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Todoist basically runs my life—but that’s OK, because it’s a very well-designed app. There are a ton of to-do apps on the iPhone, but I went with this one because it’s very flexible.
For example, yeah, you can see a top-to-bottom to-do list like with many others, but you can view that same data as a Trello-like Kanban board, too.
I’ve also found that Todoist is better at understanding natural language settings for projects, times, and so on than a lot of other to-do apps, so, for example, I can type “Edit next article at 2 pm on Tuesday #ArsTechnica” to add a to-do within the Ars Technica project with a due time of 2 pm on the following Tuesday. A lot of to-do apps support that, but I feel Todoist does it best.
As an old-school web user, I still prefer a desktop computer for many computing tasks. But when it comes to tracking storms in real-time, nothing beats the RadarScope app. For weather enthusiasts, it offers an excellent representation of the National Weather Service’s next-generation radar, and for professional meteorologists, there are all sorts of features that help extract critical data on the likelihood of tornadoes, floods, and other extreme weather conditions. In the face of adverse weather conditions, this is by far the most productive tool for determining if your location is imminently facing severe storms. In that sense, it’s literally a lifesaver. Best of all, the vast majority of these features are available for a price with no ongoing subscription.
My “app I can’t live without” is the NYT Games app. I do the NYT spelling bee every day, so I open the iPhone app to check and get a few more words and mess around if I’m bored. I suspect it would continue to live even if this app ceased to exist, but I haven’t needed to verify that speculation yet. I also play NYT crossword puzzles every day, but I do it on my computer to get a better view of the grid and clues. If I’m not near a computer, I reluctantly complete the crossword puzzles on the mobile app.
Forget about “phone apps”; We’re making a lifestyle selection when it comes to Record Garage, and I highly recommend SyncThing. The argument is that it’s a self-hosted open-source edition of Dropbox. It’s a cloud folder without the cloud. I want to save my drives somewhere and I’d like them to be constantly shared across all my devices (including phones) and SyncThing does that. Best of all, it does so without wanting to involve the big techs in the garage of my records. , where my knowledge is used to extract even more subscription fees from me. No thanks.
I have a lot of self-hosted apps and a home server, but even if you’re a novice, SyncThing is surprisingly easy to set up. It’s just a peer-to-peer system, without the need to actually have a server in your closet doing anything complicated. Just set it up on at least two devices, connect them using a QR Code, share a folder, and watch the files start flying around. From there, it’s easy to scale up, and more devices equals more copies of your files.
SyncThing runs on a local network or over the internet and is incredibly fast. Unlike Dropbox or Google Drive, SyncThing works well on a telephone. Most of those other cloud folders should treat your phone with gloves and possibly won’t put files in instead allowing you to download everything individually. SyncThing treats a phone like any other computer, which is wonderful for things like syncing your pictures or music collection.
Of course, I’m the Android guy, so my entire phone experience is done with the official Android app. On iOS, I have to deal with the same restrictions as always in the background, but the access app turns out to be the third-party Möbius Sync app. For desktop operating formulas, there are another 30 (!!) clients for every combination of operating formula and architecture under the sun.
Since the launch of the ChatGPT app in May, the AI assistant has temporarily become a must-have tool for brainstorming, getting troubleshooting tips or troubleshooting, and writing suggestions on the fly. How do I reset my car’s oil light?Work of T-valves
With the recent addition of voice capabilities, ChatGPT is also an odd verbal exchange companion, and now DALL-E 3 also creates entertaining AI-generated visuals. You can also take a picture of the commands and ask ChatGPT for them. Be sure to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus so you can access GPT-4, which is a more resilient and much less error-prone style of AI than the free GPT-3. 5. More features of the app will probably be available soon.
If you spend as much time on the road as I do, you might need an app to help you keep track of whether you’re coming or going. For me, that’s been TripIt, which I’ve used for more than the last decade. You can email your travel bookings to TripIt to import them easily, and it makes it a doddle to share my travel plans with my better half.
Do you need to watch Firefly and get all the dialogue? Duolingo can help!I have a streak of over five years and those days I’m switching between Chinese (Mandarin), Ukrainian, and Greek just to get my brain working. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to my iPhone, yet when I have free time, Duolingo is my favorite hobby. It was like that with Sudoku and it ended up boring me. It’s hard to get bored with Duolingo, though, because I’m a language enthusiast and I’ll just say “Hey, let’s speak Yiddish this month. “And it takes me back to my graduate student years when I was reading ancient languages. Duolingo is free, but if you get hooked, you’ll probably need to subscribe so you can stay informed to their heart’s content.
(Honorable mentions for Mandarin: HelloChinese is great for your 中文 too!)
Shift gears: If you occasionally travel by plane, you deserve to check out Flightradar24. If it’s in the air, it’s on Flightradar24 (unless it’s the military or police). When I’m sitting at Logan’s airport and the Delta guy says the next plane will land in 10 minutes, I grab my iPhone and check to see if it’s full. I’ve been told that the flights are “on their way” when they’re just leaving through the door of LaGuardia. I know what’s going on, which allows me to rest longer in the waiting room and nibble on some carrot sticks. It’s also very useful when I stop to pick someone up at the airport, as it’s regularly more reliable and accurate. than the “flight status” shown that you get from most airlines.
Last but not least, if you’re an aviation enthusiast, it can be a lot of fun just to see what’s going on around our little planet. Where flights pass and where don’t. Who flies near the North?Polo, what volcanoes are fun. And you can’t believe how many FedEx and UPS planes are in the air at any given time.
Nearly two years ago, I left Spotify, in solidarity with Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who dumped their music catalogs from the platform in protest of Spotify’s payment of more than $200 million to COVID misinformation peddler Joe Rogan. We created dozens of highly curated playlists during the six years we maintained a premium family account and got used to the seamless way the app was sending music to our home devices. Relying on Spotify for a new, untested service seemed like a risky proposition.
Luckily, my transition to Tidal was also seamless. The music catalogs are largely comparable to my tastes (mainly rock, R’n’B, pop and hip-hop from all eras, a bit of jazz). The sound quality (mainly in FLAC format) is better. And, of course, none of the money I spend each month supports conspiracy theorists. Another great advantage, since I’m a HiFi Plus subscriber, is that artists get more refunds than if you listened to them on Spotify or at most on other platforms. . Third parties (e. g. , Tune My Music, SongShift, and Free Your Music) have simplified the movement of my Spotify playlists. I’ve also found Tidal’s music discovery features to be amazing for Spotify’s.
My only complaint is two features missing from Tidal. The first is the ability for my AV receiver to natively play music the way the Spotify Connect app allows. The other is the inability of one device (such as my phone) to control Tidal on another device (such as my computer across the room). Spotify has had these abilities for years. A Tidal representative said these features are on the to-do list but had no timeline. So for now, I’m using Airplay, which works almost as well.
When I was going to school in the Bronx, I was given a card the size of a New York City subway game card. Double-sided and small, it was an unobtrusive and reliable way to navigate the subway without looking for absolutely lost people and drawing attention. For me. There are shots of the trains and subway platforms, but someone or graffiti blocks them, or it’s difficult to get around in the car. I lost this valuable map years ago, but have since replaced it with Mapway’s “New York Subway. “”MTA Map” application.
Mapway offers public delivery map applications for various cities. The app I’m using is essentially another minimap, which makes it precisely what I want. I don’t want to rely on other mapping apps, which I have found to be unreliable. or illogical when it comes to public submissions. And using the app on the pass is almost faster than finding the nearest map or exercising and watching ads to find out where you’re passing.
Classified ads on the app are excruciating and increasingly difficult to escape. But since the app also provides data on the MTA service’s settings and its offline utility, it’s one of the only apps I’ve purchased a subscription to after watching classified ads increase.
I don’t create “apps” beyond a smart 2FA tool and password manager, but I’m fascinated by the little things that waste my time. That’s how I ended up falling in love with Golf on Mars. It’s a cute little arcade golf simulation. where you send a ball home, over and over again, ad infinitum. Your only enemies are the randomly generated terrain between you and the flag and, each from time to time, a giant rock or chasm that opens up. You control the amount of power in your shots in an Angry Birds-style pull-n-fire interface, and you can also add spin to the ball to influence its destination.
Golf on Mars is the sequel to Desert Golf, an earlier game with the same core concept but unfortunately limited to 10,000 levels. That sounds like a lot, but it drastically limits the viability of Desert Golf as a long-term game as long as I have two minutes to use it; After a few years, those same 10,000 gaps become extraordinarily repetitive. Golf on Mars is indeed endless, or almost endless, because it makes no practical difference. This allowed me to stay swinging for 3 years and I’m in the 47,498 gap with no goal to stop. Whenever something boring happens, it’s time to play golf on Mars!
My social media use is so infrequent that my friends consider my lack of sharing a red flag. I told them two things: they had to avoid thinking like teenagers and that they were hunting in the place.
Instead of sharing my private reports with my circle of family members and my wisdom about billionaire-owned apps, I typically limit my banality to the app it belongs to: Strava. If you want to know how I spent my weekend, you can. Look how slow I bike in East Portland.
But knowledge of Strava reporting is often an advantage for me. I now know how much my running speed has slowed over the years, even though the app tells me I’ve covered more miles this year than ever before. And that hill, did that almost make me throw up? A score of 19 percent. That’s more data than a weekly injection from me.
There’s rarely a mobile app that I couldn’t live without, but there are definitely some apps that I enjoy. The CARROT weather app is one of the highest according to my ratings in terms of usefulness and enjoyment. The weather app has a lot of features available, but CARROT has a relatively empty and quiet presentation that doesn’t drive me crazy. And he has a giggly personality that you can adjust. Mine is already set to “Overkill”. Once opened, it provides sarcastic weather descriptions that make the mundane need to conduct weather checks amusing. Updates like “Guess what, meat bag? It’s a cool smurf” are the only way to keep me informed about the weather conditions.
It would possibly be the most annoying option that has ever existed, but the GoogleMaps app is a must-have. It helped me navigate viable routes during LA rush hour and on long car trips, and proved invaluable when we moved across the country and had to know how to get around a new city. (It’s still in progress, but thanks Apple CarPlay!) When traveling without a car, we use the app to locate the most productive hiking trails to a selected destination in an unfamiliar environment. And it provides real-time information, updating the ETA and/or suggesting chosen routes in case of unforeseen traffic delays (it turns out that there is some kind of traffic delay). We walked a long way to avoid taking a look at the road. maps or print out MapQuest directions before you go somewhere.
When it comes to entertainment, streaming apps are equally indispensable; I basically use Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu to be able to stream or download movies or TV content for sports sessions or long flights. There are a lot of fun gambling apps out there, we’re still bitter that the creators of Theta Poker have discontinued support and the app doesn’t work with the new iPhone hardware. (Actually, it’s hard to find a smart poker app. )Alternatively, Kingdom Rush is a fun little game to kill time from time to time if you get bored of eternity. classics like Scrabble and Solitaire.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the delightful Universe Splitter app, which brings the “many worlds” theory of quantum mechanics down to Earth. Should you eat the Snickers or the KitKat from the leftover Halloween candy bowl? Simply type in your question: Should I eat the KitKat or the Snickers? The app will send a single photon to a certified remote quantum splitter in Switzerland, which will take one of two possible paths. A measurement (observation) is made to determine which path the photon took, and that in turn tells you which candy to eat. Perhaps you end up in the KitKat timeline/universe. But there’s another version of you that ate the Snickers, setting up an alternate timeline/universe with which you will never interact—at least according to Many Worlds. One probably shouldn’t rely on Universe Splitter for major life decisions, but if you’re just trying to decide which movie to watch, or between two entrees at a restaurant, and want to turn that choice into a little game to amuse your friends, it’s a must-have.
Most mobile apps I could live without. Very few, except “Phone,” could truly save me from disaster. Not so with A Better Route Planner, which reduces both anxiety and tow truck encounters.
Researching a road for electric vehicles (distances, charging speeds, nearby services, station markings, schedules, weather, speed) temporarily becomes a daunting task. With ABRP, you give him your car, your destination, and some personal cargo tastes and services (shops, restaurants, and hotels), and he takes care of the rest. You can even connect a Bluetooth ODB dongle to get real-time updates and redirects while driving.
There’s a lot of imperfect knowledge out there about EV charging, and ABRP does an impressive job of narrowing it down to as few variables as possible. If this app could eat, it would more than deserve a spot at my family’s Christmas table.
I’m a big fan of exploring: looking for new directions on my road bike, finding other trails on my mountain bike, and walking through parks in my boots. And I couldn’t think of anything better to organize all of this than Komoot, which is less of a mobile app and more of a set of connected apps. It’s easier to plot an address in the internet app, but once saved, it will automatically appear in the phone app. Start navigating in the direction on your telephone and turn the commands in turn will appear on your watch.
Everything about the software is helpful. Plan a route, and you’ll get details about the surfaces (paved, dirt trail, etc.), elevation changes, estimated time, and more. Go on a jaunt without planning it, and you can record it to see what you’ve done or use that recording as a basis to plan future trips. You can share routes with friends or the public at large. And, if other users have uploaded photos from your routes, you can even see what the scenery will look like in advance.
Detailed single-region maps are free, and it’s possible to purchase region packs, but paying $30 once gives you the ability to plan indefinitely anywhere in the world.
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