best apps of 2014
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Five products from 2014 I can't live without: Kelly Hodgkins
With 2015 right around the corner, the team at TUAW has been looking back at 2014 and reminiscing about their favorite apps and products of 2014. It's my turn to chime in, and I've decided to combine the best of both world's by including apps, Apple hardware and Apple-related accessories in my list. Osprey Axis Daypack Osprey makes great backpacks and its "All Mighty Guarantee" can't be beat. I purchased the Axis this spring and have been using it as a daily bag to tote around my laptop and iPad when needed. The pack has two internal sleeves that fit a 13.3-inch MacBook and iPad perfectly. Besides a daily carrier, the Axis is the perfect size for a small day hiking bag and snug fitting enough to wear it while mountain biking. If the Axis isn't your style, Osprey makes a variety of packs for outdoor and urban use. You can't go wrong with the size and color that suits your needs. iPhone 6 Plus I didn't like the iPhone 6 Plus after I first bought it -- it was big and difficult to carry around. Now that I've had the large-sized phone a few months, I've adapted my lifestyle (aka my pockets) to accommodate the phone. Now, I can't live without it the large screen. I have an iPhone 5s kicking around and wonder how I ever managed to type and browse the web on that tiny screen. Kenu Airframe + Small but strong, the Kenu Airframe + mounts quickly to your smartphone and allows you to attach your iPhone 6 Plus to your car's dashboard. It clips into your heater vent and expands to fit an iPhone with case up to 6-inches in size. You can place your phone at arm's length and turn it for use in either landscape or portrait orientation. Great for navigating in older cars that don't have a built-in system. Fitbit Flex The Flex is not the fanciest fitness tracker on the market, but it is reliable and has a fantastic battery life. The best part is that you wear it, forget about it and go. I do wish it had a display with full notifications support, but that feature is a mixed blessing. I've tried a few fitness trackers with notifications, but they just don't work reliably -- frequently dropping the connection to the phone and missing notifications as a result. Hopefully, a manufacturer -- "cough, Apple, cough" -- will be able to add notifications to a fitness band in a reliable and useful way. Until then, I will motor along happily with the Flex. Monument Valley I had to include this game for its stunning visuals, mysterious storyline and wonderfully complex puzzles. I love Monument Valley, gladly paid for the Forgotten Shores update and look forward to even more levels if Ustwo adds them in the future.
My top five products of 2014: Mike Rose
It's been all apps, all the time around here as we wrap up our favorites of 2014. For a change of pace, I thought I'd pull together my favorite five products that don't necessarily require a visit to the App Store. Apple Pay & Touch ID (included with iPhone 6/6 Plus, coming for Watch). It doesn't feel good to skip an iPhone generation, as much as we claim to be "waiting for the next one" or "really fine with the phone I have now." In my case, a work-owned iPhone 5 was holding its own when the 5s premiered, and I couldn't really justify forking over the monthly service costs for a second phone. As a result, my first real Touch ID experience, on my recently upgraded 6 Plus, coincided almost exactly with the launch of Apple Pay. I can't say it strongly enough: Apple Pay is what Touch ID was built for, and it's one of the most vivid examples of Apple's user-first interaction design I've ever had the pleasure of using. Touch ID on its own is dandy; the iOS 8-enabled use of the thumbprint unlock in third-party apps (1Password! Finally!) and in the App Store makes it especially useful, as if unlocking your device at a touch wasn't enough. (I'd only had my new phone a few days before I found myself grumbling as I picked up my iPad -- "What, I gotta put in my passcode? Like a caveman?") But oh my, Apple Pay. Putting the power of the payment network and NFC hardware behind that little fingerprint sensor triggers a seismic shift in the way I think about using my iPhone every day. From prescriptions at Duane Reade to supplies at Staples to rides in NYC taxicabs, I'm constantly looking for new places to pay with a touch. No surprise that Apple's feel-good payment platform is beginning to transform our relationship with the overstuffed old-fashioned wallet. STM Linear for MacBook Air 13" (stmbags.com, about US$60). I'll confess that when I bought myself an STM Linear shoulder bag, it was a consolation purchase; my original object of desire was the elite and often sold-out Tom Bihn Ristretto. I was looking for a shoulder bag in a vertical profile, keeping the laptop upright and providing a lean silhouette as I carried my gear around at trade shows or meetings. Since the Bihn bag wasn't in stock when I went looking, I fell back to the STM -- and I haven't regretted it for a moment (nor did I mind that the STM bag is about half the price of the Ristretto). The Linear has enough space for the MacBook, an iPad, cables cords etc. without feeling cramped or overpacked, and the smaller capacity vs. a messenger bag or backpack keeps me from overloading when I step out the door. The Roost Stand (therooststand.com, $75). After meeting the Denver-based Roost team at Macworld/iWorld in the wake of their successful Kickstarter, I thought this unusual foldout laptop stand would be a great fit for my desk. It's portable, light and tough as a Colorado winter, and can be adjusted as needed to hold most portables securely. What I didn't expect was how viral the Roost would become; at least four co-workers have gone ahead and bought their own Roosts in the months since. If you work in an office, be sure to put your name on your Roost so it doesn't wander off. iMac Retina 5K (apple.com, starting at $2499). Who says the desktop is dead? Apple's jaw-dropping all in one model reset the notion of what a desktop PC should look like, even with a wallet-busting sticker price (in fairness, Dell's 5K monitor alone would have cost as much as the iMac, if not for a price drop after Apple's introduction). The Retina iMac is so delicious that even jaded tech writers find themselves compelled, like the NY Times' Farhad Manjoo, to take one home and give it a prominent place on their desks. I haven't replaced my 2011-vintage iMac just yet, but when I do I'll be saving up for the Big Kahuna. Jawbone ERA (jawbone.com, $99/$129 with charging case). I have never had much luck with Bluetooth headsets; whether it's fit or function, they just don't seem to work for me. Other than LG's Tone Pro around the neck headphones -- which provide great stereo sound at the cost of mediocre phone calls and "looking like a huge dork" -- I hadn't found a solid choice. That's why I've been so pleased with the new-generation Jawbone ERA, which works great for phone calls and conferences without being horribly obvious. Jawbone's noise reduction is adequate to a busy city street, and with the current firmware the hardware button can serve as a mute switch on calls (life-changing). The ERA is not cheap, but if you've struggled to find a headset that works the way you do, it's worth a look. Honorable Mention: Pebble (getpebble.com, $99/$199). It's black-and-white, not color. It's not touchable or speakable. It is decidedly not an Apple watch, but in many ways it's a better first wearable than a yet-to-ship Watch could be. Why do I enjoy my Pebble? Five days or more of battery life, for one thing. Waterproof enough to wear in the shower. Notifications that let me see who's calling, emailing, texting or tweeting at me without having to haul the 6 Plus out of my pocket fifteen times an hour. And a reasonably active app/developer community delivering cool hacks on a regular basis. No, I won't promise not to look longingly at the next shiny device coming from Cupertino soon. But I'll be looking with the benefit of a lot of experience with the first generation of wrist-based tech.
My favorite apps of 2014: Victor Agreda
Drafts 4 Drafts has long been my text-based inbox of choice, and Drafts 4 takes everything about the original and makes it slicker and more wonderful. I can export to Byword, my Mac writing app of choice, or tweet, save to Evernote, Dropbox, etc. all from one app where I get a brand-new sheet every time I open it. Drafts doesn't just appeal to my way of working, however, as it is customizable all the way down. If you need to jot things down regularly or want to increase the efficiency of capturing ideas, Drafts is the best app around. Drafts 4 is now universal for iPad and iPhone, which is a lovely bonus. MyFitnessPal MyFitnessPal will log just about anything health related. It ties into numerous fitness products, plus Apple's (pretty craptastic) Health app, and includes an outstanding, customizable food database for logging meals. I have tested dozens of health apps over the years, but MyFitnessPal is not only a comprehensive tool for data analysis, but a powerful motivational tool when used properly. I set goals, and the app broke down what I had to do (eat within certain parameters, exercise a certain amount) to achieve those goals. Apple could learn from myFitnessPal. Oh, and when I didn't respond to notifications from the app for a solid week, the app turned the notifications off! It warned me, and turned off its own notifications. That is a company dedicated to positive user experience. Workflow This is one of those apps that makes you seem superhuman to mortals. Steve did a nice writeup here. Rig up a sequence of actions and run them with a few taps. I honestly had no idea this level of customization was even possible in iOS 8, but it's magical. There is a learning curve, but it's a pretty gradual investment and for anyone who misses scripting automation on iOS, Workflow is the closest thing you're likely to see maybe ever. Sleep Cycle This app tracks my sleep, allows me to set an alarm for a time range and alerts me when I'm in "light" sleep mode vs waking me from a deeper sleep. The idea is to allow you to wake up more refreshed, but the simple act of tracking my sleep is lovely. I quit registering my sleep in Path because I wasn't willing to open the app at bed and every morning. Here I'm getting a nifty alarm clock based on my sleep patterns and a tool for tracking my sleep. It's simple, to the point and effective. It also talks to Apple's Health app. All that for a decent price. Inbox I was pretty burnt out on email apps. Most handled email in a funky way or tried to change the way we deal with it in such a way as to make it a bigger chore when I wasn't on my iPhone. Frankly, my goal is to have to spend less time on my iPhone in email. Inbox accomplishes this remarkably well. I even trusted it so much that I allow it to push notifications to my lock screen -- a first for any email app on my phone, ever. I just get too much email. Somehow, Inbox makes it manageable. I know a lot of folks love some other email clients, and Inbox is from Google, but I have found it an indispensable tool for managing the deluge of digital communiques I get in a day. Honorable mentions: Things I recently switched back to Things from OmniFocus and I'm loving it. It's extremely fast, easy to use and integrates with just enough to make it handy on iOS and Mac OS. It's not a "new" app for 2014, but I rediscovered an old friend and felt it was worth mentioning if you're in the mood for a powerful but simple productivity app. Evernote Of course this is one of the oldest apps on the store, but a fresh coat of paint in the Mac OS app has made Evernote a pleasure to use again. The iOS version isn't too shabby, either. Evernote is a capable note-taking app, but it is also an online "brain" that stores and organizes your stuff. I've been using it to collaborate and the cleaner interface and powerful organizational tools are pretty great.
My favorite apps of 2014: Mike Wehner
I don't know about you, but 2014 sure sped by for me. It seems like just yesterday I was putting together my list of best apps of 2013, and here I am writing the next chapter now. But when I went back through my pages of iOS apps I realized that it's actually been a pretty long year -- it seriously seems like Monument Valley has been out for a decade, given how many times I've played it -- so here, without further ado, are my favorite apps of 2014. Fling (Free) An awesome idea for an app that has seriously captured my attention for months on end, Fling lets you randomly message up to 50 other people from all over the world, and vice-versa. The result is a massive collection of views, photos, jokes, and blurbs from people you'd never otherwise meet, and it's pretty darn cool. Sure, you have your handful of trolls just trying to find a sexting partner -- ok, maybe "handful" is a bit modest, as there's quite a few of them -- but overall the experience is fantastic. Dark Sky ($3.99) I hate weather apps with the fiery burning rage of a thousand suns. I hate going through pages and scrolling around to see forecasts, I hate how they all seem to find a way to make weather far more complicated than it is, and I hate how often they're just plain badly designed. All those reasons are why I love Dark Sky. It's the un-weather app. Forecasts are as simple as a date and a timeline showing when it's going to precipitate, and there's no digging required, but my favorite feature is on the main screen where the app tells you whether it's going to rain (or snow) within the next hour. The app alerts you when it's about to pour, and that feature alone has saved me many a wet bike ride. I love it. Goat Simulator ($0.99) What else can you say about Goat Simulator other than it's unlike any other game you've ever played. It started as a simple tech demo that spun out of control when the internet became obsessed with the idea of doing obnoxious stunts as a goat. Now it's a game, and a fantastic one at that. Be warned: You definitely have to make your own fun -- it's a bit of a sandbox, really -- but if you have any sense of humor whatsoever you're going to fall in love. Soccer Physics ($1.99) Soccer Physics is barely a sports game, but that's what makes it great. You have one button to control your two-man team and get the ball in the opposing team's goal, and prevent it from landing in your own. That's easier said than done, and even if you let your team sit completely still there's a good chance you'll come out on top, but it's still a blast to play and a great two-player game with a partner. Google Hangouts (Free) Google's Hangouts app used to be pretty horrendous, but the iOS 7 update it received in February 2014 greatly improved things. It's now one of my go-to chat apps thanks to it's speedy and responsive design, and it's also a lot more visually appealing than the past versions. If you tried the Hangouts app after it launched in 2013 and barfed on the floor, I don't blame you, but you should definitely give it another spin as we enter the new year. You'll probably be surprised. Monument Valley ($3.99) Let's not beat around the bush here: Monument Valley is probably in the top 5 of greatest iOS games ever made. It's puzzles are relaxing but challenging, and the game is absolutely gorgeous no matter what device you happen to be playing on. It's well worth its asking price, and its charm will stick with you for a long, long time after you've wrapped up the last levels. Oh, and you're probably going to want to play it again anyway, so that helps, too.
My favorite apps for 2014: Dave Caolo
Look at that, another 12 months are now behind us. We see a lot of apps here at TUAW, and I've narrowed things down to my favorites. Here are the apps I grew to love in 2014. Todoist (Free with a pro option for $29/year). Earlier this year, Jordan Cooper gave me a hard time for switching to-do apps so often. This year I've landed on Todoist, and I'm here to stay. It works on nearly any platform you throw at it, syncs data at lightning speed and is very pretty to boot. Plus, its gimmicky "karma points," which reward you for being a productive person, totally work as a motivator. I'm embarrassed to admit how giddy I get when they increase. My Fitness Pal (Free). Earlier this year my doctor suggested that there ought to be less of me in the world. In other words, lose some weight, tubby! I figured that a gadget-y tool would keep me motivated, and I was right. I used a FitBit and My Fitness Pal (MFP) for the latter half of 2014 and it's been great. MFP grabs data from FitBit and uses it in concert with data light my height, age and weight to pick a daily calorie target for me. Recording what I eat throughout the day is easy with barcode support. It's fun to use and I'm down ten pounds. Thanks MFP and FitBit! Sleepy Fan (US$1.99). When I was young, I became addicted to falling asleep to the soothing white noise of a bedroom fan. Today I still like to hear the gentle wussshhhh as I drift off. I've used Ambiance for a long time, but this year I discovered Sleepy Fan. It's got no huge library of sounds to choose from. Instead, it offers three types of fans and minimal options for customizing the sound they produce. There's a timer and a simple tap-on, tap-off mechanism. I'm getting sleepy just writing about it. Note: some Sleepy Fan users have commented that the "loop point" in the app's audio is obvious and distracting. That has not been my experience, and believe me, I'm very aware of such things. Haunting Melissa 2: Dark Hearts (Free with in-app purchases). The sequel to the iOS-only, episodic horror film Haunting Melissa is more surreal than its predecessor and the production value is even better. The first few chapters, released on a rapid but unpredictable schedule (enable push notifications for occasional, startling prompts to watch), are confounding in a good way: what the heck is going on? Once the story gets moving, its even more satisfying. A must for horror fans. Kingdom Rush: Origins ($2.99). I love tower defense games and KR: Origins is by far my favorite implementation of the genre on the App Store. It combines challenging play, great looks and tons of Easter Eggs (fans of Disney's Fantasia will want to keep their eyes open) into a game with great replayability. Also, you get to control a dragon! KR: Origins is a stellar addition to a stellar franchise. Picturelife (Free with in-app purchases). My struggle with digital photo management is legendary. I have a camera with me at all times, and it's so easy to use, that snapping 200 photos in a day is as easy as ABC. The problem is in storing and sorting the resulting mountain of images. I still don't have a perfect solution, but Picturelife comes close. It automatically backs up all of my snaps so I know they're safe. It sorts them by time so finding what I want is relatively easy. Plus, its "Memories" feature is a very fun way to remember past events.
My favorite apps of 2014: Steve Sande
Another year, another bumper crop of new and innovative apps. Apple bloggers have a bad tendency to load a lot of apps for review purposes, then dump them almost immediately. So what has stayed on my iPhone, iPad and Macs this year? Here's my list of my favorite new apps for 2014. Workflow ($2.99) My top pick for the year is Workflow, which brings the power of automation to iOS 8. Through a simple-to-use, yet surprisingly sophisticated user interface, Workflow provides a way to create action extensions or even "apps" that can be saved to the Home screen. You can even share your workflows with others through a curated gallery, or use gallery workflows as a foundation for creating your own. If you don't already own Workflow, get it. Facebook Paper (free) If there's one app I can't stand, it's the regular iOS Facebook app, which is almost as bad as using the social media site from a web browser. Fortunately, Facebook released an app called Facebook Paper during the year that turns the interminable scroll of ads and timeline into an ad-free, magazine-like joy. It's also the one way in iOS that you can enjoy sending and receiving messages on Facebook without using the separate Messenger app. Waterlogue ($2.99) Tinrocket's Waterlogue was one of my favorite photography apps of the year, turning photographs into realistic and beautiful watercolors with a tap. Running on both iPad and iPhone, the app never fails to impress pretty much anyone who watches as it sketches and paints your photograph. Monument Valley ($3.99 with in-app purchases) Speaking of works of art, Monument Valley is a game that was an Apple Design Award winner for 2014, and for good reason. It's a gorgeous puzzler that has been expanded with new levels (the Forgotten Shores level pack is available for $1.99) and is still grabbing stellar reviews on the App Store despite cheap, whiny customers who wanted the expansion pack for free. WunderStation (free) Do you want local weather data? I mean REALLY local weather data, like from your own back yard or neighborhood? WunderStation is a brilliant app that calls upon the over 45,000 pwersonal weather stations on the Weather Underground network, providing an organized display of information into which you can drill down for even more details. Weather geeks should already have this iPad app, and I'm hoping that WunderStation is available for the iPhone 6 Plus in 2015. Scanbot (free with in-app purchases) Over the years I had tried a lot of different iOS scanning apps, but Scanbot was the first one that provided an easy workflow that has made my life much more paper-free. Being able to quickly grab "scans" of documents and have them automatically uploaded to a variety of cloud services makes Scanbot a hands-down favorite of mine. MySolarCity (free) During 2014, I worked with Solar City to have a nearly 9kW photovoltaic solar electric system installed on my house. What's great is that the company has a really well-done iOS app for managing my account. Whether its checking the output of my system at any particular time, chatting with other solar energy fans, or seeing how many installed systems are in my neighborhood (a lot!), MySolarCity is one of the best commercial apps I've seen. Desk ($29.99) My last choice is the only Mac app I was truly impressed with in 2014. Desk is a writing and blogging tool that does away with complex and overloaded user interfaces and just makes it simple to write, then export your work to a number of blogging tools. The app still needs some work in the area of exporting HTML and Markdown, but was impressive enough to gain an Apple Best App of 2014 award. Hopefully I can talk my fellow TUAW bloggers into sharing their favorite apps of 2014 as well. Why don't you share your picks in the comments while you're at it?
