Here are 10 of my favorite iPhone apps that you may have never head of. Enjoy!
10. Narro (free) – Convert your favorite text blog posts into an audio podcast feed.
9. Vote Spotter(free) – See what your US elected officials vote on and give them feedback on how they voted.
8. Be Focused(free) – Simple productivity app that is based off the Pomodoro Technique. Track goals and get stuff done.
7. Fing (free) – Network analyzer that scans your currently connected WiFi network and gives you useful information on the connected devices.
6. VHS Cam($2.99) – Fun video filter that resembles the look of an old vintage VHS camcorder. (Free alternative)
5. Fit Men Cook($3.99) – Very well designed recipes app for finding tasty yet healthy meals to cook.
4. Vellum(free) – Clean layout and nice size selection of amazing wallpapers for your iPhone.
3. Blinkist(freemium) – Listen to short summaries of the most popular non-fiction books so you can learn the most important points without reading the actual book.
2. Tunity(free) – Get a real-time audio stream of nearly any TV channel. Great if you’re at a gym or sports bar and want to listen to a muted TV.
1. Musi(free) – Stream any YouTube video as an audio file that will play even when your iPhone is locked or you’re using other apps.
What’s your favorite app that almost nobody knows about?
If you’re an iPhone user you probably realized by now that iPhones don’t have the best battery life. What can you do about that? For me I like to carry around an extra battery pack so I can charge my phone wherever I’m at in case the battery starts to drain down.
That’s why I wanted to do this review over the RavPower RP-PB18 Savior 9,000 mAh external battery pack with the built-in lightning connector specifically made for Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) but you can also charge other USB devices with it as well.
I’ll quickly go over the contents of the box. Of course there’s the main battery pack itself. We also have a user guide, warranty card, USB to micro USB charging cable, micro USB to Samsung 30-pin connector, micro USB to mini-USB connector, and a cool little travel pouch.
The main battery pack has a really solid build to it. It has a nice matte suede-like finish to it, and it’s supposed to have a scratch-resistant surface. It does feel really soft. I do like the way it’s built. The size is pretty portable. It’s small and lightweight, just over 8 ounces.
You may be asking yourself “Why is this 9,000 mAh battery a little bit more expensive than say a 12,000 mAh battery sold by the same company?” That’s because the Savior has all these built-in features such as the built-in AC power plug on it so you don’t have to carry around any other cables or accessories. It just plugs right into a power outlet and charges itself.
It’s also mainly made for Apple devices: iPhone, iPad or iPod. It has an Apple lightning cable on it so again you don’t need an extra cable to take with you. All you need is the battery pack. It has everything you need and if you do have another USB device it comes with the cables that you need to charge it.
Like many other external battery packs this has built-in overcharge protection and auto shut-off. It has a USB port on the bottom so you can charge other USB devices. It has a power button on the front along with the power indicator light so if you press the power button once it will show you how much battery is left on the pack (4 lights is 100%, 3 lights is 75%, 2 lights is 50%, and 1 light is 25%).
Let’s talk about some of the results I’ve seen using this RavPower Savior battery pack with my iPhone 6. The first time I charged my iPhone 6 with the battery pack it was at 42% and it took it to 96% in 57 minutes. The second time I charged it I went from 41% to 90% in 47 minutes so that gives you an idea of how fast the battery pack charges the iPhone 6. After those 2 charges I still had 75% of the battery left on the Savior.
With that 5 volt output it’s not going to be the fastest charge, but it is pretty decently fast in my opinion for a battery pack of this size. The iPhone 6 battery is 1800 mAh so the Savior can charge it about 4 times from 0 to 100% so it does pack a pretty good amount of power.
In my opinion if you own an Apple device: an iPhone, iPad, or iPod then the RavPower Savior battery pack may be one of the best options that you can get for an external battery because it has everything built in and it is way more convenient than other battery packs. It’s portable, small, has a nice finish to it, and I see it lasting a very long time.
Here are the top new features in iOS 8, which will be released to the public on September 17, 2014.
The new Health app in iOS 8 lets you track and monitor your health and fitness all in one single app. You can track things like body fat, calorie intake, fitness activities, and a whole lot more. You can also let 3rd party apps link to this health and fitness data which will take fitness and health apps to whole new level. You can also create a personal Medical ID that has certain info like your allergies for emergencies.
The photos app in iOS 8 got new search features. Search through your photos for certain keywords like where or when the photo was taken. Smart albums are new too with Recently Added and Recently Deleted albums so you can actually recover a photo if you accidentally delete it. The camera has new editing controls with the new rotate dial, decent list of filters, and the ability to adjust the brightness, color, and B&W levels. There’s a new timelapse video mode, and there are manual controls for exposure now.
You can share voice, videos, and photos from within any message conversation (kind of resembles SnapChat). Tap and hold the microphone icon and say your voice message. For photos and videos hold down the camera icon and swipe up to take a photo or swipe right to take a video and it will instantly send it. You can share your current location through texts, view all the attachments sent on that conversation so all photos & videos are in one place instead of having to scroll through all the old messages. You can name group texts, leave group texts, and edit group texts. You can also send multiple photos & videos at once.
The new iOS 8 design has interactive notifications so for example you can reply to a text right from the notification itself without leaving the current app you’re in. When you double-press the home button you have quick access to your favorite and recent contacts at the top so you can quickly call or text them. The mail app has similar features to the Mailbox app. You can swipe left or right on an email for options, such as trash and flag. In Safari you can request the desktop site of a website if you don’t want to see the mobile site. With the new Battery Usage section you can view which apps are using the most battery life. The weather app now uses The Weather Channel instead of Yahoo Weather and shows a 9-day forecast with more details about the weather. You can insert photos in notes, and the Control Center got a slight redesign.
iOS 8 now has predictive text called Quicktype. It learns the way you type and gives you word suggestions. There are also 3rd party keyboards available now so you can swipe to type or get a custom keyboard.
A new feature called Family Sharing lets you share purchases from iTunes, iBooks, and the App Store with up to 6 family members without sharing Apple accounts. Parents can approve kids’ purchases and families can share photos, calendars, and locations with each other.
iCloud got upgraded to iCloud Drive which you can use to store and access your documents from your iOS device and any computer with iCloud Drive installed. So you can create a document on your iPhone and continue working on it on your computer.
iOS 8 has a new feature called Continuity, and it benefits people who own a Mac. You can use Airdrop to drag and drop files between your Mac and iOS device. Handoff lets you pick up where you left off. So if you start writing an email on your iPhone you can go to your Mac and finish it. What’s awesome is you can answer or respond to phone calls and text messages from your Mac as long as your iPhone is on the same WiFi network. If you have a tethering plan with your wireless carrier you can turn your iPhone into a WiFi hotspot for your laptop.
Spotlight got upgraded similar to the Spotlight upgrades on Mac OS X Yosemite. It not only searches your iPhone but it can search things like Wikipedia, news, nearby places, movie showtimes, iTunes, iBooks, the App store, and suggested websites. The new spotlight search also works in Safari.
Siri got some updates in iOS 8. Now when your phone is charging you can say “Hey Siri” to activate Siri. It has visual real-time voice recognition, and it can identify song names with Shazam music recognition.
In this video I’m going to show you the Amazon music app where you can get access to millions of songs and hundreds of playlists for free directly on any device. If you are looking for a way to download free music legally onto your smartphone or tablet then this is the app to go with. This is the Amazon music app and it gives you access to like millions of songs, hundreds of playlists for free if you are a Prime member. So if you’re an Amazon Prime member you will be able to get this. If you’re not a Prime member you can get a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime by visiting MyTechMethods.com/prime. That will take you to the page where you can sign up for that free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime where you can get access to all this music. I’m gonna show you this app real quick and how it works. So when you first open up the app and you login to your Amazon Prime account you see this little screen here. And this is the songs, albums, and playlists screen where you can browse through all the most popular songs and albums. You even got the genre drop down menu where you can select individual or specific genres or leave it on all genres. And then you got your playlists tab over here. You can go through the playlists. You got your albums. You can check out all the albums, and you got your search function here where you can search any phrase like any artist name or song name or album name to see if it’s available on the prime music app. And if you tap the Menu icon you got more options here. You can view your library so anything that you saved to your library from the prime music you will be able to view here by artist, playlists, albums, and songs, genres. Then you got your Downloads. So let’s go ahead and download a song or an album just for the sake of this video. Let’s say I wanna search for, No let’s say I wanna go to the alternative rock albums and see some albums here that I want. Or I can do my search function. I’ll just tap on an album here. And this album is available on Prime. It’s got that little check mark and the Prime logo here. So that means I can add this album to my device for free, download it. So what I want to do is add album to library, and it’s gonna add all the songs on the album to my library. And I just go back to my library and I can go on artists or albums to find that. I’ll just go to Artists and find Fun. This is the album that I just added to my library. And I can stream it for free by clicking the play button or shuffle button. Then I can also download all the songs by swiping to the left on each individual song and then clicking Download. So if I do that I can download songs from that album directly onto my device for free, and I can listen to it wherever I’m at. So not only do you have unlimited access to all the prime music for free you actually have this thing called Prime Playlists as well. You can go in here and choose all the playlists that are on prime and listen to them for free on your device. So that’s my review of the Amazon music app. You can click the link in the description below to find the link to this app for your device. Also again you can find the link to the free 30-day trial for Amazon Prime if you’re not an Amazon Prime member so you can get access to this app and all this music. So I hope you enjoyed this video, and I wish you all the best with your brand new music. Thank you so much for watching. Make sure you give this video a thumbs-up and subscribe to my channel. Keep having fun out there, and I will talk to you later.
Inspired by this Reddit thread, here are 10 awesome iOS apps that you probably don’t know about! (in no particular order)
FastCustomer – With a single tap, FastCustomer will navigate the phone tree to nearly any company’s department – like tech support or billing – then it will ring your phone once it has an agent on the line for you.
NextDraft – Dave Pell, Internet wit and news addict, provides a smart summary of the day’s 10 most fascinating news stories.
Places I’ve Pooped – A little gem that helps you track all the places you’ve pooped in the world. Expand your territory, mark everywhere you’ve visited – bombs away!
RunPee – Tells you the best time to take a bathroom break during your favorite movies without missing the best scenes. Also provides a synopsis so you know exactly what you missed.
Zombies, Run! – An immersive running game and audio adventure. Delivers a story straight to your headphones through orders and voice recordings while you are on your run – and when you get back home, you use the supplies you’ve collected while running to build and grow your base.
Songza – (Bought by Google) Working? Relaxing? At the gym? Songza plays you the right music at the right time.
SongPop – Fun music guessing game. It plays a clip from a song, and you must answer it as fast as you can to beat your opponent. Pretty addicting.
Aviary – A fun & simple way to make beautiful photos in seconds. Use professionally designed filters, creative stickers and frames, touch-up tools and more to create amazing pics.
CamScanner – Takes pictures of documents and converts to PDF. Helps you scan, store, sync and collaborate on various contents across smartphones, iPads, tablets and computers.
TuneWiki –(Removed from US Store) Great lyrics app. Play your music or radio with scrolling lyrics.
What’s your favorite app that almost nobody knows about?
