details on your document such as word count and paragraph count. It also scores your writing on a reading level, helping you keep your sentences at a level that is understandable to most readers. The desktop version of Hemingway also supports markdown, allowing you write in the markup language and preview it within the app. When you are done, Hemingway will export the HTML so you can use it in your favorite CMS. Hemingway was created by Adam Long and Ben Long. You can use the web version for free, while the desktop version is available for US$4.99. You can find out more about Hemingway and purchase a copy here.
Countable makes following Congress easy as long as you use Facebook
Countable is a political app that allows you to track important and trending legislation on your iPhone. The app is designed to make government accessible to the average citizen by explaining legislation in understandable terms. There's also a social side to Countable that provides the ability to voice your support or opposition to a bill as well as track your representatives to see how close their votes match yours. . Countable has two main objectives. First and foremost, it allows people to follow bills as they make their way through the legislative process. You can quickly view trending bills that are up for vote or making headline news because they are controversial. You also can explore less popular bills that are organized by topic. All this information is available without a login and is accessible by clicking on "Login Later" link at the bottom right of the launch screen. Besides tracking bills, Countable also allows you to participate in the legislative process by providing the ability to virtually vote on legislation. You can track your representatives, view their voting records and send them emails that voice your opinion on bills. Unfortunately, this portion of the app requires a login. The login option is understandable as it is used to save your voting history, but the only login option available is Facebook. Many users, myself included, are hesitant to share my Facebook credentials with any app, especially one of a political nature. Overall, Countable is a wonderful tool for anyone who wants to follow important legislation without having to wade through the legalese wording of the bill itself. The voting side is crippled by a Facebook login, but hopefully a future version of the app will open that up to alternative login methods, such as email. Despite this limitation, Countable is worth the space on my device if only for the concise summaries of the legislation that is making headlines. Countable is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is available for the iPhone and requires iOS 7. Update: Countable reached out to me with the following information about the Facebook login requirement: "Countable is already working on an email login, so users will not have to use Facebook. It was something a bunch of users mentioned, and the team behind Countable listened."
ExpanDrive 4, more services and faster sync
I've written about ExpanDrive in the past, but I haven't mentioned it since version 2.0. Version 4 is out now, and it's a major update to this app that allows you to mount remote servers and cloud services as local drives. ExpanDrive has always done an amazing job of mounting a wide array of remote server types and letting you use them like your server was just a local USB drive. Lately, the number of accessible services has become wider than anything else I've seen, and the usability of the mounted drives is outstanding. ExpanDrive 4's biggest advancement is in speed. It can now cache files locally and transfer smaller files in the background, meaning you can mount a remote server, edit files in a text or graphics editor, and when you hit save you're immediately able to continue working while the actual transfer happens transparently. It can even watch for changes on the remote server to keep the sync rapid and up-to-date on both ends. ExpanDrive has also been adding to its available services. You can now mount everything from SFTP and WebDAV servers to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and DreamObjects cloud services. The latest services include Microsoft OneDrive, Copy.com, HP Helion Cloud, Owncloud and hubiC. Being able to mount a Dropbox drive without installing the Dropbox app means easy access to your synced files on remote computers without the bandwidth of a full download, or even the trouble of setting up selective sync. This holds true for any of the supported cloud services. It also means easy backups to the services without any special software. ExpanDrive has a free trial available (and is also available for Windows). You can license a copy for $49.95 US.
Flavourit for iPhone is a good-looking, digital recipe book
Flavourrit is a new recipe management app for iPhone that lets you quickly and easily create and store recipes as attractive, interactive cards that are searchable by title, ingredients and up to 46 subcategories. The beautiful app makes it easy to see exactly which ingredients are needed and when. Well-designed, assignable icons illustrate the various cooking methods, so there's less text to get lost in. From a glance you can see what action needs to take place next. For example, a knife indicates chopping, while a mixer means all ingredients are to be mixed together. Of course, if you do need to add / see additional text, tap a button and the text appears next to the ingredients as per the stage you're at in the recipe. Once the necessary ingredients and methods have been collected, the app encourages you to take a photo of the completed dish, making it easy to find later. Adding recipes to Flavourit can feel a little cumbersome, but taking the time to do so accurately -- as well as a bit of time getting used to how the app works -- produces elegant, straight-forward recipes that can be shared via Facebook or as digital photos via email, text or printing. Flavourit has an in-app purchase that adds a shopping list feature and eliminates pop-up ads. Finally, as a version 1.0 app, Flavourit isn't as buttery-smooth as it could be. At times, I found myself having to repeatedly tap and swipe at things to get the desired result. Hopefully, updates will produce a more reliable experience. Despite these niggles, Flavourit is a great place to start. Have a look at Flavourit in action in the video below.
Take revenge on infuriating flies with FlyOut for iOS
Flyout for both iPhone and iPad is a free game that's all about killing flies -- many different kinds of very annoying flies. The good news is that you get to kill them with all sorts of wonderful devices. The aim of the game is to kill as many flies as possible, wave by wave, without letting any survive. Things start off relatively easily with a slow wave of normal flies. You're equipped with a fly swatter to get the business done. However, things rapidly get more challenging with fast, sturdy flies who require multiple zaps and quick strikes. Fortunately, your arsenal improves with a machine gun, rocket launcher, bug spray, and my personal favorite, the say-hello-to-my-little-friend minigun! Annihilating the pesky flies is quite satisfying. However, there are some annoying ads in the game, which can be zapped by a small, one-off in-app purchase. The game is entirely playable if you don't make the purchase. When first launching the FlyOut it asks for your Facebook and Twitter account information, but you can dismiss that request without consequence. Regardless, if you've ever been infuriated by a fly, FlyOut will let you serve justice.
Read to your children from afar using the Storybook Reading app
Storybook Reading uses your iPhone or iPad's camera to digitally copy a book and add your own personal narration so your children can listen to you read even when you are not around. It's an easy way to take a moment of reading and preserve it for future use. The app allows a parent to photograph a page of their child's favorite book and record a video of themselves reading the text on the page. The recording feature is on the parent side of the app and is accessible using a PIN code provided by the app. The app walks you through the process, which is easy once you get the hang of it. Parents must capture each page and add a narration one page at a time which can be time-consuming depending on the length of the book. When the recording on a page is complete, parents can add music to the background as well as adjust where the narration video appears on the screen. Once the entire book has been digitized, parents save the work for their child to read at his or her convenience. On the child's side of the app, kids can select a book from the bookshelf to begin reading. Controls are easy to use, allowing a child to swipe between pages or jump immediately to a selected page. As they read each page, the video narration automatically appears without any intervention, which is useful for younger readers who may be confused by the complexity of playback controls. Performance of the app was occasionally glitchy with the video and music sometimes locking up the app. My children also had a hard time swiping from page to page quickly as they had to wait for the video to play before moving to the next page. Despite these occasional frustrations, my little ones enjoyed seeing my face and hearing my voice while reading on the iPad. Storybook Reading is available for free and includes the ability to record two books for free. Unlimited books are available via an in-app purchase of $2.99. Books can be created and stored locally or shared, the latter of which is a useful feature that allows grandparents or other distant relatives to interact with the younger members of your family.
